“I rather think not.”
“Had you a male cousin or relative of the same name with yourself whom he did like?”
“Then allow me to congratulate you on your good fortune, and read that,” said Hans, giving him the newspaper.
Charlie read.
“If this should meet the eye of Charles Considine, formerly of Golden Square, Hotchester, he is requested to return without delay to England, or to communicate with Aggard, Ale, and Ixley, Solicitors, 23a Fitzbustaway Square, London.”
“Most amazing!” exclaimed Considine, after a pause, “and there can be no doubt it refers to me, for these were my uncle’s solicitors—most agreeable men—who gave me the needful to fit me out, and it was their chief clerk—a Roman-nosed jovial sort of fellow, named Rundle something or other—who accompanied me to the ship when I left, and wished me a pleasant voyage, with a tear, or a drop of rain, I’m not sure which, rolling down his Roman nose. Well, but, as I said before, isn’t it an astonishing coincidence?”
“It wasn’t you who said that before, it was I,” returned Hans, “but we must make allowance for your state of mind. And now, as we’re nearing the camp, what is it to be—silence?”
“Silence, of course,” said Charlie. “There’s no fear of Bowker reading the advertisements through, he has far too much literary taste for that, and even if he did, he’s not likely to stumble on this one. So let’s be silent.”
There was anything but silence in the camp, however, when the friends reached it and reported their want of luck; for the warriors were then in the first fervour of appealing their powerful appetites.
Next morning they started at sunrise.