CHAPTER XVII
THE faithful Cousin Edward had carried the sheets of “Evelina” to Mr. Lowndes's shop, with her list of errata, sisters Lottie and Susy giving him ample instructions as to the disguise he should assume in discharging that duty; it would be terrible, they thought, if the secret which they had so carefully guarded for so long should be revealed just when it was most important that it should be kept. Their imagination was keen enough to suggest to them the possibility of good Mr. Lowdnes setting a watch upon the people entering his shop, and giving instructions that the bearer of the parcel of “Evelina” should be detained and brought into his presence to be questioned.
They advised that Edward should muffle up his face well before going into the shop, and then lay down his parcel and fly like the wind—that would be the best way of defeating the curiosity of the bookseller.
But Edward was of the opinion that such a course of action might possibly only stimulate the man's curiosity as well as that of the people in the street, and the cry of “Stop thief!” might bring his frantic flight to a standstill. He thought that the most artful course to adopt would be to hang around the shop until he found that several customers were within; then he would enter quite casually and wait until Mr. Lowndes had served one customer and was about to attend to another. If the parcel were thrust into his hands during this interval, he, Edward, would have a good chance of getting safely away before Mr. Lowndes should have time to examine its contents.
They were rather struck with his idea, and he got permission to put it into practice; but in any case he must take the greatest care of the parcel; valuable parcels were snatched out of people's hands every day.
He smiled.
In another hour he was back at the house in St. Martin's Street to report to them the safe delivery of the precious parcel. After all, he had had nothing more exciting to do than to place it on a counter—the elderly gentleman with a pen behind his ear had not even taken the trouble to rise from his stool to receive it.
“Parcel for Mr. Lowndes? All right. Leave it there”—those were the exact words with which the parcel was received, Edward reported—the clerk was buried in his ledger before he had left the shop.
The girls were not a little disappointed at this very tame conclusion of what they expected would have been an exciting episode; and to say the truth, their chagrin was shared by Cousin Edward.