ence as to Ernest's affront, I felt I must
not acknowledge it; but, all the same, I determined to get rid of him
before the day was much older.

When I had had my breakfast I sent word to him by a servant that I was
coming to his rooms, and followed not long behind the messenger.

He was in a suit of silk pyjamas, such as not even Solomon in all his
glory was arrayed in. I closed the door behind me before I began to
speak. He listened, at first amazed, then disconcerted, then angry, and
then cowering down like a whipped hound. I felt that it was a case for
speaking out. A bumptious ass like him, who deliberately insulted
everyone he came across--for if all or any of his efforts in that way
were due to mere elemental ignorance he was not fit to live, but should
be silenced on sight as a modern Caliban--deserved neither pity nor
mercy. To extend to him fine feeling, tolerance, and such-like
gentlenesses would be to deprive the world of them without benefit to
any. So well as I can remember, what I said was something like this:

"Ernest, as you say, you've got to go, and to go quick, you understand.
I dare say you look on this as a land of barbarians, and think that any
of your high-toned refinements are thrown away on people here. Well,
perhaps it is so. Undoubtedly, the structure of the country is rough;
the mountains may only represent the glacial epoch; but so far as I can
gather from some of your exploits--for I have only learned a small part
as yet--you represent a period a good deal farther back. You seem to
have given our folk here an exhibition of the playfulness of the hooligan
of the Saurian stage of development; but the Blue Mountains, rough as
they are, have come up out of the primeval slime, and even now the people
aim at better manners. They may be rough, primitive, barbarian,
elemental, if you will, but they are not low down enough to tolerate
either your ethics or your taste. My dear cousin, your life is not safe
here! I am told that yesterday, only for the restraint exercised by
certain offended mountaineers on other grounds than your own worth, you
would have been abbreviated by the head. Another day of your fascinating
presence would do away with this restraint, and then we should have a
scandal. I am a new-comer here myself--too new a comer to be able to
afford a scandal of that kind--and so I shall not delay your going.
Believe me, my dear cousin, Ernest Roger Halbard Melton, of Humcrof