“Warm morning, sir,” said the librarian, turning to the doctor at last, as a party of customers quitted the shop.
“The last Number of the —— Magazine!” cried Bardon, waving superfluous comment on the weather, and flinging down a coin on the counter.
“Well, sir,” said the shopkeeper with a smile, “if you had called but five minutes ago I could have accommodated you with a copy; but there’s been such a run on the Magazine to-day, that really I have not one left. You see, sir,” he added, “there’s an article in it that takes with the public amazingly,—something that’s said to be a hit on one of the leading men in the county; and,” here he lowered his voice, “people who are wiser than their neighbours think that they’ve a pretty good guess as to the pen that wrote it. Anything else this morning, sir?”
Bardon uttered his emphatic “No!” and hurried out of the shop. “She’s done it!” he muttered to himself; “I’d give anything to see her paper!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MAGAZINE.
“We must have satire, pungent, biting satire;
Such is the vile condition of our nature.
Such our depraved and vicious appetites,