that nothing was needed, gave way to my most frequent emotion in
those days, a burning indignation, and took the matter into my own
hands. I wrote and asked him, with a withering air of technicality,
to have the roof repaired "as per agreement," and added, "if not
done in one week from now we shall be obliged to take proceedings."
I had not mentioned this high line of conduct to my mother at first,
and so when old Pettigrew came down in a state of great agitation
with my letter in his hand, she was almost equally agitated.

"How could you write to old Mr. Pettigrew like that?" she asked
me.

I said that old Pettigrew was a shameful old rascal, or words to
that effect, and I am afraid I behaved in a very undutiful way to
her when she said that she had settled everything with him--she
wouldn't say how, but I could guess well enough--and that I was
to promise her, promise her faithfully, to do nothing more in the
matter. I wouldn't promise her.

And--having nothing better to employ me then--I presently went
raging to old Pettigrew in order to put the whole thing before him
in what I considered the proper light. Old Pettigrew evaded my
illumination; he saw me coming up his front steps--I can still see
his queer old nose and the crinkled brow over his eye and the little
wisp of gray hair that showed over the corner of his window-blind--and
he instructed his servant to put up the chain when she answered
the door, and to tell me that he would not see me. So I had to fall
back upon my pen.

Then it was, as I had no idea what were the proper "proceedings"