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Title: The Haunted Pajamas

Author: Francis Perry Elliott

Illustrator: Edmund Frederick

Release date: September 20, 2010 [eBook #33780]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAUNTED PAJAMAS ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









                        THE HAUNTED PAJAMAS

                      BY FRANCIS PERRY ELLIOTT


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
EDMUND FREDERICK

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1911
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

TO
MY WINIFRED


[Illustration]




CONTENTS


I A PRESENT FROM CHINA

II AN OMINOUS DISCOVERY

III I DON THE PAJAMAS

IV JENKINS DECLARES FOR THE WATER WAGON

V THE GIRL FROM RADCLIFFE

VI ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY

VII CONFIDENCES

VIII HER BROTHER JACK

IX AN AMAZING REVELATION

X A NOCTURNAL INTRUSION

XI IRON NERVE

XII I SEND A MAN TO JAIL

XIII FRANCES

XIV "YOU NEVER SAW ME IN BLACK"

XV BILLINGS' SYMPTOMS ALARM ME

XVI AN INSCRIPTION AND A MYSTERY

XVII THE PROFESSOR

XVIII I RECEIVE A SHOCK

XIX THE SPELL OF THE PAJAMAS

XX BILLINGS RAMBLES

XXI THE COLLAPSE OF BILLINGS

XXII MY DARLING IS SLANDERED

XXIII A MESSAGE AND A WARNING

XXIV I SPEAK TO HER FATHER

XXV THE FAMILY BLACK SHEEP

XXVI FLORA

XXVII I RECOVER THE PAJAMAS

XXVIII "IF I EVER FIND A MAN!"

XXIX "BECAUSE YOU--ARE YOU"

XXX THE JUDGE FIXES "FOXY GRANDPA"

XXXI THE DEMON RUM

XXXII I TOUCH BOTTOM

XXXIII UNDER THE PERGOLA

XXXIV THE CUB

XXXV IN THE GLOW OF THE RUBIES




THE HAUNTED PAJAMAS




CHAPTER I

A PRESENT FROM CHINA


It was the first thing I saw that night as I swung into my chambers.
Fact is, for the moment, it was the only thing I saw. Somehow, its
splash of yellow there under the shaded lamp seemed to catch my eye and
hold it.

I screwed my glass tight and examined the thing with interest. Nothing
remarkable; just a tiny, oblong package, bearing curious foreign
markings, its wrapper plainly addressed to me, but--

"By Jove! From China!" I ejaculated.

Somebody in far-off China sending me a present, with duties and charges
prepaid evidently.

What the deuce was it? I shook it without getting any revelation; then I
weighed it in my hand.

The thing was devilish light! In fact, so light that, allowing for
outside wrapper and box, dashed if I could see how there was anything at
all.

Then I had an awful thought: Suppose, by Jove, they had forgotten to
inclose the thing--whatever it was! Jolly tiresome, that, if they had. I
felt devilish annoyed.

Really, awfully provoking to do that sort of thing, you know; and I was
jolly sure now the dashed thing had been wrapped up empty. I wondered
what silly ass I knew in China who would be likely to do a thing like
that. I couldn't think of any one at all I knew in China, so I rang for
Jenkins.

"Anybody I know in China, Jenkins?" I asked. And to help him out, I
added: "Fact is, some chap's sent me a package, you know."

"Name on box, sir, perhaps." Said it offhand, just like that--no trouble
of thinking, dash it all--never even blinked. Just instinct, by Jove!

And there it was, nicely printed in the corner with a pen:

     ROLAND MASTERMANN, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONG KONG, CHINA

I read it aloud--can't read anything, you know, unless I read it
aloud--and looked at Jenkins inquiringly. But he came right up to the
scratch; just seemed to get it from somewhere right out of the wall over
my head:

"Beg pardon, sir; but think it's that London gentleman--entertained you
at the Carlton when you were over the other side."

Mastermann! By Jove, so it was--I began to remember him now, because I
remembered his dinner, several of them, in fact, during the three years
I had lived over there, acquiring the English accent--manner, you
know--and all that sort of thing!

Mastermann--oh, yes, I had him, now! Jolly rum old boy, but entertaining
and clever--long hair, pink wart on jaw! And, by Jove, I had promised
him--promised him--what the deuce _was_ it I had promised him? Let me
see: he was something or other in the foreign office; yes, I had
that--and tremendously interested in mummies and psychical investigation
and rum sort of things like that, and--

"By Jove!" I ejaculated, as it came to me. "And for that reason he
wanted them to send him out to China."

"Beg pardon, sir," put in Jenkins, "but think you had a letter with a
Chinese postmark last week."

He looked around at my little writing-desk and coughed slightly behind
his hand.

"Was just a-wondering, sir, if it might not be among those you haven't
opened--there are several piles. If I might look, sir--"

I nodded. Fact is, I allow Jenkins much privilege, owing to long
service. Then, you know--oh, dash it, he's so original--so refreshing
and that sort of thing--so surprising. Just as in this case, he thinks
of so many devilishly ingenious, out-of-the-way sort of things!

It was Jenkins' idea that I find out what was in the box by just
_opening_ the dashed thing while he looked for the letter.

Clever that, eh? Well, rather!

So I unsheathed my little pocket manicure knife, cut the strings and
removed the wrapper. Inside was just a little, straw-covered box with a
telescope cover and inside the box, wrapped in tissue, was a tight roll
of bright red silk.

That was all--not another thing but this little silk roll. It was a wad
as thick as three fingers and perhaps twice as long, tied with a bit of
common string, ending in a loose bowknot.

I gripped my glass a bit tighter in my eye and took a long shot at the
thing. But dashed if I could make anything out of it at all. You see,
the string went around it at least three or four times. Such a devilish
secretive way to fix a thing, don't you think?

A queer, sweet, spicy sort of odor swept past me that reminded me of the
atmosphere at Santine's and places in the Metropolitan Art Museum. I sat
down, the better to think it over, turning the little roll in my hand
and trying to think of all the things it might be.

"Looks like it might be a red silk muffler, Jenkins," I exclaimed in
disgust. By Jove, I was never so devilish disappointed in my
life--never--I'm sure of it! If I had been a girl I should have
cried--dash it, I know I should.

I pinched the roll gloomily.

"If it's a red silk muffler, Jenkins, catch me wearing it, that's all!"
I burst out indignantly. "Rotten bad form, if you ask _me_. I'd look
like an out-and-out bounder!"

Then I had a horrible thought:

"Or--or the Salvation Army, dash it!"

Here Jenkins thrust a letter at me. "Perhaps this may explain it, sir,"
he suggested.

Sure enough, it was from Hong Kong, and from that chap, Mastermann. Out
there on special mission for his government, he said. I don't know what
it was--never did know, in fact, for I skipped down to this paragraph,
which I read aloud:

     "Every puff of those rare cigars you sent me has but reminded
     me that my debt to you is still unpaid."

I read thus far; then I read it again. But I could make nothing of it.

"Cigars--cigars?" I exclaimed, puzzled.

Then I forgot the letter as I stared at Jenkins.

"And what's the matter with _you_?" I demanded.

For I had caught him with his hand over his mouth, obviously trying to
suppress a chuckle. He sobered instantly, but seemed embarrassed for a
reply.

"Oh, I say, you know!" I urged him.

He started to speak, then pulled up. His breath went out in a sort of
sigh. And he just stood there looking at me, and looking kind of scared.

Fact! Perfectly irreproachable service for five years; and now here,
dash it, showing emotion and that sort of thing, just like--well, like
_people_, by Jove! Gad, I don't mind saying I was devilish put out! I
screwed my glass rather severely and he made another go:

"I hope, Mr. Lightnut, sir, you'll try to pardon me, sir, but I--Well,
indeed, sir, the mistake wasn't mine; it was the dealer's fault, you
know, sir."

"Oh!"

I stared, polished my glass and nodded. I even chirped up a smile, but I
didn't utter a word. Dash it, what _was_ there to say? But you mustn't
let _them_ know that, you know. So I just waited, and he squirmed a
little and went on:

"It was too late after he told me about the mistake; and I was--well, I
was afraid to mention it to you, sir."

"Mistake! What mistake?"

He gulped; dashed if I didn't think he was going to choke.

"I--I'm sure, sir, I wouldn't have had such a thing happen for--"


I could stand it no longer.

"Oh, I say! I haven't any idea what you're talking about!"

Jenkins cleared his throat with an effort, his eyes rolling at me
apologetically. When he spoke there was a tremble in his utterance, and
it was rather husky:

"Why, sir," he began in a low tone, "you told me to have your dealer
ship this gentleman, this Mr. Mastermann, a dozen boxes of Paloma
perfectos--your favorite brand, you know, sir--ninety dollars the
hundred."

He paused, his fingers resting tremblingly on the edge of the table.

"I dare say," I yawned presently. "Well, what of it?" I was getting
impatient. By Jove, he was making me downright nervous, don't you know!
Besides, I was so devilish anxious to get on with Mastermann's letter. I
wanted to find out, if possible, what it was the fellow had sent me.

Jenkins breathed hard and leaned toward me. Then he seemed to flunk
again and dropped back. Dashed if I didn't think I heard him groan! But
I stared at him through my glass, and he swallowed hard and went on:

"An error, sir, of the shipping clerk. He--"

With a murmured apology, Jenkins paused to wipe his forehead. I saw that
the perspiration had gathered in great drops. Then he seemed to gather
himself for a resolute effort, his eyes fixing themselves upon me with
the most extraordinary expression--kind of half-frightened,
half-desperate glare--that sort of thing, don't you know. I began to
feel devilish uncomfortable and edged away.

And he made another plunge: "They sent him--"

And, dash me if he didn't stick again! It just looked like he couldn't
get past. But I encouraged him--just like you have to do a horse, you
know--and this time he got over:

"They sent him a dozen boxes of 'Hickey's Pride,' sir, instead!"

He spoke in a low, choking voice and looked me full in the eye--the kind
of look you get when a chap's boxing with you, you know--that sort of
thing.




CHAPTER II

AN OMINOUS DISCOVERY


I was puzzled.

"'Hickey's Pride?'" I repeated thoughtfully. "I don't seem to recall
that one. Do I smoke it often?"

Jenkins seemed to gasp.

"You? Certainly _not_, sir! _Never!_"

And, by Jove, he turned pale! Anyhow, he looked devilish queer as he put
his hands down on the table and bent to whisper:

"Mr. Lightnut, sir--" And the way he dropped his voice and turned his
head to peer around into the corners was just creepy! That's what,
creepy! This, with the glow from the green lampshade on his pale face as
he leaned across the table--oh, it was something ghastly--awful, you
know! It got on my nerves, and I could feel the hair slowly rising on
each side of my part. He bent close, whispering behind his hand, and I
knew he had been eating radishes for dinner:

"It's what's known in the trade, sir, as a 'twofer.'"

"A 'twofer!'" I repeated, puzzled.

"Two for five, sir." Jenkins spoke faintly. "I'm sure I'm ashamed to
mention to a perfect gen--"

"By Jove, _I_ know!" I lifted my finger suddenly. "I know now the kind
you mean--big, fat, greasy-looking ones--the sort Vanderdecker and
Colonel Boylston smoke over at the club." I shook my head. "Too jolly
thick and heavy for me. So they're two for a 'V'--eh? Oh, I
_see_--'twofers!' By Jove!"

A brand new one, this--a ripper! I made up my mind to spring it on the
fellows first chance--that is, if I could remember the jolly thing. I
just looked at Jenkins' solemn face and laughed.

"Oh, I say, Jenkins--hang the expense, you know!" I remonstrated in some
disgust. For this London chap had given me no end of a good time, you
know; and it's such devilish bad form--rotten, I say--haggling about
expense when you want to make a come-back and do the handsome. I was
jolly glad the mistake had happened.

Just here I remembered the letter and went at it again, for I was keen
to find out, if possible, if it _was_ a muffler under the string. So I
fixed my glass and read on:

     "Realizing what these cigars are, I have given them, from time
     to time, to friends of mine--and others. Really, I don't think
     I ever had such unselfish, unalloyed pleasure from anything in
     my life. Gave one to a bus driver out Earl's Court way--chap
     who had never been known to speak to man, woman or child in
     years, and, after he lighted it--well, my word! He opened up
     and grew so bally loquacious I had to get off."

"By Jove!" I exclaimed.

