"SIR--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of to-day's date, honoring me with two proposals; namely, ONE inviting me to act as your legal adviser, and ONE inviting me to pay you a visit at your house. In reference to the first proposal, I beg permission to decline it with thanks. With regard to the second proposal, I have to inform you that circumstances have come to my knowledge relating to the letting of the cottage at Thorpe Ambrose which render it impossible for me (in justice to myself)to accept your invitation. I have ascertained, sir, that my offer reached you at the same time as Major Milroy's; and that, with both proposals thus before you, you gave the preference to a total stranger, who addressed you through a house agent, over a man who had faithfully served your relatives for two generations, and who had been the first person to inform you of the most important event in your life. After this specimen of your estimate of what is due to the claims of common courtesy and common justice, I cannot flatter myself that I possess any of the qualities which would fit me to take my place on the list of your friends.
"I remain, sir, your obedient servant, "JAMES DARCH.""Stop the messenger!" cried Allan, leaping to his feet, his ruddy face aflame with indignation. "Give me pen, ink, and paper! By the Lord Harry, they're a nice set of people in these parts; the whole neighborhood is in a conspiracy to bully me!" He snatched up the pen in a fine frenzy of epistolary inspiration. "Sir--Idespise you and your letter.--" At that point the pen made a blot, and the writer was seized with a momentary hesitation. "Too strong," h e thought; "I'll give it to the lawyer in his own cool and cutting style." He began again on a clean sheet of paper.
"Sir--You remind me of an Irish bull. I mean that story in 'Joe Miller' where Pat remarked, in the hearing of a wag hard by, that 'the reciprocity was all on one side.' _Your_ reciprocity is all on one side. You take the privilege of refusing to be my lawyer, and then you complain of my taking the privilege of refusing to be your landlord." He paused fondly over those last words.
"Neat!" he thought. "Argument and hard hitting both in one. Iwonder where my knack of writing comes from?" He went on, and finished the letter in two more sentences. "As for your casting my invitation back in my teeth, I beg to inform you my teeth are none the worse for it. I am equally glad to have nothing to say to you, either in the capacity of a friend or a tenant.--ALLANARMADALE." He nodded exultantly at his own composition, as he addressed it and sent it down to the messenger. "Darch's hide must be a thick one," he said, "if he doesn't feel _that!_"The sound of the wheels outside suddenly recalled him to the business of the day. There was the carriage waiting to take him on his round of visits; and there was Midwinter at his post, pacing to and fro on the drive.
"Read that," cried Allan, throwing out the lawyer's letter; "I've written him back a smasher."He bustled away to the wardrobe to get his coat. There was a wonderful change in him; he felt little or no reluctance to pay the visits now. The pleasurable excitement of answering Mr. Darth had put him in a fine aggressive frame of mind for asserting himself in the neighborhood. "Whatever else they may say of me, they shan't say I was afraid to face them." Heated red-hot with that idea, he seized his hat and gloves, and hurrying out of the room, met Midwinter in the corridor with the lawyer's letter in his hand.
"Keep up your spirits!" cried Allan, seeing the anxiety in his friend's face, and misinterpreting the motive of it immediately.
"If Darch can't be counted on to send us a helping hand into the steward's office, Pedgift can.""My dear Allan, I was not thinking of that; I was thinking of Mr.
Darch's letter. I don't defend this sour-tempered man; but I am afraid we must admit he has some cause for complaint. Pray don't give him another chance of putting you in the wrong. Where is your answer to his letter?""Gone!" replied Allan. "I always strike while the iron's hot--a word and a blow, and the blow first, that's my way. Don't, there's a good fellow, don't fidget about the steward's books and the rent-day. Here! here's a bunch of keys they gave me last night: one of them opens the room where the steward's books are;go in and read them till I come back. I give you my sacred word of honor I'll settle it all with Pedgift before you see me again.""One moment," interposed Midwinter, stopping him resolutely on his way out to the carriage. "I say nothing against Mr. Pedgift's fitness to possess your confidence, for I know nothing to justify me in distrusting him. But he has not introduced himself to your notice in a very delicate way; and he has not acknowledged (what is quite clear to my mind) that he knew of Mr. Darch's unfriendly feeling toward you when he wrote. Wait a little before you go to this stranger; wait till we can talk it over together to-night.""Wait!" replied Allan. "Haven't I told you that I always strike while the iron's hot? Trust my eye for character, old boy, I'll look Pedgift through and through, and act accordingly. Don't keep me any longer, for Heaven's sake. I'm in a fine humor for tackling the resident gentry; and if I don't go at once, I'm afraid it may wear off."With that excellent reason for being in a hurry, Allan boisterously broke away. Before it was possible to stop him again, he had jumped into the carriage and had left the house.
