There was not the remotest smirk of sympathy or approbation in the countenance of his vis-à-vis.
He listened stoically to a few introductory original observations by the special, such as, “Very unexpected fall of snow this.”
“Quite an old-fashioned winter.”
“Spring will soon be here now, though.”
But on learning the nature of the caller’s business he was no longer passive.
His eyes brightened and jumped a bit, and he became loquacious, but continued cynical.
“I haven’t got nothing to say about the matter. All I know is that I don’t know nothing about Peace or about his money, or his loan society, or anything else. Besides, the newspapers know all about the case already. If they knows s’much, what do they want to send to me about it for?”
“Well, the fact is,” answered the special, “the function of a newspaper is to put the public in possession of reliable information. Reports which compromise your honour have been given currency, and although minute inquiry has been made no particle of foundation has been found for them. What I want is to get hold of the facts necessary to put the public au courant with things as they really are, and at the same time afford a much-injured party a means of retrieving his good name.”
The short man with the broad shoulders, stuck his hands in his breeches pockets, spread his legs, swung his head to and fro, lifted his eyelashes, and remarked, “Ah! you do—do you?”
Then he turned round to his wife and inquired of her in surly tones why she had called him down, and muttered something to her not at all complimentary to newspaperdom or its labourers.