Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/429

416 ''a particular signal is made from my bedroom-window in the upper storey of the Britannia; that signal will be the display of a pair of Top Boots. When you can make these out in a line with the tall chimney of Robb’s Bath, you are safe, and may land. I will be there.''

Your affectionate friend, .

''P.S.—Wind and weather must not be taken into account. You would be safer on the Goodwins at half-ebb, with a strong gale from the S.W., than where you are.''

This letter was sealed, directed to Josiah Meek, Esq., and entrusted to Boots. Mr. Brown guarded against the second contingency—namely, that Mr. Meek would not return to the hotel—by composing a short melo-dramatic, yet explicit advertisement, which was to be inserted the next dayin a prominent portion of the Helmston Shaver. Thus it ran:

Boots was instructed to carry this note at once to the office of the Helmston Shaver, and Mr. Brown jumped into the fly, which conveyed him to the railway station, and the train in due course deposited him mt the great terminus in London. Mr. Launcelot Knocker was waiting for his friend on the platform, and before he allowed him to speak a word, he crammed him into a Hansom cab, with the directions of St. John’s Wood Chapel—and double fare for speed. As the two friends were driving along, Mr. Knocker explained to Mr. Brown that the existence of the G. C. Club had in some mysterious manner—upon which point he did not attempt to offer any explanation—come to the knowledge of a certain Mr. Jones, resident at No. 3, Olive Branch Row, St. John’s Wood. This gentleman, as it appeared, was largely interested in the discussion of all matrimonial questions, but he was directly opposed to the doctrine of the G. C. Club. He placed—after a very long, and very convincing experience, the height of human felicity in Connubial Bliss. He was, in fact, the gentleman who had acted as “The Times” Correspondent, when the great question of how to support a family in comfort on the sum of 300l.