“Sure did,” Walker assented, “and under difficulty too. Just as I suspected, some other paper did get wind of the story and sent one of their ace men out to get the details. Riggs let him in, quizzed him to find out what he knew, excused himself, and then called me to tell me that the time was up, that I’d better shoot the yarn right through if I wanted to scoop the rest of the dailies.
“Well, after he did that, he went back into his office and told the other reporter the whole story he had told me. It took him three hours to tell it, and when my competitor came out of the office our extras were already on the street.”
“That was the Midwestern merger, wasn’t it?” Adair questioned.
“Right!” Jamieson agreed. “Remember it, don’t you? But you chits,” he turned his attention to the girls who had been listening with their customary attention to his tale, “you wouldn’t remember. You were hardly out of your cradles then. Nan here was probably still creeping around in rompers. Bess, well, Bess probably didn’t creep, that was too dirty for her, but she was probably beginning to put her hands up to her father and saying, ‘gimme’.”
This brought a laugh from everyone, including Adair MacKenzie.
“Can’t understand,” he returned to the question of Linda, “how a girl with a father like Riggs could be such an obnoxious person.”
“Oh, there are lots of explanations,” Walker answered. “I happen to know that his wife died when the girl was just a baby. He was all broken up and turned to the child for comfort. Guess he lavished all his attention on her and spoiled her.”
“Sounds plausible,” Adair agreed, and then looked at Alice. “See how I ruined my daughter with kindness,” he twitted. “Let her get out of hand completely. Now I can’t do anything with her.”
“Want to get rid of her?” Walker winked at Alice, as he asked the question.
“What’s that?” Adair was startled.