“Let me see it, Larry,” said the captain, sitting down on an empty pork cask.
Larry handed him the missive, and he read as follows:—
“San Francisco.
“Edward Sinton, Esquire, Little Creek Diggings.
“My Dear Sir,—I have just time before the post closes, to say that I only learned a few days ago that you were at Little Creek, otherwise I should have written sooner, to say that—”
Here the captain seemed puzzled. “Now, ain’t that aggravatin’?” he said; “the seal has torn away the most important bit o’ the letter. I wish I had the villains by the nose that opened it! Look here, Larry, can you guess what it was?”
Larry took the letter, and, after scrutinising it with intense gravity and earnestness, returned it, with the remark, that it was “beyant him entirely.”
“That—that—” said the captain, again attempting to read, “that—somethin’—great success; so you and Captain Bunting had better come down at once.
“Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours faithfully, John Thomson.”
“Now,” remarked the captain, with a look of chagrin, as he laid down the letter, folded his hands together, and gazed into Larry’s grave visage, “nothin’ half so tantalisin’ as that has happened to me since the time when my good ship, the Roving Bess, was cast ashore at San Francisco.”