"What are you doing here? Have you run away?" _Page 39._
Besides being diminutive and fleshless, his features were very small and very, very sharp. The generous hand of Nature had sprinkled freckles across his nose. He had lost a front tooth, which fact made his smile perfectly “open.”
His watery blue eyes twinkled with mischief. His grin wrinkled up his preternaturally old face in a most remarkable way. His shock of hair was flame-colored—and exactly matched the tie he wore.
“Say!” this youngster said. “You’ll know me again; eh? My name’s ‘Scorch’ O’Brien. What’s yours?”
“I—I’m Nancy Nelson,” confessed the girl, but beginning to smile at him now. He was too funny for anything. “And I’ve come to see Mr. Gordon.”
“Not Old Gudgeon? He never had a lady come to see him before,” announced the office boy, explosively. “Sure it’s him you want?”
“Mr. Henry Gordon,” declared Nancy, in some doubt.
“Henery is his front name,” admitted Scorch, rumpling his red top-knot. “But I guess I’d better ask first if he’ll have you in.”
“Just tell him it’s me, please,” said Nancy, faintly.
“What did you say the name was, Miss?”