"I have decided," said Bones, playing with his paper-knife, "to allow you a commission of seven and a half per cent. on all profits. Seven and a half per cent. on two million is, roughly, fifty thousand pounds——"
She laughed her refusal.
"I like to be fair," said Bones.
"You like to be generous," she corrected him, "and because I am a girl, and pretty——"
"Oh, I say," protested Bones feebly—"oh, really you are not pretty at all. I am not influenced by your perfectly horrible young face, believe me, dear old Miss Marguerite. Now, I've a sense of fairness, a sense of justice——"
"Now, listen to me, Mr. Tibbetts." She swung her chair round to face him squarely. "I've got to tell you a little story."
Bones listened to that story with compressed lips and folded arms. He was neither shocked nor amazed, and the girl was surprised.
"Hold hard, young miss," he said soberly. "If this is a jolly old swindle, and if the naughty mariner——"
"His name is Webber, and he is an actor," she interrupted.
"And dooced well he acted," admitted Bones. "Well, if this is so, what about the other johnny who's putting up ten thousand to my fifteen thousand?"