"If you offer me a thousand guineas for
this box I MUST take it. Mustn't I, dear gr-nny?"
The table most distinctly said, "Yes;" and putting out his claws to
seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked nose into it, and eagerly
inhaled some of my 47 with a dash of Hardman.
"But stay, you old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and
quite familiar with him. "Where is the money? Where is the check?"
"James, a piece of note-paper and a receipt stamp!"
"This is all mighty well, sir," I said, "but I don't know you; I never
saw you before. I will trouble you to hand me that box back again, or
give me a check with some known signature."
"Whose? Ha, Ha, HA!"
The room happened to be very dark. Indeed, all the waiters were gone to
supper, and there were only two gentlemen snoring in their respective
boxes. I saw a hand come quivering down from the ceiling--a very pretty
hand, on which was a ring with a coronet, with a lion rampant gules for
a crest. I SAW THAT HAND TAKE A DIP OF INK AND WRITE ACROSS THE PAPER.
Mr. Pinto, then, taking a gray receipt-stamp out of his blue leather
pocket-book, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process; and the
hand then wrote across the receipt-stamp, went across the table and
shook hands with Pinto, and then, as if waving him an adieu, vanished in
the direction of the ceiling.
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