“He shall be given every chance,” said Barrett. “But don’t you two prize idiots see that we can’t give a real name and address because he would certainly go there?”
“Not a bit of it. He’s as lazy as a pig. He never goes anywhere. He says he hasn’t time. He’s been seccotined into his armchair for the last ten years.”
“I tell you he would go on all fours from here to Ely if he thought there was the chance of a woman looking at him when he got there.”
“Then how is he to answer?” said Parker, who always had to have everything explained to him.
“I am just coming to that. I don’t say anything in the note about the roses, you observe. I am far too maidenly. But I just add one tiny postscript:
‘If you do not regard this little note as an unwarrantable intrusion, please wear one of my roses on Sunday morning at chapel, even if it is faded, as a sign that you have forgiven my presumption in writing these few lines.’”
“That’s not bad,” said Parker suddenly.
“Now,” said Barrett, tossing the sheet over to him, “you copy that out in a fist that you can stick to, because it will be the first of a long correspondence.”
“We’ve not settled her name yet,” I suggested.