The gentleman laughed.
"Rather an extravagant valuation, considering the present percentage, and my pounds avoirdupois. As for wet blankets, I never did much believe in 'em."
While the governor wrote, Margaret stood at his elbow and watched the extraordinary characters that grew to life beneath his pen.
"Are you sure they will understand what those mean?" she asked timidly.
"They will know the signature," he replied, making a dab over a letter, to indicate that an i was somewhere in the vicinity. "You can use them as cartes—well—noires, I suppose, on the strength of which you are to ask anything you please. Choate and I"—here a polysyllable was dashed across the whole sheet—"had a vocation for lettering tea-boxes, you know. There! now you had better use either of these first, if it is just as convenient, and keep Mr. Lincoln's till the last. But aren't you afraid of being stopped on the way? Everything is in a heap down there."
"So I hear; but I feel as if we shall get through."
"Don't mention to any one about my going, will you?" she whispered, as they went to the door.
He laughed. "To nobody but the council. Good-bye. Good luck to you!"
An hour later she saw the city slowly disappearing as the cars rolled out over the new lands.