The half-hour chime struck on the mantel clock. Hazel
grew impatient, petulant, aggrieved. Dinner would be served in twenty
minutes. Still there was no sign of him. And for lack of other
occupation she went into the hall and got the evening paper, which the
carrier had just delivered.
A staring headline on the front page stiffened her to scandalized
attention. Straight across the tops of two columns it ran, a facetious
caption:
WILLIAM WAGSTAFF IS A BEAR
Under that the subhead:
Husky Mining Man Tumbles Prices and Brokers. Whips Four men in Broad
Street Office. Slugs Another on Change. His Mighty Fists Subdue
Society's Finest. Finally Lands in Jail.
The body of the article Hazel read in what a sob sister would describe
as a state of mingled emotions.
William Wagstaff is a mining gentleman from the northern wilds of
British Columbia. He is a big man, a natural-born fighter. To prove
this he inflicted a black eye and a split lip on Paul Lorimer, a broken
nose and sundry bruises on James L. Brooks. Also Allen T. Bray and
Edward Gurney Parkinson suffered certain contusions in the melee. The
fracas occurred in the office of the Free Gold Mining Company, 1546
Broad Street, at three-thirty this afternoon.
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