Lettigne followed the other's finger. "Good night!" he ejaculated.
"Have I been giving a display of my unequalled talents for the benefit of
the man who has caused me more sleepless nights than Euclid himself?
Here is poor old George Robey been shouting himself hoarse too——"
"And I haven't even looked at my mail yet," said Harcourt, drawing an unopened letter from his pocket. He slit the envelope and sat down in the vacated arm-chair. It was from his sister at school in Eastbourne, and enclosed another written in a vaguely familiar hand. Boy like he read the enclosure first:
DEAR FATHER [it ran],—I have just put my name down for the boxing championship, and I'll do my best to win, because I know how awfully keen you are. All the same, I think it's a pity you took up that bet with Harcourt's father at the club. He probably can afford to lose and you can't. There are lots of things that Mother wants that ten pounds would buy. Besides, Harcourt is my best friend, and if we both get into the finals it would be beastly and like fighting for money. I wish you hadn't told me. I must end now. With love to Mother and Dick. In haste. Your loving son,
BILLY.
Harcourt, grown suddenly rather pale, picked up his sister's letter and read with puzzled brows:
DEAR HARRY,—When I opened your last letter I found the enclosed. It had evidently been put in by mistake, because the envelope was in your handwriting. I am sending it back….
Harcourt pursed up his lips into a whistling shape and refolded the enclosure. It was in Mordaunt's handwriting. But how did it get into the envelope he himself had addressed to his sister?
At that moment Mordaunt came across the mess holding out a letter.
"Harcourt," he said, "my father has just sent me this letter. Isn't it your handwriting?"
Harcourt took the sheet of paper and glanced at it. "Yes," he said, "it's one I wrote to my sister for her birthday. And here's one that she has just sent back to me. Is it yours by any chance?"