“I see you have on your desk a small blue candle; employed, I assume, for melting wax for your private seal,” she went on. “May I trouble your Excellency to light the aforesaid candle?”
The Secretary promptly struck a match, and managed with a most unsteady hand to touch it to the wick.
As the flame flared up, she drew a narrow envelope from her bag and tossed it on the desk before him.
“Now,” said she, “will you be kind enough to look at the enclosure.”
The Secretary took up the envelope and drew out the sheet. It was a single sheet of the thinnest texture used for foreign correspondence. He looked first at one side, then at the other.
“What do you see, sir?” she asked.
“The sheet is blank,” he replied.
“Try the envelope,” she recommended.
He turned it over. “It also is blank,” he said.
“Sympathetic ink!” Carpenter laughed.