The Burglar and the Blizzard

Geoffrey Holland stood up and for the second time surveyed the restaurant in search of other members of his party, two fingers in the pocket of his waistcoat, as if they had just relinquished his watch. He was tall enough to be conspicuous and well bred enough to be indifferent to the fact, good looking, in a bronzed, blond clean-shaven way, and branded in the popular imagination as a young and active millionaire. At a neighbouring table a man lent forward and whispered to the other men and women with him: "Do you know who that is?-that is young Holland." "What, that boy! He doesn't look as if he were out of school." "No," said one of the women, elaborating the comment, "he does not look old enough to order a dinner, let alone managing mines." "Oh, I guess he can order a dinner all right," said the first man. "He is older than he looks. He must be twenty-six." "What do you suppose he does with all that money?" The first thing he did with it, at the moment, was to purchase an evening paper, for just then he snapped his fingers at a boy, who promptly ran to get him one.