FullReads

“You were wise as far as you went,” Minver said. “Go on.”

“Well, I told her the whole story circumstantially: how I had kept the sketch religiously in my lap in the train, and then held it down with my hand all the while beside me in the first horse-car, and did the same thing in the Back Bay car I changed to; and felt of it the whole time I was talking with General Filbert, and then left it there when I got out to leave the flowers at her door, when the awful fact came over me like a flash. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Norah said you poked the flowers at her without a word, and she had to guess they were for me.’

“I had got my story pretty glib by this time; I had reeled it off with increasing particulars to the Westchester Park station-master, and the head man at the stables, and General Filbert, and I was so letter-perfect that I had a vision of the whole thing, especially of my talking with the general while I kept my hand on the picture–and then all was dark.

“At the end she said we must advertise for the picture. I said it would kill Blakey if he saw it; and she said: No matter, let it kill him; it would show him that we valued his gift, and were moving heaven and earth to find it; and, at any rate, it would kill me if I kept myself in suspense. I said I should not care for that; but with her sympathy I guessed I could live through the night, and I was sure I should find the thing at the Milk Street office in the morning.

“‘Why,’ said she, ‘to-morrow it’ll be shut!’ and then I didn’t really know what to say, and I agreed to drawing up an advertisement then and there, so as not to lose an instant’s time after I had been at the Milk Street office on Tuesday and found the picture had not been turned in. She said I could dictate the advertisement and she would write it down, and she asked: ‘Which one of his Sorrento things was it? You must describe it exactly, you know.’ That made me feel awfully, and I said I was not going to have my next-to-last Sunday evening with her spoiled by writing advertisements; and I got away, somehow, with all sorts of comforting reassurances from her. I could see that she was feigning them to encourage me.

“The next morning, I simply could not keep away from the Milk Street office, and my unreasonable impatience was rewarded by finding it at least ajar, if not open. There was the nicest kind of a young fellow there, and he said he was not officially present; but what could he do for me? Then I told him the whole story, with details I had not thought of before; and he was just as enthusiastic about my getting my picture as the Westchester Park station-master or the head man of the stables. It was morally certain to be turned in, the first thing in the morning; but he would take a description of it, and send out inquiries to all the conductors and drivers and car-cleaners, and make a special thing of it. He entered into the spirit of the affair, and I felt that I had such a friend in him that I confided a little more and hinted at the double interest I had in the picture. I didn’t pretend that it was one of Blakey’s Sorrento things, but I gave him a full and true description of it, with its length, breadth, and thickness, in exact measure.”

Here Minver’s brother stopped and lost himself in contemplation of the sketch, as he held it at arm’s-length.

“Well, did you get your picture?” I prompted, after a moment.

“Oh yes,” he said, with a quick turn towards me. “This is it. A District Messenger brought it round the first thing Tuesday morning. He brought it,” Minver’s brother added, with a certain effectiveness, “from the florist’s, where I had stopped to get those Mayflowers. I had left it there.”