He caught her by the arm and tried to move her towards the door—gently, as if she might go of her own accord.
Ogden, on coming in from lunch, found himself intercepted by Freddy Pratt. This youth had a few moments' leisure, and he assailed Ogden between the wardrobe and the wash-stand.
"I went over to see the Viberts again; last night," he communicated. "Poor Mayme—I wasn't going back on her, if others did. She was sitting there all alone in the dark. I guess she had been crying. Anyway, when I lit the gas her eyes looked red. She wouldn't say much—"
"Good plan."
"And after he came in she wouldn't say hardly anything at all. Slow work talking to him! He wasn't drunk exactly, but he had been drinking; didn't need a light to tell that. I wasn't doing anything at all, and all of a sudden he blurted out, 'I say, you young fellow you, what do you mean by coming here and destroying the peace of a man's family?' You can bet I was taken back. Then he got up and came towards me—he looked big, too! 'You get out of here'—that's what he said."
"And did you?"
"Oh, yes, I got out," responded Freddy Pratt, with a meek complacency.
"You surprise me. You showed sense."
Freddy looked at him doubtfully. "I heard this morning that he had just lost his place with those insurance people," he resumed cautiously. "That was what was the matter, I guess."
"Possibly," said George, who had heard from Brower that something of the kind was likely to occur. The fellow's work had been done indifferently of late, and he was far from being worth the increased salary he had asked for.