"Who received the letters? Friends of yours? Or enemies?"
"They were sent to the tradesmen and the more prominent people in town. We heard of them here and there, but probably we didn't know about all that were received. I remember more clearly than anything else how angry I was at some of the tricks."
"There was something more than these anonymous letters, then?"
The doctor frowned but Leslie answered readily.
"Yes. The letters continued at odd times all summer, but there were other things happening at the same time. For instance, one day an advertisement appeared in the paper saying that Dr. Underwood offered fifty cents apiece for all the cats and dogs that would be brought him for the purpose of vivisection. Now, papa does not practise vivisection--"
"He does not now," Mrs. Underwood interrupted, with impressive deliberation, "but I am not at all sure that he never did. And as I have said before, if he was ever guilty of that abominable wickedness, at any time or under any circumstances, he richly deserved all the annoyance that advertisement brought upon him."
Dr. Underwood wrinkled up his face in a grimace, but made no answer.
"Well, he doesn't now, and he didn't six years ago," Leslie resumed pacifically, "but it was hard to convince people of that. You should have seen the place the next day! Farmers, street boys, tramps, all sorts of rough people kept coming here with cats and dogs of all kinds,--oh, the forlorn creatures! And when papa refused to buy them, the people were angry and threatened to have him arrested for not carrying out his agreement. And all the ministers and the women's societies called on him to remonstrate with him for such wickedness, and when he said that he had not had anything to do with the advertisement, they showed plainly that they thought he was trying to crawl out of it because he had been caught. Oh, it was awful."
"Did you make any attempt to find out how the advertisement came to the paper, Doctor?"
Dr. Underwood shrugged his shoulders.