"The new job is going well?" he asked, addressing Louise.
"Oh, I'm so happy in it, Mr. Coulter."
"That's good! And you, Harling?"
"I'm getting on splendidly, sir."
"Excellent! There'll be a raise coming to you next month—quite a substantial one. We've been looking you up."
"Oh, sir, how can I——"
"There, there! We mustn't stop to talk about it now. If you must thank somebody for it thank this young scoundrel here. It was he put me up to it."
There was time for nothing further. Swept onward by crowds that surged behind, the McGregors, like chips on the crest of a mammoth wave, were borne forward and out of the tent.
In the open air Mrs. McGregor wiped her perspiring brow.
"Now," began she, turning accusingly on her son, "perhaps you will be so good as to tell us what all this is about. How came you to know Mr. John Coulter well enough to be treating him like a long-lost brother? And what had you to do with Hal and Louise and the Coulter mills? I feel as if I were going crazy! One minute you don't even know Mr. Coulter by sight and the next he is sending us a Christmas dinner and you are fairly falling on his neck."