Suddenly Sir Tancred turned towards him, and said abruptly2, "What did you say you paid your governess?"
"Thirty pounds a year," said Tinker.
"She dresses well," said Sir Tancred.
Tinker turned his head and eyed his father with a trifle of distrust. "She does dress well," he said gravely, "and I can't quite make it out. Sometimes I think that her people must have lost their money, and she bought her gowns before that happened. Sometimes I really think she's only being a governess for fun."
"For fun?" said Sir Tancred. "But I thought her references were all right. Yes; you told me she carried them about with her."
"Well, she has the nicest kind of face," said Tinker; and his own was out of the common guileless.
"Oh! her face was her reference, was it?" said Sir Tancred quickly.
"You can forge references, but you can't forge a face," said Tinker with the air of a philosopher.
Sir Tancred laughed gently. "My good Tinker," he said, "I look forward to the day when you enter the diplomatic service. The diplomacy3 of your country will be newer than ever. But don't be too sure that a woman can't forge her face."
"There'd be a precious lot of forgery4, if they could forge faces like Dorothy's," said Tinker with conviction.
"You seem a perfect well of truth to-day," said Sir Tancred.
They were silent a while, gazing idly over the sea; then Tinker said, "I'm beginning to think that Dorothy is rather mysterious, don't you know. She gets very few letters, but lots of cablegrams, from America. She has lots of money, too, and she spends it. Sometimes I have to talk to her seriously about being extravagant5."
"You do? What does she say?"
"Oh, she laughs. That's what makes me think she's only a governess for fun. I never knew a girl so ready to laugh—though she did cry that morning." He spoke6 musingly8, half to himself.
"What morning was that?" said Sir Tancred quickly.
"It was a few mornings ago," said Tinker vaguely9; and he added hastily, "I think I'll go after her and Elsie; they've gone down the Corniche towards Mentone."
"Was it the morning I had an affair with M. le Comte de Puy-de-Dôme?"
"Ye-e-s," said Tinker with some reluctance10, and he prepared for trouble. Hitherto his father had said nothing of that timely but eldritch yell. Now, by his careless admission about the tears of Dorothy, he had opened the matter, and let himself in for a rating.
But Sir Tancred was silent, musing7, and Tinker returned to his idle consideration of the Mediterranean.
Presently he said, "She would make you a nice little wife, sir."
Sir Tancred started. "There are times," he said, "when I feel you would take my breath away, if I hadn't very good lungs."
"If you add thought-reading to your other accomplishments12, it will be too much," said Sir Tancred with conviction.
Of a sudden there came bustling13 round the right-hand horn of the bay a most disreputable, bedraggled-looking vessel14. By her lines a yacht, her decks would have been a disgrace to the oldest and most battered15 tin-pot of an ocean tramp. Her masts had gone, there were gaps in her bulwarks16, and the smoke of her furnaces, pouring through a hole in her deck over which her funnel17 had once reared itself, had taken advantage of this rare and golden opportunity to blacken her after-part to a very fair semblance18 of imitation ebony, and to transform her crew to an even fairer imitation of negroes dressed in black.
"She is in a mess!" said Tinker.
"Of the Atlantic's making, to judge by its completeness," said Sir Tancred. "Whose yacht is it?"
"I don't know," said Tinker, staring at it with all his eyes.
"You ought to," said Sir Tancred with some severity. "You've been on it. It's Meyer's."
"Your new clairvoyant20 faculty21 must be weakening your power of observation. I shouldn't give way to it, if I were you."
A hundred yards from the jetty the yacht's engines were reversed; and the way was scarcely off her, when her only remaining boat fell smartly on the water, and was rowed quickly to the steps.
"They seem in a hurry," said Sir Tancred.
For a while they busied themselves in conjectures23 as to what errand had brought the yacht to Monaco; Sir Tancred lighted another cigarette, and they watched the crew of the yacht set to work at once to wash the decks.
Some twenty minutes later a little group hurried into the gardens, the manager of the Hôtel des Princes, a tall, bearded, grimy man, and a stout24, clean-shaven, grimy man. They came straight to Sir Tancred and Tinker, and the bearded man said quickly, "My name is Rainer, Septimus Rainer. I've just learnt that my daughter Dorothy is governessing your little girl. Where is she?"
Sir Tancred bowed, and said languidly, "Miss Rainer is the governess of my son's adopted sister. He is her employer, not I. Here he is."
Tinker stepped forward, and bowed.
Septimus Rainer stared at him with a bewildered air, and said, "Well, if this don't beat the Dutch!" Then he added feverishly25, "Where is she? Where's my little girl? Where's Dorothy?"
"She went with Elsie—that's her pupil—down the Corniche towards Mentone after déjeuner," said Tinker.
