“Oh, doesn’t it, though!” Hilda could have hit him with pleasure. So it didn’t matter to the big, heartless public whether her Dad or that Englishman won or not.
“Well, would you mind asking your father just that?”
Hilda, inside:
“Dad, he wants to know whether either you or—him” (Hilda referred always to Cheerio as “him” or “he”) “will be going to Chicago for the tournament now.”
“You tell that bloody young news hound that he’ll do well to clear off the place in a damn quick hurry, or we’ll make it a damned sight hotter for him than the place he’s eventually headed for.”
Hilda, back at screen door:
“My father says for you to clear off the place, and I advise you to, too. You’ve a nerve to come here to get stuff to print against my father in the paper. I’d just like to see you dare to print anything about us. It’s none of the newspapers’ business, and my father will win, anyway.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to have that line on the game. Did he win last night?”
“I’m not going to answer a single question. We don’t want a single thing to get in the papers.”
“But it’s already been in the paper.”