The Empty Sack

ely. Of the missing twenty dollars he had neither heard a word nor caught a sign of anxiety. Mr. Brunt had been methodical and taciturn as usual. Always keeping a gulf between

orning there had been

?" Lobley, one of his co

ere-a crafty, clean-sh

who copped Nicholson, the tel

ed to himself. "If I had a gun or a do

of the house detectives, laughed, cashe

Lobley could have heard of the twenty dollars and been set to try him out? No; he didn't belie

on with his work. "The mug of a guy without guts," he added, further to define the p

watchfulness that made him shrink from every eye that glanced his way, and which, wh

e following week, and the former was long overdue. With the added interest on both, he owed two hundred and sixty-odd dollars, of which he

y," Jennie said, encouragin

e bank," Gussie la

et, shaking his fis

ss Gus; that'

p at him, still

already, have you? Momm

n and have some more hash. It's made with beets in it, just the way you like it. I was reading

p-eyed little ferret face, he was. Twenty-three thousand, extending over a period of five

en he heard the fellows at the bank discussing the arrest. One of them had claimed "inside dope" as to how Nicholson had covered up his

ould have five years' leeway, and never be suspected. He pumped his father for further details as to Nicholson's life,

going without his lunch, with a few economies in car fares. If he could pawn his best suit of clothes, he would have the whole sum within a fortnight. The suit had been bought for twenty-s

adys who brought up the question wh

, if you couldn't pay the

ll us out of h

at is, once the dinner was secure, there was no will to worry as to where the supper was to come from. It was fundamentally a question of outlook. People used to being provided for naturally looked ahead; but where your most extended view co

t was no use saying that it was different only in degree; it was different also in kind. It was different in values, in textures, in amplitudes. It was another thing, not another aspect of the

thing; others had next to nothing. The Folletts were among "the others." Jennie didn't know how or why. She didn't ask to know. Knowing would perhaps be worse than not knowing, since it might stir rebellion where there was now onl

couldn't express this last in words, but she did it very well by thought. She often had thoughts for which she had no words, so that her inner life was broader than that which she showed outside. It was one of the things she had noticed about Mrs. Collingham-that she had words for everything. It

creep and sneak along, and I can't do anything else. It was all very well for him to jostle me wit

these musings, Ted

and spoke to me. Not half a ba

but no one noticed it, becau

to me. Any afternoon at half pa

all that wad waitin' for you every day when Corinne shuts

s of Americanization which her children were underg

can't you find

all that. If you're a cash girl, you've got to talk En

on Monday. Gosh! Wouldn't I like to be going, too! Say, dad, why do some fellows come

'll bet that if his father wanted his taxes and the interest on a mortgage, he wouldn't hav

d choke himself with hash, as he muttered to his soul;

ing, Pansy sprang upon his knees, pushing her fac

-

sign, to make human beings understand anything but the most primitive needs and concepts. Obedience! Disobedience! Hunger! Thirst! Sorrow! Joy! These sentiments could be put over from the dog plane to the human plane, but without shadings, subtleties, or any

ing his tail in one tempo and pointing his ears in another. Edith had come down from the Berkshires on hearing by wi

," she was saying, "is

rom the soft-bosomed evening shirt in his hand t

be so sure

Dad and mother make a fuss because he hasn't a lot of money; but that means no

n't explain it to you,

e needs you? Has sh

d her to admit

id it ever strike you, when Huber

und of scorn as he inserted

right; but my Lord!-Jennie wouldn

s the street at Jennie;

ith somethin

's the kind of little woman to

od many men who h

uch in that girl that, if she was to play me false-But there-good Lord!-she couldn't; so why talk about it any more? S

-

at the stable or the garage, exchanged odds and ends of observation with the men working around the place. After this, they returned to the house, where, upstairs, in a comfortably, masculine bedroom, the man made changes in his outer fur, while the setter, less conce

flict of forces was terrible. She was not straight with her lord. She was using him, hoodwinking him. Dauphin would have sprung at her throat had it not been for the knowledge that, were he to do so, he woul

g jacket from the bed on which his valet had laid it out. Junia, dressed exactly to the mean between too little and

o better and possibly a little worse. She's a mousey little thing, with a veneer of modesty; but 'mercen

housand dollars," he said, morosely, pulling his coat into

ave been. I thought at one time that we

o it was uttered too softly for him to be obliged to take note of it, so

was to get the famous Roehampton pearl, from the late Lady Roehampton's collection, which had been the seal of her reconcil

you don't know anything. You haven't seen Bob for nearly a week, and after Monday you won't see him for two or three months at least. Don't

y be what I

ns he has for saying this or that. You leave him a free hand, and are ruled by him-you've often said it-even when your own prefere

home to roost inclined him still further to passivity. If Bob was "knocking about town," as he seemed to be, he might know about his father what Junia did not-or presumably did not-that the woman who received the fifty thousand dollars had had her successors, and that even now the line was not extinct. While he

rater. The ground was hot beneath their tread, and here and there a whiff of sulphuric vap

nelt at her prie-dieu with th

om the toils in which he is entangled. Enable my daughter to see that her duty lies in the station of life to which thou hast been pleased to call her. Give my hus

heart, she rose feeling s