Since, like Othello, he had found his occupation gone, Mr. Blase Pellet was rather at a loss to know what to do with his evenings. To render him justice, it must be admitted that he did not follow the fashion, and spend them, however soberly, at the Golden Shaft. He was a steady, well-conducted young man, superior to his apparent position, and better in some respects than many of his neighbours. Finding the hours lying on his hands, he took to looking in unceremoniously at the houses of his acquaintances, so to pass a more or less agreeable interlude. This evening he had so favoured Clerk Trim; and it was in crossing the churchyard, after quitting that functionary's dwelling, that he had come to an anchor on the tree-stump. Bitter anger was aroused within him; raging jealousy; a tumultuous thirst for revenge. For, in the clerk's house he had just been furnished, as he believed, with the confirmation yearned for. When Frank Raynor had so lightly sent Clerk Trim to Tello, to inquire for certain imaginary letters at the post-office there, he little thought what grave consequences would arise from it in the future. Simply for the sake of getting the clerk out of the way during the ceremony of the stolen marriage, he had invented this fruitless errand. When the clerk came back in the course of the day, and reported that no letter was lying for him at the post-office at Tello, the man added, "And I've taken care not to mention to a soul, sir, where I have been, as you desired; neither will I." "Oh, thank you, but I don't in the least mind now whether you mention it or not," rejoined Frank, in the openness of his heart. For, his object attained, it did not matter to him if the whole world knew that he had sent the clerk to Tello. Clerk Trim, naturally a silent man, had experienced no temptation to mention it, in spite of the release given him: but on this evening, talking with Blase Pellet of Tello, he chanced to say that he had been there not long ago. Mr. Blase expressed some surprise at this, knowing that journeys were rare events with the clerk; and then Trim mentioned what he had gone for: to inquire for a letter at the Tello post-office for Mr. Frank Raynor. That was enough. And a great deal more than enough. Blase instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was through the Tello post-office that the correspondence with Rosaline was carried on. And perhaps it was not unnatural that he should think so. The scarcity of letters arriving for Frank at Trennach was accounted for now.