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the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having
been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed
direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original
fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter
had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed. I
bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a
gold snuff-box upon the table.
"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath
the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful
screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D-- rushed to a casement,
threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the
card-rack took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by
a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully
prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D-- cipher, very readily, by
means of a seal formed of bread.
"
The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women
and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the
fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D-- came from the window, whither I had followed him
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