Life of Count Rumford. 39 



judge of it as of a person in anger, as I suppose we both were, 

 and I believe no person on earth can answer for all they say 

 when in anger. I believe if I had been in your place I should 

 have been angry ; but this I must affirm, that what reason I 

 have given you to be affronted with me, it was not through any 

 dislike to your company, or in any way wilfully to affront you, 

 but entirely through inadvertence and unthoughtfulness. For if 

 I had thought a moment it would have been just as well to have 

 stopped till you was ready, and then both of us have overtaken 

 the Doctor. But as I did not do it, 'tis impossible to do it now. 

 " And thus I think I have answered your question to me ; 

 and if you think me worth your further notice, I shall be very 

 glad to hear further from you, as soon as shall suit your con- 

 venience. And I shall conclude with subscribing myself, 

 Sir, your friend and humble servant, 



THOMPSON. 



" MR. THOMPSON, 



" SIR, I have just received your letter, by hand of your 

 little Brother [Josiah Pierce, 3d]. The sequel of which (if 

 sincerely, sentimentally wrote, and not from some private view 

 dormant to me) is almost to my entire satisfaction. And had 

 it been offered the day after we were at Nahant, it had pre- 

 vented anything further than a reprimand, which my then pres- 

 ent exasperated state must have discharged. You quere why 

 you are so much more to blame than the Doctor. I consider that 

 I , did not expect that you were going to make up with me on 

 the Doctor's account, but only on your own. So I understood 

 only with you. But the Doctor must think differently from 

 what he said the other day, before I shall think of him as I did 

 before. And if he catches me so again before he has made me 

 some satisfaction for what is past I '11 not blame him. But not 

 to detain you with my intentions with regard to the Doctor, I 

 shall proceed to inform you, if my company is agreeable to you, 

 you are welcome, and any apartment in my house at present 

 You may wonder at this last expression. But I expect to have an 

 apartment that I can't admit my brother into, at certain times, 

 before long. 