I felt real pleased--that kind of fizzy glow--sort of
bubbling-champagney-feeling you get, you know, whenever a friend does
some clever, unexpected thing--like repaying a loan, for instance. Know
about that, because I had it happen to me once. Fact!

"See that, Jenkins?" I said with a little triumph.

I wanted to reassure him, for I could see with half an eye that the poor
fellow was devilish plucked about the expense. And Jenkins certainly
looked regularly bowled over.

I read on:

     "Had been trying to get Jorgins, my chief, to send me out here
     again to China, but he was ever finding some cold, beastly
     evasion. But when your package came to the office, the first
     thing I did after I had tried the cigars was to hand the old
     iceberg a box with my compliments.

     "Five minutes after, he came back, completely thawed out. Fact
     is, never saw him so warm toward any one. Asked me if the other
     boxes were to be given away outside. Said no; that his was the
     only box I could spare; was going to keep 'em all there at the
     office and smoke 'em myself. Never saw a man so moved--so
     worked up over a little thing. Next day he sent me out here to
     China."

"Coals of fire!" I ejaculated admiringly. "Regular out-and-out coals of
fire, by Jove!"

     "And so I have been looking about since I have been out here,
     trying to find something as rare, unique and full of surprises
     for your friends as your cigars have been for mine. I have
     found it."

"And devilish handsome of him, Jenkins, eh?" I commented gratefully; and
I looked with renewed interest at the little roll in my hand. Jove, how
I wished, though, he would come to the point and say what it was!

     "You know what a curiously upside-down people the Chinese are.
     Example, they begin dinner with desert and end with soup; they
     drink hot, acid beverages in summer instead of iced ones; they
     write from right to left, vertically, while we write from left
     to right, horizontally; they mourn in white instead of black,
     and they are awfully honest and pay their debts.

     "But there is one other point of difference still queerer: they
     wear pajamas all day, while we wear them only at night."

Here I yawned. Always hate that heavy, historical, instructive stuff,
you know. If you have to hear it, gives you headache, unless you can
slip off to sleep first.

So I reached the letter up to Jenkins.

"Just run over the rest of it yourself, and see if he says anything
about his present," I said, settling comfortably. Clever idea of mine,
don't you think?

And I was just dropping my head to have a snug little nap--just a little
forty, you know--when, dash me, if I didn't have another idea! Awfully
annoying, time like that.

Mind is so devilish alert, dash it! Always doing things like that; can't
seem to get over it, you know. And this ripping idea that bobbed up now
and got me all roused up was nothing more or less than to untie the
string myself and see what the thing was. See?

"I believe, sir," said Jenkins, looking up, "the gentleman has sent
you--h'm--has sent you--"

"By Jove, a suit of pajamas!" I exclaimed, holding them up.

It was neck and neck, but I beat Jenkins to it, after all!

"Gentleman says, sir," continued Jenkins, studying the letter, "that his
present of a pair of pajamas may seem surprising, but you won't know how
surprising until you have worn them."

"Jolly likely," I admitted, feeling the silk. By Jove, it was the
finest, yet thinnest stuff I ever saw, soft as rose leaves and as filmy
light as a spider's web. Not bad, that, for a comparison, eh? Caught the
idea from a vase of full-blown roses that were beginning to shed their
petals there on the table. And on one of the blossoms was a little brown
spider. Catch the idea? Suggested spider's web, you know.

"They're rather red, sir," Jenkins commented dubiously.

Red? Well, I should say! My! How jolly red they were! We spread them
under the light, and the red seemed to flow all over the table and fall
from the edge. Why, they were as red as--

I tried to think of something they were as red as, but somehow I
couldn't fetch the idea. I thought of red ink and blood and fireworks,
but they didn't seem to be up to them at all. And a big, velvety petal
that dropped from one of the crimson roses just seemed brown beside
them.

And yet, dash it, I knew they reminded me of something, you know; I knew
they _must_.

"They remind me--" I began, and had to pause--idea balked, you know.
"They remind me of--of--Jenkins, what do they remind me of?"

"Of _him_, sir," replied Jenkins promptly.

"Eh?"

"Old Memphis Tuffles, sir," explained Jenkins darkly. "I saw him once in
a opera, and he was that red."

"By Jove!" I said thoughtfully, and fell to watching the little spider.
It was dropping a life-line or something down to the pajamas.

"But they say he ain't always red," Jenkins continued mysteriously. "A
lady as is in the palmistry and card-reading line in Forty-second Street
told me he turned black whenever he got down to business. Do you suppose
that's where they get the idea of what they call black magic, sir?"

I answered absently, for I was wondering whether the little spider was
curious about the jolly red color there below him. And just then
Jenkins' hand went out and swept at the little thread. The spider
dropped and shot into a fold of the pajamas.

"I say! Look out!" I exclaimed as Jenkins made another clutch. "Don't
mash the beast on the silk; you'll ruin it--the silk, I mean!"

"There it goes, sir!" said Jenkins eagerly. "Over by your hand."

"No; by Jove; he's gone into a leg of the pajamas! Here, shake him
out--gently now!"

Jenkins lifted the garment gingerly and lightly shook it. But nothing
came forth.

"Why don't you look in the leg," I said, "and see if you can see it?"

Jenkins peered down one of the silken tubes and forthwith dropped it
with a yell. He jumped back.

"Look out, sir," he cried excitedly; "don't touch 'em! There's a
tarantula in there big as a sand crab, and it's alive."

"A tarantula? Nonsense! We don't have tarantulas in New York," I
protested.

Jenkins gestured violently. "One's there, sir, anyhow! I saw one once on
a bunch of bananas down in South Street. If they jump on you and bite,
you might as well just walk around to the undertaker. A dago told me
so."

I backed nervously from the crumpled crimson pile on the floor.

_Crimson?_

Of course, I knew it was crimson; it must be the shadow of the table
there that made the things so dark--_black_, in fact. But my mind was on
the tarantula; and I was thinking that it must have been wrapped with
the pajamas. Yet I could not understand how this could be, considering
how tightly the things had been rolled.

Anyhow, it was there; and Jenkins pointed excitedly.

"Look, sir! You can see it moving under the silk!"

By Jove, so you could! And the thing seemed nearly as big as a rat. It
was making for the end of the leg. I climbed upon a chair.

"Get a club," I exclaimed, "and smash the thing as it comes out!"

Jenkins rushed out and returned with a brassie.

"Careful now," I warned from the chair. "Don't go and hit the dashed
thing before it gets out, and make a devil of a mess on the silk! There
it is--it's out! No, no--not yet! Wait, until it gets its whole body
out! There now; he's drawing out his last beastly leg. Now--_now_ let
drive!"

And he did, and seemed to hit the thing squarely.

I knelt on the chair and craned over, while Jenkins still held the stick
tightly at the point where the thing had struck.

"Get him?" I queried. "Where is it?"

"That's it, sir," said Jenkins in an odd voice. "It ain't here."

"Why, dash it, I saw you strike the beast, right where you're holding
that club."

"Mr. Lightnut, sir"--Jenkins spoke a little huskily and glanced around
at me queerly--"will you look under the end of this stick and see if you
see what I see?"

I climbed down and examined cautiously.

"Why, by Jove, it's the little spider!" I exclaimed, surprised.

"Exactly, sir; what's left." Jenkins took a deep breath.

"Thank you, sir--it's a great relief," he sighed.

"Eh?"

"I mean, sir, I'm glad I ain't the only one who thought he saw that
other. It's _some_ comfort."

Jenkins spoke gloomily.

"_Thought_ you saw?" I repeated.

But Jenkins only shook his head as he gathered up the remains of the
spider and consigned them to a cuspidor.

"You mean--say, what the devil _do_ you mean?" I asked sharply.

Jenkins straightened with air respectful but solemn.

"Mr. Lightnut, sir," he began gravely, "there's a party lectures on the
street corner every night at nine on the fearful consequences of the
drink habit, and passes around blank pledges to be signed. I'm going to
get one first chance; and if you will accept it, sir--meaning no
offense--I would be proud to get you one, too."

I stared at him aghast.

"Oh, I say, now," I murmured faintly, "you don't think it was that, do
you?"

Jenkins' face was eloquent enough.

"I'm through, sir," he said sadly. "When it comes to seeing things like
that--" He lifted his eyes. "No more for me, sir; my belief is, it's a
warning--yes, sir, that's what, a warning."

I collapsed into a chair.

"By Jove!" I gasped uneasily.

I was awfully put out--annoyed, you know. It was the first time anything
of the kind had ever happened to me. If I started in with tarantulas,
what would I be seeing next?

Jenkins gulped nervously. "Why, sir," he whispered, leaning toward me,
"these pajamas--you see for yourself how red they are--they actually
seemed to lose color when that bug was in 'em."

"Oh, pshaw!" I said contemptuously. "I saw that, too." And I explained
to him about the shadow of the table. He nodded.

"But that only makes it worse, sir," he commented dubiously. "It shows
the 'mental condition,' as they say. You know, we were talking about the
black art--remember, sir?"

I did remember; and also I remembered then we saw the spider. I recalled
that spiders and tarantulas belonged to the same family. Of course
Jenkins' suspicions hit the nail--it must be that--there was no getting
around it--but still--

"By Jove, Jenkins!" I said, trying to go a feeble smile. "I never felt
so fit for a corking stiff highball in my life--never!"

I took a screw on my glass and studied him curiously.

"And I say, you know--better take one yourself!" I added.




CHAPTER III

I DON THE PAJAMAS


"By Jove, Jenkins, they fit like a dream!"

I twisted before the glass and surveyed the pajamas with much
satisfaction. They looked jolly right from every point. Moreover, with
all their easy looseness, there was not an inch too much. They had a
comfortable, personal feel.

"Lucky thing they weren't made originally for some whale like Jack
Billings--eh, Jenkins?" I commented musingly.

Behind his hand Jenkins indulged in what is vulgarly known as a snicker.

"Mr. Billings, sir, he couldn't get one shoulder in 'em, much less
a--h'm--leg," he chuckled. "They'd be in ribbons, sir!"

I yawned sleepily, and Jenkins instantly sobered to attention. He held
his finger over the light switch as I punched a pillow and rolled over
on the mattress.

"All right," I said; "push the jolly thing out." And with a click
darkness fell about me.

"Good night, sir," came Jenkins' voice softly.

"Night," I murmured faintly, and I was off.

Sometime, hours later, I awoke, and with a devilish yearning for a
smoke. It often takes me that way in the night.

I climbed out in the blackness and found my way into the other room. I
remembered exactly where I had dropped my cigarette case when we were
fooling with the pajamas by the table, and I found it without
difficulty.

In the act of stooping for it, my hand clutched the edge of the table
and I felt a spot yield under the pressure of my thumb. It was the
button controlling the bell to Jenkins' room.

"Lucky thing he sleeps like a jolly porpoise," I reflected.

I pushed a wicker arm-chair into the moonlight and breeze by a window,
and pulling a flame to a cigarette, leaned back, feeling jolly comfy.
For the breeze was ripping and delicious, and the delicate silk of the
pajamas flowed in little wavelets all the way from my heels to my neck.

And, thinking of the pajamas, I tried to fix my mind on it that I must
tell Jenkins to have me write that chap, Mastermann, and send him
another lot of those devilish good cigars he liked. I tried to recall
what Jenkins had said was the name of the brand--something deuced
clever, I remembered that much.

I was just about dropping off, when I heard some one hurrying along the
private hall leading from the back. Jenkins himself popped into the
room.

"Did you ring, sir?" he inquired, and advanced quickly.

And then, before I could think about it to reply, he halted suddenly,
almost pitching forward. Then, with a kind of wheezy howl, he sprang to
the wall. Next instant, I was blinking under the dazzling electrolier.

"Here, I say! Shut off that light!" I remonstrated, half blinded.

I heard a swift rush across the rugs, and the next thing I knew I was
roughly jerked from out my chair; strong fingers clutched my throat, and
I found myself glaring into a frightened but resolute face.

"Jen-Jenkins!" I tried to gasp, but only a gurgle came.

I was so taken unawares, I knew it must be some dashed dream. Perhaps
another minute, and I would wake up. But he gripped me tighter and shook
me like a rag.

"Say, who are you?" he hissed. "How did you get in here?"

And then, of course, I knew that he was crazy. Whether he was crazy in a
dream or crazy with me awake, I couldn't guess. It made very little
difference, anyhow, for I knew that in another minute I should be either
dream dead or real dead; and dash me if I could see any odds worth
tossing for in either, you know.

