"And that," he said, pointing southward down the street, "is the Board of Trade."
"Where we was the other day," the old man reminded his wife. "And that gilt thing on the top of it is a ship, I swan. And wasn't they noisy, though. Well, now, Josephine, ain't it handsome?"
A simple soul found to admire the tower of the Board of Trade—let it be put on record.
George and McNabb had got on very well. The old countryman had felt rather frost-bitten on seeing George in full social regalia, but seeming to find him more human and approachable in a simple business suit, he had thawed out again. Mrs. McNabb had taken to him kindly from the start. Most women did, though he appeared never to have observed it. She joined with her husband in wreathing him in an atmosphere of simple friendliness.
The other father concerned in the festivities had also thawed towards George, though it would be a mistake to attribute simplicity to any friendliness shown by the head of the Underground. At one stage of the proceedings Erastus M. Brainard had laid his hand on Ogden's shoulder, and the young man had asked himself with distressful circumspection what it meant. It might have been to his advantage if he had found an answer.
George's engagement to Jessie Bradley was now an accomplished fact; the nail was driven—only a formal announcement was required to clinch it. He had preferred to withhold this until his affairs with McDowell were more accurately adjusted. Freeze & Freeze had put on a pretty positive pressure, and an arrangement had been contrived that had some of the externals, at least, of an adjustment.
McDowell's affairs had not been taking a very favorable turn; some of his ventures had been too rank for even gullibility itself, and his hope of relations with Ingles was now completely at an end. Ingles, in fact, had signified to him that an accounting for of the St. Asaph funds was desired by himself and the other contributing members of the former committee, that a remittance in accordance therewith was looked for, and that his resignation of the financial guidance of the choir would receive prompt consideration.
This communication might have been made by Ingles personally, or it might have been sent by his office-boy, or it might even (as a physical possibility) have been pushed in under the crack of the door between them. As a matter of fact, it came through the mail. So formal a transmission of so formidable a communication was conclusive; McDowell felt at once that all possibility of personal relations between himself and Ingles was at an end—that door in the wall between them was as good as bricked up.
