"Hell of a note!" she complained at last, when Bill gave no sign of response. "I can't believe it. Seems like a dream. You don't say!" Then, spying the butter unguarded, she stepped down upon the table and pigeon-toed in that direction. "Help yourself," she invited gravely. "Plenty more where that came from. Help yourself." And Bill, his soul flayed with bitter memories, with dreams slowly strangled and returning wraithlike to mock his loneliness, did not even hear. CHAPTER NINETEEN "THERE'LL BE MORE TO COME OF IT" Walter Rayfield reached out his hand with deliberate firmness and laid his forefinger upon the push button on his desk. In the distance could be heard a faint buzzing. Almost immediately thereafter, John Emmett opened a door and walked in, a yellow invoice in his hand and a look of inquiry on his face. Rayfield waved a plump hand toward a chair. "Sit down, John, and listen to the story that Bill has brought us this morning. The most outrageous thing I ever heard in my life. Go on, Bill--but go back to the beginning, if you don't mind. I want John to hear what you have just told me." Impassively Bill obeyed. When he had finished--and he spared no details in the recital--he sat back and folded his arms, waiting to see how they would take it; watching, too, for some sign that should guide his judgment of the matter. He was still ashamed to doubt them, still ready to believe that Al, having overheard the parrot, and suspecting the significance of her remarks, had yet concocted the rest of the story from some dark purpose of his own; revenge, perhaps, but more likely in the hope of profiting by the tale. But Bill had not spoken of his own belief in the two. He had told them what Al said, making no comment of any kind, keeping his voice and his face carefully neutral. Rayfield and Emmett looked at each other. Emmett smiled slightly, shrugged his shoulders and glanced down at the yellow invoice. "Interesting bit of libel," he said contemptuously. "If there was any truth in it, I wouldn't be getting a hump in my shoulders and ruining my eyes over the Company books. Did you O K the order for these engine parts, Walter? This invoice is not correct. The total is wrong, and moreover the name of purchaser is not here. I wish you'd call up the shop and ask about it. Tell them I can't accept it as it stands. Make it plain that they must furnish a correct invoice, or take back the merchandise." He dropped the invoice before Rayfield. "And once more let me say that I absolutely refuse to accept anything that is not signed by the purchaser. Who did this buying? The engineer at the plant?"