Mr. Oxleek for a moment looked blank, but only for a moment. He saw the trap just as he was about to set his foot in it, and withdrew in time.
“Not here,” he remarked, impudently.
“But I must beg your pardon, it is here. You forget. I wrote to you as M.D.”
By this time Mr. Oxleek had seized and lit his short pipe, and was puffing away at it with great vigour.
“You’re come to the wrong shop, I tell you,” he replied, from behind the impenetrable cloud; “we don’t know no ‘M.D.’ nor M.P., nor M. anythink; it’s a mistake.”
“Perhaps if I show you your wife’s writing, you will be convinced?”
“No, I shan’t; it’s all a mistake, I tell you.”
I sat down on a chair.
“Will your wife be long before she returns?” I inquired.
“Can’t say—oh, here she comes; now p’raps you’ll believe that you’re come to the wrong shop. My dear, what do we know about M.D.’s, or advertising, eh?”