Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/303

 ble! If you knew what it involves you would—ah—pardon the intrusion and and the way I am behaving, I'm sure. You have heard of me, have you not? Mr. Harold Palmer?" Billy smiled modestly at her, while he fumbled, apparently, for a card, which apparently he forgot.

"Very likely I have," said the girl, more graciously now, "but I don't recall" "One of the English members?" asked Woods. "You've heard your father speak of them?"

"Oh, yes, of course; he always spoke of them as"

"The English crowd," laughed Billy, who had read the morning papers carefully, and also knew something of the history and working of this corporation, as he did of most big firms down town.

The girl was now smiling at him agreeably. "I thought you were an Englishman when you first spoke," she said.

Billy now saw by the large, young eyes that there was a new and a personal interest in him, and he surmised that she was recalling what her father had doubtless often