And take it by and large, it was without a compeer among swindles.

It was perfect, it was rounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal! The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till some miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair.

My friend came back from the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries began once more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears of said audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in a magazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people got copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing, but not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far regions.
Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter was read and wept over.

At the church door, afterward, he dropped a peculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's back with the question-- 'Do you know that letter to be genuine ?' It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it had that sickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one's idol always have.

Some talk followed-- 'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine ?' 'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, and fluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractised hand.