The Runaway
I
"I AM sorry to say, Mrs. Reinhart, that your son is — a profligate." Mr. Knowler was visibly distressed in giving voice to the words, and, in order to hide his evident emotion, drew a faded silk handkerchief from the pocket of his lengthy frock-coat and blew his nose irritably, as he gazed somewhat foolishly over the top of the bandanna round the dingy office, and out on to the bare yellow-brick wall which faced the solitary window.
He was a small, narrow-chested little man with innocent blue eyes, and a shrill voice, a little man who had cultivated a certain abruptness of manner in order to give weight and authority to his otherwise unimposing personality. Not that Mr. Josiah Knowler's personality lacked impressiveness in the eyes of the woman now seated in front of him. A poor physiognomist at any time, Mrs. Reinhart saw in Mr. Josiah the very form and front of visible and determinating forces. Was he not the senior partner, forsooth, in the great firm of Knowler Brothers, piano-makers, and the actual recipient, some thirteen months back, of her horde of five and twenty pounds paid in exchange for the indentures promising her
