Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/278

 Accordingly the valet opened the letter and announced to his master that it was a lady's handwriting.

"Then you had better give it to me," drawled the captain with a resigned air, "for if you pry into the contents of the poor thing's soul, it will be all over the town in an hour or so, and another woman's reputation will have disappeared. Why, Lord love us," he added as he glanced at the note in question, "if it isn't from that she-dragon herself, that most terrible and alarming Missus What'shername, Missus—Missus—oh, what the devil is her name, eh?"

The valet suggested humbly that the lady in question would most probably have signed her name at the end of the letter.

"Oh, yes, of course, what a downright sane fellow you are, to be sure. Now with all my brain power I should never have thought of that. Perfectly ridiculous of me, I know, but I really shouldn't have, you know. Ah! I remember who the woman is now, without looking. She's the wife of that perfectly idiotic lawyer fellow who always fastens up his fat stomach in a white waistcoat a cut or two too small, but I'm blamed if I can remember even his name, so you see we are not much nearer to it, are we now?"

Again the valet repeated the brilliant suggestion of looking to the end of the letter, and the master, having graciously accepted his suggestion, announced to the