Says he, ‘Mind your own business, Scorch. That’s a good motto for you to paste up over your desk.’
‘Nix,’ says I. ‘If I didn’t mind everybody else’s biz in this office the whole joint would go to grass.’ And that’s right. ‘That girl’s just the same as in jail at that boarding-school,’ says I. ‘Have you forgotten her?’
‘How’d I remember?’ says he, looking sort of queer.
‘Come across with a piece of change for her,’ says me—I’m practerkal, I be. Money always comes in handy; now, don’t it? Write an’ tell me if he took my tip. And no more now, from,
“Yours respectfully,
“Scorch O’Brien.”
It was Scorch all over—that letter! Nancy Nelson came near laughing right out in the classroom; but she could cram both letters into her pocket and go on with her studies with a more composed mind.
Scorch was evidently her friend. And eminently practical, as he declared. Nothing could be more practical than that twenty-dollar bill. And the red-haired Irish boy had put it into Mr. Gordon’s mind to send her this substantial tip.
She took the twenty-dollar bill out and looked at it again. It was very real.
Cora Rathmore sat behind her in this class. Nancy happened to turn about as she slipped the banknote out of sight again, and she saw that her roommate was looking hard at her. Nancy turned away herself. She was angrier with Cora than she had ever been before since the opening of Pinewood Hall.