"Indeed!" said George. "Have you seen any of my people lately?"
"Your uncle, of course," the landlord responded.
George's heart almost stopped beating. What if this uncle were in New York at present? How foolish it was for him to have undertaken any venture so certain of detection and surrounded with so many obstacles!
"Oh, yes, yes!" went on the landlord. "He told me you were coming."
"I wish I could see him," said George—adding to himself, "From a place where he could not see me."
"He will be away for some time. He has gone to Connecticut," said his host.
"Ah! indeed!" quoth young Frothingham, with a sigh of relief. Then he added, below his breath, "I wish it were Kamchatka. I forgot that I had an uncle. This will never do." But the humor of the situation struck him, and he smiled.
Sitting near a window he watched the groups passing up and down the street. How easy it had been; no danger had confronted him as yet. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. He began to whistle softly to himself; then suddenly stopped and fairly shivered. The air he had been whistling was "The White Cockade." He remembered how that tune and "Yankee Doodle" had stirred the half-starving soldiers on the banks of the Delaware. And this reminded him of something else.
"Take care, Richard Blount, take care," he said, "or your Yankee blood will get the better of you."
He wrinkled his forehead in a perplexed way for a minute, and placed his hand inside his coat. Yes, there it was, sewed up with the rest—the letter of poor Luke Bonsall to his mother. It would be a sad thing to break the news, but it was a trust. At last he went up stairs to his room, and ripped the letters from his waistcoat lining. He had pasted the cipher alphabet on a stiff bit of leather which hung from a cord around his neck. Tacked loosely over it, so as to hide it carefully, was a miniature of none other than Aunt Clarissa in her days of youth and beauty. It was the only one he could procure, and a safe hiding-place it would have made, for no one would have thought of looking back of a lady's portrait, and especially Aunt Clarissa's, for an important Yankee cipher. The magnifying-glass was covered with snuff in his small round snuff-box. He lit a candle, and began to write carefully and laboriously. It was late at night when he had finished. His chamber window opened upon a sloping roof which was bordered by a high stone wall. It was but the work of a moment to slip from the wall to the ground. He found himself in Waddell Lane. The despatch which he had written with the aid of the hieroglyphics was safe in his pocket, and now for the post-box of the conspirators.