“I was sayin’,” I answered, “that the mail-boat left you a letter.”
He came close. “Was you sayin’,” he whispered in my ear, with a jerk of his head to the north, “that ’tis from——”
I nodded.
“She?”
“Ay.”
He put his tongue in his cheek—and gave me a slow, sly wink. “Ecod!” said he.
I was then mystified by his strange behaviour: this occurring while he made ready for the splitting-table. He chuckled, he tweaked his long nose until it flared, he scratched his head, he sighed, he scowled, he broke into vociferous laughter; and he muttered “Ecod!” an innumerable number of times, voicing, thereby, the gamut of human emotions and the degrees thereof, from lowest melancholy to a crafty sort of cynicism and thence to the height of smug elation. And, presently, when he had peered down the path to the stage, where the twins were forking the fish, he approached, stepping mysteriously, his gigantic forefinger raised in a caution to hush.
“Davy,” he whispered, “you isn’t got that letter aboard o’ you, is you?”
My heart misgave me; but—I nodded.
“Well, well!” cried he. “I’m thinkin’,” he added, his surprise somewhat mitigated by curiosity, “that you’ll be havin’ it in your jacket pocket.”