"But it is not your handwriting."
"It is my handwriting disguised. I wa' n't fool enough to let you have the articles in my own handwriting without disguise, when I wished to conceal the authorship."
"What could possibly be your object in doing so?"
"That the articles might be fairly examined. If I had proposed to write an article for your paper, you would have said that I, a printer-boy, could write nothing worthy of print."
"But if I had seen and read the articles, knowing them to be yours, I should have judged them fairly," James insisted, evidently feeling somewhat hurt by his brother's last remark. Nevertheless, Benjamin was right. It is probable that his articles would have been rejected, had he offered them in his own name to the critics.
"Well, that was my plan, and the articles have had a fair show, and I am satisfied, whether you are or not," was Benjamin's reply in an independent spirit.
Here the conversation dropped. James bestowed no words of commendation upon his brother's ability. Perhaps he thought that he had praised the articles enough when he did not know who the author was. But he appeared to be abstracted in thought until some of the "knot of liberals" came in.
"I have discovered who 'Silence Dogood' is," he said.
"You have? Who can it be?" and the speaker was very much surprised.
"No one that you have dreamed of."