"After last night, seems to me you're a bear."
Murgatroyd seated himself; it was thoroughly characteristic that he should waste little time on a preliminary skirmish with any one.
"Then it is about this Challoner affair that you have come to see me?" he asked tactlessly. "I warn you, Shirley—don't! Hands off!—--"
At once Shirley assumed an aggressive, business-like attitude; close to his desk she drew her chair, and then leaning on both elbows looked Murgatroyd squarely in the face and said with great earnestness:—
"Billy Murgatroyd, you've got to help these people out!"
Murgatroyd flushed and answered with a smile:—
"If such a thing were possible, Shirley, you're the one person to make me do it."
His compliment found her unresponsive; she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts.
"You must do it," she persisted, and looked at him appealingly. "Of course the man could not have been himself."
"Probably not," he said coldly. "But of one thing you may be sure, Challoner had a purpose in all this."