Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/334

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A SELF-MADE MERCHANT'S

hair-pulling itch in their finger-tips. In fact, it looked to me as if the young scamp was a good deal more popular than the facts about him, as I knew them, warranted him in being.

I slipped out early, but next evening, when I was sitting in my little smoking-room, Jack came charging in, and, without any sparring for an opening, burst out with:

"Isn't she a stunner, Mr. Graham!"

I allowed that Miss Curzon was something on the stun.

"Miss Curzon, indeed," he sniffed. "She's well enough in a big, black way, but Miss Churchill——" and he began to paw the air for adjectives.

"But how was I to know that you meant Miss Churchill?" I answered. "It's just a fortnight now since you told me that Miss Curzon was a goddess, and that she was going to reign in your life and make it a heaven, or something of that sort. I forget

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