228 GARRYOWEN 



" Disaster. But it's not so much what has 

 happened as what may happen. Effie — " 



" Has she had an accident? " 



" No, she hasn't had an accident, but the Kttle 

 stupid posted a letter yesterday morning to Mr 

 Giveen." 



" A letter to him ! Who wrote it? " 



" She did. She wanted to make an April fool 

 of him, so she wrote ' April Fool ' on a piece of 

 paper, put it in an envelope, directed it, and 

 posted it." 



" Good heavens ! He'll know your address now, 

 and give Lewis warning, and you'll have the 

 bailiffs in and the horse will be seized! " 



" Exactly." 



" But stay a moment," said Dashwood. " Did 

 she put any address on the paper? " 



" No. An April Fool letter Kke that isn't gener- 

 ally addressed from anywhere, is it? But the 

 post-mark — " 



" I was thinking of that," said Mr Dashwood. 



"The only thing is this," said she. "The 

 post-mark mayn't be legible. Some of these 

 country post-offices use die stamps that are nearly 

 worn out. Now, can you remember — I have 

 written you several letters since we came here, 

 asking you to bring down things from London — 

 can you remember whether the post-marks were 

 legible or not? " 



" No," said Mr Dashwood, " I can't." Then, 

 blushing furiously, " But we'll soon see." 



i 