But I don't belong to the athletic club quite for nothing, and have
managed to pick up a few tricks, you know. So with the decision to chuck
the dream theory, I shot my leg forward with a mix-up and twist that
made Jenkins loosen his clutch and stagger backward.

"What's the matter with you?" I gasped, advancing toward him. "Are you
trying to murder me?" But I was so hoarse, the only word that came out
plainly was "murder."

Jenkins uttered a howl. "Help, Mr. Lightnut! Murder!"

"You old fool!" I cried, exasperated. "Come here!"

He was coming. He seized a light chair and swung it behind his head.
Then he rushed me with a shout.

"Oh, Mr. Lightnut!"

"Gone clear off his nut!" was my thought. As he swung the chair, I
ducked low, and man and chair went crashing to the floor. But he was up
again in a jiffy and dancing at me.

"Mr. Lightnut, sir, why don't you help me?"

"Help you--you jolly idiot?" I muttered indignantly. Then my voice
raised: "I've a mind to kill you!"

With a yell, he made a kangaroo jump and swung at me again.

"He says he's going to kill me, Mr. Lightnut!" he panted as I dodged
again. "Help me--wake up, sir!"

Wake up? Wake up, indeed, when I had never been so devilish wide awake
in all my life! I was _sure_ now about that. I moved toward him
cautiously.

"Stop your row!" I cried angrily; "you'll have somebody in. Think I want
the police up here?"

With a glare at me, Jenkins darted past me to the bedroom I had just
left. Its light switch clicked, and then back through the brightened
doorway he sprang and dashed for a wall cabinet at the side. He began
tugging at its little drawer. And suddenly I remembered the revolver
there, an old forty-five from a friend in Denver--and loaded!

My spring to intercept him was quick, but not quick enough. Half-way to
him I pulled up under the compelling argument of the long blue barrel
pointed at my head.

"Here! Look out, you fool--it's loaded!" I warned, backing away to the
window.

Jenkins advanced. "What have you done with him?" he panted hoarsely.
"Where is he?"

"Where's who?" I asked savagely, for I was getting devilish tired of it
all. But for the publicity, I should have yelled from the window.

"Where's Mr. Lightnut?" he demanded.

"Oh, he's all right." I decided to adopt that soothing tone that I had
read somewhere was the proper caper with lunatics.

"Where?" Jenkins insisted, pushing nearer.

And dashed if I knew what to answer; for, if I made a mistake, it might
be serious, by Jove! Perhaps some jocular reply would be safest--might
divert his attention, you know.

The open window gave me an idea.

"Why, do you know," I said pleasantly, "I just chucked him down into the
street."

It sounded like a cannon cracker, that gun! The shower of splintered
glass from the picture between the windows barely missed me. But I never
waited a second--for this last devilish straw was too much, don't you
know, and something had to be done. I leaped for the weapon as it struck
the hardwood floor between us, jerked from Jenkins' hand by the
unfamiliar upward kick. Another instant and I was poking the muzzle into
his side.

"I've just had enough of this, you fool!" I cried impatiently. "Here,
take a good look at me!" I pushed my face closer. "Look at me, I tell
you!"

By Jove, he shuddered! His eyes, wide distended with terror, rolled to
the ceiling.

"I can't," he whispered; "I just can't--anything but that! Only,
please--please don't kill me, too."

"Kill you?" I said, frowning sternly as he gave a furtive glance. "I
certainly will, if you don't take a good look at me!"

He gave a sort of despairing sigh and closed his eyes so tightly the
lashes disappeared. "All right, then," he said sullenly; "you may kill
me!"

The way with these lunatics, I thought. Next thing, he would be begging
and insisting that I kill him. I motioned to the door of my guest-room
and gave him a push.

"In there," I said, "and keep perfectly quiet."

And as he shot inside, I closed the door and locked it. I just had to
take the chance of his hurting himself against the walls and furniture;
I didn't believe he was so crazy he would undertake the six-story leap
to the ground. Listening, I heard something like a sob. Then I caught my
name.

"Poor Mr. Lightnut," came chokingly; "the kindest, gentlest master!" And
then more sobs and gulps.

By Jove, under his insane delusion, the poor beggar was grieving for me;
not thinking of himself at all, you know. I felt my eyes grow a bit
moist, somehow, and all at once my heart went heavy. Thought how long
poor old Jenkins had been with me--ever since I was out of college, you
know--five years--and remembered how devilish faithful and attached he
had always been. Poor old Jenks! It was awful his going off this way! I
recalled how he had taken to seeing things, earlier in the evening, and
had made me see them, too, dash it! One thing I determined: whatever had
to be done with him, he should have the finest of attention.

I knew that I ought to telephone to somebody or something, but dashed if
I had any idea who or where. Oddly enough, not a soul seemed to have
been roused by the pistol shot, but I saw by the little clock that it
was close to three--the hour in a bachelor apartment house when
everybody is asleep, if they're going to sleep at all.

I decided that the best thing to do first was to get into some clothes.
And with this thought I was turning away, when it occurred to me to make
an effort to see if poor Jenkins seemed more rational now or had gone to
sleep.

I tapped upon the door. "Are you asleep?" I asked softly.

A howl of positive terror came back.

"I'm a-keeping quiet," he cried, "but don't let me hear your voice
again, or I'll jump right out of the window."

I shook my head sadly and tiptoed into my room, where I slipped
hurriedly out of the pajamas and into some clothes; then back I went to
the telephone. It was on my little writing-desk close to the door
confining Jenkins.

I lifted the receiver with a sigh.

"Hello, central," I began, responding to the operator. "I say, will you
give me 'information?'"

A loud shout suddenly sounded from behind the closed door, and there
came a frantic double-pounding of fists.

"Mr. Lightnut--Mr. Lightnut!" screamed Jenkins. "Oh, Mr. Lightnut,
you're back--you're alive--I can hear your voice! This is Jenkins, Mr.
Lightnut; yes, sir, Jenkins. They've got me locked in!"

I clapped the receiver on the hook and sprang to the door, unlocking
it. Jenkins almost tumbled into my arms. By Jove, for a second I hung in
the wind, he acted so crazy still; at least, it seemed so just at first.
The fellow threw his arm about my neck and laughed--laughed and cried,
dash it--and just wringing my hands and carrying on--Oh, awful! And even
when I got him into a chair, he just sat there laughing and crying like
a jolly old silly, patting my hand, you know, and wiping his eyes, what
time they were not devouring me.

"Has he gone, sir?" he gasped huskily. "Did he jump from the window?"
But I waved all questions aside.

"After you've had some sleep," I insisted. "Then I'll tell you the whole
jolly story." And I just got him to his room myself, despite his
distress and protests over my attention.

"Thank you, sir, and good night," he said as I left him. And he murmured
placidly, "I guess we're all right now."

But I was not so sure as to _him_, when I viewed the broken chair and
scattered fragments of glass--ominous reminders of the scene through
which I had passed. And so, though I threw the pistol on top of a
bookcase, I spent the rest of the night upon the soft cushions of my big
divan.




CHAPTER IV

JENKINS DECLARES FOR THE WATER WAGON


"But this savage-looking Chinaman that you saw, Jenkins--how was he
dressed?" I adopted a careless tone of inquiry.

It was high noon, and I was toying with an after luncheon, or rather
after breakfast, cigar.

Jenkins' head shook dubiously. "I just remember something blackish. My,
sir, I didn't have time to notice nothing like clothes!"

His tone conveyed aggrieved protest. He went on:

"Just as I'm telling you, sir, I saw some one sitting there by the
window and walked toward him, thinking it was you. Then, all of a
sudden, I see his awful face a scowling at me there in the moonlight."

"And he was smoking, you say?"

Jenkins sniffed indignantly. "Free and easy as a lord, sir! He held a
long stick to his ugly mouth, and smoke was curling out of a little bowl
near the end."

"Oh, opium pipe, eh?"

"Likely, sir," agreed Jenkins; "but I never saw one."

By Jove, I had my own opinion about that! I knew he _must_ have seen one
before; but I just went on questioning, to gain time, you know, and
wondering all the while how I should ever be able to break the truth to
the poor fellow.

"Tell me again what he was like," I said. "How did you know he was a
Chinaman?"

"Why, by his long black pigtail, sir, and his onery color. But I never
saw no Chinaman as ugly as this one--no sir. Oh, he was just too awful
horrid to look at, sir. His forehead sloped away back, or maybe the
front part of his head being all shaved made it look that way. And the
skin about his eyes was painted white with red streaks shooting around
like rays of light."

"No beard or mustache, I suppose?" I suggested, feeling my own
smooth-shaven face. Jenkins' reply was a surprise:

"Yes, sir; there were long black kind of rat tails that dropped down
from the sides of his mouth. And then his neck--ugh--all thick with
woolly hair."

"Oh, it was, eh?" I said drily, thinking of the long red stripe that my
collar concealed. "I suppose you felt this, eh, when you jumped at his
throat?"

Jenkins rubbed his chin with a puzzled air.

"Why, that's uncommon queer, sir; but now that you remind me, I do
remember that his neck felt perfectly smooth--and it wasn't so big,
either. Why, I should say it felt just about like yours would, sir."

[Illustration]

I eyed him ruefully.

"By Jove, I don't doubt it a minute!" I commented with some disgust.
"See here, Jenkins, I suppose you've been to the Chinese theater down in
Doyers Street, eh?"

For I had been down there with slumming parties, and I remembered the
hideous sorcerers, fierce warriors and kings the Chinks represent in
their interminable plays. And the facial make-up described by Jenkins
tallied in a way with some I recalled from these ancient, semi-mythical
plays.

But at my question, Jenkins' lip curled a little; dash me, but he looked
almost insulted.

"I should say not, sir," he said with a sniff; "you don't catch me going
down in them parts!" He added quickly: "Meaning no offense, sir."

"Sure?" I questioned sharply.

"Never, sir!" Jenkins' earnestness was unmistakable. But of course I
knew the poor fellow had forgotten all about it.

"One of the jolly rum things that goes along with his affliction," I
reflected sadly. "A month from now the poor beggar will be swearing he
never saw me in his life." And how the devil was I going to break the
truth to him? I sighed perplexedly. "Well, go on with your yarn," I said
irresolutely. "You were telling, when I interrupted, about rushing into
my bedroom."

"Yes, sir," he resumed with animation. "And when I didn't find you, I
was just frantic, for I didn't know you had gone out, sir--never
thought of that; I went for the ugly monster with the big pistol there
in the cabinet--which, by the way, sir, the low down villain stole when
he locked me up and lit out."

I had an inspiration.

"I see," I broke in carelessly; "and then you demanded to know where I
was--that it? Then you backed him to that window, and he told you he had
chucked me into the street--whereupon you tried to blow off his head and
knocked the jolly daylights out of the lady with the fencing foil."

Jenkins, his mouth agape, viewed me with distended eyes.

"I didn't tell you that, sir," he faltered. "How--"

"And when you dropped the weapon," I went on, "this chap collared it,
jabbed the beastly thing into you, and told you to look at him. And by
Jove you wouldn't!"

Jenkins groaned slightly. The apologetic cough with which he strove to
mantle the sound was dry and spiritless.

"No, sir; it seemed easier to die, sir," he murmured--"what with him
grinning like a fiend and his long teeth a-sticking out over his
lip--ugh!" Then he added wonderingly: "But what gets me is how you
should know, sir."

I looked at him gravely.

"Jenkins," I said gently, "I know, because it so happens I was here all
the time."

His eyes bulged incredulously.

"You, sir? You mean in this room?"

I nodded slowly. "I mean right in this room--I was a witness of the
whole thing."

Jenkins just gulped. I motioned to a chair.


"You may sit down, Jenkins, my poor fellow," I said compassionately. I
poured out some whisky and gave it to him.

"Yes, yes; I want you to drink that," I insisted as he took it
hesitatingly. "You will need it. Drink every drop of it."

And I watched him do it. For somehow the poor devil seemed to be growing
paler every minute, and I was afraid the shock of what I was going to
say would send him into a swoon.

Jenkins replaced the empty glass with a positively trembling hand. By
Jove, his face turned a kind of asparagus yellow.

It alarmed me a little, for I felt apprehensive that perhaps it was time
for him to have another spell, you know. Of course, I knew that the
devilishly adroit, tactful way I was breaking it to him wouldn't disturb
the peace of a baby. Some people would have gone about the thing in some
deuced abrupt way, don't you know, and alarmed him. I didn't want to do
that--in fact, I took pains to tell him so at the start.

