"I shall tell him I have gained the information from a trustworthy person, but I shan't tell him it's you," she said.
Faith brightened up.
"And you did hear about him first, didn't you?" she cried.
Charity nodded.
"It will be fun if we go to tea with him properly. Mrs. Budd, at the post office, told me it was a beautiful house, but that old Mr. Cardwell led his son a dog's life. I wonder what that means?"
No one could enlighten her.
After tea, Charity wrote her letter, and Hope was very busy soaking her mint in hot water, and pouring it into a bottle which she begged from her aunt. She managed to put a drop or two of vinegar in it and some salt, so she assured her sisters it was quite as nasty as it ought to be. And then there was a great fuss sealing the packages up. Granny found an odd bit of sealing wax she lent them. Charity read her sentence out proudly to her sisters in which the Pirate's name was buried. It was this:
"First read end down. Cut all right dates with easy little letters."
And she added below: "Follow this advice and you will find what you want."
Faith could not understand it at all, until Charity showed that the first letters of each word spelt his name, and then she thought it wonderfully clever and wondered if Charlie would discover it quickly.