“I consulted a lady friend of mine––” he began. But Bill waved him to silence.
“You needn’t worry nothin’,” he said coldly. “I got it all wrote down here.”
“How you got it?” cried Sandy. “I ain’t said it.”
Bill’s eyes met the other’s angry glance with that cold irony that was so much a part of his nature.
“Guess your leddy friend wrote it,” he said. And, as he heard the words, the last of Toby’s ill-humor vanished. His stupid face wreathed itself into a broad grin as he watched the blank look of disappointment spread itself over Sandy’s face.
“Listen here, all of you,” the president went on, quite undisturbed by the feelings he had stirred in the widower. “This is wot the leddy says. She’s writ it all so ther’ can’t be no mistake.”
Then he began to read from his document with careful distinctness.
“‘Don’t take no notice of what I told Toby Jenks an’ Sandy Joyce. I jest fooled ’em proper. Toby’s a nice boy, but he ain’t got brains enough to kep himself warm on a summer day, so I didn’t waste nothin’ on him, ’cep’ time. As fer Sandy, he’s sech a con-se-quenshul––’ Have I got that word right, Sunny?” Bill inquired blandly of the secretary.
“You sure have,” grinned Sunny, enjoying himself.
“‘Sech a consequenshul fool of an idjut man,’” Bill read on, with a glance into Sandy’s scarlet face, “‘that I hadn’t no time but to push him out of this dinin’-room.’”