After a few moments' hunting about among my correspondence—letters I have kept over two or three years which I need to refer to again—he produced an envelope and, in a triumph of silence, gave it into my hands.
I opened it. Then, when I saw the address stamped on the top of the note-paper, it all came back to me. The Rosary—Ballysheen.
"Why, Townshend!" said I.
Moxon inclined his head with dignity, like a conjuror who has produced the card from the hair of a lady in the audience.
"My dear A.H.," ran the letter, "The floods are all over and all our pools are stocked. We shall have the best season we've ever had. There's a rod tired of hanging here for you. Come and flog the water for a week—only come at once. Yours—F.H. Townshend."
"That was the 18th of April—two years ago," said I.
"You didn't go, sir."
Of course I had not gone. Should I have forgotten Ballysheen if I had? That was the time we went to Algiers, and I glanced at Dandy.
"You can go to bed, Moxon," said I, and therewith I sat down at my desk and pulled out a clean sheet of note-paper.
"Good-night, sir."