noids.'

'Not half as much as Sir Thomas will about his face,' said Ollyett. 'And
if you only knew what I've left out!'

He was right. The panel doctor spent his week-end (this is the
advantage of Friday articles) in overwhelming us with a professional
counterblast of no interest whatever to our subscribers. We told him so,
and he, then and there, battered his way with it into the _Lancet_ where
they are keen on glands, and forgot us altogether. But Sir Thomas Ingell
was of sterner stuff. He must have spent a happy week-end too. The
letter which we received from him on Monday proved him to be a kinless
loon of upright life, for no woman, however remotely interested in a man
would have let it pass the home wastepaper-basket. He objected to our
references to his own herd, to his own labours in his own village, which
he said was a Model Village, and to our infernal insolence; but he
objected most to our invoice of his features. We wrote him courtously to
ask whether the letter was meant for publication. He, remembering, I
presume, the Duke of Wellington, wrote back, 'publish and be damned.'

'Oh! This is too easy,' Ollyett said as he began heading the letter.

'Stop a minute,' I said. 'The game is getting a little beyond us.
To-night's the Bat dinner.' (I may have forgotten to tell you that our
dinner with Bat Masquerier in the Red Amber Room of the Chop Suey had
come to be a weekly affair.) 'Hold it over till they've all seen it.'

'Perhaps you're right,' he said. 'You might waste it.'

At dinner, then, Sir Thomas's letter was handed round. Bat seemed to be
thinking of other matters, but Pallant was very interested.

'I've got an idea,' he said presently. 'Could you put something into
_The Bun_ to-morrow about foot-and-mouth disease in that fellow's herd?'

'Oh, plague if you like,' Ollyett replied. 'They're only five measly
Shorthorns. I saw one lying down in the park. She'll serve as a
sub-stratum of fact.'

'Then, do that; and hold the letter over meanwhile. I think _I_ come in
here,' said Pallant.

'Why?' said I.

'Because there's something coming up in the House about foot-and-mouth,
and because he wrote me a letter after that little affair when he fined
you. 'Took ten days to think it over. Here you are,' said Pallant.
'House of Commons paper, you see.'

We read:

DEAR PALLANT--Although in the past our paths have not lain
much together, I am sure you will agree with me that on the
floo