He'd just got off the train, as you might say, so nobody'd had a chance to tell him.
I was the fust one, you see.

So--" "Was Leander there ?" "No, he wan't.

There wan't nobody in the store but Susie Ellis, that keeps the books there now, and Abner Burgess's boy, that runs errands and waits on folks when everybody else is busy.

That was a funny thing, too--that about Leander's not bein' there.

Susie said she hadn't seen him since just after breakfast time, half past seven o'clock or so, and when she telephoned the Babbitt house it turned out he hadn't been there, neither.