"I wish more could be done to find out," said she for the twentieth time to Fenwick one evening, shortly after the musical recital of last chapter. "I don't feel as if it was right to give up advertising. Suppose the poor thing is in Australia or America."
"The poor thing is my hypothetical wife?"
"Exactly so. Well, suppose she is. Some people never see any newspapers at all. And all the while she may have been advertising for you."
"Oh no; we should have been sure to see or hear."
"But why? Now I ask you, Mr. Fenwick, suppose she advertised half a dozen times in the 'Melbourne Argus' or the 'New York Sun,' would you have seen it, necessarily?"
"I should not, because I never see the 'Melbourne Argus' or the 'New York Sun.' But those agents we paid to look out go steadily through the agony columns—the personal advertisements—of the whole world's press; they would have found it if it had ever been published."
"I dare say they only pocketed the money."
"That they did, no doubt. But they gave me something for it. A hundred and twenty-three advertisements addressed to Fenwicks—none of them to me!"
"But have we advertised enough?"
"Oh, heavens, yes. Think of the answers we've had! I've just received the hundred and forty-second. From a lady in distressed circumstances who bought a piano ten years ago from a party of my name and initials—thought I might be inclined to buy it back at half-price. She proposes to call on me early next week."