I could have knocked him down; but he would have his say out—­’old Grimes knows not that I have the letter—­I must get back to him before he misses it—­I only make a pretence to go out for a few minutes—­but—­but’—­and then the dog laughed again—­’he must stay—­old Grimes must stay—­till I go back to pay the reckoning.’

D—­n the prater; grinning rascal!  The letter!  The letter!

He gathered in his wide mothe, as he calls it, and gave me the letter; but with a strut, rather than a bow; and then sidled off like one of widow Sorlings’s dunghill cocks, exulting after a great feat performed.  And all the time that I was holding up the billet to the light, to try to get at its contents without breaking the seal, [for, dispatched in a hurry, it had no cover,] there stood he, laughing, shrugging, playing off his legs; now stroking his shining chin, now turning his hat upon his thumb! then leering in my face, flourishing with his head—­O Christ! now-and-then cried the rascal—­

What joy has this dog in mischief!—­More than I can have in the completion of my most favourite purposes!—­These fellows are ever happier than their masters.

I was once thinking to rumple up this billet till I had broken the seal.  Young families [Miss Howe’s is not an ancient one] love ostentatious sealings:  and it might have been supposed to have been squeezed in pieces in old Grimes’s breeches-pocket.  But I was glad to be saved the guilt as well as suspicion of having a hand in so dirty a trick; for thus much of the contents (enough for my purpose) I was enabled to scratch out in character without it; the folds depriving me only of a few connecting words, which I have supplied between hooks.

My Miss Harlowe, thou knowest, had before changed her name to Miss Laetitia Beaumont.  Another alias now, Jack, to it; for this billet was directed to her by the name of Mrs. Harriot Lucas.  I have learned her to be half a rogue, thou seest.

’I congratulate you, my dear, with all my heart and soul, upon [your escape] from the villain. [I long] for the particulars of all. [My mother] is out; but, expecting her return every minute, I dispatched [your] messenger instantly. [I will endeavour to come at] Mrs. Townsend without loss of time; and will write at large in a day or two, if in that time I can see her. [Mean time I] am excessively uneasy for a letter I sent you yesterday by Collins, [who must have left it at] Wilson’s after you got away. [It is of very] great importance. [I hope the] villain has it not.  I would not for the world [that he should.] Immediately send for it, if, by doing so, the place you are at [will not be] discovered.  If he has it, let me know it by some way [out of] hand.  If not, you need not send.

’Ever, ever your’s,
’A.H. 
‘June 9.’

***

O Jack! what heart’s-ease does this interception give me!—­I sent the rascal back with the letter to old Grimes, and charged him to drink no deeper.  He owned, that he was half-seas over, as he phrased it.