"At no cost."
This is still more promising. Why should not we instantly set about making all those people happy?
"All that you have got to do is to get a copy of the Field or of the Times or some such paper."
Yes; and how are we to get any such thing? Rum has no post-office. No mail calls at Canna. Newspapers do not grow on the rocks of Loch Bracadaile.
"However, let us suppose that we have the paper."
"Very well. All you have to do is to sit down and take the advertisements, and write to the people, accepting all their offers on their own terms. The man who wants 500*l.* for his shooting in the autumn; the man who will sell his steam-yacht for 7,000*l,*; the curate who will take in another youth to board at 200*l.* a year; the lady who wants to let her country-house during the London season; all the people who are anxious to sell things. You offer to take them all. If a man has a yacht to let on hire, you will pay for new jerseys for the men. If a man has a house to be let, you will take all the fixtures at his own valuation. All you have to do is to write two or three hundred letters—as an anonymous person, of course—and you make two or three hundred people quite delighted for perhaps a whole week!"
The Laird stared at this young lady as if she had gone mad; but there was only a look of complacent friendliness on Mary Avon's face.
"You mean that you write sham letters?" says her hostess. "You gull those unfortunate people into believing that all their wishes are realised?"
"But you make them happy!" says Mary Avon, confidently.
"Yes—and the disappointment afterwards!" retorts her friend, almost with indignation. "Imagine their disappointment when they find they have been duped! Of course they would write letters and discover that the anonymous person had no existence."