“Will you send that collect?” he asked the operator when he had finished writing.

The girl took the blank, and read it carefully.

CONTENTS

“Arthur J. Watkins, Esq.,

“LaSalle Street, Chicago, Ill.

“LaSalle Street, Chicago, Ill.

“Please negotiate a loan of five hundred dollars for me, using old house as collateral. Wire money immediately Little Silverton. Entirely out of funds. Have been sick.

“Lyman Gage.”

Lyman Gage.

The girl read it through again, and then eyed him cautiously.

“What’s your address?” she asked, giving a slow speculative chew to her gum.

“I’ll wait here,” said the big blue soldier, sinking into a rush-bottomed chair by the desk.

[103]“It might be some wait,” said the girl dryly, giving him another curious “once-over.”

[103]

“I’ll wait!” he repeated fiercely, and dropped his aching head into his hands.

The little instrument clicked away vigorously. In his fevered brain he fancied it writing on a typewriter at the other end of the line, and felt a curious impatience for his lawyer to read it and reply. How he wished it would hurry!

The morning droned on, the telegraph instrument chattered breezily, with the monotony of a sunny child that knows no larger world and is happy. Sometimes it seemed to Gage as if every click pierced his head and he was going crazy. The shivers were keeping in time running up and down his back, and chilling his very heart. The room was cold, cold, cold! How did that fool of a girl stand it in a pink transparent[104] 

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