CHAPTER XXIII.—HORACE’S PATH BECOMES TORTUOUS.
“Tracy has found out that I’m doing the Minster business, and he’s cut up rough about it. I shouldn’t be surprised if the firm came a cropper over the thing.”
Horace Boyce confided this information to Mr. Schuyler Tenney on the forenoon following his scene with Reuben, and though the language in which it was couched was in part unfamiliar, the hardware merchant had no difficulty in grasping its meaning. He stopped his task of going through the morning’s batch of business letters, and looked up keenly at the young man.
“Found out—how do you mean? I told you to tell him—told you the day you came here to talk about the General’s affairs.”
“Well, I didn’t tell him.”
“And why?” Tenney demanded, sharply. “I should like to know why?”
“Because it didn’t suit me to do so,” replied the young man; “just as it doesn’t suit me now to be bullied about it.”
Mr. Tenney looked for just a fleeting instant as if he were going to respond in kind. Then he thought better of it, and began toying with one of the envelopes before him.