"Here, give it me," said little Jane's master, and grasped it nervously.
"What's in that letter?" Van Diemen asked. "Let me look at that letter.
Don't tell me it's private correspondence."
"My dear Philip, dear friend, kind thanks; it's not a letter," said
Tinman.
"Not a letter! why, I read the address, 'Horse Guards.' I read it as it
passed into your hands. Now, my man, one look at that letter, or take the
consequences."
"Kind thanks for your assistance, dear Philip, indeed! Oh! this? Oh! it's
nothing." He tore it in halves.
His face was of the winter sea-colour, with the chalk wash on it.
"Tear again, and I shall know what to think of the contents," Van Diemen
frowned. "Let me see what you've said. You've sworn you would do it, and
there it is at last, by miracle; but let me see it and I'll overlook it,
and you shall be my house-mate still. If not!----"
Tinman tore away.
"You mistake, you mistake, you're entirely wrong," he said, as he pursued
with desperation his task of rendering every word unreadable.
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