"Oh!" said he, falsely scornful of himself. "It was easiest for me to bring it along like that."
He had been standing with his legs apart; at this point he sat down familiarly and put his elbows on the desk and his jaw in his hands; the cigarette hung loosely in his very mobile lips. They were silent; Jerry was proud and happy, and had nothing in particular to say about it. Elsie had too much to say to be able to talk.
"Then ye haven't got anything for me to do?" he asked.
"No, I haven't."
"Oo!" He was disappointed.
"But I might have to-morrow. You'll be off at two o'clock to-morrow, won't yer?"
"That's me."
"Very well then." She rose.
Jerry was extraordinarily uplifted by this brief sojourn alone with Elsie in the private office of T. T. Riceyman's. He felt that he was more of a grown man than ten thousand cigarettes and oaths and backchat with fragile virgins in the Square could make him. He sprang from the chair.
"Give me a kiss, Elsie," he blurted out audaciously. He was frightened by his own cheek.