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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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952 ‘I disappointed!’ cried Nicholas; ‘am I interested?’ ‘I think you are,’ replied Newman. ‘I have a crotchet in my head that it must be so. I have found out a man, who plainly knows more than he cares to tell at once. And he has already dropped such hints to me as puzzle me--I say, as puzzle me,’ said Newman, scratching his red nose into a state of violent inflammation, and staring at Nicholas with all his might and main meanwhile. Admiring what could have wound his friend up to such a pitch of mystery, Nicholas endeavoured, by a series of questions, to elucidate the cause; but in vain. Newman could not be drawn into any more explicit statement than a repetition of the perplexities he had already thrown out, and a confused oration, showing, How it was necessary to use the utmost caution; how the lynx-eyed Ralph had already seen him in company with his unknown correspondent; and how he had baffled the said Ralph by extreme guardedness of manner and ingenuity of speech; having prepared himself for such a contingency from the first. Remembering his companion’s propensity,--of which his nose, indeed, perpetually warned all beholders like a beacon,--Nicholas had drawn him into a sequestered tavern. Here, they fell to reviewing the origin and progress of their acquaintance, as men sometimes do, and tracing out the little events by which it was most strongly marked, came at last to Miss Cecilia Bobster. ‘And that reminds me,’ said Newman, ‘that you never told me the young lady’s real name.’ ‘Madeline!’ said Nicholas. ‘Madeline!’ cried Newman. ‘What Madeline? Her other name. Say her other name.’ ‘Bray,’ said Nicholas, in great astonishment. |
