I'll do the rest, and you had
better make it a bottle of champagne."
The "scurrilous rag" had less to say than Langholm had been led to
expect. He breathed again when he had read the sequence of short but
pithy paragraphs. Mrs. Minchin's new name was not given after all, nor
that of her adopted district; while Langholm himself only slunk into
print as "a well-known novelist who, oddly enough, was among the guests,
and eye-witness of a situation after his own heart." The district might
have been any one of the many manufacturing centres in "the largest of
shires," which was the one geographical clew vouchsafed by the
half-penny paper. Langholm began to regret his readiness to admit the
impeachment with which he had been saluted; it was only in his own club
that he would have been pounced upon as the "well-known novelist"; but
it was some comfort to reflect that even in his own club his exact
address was not known, for his solicitor paid his subscription and sent
periodically for his letters. Charles Langholm had not set up as hermit
by halves; he had his own reasons for being thorough there. And it was
more inspiriting than the champagne to feel that no fresh annoyance was
likely to befall the Steels through him.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259