This is a copy of
what I read:--
"When the maid was arranging your room after your
departure, she cleared some pieces of torn paper from
under the grate. Seeing my name upon them, she brought
them, as in duty bound, to her mistress, who pasted them
together and found that they formed a letter from your
mother to you, in which I am referred to in the vilest
terms, such as `a bankrupt swindler' and `the
unscrupulous Cullingworth.' I can only say that we are
astonished that you could have been a party to such a
correspondence while you were a guest under our roof, and
we refuse to have anything more to do with you in any
shape or form."
That was a nice little morning greeting was it not,
after I had, on the strength of his promise,
started in practice, and engaged a house for a year with
a few shillings in my pocket? I have given up smoking
for reasons of economy; but I felt that the situation was
worthy of a pipe, so I climbed out of bed, gathered a
little heap of tobacco-dust from the linings of my
pocket, and smoked the whole thing over. That life-belt
of which I had spoken so confidingly had burst, and left
me to kick as best I might in very deep water. I read
the note over and over again; and for all my dilemma, I
could not help laughing at the mingled meanness and
stupidity of the thing. The picture of the host and
hostess busying themselves in gumming together the torn
letters of their departed guest struck me as one of the
funniest things I could remember.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234