[Illustration] Hardly had the indignant and energetic parent of Bartholomew departed when a man with red hair and a ferocious glare in his eyes entered, carrying a club and accompanied by a savage-looking dog. "I want to see the editor," he shouted. A ghastly pallor overspread the colonel's face, and he said, "The editor is not in." "Well, when _will_ he be in, then?" "Not for a week--for a month--for a year--for ever! He will never come in any more!" screamed Bangs. "He has gone to South America, with the intention to remain there during the rest of his life. He has departed. He has fled. If you want to see him, you had better follow him to the equator. He will be glad to see you. I would advise you, as a friend, to take the next boat--to start at once." "That is unfortunate," said the man; "I came all the way from Delaware City for the purpose of battering him up a lot with this club." "He will be sorry," said Bangs, sarcastically. "He will regret missing you. I will write to him, and mention that you dropped in." "My name is McFadden," said the man. "I came to break the head of the man who wrote that obituary poetry about my wife. If you don't tell me who perpetrated the following, I'll break _yours_ for you. Where's the man who wrote this? Pay attention: "'Mrs. McFadden has gone from this life; She has left all its sorrows and cares; She caught the rheumatics in both of her legs While scrubbing the cellar and stairs. They put mustard-plasters upon her in vain; They bathed her with whisky and rum; But Thursday her spirit departed, and left Her body entirely numb.'" "The man who held the late Mrs. McFadden up to the scorn of an unsympathetic world in that shocking manner," said the editor, "is named James B. Slimmer. He boards in Blank street, fourth door from the corner. I would advise you to call on him and avenge Mrs. McFadden's wrongs with an intermixture of club and dog-bites." "And this," sighed the poet, outside the door, "is the man who told me to divert McFadden's mind from contemplation of the horrors of the tomb. It was this monster who counseled me to make the sunshine of McFadden's smiles burst through the tempest of McFadden's tears. If that red-headed monster couldn't smile over that allusion to whisky and rum, if those remarks about the rheumatism in her legs could not divert his mind from the horrors of the tomb, was it _my_ fault? McFadden grovels! He knows no more about poetry than a mule knows about the Shorter Catechism." The poet determined to leave before any more criticisms were made upon his performances. He jumped down from his chair and crept softly toward the back staircase.