"I'd like to have this settled, sir," she said, with some asperity.
"Certainly, my dear madame," replied the Idiot, unabashed—"certainly. Can you change a check for a hundred?"
No, Mrs. Smithers could not.
"Then I shall have to put off paying the account until this evening," said the Idiot. "But," he added, with a glance at the amount of the bill, "are you related to Governor McKinley, Mrs. Smithers?"
"I am not," she returned, sharply. "My mother was a Partington."
"I only asked," said the Idiot, apologetically, "because I am very much interested in the subject of heredity, and you may not[Pg 16] know it, but you and he have each a marked tendency towards high-tariff bills."
And before Mrs. Smithers could think of anything to say, the Idiot was on his way down town to help his employer lose money on Wall Street.[Pg 17]
II
"Do you know, I sometimes think—" began the Idiot, opening and shutting the silver cover of his watch several times with a snap, with the probable, and not altogether laudable, purpose of calling his landlady's attention to the fact—of which she was already painfully aware—that breakfast was fifteen minutes late.