"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"
"Why—it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank—that would have been insulting. D——, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words—
"'——Un dessein si funeste,
S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crébillon's 'Atrée.'"