But Mr. Mercaptan was to have no tranquillity this afternoon. The door of his sacred boudoir was thrown rudely open, and there strode in, like a Goth into the elegant marble vomitorium of Petronius Arbiter, a haggard and dishevelled person whom Mr. Mercaptan recognized, with a certain sense of discomfort, as Casimir Lypiatt. “To what do I owe the _pleasure_ of this unexpected...?” Mr. Mercaptan began with an essay in offensive courtesy. But Lypiatt, who had no feeling for the finer shades, coarsely interrupted him. “Look here, Mercaptan,” he said. “I want to have a talk with you.” “Delighted, I’m sure,” Mr. Mercaptan replied. “And _what_, may I ask, about?” He knew, of course, perfectly well; and the prospect of the talk disturbed him. “About this,” said Lypiatt; and he held out what looked like a roll of paper. Mr. Mercaptan took the roll and opened it out. It was a copy of the _Weekly World_. “Ah!” said Mr. Mercaptan, in a tone of delighted surprise, “_The World_. You have read my little article?” “That was what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Lypiatt. Mr. Mercaptan modestly laughed. “It hardly deserves it,” he said. Preserving a calm of expression which was quite unnatural to him, and speaking in a studiedly quiet voice, Lypiatt pronounced with careful deliberation: “It is a disgusting, malicious, ignoble attack on me,” he said. “Come, _come_!” protested Mr. Mercaptan. “A critic must be allowed to criticize.” “But there are limits,” said Lypiatt. “Oh, I _quite_ agree,” Mr. Mercaptan eagerly conceded. “But, after all, Lypiatt, you can’t pretend that I have come anywhere near those limits. If I had called you a _mur_derer, or even an _adul_terer—then, I admit, you would have some cause to complain. But I haven’t. There’s nothing like a personality in the whole thing.” Lypiatt laughed derisively, and his face went all to pieces, like a pool of water into which a stone is suddenly dropped. “You’ve merely said I was insincere, an actor, a mountebank, a quack, raving fustian, spouting mock heroics. That’s all.”