"Oh, Bones, you humbug!" she laughed.
Bones drew himself up more stiffly than ever, stuck his monocle in his eye, and turned to his chief.
"Do I understand, sir," he said, "that my leave is granted?"
"Seven days," said Hamilton, and Bones swung round on his heel, knocked over Hamilton's stationery rack, stumbled over a chair, and strode gloomily from the hut.
When Patricia Hamilton woke the next morning, she found a note pinned to her pillow.
We may gloss over the impropriety of the proceedings which led to this phenomenon. Bones was an artist, and so small a matter as the proprieties did not come into his calculations.
Patricia sat up in bed and read the letter.
"Dear Old Friend and Doutting Thos."
(Bones's spelling was always perfectly disgraceful),—
"When this reaches you, when this reaches you, I shall be far, far away on my long and dangerus journey. I may not come back, I may not come back, for I and a faithful servant are about to penetrate to the lares of the wild beasts of the forest, of the forest. I am determined to wipe out the reproach which you have made. I will bring back, not a dead leppard, not a dead leppard, but a live one, which I shall seeze with my own hands. I may lose my life in this rash and hazardus enterprise, but at least I shall vindycate my honour.—Farewell, dear old Patrisia.
"Your friend,