, Jun._
"SIR--I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The
price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to whom you
are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of
the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse
to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait
on your highly-respected father with the original curiosity, on
the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family
business, I have put up at the family hotel--being to be heard of
at the Gatliffe Arms. Your very obedient servant, ALFRED
DAVAGER."
"A clever fellow that," says I, putting the letter into my
private drawer.
"Clever!" cries Mr. Frank, "he ought to be horsewhipped within an
inch of his life. I would have done it myself; but she made me
promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come
straight to you."
"That was one of the wisest promises you ever made," says I. "We
can't afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with
him. Do you think I am saying anything libelous against your
excellent father's character when I assert that if he saw the
letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off,
at the very least?"
"Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on
its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter," says Mr.
Frank, with a groan.
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