finished Fred with a grimace. "That's pretty bad—but so's the subject."
"Look here, Fred," said Bojo, thus recalled from the tyranny of figures which kept swirling before his eyes. "I want to talk to you. I'm worried about your letting Louise Varney in on Pittsburgh & New Orleans; besides I suspect you've plunged a darned sight deeper than you ought."
And from the moral superiority of a man of force, he read him a lecture on the danger to the mere outsider of risking all on one hazard—a sensible pointed warning which DeLancy accepted contritely, in utter ignorance of the preacher's own perilous position.
It was well after seven when they stepped out on the icy station amid the gay crowd of week-enders. Patsie, at the reins, halloed to them from a rakish cutter, and the next moment they were off over the crackling snow with long, luminous, purple shadows at their sides, racing past other sleighs with jingling bells and shrieks of recognition.
"Heavens, Patsie, you're worse than Fred with his car! I say, look out—you missed that cutter by a foot," said Bojo, who had taken the seat beside the young Eskimo at an imperious command.
"Pooh, that's nothing!" said that reckless person. "Watch this." With a sudden swerve she drew past a contending sleigh and gained the head of the road by a margin so narrow that the occupants of the back seat broke into many cries.
"Here, let me out— Murder!— Police!"
"Don't worry, the snow's lovely and soft!" Patsie shouted back, delighted. "Turned over myself yesterday—doesn't hurt a bit."
This encouraging information was received with frantic cries and demands on Bojo to take the reins.
"Don't you dare," said the gay lady indignantly, setting her feet firmly and flinging all the weight of her shoulders against a sudden break of the spirited team.