"No?" he exclaimed.

George wagged his head mournfully. "It's a shame. I know you counted
on it, but I guess you'll have to get summonelse."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. How do you know Miss Lessing won't go?
Did she tell you so?"

"Not what you might call exactly, but she won't all right," George
returned with confidence. "There ain't one chance in a hundred I'm in
wrong."

"In wrong? How?"

"About her bein' who she is."

P. Sybarite subjected the open, naïf countenance of the shipping clerk
to a prolonged and doubting scrutiny.

"No, I ain't crazy in the head, neither," George asseverated with some
heat. "I suspicioned somethin' was queer about that girl right along,
but now I _know_ it."

"Explain yourself."

"Ah, it ain't nothin' against her! You don't have to scorch your
collar. _She's_ all right. Only--she 's in bad. I don't s'pose you
seen the evenin' paper?"

"No."