"Well, Lavinia," said Lawrence, almost as soon as they were seated in the parlor, "what's the news about Glenn? How's he getting along?"
"Run get his letters and let us read them."
"Why, Jack! The idea!" Mayme rebuked him.
"Well, I'll read you part of one or two," she said. "He can tell you much better than I all about himself."
She was gone from the room a moment and then returned with two thick envelopes.
"My, Lavinia, you don't intend to read all that, do you?" Lawrence made a burlesque of looking at his watch.
"Oh, you needn't be afraid," said Lavinia, smiling. She opened a letter.
"Here's one that came several days ago. He mentions you both in this one."
"You don't mean to say he connects our names?" Lawrence affected consternation.
"Can't you be serious a moment?" Mayme said, "I want to hear what he says; do go on, Lavinia, and don't mind Jack."
Lavinia read the extract from the diary and Marley's comment.
"Doesn't he say anything about you?" said Lawrence. "Why don't you read that? You skip the most interesting parts. You'd better let me read them. Here--" and he held out his hand for the letter.
But Lavinia laid one letter securely in her lap and opened the other.
"Listen to this," she began, and then she glanced over the first page and half-way down the second.
"Here you're skipping again," cried Lawrence. "Why don't you play fair?"
"'I have made a friend,' he says," she began, "'and it all came about through the strike. You know the freight handlers went out on the first of May, and since then there has been more excitement than work in the office. The freight house is stacked high with freight, and only a few men are working there and they are afraid of their lives. All around the outside of the big, long shed are policemen and detectives, and the strikers' pickets. All day they walk up and down, up and down, at a safe distance, just off the company's ground, and they waylay everybody and try to get them not to go to work here. I happened to see the strike when it began. It was day before yesterday morning. I had gone out in the freight house on some little errand and just at ten o'clock I noticed a man walk down by the platform that runs along outside the shed. I saw him stop by one of the big doors and look in. Suddenly he gave a low whistle, then another. The men in the freight house stopped and looked up. Then the man outside raised his arm, and held up two fingers--'"