"Say, Mr. Jaffry, you haven't swung over——"
"Not at all. It's tactics. I ought to see him."
"Why not run out to his house——"
"Just been there. Ran away. Some one there I'm afraid of."
"Telephone?"
Mr. Jaffry shook his head and lowered his voice.
"With Betty hearing it at this end, and the committee from the Antis sitting it out down there—the telephone's on the stair landing——"
He pursed his lips, waved his cap slowly to and fro and observed it with a whimsical expression on his sandy face, then glanced out of the window. He stepped closer, looking sharply down. A very fat boy with pink cheeks and a downcast expression was sitting on a fire-plug. Mr. Jaffry leaned out.
"Pudge," he called, "come up here a minute."
On the Remington and Evans stationery he penciled a note, which he sealed. Then he scribbled another—to Mrs. George Remington, asking her to hand George the inclosure the moment he appeared from his work. The two he slipped into a large envelope. The very fat boy stood before him.