“There isn’t any courting.”
“I say there is, and if the girl’s mother was alive, or you ’tending out at home as sharp as you ought to, your family would have had a stir-up long ago. If you ain’t quite ready for a son-in-law, and don’t want that young man, you’d better grab in and issue a family bulletin to that effect.”
“Damn such foolishness! I don’t believe it,” stormed Barrett, pulling his chair back to the desk; “but if you knew it, why didn’t you say something before?”
“Oh, I’m no gossip,” returned Britt, serenely. “I’ve got something to do besides watch courtin’ scrapes. But I don’t have to watch this one in your family. I know it’s on.”
Barrett hooked his glasses on his nose with an angry gesture, and began to fuss with the papers on his desk. But in spite of his professed scepticism and his suspicion of Pulaski Britt’s ingenuousness, it was plain that his mind was not on the papers.
He whirled away suddenly and faced Britt. That gentleman was pulling packets of other papers from his pocket.
“Look here, Britt, about this lying scandal that seems to be snaking around, seeing that it has come to your ears, I—”
“What I’m here for is to go over these drivin’ tolls so that they can be passed on to the book-keepers,” announced Mr. Britt, with a fine and brisk business air. He had shot his shaft of gossip, had “jumped” his man, and the affair of John Barrett’s daughter had no further interest for him. “You go ahead and run your family affairs to suit yourself. As to these things you are runnin’ with me, let’s get at ’em.”
In this manner, unwittingly, did Pulaski D. Britt light the fuse that connected with his own magazine; in this fashion, too, did he turn his back upon it.