This note and the teapot were forthwith sent upstairs to Mrs. Smith, whose indignation being very naturally roused, she again returned the battered affair, with this spirited missive:—
“Mrs. Smith begs to inform Mrs. Brown, that she despises her insinuations, and to say, that she will put as many t’s as she pleases in her teapot.
“P.S.—Mrs. S. expects to be paid 10s. for the injured article.”
Again the teapot was sent upstairs, with the following reply from Mrs. Brown:—
“Mrs. Brown thinks Mrs. Smith a low creature.
“P.S.—Mrs. B. won’t pay a farthing.”
The correspondence terminated here, the German-silver teapot remaining in statu quo on the lobby window, between the territories of the hostile powers; and there it might have remained until the present moment, if Mrs. Brown had not declared, in an audible voice, at the foot of the stairs, that Mrs. Smith was acting under the influence of gin, which reaching the ears of the calumniated lady, she rushed down to the landing-place, and seizing the teapot, discharged it at Mrs. Brown’s head, which it fortunately missed, but totally annihilated a plaster figure of Napoleon, which stood in the hall, and materially damaged its own spout. Mrs. Brown, being wholly unsupported at the time, retired hastily within the defences of her own apartments, which Mrs. Smith cannonaded vigorously for upwards of ten minutes with a broom handle; and there is every reason to believe she would shortly have effected a practicable breach, if a reinforcement from the kitchen had not arrived to aid the besieged, and forced the assailant back to her second-floor entrenchments. Mrs. Smith then demanded a truce until evening, which was granted by Mrs. Brown; notwithstanding which the former lady was detected, in defiance of this arrangement, endeavouring to blow up Mrs. Brown through the keyhole.
There is no telling how this unhappy difference will terminate; for though at present matters appear tolerably quiet, we know not (as in the case of the Canadas) at what moment we may have to inform our readers that
THE BORDERS ARE IN A FLAME.