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 unfortunate persons at the head of this accursed staircase?"

"Nothing else, certainly," said Scythrop: "you are perfectly in the right, Mr. Toobad. Evil and mischief, and misery, and confusion, and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen, and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love,—all prove the accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not impossible, that the infernal interruption of this fall down stairs may throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence."

"My dear boy,' said Mr Toobad, "you have a fine eye for consequences."