"I don't want to frighten you, my poor fellow," I said, leaning toward
him and speaking in a low, earnest voice--just that way, you know--no
excitement. "You mustn't let anything I say frighten you badly about
yourself."

"No, sir. Thank you, sir." But I could hardly hear him.

I waited a moment, eying him steadily--just doing it all in that calm
way, you know--and then:

"You must brace yourself for a great shock, my poor Jenkins," I said
soothingly. And then I thought I had best hurry on, for I could tell by
the way his eyes rolled and the blue color of his lips that probably I
was just in time to head off another attack. And then I told him all.

"And here," I concluded, "are the marks of your fingers under my collar,
and the pistol is on top of the bookcase."

Jenkins just sat there, kind of huddled up, you know, and his face as
white as the what-you-call-it snow. Didn't seem able to say a word. By
Jove, it was too much for me; my heart just went out to him.

"It's all right, Jenkins," I said kindly, and I patted his knee.
"Doesn't make a jolly bit of difference to me, personally. Just told you
because I thought you ought to know. You just go right along and
continue your duties, so far as I am concerned."

Jenkins' hand slipped along his knee and ventured to touch mine timidly.
He rose heavily.

"Mr. Lightnut, sir," he said huskily, "if you're not going to need me
very much, could I be excused for a while to-night?"

"By Jove, yes, Jenkins! Go out and enjoy the evening; it will do you
good. Stay as long as you like, dash it! You know I dine to-night at the
club. Go to a roof garden and get some fresh air."

A toss of the head broke Jenkins' calm; his fist struck his palm.

"It ain't that, sir," he exclaimed. "I don't want no fresh air, but I do
want fresh resolution and a fresh start. I'm going to find _him_."

"Him!" I was startled. Dash me, I half thought he meant the Chinaman.

"Him, sir; that temperance lecturer, I mean. I'm going to get out a
paper against that old enemy there!" And he shook his fist at the whisky
decanter.




CHAPTER V

THE GIRL FROM RADCLIFFE


"Long distance call from Mr. Billings, sir," said Jenkins, lifting the
receiver.

By Jove, he had just caught me as I was about to leave.

"Hello! That you, Lightnut?" came his voice. "Say, old chap, you
remember you said you wouldn't mind putting up the kid overnight on the
way home from college. Remember? Wants to rest over and come up the
river on the day line."

Yes, I remembered, and said so.

"All right, then; it's to-night. Be there about nine from Boston. Don't
go to any trouble, now, nor alter any plans. The kid will probably be
dead tired and off to bed before you get home from your dinner."

"That's all right, old chap; Jenkins will look after the young one."

I heard Billings chuckle--I remembered that chuckle afterward.

"Not much of the young one there. Eighteen, you know. Never off to
school, though, until last year--and by George, it was time! Between my
mother and my sister the kid was being absolutely ruined--petted,
mollycoddled, and was getting soft and silly--oh, something to make you
sick. Well, so much obliged, Dicky. You know what these hotels are.
Good-by."

I explained to Jenkins. "All right, sir," he said. "I won't go out until
after nine. It'll be time enough."

And so I went off. I returned early, about ten, and sat reading. Jenkins
was still away, and the door of my guest room was open.

"Good evening!"

The voice behind me was soft, musical, delicious.

I whirled about, and there, within the door, leaning against the frame,
was the most beautiful creature I ever saw in all my life.

A girl! But oh, by Jove, _such_ a girl! A lovely, rosy blonde, dash it!
Golden-haired angel--long, droopy kind of lashes, don't you know--eyes
like dreamy sapphire seas--oh, that sort of thing--a peach!

The leap that brought me to my feet sent my chair thudding backward.

"Why--er--good evening," I managed to stammer. Just managed, you know,
for, give you my word, I never was so bowled over in my life--never! And
on the instant I guessed what it meant. The "kid" that Billings referred
to wasn't a kid brother at all, but was a kid sister--girl, by Jove!

"Are you busy?" I saw the flash of her perfect little teeth as her lips
parted in a smile. "If not, may I talk to you a while?"

I mumbled something designed to be pleasant--dash me if I know what--and
managed to summon sense enough to lift toward her a wicker arm-chair.
Then I dashed into my bedroom to chuck the smoking-jacket and get into a
coat. And all the while I was thinking harder than I ever had thought it
possible.

Just the thing to have expected of an ass like Billings--a fellow with
no sense of the proprieties! His kind of mind had never got any further
than the fact that I had a guest-room and a quiet apartment. The further
fact that it was in a bachelor apartment house and I a bachelor--and not
yet out of my twenties, dash it--would never have presented itself to a
chump like Billings as having any bearing on the matter.

"Of course, I must get right over to the club and leave her in
possession--it's the only thing left to do." This was my thought as I
slipped into my coat and gave my hair a touch--just a touch, don't you
know. The thing to do was to carry it off as naturally as possible for a
few minutes, and then slip away. Probably she hadn't counted upon my
being in town at all--had taken it for granted it was some sort of
family apartment--with housekeeper, servant maids, all that sort of
thing.

"Never mind," I thought, as I kicked off my half-shoes and jerked on the
first things at hand. "Thing to do now is to keep that child's mind
from being distressed. She'll have a good sleep and get off early in the
morning on the Albany boat. Don't suppose she'd understand,
anyhow--sweet, innocent, unsophisticated thing like that. What a fool
Billings is!"

And I jammed in savagely the turquoise matrix pin with which I was
replacing the pearl, because it went better with my tie.

"Now, just a few minutes of conversation to put her at her ease," I
reflected, "and then I'm off. I'll get the janitor's wife to come up and
stay near her."

And I dashed back, murmuring some jolly rubbish of apology. And then I
just brought up speechless--almost fell over backward. For as she stood
there under the light, I saw that what I had taken for a dress of black
silk was not a dress at all, but a suit of pajamas--black, filmy
pajamas, whose loose elegance concealed but could not wholly deny the
goddess-like figure within.

"I'd have known you anywhere, Mr. Lightnut." And then I found that we
were shaking hands, my fingers crushed in a grasp I never could have
thought possible from that tiny hand. "From hearing Jack talk, your name
is a sort of household word in the Billings family."

I mumbled something jolly idiotic--some acknowledgment. But I was pink
about the ears, and I knew it, while she was cool and serene as a lily
of the what-you-call-it, don't you know. I was trying not to see the
pajamas, trying to pretend not to notice them, but dashed if I didn't
only make it worse!

For she looked down at herself with a laugh--rather an embarrassed
laugh, I thought; and her little shrug and glance directed attention to
her attire.

"I see you're looking at the pajamas," she said smiling.

And her eyes looked at me through those drooping lashes--oh, such a way!

"Oh, no--I assure--certainly not," I stammered hastily. Dash it, I never
was so rebuked and mortified in all my life. What an ass I had been to
seem to notice at all!

She looked troubled. "Say, do you mind my wearing them?" she inquired.

"I? Certainly not--well, I should say not!" I retorted, almost with
indignation.

"Sure?" By Jove, what ripping eyes she had!

"Of course not!" emphatically.

Her sunny head nodded satisfaction. "That's all right, then. I was
afraid you wouldn't like it--afraid you would think I was acting a
little _free_. But your man Jenkins--isn't that his name?--said he
thought you would _like_ for me to wear them."

I gasped.

"Jen--what's _that_?" I was amazed, indignant at Jenkins' effrontery.
"He--he suggested that you wear--er--these?"

She nodded, her glorious eyes shining wistfully.

"You see, I went to a frat dance last night in Cambridge," she
explained; "and in the hurry this morning, somehow, one of my bags--a
suit-case--was left behind. And when I got here to-night and began
piling the things out of my other bag--well, I saw I was up a tree. Not
a thing to slip into, you know--not so much as a dressing-gown or even a
bathrobe. Then your man saved my life--suggested these pajamas. See?"

"Oh, I see!"

I said so; but, dash it, I wasn't sure I did, for I knew so devilish
little about girls. But I got hold of this much: I understood that this
delicately reared creature had missed the restfulness and luxury of a
shift to some sort of dressing-robe after her day of travel. Probably
one of those ribbony, pinky-white fripperies one sees in the windows of
the Avenue shops, rosy, foamy dreams like the--well, like the crest of a
soda cocktail, don't you know. And the pajamas had been adopted as a
comfortable makeshift.

By Jove! And here she was sitting, calmly telling me all about it--just
as she might to Jack--never thinking a thing about it! My, how charming,
how innocent she was! But, dash it, that was the reason she was so
beautiful--of course, that was it--and I had never seen anybody like her
in all the world before. I knew jolly well I never should again, either.
But I knew I ought to go--and at once.

"I must cut along now," I thought; "infernal shame to be taking
advantage of her this way!" And then I thought I would just wait a wee
minute longer.

Just then she turned toward me, her elbow on the arm of the wicker
chair, her dainty, manicured finger-tips supporting her chin.

"You know, Mr. Lightnut, I wasn't sure you would remember me at all,"
she said. "I was such a kid when you saw me last."

"Oh, yes," I said, trying to recall the rather hoydenish children I had
seen on the motor trip to Billings' home five years before. "I remember
you were quite a little girl--weren't you?"

I thought her face darkened a little; then her smile flashed through,
like sunshine through a cloud. Her laugh came on top, like the mellow
ripple of a tiny brook--that sort of thing--oh, you know!

"Oh, I say now, Mr. Lightnut, cut out the josh," she remonstrated; and I
thought she grew a little red. "No more for mine those sissy, girlie
ways--I've got well over all of that!"

She tossed one knee over the other and threw herself back in the chair.
She seemed a little piqued. She went on:

"I just tell you what--there's nothing like a couple of years off at
college for toughening you! Gets all those mamma's baby ways out of you,
you bet your life, and all the slushiness you get from trying to be like
your sisters. Shucks!"

I caught my breath. Of course, she had no idea how it sounded--this sort
of talk; it was just her innocent frankness, her--what d'ye call
it?--her _ingenuousness_--dash it!

She continued musingly: "Gee, but I was soft when I first went away--a
regular pie-faced angel-child!" Her voice had in it a sneer. Then she
straightened up, whirled her chair facing me, and gave me a sounding
slap on the knee. "Say, maybe the fellows I met didn't educate that out
of me mighty quick! Well, I reckon yes!" And she nodded, eying me
sidewise, her pretty chin in the air.

But, dash me, I was so aghast I couldn't get out a word. Just sat there
batting at her and turning hot and cold by turns. Came devilish near
losing consciousness, by Jove, that's what!

Of course, I knew she didn't know what she was talking about. Hadn't any
sisters myself, don't you know, and never had learned much about other
fellows' sisters; but, dash it, I knew something about _faces_, and I
would have staked my life on hers. You can nearly always tell, you know.
But, anyhow, I thought I had better go now.

I got up. "I say, you want to just make yourself at home," I said. "And
if you don't mind, I'll see you at the boat in the morning."

She stood up, too, looking rather surprised. "You're not going away?"

"Oh, no; not out of town." I thought that was what she meant. I added:
"And as I go out, I'll stop down-stairs and have some one come up and
stay with you."

She dropped to the arm of the chair, her pretty face showing dismay.

"Oh, but see here! I'm running you off--I know I am. Say, Mr. Lightnut,
I don't want to do that. I thought sure you were going to be here.
Brother insisted you would be."

Brother! Nice brother, indeed, for her--poor little thing!

"Oh, you'll be all right," I said reassuringly. "I'm just going over to
the club, don't you know--not far away."

She came right up to me and placed a hand on each shoulder.

"Honest Injun, now," she said--and her smile was ravishing. "Honest,
now, Mr. Lightnut, you're going just because I'm here. Say now, own up!"

And, dash it, there was nothing to do but admit it.

"All right," she said; and I thought her eyes flashed a little. "Then I
go to a hotel--that's all!"

"A hotel! Why, you can't do that--oh, I say!"

"Why can't I?" She was downright angry--I could see it; and how
distractingly lovely she was with that flame in her cheeks!

But she was just a child--an innocent little child; and how the deuce
could I ever make her understand?

I stammered: "Why--er--not in New York, you know. They won't take a
lady in at this time of night. They--"

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, I say, Mr. Lightnut, play easier on that
girlie and lady pedal; cook up a fresh gag! I tell you, I've put all
that behind me. Say, wait till you've known me a little, and I'll bet a
purse you never call _me_ a lady again! Lady! Say, that's _funny_!"

