"What of that? There is no difficulty in buying a pair of lady's gloves, surely?"
"And the advertisement," continued Mr. Hink, still in a befogged frenzy. "The ring answers exactly to the description."
"I am afraid that you are rather a dense young man," said the earl impatiently. "The ring answers to the advertisement, of course, because the advertisement was written to fit the ring. For a few shillings it is as easy for anyone to send an advertisement to a paper as it is to buy a brass ring. But the glove—'m, yes; the glove was decidedly neat. I should prophesy that your friend has a career before him."
If any of "the fellows from the shop" had chanced to be in Belgrave Square a minute later they would certainly have had to admit, despite their general scepticism, that Mr. Hink was walking out of the Earl of Saxmundham's house by the front door. But on second thoughts Mr. Hink was not sorry to miss them at that moment, and, fortunately enough that chaste neighbourhood was quite deserted, for not even a solitary vagrant was then in sight.
Muswell Hill, 1900.
