You have," he pleaded, "surely got them on file ?" "So that you can see it on the spot ?" "Yes, please--this very minute." The counter rang with his knuckles, with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm.

"Do, _do_ hunt it up!" he repeated.
"I dare say we could get it for you," the girl weetly returned.
"Get it ?"--he looked aghast.

"When ?" "Probably by to-morrow." "Then it isn't here ?"--his face was pitiful.
She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, and she wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the very worst, could be bad enough to account for the degree of his terror.
There were twists and turns, there were places where the screw drew blood, that she couldn't guess.

She was more and more glad she didn't want to.

"It has been sent on." "But how do you know if you don't look ?" She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its propriety, quite divine.