2/23 All were requests for payment of debts due by his son. He was silent a while; but his father spoke: 'It would almost seem as if all these people had made up their minds that you were of no further use to them.' Then without pausing he said, but in a sharper voice: 'Have you paid the jewellers? This he opened, and, after deliberately smoothing out the folds, handed it to his father. Doubtless something in his manner had already convinced the latter that the debt was paid. He took the paper in as leisurely a way as it had been given, adjusted his spectacles, and read it. |