kissed her. She scratched our face, yelled police, murder, and fire,
and fled from the room.

Our friend came in almost immediately. He said:

"I say, J., old man, are you drunk?"

We told him no, that we were only a student of the drama. His wife
then entered in a towering passion. She didn't ask us if we were
drunk. She said:

"How dare you come here in this state!"

We endeavored unsuccessfully to induce her to believe that we were
sober, and we explained that our course of conduct was what was always
pursued on the stage.

She said she didn't care what was done on the stage, it wasn't going
to be pursued in her house; and that if her husband's friends couldn't
behave as gentlemen they had better stop away.

The following morning we received a letter from a firm of solicitors
in Lincoln's Inn with reference, so they put it, to the brutal and
unprovoked assault committed by us on the previous afternoon upon the
person of their client, Miss Matilda Hemmings. The letter stated that
we had punched Miss Hemmings in the side, struck her under the chin,
and afterward, seizing her as she was leaving the room, proceeded to
commit a gross assault, into the particulars of which it was needless
for them to enter at greater length.