'But,' he inquired, after reflection, 'how was it the man never wrote to
ask why I sent no more work?'
'That asks for further confession. While at the seaside I wrote, in a
disguised hand, a letter supposed to come from a brother of yours in which
I said you were very ill and must cease your correspondence. Starkey hadn't
the decency to reply, but if he had done so I should have got his letter at
the post-office.'
Mr. Wigmore looked troubled for a moment. However, this too was laughed
away, and the pursuit of gentility went on as rigorously as ever.
But Topham, musing over his good luck, thought with a shiver on how small
an accident it had depended. Had Starkey been at home when the fruiterer
called, he, it was plain, would have had the offer of this engagement.
'With the result that dear old Wigmore would have been bled for who knows
how many years by a mere swindler. Whereas he is really being educated,
and, for all I know, may some day adorn the Church of England.' Such
thoughts are very consoling.
A LODGER IN MAZE POND
Harvey Munden had settled himself in a corner of the club smoking-room,
with a cigar and a review. At eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning in
August he might reasonably expect to be undisturbed.
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