se," in his "Duelli Lex scripta, et non;
aliterque." The nicety of your discernment in all the matters here
treated, will be sufficient, I am assured, to convince you that the mere
circumstance of me referring you to this admirable passage, ought to
satisfy your request, as a man of honor, for explanation.

With sentiments of profound respect,

Your most obedient servant,

VON JUNG.

The Herr Johann Hermann

Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl,
which, however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous
self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per
applicationem, per constructionem, et per se. Having finished reading,
he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles, to be seated,
while he made reference to the treatise in question. Turning to the
passage specified, he read it with great care to himself, then closed
the book, and desired me, in my character of confidential acquaintance,
to express to the Baron von Jung his exalted sense of his chivalrous
behavior, and, in that of second, to assure him that the explanation
offered was of the fullest, the most honorable, and the most
unequivocally satisfactory nature.

Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron. He seemed
to receive Hermann's amicable letter as a matter of course, and after a
few words of general conversation, went to an inner room and brought
out the everlasting treatise "Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." He
handed me the volume and asked me to look over some portion of it. I did
so, but to little purpose, not being able to gather the least particle
of meaning. He then took the book himself, and read me a chapter aloud.
To my surprise, what he read proved to be a most horribly absurd account
of a duel between two baboons. He now explained the mystery; showing
that the volume, as it appeared prima facie, was written upon the plan
of the nonsense verses of Du Bartas; that is to say, the language was
ingeniously framed so as to present to the ear all the outward signs of
intelligibility, and even of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of
meaning existed. The key to the whole was found in leaving out every
second and third word alternately, when there appeared a series of
ludicrous quizzes upon a single combat as practised in modern times.

The Baron afterwards informed me that he had purposely thrown the
treatise in Hermann's way two or three weeks before the adventure, a