"You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr. Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?"
"Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?"
"Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly.
"I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they can't know who wrote it."
"Ees eet not dat you have said—"
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that they were there when I confessed to it."
The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes,—not too much.
"I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart."
This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring permitted.
"I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said.