However, you remember that pithy proverb,
'When one is in Rome, one must not speak ill of the Pope,' so being in
the legal profession, I must respect its muse. I suppose when you saw
that this letter came from a law office, you wondered what the deuce a
lawyer was writing to you for, and my handwriting, no doubt suggested a
writ--pshaw! I am wrong there, you are past the age of writs--not
that I hint that you are old; by no means--you are just at that
appreciative age when a man enjoys life most, when the fire of youth is
tempered by the experience of age, and one knows how to enjoy to the
utmost the good things of this world, videlicet--love, wine, and
friendship. I am afraid I am growing poetical, which is a bad thing for
a lawyer, for the flower of poetry cannot flourish in the arid wastes
of the law. On reading what I have written, I find I have been as
discursive as Praed's Vicar, and as this letter is supposed to be a
business one, I must deny myself the luxury of following out a train of
idle ideas, and write sense. I suppose you still hold the secret which
Rosanna Moore entrusted you with--ah! you see I know her name, and
why?--simply because, with the natural curiosity of the human race, I
have been trying to find out who murdered Oliver Whyte, and as the
ARGUS very cleverly pointed out Rosanna Moore as likely to be at the
bottom of the whole affair, I have been learning her past history.
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