Page:Three speeds forward.djvu/42

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Three Speeds Forward


ribly unassailable. He didn't put up his name at the Country Club; didn't try to make any friends; didn't put his head out of his shell for anybody to take a crack at it. The only apparent method of hurting him was to attack him from the outside—bust the puzzle business, and drive him into bankruptcy. But he hadn't been with us a month before he launched "Dobbin, Dobbin, Oh, Where's Dobbin?" and successfully maddened a continent for a second time. I gave papa one of the dollar sizes as a birthday present, but he didn't see any joke in it, and got blacker than a thundercloud. He was sorer than ever about losing the Vincents, and never passed the Howard place without gritting his teeth.

We all waited for Marsden to come out and startle us. We didn't know exactly what he was going to do—but we were sure, sooner or later, that he would do it. Then, as nothing happened, a sort of mystery grew up about him. He hid away in a corner of that vast old house with two German servants, an old man

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