“Hm!” Maxell looked absently at the letter he had in his hand, folded it and put it away.
“Is the mail in?” asked Cartwright, interested, and Maxell nodded.
“I suppose you’ve had your daily letter from your kiddie?”
Maxell smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “it is not a baby letter, but it is very amusing.”
“How old is she?” asked Cartwright.
“She must be nine or ten,” said the other.
“I wonder if it is just coincidence, or whether it is fate,” mused Cartwright.
“What is a coincidence?” asked the other.
“The fact that you’ve got a kid to look after, and I’m in a sort of way responsible for a bright lad. Mine is less interesting than yours, I think. Anyway, he’s a boy and a sort of cousin. He has two fool parents who were born to slavery—the sort of people who are content to work for somebody all their lives and regard revolt against their condition as an act of impiety. I’ve only seen the kid once, and he struck me as the sort who might break loose from that kind of life and take a chance. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have interested myself in him.”