HOSTILITIES IN PRIVATE LIFE.
We have just heard of an event which has shaken the peace of a highly respectable house in St. Martin’s Court, from the chimney-pots to the coal-cellar. Mrs. Brown, the occupier of the first floor, happened, on last Sunday, to borrow of Mrs. Smith, who lived a pair higher in the world, a German silver teapot, on the occasion of her giving a small twankey party to a few select friends. But though she availed herself of Mrs. Smith’s German-silver, to add respectability to her soirée, she wholly overlooked Mrs. Smith, who was not invited to partake of the festivities. This was a slight that no woman of spirit could endure; and though Mrs. Smith’s teapot was German-silver, she resolved to let Mrs. Brown see that she had herself some real Britannia mettle in her composition. Accordingly when the teapot was sent up the following morning to Mrs. Smith’s apartments, with Mrs. Brown’s “compliments and thanks,” Mrs. Smith discovered or affected to discover, a serious contusion on the lid of the article, and despatched it by her own servant back to Mrs. Brown, accompanied by the subjoined note:—
“Mrs. Smith’s compliments to Mrs. Brown, begs to return the teapott to the latter—in consequence of the ill-usage it has received in her hands.”
Mrs. Brown, being a woman who piques herself upon her talent at epistolary writing, immediately replied in the following terms:—
“Mrs. Brown’s compliments to Mrs. Smith, begs to say that her paltry teapot received no ill usage from Mrs. Brown.—Mrs. B. will thank Mrs. S. not to put two t’s at the end of teapot in future.”
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:—