"Oh, I don't know," said I, uncandid again, as soon as I saw a chance to get through with it--little cat. "It seems awfully common to me. Why do you say that it's odd?" "Because I happen to have a letter of introduction to Miss Blunt, daughter of the old--of Mr. Blunt of the Mid-Continent--" "You have?" I broke in. "From whom?" "From my cousin, Amelia Wyckoff," said he, "who went to school with her at St. Cecilia's." "Well, of all things!" I began; and then, with a lot of presence of mind, I think, I paused. "Why don't you present it?" I asked. "Well, it's this way," said Billy. "You saw how Mr. Blunt sailed into me and put me in the broom-brigade without a hearing? I didn't have the letter then, and when I got it I didn't feel like pulling on the social strings when I was coming on pretty well for a dub lineman and learning the business from the solder on the floor to the cupola, by actual physical contact. And then there's another thing, if you'll let me say it: since that morning I've had no place in my thoughts for any girl's face but one." We were sitting on a bench. Atkins was looking at the baby leopards in the zoo, ever so far away. Billy didn't seem to miss her. He was looking right at me. My heart fluttered so that I knew my voice would quiver if I spoke, and I didn't dare to move my hands for fear he might notice their trembling. The idea of _my_ behaving in that way! I was glad to find out that he was Amelia's cousin; for that insured his social standing. That was what made me feel so sort of agitated. One laborer ought not to feel so of another, for we are all equal; but it _was_ a relief to know that he was Amelia's aunt's son, and not a tramp. "I must be allowed to call on you!" he said with suppressed intensity. "You don't dislike me very much, do you?" "I--I don't like cuts over the eye," said I, evading the question. "I don't have 'em any more," he urged. And then he explained about the émeute in the line-gang, and the four-hole connectors, and confessed to the violent and sanguinary manner in which he had felt called upon to put down the uprising. I could feel my face grow hot and cold by turns, like Desdemona's while Othello was telling the same kind of things; and when I looked for the scar on his forehead he bowed his head, and I put the curls aside and found it. I would have given worlds to--it was so much like a baby coming up to you and crying about thumping its head and asking you to kiss it well. Once I had my lips all puckered up--but I had the self-control to refrain--I was so afraid.