The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had good
reason to know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at
length, avenged her discomfiture with the Greek-fire of
personalities and abuse. Every black incident in my short, but
not stainless, career--every error, every folly, every penalty
ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in a magic-
lantern show. The information, however, was not particularly new
to me, and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals.
Besides, a victory remains a victory, whatever the moral
character of the triumphant general.

Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table,
revealing the document over which so many gathers had sighed
their short lives out. "YOU can read it if you like," he said
to me gratefully. "It's only a Death-letter."

It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular
amusement of the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was
certain, that it would be something improbable, unguessable, not
to be foretold. Who, for instance, in search of relaxation,
would ever dream of choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary
disposition of property? Yet this was the form taken by
Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be said
for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone
right to the heart of the matter. The words "will" and
"testament" have various meanings and uses; but about the
signification of "death-letter" there can be no manner of doubt.
I smoothed out the crumpled paper and read. In actual form it
deviated considerably from that usually adopted by family
solicitors of standing, the only resemblance, indeed, lying in