"An anonymous attack like this is usually beneath contempt.

And I feel all the more like ignoring it because it raises a question which I have been asking myself lately: How _can_ a man on a ten thousand dollar salary afford to buy an eight thousand dollar car ?" Mary couldn't follow that line of reasoning at all.
"Why do you feel like ignoring it, if it's such a natural question ?" she asked.
"Because it's a question that might have occurred to anybody." That puzzled Mary, too.
"Perhaps Burdon has money beside his salary," she suggested.
"He hasn't.

I know he hasn't.

He's in debt right now." They thought it over in silence.
"I think if I were you, I'd tear it up," he said at last.
She promptly tore it into shreds.
"Now we'll forget that," he said.

"I must confess, however, that it has raised another question to my mind.