Leigh made a gesture of gracious deprecation with his left hand and bowed. "This, Mr. Timmons, is a matter of business, and I never allow anything so odious as fiction to touch even the robe of sacred business." He lifted his hat, raised his eyes to the top of the spire of the church and then bowed low his uncovered head. "For, Mr. Timmons, business is the deity every one of our fellow-countrymen worship."
"What are you going to do; that's what I want to know?" said the other fiercely.
"Precisely. Well, sir, I shall tell you my position in two words. I suspect my Birmingham correspondent." Leigh threw back his head and smiled engagingly, as though he had ended an amusing anecdote.
"By ----, you don't say that?" cried Timmons, fairly startled and drawing back a pace.
"I do."
"What does he know?"
"About what, my dear sir? What does he know about what? Are you curious to learn his educational equipments? Surely you cannot be curious on such a point?" He looked troubled because of Timmons's idle curiosity.
"Don't let us have any more rot. You say you suspect this man?"
"I do."
"What does he know of the stuff?"