If you will be waiting with this by
the sign-post at the Five-Lanes' corner, at 11.30 _to-night_, no
_words_ of mine will repay you. Should you refuse, I am a
wretched woman; but in any case I know I may trust you to say no
word of this.
"Look out for the _closed carriage and pair_. A word to the
bearer will tell me that I may hope, or that you care nothing
for me.
G. G.-S.
"P.S.--Be very careful _not to shake the portmanteau_."
"What be I to say, plaise, sir?"
Sam, who had read the letter for a third time syllable by syllable,
looked around helplessly.
"Ef you plaise, what be I to say?"
Sam very heartily wished both boy and letter to the devil.
He groaned aloud, and was about to answer, when he paused suddenly.
In the room above Mr. Moggridge was singing a jaunty stave.
The sound goaded Sam to madness; he ground his teeth and made up his
mind.
"Say 'yes,'" he answered, shortly.
The word was no sooner spoken than he wished it recalled. But the
urchin had taken to his heels. With an angry sigh Sam let
circumstance decide for him, and returned to the reading-room.
No doubt the consciousness that pique had just betrayed his judgment
made him the more inclined to quarrel with the poet.
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