I smiled slightly and sourly at what I called mentally "the pat
incongruity" of the admonition with mood and written words. A swift
review of the situation confirmed the belief that I did well to be
angry with the correspondent whose open letter lay upon the table
beside the unfinished reply. The letter head was familiar. Of late the
frequent sight of it had bred annoyance waxing into irritation. The
brisk interchange of epistles grew out of a business-matter in which,
as I maintained, I had been first ungenerously, then unfairly, finally
dishonestly dealt with. There was no doubt in my mind of the intention
to mislead, if not to defraud me, and the communication now under
advisement was in tone cavalier almost to the point of insult. Aroused
out of the enforced calm I had hitherto managed to preserve, I had
seated myself and set my pen about the work of letting him who had now
assumed the position of "that man," know how his conduct appeared in
the light of reason and common sense. I had not even withheld an
illusion to honesty and commercial morality. I had never done a better
piece of literary work than that letter. Warming to the task in
recounting the several steps of the transaction, I had not scrupled to
set off my moderation by a Rembrandtish wash of shadow furnished by my
correspondent's double-dealing, and to cast my civility into relief by
adroit quotations from his impertinent pages. When I said that
patience had had her perfect work, it was my intention to unfold in
short, stinging sentences my plans as to future dealings with the
delinquent.

The singing on the other side of the room meant no more than the
chirping of a grasshopper upon a mullein-stalk. I did not delude
myself with the notion of providential use of the tongue that tripped
at the consonants and lingered in liquid dalliance with favorite