There had been plenty of secret “spreads” and “fudge orgies” in other rooms. Cora had been to a lot of them, and had always slipped back into Number 30 without being caught by any prowling teacher.
But of course Nancy had been invited to contribute to none of these, and she was a particularly healthy girl with a particularly healthy appetite: so she did not crave “sponge cake and pickles,” or other combinations of forbidden fruits supposed to be the boarding-school misses’ extreme delight.
Mr. Gordon had sent the banknote to her without any more feeling, seemingly, than he would have had in throwing a bone to a dog. Yet, it might be his way of showing her sympathy. Nancy slipped it back in the envelope and picked up the second letter.
And before she opened this she believed she knew what it contained. She had not forgotten “Scorch” O’Brien. Scorch had promised to watch “Old Gordon” and write to her. He had used one of the office envelopes and had stolen a minute when some typewriter was not in use.
Madame Schakael thought both letters were from Mr. Gordon. Nancy was too curious as to what Scorch had written to deny herself the reading of the contraband epistle.
It was much blotted and the scrawl characteristic of an office boy’s chirography proved that his terms at public school had not done Scorch much good. This was the letter:
“Nancy Nelson,
Dear Miss:
I guess you haven’t forgotten Scorch O’Brien. That’s me. I said I’d rite if I got a line on Old Gordon, that he was doing you queer. I bet he is, but I don’t know nothing for sure yet. I put a twist on him this morning and I see a letter now in the male-basket for you, so I says to myself, ‘Scorch, what you said took like vaccination.’ Ouch! me arm hurts yet!
Well, I says to Old G., says I, ‘What’s come of the girl what blew me to lunch at the Arrandale? She was some swell little dame, she was.’