CHAPTER XIII
NERO IN DISGRACE
THAT the news of the return of the prodigal had filtered beyond the confines of Little Bilstead, soon became apparent to Smith, by the number of letters that arrived at The Grange addressed to Alfred Warren. The quality of the stationery used by the correspondents, together with certain crudities of calligraphy they manifested, seemed to emphasise the truth of Willis' statement that Alfred Warren had been democratic in his tastes.
These letters Willis religiously sent over to the vicarage, and Smith as religiously returned them, when possible by the same messenger, who was mostly Nudd fits. It was none of his business, Smith decided, what Alfred's friends had to say after a lapse of seven years; the breaking of the seals was obviously the affair of the real prodigal, should he ever decide to return.
An article in The Norfolk Post headed "Return of the Wanderer" was no doubt responsible for these epistolary attentions.
The ancients adjured one another to speak no evil of the dead, The Norfolk Post went a step further, by including the recently returned. The article, a column in length, dealt mostly with the late Sir Joseph Warren's well-known charities, the subject of the prod- igal's disappearance and return being dismissed in a
few lines. "We understand," it concluded, "that for
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