"It is no great mystery," smiled Falkenstein. "I fancy you are acquainted with the unknown."
"You don't mean it!" cried Bella, in a state of ecstasy. "Have you written it, then?"
"I'm afraid I can't lay claim to the honor."
"Who can it be? Oh, do tell me! How enchanting!" cried Miss Cashranger; "I am wild to hear. Somebody I know, you say? Is it—is it Captain Tweed?"
"No, it isn't," laughed Falkenstein. Elliot Tweed—Idiot Tweed, as they all call him—who was hanging after Bella, abhorred all caligraphy, and wrote his own name with one e.
"Mr. Dashaway, then?"
"Dash never scrawled anything but I. O. U.s."
"Lord Flippertygibbett, perhaps?"
"Wrong again. Flip took up a pen once too often, when he signed his marriage register, to have any leanings to goose quills."