“Make the letter very strong,” Charles suggested. “The more extraordinary and whimsical it is, the more poor deluded Marmaduke will be delighted. Poor fellow, if it is hard to make it out, he will stammer over it till his face and hands get damp with sweat.”
“Doesn’t he understand French very well?” Henry asked.
“None of us do,” Charles dolefully acknowledged.
“Well, is he in the habit of wandering through the dictionary?”
“I—don’t—know,” said Charles, wondering what Henry was driving at now.
“Well, then, I will run the risk,” said the master-plotter, like the hero he was.
Not allowing the curious boys to ask any questions, he continued: “As you don’t understand French very well, I must read the letter carefully to you to-morrow, for it would be jolly fun if none of you could make it out. Well, fire ahead, and I’ll write; but after I polish it, your letter may be very different from the original draft.”
With that he produced pencil and paper, and then slowly, like a blood-thirsty author hatching his plot, a draught was made of the letter; each particular, as it occurred to the boys, being set down at random. When finished, it was, like Will’s letter, so incoherent that it would give a person a headache to read it. But in their own room that night Henry wrote and “polished,” whilst Will looked for words and phrases in his dictionary. They worked long and carefully, and about midnight the letter was transcribed for the last time; and with dizzy head and heavy, blinking eyes, poor Henry tumbled into bed, saying, drowsily, “I have portentous ap—apprehensions that by—by to-morrow night—I shall need—need some—some Cayenne pepper mixture.”
But he slept long and well, and felt himself again the next morning.
We give the letter in French, just as Henry wrote it. This is not done because of a morbid love of writing something in a foreign language—which seems to be so strong in some people, whether they understand it or not—but because of three very good reasons: First, to show the length to which the boys went in carrying out their plot; secondly, to give the good-natured reader an insight into Henry’s character—for a man is best known by his writings; thirdly, because it is a well-known fact that intelligent youths who are studying a foreign language have an eager desire to read, or attempt to read, whatever they can find in that language; and it is well to gratify such healthy desires.