"
And my eye flashed fire, I felt, for I now heard him chuckling low in
the shadow, in which he so carefully concealed himself.
"I shall remembair vat you say," he observed, "and try to do bettair
next visit; but all dis time I delay in de execution of my mission here.
See, I have brought you von lettair; now vat will you do to reward me?"
Holding it high above my head, in a manner meant, no doubt, to be
playful, and to suggest a game of snatch, perhaps, such as his peers
might have afforded him, he displayed his treasure to my longing eyes,
but I sat with folded arms.
"If the letter brings me good news, I shall thank you warmly, Dr.
Englehart; if not, I shall try to believe you unconscious of its
contents."
"Tanks from your lips would, indeed, seem priceless," he remarked,
courteously, as with many bows and shrugs he laid it on the table before
me, bringing his shaggy head by such means much closer to my hand than I
cared to know it should be, under any circumstances.
With a gesture of inexpressible disgust, regretted the next moment, as I
reflected that, to bring me this letter, he might be overstepping common
rules, I raised the envelope to the light and recognized, to my intense
disappointment, the well-known characters of Bainrothe's--small, rigid,
neat, constrained.
My heart, which a moment before had beat audibly to my own ear, sank
like a stone in my breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter
mutely, uncertain how to proceed.
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