I opened the packet of papers then and there, and sat up until six
o'clock the next morning, reading Mrs. Haygarth's letters in Mr. Goodge's
parlour. Very fatiguing occupation for a man of my years. Mr. Goodge's
hospitality began and ended in a cup of coffee. Such coffee! and I
remember the mocha I used to get at Arthur's thirty years ago,--a
Promethean beverage, that illumined the dullest smoking-room bore with a
flash of wit or a glimmer of wisdom.
I enclose the ten letters which I have selected. They appear to me to
tell the history of Mrs. Haygarth and her husband pretty plainly; but
there is evidently something mysterious lurking behind the commonplace
existence of the husband. That is a matter for future consideration. All
I have to do in the present is to keep you as well informed as your
brother. It may strike you that the letters I forward herewith, which are
certainly the cream of the correspondence, and the notes I have made from
the remaining letters, are scarcely worth the money paid for them. In
reply to such an objection, I can only say that you get more for _your_
money than your brother George will get for his.
The hotel at which I have taken up my quarters is but a few paces from
the commoner establishment where Hawkehurst is stopping. He is to call on
Goodge for the letters to-day; so his excursion will be of brief
duration. I find that the name of Haygarth is not unknown in this town,
as there are a family of Judsons, some of whom call themselves Haygarth
Judson.
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