Already the two of them chatted together as if they had known each other for years, and the relations between master and employee grew more and more cordial.
Holm, of course, was always the one to open conversation; he talked, indeed, at times to such an extent that Betty was obliged to beg him to stop, as she could not get on with her work. This generally led to a pause of a quarter of an hour or so, during which Holm would sit watching her over his glasses while she entered up from daybook to ledger with a certain careless ease. Wonderful, thought Holm to himself, how attractive a fair-haired girl can look when she's dark eyebrows and eyelashes, and those blue eyes. Pity she always keeps her mouth tight shut, and hides her lovely teeth.
He sat lost in contemplation, watching her so intently that she flushed right up to her fair head.
"There's the telephone, Mr. Holm," she said desperately, at last, by way of diverting his attention.
"Thanks very much, but I never use the telephone myself. I don't care to stand there like a fool talking down a tube, and likely as not with half a dozen people listening all over the place. No, thank you, I don't think my special brand of eloquence is suited to the telephone service."
Holm always refused to speak to people on the telephone, possibly because he knew that he often said a good deal without reflection and did not care to have witnesses to it, afterwards. Anyhow, he regarded the telephone as one of the plagues of modern times. "If the devil had offered a prize," he would say, "for the best instrument of bother and annoyance to mankind, that fellow Edison should have got it."
The telephone rang, and Betty went to answer it.
"It's Nilson, the broker, wants to speak to you."
"Ask what it is."
"He says the big Spanish ship that came in the other day with a cargo of salt for Hoeg's is to be sold by auction for bottoming, and he thinks it's to be had at a bargain."