"You?"
Sam nodded desperately. "She asked me to elope with her—to meet her at Five Lanes."
Mr. Moggridge staggered up to his feet, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket.
"You are mad!" he gasped. "She asked me to elope with her—me to meet her at the top of Troy Hill. Look here!" He held out a crumpled letter. Sam took it, glanced at it, produced an exactly similar note, and handed it to his friend.
They read each the other's letter sentence by sentence, and in doleful antiphon. At the conclusion they looked up, and met each other's gaze; whereat Mr. Moggridge smote his brow and cried—
"False, false!"
While Sam pushed his hands deep into his trouser-pockets and emitted a long breath, as though, his cup being full, he must needs blow off the froth.
"Do you mean to say," he asked, after a pause, "that you helped her to land the stuff?"
"I thought it was Tea."
"And you never examined it?"