"Ah, you'll never get into no trouble with Gove'nment, Missis Tapple!" her gossips were wont to assure her, "For you be as ezack as ezack!"
A compliment which Mrs. Tapple accepted without demur, feeling it to be no more than her just due. She was, however, in spite of her 'ezack' methods, always a little worried when anything out of the ordinary occurred, and she began to feel slightly flustered directly she saw Maryllia swing open her garden gate. She had already, during the last few days, been at some trouble to decipher various telegrams which the lady of the Manor had sent down by Primmins for immediate despatch, such as one to a certain Lord Roxmouth which had run as follows:--"No time to reply to your letter. In love with pigs and poultry."
"It IS 'pigs and poultry,' ain't it?" she had asked anxiously of Primmins, after studying the message for a considerable time through, her spectacles. And Primmins, gravely studying it, too, had replied:-"It is undoubtedly 'pigs and poultry.'"
"And it IS 'in love' you think?" pursued Mrs. Tapple, with perplexity furrowing her brow.
"It is certainly 'in love,'" rejoined Primmins, and the faintest suggestion of a wink affected his left eyelid.
Thereupon the telegram was 'sent through' to Riversford on its way to London, though not without serious misgivings in Mrs. Tapple's mind as to whether it might not be returned with a 'Gove'nment' query as to its correctness. And now, when Maryllia herself entered the office, and said smilingly, "Good-morning! Some foreign telegram-forms, please!" Mrs. Tapple felt that the hour was come when her powers of intelligence were about to be tried to the utmost; and she accordingly began to experience vague qualms of uneasiness.
"Foreign telegram-forms, Miss? Is it for Ameriky?"
"Oh, no!--only for Paris,"--and while the old lady fumbled nervously in her 'official' drawer, Maryllia glanced around the little business establishment with amused interest. She had a keen eye for small details, and she noticed with humorous appreciation Mrs. Tapple's pink sun-bonnet hanging beside the placarded 'Post Office Savings Bank' regulations, and a half side of bacon suspended from the ceiling, apparently for 'curing' purposes, immediately above the telegraphic apparatus. After a little delay, the required pale yellow 'Foreign and Colonial' forms were found, and Mrs. Tapple carefully flattened them out, and set them on her narrow office counter.
"Will you have a pencil, or pen and ink, Miss?" she enquired.
"Pen and ink, please," replied Maryllia; whereat the old postmistress breathed a sigh of relief. It would be easier to make out anything at all 'strange and uncommon' in pen and ink than in pencil-marks which had a trick of 'rubbing.' Leaning lightly against the counter Maryllia wrote in a clear bold round hand: "Miss CICELY BOURNE, "17 RUE CROISIE, PARIS.