Page:The Bostonians (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886).djvu/444

 'Because Miss Tarrant has sent up to the organist to tell him to keep on.'

'Who has she sent, do you s'pose?' And Ransom's new acquaintance entered into his humour. 'I guess Miss Chancellor isn't her nigger.'

'She has sent her father, or perhaps even her mother. They are in there too.'

'How do you know that?' asked the policeman, consideringly.

'Oh, I know everything,' Ransom answered, smiling.

'Well, I guess they didn't come here to listen to that organ. We'll hear something else before long, if he doesn't stop.'

'You will hear a good deal, very soon,' Ransom remarked.

The serenity of his self-confidence appeared at last to make an impression on his antagonist, who lowered his head a little, like some butting animal, and looked at the young man from beneath bushy eyebrows. 'Well, I have heard a good deal, since I've ben in Boston.'

'Oh, Boston's a great place,' Ransom rejoined, inattentively. He was not listening to the policeman or to the organ now, for the sound of voices had reached him from the other side of the door. The policeman took no further notice of it than to lean back against the panels, with folded arms; and there was another pause, between them, during which the playing of the organ ceased.

'I will just wait here, with your permission,' said Ransom, 'and presently I shall be called.'

'Who do you s'pose will call you?'

'Well, Miss Tarrant, I hope.'

'She'll have to square the other one first.'

Ransom took out his watch, which he had adapted, on purpose, several hours before, to Boston time, and saw that the minutes had sped with increasing velocity during this interview, and that it now marked five minutes past eight. 'Miss Chancellor will have to square the public,' he said in a moment; and the words were far from being an empty profession of security, for the conviction already in possession of him. that a drama in which he, though cut off, was