At a telegraph office he seized the pencil and wrote the following message:
Will call for you to-night after performance.
To this he signed his own name.
"What about me?" I suggested, after glancing over his shoulder at the message.
"Oh, well," said he, "there's no use in going into all that in a telegram. It's sufficient to let her know that one of us is coming."
"Well," he gave in, with an air of pained patience, "what shall I say, then? Shall I add that you are unavoidably detained?"
"Not by a jugful!" I returned. "Add that I hope to get there too, and will make every effort to do so."
He wrote it out, sighing as he did so. Then, by careful cutting, he got it down to fourteen words. By that time the operator couldn't read it, so he wrote it out again—gloomily.
This accomplished, we matched coins to see who should pay for the message. He lost.