Page:A Gentleman's Gentleman.djvu/69

 It was done against my advice all along. Now you see what's come of it."

He took the telegram in his hands and sat, half-dressed as he was, upon the bed to read it. I don't think, even then, that he understood it at all, for he looked it up and down, and turned it over and over, just as if there was more written upon the back of it.

"Well," said he at last, "and if I can make heads or tails of it, put me in Hanwell!"

"Then you don't read it properly, sir," said I; "can't you see that it's not for me at all?"

"Then whom, pray, is it for?"

I took the telegram and read it to him. It was in these words: "Return to Datcham at once—meet you there." But there was no signature nor any mark that would have betrayed the sender.

"Now, sir," said I, holding the message still in my hands, "isn't it plain to you?"

"Be hanged if it is!" said he.

He was always a very poor thinker, was Sir Nicolas Steele, but that night he was stupid beyond ordinary. I had no patience with him, and yet, goodness knows, it was not a night for temper.

"Look, sir," said I, "it's all as plain as the signboard of an inn. That telegram is meant for Lord Heresford, over at Altenham Lodge. There's been a bungle at the post-office, and what was meant for him has come to me, while, likely as not, what was meant for me has gone to him."