“Then maybe I’ll call on him,” said Michael, nodding. “It doesn’t matter whom I call on, does it?”
“It certainly doesn’t matter to me,” said the girl coldly.
“In the vulgar language of the masses,” thought Mike as he strode down the street, “I have had the bird!”
His inquiries did not occupy very much of his time. He found the little news shop, and the proprietor, by good fortune, remembered the coming of Mr. Francis Elmer.
“He came for a letter, though it wasn’t addressed to Elmer,” said the shopkeeper. “A lot of people have their letters addressed here. I make a little extra money that way.”
“Did he buy a newspaper?”
“No, sir, he did not buy a newspaper; he had one under his arm—the Morning Telegram. I remember that, because I noticed that he’d put a blue pencil mark round one of the agony advertisements on the front page, and I was wondering what it was all about. I kept a copy of that day’s Morning Telegram: I’ve got it now.”
He went into the little parlour at the back of the shop and returned with a dingy newspaper, which he laid on the counter.
“There are six there, but I don’t know which one it was.”
Michael examined the agony advertisements. There was one frantic message from a mother to her son, asking him to return and saying that “all would be forgiven.” There was a cryptogram message, which he had not time to decipher. A third, which was obviously the notice of an assignation. The fourth was a thinly veiled advertisement for a new hair-waver, and at the fifth he stopped. It ran: