The Runaway
By Marion Hepworth-Dixon
I
11 I AM sorry to say, Mrs. Reinhart, that your son is—a
1 profligate.”
Mr. Knowler was visibly distressed in giving voice to the words,
and, in order to hide his evident emotion, drew a faded silk
handkerchief from the pocket of his lengthy frock-coat and blew
his nose irritably, as he gazed somewhat foolishly over the top of
the bandanna round the dingy office, and out on to the bare
yellow-brick wall which faced the solitary window.
He was a small, narrow-chested little man with innocent blue
eyes, and a shrill voice, a little man who had cultivated a certain
abruptness of manner in order to give weight and authority to his
otherwise unimposing personality. Not that Mr. Josiah Knowler’s
personality lacked impressiveness in the eyes of the woman now
seated in front of him. A poor physiognomist at any time, Mrs.
Reinhart saw in Mr. Josiah the very form and front of visible and
determinating forces. Was he not the senior partner, forsooth, in
the great firm of Knowler Brothers, piano-makers, and the actual
recipient, some thirteen months back, of her horde of five and
twenty pounds paid in exchange fo^the indentures promising her
By Marion Hepworth-Dixon
I
11 I AM sorry to say, Mrs. Reinhart, that your son is—a
1 profligate.”
Mr. Knowler was visibly distressed in giving voice to the words,
and, in order to hide his evident emotion, drew a faded silk
handkerchief from the pocket of his lengthy frock-coat and blew
his nose irritably, as he gazed somewhat foolishly over the top of
the bandanna round the dingy office, and out on to the bare
yellow-brick wall which faced the solitary window.
He was a small, narrow-chested little man with innocent blue
eyes, and a shrill voice, a little man who had cultivated a certain
abruptness of manner in order to give weight and authority to his
otherwise unimposing personality. Not that Mr. Josiah Knowler’s
personality lacked impressiveness in the eyes of the woman now
seated in front of him. A poor physiognomist at any time, Mrs.
Reinhart saw in Mr. Josiah the very form and front of visible and
determinating forces. Was he not the senior partner, forsooth, in
the great firm of Knowler Brothers, piano-makers, and the actual
recipient, some thirteen months back, of her horde of five and
twenty pounds paid in exchange fo^the indentures promising her