“She’s humbugging you,—she’s humbugging me,—she’s humbugging everybody,” roars Dick. “Look here, sir!” and out of one of the clenched fists he flings a paper down on the table. “What is it?” I ask. It’s her handwriting. I see the neat trim lines on the paper. “It’s not to you; nor yet to me,” says Bedford. “Then how dare you read it, sir?” I ask, all of a tremble. “It’s to him. It’s to Sawbones,” hisses out Bedford. “Sawbones dropt it as he was getting into his gig; and I read it. _I_ ain’t going to make no bones about whether it’s wrote to me or not. She tells him how you asked her to marry you. (Ha!) That’s how I came to know it. And do you know what she calls you, and what _he_ calls you,—that castor-hoil beast? And do you know what she says of you? That you hadn’t pluck to stand by her to-day. There,—it’s all down under her hand and seal. You may read it, or not, if you like. And if poppy or mandragora will medicine you to sleep afterwards, I just recommend you to take it. _I_ shall go and get a drop out of the captain’s bottle—I shall.” And he leaves me, and the fatal paper on the table. Now, suppose you had been in my case—would you, or would you not, have read the paper? Suppose there is some news—bad news—about the woman you love, will you, or will you not, hear it? Was Othello a rogue because he let Iago speak to him? There was the paper. It lay there glimmering under the light, with all the house quiet. Studies in Animal Life. “Authentic tidings of invisible things; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power, And central peace subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation.”—THE EXCURSION. CHAPTER V. Talking in beetles—Identity of Egyptian animals with those now existing: does this prove fixity of species?—Examination of the celebrated argument of species not having altered in four thousand years—Impossibility of distinguishing species from varieties—The affinities of animals—New facts proving the fertility of Hybrids—The hare and the rabbit contrasted—Doubts respecting the development hypothesis—On hypothesis in Natural History—Pliny, and his notion on the formation of pearls—Are pearls owing to a disease of the oyster?—Formation of the shell; origin of pearls—How the Chinese manufacture pearls.