And it certainly seemed to strike her sense of humor. She gave me a
sudden punch in the side that fairly left me breathless, and her
laughter rang out birdlike, joyous. Of a sudden I felt devilish awkward
and foolish.

"Oh, _please_ stop stringing me, Mr. Lightnut--don't treat me like a
kid. I want to get acquainted." Then her bright face sobered. "Say, was
that on the level--that about your going to leave me? See here, I'm not
bothering you, am I, Mr. Lightnut?"

"Bothering me!" I ejaculated. "Bothering _me_? I should say not!"

I think I must have said it heartily and convincingly, don't you know,
for her lovely face looked pleased.

"Because if I am," she said earnestly, "I'll fade away into my own
little room there." Her glance ranged toward her door. "It's sure some
swell, that room."

"So jolly glad you like it," I said.

"Well, I should say!" Then her beautiful eyes looked at me full.

"You know, I didn't expect this--I mean having a room all to myself.
Never."

And then, while I gasped, she went on, sweetly and calmly:

"Why, Mr. Lightnut, Brother Jack would throw seventeen thousand fits if
I went to a hotel, because--" She laughed deliciously. "Well, I promised
him that if he would let me come home by New York I would stay right
here with you and behave myself."

"Behave yourself!" I echoed indignantly. "Why, look here, do you mean to
say Jack Billings--your own brother, you know--thought you
wouldn't--er,--do that at a hotel?"

"_Thought?_" Her laugh this time was explosive. "No, he never thought
it; he _knew_ I wouldn't! He knew I would be tearing around all night
with the boys--_that's_ what!"

And dash me, if she didn't throw herself back with a kind of swagger, by
Jove!

"Why, you--you wouldn't do such a thing!" I uttered faintly.

"Wouldn't I?" She straightened suddenly, and her lovely blue eyes
narrowed at me. "Say, Mr. Lightnut, I don't want you to get me sized up
wrong. I'm none of your little waxy gardenias--not much! When I'm in New
York, it's the bright lights and the Great White Way for mine--yes, sir,
every time!"

And she gave me a blow on the shoulder that was like a stroke from a
man's arm. It sent me down into my chair.

"If you don't believe me," she added, her face shining with excitement,
"just you ask Jack about last summer when I came through--about that joy
ride to Coney with three Columbia fellows, and how we got pinched. Oh,
mamma, but didn't Jack swear at me!"


I heard a noise by the door. Jenkins stood there, his eyes sticking out
like hard boiled eggs.

"I--I'm back, sir," he said rather falteringly. "Beg pardon, sir; just
thought you'd want to know. I didn't know you--h'm!" And with an odd
look and a little cough Jenkins slipped away. But I scarcely noticed him
at all.

Poor misguided girl!

My brain was buzzing like a devilish hive of bees, don't you know. By
Jove, this was something _awful_!

And yet--and yet--Her frank, sweet face met mine with a clear light that
there was no mistaking. There was no going behind it--she was a
thoroughbred, a queen--a _lady_, dash it! I _knew_ it! And I just
settled on that, and was ready to die right then and there if anybody
dared to dispute it. I didn't care a jolly hang how she talked; it was
just nothing--just the demoralizing swagger of a little boarding-school
girl trying to show off like her brothers. And her language? Why, just
the devilish, natural result of having a coarse, slangy brute like
Billings for a brother. Poor little girl! It was a beastly shame.

She was watching me curiously, smilingly, as she sat there, her
devilishly pretty mouth puckered into a cherry as she softly whistled
and drummed her shining nails upon the chair arm.

"I'm afraid I've shocked you," she said. "Jack says you're so good."

Dash it, somehow I felt humiliated! She said it in a way that made me
feel like a silly ass, you know.

But she wasn't thinking about me any more. Her eye fell on the tabouret,
and her little hand stretched toward it.

"May I?" she said with an arch inquiring glance. "Your cigarettes look
good to me. I emptied my case an hour ago."

And I proffered them with a show of alacrity. "Pray, pardon me," I said.
"I--I never thought of you smoking." A chuckle came through the tiny
teeth grasping the cigarette. "Thought I was too goody-goody, eh?"

I stammered something--dashed if I know what--and blinked a little
gloomily as she drew a brisk fire from the flame I tendered.

Odd thing, by Jove; here I had been going to dinners, world without end,
where fellows' wives and girls and sisters smoked cigarettes, and I
never had thought a thing about it. But now, somehow, I didn't like it
for _her_. Sort of thing well enough for other chaps' girls and
sisters, you know, but--well, this was _different_, by Jove! Devilish
queer thing, that, what a lot of things seem the caper for them that we
don't like for "our own," eh?

And yet--oh, I say, she certainly did look fetching about it--downright
bewitching, you know! I think maybe it was because she didn't fumble the
thing as if she was afraid of it--as if it was just a red hot coal and
going to burn her. Most of them do, you know. No, this girl really
seemed to enjoy it. Inhaled the whole thing at three draws and reached
for another.

"Do--er--you smoke much?" I ventured anxiously. "Cigarettes, you know?"

She pulled a sparkling half-inch as she shook her little head. I felt
awfully relieved. "Not for me," she remarked carelessly. "I prefer a
pipe."

"_Pipe!_" I repeated feebly.

The golden head inclined. "Bet you! Good old, well-seasoned brier for
mine--well-caked and a little strong." Puff-puff. "Oh, damn your patent
sanitary pipes, I say!"

And as backward I collapsed upon the cushions, she threw her leg over
the arm of her chair and shot two long cones of smoke from her dainty
nostrils.




CHAPTER VI

ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY


A moment later I had another shock.

"I don't blame you for looking at me so hard," she said, rubbing her
chin and looking, I thought, a little confused. "For did you ever see a
face like mine?"

"I--I never did!" I said stammeringly, for, by Jove, the question was so
unexpected; but I knew I said it earnestly and with conviction in every
word.

She nodded. "Never got a chance to shave, you know--caught the train by
such a margin--and my kit's in that other bag. Guess I'll have to impose
on you in the morning for one of your razors."

I stared at her in horror.

"Shave? You don't shave?" I protested blankly.

"Myself, you mean? Have to; I haven't got a man to do it for me." She
seemed to sigh. "Not old enough yet to have a man, Jack says."

And just here her attention seemed to center on my cellarette over in
the corner.

"Gee, but it's warm to-night, isn't it?" she remarked absently.

And there was nothing to do but take the hint or leave it; and after
all, she was a guest, you know!

"Perhaps you will permit me to offer you some refreshment," I suggested,
rising. I knew it sounded devilish stiff; and I knew, moreover, that I
looked like a jolly muff, in fact.

"Perhaps I will," she chuckled. "Say, don't urge me too hard, Mr.
Lightnut; you might embarrass me."

I did not want to embarrass her. "I thought perhaps a lemon soda would
refresh you," I explained. "Or, if you will allow me, I will have
Jenkins make you one of his famous seltzer lemonades. Perhaps, though,
you would prefer just a plain--"

I halted in confusion, for she was laughing at me.

"A plain cup of tea," she gurgled, "or a _crème de menthe_!" And then
her laughter burst deliciously. "Say, do you know, honestly, I'm only
just getting on to that dry humor of yours. You've had me fooled. You do
it with such a serious face, you know. Say, it's _great_!"

I tried to smile, but I knew it was a devilish sickly go--the more so,
because just at that moment her slender fingers discarded the remnant of
her last cigarette and reached for a cigar. Another instant, and she had
deftly clipped and lighted it.

I decided I wouldn't ring for Jenkins.

I felt ashamed as I looked in the cellarette, and wondered what the
deuce I should offer her. Couldn't think of anything I had ever heard of
boarding-school girls going in for except ice-cream soda; and, dash it,
I didn't have any ice-cream soda. Nearest thing would be a little
seltzer and ginger ale. That would do.

"Oh, I say, I'm going to make you a highball," I said, trying to assume
a frisky, jocular air.

Her voice lifted in alarm. "Nay, nay, Clarence--not for me!" she urged
hastily.

"But it's only--"

"No fizzy adulterations in mine--not on your life." She followed me
across the room. "Just give me the straight, pure goods--anything, just
so it's whisky."

And before I could say a word--if, indeed, I could have said a word--she
had selected a decanter of Scotch, and with cigar tilted upward in her
tender mouth, was absorbingly pouring a shining stream of the amber
fluid.

To see the slow curving of that delicately molded wrist, the challenging
flash of the saucy eyes of blue, by Jove, it made me just forget all
about what she was doing till the fluid ran over the brim. And then,
before I could intercept her, she had lightly gestured her glass to
mine, and in a flash the stuff was gone.

Gone! A full whisky glass; and I recalled with a shiver of horror that
it was very high proof liquor--something I seldom touched myself, but
kept on hand for certain of my friends.

"I say, you know!" I gasped in consternation.

"I'm awfully afraid that will--er--will--" I gulped wordlessly.

The coral lips curved scornfully.

"Get _me_ jingled?" She looked as she might have if I had insulted her.
"Maybe so in those girlie-girlie days you were trying to josh me about,
but not since these two years I've been at college." She shook her
lovely, bright head, and following a long enjoyable pull at the cigar,
projected five perfect rings at a frescoed cherub in the ceiling. The
exquisite eyes softened dreamily as under the spell of some pleasing
thought--some tender reminiscence.

"Why, do you know," she said, looking at me earnestly, "when I was home
for the holidays--" Then she paused. "Don't tell Brother Jack I told you
this--will you, Mr. Lightnut? He's so sensitive about it."

"Certainly not," I said feelingly.

I thought the wistful face brightened.

"Well, when I was home, then, I put Brother Jack under the table two
nights running; and you know that's going some!"

And smiling proudly, she poured out another! But not any more, for I put
away the decanter.

My brain was reeling, as they say in books; dash it, I was almost sick.
Poor, poor little girl! And nobody to remonstrate with her. What a
shame--what a shame!

By Jove, I wondered if she would listen to me! I fixed my glass
resolutely as we resumed our seats, and bent toward her earnestly.

"May I say something very seriously, Miss Billings?" I began nervously.
"Without offense, you know--"

But she was off in a fit of chuckling. Most girls giggled, I had always
heard, but she chuckled. Somehow, I liked it less than anything she did;
it sounded so devilish ghastly, you know. And then it was so awfully
embarrassing--oh, awfully. If you've never tried to remonstrate with a
girl about her vicious habits and had her chuckle, you just can't
imagine! I felt my cheeks flushing jolly red and looked down, and then I
had to look somewhere else quickly, for I seemed to be staring rudely at
the ends of the pajamas, where her feet, as the poet chap says, "like
little mice, stole in and out--" only, in this case, they were thrust
into bedroom slippers, that looked oddly like a pair of my own--but
miles and miles smaller.

"Say, do you know," she was chortling, "the way you do get off that
Willie boy sort of talk--oh!" And she placed her hand to her side as she
laughed. "I can see how Jack thinks you're the greatest ever, Mr.
Lightnut."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Look here, I do _wish_ you would let me call you 'Dicky.'"

"Oh, I say--will you?" exploded from my mouth.

"_Will_ I?" Her look made my blood leap. "You just watch me--_Dicky_!
Oh, say, this is great; maybe it won't take a fall out of old
Jack--always bragging that you allow only two or three to call you
that."

"I hope you will always call me Dicky," I said--and said it very softly.
By Jove, I could hardly keep from taking her hand!

"You bet I think it's awfully good of you, Lightnut--I mean, Dicky."
Then her face grew pensive. "Say, do you know, I need a friend like
you--just now, I mean--oh, worst kind."

"Do you?" I said eagerly, and hitched nearer. She proceeded:

"Haven't you had things sometimes you wanted to talk about to
somebody--well, things you couldn't just tell to your brother or
sisters--oh, nor even your room-mate? _You_ understand."

I wasn't sure that I did, for she was blushing furiously, and in her
eyes was an appeal.

By Jove, some jolly love affair, I guessed suddenly. My heart just sank
like a lump of what's-its-name, but my whole soul went out in sympathy
for her. I made up my mind, then and there, to put myself aside.

"Devilish glad--I mean delighted to have you tell me anything," I
murmured rather weakly; "but--er--I should think your mother--"

"The mater--tell her!" Her hand lifted. "She'd guy the life out of me!
Besides, she's in Europe." She paced to the window and back.

