V
But Jinny did not appear on Friday with the musical instrument. Only the unexpected arrived—in the shape of Bundock. That royal messenger was visibly hipped as he delivered the letter to Will.
“A woman’s writing!” he observed reproachfully. “That means dragging me here time and again!”
But Will had broken open the high-class adhesive envelope and was already absorbed in the letter.
“Sir,—Mr. Quarles thanks Mr. William Flynt for his esteemed order, but regrets to inform him that a coach-horn of suitable size for a man is not to be had in Chipstone. They have not even got a little hunting-horn like mine. I will, however, superscribe to Chelmsford and get you one without fail. Trusting for your further patronage,
“Yours truly,
“Daniel Quarles.
“N.B.—All orders carried out—or in—with punctuality and dispatch. Goods sent off without fail to any part of Europe, America, and Australia.
“P.S.—Please inform your hond. parents that as she brought q.f. of groceries that Tuesday I shall not call again till I deliver your instrument.”
So Jinny had got in first in the pen-fight! And her letter bowled him over, not only by its bland assumption that she was already established as his carrier, but by the fluency and scholarship of its style, with its incomprehensible “superscribe” and “q.f.” He felt baffled too and even snubbed by the signature, which gave her a businesslike remoteness, and even a legitimate status as a mere representative of the masculine, besides making him feel he had lost a chance by not sending off one of his many scrawls to the address of this same “Daniel Quarles.” His answer would now require the profoundest excogitation, he felt, as he adjusted her missive between the bank-notes and the glove. There was, moreover, the material problem of vying with this real and fashionable correspondence paper. Ultimately he became conscious that Bundock was still standing at attention.