He interrupted her with a gesture and a glance at his watch. "It always seems to me an unnecessary waste of time not to be direct. You have called to collect my arrearage for board?"
"Well, yes. I have."
"Please tell your aunt that when I told her to give herself no concern about that matter, I exactly meant what I said. To-night I received funds through the mail; the sum, twenty dollars. Your aunt," said he, obviously ready to return to his reading matter, "shall have it all."
But Sharlee had heard delinquent young men talk like that before, and her business platform in these cases was to be introduced to their funds direct.
"That would cut down the account nicely," said she, looking at him pleasantly, but a shade too hard to imply a beautiful trust. She went on much like the firm young lady enumerators who take the census: "By the way—let me ask: Have you any regular business or occupation?"
"Not, I suppose, in the sense in which you mean the interrogation."
"Perhaps you have friends in the city, who—"
"Friends! Here! Good Lord—no!" said he, with exasperated vehemence.
"I gather," was surprised from her, "that you do not wish—"
"They are the last thing in the world that I desire. My experience in that direction in New York quite sufficed me, I assure you. I came here," said he, with rather too blunt an implication, "to be let alone."