"Hello, Dick! Got here at last?" and the Captain looked up, and held out his great red hand. "How's the Missus and the girls? Where's that box of things she tells me she gave you?"
"Outside, sir," I squeaked—like Dicky—and simply rushed out. Jim and Dicky had just brought it along, and I dragged it in.
"Umph! Don't spoil my carpet. Where's Willum? Willum!" the Captain shouted, "come and open this box." "Willum"—I never knew his surname—was his valet, and between us we soon had the box open, the Captain all the time asking me questions.
"I had a number of messages for you, sir, from people in Upton Overy. I've got them all—nearly all of them—down in my notebook."
"Where is it?" he growled. "Read 'em out."
But I'd left it down in my chest purposely, so that I could get a "breather", and when I ran down to get it, Jim was waiting for me.
"Anything about the telegram or the jam?" he asked anxiously.
"Not yet; things are going all right so far;" and I raced back and began reading the messages, till I came to the station master's, and then I got red and spluttered a bit and didn't read it, but went on to Ned the Poacher's about the pheasants.
"Like his darned cheek!" the Captain roared, purple in the face. "I'll shoot him the first time I catch him! He knows that, and keeps clear when I'm about. What's become of his wife and kids?"
I told him, and then—I knew it must come out sooner or later—blurted out, "and Puddock, the station master, asked me, sir, to tell you that they were both 'fair to middling', and 'his pigs have won first prize this year at Barnton'. Mrs. Puddock, sir, sent you a pot of cranberry jam, but—but——"