They sat at the little centre-table, the 186 ruddy head and the black one close together in the lamp-light, reading their Cicero. A rap at the door seemed a rude interruption; yet so unusual was the excitement of an evening visitor that they could not be quite indifferent to the event,—the less so when the visitor proved to be Polly’s client of the cumbrous income.
“Good evening, Miss Polly,” he called, from the door, and Polly fancied that his voice had a particularly cheerful ring in it. As he spoke, he glanced at Dan, who had opened the door.
“This is my brother, Dan. Won’t you come in, Mr. Clapp?”
“With all the pleasure in the world, for I have come in the character of Santa Claus.”
“Have you indeed?” thought Polly to herself; “we’ll see about that!” Perhaps there was something in her manner that betrayed her thoughts, for her visitor said, with evident amusement:
“You take alarm too easily, Miss Polly. I should as soon think of offering a gift in 187 my own name to,—to any other extremely rich young woman.”
“I was glad to hear that your brother’s name was Dan,” he continued with apparent irrelevance, as he took his seat. “And more delighted still when I found out his middle name. Didn’t it strike you,” he asked, turning abruptly to Dan, “that your employer, Mr. Jones, was developing rather a sudden interest in your antecedents?”
“Yes,” Polly thought, “he is pleased about something.”
“Why, yes,” Dan answered, with boyish bluntness. “But what do you know about it?”
“Only that it was I that put Jones up to making his inquiries.”