The girl had finished her work, her typewriter was covered, and she was wearing her hat and coat. But she sat before her desk, a frown on her pretty face and an evening newspaper in her hand, and Bones's heart momentarily sank. Suppose the poems had been given to the world?
"All the winners, dear old miss?" he asked, with spurious gaiety.
"No," she said. "I'm rather worried, Mr. Tibbetts. A friend of my step-father's has got into trouble again, and I'm anxious lest my mother should have any trouble."
"Dear, dear!" said the sympathetic Bones. "How disgustingly annoying! Who's the dear old friend?"
"A man named Seepidge," said the girl, and Bones gripped a chair for support. "The police have found that he is printing something illegal. I don't quite understand it all, but the things they were printing were invitations to a German lottery."
"Very naughty, very unpatriotic," murmured the palpitating Bones, and then the girl laughed.
"It has its funny side," she said. "Mr. Seepidge pretended that he was carrying out a legitimate order--a book of poems. Isn't that absurd?"
"The magistrate, in sentencing Seepidge to six months' hard labour, said that there was no doubt that the man had been carrying on an illegal business. He had had the effrontery to pretend that he was printing a volume of verse. The court had heard extracts from that precious volume, which had evidently been written by Mr. Seepidge's office-boy. He had never read such appalling drivel in his life. He ordered the confiscated lottery prospectuses to be destroyed, and he thought he would be rendering a service to humanity if he added an order for the destruction of this collection of doggerel."
"It is curious that we should have been talking about poetry to-day, isn't it?" she asked. "Now, Mr. Tibbetts, I'm going to insist upon your bringing that book of yours to-morrow."
Bones, very flushed of face, shook his head.
"Dear old disciple," he said huskily, "another time ... another time ... poetry should be kept for years ... like old wine..."
"Who said that?" she asked, folding her paper and rising.
"Competent judges," said Bones, with a gulp.
He put this question with such laboured unconcern that Hamilton put down his pen and glared suspiciously at his partner.