And Adrian sez, “Alice and I are going out driving, and I wanted to say good-bye to you.”
Martin kissed the pretty face, with his adorin’ love for the child a-showin’ plain in him. And then Adrian come and kissed me, his gold curls fallin’ back from his little, earnest face, and his black velvet cap a-settin’ ’em off first rate, and he sez to me, “Good-bye;” and I hadn’t any way of knowin’ that that good-bye would echo through the long futer and die out only at the Dark Portal.
Martin took out his purse and took out a roll of bills and handed ’em to Adrian, and sez he, “Hand that to your sister; I was going to give it to her last night—it is for a necklace she wanted. Be careful of it,” sez Martin as Adrian took it; “it is five thousand dollars, and that is worth taking care of, little partner.”
Wall, they sot off, and I went back into a little settin’-room acrost the hall from Martin’s study and took up a book and went to readin’.
It wuz a interestin’ book, and I wuz carried away—some distance away from the big city and trolley cars.
When I heard a hum of a good many voices in Martin’s room, and the door bein’ open, I couldn’t help hearin’ what they wuz a-sayin’. It seemed to be a deputation of some kind a-askin’ Martin for some favor or other.
For I heard him say out loud, “I am sick of these complaints.”
His tone wuz cold—cold as a iceberg. There wuz one man amongst ’em who seemed to be the speaker; he sez, “We are workingmen; we have homes and families. We work hard every day. We leave our children, that we may go away and earn food and clothing for them; our houses are the best that we can afford, but the best that we can pay for lay in the populous region where so many lives are lost by these cars. I know you are the owner of that line, and we have come to appeal to you.”
Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting complaints.”
