The Old Reporter
am you must frankly tell me so, but oh, Heavens, if I do not find out before the Stock Exchange closes—no! within half an hour" He bit his lip.
Billy now had her talking, talking frankly and freely, with a nice little sympathetic look about the corners of her mouth, and wonder in her eyes, and some zest, for he seemed such a strange, romantic, fascinating foreigner, and the story he told was so pathetic, and he had such a sad, strong, distinguished face and bearing. She believed that he had had "a great sorrow" in his life, and all sorts of strange experiences, and that she was in the midst of a story.
"And what did your father say he would do in that case?" the interesting man was asking, beaming kindly at her, and adding: "You see, I don't exactly understand. I'm all knocked up—all these sudden worries—but never mind that," and he stopped himself with a grim smile, quite as they do in novels.
She repeated it all clearly, for she was an only daughter, and her father was a widower, and that was the reason Billy had
285
