To Joseph X. Miller, Esq.
The precise and brief sententiousness of the divine is here, it will be seen, very truly adopted, or “hit off.”
In one instance only was the jeu-d’esprit taken in serious dudgeon. Colonel Stone and the Messenger had not been upon the best of terms. Some one of the Colonel’s little brochures had been severely treated by that journal, which declared that the work would have been far more properly published among the quack advertisements in a spare corner of the Commercial. The colonel had retaliated by wholesale vituperation of the Messenger. This being the state of affairs, it was not to be wondered at that the following epistle was not quietly received on the part of him to whom it was attributed:—
New York, ——.
Dear Sir,
I am exceedingly and excessively sorry that it is out of my power to comply with your rational and reasonable request. The subject you mention is one with which I am utterly unacquainted. Moreover it is one about which I know very little.
Respectfully,
W. L. STONE.
Joseph V. Miller, Esq.
These tautologies and anti-climaces were too much for the colonel, and we are ashamed to say that he committed himself by publishing in the Commercial an indignant denial of ever having indited such an epistle.