“And you are prepared to offer every apology and every recompense that is in your power?” asked the other partner.
“I don’t know,” said Erb, “about recompense.”
“Well, then, every apology?”
“I suppose I shall have to taste blacking,” he said.
The two partners conferred for a long time in an undertone, the while Erb played nervously with a paper-knife. When one of them spoke he held his breath.
“If the paragraph had been copied into other journals, if it had had a wider circulation than that given by your little paper, Mr. Barnes, our client would have instructed us to go on with the legal proceedings, and we should have asked for and obtained heavy damages. If the journal itself was not below contempt—”
“Look here!” interrupted Erb sharply, “don’t you go rubbing it in too thick.”
“Sir William is a man with a large heart,” said the other partner, taking up a more conciliatory tone, “and we shall advise him in the circumstances to do the generous thing. You will print in the next issue of your paper an apology?”
“A most humble apology,” remarked the other partner, “terms of which you will permit us to dictate to you. He will not ask you to pay the costs already incurred, and you must think yourself confoundedly—”
“He understands,” remarked the second partner. “I am sure Mr. Barnes quite understands. Now let us see about drafting the apology.”