Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/93

 Yes, sir,’ says Thompson.

“‘You see, we’ve got to do something Thompson,’ says he. ‘We’ve got ter justify our existence, Thompson,’ an’ he commenced to laugh. ‘Yes, sir,’ says Thompson. Beats all I ever see, the way that man answers back!”

An almost unprecedented headache, brought on by her unremitting labor in effecting the change in the Rooms, kept Miss Gould in the house for two days after the new headquarters had been satisfactorily arranged; and as Mr. Welles had refused to open his office for inspection till it was completely furnished, she did not enter that characteristic apartment till the third day of its official existence.

As she went through the narrow hallway connecting the four rooms on which the social regeneration of her village depended, she caught the sweet low thrum of a guitar and a too familiarly seductive