‘“I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home,’” repeated Denny, in a meditative tone. ‘Well, it looks rather more like it than it did a few days ago, I must admit.’
‘Denny, Denny, if you love me, what’s it all about? I haven’t had any letter from—’
‘Mamma? No, we’ve had no letter from mamma. But then we haven’t had any letters from anybody.’
‘Then I’m hanged if I—’ I began in bewildered despondency.
‘But, Charley,’ interrupted Denny, ‘perhaps mamma sent a letter to—Mouraki Pasha!’
‘To Mouraki?’
‘This letter of mine found its way to Mouraki.’
‘All letters,’ observed the captain, who was leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, ‘would pass through his hands, if he chose to make them.’
‘Good heavens!’ I cried, springing forward. The hint was enough. In an instant my busy, nervous, shaking hands were ruining the neat piles of documents which the captain had reared so carefully in front and on either side of him. I dived, tossed, fumbled, rummaged, scattered, strewed, tore. The captain, incapable of resisting my excited energy, groaned in helpless despair at the destruction of his evening’s work. Denny, having watched me for a few minutes, suddenly broke out into a peal of laughter. I stopped for an instant to glare reproof of his ill-timed mirth, and turned to my wild search again.