"All right!" said Douglas. "We will let it go then. Maybe you are right. At least you are not worth the bother it requires to wake you up. Will you take an answer to the note you brought me?"
"Now the returns are coming in," said Mickey. "Sure I will; but she is in the big stores shopping."
"I'll find out," said Douglas.
He picked up the telephone and called the Winton residence; on learning Leslie was still away, he left a request that she call him when she returned.
"I would spend the time talking with you," he said to Mickey, "if I could accomplish anything; as I can't, I'll go on with my work. You busy yourself with anything around the rooms that interests you."
Mickey grinned half abashed. He took a long survey of the room they were in, arose and standing in the door leading to the next he studied that. To him "busy" meant work. Presently he went into the hall and returned with a hand broom and dust pan he had secured from the janitor. He carefully went over the floor, removing anything he could see that he thought should not be there, and then began on the room adjoining. Next he appeared with a cloth and dusted the furniture and window seats. Once he met Douglas' eye and smiled. "Your janitor didn't have much of a mother," he commented. "I could beat him to his base a rod."
"Job is yours any time you want it."
"Morning papers," carrolled Mickey. "Sterilized, deodorized, vulcanized. I like to sell them——"
Defeated again Bruce turned to his work and Mickey to his. He straightened every rug, pulled a curtain, set a blind at an angle that gave the worker more light and better air. He was investigating the glass when the telephone rang.
"Hello, Leslie! It certainly was! How did you do it? Not so hilarious as you might suppose. Leslie, I want to say something, not for the wire. Will you hold the line a second until I start Mickey with it? All right!