At this he laughed, but not very heartily, and walked slowly to the house, leaving her bending over a rose-bush, and a shade more pensive than the most pensive garden lady in any Victorian engraving.
... Next day, it happened that this same “Vendonah” or “Rides-Down-Everything” became the subject of a chance conversation between Eugene and his old friend Kinney, father of the fire-topped Fred. The two gentlemen found themselves smoking in neighbouring leather chairs beside a broad window at the club, after lunch.
Mr. Kinney had remarked that he expected to get his family established at the seashore by the Fourth of July, and, following a train of thought, he paused and chuckled. “Fourth of July reminds me,” he said. “Have you heard what that Georgie Minafer is doing?”
“No, I haven’t,” said Eugene, and his friend failed to notice the crispness of the utterance.
“Well, sir,” Kinney chuckled again, “it beats the devil! My boy Fred told me about it yesterday. He’s a friend of this young Henry Akers, son of F. P. Akers of the Akers Chemical Company. It seems this young Akers asked Fred if he knew a fellow named Minafer, because he knew Fred had always lived here, and young Akers had heard some way that Minafer used to be an old family name here, and was sort of curious about it. Well, sir, you remember this young Georgie sort of disappeared, after his grandfather’s death, and nobody seemed to know much what had become of him—though I did hear, once or twice, that he was still around somewhere. Well, sir, he’s working for the Akers Chemical Company, out at their plant on the Thomasvile Road.”
He paused, seeming to reserve something to be delivered only upon inquiry, and Eugene offered him the expected question, but only after a cold glance through the nose-glasses he had lately found it necessary to adopt. “What does he do?”
Kinney laughed and slapped the arm of his chair.
“He’s a nitroglycerin expert!”
He was gratified to see that Eugene was surprised, if not, indeed, a little startled.
“He’s what?”