The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch.
“How soon can you shove her through?”
The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length of the despatch.
“Now,” he answered promptly.
“And she gets there?”
“To-night. But there's no delivery until to-morrow.”
“Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left here for delivery.”
The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay for expedition, replied that he would lay this proposition with the despatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and read it—and re-read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy,—had doubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages,—but nevertheless, when he finished, he raised his eyes inquiringly to his customer. That gentleman, who enjoyed a reputation for equal spontaneity of temper and revolver, met his gaze a little impatiently. The operator had recourse to a trick. Under the pretence of misunderstanding the message, he obliged the sender to repeat it aloud for the sake of accuracy, and even suggested a few verbal alterations, ostensibly to insure correctness, but really to extract further information. Nevertheless, the man doggedly persisted in a literal transcript of his message. The operator went to his instrument hesitatingly.
“I suppose,” he added half-questioningly, “there ain't no chance of a mistake. This address is Rightbody, that rich old Bostonian that everybody knows. There ain't but one?”
“That's the address,” responded the first speaker coolly.