"Well," said Thacker, nervously, "is it a continued story, or an
account of the unveiling of the new town pump in Whitmire, South
Carolina, or a revised list of General Lee's body-servants, or what?"

"You are disposed to be facetious," said Colonel Telfair, calmly.
"The article is from the pen of a thinker, a philosopher, a lover of
mankind, a student, and a rhetorician of high degree."

"It must have been written by a syndicate," said Thacker. "But,
honestly, Colonel, you want to go slow. I don't know of any
eight-thousand-word single doses of written matter that are read by
anybody these days, except Supreme Court briefs and reports of murder
trials. You haven't by any accident gotten hold of a copy of one of
Daniel Webster's speeches, have you?"

Colonel Telfair swung a little in his chair and looked steadily from
under his bushy eyebrows at the magazine promoter.

"Mr. Thacker," he said, gravely, "I am willing to segregate the
somewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitude
that your business investments undoubtedly have conferred upon you.
But I must ask you to cease your jibes and derogatory comments upon
the South and the Southern people. They, sir, will not be tolerated
in the office of _The Rose of Dixie_ for one moment. And before you
proceed with more of your covert insinuations that I, the editor of
this magazine, am not a competent judge of the merits of the matter
submitted to its consideration, I beg that you will first present some
evidence or proof that you are my superior in any way, shape, or form
relative to the question in hand."