But the letter written, there was the problem of sending it. The intervention of either Bundock or Daniel was intolerable. He must find an individual way. One verse that he came upon—it was in the Book of Esther—enchanted him with its images, telling how Mordecai wrote an order in the King’s name “and sealed it with the King’s ring and sent letters by post on horseback, riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries.” How he would have liked to seal his letter too with a royal ring, and send it “by post on horseback.” He had a vision of the long procession of mules, camels, and dromedaries filing along the grass-grown lane to Blackwater Hall. How old Daniel would rub his eyes at the strange humped beasts—yes, and Jinny too. She would perhaps think that Mr. Flippance had acquired a new show and was paying her a processional visit. Possibly these animal images did lead him to the invention of his postal method, or possibly it was his prior apprehension of Jinny’s utilizing Nip as a package-bearer. At any rate, after having wondered whether Martha’s pigeons could be trained up in the way they should go, he hit on the device of tying his note to Nip’s collar. The creature was friendly, and that Saturday afternoon it would be at home. He would only have to hover long enough around Blackwater Hall for his post-dog to fawn upon him. Of course there was no certainty the dangling missive would escape Daniel’s spectacles, but Nip being providentially of the colour of paper, it was possible heaven had not blanched him in vain. Besides, this time the note was carefully addressed to Miss Jinny Quarles, with the “Quarles” scratched out by an afterthought when he remembered that it was not her name.