“That seems likely enough,” admitted Leo grudgingly.
“It is plain,” said Billy. “It is there; it must mean something; it means that.”
“Keep that in mind, then, and consider all the other hints in the light of that admitted message. Weigh them and their probable meaning in connection with this plain warning.
“He speaks of Antony’s great oration. He actually quotes two words of it: ‘Honorable men!’ Therefore, it was important; he wished to put unusual emphasis on it. Three other important things were called to our attention by being mentioned twice: one vital point, which I will take up later—in fact, the last of all—was distinctly referred to no less than four times. But this is the only direct quotation in the letter.
“Yet of all the words in the play, these two are precisely the two that least need quoting to bring them to remembrance. No one who has read Antony’s speech will ever forget them. Jeff had no need to reiterate here; Antony has done it for him. They were the very heart and blood of it; the master of magic freighted those two words, in their successive differing expression, with praise, uncertainty, doubt, suspicion, invective, certainty, hate, fury, denunciation and revenge. ‘Honorable men!’ And Thorpe, too, is an honorable man! The Honorable S. S. Thorpe! Is that chance?
“More yet! Jeff went out of the way to drag in the wholly superfluous statement that Antony said some things after that which would bear reading. As a literary criticism this is beneath contempt. The words of Antony, as reported by William Shakspere, would be all that without the seal of his approval. But let us see! He says ‘after’ Cæsar’s funeral oration. Look at the words, Mr. Ballinger. Do you observe anything unusual?”
“I see a blot,” said Leo.
“You see a blot—and you speak of it, unhesitatingly, as unusual. Why? Because Jeff was a man of scrupulous neatness, over-particular, old-maidish. If that blot had been made by accident he would have written the page over again. It was made purposely. And so anxious was he that we should not overlook it, that he has fairly sprinkled the blank half-page below his signature with blots, trusting that we would then notice and study out the other one. Let us do it. ‘After’ the funeral oration, he said—but wait. You look, Mr. Beebe; look closely. Do you see anything else there? Pass your finger over it.”
“I see and feel where he has twice thrust the pen through the paper,” said Billy, changing color. “And I begin to see, and feel, and believe.”
“You mean, doubtless, that you begin to believe and tremble,” said George spitefully. “Now we will find what Antony says ‘after’ the oration, so well worth looking into. Gentlemen, the first words Shakspere puts into Antony’s mouth after the funeral scene are these—and remember it is where the Triumvirs are proscribing senators to death, and that Thorpe was formerly a senator, if only a state senator—hear Mark Antony: