now!"

Mr. Trollop did not spring to his feet and smite his brow with his hand
while a cold sweat broke out all over him and the color forsook his face
--no, he only said, "Good God!" and looked greatly astonished.

Laura handed him her commonplace-book and called his attention to the
fact that the handwriting there and the handwriting of this speech were
the same. He was shortly convinced. He laid the book aside and said,
composedly:

"Well, the wonderful tragedy is done, and it transpires that I am
indebted to you for my late eloquence. What of it? What was all this
for and what does it amount to after all? What do you propose to do
about it?"

"Oh nothing. It is only a bit of pleasantry. When I overheard that
conversation I took an early opportunity to ask Mr. Buckstone if he knew
of anybody who might want a speech written--I had a friend, and so forth
and so on. I was the friend, myself; I thought I might do you a good
turn then and depend on you to do me one by and by. I never let Mr.
Buckstone have the speech till the last moment, and when you hurried off
to the House with it, you did not know there was a missing page, of
course, but I did.

"And now perhaps you think that if I refuse to support your bill, you
will make a grand exposure?"

"Well I had not thought of that. I only kept back the page for the mere
fun of the thing; but since you mention it, I don't know but I might do
something if I were angry."

"My dear Miss Hawkins, if you were to give out that you composed my
speech, you know very well that people would say it was only your
raillery, your fondness for putting a victim in the pillory and amusing
the public at his expense. It is too flimsy, Miss Hawkins, for a person
of your fine inventive talent--contrive an abler device than that.
Come!"

"It is easily done, Mr. Trollop. I will hire a man, and pin this page on
his breast, and label it, 'The Missing Fragment of the Hon. Mr. Trollop's
Great Speech--which speech was written and composed by Miss Laura Hawkins
under a secret understanding for one hundred dollars--and the money has
not been paid.' And I will pin round about it notes in my handwriting,
which I will procure from prominent friends of mine for the occasion;
also your printed speech in the Globe, showing the connection between its
bracketed hiatus and my Fragment; and I give you my word of honor that I
will stand that human bulletin board in the rotunda of the capitol