Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/181

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back and let her pass. The editor went back slowly to his room. His friends had relighted their pipes.

“Appeased the outraged goddess?” asked one of them.

“Good old Aunt Kate!” said the other.

“Shut up, Sellars!” said the editor, frowning.

“Now, which of your correspondents is it?” pondered Sellars, ruffling the bundle of papers in his hand. “Is it ‘Wild Woodbine,’ who wants to know what will make her hands white? Chilcott, did you see her hands? Oh no, of course—bien chaussée, bien gantée. All brown, too. Is it ‘Sylph’?—no; she wants a pattern for a Zouave. What is a Zouave, if you please, Mr Editor?”

“Dry up!” said the editor, but Sellars was busy with the papers.

“Eureka! I know her. She’s ‘Nut-brown Maid’—here’s the letter—wants to know if she may talk to ‘a young gentleman she has not been properly introduced to’—spells it ‘interoduced,’ too——

The editor snatched the papers out of the other’s hands.

“Now clear out,” said he; “I’m busy.”

“Am I dreaming?” said Sellars pensively; “