I protested indignantly: "I don't see how any mother--"

"Aw, forget it!" she broke in, and I winced again at slang from those
sweet lips. "No, sir; I'm going to unload the whole thing on _you_, or
nobody."

And, by Jove, the next thing I knew she had perched on the broad arm of
the Morris chair in which I sat, her arm resting lightly above my
shoulders.

"Here's what I want to know about," I heard her sigh. "When you're
engaged to one person and meet another you like better, how are you
going to--well, chuck it with the first, you know--and still do the
square thing? There, that's what's hit me, Dicky; and I'm up against it
for fair!" Her hand gently patted my shoulder. "I'm telling you, old
chap, because I know you'll understand--because I like you better than
any man I ever saw--that's right!"

I was just afraid to move! Afraid she'd stop; afraid she'd go on. And
all the while I was feeling happier than I ever had in all my
life--happier than I ever knew people could be, you know. I never
thought her bold--dash it, no--knew it was just her adorable, delicious,
Arcadian simplicity, by Jove! That explained it, just as it explained to
me all her other unconventionality.

"So now it's up to you," she said, "and I want to know what's the
answer."

The answer!

And how could I give her any answer? No, by Jove, I knew jolly well I
couldn't take advantage of such circumstances--of her artless
confession; knew devilish well it wouldn't do, you know. Might reproach
me in years to come; and then--and then, there was Billings!

So I just contented myself with looking up smilingly, but it was
hard--awfully, awfully hard, dash it--and I just felt like a jolly
cad--or fool. Couldn't tell which.




CHAPTER VII

CONFIDENCES


This beautiful creature had proposed to me!

By Jove, that's what it amounted to practically; and now, as she said,
it was up to me. Yet I couldn't say a word!

"Well, what must I do about the other one?" she insisted.

The question reminded me of the entanglement to which her frank
simplicity had confessed. And she expected me, of all others, to tell
her what to do! I looked up into the radiant, crimsoned face as she bent
forward slightly, her lips parted, her eyes eager--expectant. She was
hanging upon my reply.

I coughed slightly. "That question is hardly fair, you know," I said
meaningly. "You see, it hits me rather personally."

"Oh!" she said.

I nodded and tried to find her hand as I looked down.

"So _that's_ where the shoe pinches!" And she whistled thoughtfully.

And just then my upward reaching hand found hers. And yet no, it
couldn't be her hand, either; it felt like the crash cover of the
cushion--rough and fibrous. And yet, by Jove, it _was_ a hand, for it
gave mine a grip that almost broke my fingers and then dropped them. By
the time I looked up, I saw only her little palm resting upward on her
knee.

It was funny; but I had other things to think about than puzzles.

She sighed. "Well, I'm the one that can feel for you, Dicky." Here the
sigh lifted and her laugh pealed like a chime of silver bells. "I guess
Brother Jack doesn't know as much about your affairs as he thinks, does
he--eh? Why, he told me you were more afraid of a girl than of a mad
dog."

And a slapping grip fell on my shoulder that made me tingle from head to
toe. And yet I wished she wouldn't do that; if she did it again, I
should just lose my head--I knew I should.

But here she rose, stretched her arms, and dropped into the wicker
arm-chair. She hitched it nearer to me.

"You see, it's like this," she began, assuming a confidential air. "You
know my sister's up at school at Cambridge, too."

"At Radcliffe College--yes." I nodded.

"Why, yes. Well, it's her room-mate!"

"Eh? I don't believe I--" I paused perplexedly.

"That's right--her room-mate, I tell you! And in a day or two she's
coming home with Sis for a visit. I want you to come up for a week
end--won't you--and look her over--I mean, see her and tell me what you
think of her. You'll go crazy about her--oh, I know you will!"

I entered a protest. "Oh, I say now, you know, there's only one girl I
ever saw I would care to look at twice."

She smiled adorably. "Oh, don't I know all about how you feel? But I
just want you to see this girl--she's the prettiest and swellest that's
been around Boston for many a day; and on Sunday morning she could give
the flag to all the Avenue. Why, Dicky, she's from China!"

"China!" I must have looked the scorn I felt. "Oh, come now, you don't
think a Chinese girl is--"

"Not Chinese, Dicky." In her eagerness, she moved so near, the silk of
her pajamas brushed my hand. "She's English. Her dad's the British
Governor General of Hong Kong--Colonel Francis Kirkland, you
know--beefy-looking old chap with white mutton chops--I saw his
picture."

Hong Kong! I wondered if she knew Mastermann, the chap who had sent me
the red pajamas. Why, dash it, of course she would; for this fellow
Mastermann was out there on government business, and he and the Governor
must be thrown together a good deal.


Her musical laugh broke in on my speculations. "But the funniest thing
is, Dicky, her name's the same as mine."

Her name! By Jove, and until this moment, I had not thought--

"Oh, I say," I exclaimed eagerly, "what _is_ your name, anyway?"

The lustrous eyes opened wide. "Why, you mean to say you don't know?
Thought you knew I was named after the governor. And she's named after
_hers_--Frances, from Francis, you know--just the difference in a
letter. See?"

"Frances!" I murmured lingeringly. "So your name's Frances?"

"Yes, and hers is Frances--odd, isn't it?"

I assented, but I wished she would drop the other girl--I wasn't
interested there, except just because she was.

Her bosom lifted with a sigh. "Don't you think Frances is a peach of a
name?"

"It's heavenly!" I whispered. "And I'm glad to hear about your friend,
too."

Her sweet face clouded. "Not much of a friend; she don't lose any sleep
over me," she commented gloomily. "Then there's Sis double-crossing me
with her influence ever since I got hauled up before Prexy at Easter.
Sis is awfully prissy."

Her tone was almost savage. I strained incredulously after her meaning.

"Did I understand you to say you were brought up before the president
there at Radcliffe?"

"Radcliffe?" Her head shook. "No--Harvard." And I nodded, recalling the
affiliation between the two institutions at Cambridge.

I wondered what silly, tyrannical straining of red tape discipline on
some one's part had subjected this sensitive, refined girl to the
humiliating ordeal of having to appear before the president of the
college. Probably for plucking some trashy flower, or, at the worst,
looking twice at some sappy freshman acquaintance waving his hand from a
frat house.

"By Jove, a devilish shame!" I ejaculated.

"I should say!" Her voice was aggrieved. "All for a measly prize fight."

"Prize fight!" I gasped.

She nodded brightly. "Oh, a modest one, you know--not, of course, a
Jeffries-Johnson affair, but I tell you we had them going some for a
round and a half. Athletics is my long suit--just you feel those
biceps." And with sudden movement she swept upward the wide, silken
sleeve, showing a limb like the lost arm of the Venus de
what's-its-name.

"Go on--just feel it," she commanded, flexing the arm.

"I--I--" And I gulped and balked.

"_Feel_ it, I tell you!" And I did.

And then I almost fell over, I received such a shock. For my fingers
seemed to be clasping, not the soft, rounded contour I beheld, but a
great massed protuberance, hard and unyielding as a bunch of dried
putty. My fingers could not half span it.

I jerked them away, bewildered.

"Wonderful," I said faintly, and I batted perplexedly at the exquisite,
symmetrical arm.

"Oh, that's nothing," she said indifferently, jerking down her sleeve.
"I'm a little undertrained now; been putting in all my time on leg work.
That's what counts in foot-ball.

"Foot-ball!" I questioned, astonished. "Why, I didn't know--"

"That I was on the team? Surest thing you know; that's why I've got all
this mop of hair--comes below my collar--see?"

Her collar, indeed! It was easy to see that, if unbound, it would reach
considerably below her waist. But _foot-ball_! Why, she must mean
basket-ball, of course. I opened my mouth to remind her, when she
proceeded:

"But I was going to tell you about this prize fight. Well, this fight
was just a little one, you know. Purse of eighteen dollars; and we had
to chip in afterward with an extra three to get Mug Kelly--that's the
Charlestown Pet, you know--to stand the gaff for a second round. Why, he
was all in on the count at the end of the first round--what do you think
of that?"

"But I say, you know--" I began, but she lifted her hand.

"I know--I know what you're going to say, Dicky; you think we were a
bunch of easy marks, that's what you think. But how could we tell what
my room-mate was going to do to the Pet--we couldn't, you know."

"Your room-mate!" I exclaimed aghast. "A--an other young lady--in a
pugilistic encounter? Oh, I say!"

She chuckled. "G'long; stop your kidding!" And she kicked playfully at
me. Then she assumed a mincing air--finger on chin, lips pursed, and
eyes rolling upward, you know.

"Yes, another sweet young peacherino--Miss Billings' little room-mate--a
beef that hits the beam at about two-sixty--Little Lizzie, you know."

"Lizzie!" I repeated vaguely.

"Oh, say, Dicky, cut it out; let me finish. Well, another minute, and
the Pet would have been put to sleep, but just then the coppers nailed
us." She added gloomily: "And that's what queered me with Sis. Fierce,
ain't it?"

She sighed and her beautiful lashes drooped sadly. By Jove, I was so
jolly floored I couldn't manage a word. I knew, of course, that my heart
was broken, but it didn't matter. I loved her just the same; I should
always love her; and she had tried to let me know she loved me better
than any man she had ever met. What the deuce did anything else matter,
anyhow? We would marry and go out on a ranch or something of that sort,
where the false, polished what-you-call-it of civilization didn't count,
and no rude rebuff or sneer of society would ever chill her warm
impulsiveness.

She smiled archly. "See here, Dicky, I thought we were going to tell
each other the story of our lives. Your turn now; tell me how she looks
to you, this girl that came at last--there's always the one girl comes
at last, they say, if you wait long enough. Go on--tell me--what's she
like?"

"Of course, you don't know!" I said significantly.

"Me? Of course I wouldn't know--I want you to tell me. Say, is she
really so pretty?"

"Pretty," indeed! It was like this adorable child of nature not to
understand that she was the most perfect and faultless creation on
earth!

I leaned toward her. "_Is_ she pretty?" I repeated reproachfully.

She eyed me slyly.

"Oh, of course I know how _you_ feel," she said, "but draw me a
_picture_ of her."

"A picture!" I laughed. "All right, here goes: Eighteen, 'a daughter of
the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair'--that sort of thing.
Features classic--perfect oval, you know, and profile to set an artist
mad with joy. Eyes? Blue as Hebe's, but big and true and tender; hair, a
great, shining nugget of virgin gold. Form divine--the ideal of a poet's
dream--the alluring, the elusive, the unattainable, the despair of the
sculptor's chisel."

"My!" said Miss Billings, staring.

But I was not through. "Complexion? Her skin as smooth as the heart of a
seashell and as delicately warm as its rosy blush when kissed by the
amorous tide."

"Gee!" ejaculated my darling.

I looked at her closely. "And in one matchless cheek a dimple divine
such as might have been left by the barbed arrow of Cupid when it awoke
Psyche from her swoon of death. In short, she might be the dainty fairy
princess of our childhood fantasies, were she less superb in figure. On
the other hand, she might be the sunny-haired daughter of a Viking king,
were she not too delicately featured and molded."

That was all I could remember from the description as I had read it in a
novel, but I was glad I had stored it up, by Jove, for it suited her to
a dot. She didn't say a word for a moment, but just sat there eying me
kind of sidewise, her little upper lip lifted in an odd way. Then of a
sudden she shook her head and swung her knees up over the arm of her
chair.

"Well, Dicky, as a describer you sure are the slushy spreader. Say,
you've got Eleanor Glyn backed off the boards."

She went on eagerly: "I don't care, though; slushy or not, your
picture's just perfect for _her_. Why, your girl must be a ringer for
the girl at Radcliffe. Only thing you left out was the freckle on the
chin."

Freckle on the chin! By Jove, I left it out on purpose, for I thought
she might not like it. I wondered if all girls at Radcliffe had freckles
on the chin.

She lay back, regarding me inscrutably. "If she looks like that," she
sighed, "you ought to love her very much, Dicky."

I couldn't say anything, for words are so deuced inadequate, you know.
But I just made an effort to look it all.

"Of course," sighing, "you ought to feel that way; and, another thing,
Dicky: you'll never forget where you first saw her, will you? One of the
things one never forgets."

"Right in this room," I murmured; "and in that wicker chair."

"Really?" Her surprised ejaculation was delicious. By Jove, how
entrancingly coquettish of her! How jolly clever!

"Go on; tell me how she was dressed--never mind any more picture
business; just tell me in four or five words. Bet you can't do it!" She
slipped over again to the arm of my chair.

