On reaching the edge of the square, she almost collided with one, Fenton Bramley, a tall, ill-groomed, but strong-featured man of possibly sixty. Although slightly stooped, his carriage suggested the British army as unerringly as his polite manner betrayed the fundamental gentleman that he was. Bramley’s lines had fallen in barren places, but he was in direct descent from English nobility and could have been a knight even now, if he had possessed the necessary funds to clarify his title. Every one liked and tolerated “Fen.” He was a Lockwood fixture. In conversation he maintained the off-handed ease and abruptness of introduction characteristic of his thorough self-possession. He spoke to every one and every one spoke to him.
“Freda,” he commenced in a quiet, conversational tone, as if he had been talking with her continually for the past hour, “I see where that cove that murdered the bank teller’s got his sentence. Did ye see that?”
“Why, no, Fen,” she laughed; “I’m afraid I missed the item.”
“It was an item all right,” he continued. “And I had a letter yesterday from Frank Booth. He’s away up in the Yukon an’ says things are boomin’.”
“Frank Booth,” repeated Freda, trying to place the name.
“Maybe you don’t remember him,” admitted Bramley, scowling down attentively into her face. “You’re lookin’ the picture of health, Freda. And I’m not so bad myself. It’s a big market to-day. Some time when you’re passing the house, slip in tu see my furnitoor. Yer feyther was lookin’ it over and said he liked it. Did ye see where they arrested the head of the drug ring in Merlton?”
She nodded.
“I had a letter last week from Mac Tupper,” continued Bramley in his discursive way. “He’s down in New York, an’ says since prohibition came in they—”
“Tupper?” interrupted Freda.
“Maybe he was before your time. A great man wi’ the billiard cue was Mac! How’s yer feyther?”