Having mastered the preliminary obstacles, however, he testified his delight by knocking down a chair on each side of him with his fist, and handed it to the Smoucher, who, on reading it, appeared no less charmed with its contents.
Laura Stanbridge rose from her seat, and crept out of the room.
Then they drew close together, and conversed for some time in a low and earnest tone.
An hour afterwards the two men passed out. This time each carried a large parcel under his arm, and each with a satisfactory nod went his way.
Algernon Sutherland, alias Alf Purvis, was left alone in the little parlour.
He appeared to be perfectly at his ease and utterly ndifferent to the position of his companions in crime or the dangers which beset them both.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, taking a choice Havana from his cigar case. “They are a pair of ruffians without doubt, and must take their chance. I have given them the best advice, which, if they have sufficient prudence to follow, may help them out of their present scrape.”
He lighted his cigar, and puffed therefrom thin wreaths of vapoury smoke.
Laura Stanbridge now returned, and entered the room.
She now wore a moire-antique dress, which displayed to advantage her bust, and hands white as Parian marble.