In her eyes was a challenge and I took it up.

"In black silk pajamas," I said daringly.

Her blue eyes opened wide. For a moment I feared she would be offended
at my audacity, but her birdlike carol of laughter reassured me.

"Say, _you're_ not so slow, _are_ you?"

And her hand came down on my back with a force that made me jump.

"Only shows," she gurgled merrily, "how little Jack knows about you.
Say, you'd better never tell _him_ about those black pajamas!"

She spoke chokingly through a storm of laughter as she rocked there
against my shoulder.

"And say--the joke of it!" She banged me on the back with a clublike
blow, incredible from that little hand. "The joke of it is, he thought
I'd be so safe with you! Oh, mamma!"

And off she went again.

I shifted uneasily. I did not like it--her merriment over what was
perfectly obvious and rational. Of course, Billings knew she would be
safe. Why the deuce shouldn't he?

But the matter of the pajamas was another thing. Her receiving me in
them was a contingency I could not possibly have anticipated and
avoided, and yet a withdrawal because of them or even because of her
presence here had been shown to be a course inexplicable to her. She was
too innocent, too ingenuous, too _ingénue_ to understand that I was
invading the sanctuary of her privacy. Yet to have taken any course that
would have appeared to make correction of her error come from me would
have been appallingly caddish and cruel. No, the best course had seemed
to be to go right on--take no notice--and then, as soon as she retired,
slip away to the club. That seemed the gentlemanly thing.

Yet now her words implied a certain consciousness that her brother might
frown upon her attire, might even visit me with reproach. I was
troubled, and her next speech was not calculated to reassure me.

"But I'll--I'll never say a word, Dicky," she said, coming out of her
laughter and panting breathlessly. "Never! And don't _you_,
Dicky--don't you ever! Understand? Mum's the word!"

I looked up distressfully to protest, but her little head was shaking
earnestly, the long, delicate hair wisps about her forehead wavering
like tiny, curling wreaths of golden smoke.

"No, sir," she emphasized soberly; "if you ever let _that_ cat out of
the bag, it'll be all up with _me_--I mean Jack will never let me come
again. You must promise me."

"But--"

"Oh, but me no 'buts'--_promise_!"

"Why, then--er--of course, if you wish it."

"That's right, because I want to come again--that is, if you _want_ me.
But if Brother Jack was on to you, Dicky, as I am, he would sooner have
me at a hotel, that's all."

"But my dear Frances--"

"I tell you I _know_, Dicky; he doesn't approve of young ladies in
pajamas." She chuckled. "Not even black ones."

She stood up, looking at herself and performing a graceful pirouette
before the long pier glass.

"Now, if they had been crimson," she proceeded, "he might have felt
different. Old Jack's great on Harvard, and so am I."

Of course. All Radcliffe girls were, I knew.

By Jove, how I wished I could show her the lovely crimson pajamas
Mastermann had sent me from China! But I would have to summon Jenkins
to find them, and besides, it would be of questionable taste to present
them to her attention.

"Great idea, this, having pajamas in your college colors," she said. I
thought so, too, as I noted admiringly the rich effect of her golden
head above the black silk. But I thought the color a devilish odd
one--somber, you know--for colors of a young girl's school.

"My! my!" she murmured, "wouldn't I just love _to live_ in pajamas--just
go about in 'em all the time, you know! Why can't we, I wonder?" Her
face flashed me a ravishing smile; and while I was blinking over her
question, she went on: "Funny how the girls even are taking to 'em--even
Sis wears 'em!" She chuckled: "Hers are gray flannellette. But the girl
I'm telling you about--_she_ don't; Sis told the mater about it. It
seems that before she left China, some high muck-a-muck gave her
governor a swell pair of silk ones--something like these, I guess, but I
don't know of what color. But, anyhow, they were too delicate and fine
to be wasted on an old stiff like that, and he had sense enough to know
it. So he passed 'em down the line to her--Frances, you know. Well,
sir--" Here she sidled to the table and half leaned, half perched, upon
its edge; and I was so distracted watching her graceful poise and
gestures, that I lost what she was saying, by Jove.

It was her trill of laughter at something she had said, and the
question: "Wasn't that funny?" that brought me back to what she was
telling me.

"Yes, sir--said she just scared her maid--oh, _batty_! Because
she looked so ugly in 'em--that's what _she_ thinks, but of
course--_shucks_! Anyhow, she never wore 'em any more, and a day or two
later some coolie stole them--sold 'em probably."

Suddenly she yawned, stretched her arms above her head, and flashed me a
dazzling smile. By Jove, in the loose-fitting garments she looked for
all the world like an Oriental houri, or some jolly lovely thing like
that.

"Gee, but I'm sleepy!" she said behind her little hand. "If you'll
excuse me, Dicky, I believe it will be off to the springs--the bed
springs, for little Frankie. Good night, then. See you in the morning."

And with another radiant smile, she moved toward her room.

"Good night," I said wistfully.

By Jove, somehow I had hoped she would offer to kiss me, now that we
were engaged in a way. But then, of course, it wouldn't do--she knew
that. So ought I. Perhaps in the morning at the boat!

And the door closed behind her. I stood blinking after her a moment;
then I fixed my attention gloomily upon the cellarette. Poor little girl
and her foolish--but adorably foolish--college bravado! Sorrowfully I
locked the cellarette and dropped the key in my pocket.

Then I locked the outer doors of the hall and apartment, leaving the
keys unmolested on the inside. On the whole I decided I would not have
up the janitor's gossipy wife.

Next I sought Jenkins at the back.

"We will lock up back here, Jenkins, and go over to my rooms at the club
for the night."

Jenkins stared fixedly over my head. "Certainly, sir."

"And Jenkins--h'm!" I crumpled a bill into his mechanical palm. "You
will never allude to having seen that sweet--um--you understand,
Jenkins? Never seem to remember, even to me, that you ever saw any one
up here to-night."

"Certainly not, sir," indignantly. "I wouldn't, anyhow."

Yet his eyes, rolling back from the ceiling, seemed to hold me oddly for
an instant. In them was a touch of sadness.

"But may I speak of that Mr. Billings, sir? You know, if he comes--"

"Jenkins!" sharply.

"Certainly, sir!" Jenkins' mouth closed, traplike.

But all in vain my early rise the next morning, my careful toilet and my
dash in a taxi to a florist and then to Tiffany's for a ring. At the
pier I dodged about in the crowd, the boy trailing behind me with the
big purple box, but not a devilish thing could I see of Frances. By
Jove, I almost broke my monocle straining! At last I was sure she must
be left, for the last passengers were passing over the gang-plank.

"Hello, Dicky!"

The voice, coarse and hearty, came from an athletic young man in a
hurrah suit. On his head, perched jauntily above a mass of yellow hair,
was a straw hat with a crimson band.

I stared at him through my glass, but it was not any one I knew at all.
I looked at him coldly, for there's nothing so devilish annoying as
familiarities from strangers. I thought I could freeze him off.

But he only grinned. "Looking for Miss Billings?"

"I--I haven't seen her," I answered stiffly. But his question alarmed
me.

He chuckled in my face. "Guess you don't know her in her clothes, eh,
Dicky?" And I did not need the punch he gave me in the side to make me
stagger backward. "A thousand thanks, and good-by, old chap. I see
they're hauling in the plank."

He lingered for one bearlike grab at my hand.

"And say, don't forget--for I know Jack Billings better than you
do--don't ever let him know about all that Scotch last night."

He called over his shoulder with a grin: "Keep it dark--as dark as those
black pajamas, Dicky!"

And as long as I could see, he stood on the deck, waving his hat at me
as I stood there with my mouth open, my eyes following him with horror.

By Jove, who was he, and what did he know?




CHAPTER VIII

HER BROTHER JACK


"Good night, Dicky!" came up the elevator shaft. And then more "good
nights," growing fainter with their laughter as the car shot down.

"Good night," I called after them. "Devilish sorry you fellows won't
stay longer!"

"Jolly good lie, Jenkins," I said, yawning sleepily, as I dropped back
into my own apartment.

"Yes, sir," assented Jenkins demurely. "It's sleeping on the divan the
other night, sir. Eight hours there ain't nothing like eight hours in
bed and in your pajamas."

"Pajamas!" I ejaculated, startled.

For all day I had been thinking of _her_. I wondered if Billings would
happen to think to invite me up for the week end. But he had so many
times, and I had never gone.

"By Jove, that reminds me," I said. "Those red silk pajamas!"

"Yes, sir." Jenkins' face hardened in an odd, wooden way.

"I was wondering, Jenkins, if those pajamas were torn any in our little
row the other night."

Poor Jenkins winced a little. "I think not, sir," he muttered
humbly--"leastwise, they were all right last night when Mr.--" He seemed
to catch himself abruptly. "I mean when I found them this morning, sir."

He returned with the garments I had received from Mastermann, and again
we spread them under the lamp on the table. They looked singularly
smooth and unwrinkled. There was not a single tear or break, not even
with the delicate cords that twisted to form the frogs of the coat.

"My, sir! But ain't they red!" breathed Jenkins. "Them cords look like
little red snakes."

I cut an anxious glance at Jenkins, for I did not like his reference to
snakes. Seemed ominous, somehow. But his appearance was composed and
reassuring. And, by Jove, come to look, the cords did look just like
tiny, coiled serpents of glowing fire. Why, they were so jolly red they
hurt your eyes. Fact! And thin as the beautiful stuff was, this brighter
red ran all over the other, covering every inch of it and forming the
closest, finest what-you-call-it embroidery. It was as faint and dainty
a pattern as that on a soap bubble! Fact is, I could not trace it, even
with my glass.

The only part that wasn't covered with this embroidery business was the
stuff used to cover the knots, or little balls, over which the cords
were meant to hook. In working with some of these cords, idly fastening
and unfastening them, I got a little impatient with one that seemed
tight, you know, and I used my manicure knife to pull the knot through.

"Careful, sir," warned Jenkins. "Likely to cut something."

By Jove! No sooner said, than I did it!

The dashed blade slipped somehow and cut into the threads that tied the
covers or caps or whatever-you-call-'ems, over the knots. And when I
pulled, the beastly piece of silk came off in my fingers.

And then--oh, but I say! I just gave a sort of yell and dropped the
whole thing!

Ever have some silly ass try to scare you by poking a red hot cigar at
you in the dark? Know how you jerk back? Well, there you are! For, give
you my word, when I peeled off the little cloth cap, regular blazes of
crimson fire seemed to shoot from the end of the knot.

Fact is, it wasn't a knot at all, but a button--a devilish glassy
button, something bigger than a dime, perhaps, and thick as the end of
your little finger. And there it lay against the silk, burning its way
through it like a red coal of fire.

Dashed if it didn't look that way, anyhow. I just sat there blinking
like a jolly owl, waiting to see the stuff begin to smoke, before I had
presence of mind to tell Jenkins to touch it to see if it would burn.

But Jenkins wouldn't. He just stood there with his jaw hanging and his
eyes bulging like champagne corks!

And it was just then that Billings rolled in.

I say "rolled in," because it always looks that way. That's the way
Billings is built, you know.

"I say, Dicky," he panted, "just missed another infernal express! Plenty
more trains, but I had a great inspiration strike me that I'd let you
put me up for the night. Hat, Jenkins! Now, don't say a word, Dicky, old
chap. Cane, Jenkins! Great pleasure, assure you--won't inconvenience me
at all. Gloves, Jenkins! Just give me something to sleep in, and I'll be
as comfortable here as I would be at the club--so don't worry any about
me, old chap. By the way, want to thank you for taking care of the kid.
Got home all right, I understand."

He plunked like a jolly elephant into the largest and most comfortable
chair in the room and wheezed for breath.

"And, Jenkins!" He raised one fat finger while he took a gasp. "Don't
mind if I do have a package of Dicky's Koroskos and a sloe fizz--not too
sweet, you know; and you may--"

He halted, his eyes suddenly riveted to the table, and straightened
inquiringly, his big hands poised upon the padded arms of the chair.

"Suffering Thomas cats! What's that?" he exclaimed. "The scream
there--flag of Morocco?"

And then, without pausing for reply, he dashed on:

"I say, old chap, if you're picking up those, I can get you a few for
nothing. You know Higgins, cashier-that-was of the Widows' National,
eh? Well, Higgins sent the governor a Morocco flag the other day from
Tangier. Fact is, he sent one to every director of the bank--and an
extra large one to that bank examiner!"

