Explore "Penelope, Volume III" by William Pitt Scargill on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the colonel came back from his morning's walk, and was about to prepare to dress for dinner, letters were put into his hand, and among them was one from the Earl of Smatterton to Lord Spoonbill. This of course the gallant officer handed to his lordship, and his lordship eagerly and anxiously broke the seal, and very soon possessed himself of the contents of the letter. And when he had read it he was in a most vehement and lordly passion; he tore it into what romance writers would call a thousand pieces; that is to say, he tore it across and across; and he used unprintable language, and he stamped violently and walked about the room in a violent passion, and almost frightened the poor colonel out of his wits.
It was so very near dinner time that the colonel was quite concerned to see Lord Spoonbill so discomposed; and when the paroxysm of his lordship's anger was a little abated, and his looks assumed a more "questionable shape," the colonel ventured in his quiet, placid way, to say "I hope nothing is amiss, my lord?"