Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/50

38 visit had been repeated many times, each time under almost exactly similar circumstances. Evening after evening Gault had listened to the colonel, wondering why he came, why he subjected himself to this absurd imposition, why he sat meek and generally mute under the conversational assaults of the garrulous old man. And yet, the day after his seventh visit, he sat in his private office wondering how soon he could go again to the little house near South Park without causing surprise to its inmates or breaking the rules of conventionality and deliberation that governed his life.

In the midst of his cogitations the door was opened by one of his clerks, who acquainted him with the fact that Colonel Reed was without and wanted to see him.

The announcement came upon him so unexpectedly that his color rose, and it was with an effort that he composed his face to greet the visitor. A disturbing presentiment of something unpleasant seized upon him. Never before had Colonel Reed entered or suggested entering his office. "What does the old man want?" he thought testily, as he bade the clerk show him in.

A moment later the colonel entered. He was suave and smiling. There was nothing of the broken financier, the ruined millionaire, in his buoyant and almost patronizing manner. His old black coat, faded and many