"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 03 - The Adenture of the Inquisitive American" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

if he was going to propose at sight to me.

He looked me all up and down. 'You're a lady of
con-siderable personal attractions,' he said, musingly, as
if he were criticising a horse; 'and I want one that sort.
That's jest why I trailed you, see? Besides which, there's
some style about you.'

'Style!' I repeated.

'Yes,' he went on; 'you know how to use your feet and you
have good understandings.'

I gathered from his glance that he referred to my nether
limbs. We are all vertebrate animals; why seek to conceal
the fact?

'I fail to follow you,' I answered frigidly; for I really
didn't know what the man might say next.

'That's so!' he replied. 'It was I that followed you;
seems I didn't make much of a job of it, either, anyway.'

I mounted my machine again. 'Well, good morning,' I said,
coldly. 'I am much obliged for your kind assistance; but
your remark was fictitious, and I desire to go on
unaccompanied.'

He held up his hand in warning. 'You ain't going!' he
cried, horrified. 'You ain't going without hearing me! I
mean business, say! Don't chuck away good money like that.
I tell you, there's dollars in it.'

'In what?' I asked, still moving on, but curious. On the
slope, if need were, I could easily distance him.

'Why, in this cycling of yours,' he replied. 'You're jest
about the very woman I'm looking for, miss. Lithe--that's
what I call you. I kin put you in the way of making your
pile, I kin. This is a bona-fide offer. No flies on my
business! You decline it? Prejudice! Injures you; injures
me! Be reasonable anyway!'

I looked round and laughed. 'Formulate yourself,' I said,
briefly.

He rose to it like a man. 'Meet me at Fraunheim corner by
the Post Office; ten o'clock to-morrow morning,' he shouted,
as I rode off, 'and ef I don't convince you there's money in
this job, my name's not Cyrus W. Hitchcock.'