Katherine had a shrinking from this old man; an aversion which in her mature years she had had no occasion to examine, but which she had inherited unanalyzed from her childhood, when old Hosie Hollingsworth had been the chief scandal of the town—an infidel, who had dared challenge the creation of the earth in seven days, and yet was not stricken down by a fiery bolt from heaven! She did not pursue the subject of Bruce, but went directly to her business.
“I understand that you have an office to rent.”
“So I have. Like to see it?”
“That is what I called for.”
“Just come along with me.”
He rose, and Katherine followed him to the floor above and into a room furnished much as the one she had just left.
“This office was last used,” commented old Hosie, “by a young fellow who taught school down in Buck Creek Township and got money to study law with. He tried law for a while.” The old man’s thin prehensile lips shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “He’s down in Buck Creek Township teaching school to get money to pay his back office rent.”
“How about the furniture?” asked Katherine.
“That was his. He left it in part payment. You can use it if you want to.”
“But I don’t want those things about”—pointing gingerly to a pair of cuspidors.