"I was particularly anxious," he began apologetically, "not to get into a shindy here. I wanted to drop politics and so on, and be friendly——"
"Do you know what you're saying, or the meanness of it?"
"Meanness? What do you mean?"
"You know very well. All I want to know is if you wrote this thing?"
"Of course I wrote it."
"And you stand to it?"
"Yes. I think you ought to have asked me before you did it."
"The Squire is shocked, eh?" asked the Doctor, with a sneer.
"The Squire's views are nothing to me," answered Dale, flushing very red.