"Where are those letters now?"
"With the Governor of the Company." Tybalt cut the tobacco for his pipe
savagely. "You'd have liked one of those papers?" asked Pierre
provokingly.
"I'd give five hundred dollars for one," broke out Tybalt.
Pierre lifted his eyebrows. "T'sh, what's the good of five hundred
dollars up here? What would you do with a letter like that?"
Tybalt laughed with a touch of irony, for Pierre was clearly "rubbing it
in."
"Perhaps for a book?" gently asked Pierre.
"Yes, if you like."
"It is a pity. But there is a way."
"How?"
"Put me in the book. Then--"
"How does that touch the case?"
Pierre shrugged a shoulder gently, for he thought Tybalt was unusually
obtuse. Tybalt thought so himself before the episode ended.
"Go on," he said, with clouded brow, but interested eye. Then, as if
with sudden thought: "To whom were the letters addressed, Pierre?"
"Wait!" was the reply. "One letter said: 'Good cousin, We are evermore
glad to have thee and thy most excelling mistress near us. So, fail us
not at our cheerful doings, yonder at Highgate.' Another--a year after--
said: 'Cousin, for the sweetening of our mind, get thee gone into some
distant corner of our pasturage--the farthest doth please us most. We
would not have thee on foreign ground, for we bear no ill-will to our
brother princes, and yet we would not have thee near our garden of good
loyal souls, for thou hast a rebel heart and a tongue of divers tunes.
Thou lovest not the good old song of duty to thy prince. Obeying us,
thy lady shall keep thine estates untouched; failing obedience, thou wilt
make more than thy prince unhappy. Fare thee well.' That was the way of
two letters," said Pierre.
"How do you remember so?"