He gasped and shook his head emphatically. "Oh dear, no," he said. "Nothing of that kind--wish I was. But you won't guess what I do, not if I were to let you have a thousand guesses." His humility had vanished and he looked almost triumphant. "I give it up at once," I said. "What are you?" "I," he said, "am the National Scape-Goat Association." "The _what_?" I said. He repeated his words. "I see you don't understand," he went on, "so perhaps I'd better explain." "Yes," I said, "much better." "Well, it's this way," he said. "Have you ever written a book or been a Candidate for a seat in the House of Commons?" I said I hadn't. "It doesn't matter," he said. "You'll understand what I mean. Take the politician first. He issues an Address and makes speeches; in fact, does things which make him known to thousands of people whom he doesn't know. Do you follow me?" I said I did. "Well, then, somebody posts back his Election Address with 'This is pitiful balderdash and most ungrammatical' written plainly at the bottom of it. What would be your feelings if you got a thing like that?" "I shouldn't like it," I said. "Of course you wouldn't. You'd want to kick the writer, or at the very least you'd want to write back to him and tell him what you thought of him. But you can't do it, because of course he hasn't signed his name or given any hint of his address. It's the same way with anonymous letters of abuse. You can't answer them. So you 're done. You feel as if you'd tried to walk up a step where there wasn't a step, and your temper suffers. That's where the Association comes in. All you've got to do is to write to us, enclosing fee. For half-a-guinea we send down to any address in England one of our experts from the Assault-and-Battery Department, and you're entitled to kick him once--we guarantee him boot-proof, so you can kick as hard as you like. Or, if you prefer writing to kicking, you can write to me as if I'd written the anonymous letter or article or whatever it may be, and you can abuse me to your heart's content for half-a-crown. For three shillings you can call me a pro-German. Anyhow, the result is that your temper recovers and you feel perfectly satisfied. It's well worth the money, isn't it? I'm thinking of starting a Subscriptions' Department, to which you could write a refusal of any application for money, even if you have to subscribe in the end. It will give a man a pleasant glow to write to a clergyman, for instance (I shall keep a dozen or so on the premises), and say he'll be immortally jiggered if he'll subscribe to the Church Building Fund. But the anonymous letter business will always be my chief source of profit. Here's our prospectus, with all details. If you think any more of it perhaps you'll let me know. I get out here. Good-bye." * * * * *