a parcel of fluffy rabbits, whose heads screwed off to permit the
insertion of sweets.

"Oh, papa, you'll be saying 'Confound Christmas' next!"

And Doreen, with one watchful eye on Dudley all the time, made a lane
through her boxes and her hampers to admit the passage of her father to
a chair.

By this time Dudley had recovered himself a little, and was able to
answer the question Mr. Wedmore now put to him.

"What do you think of that, Horne?"

"I think, sir, that it must be more than a coincidence; that Mrs. Jacobs
must be the wife of the man who was my father's manager."

"Well, I think so, too. I know Jacobs's wife had an impediment in her
speech. The odd part of the business is that he should have disappeared
at Limehouse, the very place where one would have thought he would have
an objection to turning up at all, connected as it was with his old
peculations. I suppose he thought they were forgotten by this time."

"I suppose so."

Dudley still looked very white. He took up the paper again, as if to
re-read the paragraph. But Doreen, from her post of vantage on the
floor, saw that he held it before him with eyes fixed. Mr. Wedmore,
after a little hesitation, and after vainly trying to get another look
at the face of the younger man, went on again: