Major Benjy was certainly rather gay and rather indistinct, but his polite gallantry could not fail to be attractive. It was naughty of him to have said that he went to bed early on alternate nights, but really… Still, it might be better to slip away unrecognized, and, thinking it would be nice to scriggle by him and disappear in the mist, she made a tactical error in her scriggling, for she scriggled full into the light that streamed from the open door where Captain Puffin was standing.
He gave a shrill laugh.
“Why, it’s Miss Mapp,” he said in his high falsetto. “Blow me, if it isn’t our mutual friend Miss Mapp. What a ’strordinary coincidence.”
Miss Mapp put on her most winning smile. To be dignified and at the same time pleasant was the proper way to deal with this situation. Gentlemen often had a glass of grog when they thought the ladies had gone upstairs. That was how, for the moment, she summed things up.
“Good evening,” she said. “I was just going down to the pillar-box to post a letter,” and she exhibited her envelope. But it dropped out of her hand, and the Major picked it up for her.
“I’ll post it for you,” he said very pleasantly. “Save you the trouble. Insist on it. Why, there’s no stamp on it! Why, there’s no address on it! I say, Puffie, here’s a letter with no address on it. Forgotten the address, Miss Mapp? Think they’ll remember it at the post office? Well, that’s one of the mos’ comic things I ever came across. An, an anonymous letter, eh?”
The night air began to have a most unfortunate effect on Puffin. When he came out it would have been quite unfair to have described him as drunk. He was no more than gay and ready to go to bed. Now he became portentously solemn, as the cold mist began to do its deadly work.
“A letter,” he said impressively, “without an address is an uncommonly dangerous thing. Hic! Can’t tell into whose hands it may fall. I would sooner go ’bout with a loaded pistol than with a letter without any address. Send it to the bank for safety. Send for the police. Follow my advice and send for the p’lice. Police!”
Miss Mapp’s penetrating mind instantly perceived that that dreadful Captain Puffin was drunk, and she promised herself that Tilling should ring with the tale of his excesses to-morrow. But Major Benjy, whom, if she mistook not, Captain Puffin had been trying, with perhaps some small success, to lead astray, was a gallant gentleman still, and she conceived the brilliant but madly mistaken idea of throwing herself on his protection.
“Major Benjy,” she said, “I will ask you to take me home. Captain Puffin has had too much to drink——”