The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

solemnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently from him. “It was in his mail, after he was hurt. You knew he never got it, I expect.”

“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.

He sighed. “I’m glad he didn’t. Not,” he added, quickly⁠—“not but what you did just right to send it. You did. You couldn’t acted any other way when it came right down to it. There ain’t any blame comin’ to you⁠—you were aboveboard all through.”

Mary said, “Thank you,” almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

“You’ll have to excuse me for readin’ it. I had to take charge of all his mail and everything; I didn’t know the handwritin’, and I read it all⁠—once I got started.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Well”⁠—he leaned forward as if to rise⁠—“I guess that’s about all. I just thought you ought to have it.”

“Thank you for bringing it.”

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

“Well, I expect I better be gettin’ back to the office,” he said, rising desperately. “I told⁠—I told my partner I’d be back at two o’clock, and I guess he’ll think I’m a poor business man if he catches me behind time. I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days⁠—with that fellow keepin’ tabs on me!”

Mary rose with him. “I’ve always heard you were the hard driver.”

He guffawed derisively. “Me? I’m nothin’ to that partner o’ mine. You couldn’t guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o’ the job. I shouldn’t be surprised he’d give me the grand bounce some day, and run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is⁠—once he goes at a thing!”

“No,” she smiled. “I didn’t know you had a partner. I’d always heard⁠—”

He laughed, looking away from her. “It’s just my way o’ speakin’ o’ that boy o’ mine, Bibbs.”

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, “How is Bibbs?” but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became embarrassing.

“Well, I guess I better be gettin’ down there,” he said, at last. “He might worry.”

“Goodbye⁠—and thank you,” said Mary.

“For what?”

“For the letter.”

“Oh,” he said, blankly. “You’re welcome. Goodbye.”

Mary put out her hand. “Goodbye.”

“You’ll have to excuse my left hand,” he said. “I had a little accident to the other one.”

She gave a pitying cry as she saw. “Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!”

“Nothin’ at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow.” He laughed jovially. “Did anybody tell you how it happened?”

“I heard you hurt your hand, but no⁠—not just how.”

“It was this way,” he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again. “You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o’ my boys⁠—the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim⁠—that is, I mean Bibbs. He’s the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that’s what it’s just about goin’ to amount to, one o’ these days⁠—if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a plant o’ mine; and sometimes I’d kind o’ sneak in there and see how he was gettin’ along. Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never was so robust, you might say. Ole Doc Gurney⁠—I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy⁠—”

“Yes.”

“Well, one day I an’ ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I wouldn’t listen, and I didn’t look out⁠—and that’s how I got my hand hurt, tryin’ to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and I didn’t. Made me so mad I just wouldn’t even admit to myself it was hurt⁠—and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o’ radical measures with me. He’s a right good doctor, too. Don’t you think so, Miss Vertrees?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, he is so!” Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and gossip with all day on his hands. “Take him on Bibbs’s case. I was talkin’ about Bibbs’s case with him this morning. Well, you’d laugh to hear the way ole Gurney talks about that! ’Course he is just as much a friend as he is doctor⁠—and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn’t anyways bad off yet; and he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if⁠—well, this is what’d made you laugh if you’d been there, Miss Vertrees⁠—honest it would!” He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and⁠—visibly⁠—she was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney’s opinion was only a joke he shared with her. “Yes, sir, you certainly would ’a’ laughed! Why, that ole man thinks you got something to do with it. You’ll have to blame it on him, young lady, if it makes you feel like startin’ out to whip somebody! He’s actually got this theory: he says Bibbs got to gettin’ better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept him cheered up and feelin’ good. And he says if you could manage to just stand him hangin’ around a little⁠—maybe not much, but just sometimes⁠—again, he believed it’d