The next moment Jane was standing beside the desk, her cheeks rosy with a quite reasonable indignation at the treatment she had been receiving from the surly unknown. At the telephone sat her new acquaintance, sending rapid requests over the wire in a tone which plainly was making somebody attend.
"Not fix up your own mistake to-night--with to-morrow a holiday? Why not? There's plenty of time. Send by a special messenger, of course, and tell him to be quick. Who's talking to you? That does n't make any special difference, does it? It may be a small order--I don't see what that has to do with it. Mrs. Bell needs that paper up within half an hour. Yes--well, this is Harrison Townsend's house--Worthington Square, and I 'm telephoning for our friends. What? Oh, you will! Well, thank you! I 'm glad you see your way clear. Yes--half an hour--I say, make it twenty minutes, can't you, please? Very well." And Murray broke off, and hung up the receiver with an impatient click which expressed his contempt for a clerk who would hurry up an order for Worthington Square when he would n't do it for Gay Street.
"Idiot!" he remarked.
The girl beside him moved toward the door, smiling. "It was ever so kind of you," she said. "The paper is for the dining-room, and you can guess how it upsets things to have the dining-room in confusion."
"I hope you didn't mind my telling that fellow you were our friends," said Murray, as he accompanied his guest to the door. "Such near neighbours----"
"Oh, I understood! That was what made it so easy for him to get a messenger! Only--please don't think we----"
"Yes?" Murray was smiling encouragingly at her.
"It sounds absurd, but--it's so dreadfully soon to be borrowing telephones----"
"Or molasses?"
They both laughed. Murray's hand lingered upon the door knob, which at this moment it became timely for him to turn for her. "I could n't help hearing your sister assuring you that she would tell people you never borrowed molasses. I don't see why not. We might need to borrow it of you some time, but of course if you feel there's something especially prohibitive about molasses----"