The letter broke off here abruptly. It was evident that the writer had been obliged to close it abruptly, for she had forgotten to sign her name.
"'A description of the case'; what case?" muttered Ruby in vexation. "O Minnie, Minnie, in your anxiety to go into details you have omitted to give me the barest outline. Well, well, darling, I'll just take the will for the deed, but I wish you had——"
Here Ruby ceased to mutter, for Captain Ogilvy's letter suddenly occurred to his mind. Opening it hastily, he read as follows:—
"DEAR NEFFY,—I never was much of a hand at spellin', an' I'm not rightly sure o' that word, howsever, it reads all square, so ittle do. If I had been the inventer o' writin' I'd have had signs for a lot o' words. Just think how much better it would ha' bin to have put a regular [Square] like that instead o' writin' s-q-u-a-r-e. Then round would have bin far better O, like that. An' crooked thus ~~~~~; see how significant an' suggestive, if I may say so; no humbug—all fair an' above-board, as the pirate said, when he ran up the black flag to the peak.
"But avast speckillatin' (shiver my timbers! but that last was a pen-splitter), that's not what I sat down to write about. My object in takin' up the pen, neffy, is two-fold,
'Double, double, toil an' trouble',
as Macbeath said,—if it wasn't Hamlet.
"We want you to come home for a day or two, if you can git leave, lad, about this strange affair. Minnie said she was goin' to give you a full, true, and partikler account of it, so it's of no use my goin' over the same course. There's that blackguard Swankie come for the letters. Ha! it makes me chuckle. No time for more———"
This letter also concluded abruptly, and without a signature.
"There's a pretty kettle o' fish!" exclaimed Ruby aloud.