If he had had a few minutes
to think it over he would have invented one for the occasion, but
his imagination was not accustomed to such sudden calls, and, on
the question being repeated, he desperately gave the name of his
next-door neighbour, Mr. Henry Fladgate. "Henri Flodgett," repeated
the officer as he wrote it down.
"_Et vous demeurez?_ You live where?" And Quelch proceeded to
give the address of Mr. Fladgate, 11 Primrose Terrace. "_Tres
bien._ I send teleg-r-r-amme. _Au violon!_" And poor Benjamin
was ignominiously marched to the local police station.
Meanwhile Quelch's arrangements at home were scarcely working as
he had intended. The estimable Mrs. Widger, partly by reason of her
deafness and partly of native stupidity, had only half understood
his instructions about the letters. She knew she was to stamp them
and she knew she was to post them, but the dates in the corners
might have been runic inscriptions for any idea they conveyed to
her obfuscated intellect. Accordingly, the first time she visited
her usual house of call, which was early on the morning of Good
Friday, she proceeded, in her own language, to "get the dratted things
off her mind" by dropping them both into the nearest pillar-box.
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