The French window is open."
"Quick, then!" cried Mary, and darted into the office in a moment. Walter
dashed in after her.
When she got safe into cover she began to complain.
"This comes of concealment--we are always being driven into holes
and corners."
"I rather like them with you," said the unabashed Walter.
It matters little what had passed out of sight between Bartley and
Colonel Clifford, for what the young people heard now was quite enough to
make what Sir Lucius O'Trigger calls a very pretty quarrel. Bartley,
hitherto known to Mary as a very oily speaker, shouted at the top of his
voice in arrogant defiance, "You're not a child, are you? You are old
enough to read papers before you sign them."
The Colonel shouted in reply, "I am old, sir, but I am old in honor. I
did not expect that any decent tradesman would slip a clause into a farm
lease conveying the minerals below the surface to a farmer. It was a
fraud, sir; but there's law for fraud. My lawyer shall be down on you
to-morrow. Your chimneys disgorge smoke all over my fields.
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