She stepped aside.
"Go," she said, with a fat little gesture. "Mebbe you've got pressin' business. Mebbe you want to write billy-doos to Mrs. Hilliard. Mebbe them opery glasses needs dustin' off s'more."
He fled lest she say worse.
Clearly William Irons had been wax in the widow's hands, and on his auburn head would have fallen the accumulated spleen of weeks had not the youth met his employer at the office door with a telegram whose portentous message engulfed all lesser cares.
CHAPTER VII
Shelby read, pondered, and finally roused from his preoccupation to meet the bovine stare of his clerk.
"Railway guide, William," he ordered sharply.
"Yep."
"And call up the station agent. Have him wire for a lower berth on the
Lehigh to-night."
William Irons waited.