When he had unfolded the thing--it was typed on stiff, expensive, quarto paper--he read it.

In the lives of beings like Priam Farll and Alice a letter such as that letter is a terrible event, unique, earth-arresting; simple recipients are apt, on receiving it, to imagine that the Christian era has come to an end.

But tens of thousands of similar letters are sent out from the City every day, and the City thinks nothing of them.
The letter was about Cohoon's Brewery Company, Limited, and it was signed by a firm of solicitors.

It referred to the verbatim report, which it said would be found in the financial papers, of the annual meeting of the company held at the Cannon Street Hotel on the previous day, and to the exceedingly unsatisfactory nature of the Chairman's statement.

It regretted the absence of Mrs.Alice Challice (her change of condition had not yet reached the heart of Cohoon's) from the meeting, and asked her whether she would be prepared to support the action of a committee which had been formed to eject the existing board and which had already a following of 385,000 votes.