SIR, —­ Through our common friend, Mr. P., I have received your note of this evening.  Upon due reflection I frankly admit the propriety of the explanation you suggest.  This being admitted, I still find great difficulty, (owing to the refinedly peculiar nature of our disagreement, and of the personal affront offered on my part,) in so wording what I have to say by way of apology, as to meet all the minute exigencies, and all the variable shadows, of the case.  I have great reliance, however, on that extreme delicacy of discrimination, in matters appertaining to the rules of etiquette, for which you have been so long and so pre-eminently distinguished.  With perfect certainty, therefore, of being comprehended, I beg leave, in lieu of offering any sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of “Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se,” in his “Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque.”  The nicety of your discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a man of honor, for explanation.

With sentiments of profound respect,

Your most obedient servant,

VON JUNG.

The Herr Johann Hermann

Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl, which, however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se.  Having finished reading, he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles, to be seated, while he made reference to the treatise in question.  Turning to the passage specified, he read it with great care to himself, then closed the book, and desired me, in my character of confidential acquaintance, to express to the Baron von Jung his exalted sense of his chivalrous behavior, and, in that of second, to assure him that the explanation offered was of the fullest, the most honorable, and the most unequivocally satisfactory nature.

Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron.  He seemed to receive Hermann’s amicable letter as a matter of course, and after a few words of general conversation, went to an inner room and brought out the everlasting treatise “Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque.”  He handed me the volume and asked me to look over some portion of it.  I did so, but to little purpose, not being able to gather the least particle of meaning.  He then took the book himself, and read me a chapter aloud.  To my surprise, what he read proved to be a most horribly absurd account of a duel between two baboons.  He now explained the mystery; showing that the volume, as it appeared prima facie, was written upon the plan of the nonsense verses of Du Bartas; that is to say, the language was ingeniously framed so as to present to the ear all the outward signs of intelligibility, and even of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning existed.  The key to the whole was found in leaving out every second and third word alternately, when there appeared a series of ludicrous quizzes upon a single combat as practised in modern times.