which is a great saving . . . looks in often and sits in the
     parlour.  He says as you have Done Well to be . . . Wave, but
     misdoubts Simon, which I tell him must be wrong, for it was him
     that advised . . . the fuss and warned against liquor, which he
     never took Himself.  Jenny is so Fond of her Books, and says she
     will teech you to write when you come home, which will be a
     great Comfort, you being away so long and never a word.  And I
     am doing wonders under her teaching, which I dare say she will
     let you know of it all in the letter she is writing to go along
     with this . . .  Simon to write for you, who is a . . . scholar,
     which is natural . . . in the office.  So that I wonder he left
     it, having no taste for the sea that ever I heard . . . be the
     making of you both.  I forgot to tell . . . very strange when he
     left, but what with the hurry and bussle it slipped my mind
     . . . wonderful to me to think of, my talking to you so natural
     . . . distance.  And so no more at present from your loving
     wife,”
              “LUCY RAILTON.”

“Jenny says . . . will not alter, being more like as if it came
from me.  Munny is very scarce.  I wish you could get . . .”

This was all, and small enough, as I thought, was the light it threw on the problem before us.  Uncle Loveday read it over three or four times; then folded up the letter and looked at me over his spectacles.

“You say this cut-throat fellow—­this Rhodojani, as he called himself—­spoke English?”

“As well as we do.  He and the other spoke English all the time.”

“H’m!  And he talked about a Jenny, did he?”

“He was saying something about ‘Jenny not finding a husband’ when John Railton struck him.”

“Then it’s clear as daylight that he’s called Simon, and not Georgio.  Also if I ever bet (though far be it from me) I would bet my buttons that his name is no more Rhodojani than mine is Methuselah.”

He paused for a moment, absorbed in thought; then resumed—­

“This Lucy Railton is John Railton’s wife and keeps a public-house called the ‘Welcome Home!’ on the Barbican, Plymouth.  Simon, that is to say Rhodojani, was in love with Lucy Railton, and his conduct, says she, was strange before leaving; but he pretended to be John Railton’s friend, and, from what you say, must have had an astonishing influence over the unhappy man.  Simon, we learn, is a scholar,” pursued my uncle, after again consulting the letter, “and I see the word ‘office’ here, which makes it likely that he was a clerk of some kind, who took to the sea for some purpose of his own, and induced Railton to go with him, perhaps for the same purpose, perhaps for another.  Anyhow, it seems it was high time for Railton to go somewhere, for besides the references to liquor, which tally with Simon’s words upon Dead Man’s Rock, we also meet with the ominous words ‘the fuss,’ wherein, Jasper, I find the definite article not without meaning.”