"You're wrong, fellow! I heard his roll's as adhesive as rubber tape. Same as the old man's before him. Wouldn't even pry off a nickel to give the poor boy who told him the news."
"Say, when a guy once gets in the papers, scandal begins!" said Jack disgustedly. Seeing Mrs. Regan at her parlor window, and fearful that she might give him away, he walked on.
From a drug-store on Eighth avenue he telephoned back to Mrs. Regan, asking her to come to him there. "Don't let anything on to those guys at the gate," he warned her. "I want to keep out of sight for a few days."
She came into the store in a breathless state of fluster. She was a good-hearted Irishwoman of considerable energy of character and a racy style of speech. But at present she was considerably overcome.
"Oh, Mr. Norman! Oh, Mr. Norman!" she gasped.
"Easy with my name!" warned Jack. "I'm going to be Mr. Robinson for awhile now."
"Is it true what they say in the papers?"
"More or less."
"Oh law! To think of anything like this happening in my house! And the third floor rear hall at that! But that's always the way ain't it, like a story like? The telephone's been going like a Big Ben ever since twelve o'clock, asking for you. And you such a pleasant ordinary young fellow—not to say ordinary-like, but not stuck up at all, just like one of us!" She paused for breath.
"Easy, Mrs. Regan," whispered Jack. "That clerk's got ears like a water pitcher."