There was one man in Florence whom I especially desired to fix a quarrel upon,--this was Morris, or, as he was now called, Sir Morris Penrhyn. A fellow who unquestionably ought to have had very different claims on my regard, but who now, in this perversion of my feelings, struck me as exactly the man to shoot or be shot by. Don't you know that sensation, Bob, in which a man feels that he must select a particular person, quite apart from any misfortune he is suffering under, and make _him_ pay its penalty? It is a species of antipathy that defies all reason, and, indeed, your attempt to argue yourself out of it only serves to strengthen and confirm its hold on you. Morris and I had ceased to speak when we met; we merely saluted coldly, and with that rigid observance of a courtesy that makes the very easiest prelude to a row, each party standing ready prepared to say "check" whenever the other should chance to make a wrong move. Perhaps I am not justified in saying so much of _him_, but I know that I do not exaggerate my own intentions. I fancied--what will a man not fancy in one of these eccentric stages of his existence?--that Morris saw my purpose, and evaded me. I argued myself into the notion that he was deficient in personal courage, and constructed upon this idea a whole edifice of absurdity. I am ashamed, even before you, to acknowledge the extent to which my stupid infatuation blinded me; perhaps the best penalty to pay for it is an open confession. I overtook our valet one morning with a letter in my governor's hand addressed to Sir Morris Penrhyn, and on inquiring, discovered that he and my father had been in close correspondence for the three days previous. At once I jumped to the conclusion that I was, somehow or other, the subject of these epistles, and in a fit of angry indignation I drove off to Morris's hotel. When a man gets himself into a thorough passion on account of some supposed injury, which even to himself he is unable to define, his state is far from enviable. When I reached the hotel, I was in the hot stage of my anger, and could scarcely brook the delay of sending in my card. The answer was, "Sir Morris did not receive." I asked for pen and ink to write a note, and scribbled something most indiscreet and offensive. I am glad to say that I cannot now remember a line of it. The reply came that my "note should be attended to," and with this information I issued forth into the street half wild with rage.