Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/182

Rh with trouble, sitting so sensibly at his elbow. Nora wondered how George had come to choose so foolish an associate; then she guessed that it was his want of capital that had discovered a secret affinity with Mr. Franks's want of brains. The merciless intensity of thought begotten by her excitement suggested that there was something dishonorable in this connection. From time to time Mr. Franks wheeled about in his chair and fixed her solemnly with his pallid glance, as if to offer her the privilege of telling him her story; and on her failure to avail herself of it, turned back to his ledger with a little grunt of injury and a renewal of his grotesque agitation. As the morning wore away, various gentlemen of the kind designated as "parties" came in and demanded Fenton, in a tone that made the smallest possible account of Mr. Franks. Several of them sat awhile on tilted chairs, chewing their toothpicks, stroking their beards, and listening with a half-bored grin to what appeared to be an intensely confidential exposition of Mr. Franks's wrongs. One of them, as he departed, gave Nora a wink, as if to imply that the state of affairs between the two members of the firm was so broad a joke that even a pretty young woman might enjoy it. At last, when they had been alone again for half an hour, Mr. Franks closed with a slap the great leathern flanks of his account-book, and sat a moment burying his head in his arms. Then he suddenly rose and stood before the young girl. "Mr. Fenton 's your cousin, Miss, you say, eh? Well, then, let me tell you that your cousin 's a swindler! I can prove it to you on those books! Nice books they are! Where is my money, thirty thousand dollars that I put into this d—d