404 THE ANONYMOUS LETTER. 



Had he been a man who would listen to reason who was open to 

 conviction to whom one might venture to speak why really 



But J.ie was hot as curry; yet not deficient in sense; but dread- 

 fully opinionated tetchy easily susceptible of feeling himself in- 

 sulted careful as to keeping his pistol-case in such a state as to be 

 ready at a moment's notice a being inflamed in body, soul, arid com- 

 plexion, by the spices and sun of the burning East. 



To remonstrate with him would have been absurd ; he would have 

 cut me down with his crutch: he had amassed three thousand 

 a-year. 



To write an anonymous letter was not exactly the sort of thing : 

 but why see him rush into a matchwhich would dishonour himself, 

 and shed a sort of retrospective shame on my sainted sister ? 



The cook was far from immaculate. A native-servant, whom I 

 discharged at Calcutta for repeatedly staying out all night but why 

 expose the weak side of humanity ? 



And another young fellow of her acquaintance, whom I pardoned 

 for having robbed me, on condition of his frankly confessing all his 

 misdemeanours 



Besides, there was Larry the trumpeter 



And one or two more. 



Under such circumstances conscious of his infatuation, I ceased 

 to waver : the end sanctified the means ; and I wrote him an anony- 

 mous letter. 



She, of course, would make a point of having children and then 

 where were my expectations ? 



Evadne had never been a mother : the colonel was the only Plinth 

 in the universe ; and, posited as I was Evadne being the link I na- 

 turally had expectations. 



To say nothing of being nine years my senior, he was a wreck a 

 fiery wreck, full of combustibles, burning gradually to the water's 

 edge. 



The sun of his happiness, would, as I felt, set for ever, the moment 

 he married such a creature as Moggs innately vulgar repulsive 

 double chinned tumid protuberant 



Social festivity was every thing to Colonel Plinth : but who would 

 dine with him, if his ci-devant cook were to carve ? Evadne's adopt- 

 ed Larry the trumpeter's love ! I couldn't. 



Therefore, under a sense of overwhelming duty to Colonel Plinth, 

 I wrote him an anonymous letter. 



Every precaution was taken : the hand was disguised the paper 

 such as I had never used ; and, to crown all, I dropped the important 

 document in a distant and very out-of-the way post-office. 



Conscious of perfect security animated by the cause I had 

 espoused, I played away upon him, from my masked battery, with 

 prodigious vehemence. Reserve was out of the question; in an 

 anonymous letter, the writer, of course, speaks out : this* is its great 

 advantage. I took a rapid review of his achievements I recalled the 

 accomplished Evadne to his mind's eye I contrasted her with his 

 present intended : Larry the trumpeter figured in, and the forcible 

 expression as to Caesar's wife was not forgotten. I rebuked I ar- 



