The boy entered and handed the senior partner a card.
"Send him in." He turned to Perkins. "It's Billings. Just you think this over to-night, Perk."
"Hello, Billings."
CHAPTER VIII
CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST
Skinner did look worried, but what ailed him was very foreign to the cause that McLaughlin and Perkins suspected. He was worrying about his diminishing bank account. But it was n't the actual diminution of funds that worried him so much—he was afraid Honey would find him out.
For a long time this fear had haunted him. Like a wasp, it had buzzed constantly about his ears, threatening to sting him at any moment. It had become a veritable obsession, a mean, haunting, appetite-destroying, sleep-banishing obsession.
There were many ways in which this fear might be realized. For instance, Honey had told him that she was thinking of studying finance so as to find out all the little leakages and help them save, and that she was going to ask Mr. Waldron, the teller of the Meadeville National, to instruct her in the intricacies of banking.
What inadvertent remark might not that functionary drop and thus sow suspicion in Honey? At first, Skinner had thought of warning the teller not to discuss these things with Honey. But he made up his mind that that might direct Waldron's attention to their account and lead him to suspect something from the new process of circulation which Skinner had set going when he promoted himself. No—better let sleeping dogs lie in that direction. Instead, Skinner persuaded Honey that it would be an imposition on Mr. Waldron, take up too much of his time. He, Skinner, would give her what instruction she needed.