“Well, Fibsy, if I let you stay, I must ask you to talk to me a little more politely. I don’t like that street language.”
“Sure, Miss Avice, I’ll can the slang. I mean, truly I’ll try to talk proper. It’s mostly that I get so excited that I forget there’s a lady listenin’ to me. But I’ll do better, honest I will.”
Fleming Stone came.
Avice received him alone, except that she allowed Fibsy to sit in the corner of the room.
“I am exceedingly interested in this case,” Mr. Stone said, after greetings had been exchanged; “I have closely followed the newspaper accounts, and I admit it seems baffling many ways. Have you any information not yet made public?”
“No,—” begun Avice, and then she looked at Fibsy.
The boy sat in his corner, with eager face, almost bursting with his desire to speak, but silent because he had promised to be.
“I know so little of these things,” Avice went on, falteringly; “I hoped to have a lawyer here to talk to you. As a matter of fact, I was advised to send for you by this boy, Terence McGuire. He was my late uncle’s office boy.”
“Ah, the one they call Fibsy, and so discredited his evidence at the inquest!”
“Yes,” said Avice, “but he says he knows something of importance.”