Next morning Dic saw Miss Tousy and took the stage for home. His first visit was to Billy Little, whom he found distributing letters back of the post-office boxes.
"How is Rita?" asked Billy.
"She's much better," returned Dic. "Miss Tousy tells me the fever has left her, and the doctors say she will soon recover. I wanted to see her before I left, but of course that could not be; and—and the truth is I could not have looked her in the face."
"Why?" Billy was busy throwing letters.
"Because—because, Billy Little, I am at last convinced that I represent the most perfect combination of knave and fool that ever threw heaven away and walked open-eyed into hell."
"Oh, I don't know," replied the postmaster, continuing to toss letters into their respective boxes. "I ... don't know. The world has seen some rare (Mrs. Sarah Cummins) combinations of that sort." After a long pause he continued: "I ... I don't believe (Peter Davidson) I don't believe ... there is much knave in you. Fool, perhaps (Atkinson, David. He doesn't live here), in plenty—." Another pause, while three or four letters were distributed. "Suppose you say that the formula—the chemical formula—of your composition would stand (Peter Smith) F9 K2. Of course, at times, you are all M, which stands for man, but (Jane Anderson, Jane Anderson. Jo John's wife, I suppose)—"
"You will not jest, Billy Little, when you have heard all."
"I am not ... jesting now. Go back ... into my apartments. I'll lock the door (Samuel Richardson. Great writer) and come back to you (Leander Cross. Couldn't read a signboard. What use writing letters to him?) when I have handed (Mrs. Margarita Bays. They don't know she has moved to Indianapolis, damn her)—when I have handed out the mail."
Dic went back to the bedroom, and Billy opened the delivery window. The little crowd scrambled for their letters as if they feared a delay of a moment or two would fade the ink, and when the mail had been distributed the calm postmaster went back to hear Dic's troubles. At no time in that young man's life had his troubles been so heavy. He feared Billy Little's scorn and biting sarcasm, though he well knew that in the end he would receive sympathy and good advice. The relation between Dic and Billy was not only that of intimate friendship; it was almost like that between father and son. Billy felt that it was not only his privilege, but his duty, to be severe with the young man when necessity demanded. When Dic was a boy he lost his father, and Billy Little had stood as substitute for, lo, these many years.
When Billy entered the room, Dic was lost amid the flood of innumerable emotions, chief among which were the fear that he had lost Rita and the dread of her contempt.