Noll, watching from his high perch on the office-stool, raised his voice:
“Now, that’s curious, Fosse,” said he—“for he was here only this morning—and he was talking about you.”
Fosse was intensely interested:
“Indeed!” said he—“how very interesting! May I ask what he said?”
“Well, you know, it was a private conversation—I don’t quite exactly like to say——”
“It will go no farther—go no farther,” persisted Fosse, on the tip-toe of eagerness.
“Well, he said you ought to chuck literature and try window-cleaning——”
Lovegood’s deep chuckle echoed about the room, and Caroline Baddlesmere reprovingly said:
“Noll!”
The little man’s face became scarlet; then went white. He raised himself on his little high heels as far as his full rigidity of back and limb and pride would take him, and, tilting his nose in the air: