"Miss CAROWTHERS was so excited by your sudden flight, Miss POTTS," said
the latter, "that she came at once to me and OLDY with your farewell
note, and would not stop saying 'Did you ever!' until, to restrain my
aggravated mother from fits, I promised to follow you to your guardian's
and ascertain what your good-bye note would have meant if it had
actually been punctuated."

"Our reverend friend reached me about an hour ago," added Mr. DIBBLE,
"saying, that a farewell note without a comma, colon, semi-colon, or
period in it, and with every other word beginning with a capital, and
underscored, was calculated to drive friends to distraction. I took the
liberty of reminding him, my dear, that young girls from boarding-school
should hardly be expected to have advanced as far as English composition
in their French and musical studies; and I also related to him what you
had told me of Mr. BUMSTEAD."

"And I don't know that, under the circumstances, you could do a better
thing than you have done," continued the Gospeler. "Mr. BUMSTEAD,
himself, explains your flight upon the supposition that you were
possibly engaged with myself, my mother, Mr. DIBBLE, and the PENDRAGONS,
in killing poor Mr. DROOD."

"Oh, oughtn't he to be ashamed of himself, when he knows that I never
did kill any absurd creature!" cried the Flowerpot, in earnest
deprecation. "And just think of darling MAGNOLIA, too, with her poor,
ridiculous brother! You're a lawyer, Mr. DIBBLE and I should think you
could get them a _habeas corpus_, or a divorce, or some other perfectly
absurd thing about courts, that would make the judges tell the juries to
bring them in Not Guilty."