Then, upon an April morning, the following telegram was received at Dawes Road, Fulham: 'Please bring manuscript me immediately top left take cab Henry.'
Mrs. Knight was alone in the house with Sarah when the imperious summons of the telegraph-boy and the apparition of the orange envelope threw the domestic atmosphere into a state of cyclonic confusion. Before tearing the envelope she had guessed that Aunt Annie had met with an accident, that Henry was dead, and that her own Aunt Eliza in Glossop had died without making a will; and these imaginings had done nothing to increase the efficiency of her intellectual powers. She could not read sense into the message, not even with the aid of spectacles and Sarah.
Happily Aunt Annie returned, with her masculine grasp of affairs.
'He means Love in Babylon,' said Aunt Annie. 'It's in the top left-hand drawer of his desk. That's what he means. Perhaps I'd better take it. I'm ready dressed.'
'Oh yes, sister,' Mrs. Knight replied hastily. 'You had better take it.'
Aunt Annie rang the bell with quick decision.
'Sarah,' she said, 'run out and get me a cab, a four-wheeler. You understand, a four-wheeler.'
'Yes'm. Shall I put my jacket on, mum?' Sarah asked, glancing through the window.
'No. Go instantly!'