Bones read the paragraph many times, and at the conclusion of each reading returned to his reverie. Presently he rose and strolled into the office of his secretary, and the girl looked up with a smile as Bones seated himself on the edge of her table.
"Young miss," he said soberly, "do you ever hear anybody talking about me in this jolly old City?"
"Fearfully complimentarily, dear old miss?" asked Bones carelessly, and the girl's colour deepened.
"I don't think it matters what people say about one, do you?"
"It doesn't matter to me," said Bones, "so long as one lovely old typewriter has a good word for poor old Bones." He laid his hand upon hers, and she suffered it to remain there without protest. "They think I'm a silly old ass, don't they?"
"Oh, no," she said quickly, "they don't think that. They say you're rather unconventional."
"Same thing," said Bones. "Anybody who's unconventional in business is a silly old ass."
He squeezed the hand under his, and again she did not protest or withdraw it from his somewhat clammy grip.
"Dear old darling----" began Bones, but she stopped him with a warning finger.
"Dear old typewriter," said Bones, unabashed, but obedient, "suppose something happened to the clever old Johnny who presides over this office--the brains of the department, if I may be allowed to say so?"
"Captain Hamilton?" said the girl in surprise.
"No, me," said Bones, annoyed. "Gracious Heavens, dear old key-tapper, didn't I say me?"
"Something happen to you?" she said in alarm. "Why, what could happen to you?"
"Suppose I went broke?" said Bones, with the comfortable air of one who was very unlikely to go broke. "Suppose I had terrific and tremendous and cataclysmic and what's-the-other-word losses?"
"But you're not likely to have those, are you?" she asked.
She saw that, for once, when he was speaking to her, his mind was elsewhere, and withdrew her hand. It was a fact that Bones did not seem to notice the withdrawal.
"Poor old Bones, poor old mug!" said Bones softly. "I'm a funny old devil."
"I don't know what you're thinking about," she said, "but you never strike me as being particularly funny, or poor, or old, for the matter of that," she added demurely.
Bones stooped down from the table and laid his big hand on her head, rumpling her hair as he might have done to a child.