"Captain Hamilton?" said the girl in surprise.
"No, me," said Bones, annoyed. "Gracious Heavens, dear old key-tapper, didn't I say me?"
"Something happen to you?" she said in alarm. "Why, what could happen to you?"
"Suppose I went broke?" said Bones, with the comfortable air of one who was very unlikely to go broke. "Suppose I had terrific and tremendous and cataclysmic and what's-the-other-word losses?"
"But you're not likely to have those, are you?" she asked.
"Not really," said Bones, "but suppose?"
She saw that, for once, when he was speaking to her, his mind was elsewhere, and withdrew her hand. It was a fact that Bones did not seem to notice the withdrawal.
"Poor old Bones, poor old mug!" said Bones softly. "I'm a funny old devil."
The girl laughed.
"I don't know what you're thinking about," she said, "but you never strike me as being particularly funny, or poor, or old, for the matter of that," she added demurely.