"No, sir," said Brett, "but I do wish that could have been the reason. I've come, sir, as a matter of fact, because you are, on the contrary, so very, very active in the game."
"I don't understand," said Merriman rather coldly,
"Oh," said Brett, "everybody I care for in the world is being ruined, including myself, and I said, 'Mr. Merriman could save us all if he only would.' So I came to ask you if you couldn't see your way to letting up on us all."
"'Mr. Brett," said Mr. Merriman, "you may have heard, since gossip occasionally concerns herself with me, that in my youth I was a priest."
Brett nodded.
"Well," continued Mr. Merriman, "I have never before listened to so naïve a confession as yours."
Brett blushed to his eyes.
"I knew when I came," he said, "that I shouldn't know how to go about what I've come for."
"But I think I have a better opinion of you," smiled Mr. Merriman, and his smile was very engaging. "You have been frank without being fresh, you have been bashful without showing fear. You meet the eye in a manly way, and you seem a clean and worthy young man. As opposed to these things, what you might have thought out to say to me would hardly matter."
"Oh," cried Brett impulsively, "if you would only let up!"