"Take me to her! Take me to her at once, will you? She's not safe!" said Rainer quickly.
"Not safe! Come along!" said Sir Tancred; and his languor26 fell from him like a mask, leaving him active and alert indeed.
"It's like this," said Rainer as they hurried through the gardens. "A week ago I got a cable from Paris saying that a kidnapping gang were after Dorothy. I'm a millionaire, and the scum are after ransom27. I cabled to McNeill, my Paris agent, to come right here with half a dozen of the best detectives in France, scooped28 up Mr. Buist of the New York police,"—he nodded towards the short, clean-shaven, grimy man—"borrowed a yacht, and came along myself. Being in a hurry, we had trouble with the Atlantic of course; but I've done it seven hours quicker than steamer and train. Have McNeill and the detectives come?"
"No, they haven't," said Tinker.
"Sure?" said Rainer.
"Quite," said Tinker. "I've seen no one watching over Dorothy; and she has gone about outside the town, in the woods, and down by the sea, just as usual. She knew of no danger, I'm sure."
"Perhaps McNeill didn't want to frighten her, and just set his men to watch over her from a distance," said Rainer.
"Perhaps McNeill is in it," said Sir Tancred drily.
"I'm glad I came right here," said Rainer.
They came out of the gardens, and as they passed the Hôtel des Princes, Tinker said, "Go on down the Corniche! I'll catch you up!" and bolted into it.
He ran upstairs into his father's room, and took from a drawer the pocketbook which held their passports; ran into his own room, and thrust into his hip-pocket the revolver he could use so well, into other pockets five hundred francs in notes and gold. Then, sure that he had provided against all possible emergencies, he ran smiling down the stairs.
As he came out of the front-door, his eyes fell on a lonely, deserted29 motor-car. In a breath he had pitied its loneliness, seen its use, and jumped into it. He set it going, and in three minutes caught up his father, Rainer, and the detective. Sir Tancred jumped into the seat beside him, Rainer and the detective into the back seat.
"Whose car is this? How did you get it?" said Sir Tancred.
"I commandeered it," said Tinker firmly. "And I was lucky too; it's a good car."
"I suppose there'll be a row about it. But we've got to use it," said Sir Tancred.
"Oh, no! there won't," said Tinker cheerfully. "When we come back, everyone but me can get out. I'll take it back, and explain things."
For a mile Tinker sent the car along at full speed. Then he slowed down, and pulling up at every opening into the hills or down to the shore, sent a long coo-ee ringing down it. No answer came back. At the end of two miles his face was growing graver and graver, and its gravity was reflected in the faces of the three men. At the end of two miles and a half he stopped the car, and said, "They can't have gone further than this."
"Just too late," muttered Septimus Rainer; and they looked at one another with questioning eyes.
"Well, there's no time to be lost," said Sir Tancred. "Mr. Buist had better hurry back to Monte Carlo, to the Hôtel des Princes, in case we've missed them. We will go on hard, and he can wire to us, if they come back to the hotel, at Ventimiglia."
"That's all very well," said the detective with a sudden air of stubbornness. "But I don't like the look of the business. It's a curious thing that Miss Rainer, the daughter of a millionaire, should be a governess in your family. I don't understand it. There is a chance, and I'm bound to consider it, of your being mixed up with this kidnapping gang. What's to prevent you kidnapping Mr. Rainer?"
Sir Tancred's eyes flashed, and he looked as though he could not believe his ears. Tinker laughed a gentle, joyful30 laugh.
"I mean no offence, sir," said the detective with some haste, at the sight of Sir Tancred's face. "But I'm bound to look at it all ways."
"Just as you like," said Sir Tancred quietly. "Let Mr. Rainer go back, or both of you go back. Only be quick!"
The millionaire had watched the faces of father and son with very keen eyes while the detective had been speaking: "Off you go, Buist!" he broke in. "I know where I am! Go, man! Go!"
The detective jumped out of the car, and Sir Tancred said, "Go to M. Lautrec at the Police Bureau at Monte Carlo. He's the best man to set things moving. Tell him to wire as far as Genoa: there's nothing like being on the safe side." And Tinker started the car.
Two miles further on they came upon a peasant woman tramping slowly along, with a heavy basket on her head. Tinker stopped the car, and Sir Tancred asked her if she had seen a lady and a little girl walking on the Corniche between that spot and Monte Carlo. She said she had not seen a lady and a little girl walking, but a mile out of Monte Carlo she had seen a lady and a little girl in a carriage with two gentlemen; and the horses were galloping32: oh, but they did gallop31; they had nearly run over her. The young lady had cried out to her as they passed. She had not caught what she said; she had thought it a joke.
