The Position
Dead for a ducat, dead! my dear Tom: and the rattle has reached me by post.
“Sans rancune,” The World, Jan. 15, 1879. say you? Bah! you scream unkind threats and die badly.
Why squabble over your little article? You did print what I quote, you know, Tom; and it is surely unimportant what more you may have written of the Master. That you should have written anything at all is your crime.
No; shrive your naughty soul, and give up Velasquez, and pass your last days properly in the Home Office.
Set your house in order with the Government for arrears of time and paper, and leave vengeance to the Lord, who will forgive my “garbling” Tom Taylor’s writing.
Butterfly The White House, Jan. 8, 1879.