The big man linked his fingers together on the chair arm.
“As I was sayin’, he walked right in and made himself at home with the notion. He called her ‘Carrots’ straight back at me; it was ‘Kiss her, pap; she’s our’n now,’ and he begun to grin.
“On the soul of Satan, man, it was all I could do to keep my foot away from him. I wanted to hoist him out of that chair and skite him around among the furniture—but I had to keep my poker face on.
“He bounced up and got a box of cigars and a little dish full of matches and shoved them across the table. I took one, bit the end off, scratched the match on my foot, lighted it, and went ahead.
“‘It’s the butt end of what she’s got,’ I says, ‘an’ it’s in the door.’
“He knew all about business, and he picked the things right out.
“‘You mean,’ he says, ‘that her solicitor has invested her fortune in a stock on margin and the market is declining?’
“‘You got it,’ I says, ‘only she done it herself, on some tip from her swell friends.’
“‘How extraordinary!’ he piped; his voice got thin when it hit money. ‘Is it a legitimate stock?’
“‘Sure,’ I answered, ‘one of the six good ones.’ I didn’t know how many good ones there was.