“For what?”
“For the letter.”
“Oh,” he said, blankly. “You're welcome. Good-by.”
Mary put out her hand. “Good-by.”
“You'll have to excuse my left hand,” he said. “I had a little accident to the other one.”
She gave a pitying cry as she saw. “Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!”
“Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow.” He laughed jovially. “Did anybody tell you how it happened?”
“I heard you hurt your hand, but no—not just how.”
“It was this way,” he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again. “You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o' my boys—the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim—that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o' these days—if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o' sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc Gurney—I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy—”
“Yes.”