The Professor felt a burning desire to lay his head down on Min's ample bosom, and weep bitterly; he had not expected to be tackled so vigorously, though he had known he would not have things all his own way.
"Buck up, Master Frank," Min encouraged him, "and have another drop of punch before you go home. Your heart's in the right place—at least it always was when I had the looking after the boys and Miss Gay, and you only want just telling what to do, which is to let well alone."
The Professor accepted the punch (in a smaller glass this time) and drained it at a gulp, though it was insidious stuff, he feared, and treacherous. Dreading further criticisms of himself, he seized his hat, and grasping Min's hand, worked it like a pump handle, then started for the door with a little run, breathing a sigh of relief when he reached the pavement. Fortunately, whatever his head might be, his legs were of cast-iron, and he slipped nimbly enough into a hansom, just managing to jerk out his address to the cabby, before he fell fast asleep.
The stopping of the cab woke him, and hurriedly paying the man double his fare, he admitted himself with his latch-key, and proceeded on tiptoe to his study to finish his interrupted nap, taking the precaution to first lock the door. There was more of wily Brer Rabbit in the Professor's composition than most people supposed.
CHAPTER X
THE NOTORIOUS GAY
Gay and the Professor were sitting at luncheon, the girl still highly delighted with her recent success, and laughing as she described Lossie Holden's disgust at Min Toplady.
"She called her low, Frank, fancy that! Dear old Min, who was always so good to us, and never said an unkind word. You remember her well enough, don't you?"
The Professor agreed that he did, though he felt that his recent interview with the lady in question did not justify him in amplifying his sister's description of her amiability.
He fidgeted nervously with his letters (mostly circulars), then ran his knife down the wrapper of a newspaper which lay by his plate.