Pausing when the boy closed the door behind him, he snarled:
"Did you get it?"
"No."
So furious at the failure that, for a moment, he could only gurgle, the banker finally blurted:
"Why not?"
Abashed at his father's wrath, the heir to the Rozier wealth shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
"Speak, you fool!" roared his sire. "I'll wager you botched it—as you do everything. Take that chair by my desk and tell me why you didn't recover the note—if you can." And dropping into his leather-upholstered chair, he glowered at his son.
Stung to the quick by the sneer in his parent's tone, young Rozier forgot his fear of the man staring at him and graphically and concisely related all that had occurred from the time his mother had sent him on his mission.
With beetling brows and frequent outbursts of profanity, the banker listened to the description of the manner in which the supposed miner had refused to give up the note and his pride-wounding comment that it's contents were of no importance.