"Dear Mr. Etheridge—I've got—you know what. It is all right. Nothing more need be said. Be a good boy for the future."
"Yours truly,
"Harry Halliday."
"How's that?" he asked, handing the note to Jasper.
Jasper looked up; he was bending over his desk, apparently writing a letter, and looked up with an absent expression.
"Eh?" he said. "Oh, yes; that will do. Stop though, to set his mind quite at rest, better say that you have destroyed it—as you have, see!" and he took the envelope and held it over the taper until it burnt down nearly to his finger, dropping the remaining fragment on the desk and allowing it to turn and smolder away.
The captain added the line to that effect.
"Now your man can run with it, if you'll be so good."
Jasper smiled.
"No," he said. "I think not. I'll send a commissionaire."
He rang the bell and took up the letter.
"Send this by the commissionaire," he said. "There is no answer. Tell him to give it in and come away."