The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had good reason to know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at length, avenged her discomfiture with the Greek-fire of personalities and abuse. Every black incident in my short, but not stainless, career--every error, every folly, every penalty ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in a magic-lantern show. The information, however, was not particularly new to me, and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals. Besides, a victory remains a victory, whatever the moral character of the triumphant general. Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table, revealing the document over which so many gathers had sighed their short lives out. “YOU can read it if you like,” he said to me gratefully. “It's only a Death-letter.” It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular amusement of the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was certain, that it would be something improbable, unguessable, not to be foretold. Who, for instance, in search of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was the form taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be said for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone right to the heart of the matter. The words “will” and “testament” have various meanings and uses; but about the signification of “death-letter” there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the crumpled paper and read. In actual form it deviated considerably from that usually adopted by family solicitors of standing, the only resemblance, indeed, lying in the absence of punctuation. “my dear edward (it ran) when I die I leave all my muny to you my walkin sticks wips my crop my sord and gun bricks forts and all things i have goodbye my dear charlotte when i die I leave you my wach and cumpus and pencel case my salors and camperdown my picteres and evthing goodbye your loving brother armen my dear Martha I love you very much i leave you my garden my mice and rabets my plants in pots when I die please take care of them my dear--” Coetera desunt. “Why, you're not leaving me anything!” exclaimed Selina, indignantly. “You're a regular mean little boy, and I'll take back the last birthday present I gave you!” “I don't care,” said Harold, repossessing himself of the document. “I was going to leave you something, but I sha'n't now, 'cos you tried to read my death-letter before I was dead!” “Then I'll write a death-letter myself,” retorted Selina, scenting an artistic vengeance: “and I sha'n't leave you a single thing!” And she went off in search of a pencil.