“Here’s Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jessie. Say ‘please,’ and down you come.”

“Oh, you brute! Please! please!”

He took her down as if she had been a canary.

“You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a pressman. He will have it all in his rag tomorrow, and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors. ‘Strange story of high life’⁠—you felt fairly high on that pedestal, did you not? Then a subtitle, ‘Glimpse of a singular ménage.’ He’s a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone, a carrion eater, like all of his kind⁠— porcus ex grege diaboli ⁠—a swine from the devil’s herd. That’s it, Malone⁠—what?”

“You are really intolerable!” said I, hotly.