"You'd have thought Simpkins would have dropped it then, but he didn't. He reported the doctor to the Board of Guardians for neglect of duty." "We're getting on," said Meldon, taking a note on a fresh sheet of paper. "You started out to prove that Simpkins is a meddlesome ass. You've got half way. He's certainly an ass. Didn't he know that Doyle was chairman of the Board of Guardians?" "He must have known that, of course." "Then he's an ass. No one who wasn't an ass could possibly expect Doyle to pass a vote of censure on the doctor for not prosecuting him about his drains. You needn't elaborate that point further. I admit it. But I don't see yet that you've proved any actual malice. Lots of quite good men are asses, and mean to do what's right. Simpkins may have been acting from a mistaken sense of duty." "He wasn't. He was acting from a fiendish delight in worrying peaceable people." "Prove that," said Meldon, "and I'll make the man sorry for himself. There's no crime I know more detestable than nagging and worrying with the intention of making other people uncomfortable. In a properly civilised society men who do that would be hanged." "I wish Simpkins was hanged." "Prove your point," said Meldon, "and I'll see that he is hanged, or at all events killed in some other way." "There's no use talking that way, J. J. You can't go out and murder the man." "It won't be murder in this case," said Meldon. "It will be a perfectly just execution, and I shan't do it myself. I'm a clergyman, and not an executioner. But I'll see that it's done once I'm perfectly satisfied that he deserves it." "He had a row with the rector at a vestry meeting," said the Major, "about the heating of the church." "That settles it," said Meldon. "I ask for nothing more. The man who's capable of annoying the poor old rector, who has chronic bronchitis and must keep the church up to a pretty fair temperature--" "What Simpkins said was that the church wasn't hot enough."