The building held all the unmistakable odors of a school room. The smell of chalk dust, mouldy bread crusts, mice, dirty slates and musty books rose up to smite the arrivals. Four rows of pine seats, blackened with ink-daubs and deeply scarred by pocket-knives, ran the entire length of the building. A big box stove stood in the centre of the room, its wavering pipe supported by wires from the ceiling.,
Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence walked towards his ship. He should have been on the whole well satisfied with his meeting with Mr Greyquill. Perhaps the profound indifference which in reality possessed him as to the old scrivener's willingness to accept twenty-five guineas, or, in short, anything as an instalment, was because he had long felt that the old man never durst take extreme action. Greyquill knew that Mr Lawrence was very popular in his own particular way in Old Harbour Town and the neighbourhood. He drank and treated, and in a high degree possessed the liberality of the sailor. The townspeople were proud of him, not only because he was a handsome and finely built man, but because he had shone in many deeds of gallantry whilst in the Navy, and everybody was agreed that when Mr Lawrence was court-martialled the Service lost as fine and plucky a seaman as was ever afloat, and one to be recalled to his duties with apologies and without delay.,
But here he found another little hope; some squalls of wet, one very heavy, had set the kennels running shortly after he had met Mr Greyquill, and if that letter had lain exposed to those three or four deluges, it not only stood to be changed into a mere rag to the eye which none would dream of even glancing at, but the writing must have been washed out to a degree to render the sense of the letter unintelligible. He considered that it was not above two or three hours when that letter was in his pocket, and that it must have fallen somewhere betwixt his father's house and the Minorca in that time, for he had taken the same road to and fro. He reflected that that road was but little used compared with the lane that led to the bridge where the Actons' carriage had stopped. Understanding as a sailor the preciousness of time, and conceiving that if the letter had by some strange mischance fallen during his walk unobserved by him it might still rest in the spot where it had dropped, insomuch that chance—for the fellow was a gambler at heart—might concede him yet an hour, even two hours, in which to find it, he put on his hat and marched out of[Pg 153] the house, just saying to his father in the window that he had an appointment and should miss it if he didn't hasten, and then stepped out, casting as he went to right and left of his path eyes as piercingly scrutinising as those which the madman darts when he seeks for the philosopher's stone..
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