Then I saw what he meant; and I also saw that there may be a great danger in listening to missionaries, and was exceedingly sorry that Tudor had done so. I still advised him not to write to the Doctor, and felt sure his conscience would be just as comfortable if he didn’t; but when Tudor decides to carry out a project, he carries it out, and he is generally very unpleasant till he has. Accordingly, he dropped the Doctor’s glasses into a deep Indian jar which stood on the mantelpiece in the study, and then, in great secret with me, he wrote his letter. It happened he had just got a new Latin Delectus, and at the end of this book was a sheet of clean paper without a mark upon it. We cut it out with a penknife, and took a school envelope and two halfpenny stamps, and wrote the letter and posted it to the Doctor on the following day.
Well, the letter ran in these words, all printed, so that there was no handwriting in it; and the envelope, needless to say, was also printed in a very dexterous and utterly misleading manner.
"I regret to have to confess that I stole your eyeglasses in a bad moment. There was a very good reason, but, all the same, I am sorry, and also clearly know now that it was a very wrong thing to do. It was a revenge, but it came to nothing, because you had a pair in reserve. I am glad you had. I prefer to be Unknown.
"Your glasses are in a beautiful and rare Indian jar at the left-hand corner of your mantel-piece, and I hope you will forgive, because my eyes have been opened by the visit of the Drug Missionary to Merivale, and I am sorry.
"I am, dear Sir, your well-wisher, "THE UNKNOWN."
Well, this good and mysterious letter Tudor posted, and the very next morning, curiously enough, he entirely ceased to want to collect for the Drug Missionary. In fact, from that moment he fell back quite into his usual way of looking at things, and, by the next evening, actually said he was sorry he had given Dr. Dunston back his glasses. But he was sorrier still three days later, for then a very shattering event indeed happened to Tudor. The Doctor sent for him, and he went without the least fear, to find his anonymous letter lying on the Doctor’s desk.
I heard the whole amazing story afterwards. The Doctor asked him first if he had written the letter, and, being taken utterly unawares and frightfully fluttered at the shock, almost before he knew what he was doing, you may say, Tudor confessed that he had.