human
This is an inventory of what was contained in the pockets of your two garments. Unlike you, fortunately, or I don't know where I should be, I am a creature of method; I do everything by rule. I drew up this list after Baker had searched the garments in my presence. In the waistcoat were three pockets; which contained, one penknife; two toothpicks--which I threw away; one pencil, or, rather, part of a pencil; three wax matches, loose, which were most dangerous, and which I had destroyed; a cigar-cutter, or, rather, what I presume is a cigar-cutter, Baker didn't know what it was; four visiting-cards, three of them your own, and the fourth somebody else's, and all of them shockingly untidy; and the return half of a ticket from Brighton to London, which was then more than three months old. In the coat were five pockets; it has always been a mystery to me what men want with so many pockets; judging from what was in yours I am inclined to think that they use them merely as receptacles for rubbish. Some of the things which were in yours I had thrown away; the following are what I have kept. One pocket-handkerchief; one pair of gloves; one tobacco-pouch; one pipe, a horrid, smelling thing which I had boiled in soapy water, but which still smells; one matchbox--empty. I suppose it was meant to contain the matches which were loose in your waistcoat; a cigar-case; a golf ball; while in the inside pocket were the papers of which I have told you.
gpt
I don't suppose they're anything very serious, after what you've just been reading.
human
Don't you? Then you must have your own ideas of what is serious; if I had thought they were of no interest I shouldn't have troubled you to come to Littlehampton.
gpt
But, my dear aunt, what are they? You--you do keep a man on tenter-hooks.
human
I don't know why you say that. I am going to tell you what they are; but, as you are of opinion that they are not serious, I should have imagined that you were in no hurry. There are letters written to you by Miss Lindsay; there are nine of them; some men would have thought them serious.
gpt
Letters written by---- Why, they're Nora's! But--I thought----
human
Never mind what you thought, Robert; you see what they are. As this envelope is sealed, and is inscribed that it is not to be opened till after the writer's death, some persons might have thought that that was of interest also.
gpt
Aunt, it's--it's the envelope which Donald Lindsay sent me, and---- But I don't understand; it's incredible! Aunt, why didn't you let me know this before?
human
Why should I? It was in a coat of which you thought so little that you didn't even know you'd lost it; the natural inference was that you were hardly likely to leave anything of the least importance in the pocket of a coat which you valued at nothing.
gpt
But--I thought I put it in my suit-case--I've chased the case half round the world. Aunt, what have you done?
human
What have I done? You mean, what have you done? If anything has been done I trust it is something from which you will learn a lesson. I said to myself, if these are of the least consequence, he will ask for them; since he has been guilty of such culpable carelessness I'll wait till he does ask. But I waited, and I waited, and you never asked, you never once alluded to them. What could I conclude? At last they slipped my memory, as sometimes trifles will do; I came upon them, by mere accident, as I was looking through this dispatch-box last night; so I sent for you that I might give them to you in person, though, naturally, I had long ago come to the conclusion that they were not of the slightest importance.
gpt
Well, this is the most extraordinary thing that ever has happened to me!
human
If that is the case I can only hope that it will teach you not to leave papers in the pockets of a coat which you fling down anywhere, anyhow, and instantly forget.