satisfaction of destroying it in person. At first I thought of sending
it on to you by post. But I know how happy you are in your domestic
life; and probably your wife and you, in your perfect mutual trust, are
in the habit of opening each other's letters. Therefore, to avoid risk,
I would prefer to hand the document to you personally. I will not ask
you to come to my attic, where I could not offer you such hospitality as
is due to a man of your wealth and position. You will be so good as
to meet me at 3.0 A.M. (sharp) to-morrow (Thursday) beside the tenth
lamp-post to the left on the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge; at
which hour and place we shall not be disturbed. I am, dear Sir, Yours
respectfully, JAMES GRIDGE.

LETTER FROM YOUNG MAN REFUSING TO PAY HIS TAILOR'S BILL.

Mr. Eustace Davenant has received the half-servile, half-insolent screed
which Mr. Yardley has addressed to him. Let Mr. Yardley cease from
crawling on his knees and shaking his fist. Neither this posture
nor this gesture can wring one bent farthing from the pockets of Mr.
Davenant, who was a minor at the time when that series of ill-made suits
was supplied to him and will hereafter, as in the past, shout (without
prejudice) from the house-tops that of all the tailors in London Mr.
Yardley is at once the most grasping and the least competent.

LETTER TO THANK AUTHOR FOR INSCRIBED COPY OF BOOK.

DEAR MR. EMANUEL FLOWER, It was kind of you to think of sending me a
copy of your new book. It would have been kinder still to think again
and abandon that project. I am a man of gentle instincts, and do not
like to tell you that 'A Flight into Arcady' (of which I have skimmed
a few pages, thus wasting two or three minutes of my not altogether
worthless time) is trash. On the other hand, I am determined that you
shall not be able to go around boasting to your friends, if you have
any, that this work was not condemned, derided, and dismissed by your
sincere well-wisher, WREXFORD CRIPPS.

LETTER TO MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT UNSEATED AT GENERAL ELECTION.

DEAR MR. POBSBY-BURFORD, Though I am myself an ardent Tory, I cannot but
rejoice in the crushing defeat you have just suffered in West Odgetown.
There are moments when political conviction is overborne by personal
sentiment; and this is one of them. Your loss of the seat that you
held is the more striking by reason of the splendid manner in which the
northern and eastern divisions of Odgetown have been wres