Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax

London, Dover Street

Again and again, Fairfax, this is an infernal world! A vile, disgusting, despicable, besotted ass of a world! Existence in it is not worth accepting; and the sooner we spurn it from us the better we shall assert our claim to the dignity and wisdom of which it is destitute.

How do I despise the blundering insolent scoundrel with whom I am linked! How despicable am I to myself!

I last night met the fellow again at the Shakespeare. Of all his dirty qualities, not one of them is so tormenting as his familiar impudence! There is no repressing it except by cutting his throat; a business at which he is always alert. Nothing delights him so much as to talk of extinguishing men, treading out their souls, feeding upon their life-time, and other strange revolting phrases, all of the same sanguinary sort.

Having consulted with him concerning the seizure of Anna and Frank, and concluded that the affair should be ended as speedily as possible, I wished to have shaken him off and retired: but the thing was impracticable. I do not choose that my own carriage should attend me on these expeditions; and as it was a rainy night, I knew the difficulty of getting a coach. I therefore staid an hour till the entertainment should be begun, and the Piazza probably more clear.

As there is no sitting in his company without some species of gaming, for his whole conversation, that subject excepted, consists of oaths, duels, and the impudent scoundrels he has put out of the world, I took a few throws at hazard with him; and, as I was very careful to call for fresh dice and to watch his motions, I was a winner; hazard perhaps being the fairest of all games, if the dice be not foul. He ran over his usual litany of being pigeoned, and about ten o'clock I left play, and determined to sally forth; being apprehensive of engaging too deeply at the game, if I staid longer.

The moment we had descended the stairs he impudently laid hold of my arm. My blood boiled, Fairfax! Yet I was obliged to submit.

This was not all! The precautions I had taken were but a kind of presentiment of the vexation that was preparing for me. Just as we quitted the door of the tavern, who should bolt upon us but the hated Henley! I shook with the broad shame! My teeth gnashed curses! How willingly could I have pistoled him, Mac Fane, every being that eyed me, and still more willingly myself!

But there was nothing for it but to walk on, and seem not to see him. He however would not suffer me to depart without a double dose of damnation! The same infernal officiousness, with which from the first moment he saw me to the last he has been seized, came upon him; and though I hurried through the Piazza to escape, like a perjurer from the pillory, he pursued us purposely to inform me I was in company with a rascal, and to warn me of my danger.

I never can recollect my own situation, without an impulse to snatch up the first implement that would deprive me of a consciousness so detestable!

The irascible fury of the bully rid me of my tormentor; he immediately assaulted Henley, and I hastened away from two beings so almost equally abhorrent, but from causes so opposite.

On the following evening, having another appointment with the gambling rascal, I took care to have a coach waiting, and to go muffled up and disguised as much as possible. But for once my caution was superfluous. No Mac Fane appeared.

Not knowing what had happened, and it being night, and I thus properly equipped, I resolved to drive to his lodgings. Being there I sent up my name, and was admitted to the bed-chamber of this doughty exterminator of men. If the temper of my mind were not obnoxious to all cheerfulness, I could almost have laughed, the bully was so excellently beaten, mortified, and enraged! His head was bound up, his eyes were plaistered, his thumb sprained, his body of all colours, and his mind as hotly fevered as Alexander's itself could have been, had Alexander been vanquished at the battle of Issus!

His impatience to have Henley in his power is now almost phrensy; and it will be phrensy itself when he comes to find, as find he will, that though he can tie the hands of Henley his conquest must end there, and that the prisoner will still defy and contemn his jailor. So would I have him. Henley, though I hate, I cannot but respect and admire. The other is a creature I detest myself for ever having known!

Yet who but he could have gratified the unabating burning passion of my heart? I feel, Fairfax, as if I had taken my leave of hope, joy, and human intercourse! I have a quarrel with the whole race for having been forced into existence and into misery! I have suffered an accumulation of disgrace, for which I can never pardon myself! And shall I permit the authors of it to live undisturbed in their insult and triumph over me? No, by hell, come of me what will! Lower I cannot be in my own esteem than I already am: tremble those who made me so!

Beating has but rendered this rascal more impatient and active. Every thing is prepared. The house is hired, aired, and provided with a proper guardian. The madman keeper has all his implements ready. We have now only to watch and catch them at a proper distance from all succour, to which in their amorous walks they have frequently strayed.

Though even you, Fairfax, seem to disapprove my conduct, I care not. Not to give yourself further trouble with what you call such positive prudes might be a very good maxim for you, who love your ease too much ever to be sensible of the boiling emotions of a soul like mine! You are Guy Fairfax; I am Coke Clifton. Not but I should have imagined the swelling volumes of injuries I have communicated would have lighted up a sympathetic flame of retributive vengeance even in you, which not all your phlegm could have quenched. But no matter—Though heaven, earth, and hell were to face me frowning, I would on! My purpose is fixed: let it but be accomplished, and consequences to myself will be the least of all my cares.

C. CLIFTON