"
Conniston thanked him and asked him to thank Miss Jocelyn, but assured
him that instead of having time lagging for him he had more to do than
he could manage. So Billy went on his way alone. Nor did he seem
disappointed at Conniston's refusal to accompany him. It was only when
it began to grow dusk and the boy brought Garton's supper that
Conniston got up and went down the street to his own solitary evening
meal at the lunch-counter.
It was after nine o'clock, and Conniston was lying on his cot in the
little rear room of the office-building listening to Tommy Garton talk
about reclamation--it seemed the only thing in the world he cared to
talk about during working-hours or after--when the outside door was
flung open and a man's heavy tread came through the office and to
their sleeping-room.
"That'll be Truxton," Garton said. "Wants to see you, I guess."
The heavy tread came on through the office, and the door to Garton's
room was flung open with as little ceremony as the front door had
been. In the light of a kerosene-lamp upon the chair near his cot
Conniston saw a short, squat, heavy-set man of perhaps forty-five,
very broad across the forehead, very salient-jawed, his mustache
short-cropped and grizzled, his mouth large and firm-lipped, his eyes
steady and keen as they turned swiftly upon Conniston from under
shaggy, tangled, iron-gray brows.
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