“Is that his name? I’ll say he’s a goop! How does he spell it?”
“G-o-u-p-i-l, Goupil. A. G. Goupil, I think she said. He’s quite wealthy, or, anyway, I gathered so from what she let fall. Makes some sort of machinery. The Goupil Machinery Company is the name. I don’t suppose it would hurt him the least tiny bit to let poor Miss Comfort stay right where she is, but sometimes it does seem that the more money folks have the less feeling they’ve got. I don’t know as I’d ought to say that, either, for—”
“Do you know what place in Iowa he lives?”
“Why, I did know, Laurie, but I don’t recall it now. It was a sort of funny name, though I’ve heard it lots of times.”
“Was it—was it—” Laurie realized blankly that he couldn’t remember the name of a single town or city in Iowa. Mrs. Deane watched him expectantly. Laurie concentrated hard and, at last, “Was it Omaha?” he asked. Then, as Mrs. Deane shook her head, “anyway,” he added, “that’s in Nebraska, come to think of it.”
“It seems to me,” mused Mrs. Deane, “that it was a—a sort of Indian name, like—like—”
“Sioux City!” shouted Laurie.
“That’s it,” agreed Mrs. Deane, quite pleased. “I don’t see how you ever thought of it. Sioux City, Iowa; yes, that was it.”
Laurie was writing on the back of a piece of paper with his fountain-pen. “Look here, Mrs. Deane,” he said eagerly, “why don’t we write to this Goop ourselves, if she won’t? Or why don’t we telegraph him? That would be better, because folks always pay more attention to telegrams than they do to letters. Only”—Laurie’s face clouded a trifle—“I wonder how much it costs to Sioux City.”