"What in the world—my diamonds! You did take them, you little wretch?"
She caught hold of my coat. But Lordy! I didn't want to get away a little bit. I let her pull me in, and then I backed up against the door and shut it.
"Diamonds! Oh, no, ma'am. I hope I'm not a thief. But—but it was something you dropped—this."
I fished Moriway's letter out of my pocket and handed it to her.
The poor old lady! Being a bell-boy you know just how old ladies really are. This one at evening, after her face had been massaged for an hour, and the manicure girl and the hair-dresser had gone, wasn't so bad. But to-day, with the marks of the morning's tears on her agitated face, with the blood pounding up to her temples where the hair was thin and gray—Tom Dorgan, if I'm a vain old fool like that when I'm three times as old as I am, just tie a stone around my neck and take me down and drop me into the nearest water, won't you?
"You abominable little wretch!" she sobbed. "I suppose you've told everybody in the office."
"How could I, ma'am?"
"How could you?" She looked up, the tears on her flabby, flushed cheek.
"I didn't know myself. I can't read writing—"
It was thin, but she wanted to believe it.