"It looks very like them: we had better follow this carriage. What do you think, Mr. Rainer?" said Sir Tancred. "Of course they may be back at the hotel by now, and we may be on a wild-goose chase."
"I guess we can afford to be laughed at; but we can't afford to lose a chance," said the millionaire.
"They passed this woman a mile out of Monte Carlo, and we're four miles and a half out," said Tinker. "She doesn't walk above three miles an hour with that basket: they're an hour and twenty minutes ahead."
"You're smart, sonny," said the millionaire.
"Right away!" said Sir Tancred: and he tossed a five-franc piece to the woman.
Tinker set the car going, and began to try his hardest to get her best speed out of her.
The millionaire leaned forward, and said to Sir Tancred, "The scum are hardly up-to-date to use a carriage instead of a motor-car."
"What I don't see is how they are going to get them across the frontier. It looks—it looks as if the Italian police were in it," said Sir Tancred, frowning.
"Do you mean to tell me that the Italian police would connive33 at kidnapping?" said the millionaire.
"No: but some rascal34 of a detective, who could pull a good many strings35, might be in it. At any rate if they get them across the frontier undrugged, the authorities are squared or humbugged. What I'm afraid of is that they're making for that rabbit-warren, Genoa. If they get them there, we may be a fortnight finding them."
"I guess I'll squeal36 before that," said the millionaire; "yes, if I have to put up a million dollars."
The car had reached a speed at which they could only talk in a shout, and it seemed no more than a few minutes before Tinker slowed down for Mentone, and stopped at a gendarme37. Before saying a word Sir Tancred showed him a twenty-franc piece; and the gendarme spoke, he was even voluble. Yes, he had seen a carriage, rather more than an hour before. It had galloped38 through the town. It carried fever-patients for the hospital at Genoa, ill of the bubonic plague. The police and the custom-house officials had been warned by wire from Monte Carlo and Genoa not to delay it. There were relays of horses every twenty miles to Genoa: the wires had said so.
"That was how they crossed the frontier, was it? What fools these officials are!" said Sir Tancred, and he gave the gendarme his Napoleon: and bade him tell his superior officer that the police had been humbugged.
"If they're really bound for Genoa, we can catch them and to spare—bar accidents," said Tinker cheerfully. "Besides, M. Lautrec will have wired to look out for them." And he set the car going.
"Oh, they're bound for Genoa, sure enough," said Sir Tancred. "But they won't enter it in that carriage, or much before daybreak. Still the rascals39 don't know that you've come, Mr. Rainer, and that we're already on their track. That ought to spoil their game."
The car ran through Mentone, and into Ventimiglia, but as it drew near the custom-house, Sir Tancred cried, "By Jove, we're going to be delayed! The guard's turned out!" And sure enough, a dozen soldiers barred the road.
Tinker stopped the car: and a sergeant40 bade Sir Tancred and Mr. Rainer come with him to the officer in command. Tinker gave his father the pocketbook which contained their passports; the two of them got out of the car, and followed the sergeant into the custom-house.
Tinker jumped down, and sure that he had plenty of time, looked at the machinery41 and filled up the petrol tank from a gallon tin in the back of the car. Then he went back to his seat.
He could hear a murmur42 of voices from the custom-house, and it grew louder and louder; he caught disjointed scraps43 of angry talk. Of a sudden his father's voice rose loud in apparent fury, and he cried in Italian, "Spies! We're nothing of the kind!" and then in English, "Bolt!"
In a flash the car was moving, and half a dozen soldiers sprang forward, crying, "Stop! Stop!"
"It's running away!" screamed Tinker in Italian, and switched it on to full speed.
It jerked forward; and the soldiers ran heavily after it.
"Hold it back! Hold it back!" screamed Tinker, and with the unquestioning obedience44 of the perfectly45 disciplined man, a simple young soldier caught hold of the back of the car, and threw all his heart and strength into the effort to stop it, only to find himself running fast. At sixty yards he was running faster and shouting loudly. At eighty yards, he stopped shouting, let go, and fell down. Tinker looked back, and saw him sitting up in the dust and shaking his fist, while forty yards beyond him his fellow-soldiers danced gesticulating in the middle of the road.
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1
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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6
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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7
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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8
musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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9
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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10
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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11
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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12
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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13
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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14
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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15
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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16
bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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17
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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18
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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19
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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clairvoyant
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| adj.有预见的；n.有预见的人 | |
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21
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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22
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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25
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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27
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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28
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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29
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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30
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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31
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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32
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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33
connive
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| v.纵容；密谋 | |
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rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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35
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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36
squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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37
gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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38
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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39
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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40
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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41
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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42
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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43
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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44
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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45
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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