"I'm sorry I can't stay and smoke with you, major," he said, pushing his chair back. "But the business grind never lets up. I'm obliged to go to Strathcona to-night."
I don't know what the major was going to say to this abrupt break-away: the after-dinner social cigar was a sort of religious ceremony with him. But whatever he was going to say, he didn't say it, for at that moment a telegraph boy came in and handed him a message. He put on his other glasses and read the telegram, with his big goatee looking more than ever like a dagger and the fierce white mustaches twitching. At the end of things he folded the message and put it into his pocket, saying, sort of soberly:
"Graham, there are times when Sheila's intuhferences are mighty neah uncanny; they are, for a fact, suh. This wire is from her. What do you suppose it says?"
Of course, the boss said he couldn't suppose anything about it, and the major went on.
"She tells me, in just seven words, not to let you go to Strathcona to-night. Now what do you make of that? How on top of God's green earth did she know, away off yondeh at the capital, that you were meaning to go to Strathcona to-night?"
Mr. Norcross shook his head. Then he said: "There are wires—both kinds—though I don't know why anybody should telegraph or telephone the capital that I expect to attend a mine-owners' meeting to-morrow morning in the big gold camp. That's why I'm going, you know."
"But this warning," the major insisted. "There's a reason for it, Graham, as sure as you are bawn!"
Again the boss shook his head.
"Between you two, you and Sheila, I'm due to acquire a case of nerves. I don't know what she has heard, but I can't afford to dodge a business appointment. I have wired the Strathcona people that I shall be there to-morrow morning, and it is too late to make other arrangements. Sheila has merely overheard an echo of the threats that are constantly being made by the Hatch sympathizers. It's the aftermath of the election, but it's all talk. They're down and out, and they haven't the nerve to strike back, now."
That ended matters at the club, and the boss and I walked down to the headquarters. The special, with Buck Chandler on the smart little eight-wheeler that we always had for the private-car trips, was waiting, and at the last minute I thought I wasn't going to get to go.