Ali was by no means distressed.
"To-morrow there shall come to you a beautiful book for the master's
surprise and joyousness. I myself will settle account satisfactorily
from emoluments accrued."
Bones could only sit down and helplessly wag his head. Presently he
grew calmer. It was a kindly thought, after all. Sooner or later
those poems of his must be offered to the appreciation of a larger
audience. He saw blind Fate working through his servitor's act. The
matter had been taken out of his hands now.
"What made you do it, you silly old josser?" he asked.
"Master, one gentleman friend suggested or proffered advice, himself
being engaged in printery, possessing machines----"
A horrible thought came into Bones's head.
"What was his name?" he asked.
Ali fumbled in the capacious depths of his trousers pocket and produced
a soiled card, which he handed to Bones. Bones read with a groan: MESSRS. SEEPIDGE & SOOMES,
Printers to the Trade.
"Now, you've done it," he said hollowly, and threw the card back again.
It fell behind Ali, and he turned his back on Bones and stooped to pick
up the card. It was a target which, in Bones's then agitated
condition, he could scarcely be expected to resist.
* * * * * Bones spent a sleepless night, and was at the office early. By the
first post came the blow he had expected--a bulky envelope bearing on
the flap the sign-manual of Messrs. Seepidge & Soomes. The letter
which accompanied the proof enclosed merely repeated the offer to sell
the business for fifteen thousand pounds.
"This will include," the letter went on, "a great number of uncompleted
orders, one of which is for a very charming series of poems which are
now in our possession, and a proof-sheet of which we beg to enclose."
Bones read the poems and they somehow didn't look as well in print as
they had in manuscript. And, horror of horrors--he went white at the
thought--they were unmistakably disrespectful to Miss Marguerite
Whitland! They were love poems. They declared Bones's passion in
language which was unmistakable. They told of her hair which was
beyond compare, of her eyes which rivalled the skies, and of her lips
like scarlet strips. Bones bowed his head in his hands, and was in
this attitude when the door opened, and Miss Whitland, who had had a
perfect night and looked so lovely that her poems became pallid and
nauseating caricatures, stepped quietly into the room.
"Aren't you well, Mr. Tibbetts?" she said.
"Oh, quite well," said Bones valiantly. "Very tra-la-la, dear old
thing, dear old typewriter, I mean."
"Is that correspondence for me?"
She held out her hand, and Bones hastily thrust Messrs. Seepidge &
Soomes's letter, with its enclosure, into his pocket.