"Why, Mr. Grogan," said the girl, surprised, "I thought you'd like that!"

"So would I--wanst," retorted Grogan, "but now when any one says 'you millionaire,' faith, I get ready to dodge a brick."

"I should think it would be pleasant to know you had a million dollars."

There was a note of envy in the girl's voice.

Grogan rose slowly, walked to the desk and leaned across it confidentially.

"So it always was," he said sententiously, "but now they're beginning to ask, 'Where did you get it?'"

"Oh," said the girl.

"It's not 'Oh,' I'm saying," said Grogan, "it's 'Ouch!'"

"Something's disturbing you, eh?"

"Something--and somebody. 'Tis a girl."

"Oh, Mr. Grogan!"

"Whist!" retorted Mr. Grogan, "You don't get me meaning. It's not the kind you buy ice cream sodies for. No! This lady has a club in her fist and a punch in both elbows."

"For you?"

"I suspicion so, and I'm oneasy in me mind."

"It's silly to worry, Mr. Grogan," said Miss Masters, "sit down and look over the papers." She extended a morning newspaper, smiling.

"I may as well." Grogan took up the paper and selected a chair.

"Stirring times in Chicago, just now," said the young woman.

"They're stirring, all right," Grogan agreed. "They're too stirring. What I want is peace. I'd like to pa.s.s the rest of my days in quiet--quiet--and--"

The sentence expired on his lips as he stared at the front page of the paper held open in his hands.

"What's the matter, Mr. Grogan," said Miss Masters starting up, alarmed.

Grogan wiped his forehead and moistened his lips.

"Nothing," he said, "it's hot and I'm--I'm--"

He threw the newspaper on the floor.

"Here," he said, "give me another newspaper."

The girl picked up another paper from the heap on the corner of the desk and pa.s.sed it across to him. Grogan looked at the headlines.

"Help--murder," he cried. Then he cast the paper on the floor and got to his feet abruptly.

"Mr. Grogan," asked the girl, "what is the matter?"

"I asked for quiet," Grogan replied, picking up the papers and shaking them angrily, "and on the front page of this paper is a letter written and signed by Mary Randall."

"And why should Mary Randall disturb you?"

"Do you know she writes to me?"

"Writes to you?"

"She does."

"What does she say?"

"Everything--and then some," was the grim response. "Don't laugh!" he ordered. "Here's one of the last of them." Grogan took a dark blue envelope from his pocket, extracted a single sheet of the same color and read.

"Michael Grogan:--Do you remember what your old Irish mother said to you when you left Old Erin to seek your fortune in the new world? She said: 'Mike, me boy, don't soil your hands with dirty money.' Mary Randall."

"Don't soil your hands with dirty money," repeated Miss Masters.

"That's a nice billy dux to find beside your plate at breakfast, ain't it now?" demanded Grogan. Then after a pause he murmured half to himself,

"Me old Irish mother, G.o.d bless her, with her white hair and her sweet Connemara face! I can see her now, just as she stood there that day in the door of our cabin when I went off up the road, a slip of a boy, with a big bag of oatmeal over me shoulder--one shirt and me Irish fighting spirit. That was me capital in life, that and her blessing. She's sleeping there now, and the shamrock is growing over her--"

Grogan stopped. His voice had grown husky.

"Say," he demanded turning on Miss Masters abruptly, "why don't you make me stop? Don't you see I'm breaking me heart?"

The girl had really been moved. "I can't," she said, "because--" She got out her powder puff and proceeded hastily to decorate her nose. She was still engaged in this operation when the telephone rang. Grogan started.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"Why, it's only the telephone. What is the matter with you, Mr. Grogan?"

"I dunno," responded Grogan despondently, "I'm as nervous as a girl in a peek-a-boo waist."

The telephone rang again.

"Why don't you answer that?" demanded Grogan sharply.

"I will," replied the girl, "but there's no great rush, is there?"

"Yes there is," insisted Grogan, "I can't bear the suspense."

The young woman laughed and picked up the receiver.

"Lake City Electrical Company," she said. "What? Who is it, please."