'I won't speak another word to you,' said Jerry; 'I would not speak to you, if you were lying dead in the kennel.'
'Then you're an ugly unnatural beast, so you are,' cried she, 'and your Miss is no better than a bad one; and I warrant you understand one another well.'
This last insinuation was sufficient for me. What! remain in a house where suspicion attached to my character? What! act so diametrically, so outrageously contrary to the principle of aspersed heroines, who are sure on such occasions to pin up a bundle, and set off? I spurned the mean idea, and resolved to decamp instantly. So having hastened my toilette, I threw three guineas on the table, and then looked for a pen and ink, to write a sonnet on gratitude. I could find nothing, however, but a small bit of chalk, and with this substitute, I scratched the following lines on the wall.
SONNET ON GRATITUDE
Addressed to Jerry Sullivan
As some deputed angel, from the spheres
Of empyrean day, with nectar dewed,
Through firmamental wildernesses steers,
To starless tracts of black infinitude—
Here the chalk failed me, and just at the critical moment for my simile had also failed me, nor could I have ever gotten beyond infinitude. I got to the street door, however, and without fear of being overheard; to such an altitude of tone had words arisen between husband and wife, who were now contesting a most delicate point—which of them had beaten the other last.