Pray forget your animosity,--which is in truth unfounded,--and let us be friends as we were before. Yours very sincerely, JONATHAN STUBBS. Faddle reached London the evening before the Colonel's letter, and again dined with his friend at Bolivia's. At first they were both extremely angry, acerbating each other's wrath. Now that he was safe back in London Faddle thought that he would have enjoyed an evening among the "swells" of Stalham, and felt himself to be injured by the inhospitable treatment he had received--"after going all the way down there, hardly to be asked to sit down!" "Not asked to sit down!" "Well, yes, I was;--on a miserable cane-bottomed chair in a sort of cupboard. And he didn't sit down. You may call them swells, but I think your Colonel Stubbs is a very vulgar sort of fellow. When I told him the post isn't the proper thing for such a letter, he only laughed. I suppose he doesn't know what is the kind of thing among gentlemen." "I should think he does know," said Tom. "Then why doesn't he act accordingly? Would you believe it; he never so much as asked me whether I had a mouth on. It was just luncheon time, too." "I suppose they lunch late." "They might have asked me. I shouldn't have taken it. He did say something about a glass of sherry, but it was in that sort of tone which tells a fellow that he is expected not to take it. And then he pretended to laugh. I could see that he was shaking in his shoes at the idea of having to fight. He go to the torrid zone! He would much rather go to a police office if he thought that there was any fighting on hand. I should dust his jacket with a stick if I were you."