Carnes simply stares.
"I will send for Wyman if I need his help. What I am studying upon now is a sufficient pretext for sending you away suddenly."
"I'll furnish that," Carnes says, with a droll roll of his eye. "To-morrow I'll get drunk—beastly drunk. You shall inquire after me about the hotel and at Porter's. By-and-by I will come into the office too drunk to be endurable. You must be there to reprimand me. I grow insolent; you discharge me. I go away somewhere and sleep off the effects of my spree. You pay me my wages in the presence of the clerk, and at midnight I board the train en route for the Sunny South. You shall hear from me——"
"By telegraph," I interrupt. "We shall have a new night operator here within the week. I arranged for that when I was in the city, and wrote the old man, yesterday, to send him on at once."
"All right; that's a good move," approved Carnes.
"And now," I said, rising hastily, and consulting my watch, "I must go. To-night, or perhaps in the 'small hours,' we will talk over matters again, and I will explain myself further. For the present, good-by; I am expected to-night at the Hill; I shall pass the evening in the society of Miss Manvers."