The above yarn may simply be described as a gallow's-rope spun by Jack Ketch himself from all the lies of all the scoundrels he has ever hanged, added to all that his own vile heart can invent, with the devil to help him. The cold-blooded, creeping, and crawling manner in which I myself was alluded to--although without the manliness even to set my name down--as well as the low hypocrisy of the loathsome white-livered syntax of it, made me,--well, I will say no more--the filthiness reeks without my stirring, and, indeed, no honest man should touch it; only, if Hezekiah Perkins had chanced to sneak into the room just then, his wife might have prophesied shrouds and weeds. For who else was capable of such lies, slimed with so much sanctimony, like cellar slugs, or bilge-hole rats, rolling in Angelica, while all their entrails are of brimstone, such as Satan would scorn to vomit? A bitter pain went up my right arm, for the weakness of my heart, when that miscreant gave me insult, and I never knocked him down the well. And over and over again I have found it a thorough mistake to be always forgiving. However, to have done with reflections which must suggest themselves to any one situated like me--if, indeed, any one ever was--after containing myself, on account of the people who surrounded me, better than could have been hoped for, I spoke, because they expected it. "Truly, my dear friends, I am thankful for your goodwill towards me. Also to the unknown writer, who has certainly made too much of my poor unaided efforts. I did my best; it was but little: and who dreams of being praised for it? Again, I am thankful to this other writer, who has overlooked me altogether. For the sake of poor Sandy Macraw, we must thank him that he kindly forbore to make public the name." You should have seen the faces of all the folk around the table when I gave them this surprise. "Why," said one, "we thought for sure that it was you he was meaning, Dyo dear. And in our hearts we were angry to him, for such falsehoods large and black. Indeed and indeed, true enough it may be of a man outlandish such as Sandy Macraw is." "Let us not hasten to judge," I replied; "Sandy is brave enough, I daresay, and he can take his own part well. I will not believe that he ran away; very likely he never was there at all. If he was, he deserves high praise for taking some little care of himself. I should not have been so stiff this night, if I had only had the common-sense to follow his example." All our people began to rejoice; and yet they required, as all of us do, something more than strongest proof. "What reason is to show then, Dyo, that this man of letters meant not you, but Sandy Macraw, to run away so?" "Hopkin, read it aloud," I said; "neither do I know, nor care, what the writer's meaning was. Only I thought there was something spoken about his Majesty's revenue. Is it I, or is it Sandy, that belongs to the revenue?"