Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/92

 tenants. Morrissy came in about noon, and together they would go over matters in detail. Plumbers and gas-fitters, meter-men and electricians, masons and tinsmiths—there was very little poetry to the job. When Armitage undertook to serve an idea he served it thoroughly; that was in the blood. He rather enjoyed the new responsibilities. His tenants always found him courteous, albeit he was always firm.

About twenty minutes were sufficient to cover the day's work; the other hundred were devoted to the newspapers, broken dreams, and the window from which he could get a glimpse of the ceaseless flow moving north and south on Broadway, two blocks west. Sometimes he would stand over Bordman's globe and pick out the spots he had intimately known. Only a little while ago he had been in this place or that. Here he had shot his first lion, there his first black leopard, over back of Perak. Sometimes his thoughts veered to Bordman. Where had he gone with his ill-gotten fortune?

Armitage always became cynical whenever Bordman came into his mind. He