My Friend the Boss Author:Edward Everett Hale Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Indeed, indeed ! " said Mrs. Grattan. " I shall pray for a snow-drift at Girard. Once you try with your Miss Jones, you will wish you had forty of your old let... more »ters to answer. Stay at home to-day, and help my hero out of his scrapes. I will go to the office, and your Miss Jones and I will see to the mail." No, John Fisher would not do that. But he said he would take us all to the office, and then if I liked I might take the ladies to drive. He would leave the carriage and horses with us. We might call for him at one o'clock and he would come home to lunch. And to this we gladly agreed. By the ladies were meant Mrs. Fisher and Miss Mary Bell. We were to start in half an hour. We left the breakfast-table for family prayers. Fisher read a few verses from the Bible; we all offered the Lord's Prayer, and with Mrs. Grattan at the piano, sang two verses of a hymn. Every one disappeared with the understanding that we were to meet for our drive in half an hour. CHAPTER HI. TN half an hour Fisher and I stood on the steps, and Miss Bell joined us. But word came down from Mrs. Fisher that she was too busy, and would not come. Neither of the others seemed surprised. " Go ask Mrs. Grattan if she would like to ride," saidFisher to the maid. " Say there is an empty seat, if she likes it." To my surprise, Mrs. Grattan appeared immediately, ready for the drive, as if she had been expected. I found afterwards, that whenever Mrs. Fisher said she would go, she did not; and whenever she declined, she afterwards changed her mind, like the boys in the parable. It made no inconvenience, for everyone in the house calculated absolutely on this habit of hers. Like most men who have lived much in action in the open air, Fisher liked to drive his own horses, rather than to have a co...« less