"Sue your own lawyer?" exclaimed the mother of the cherubs. "Your own lawyer, who has made a great speech, and gained our case?"
"Lost our case?" screamed the angel. "Simon Rump, you don't mean to say that Pate lost our case?"
"That's just what happened," said Simon Rump.
"He made a speech, and then he ran away."
"He talked to the jury about you, and me, and the children."
"He called you Simon Rump's venerable wife."
"Yes, you," said Simon. "He called you venerable several times."
"Simon Rump, you are a brute!" said the angel.
"But, my duck," said Simon, "I could not----"
"Don't call me your duck! Duck, indeed! Simon Rump, you are a brute! You have no feeling. What! stand there and hear that bald-headed booby call me venerable! Well, I'll give Mr. Pate a piece of my mind. Venerable! venerable!" And the mother of the cherubs rushed from the room in a state of unangelic excitement, while Simon Rump seated himself in his big arm-chair and looked doleful and desolate.
On the following morning as M. T. Pate sat on his porch, brooding over the humiliation of his defeat, a sable son of Africa rode up and handed him a letter. He opened it and read as follows:
"Mr. M. T. PATE,--Simon has told me that in your speech to the jury you several times called me venerable. No wonder you lost our case! for after such a whopper about me it was not likely that a single man on the jury would believe one word you might say. How dare you call a decent woman like me venerable? I am not so venerable as you yourself, with your big head almost bare of hair outside and altogether bare of brains inside.
"You ran away because you were afraid to look twelve honest men in the face after what you had said about me. You may have better luck when you have learned to tell the truth. No more at present.
This letter, though mortifying at the time, was afterwards of essential service to M. T. Pate. He perceived that adjectives suggestive of personal qualities were often, like edged tools, to be used with extreme caution, especially in their application to the female sex; and that the equanimity even of the mother of seven sweet little cherubs might be seriously disturbed by an indiscreet use of the word venerable.