my usher, for giving occasion both for the neighbours of Gandercleuch
entertaining such opinions, and for Mrs. Cleishbotham disrespectfully
urging them to my face, since neither circumstance could have existed,
without he had put forth sinful misrepresentations of transactions,
private and confidential, and of which I had myself entirely refrained
from dropping any the least hint to any third person.

This arrangement of my ideas having contributed to soothe the stormy
atmosphere of which they had been the offspring, gave reason a time to
predominate, and to ask me, with her calm but clear voice, whether,
under all the circumstances, I did well to nourish so indiscriminate an
indignation? In fine, on closer examination, the various splenetic
thoughts I had been indulging against other parties, began to be merged
in that resentment against my perfidious usher, which, like the serpent
of Moses, swallowed up all subordinate objects of displeasure. To put
myself at open feud with the whole of my neighbours, unless I had been
certain of some effectual mode of avenging myself upon them, would have
been an undertaking too weighty for my means, and not unlikely, if
rashly grappled withal, to end in my ruin. To make a public quarrel
with my wife, on such an account as her opinion of my literary
accomplishments, would sound ridiculous: and, besides, Mrs. C. was sure
to have all the women on her side, who would represent her as a wife
persecuted by her husband for offering him good advice, and urging it
upon him with only too enthusiastic sincerity.

There remained Paul Pattison, undoubtedly, the most natural and proper
object of my indignation, since I might be said to have him in my own
power, and might punish him by dismissal, at my pleasure. Yet even
vindictive proceedings against the said Paul, however easy to be
enforced, might be productive of serious consequences to my own purse;