"At what?"
"Something."
"What?"
"Anything. Damn it, I ain't incapable of anything but sleep!"
"I've lost thousands through that dirty trick of yours—"
"Yours. You originated it, you know."
Bartlett leaned against the counter beside the Watermelon and glared at the floor. Neither thought to leave the store, and even forgot the clerk, who gazed at them dubiously from a discreet distance and wondered how many more telegrams they wanted.
Bartlett knew Billy. Billy said that she was going to marry this man and so she would marry him—unless something more effective than verbal opposition were used. He had never exerted any authority over Billy and knew that it would be too late to begin now. Billy would only laugh at him. But after all, he was Billy's father, he loved the girl and had some right to object to her marriage with a tramp.
He glanced at the thin clever face beside him and admitted that the man had brains and apparently was not besotted or brutalized, merely indifferent, lazy and wholly unambitious; besides, very young, impatient of restraint and the dull grind of a poor man's life.
"Who are your people?" asked Bartlett to gain time. He must make a plan to separate Billy from this impecunious suitor. Authority was useless. He must use tact, finesse.