come. With regard to the letter, I don't see it as you do, sir. But,
sir, if you are going to talk in this tone, I would advise you to be
careful. We have heard, sir"--and here Mr. Snale began to simper and
grin with an indescribably loathsome grimace--"that some of your
acquaintances in your native town are of opinion that you have not
behaved quite so well as you should have done to a certain young lady
of your acquaintance; and what is more, we have marked with pain here,
sir, your familiarity with an atheist and his daughter, and we have
noticed their coming to chapel, and we have also noticed a change in
your doctrine since these parties attended there."

At the word "daughter" Mr. Snale grinned again, apparently to somebody
behind me, and I found that one of his shopwomen had entered the
counting-house, unobserved by me, while this conversation was going on,
and that she was smirking in reply to Mr. Snale's signals. In a moment
the blood rushed to my brain. I was as little able to control myself
as if I had been shot suddenly down a precipice.

"Mr. Snale, you are a contemptible scoundrel and a liar."

The effort on him was comical. He cried:

"What, sir!--what do you mean, sir?--a minister of the gospel--if you
were not, I would--a liar"--and he swung round hastily on the stool on
which he was sitting, to get off and grasp a yard-measure which stood
against the fireplace. But the stool slipped, and he came down
ignominiously. I waited till he got up, but as he rose a carriage
stopped at the door, and he recognised one of his best customers.
Brushing the dust off his trousers, and smoothing his hair, he rushed
out without his hat, and in a moment was standing obsequiously on the