A man who had just come into the office looked at the two speakers with astonishment. Meecham knew that he had come to put an advertisement in the paper, and so he showed him the letter.
“Well, I’m damned!” he said. “That’s right, though. It’s ‘pink pants,’ on your life. But where in blazes would a man get pink pants, anyway?”
When Mr. Silo saw the letter he told Meecham to “burke” it; and Meecham put it in the waste-basket. The next day Silo made him take it out of the waste-basket and print it. He explained that so many people had asked him about the letter—and he said something to Meecham as to his methods of running the office—that he thought it better to print it and let the people see for themselves how absurd it was, or else they might magnify it and think he was afraid to print it. Meecham did not say anything at the moment. He did not like being blown up any more than the rest of us do, however; and, when he had got the letter safely printed and out before the public, he said to Silo:
“You did just right about that letter. It wouldn’t have done for a man of your position to have folks going around asking where you were on any particular Thursday evening.”
“Why, no!” said Silo; “of course it wouldn’t. Lemme see; was that the day the infernal crank picked out?”
“Thursday night, the eleventh,” said Meecham, his finger on the calendar; “between nine and ten o’clock at night. Now, of course, Mr. Silo, you know just where you were then.”
“Why, of course!” said Silo. “Lemme see, now. Thursday the eleventh, nine, ten at night. Why, I was—no—why, Thursday, the eleventh!—Oh, thunder!—no—it can’t be! Oh, certainly! yes; that’s all right, of course! Is that Mr. Smith over there, the other side of the street? I’ve got to speak to him a minute. I’ll see you to-morrow. Good-night, my boy!”
* * *
How much of an expert in human nature are you? If I tell you that Mr. Silo insisted on having every first impression of an edition of the Echo sent to his house by special messenger the instant it was printed, whether he was at home or not, and that he did this just to make Meecham feel the bitterness of the servitude of debt, what do you deduce or infer from that? That somebody else was tyrannizing over Silo? Quite right! Mrs. Silo was a woman who opened all of her husband’s letters—that came to the house. And she looked at Silo’s paper before he saw it himself.