"There!" said his friend, pointing to the paragraph.
"And is this London," exclaimed Theodore. "I never read a play, nor the line of a play upon the same subject. Why does not the writer prove the plagiarism?"
"Because he does not know whether it is or is not a plagiarism," rejoined the other. "He is aware that several other authors have constructed dramas upon the same passage in history; and—to draw the most charitable inference, for you would not suspect him of telling a deliberate lie—he thinks you have seen them, and have availed yourself of them."
"Is it not the next thing to a falsehood," indignantly exclaimed Theodore, "to advance a charge, of the justness of which you have not assured yourself?"
"I know not that," rejoined his friend; "but it certainly indicates a rather superficial reverence for truth; and a disposition to censure, which excludes from all claim to ingenuousness the individual who indulges it."
"And this will go the round of the whole kingdom?"
"Yes."
"Should I not contradict it?"
"No."
"Why?"