"On your plate. I never saw the handwriting before."
Pen glided swiftly around the table. "I never saw it either," she said. Which was perfectly true. A scrawling, half-formed hand. The post-mark "New York" told her all that she needed to know.
She thrust it carelessly in her belt and went out into the kitchen. Pendleton looked affronted. He was terribly curious. Pen lit the oil stove and put the kettle on. Then she read her letter.
"Dear Miss:
I'm not much at writing. Please excuse mistakes. Well Miss Broome I guess you were right, all right. Everything bears out what you said. I and the fellows have made a good beginning, but we haven't cinched it yet by a good deal. Of course in a job like this you got to be absolutely bomb-proof before you put yourself under fire. I guess you get me. Just at present we're stalled for the lack of coin. I've raised every nickel I could amongst the fellows and it's all gone flooey. And not a job stirring. We got to have five hundred quick. A thousand would be better. Bring it up yourself. We got to have somebody to stop at a certain swell joint. None of us was able to get by with it. For God's sake get the money, if you have to purloin your old man's sock. Everything depends on your turning up with it the next day or so. No need for me to sign this."
A few minutes later Pendleton entered the kitchen to find Pen leaning against the table in a brown study, the open letter in her hand. The kettle was boiling unheeded.
"Who's your letter from?" he asked.
"Oh ... that!" said Pen with a laugh. She was obliged to extemporize quickly. "Such an odd thing! Do you remember the little foundling that used to work for the Snellings on the Island? Something has led the child to write to me."
"Let's see," he said, holding out his hand.
"I can't, Dad. The poor little thing is telling me her troubles."