He chuckled wabblingly, like a jolly jellyfish.

"Talk about a red flag to a bull," he exploded, "why, they--"

Billings broke off suddenly. Then he climbed heavily to his feet, and
without warning, heaved himself across the room and seized the button I
had just uncovered. Dashed if he didn't almost upset me.

"Here, I say!" I protested. "Don't lose that cap." I picked it up from
where he had jerked it to the floor. "It's the cover to hide that glass,
you know."

"Wh-a-a-t!"

Billings swung round, staring at me with the most curious expression.

"See here, Dicky," he exclaimed rather excitedly, but in a low tone, as
he cut a side glance at Jenkins siphoning the fizz over at the
cellarette. "What in thunder have you been doing now?"

By Jove, I turned cold for a minute, I was that startled. I thought he
was going to use the pajamas as an introduction for reference to last
night. But in a minute I saw that he did not mean that.

"Where on earth did _you_ get anything like this?" And he held up the
button and the garment.

"Oh, I say now!" I remonstrated, alarm changing to a mild dudgeon.
Billings' devilish rude manners are so offensive at times. "What do you
mean? It's a present from a friend in China."

"Present!" Billings' eyes bulged queerly. He stooped toward me,
whispering: "Did he know what this button was?"

"Why, of course he didn't," I answered indignantly. "Never dreamed of
it, of course. I tell you, it was all nicely covered, was
what-you-call-it--upholstered, you know--with devilish nice silk. I cut
it off accidentally, trying to force the thing through that loop. That
left the marble exposed."

Billings took the glass mechanically from the tray tendered by Jenkins
and sipped it slowly, eying me curiously over the top. Then he set it
back, very deliberately, wiped his mouth with the bit of napery, and
without taking his glance from me, waited until Jenkins had left the
room. Whereupon, after another searching look at the button, he dropped
it with the garment upon the table, and with hands jammed deep in his
pockets, faced me with a long-drawn whistle.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" he exclaimed. Just a coarse, vulgar outburst,
you know--no sense to it; no point at all, you know--that's Billings.

He caught up the coat again. "And these others--four of them--are they
just the same?" he demanded sharply.

"Dash it, how should I know? I suppose so," I answered indifferently.
And I closed my eyes and leaned back, feeling a bit--just a bit--weary.
Somehow, Billings is always so exhausting when he gets started on
something.

"Oh, cut it out, old chap," I protested, drowsy-like.

"I will," I heard him say. Then I guess I must have dropped off a bit,
for the next thing I knew he was shaking me.

"Dicky! Dicky! Say, look here! _Look_, I tell you!"

I did look, and--well, I was jolly vexed, that's all.

"Oh, I say now!" I spoke severely--just that way, you know. I went on,
remonstrating: "Devilish silly joke, if you ask me. You've gone and
ruined the thing, Billings! Flashy buttons like that, you know--too
tawdry, too cheap."

"_Cheap!_" He almost shouted it. Then he leaned over the back of the
leather chair and pounded his fat head against the cushions, writhing
his big bulk from side to side.

"Quite impossible," I said firmly. "Not _en règle_ at all, you know!"
And I fixed my glass and stared gloomily at the things. The five shiny
buttons just lay there against the delicate silk like so many fiery
crimson cherries. And they reminded me of something--something--what the
deuce was it? Something devilish familiar, whatever it was. And then of
a sudden I had it!

"By Jove, you know!" And I just fell back in consternation. "This is
awful! I'd look like a--er--dashed human cocktail. Oh, I say!"

Then Billings, who was already gasping like a jolly what's-its-name,
dropped upon the arm of the chair and held his side.

"Dicky, you--you'll be the death of me yet," he panted.

I never try to follow Billings. Nobody ever does. So I paid no attention
to him. Shaking his head, he lifted the garment again and held it out of
the direct rays of the shaded lamp. The five buttons leaped out of the
shadow like port lights down the bay on a moonless night.

He leered at me, chuckling. "Look _cheap_ to you, eh? What you might
call _outré_, so to speak?"

"By Jove, of course," I answered ruefully. "I can't sleep in the things
now, you know. What would people say?"

Billings stared at me disagreeably a moment and said something under his
breath. Then he caught up the buttons and the silk, and crushing them in
his hands, buried his face in the mass.

"Oh you beauties, you darlings!" I heard him murmur.

Then he looked at the buttons again, and dash it, he kissed one.
Maudlin--jolly maudlin, I say, if you ask me!

"I say, Dicky," he said carelessly. "You may not care for them, but I've
taken rather a shine to these buttons. Mind letting me have one, eh?"

He flashed a quick glance at me and then away.

"Mind? Why, certainly not; take 'em all, old chap, and welcome." Yet I
responded gloomily enough, scarcely polite, you know. And I felt too
jolly prostrated to be curious as to what he could possibly want with
the things. Waistcoat buttons, likely--Billings was given to loud dress
and other bounder stunts. But he just sat there looking down after I
spoke, and presently stole a queer glance at me.

"Dicky," he said, and paused. Then he fished out that perfectly
impossible pipe of his and began to pack it, slowly shaking his head.
"Dicky, anybody that would take advantage of you would lift a baby's
milk gurgler."

Of course, I saw no more sense in that than you do, you know, but I
understood that in his crude, vulgar way he meant some sort of a
compliment.

"Dash it, of course," I said offhand, straightening up and recrossing my
legs. I always say that and do that way when fellows say stupid things.
Such a jolly good way to keep from hurting their feelings, you know, and
saves talking and thinking. Got on to it myself.

Billings' eye ranged at me as he lighted his pipe. The smoke seemed to
make him cough, and it was this, I suppose, that set him chuckling.

He suddenly held up the row of red buttons again.

"Look here, you blessed dodo," he exclaimed brusquely. "Have you really
no idea what these are, these glass buttons you are yapping about? Of
course you haven't, you jolly chowder head, but I'm going to tell you."

He threw the coat into my lap.

"They are rubies, old man, that's all," he said quietly. "Oriental
rubies, at that--flawless and perfect--the rarest and most precious
things in the world."




CHAPTER IX

AN AMAZING REVELATION


I stared blankly at Billings. "Rubies!" I gasped.

He nodded. "Genuine pigeon bloods, my son, no less."

"Oh, come now, Billings," I protested. I felt a little miffed, just a
little you know. So jolly raw to try it on that way.

"By jove, old chap, you must think me a common ass," I suggested
disgustedly.

Billings grinned at the very idea.

"_You_ a common ass, Dicky?" he ejaculated. "Nobody who knows you would
ever think that, old man."

"But, I say--"

"See here, Dicky boy, I'm in dead earnest," he interrupted eagerly.
"Don't you remember my one fad--gems? Got enough tied up in them to
build two apartment houses as big as this. Best amateur collection in
New York, if I do say it. But I haven't anything like one of these
rubies, and neither has any one else--no one else in this country,
anyhow. There's nothing like them in all New York, from Tiffany's down
to Maiden Lane, and never has been. I never saw anything like--near
like any of them--except the one in the Russian crown of Anna Ivanovana.
That's bigger, but it hasn't the same fire."

I just laughed at him. "Why, Billings, these pajamas were sent me by a
friend in China, and I assure you--"

"Assure? What can you assure--what do _you_ know about it?" said
Billings rudely. "What did your friend know, or the one he had these
things from--or the one before him--or the one still before that?
Pshaw!" And he snapped his fingers.

With his hand he swept up the little caps and the long, wirelike threads
that held them and sniffed the handful curiously.

"H'm! Funky sort of aromatic smell--balsam, cedar oil or something like
that," he muttered half aloud. "That accounts for the preservation. But
still--"

He crossed his legs and puffed thoughtfully.

"Tell you how I figure this out, Dicky," he said finally. "These
nighties your friend has sent you are awfully rare and old; and for
delicate, dainty elegance and that sort of thing they've got everything
else in the silk way shoved off the clothes-line. But as to these
jewels, you can just bet all you've got that whoever passed them on was
not wise to them being under these covers."

Here he got to looking at one of the buttons and murmuring his
admiration--regular trance, you know.

"By Jove!" I remarked, just to stir him up a bit. And he unloaded a
great funnel of smoke and continued:

"My theory is that during some danger, some mandarins' war, likely,
somebody got cold feet about these jewels and roped them in with these
bits of silk--see how different they are from the rest of the stuff!
Then, when the roughhouse came, these pajamas were swept along in the
sacking--sort of spoils of pillage, you know. It was a clever method of
concealment--clever because simple--a hiding place unlikely to be
thought of because right under the eye. You recall Poe's story of _The
Purloined Letter_?"

I tried to remember. "Can't say I do, dear boy," I had to admit. "Don't
seem to place that one. Only one I remember hearing him tell is that one
he brought back from Paris. Let me see--_The Story of the Lonely
Lobster_, I think he called it." I chortled delightedly as it came back
to me. "By Jove, that was devilish neat! Don't know when I've ever
heard--"

An offensive remark by Billings interrupted me.

"Here, Dicky, Dicky, what do you think you're talking about?" he added
rudely. Evidently his mind had wandered from the subject. So I replied
with dignity--dignity, with just a touch of sarcasm:

"Pogue--'Mickey' Pogue of our club. Perhaps you don't know Mickey
Pogue?" And, by Jove, that fetched him! He stared at me a moment, and
then, getting up, he reached over and solemnly shook me by the hand.

"Dicky," he said, wagging his head, "I apologize. You take the
_brioche_!" And he turned his back a second.

I asked Billings how much he thought one of the rubies was worth. I had
in mind how devilish hungrily he had looked at them. But he sighed, then
frowned and answered impatiently:

"That's it! That's the trouble about all the rare and beautiful things
of this life! Always some debasing, prohibitive sordid money value,
dammit!"

He squinted at the stones again and let the weight of one rest upon his
finger. He shook his head, sighing.

"Well, they're over twenty carats each, and therefore, of course, many
times the value of first water diamonds. After you get above five carats
with real Oriental rubies, diamonds are not in it."

With an abrupt gesture he pushed the things away and rose. His pipe had
gone out, but I noticed that he did not relight it. I held the gems full
in the rays of the lamp, and Billings paused, holding a hungry gaze over
his shoulder.

"I say, Billings, how much did you say one was worth?" I asked
carelessly. For a moment he did not reply, but muttered to himself.

"I didn't say," he finally replied, and rather crossly. Then he whirled
on me impulsively. "See here, Lightnut," he exclaimed, "if you'll let me
have one of those for my collection, I'll give you twenty-five thousand
for it--there!"

He gulped and continued:

"I'll have to make some sacrifices, but I don't mind that. I--"

But I shook my head. Really, I could hardly keep from laughing in his
face.


"Sorry! Can't see it, old chap," I said. "Wouldn't sell one of them at
any price."

Billings gulped again. "I suppose not; don't blame you. Way you're
fixed, you don't have to." He walked slowly to the window and back.
"Take my advice, Dicky, and get those fire coals into your safe deposit
vault first thing in the morning. Hello, you're cutting them off! That's
wise."

For with the knife he had left on the table I was cutting away the tough
threads that held the rubies. I cut off the second and fourth, leaving
the first ruby at the collar and the other two alternates.

"Go on," said Billings, as I laid down the knife. "You've only removed
two."

"Don't believe I'll cut off any more," I said. "Want you to help me tie
up the others just as they were."

"What!"

I insisted. And though Billings protested and argued and even called me
names, we did as I said.

For, by Jove, you know it was perfectly clear that if they had been safe
so long under the little covers, the jewels couldn't find any better
place. Singular thing Billings couldn't see it. Besides, the pajamas
had to have fastenings, you know.

I held one of the two rubies under the light, and, by Jove, I almost
dropped it--did drop my glass. Seeing a red-hot poker-point in your
fingers would give you the same turn.

"Rippers, Billings! Simply rippers!" I exclaimed.

I held the other ruby beside its fellow. Then I waited, listening, and I
heard Billings' hand strike down on the back of a chair.

"I guess I'll be going, old chap," he said gruffly. "Think I'd better,
after all." He cleared his throat. "Sure you can't sell me one, Dicky?"
Dashed if his voice didn't tremble.

"Quite sure, dear boy," I murmured, without turning around. "Not mine,
you know--these two."

Billings exploded then. It seemed an opportunity to relieve himself.
"Not yours! Why, you dod-gasted idiot, you nincompoop, you cuckoo, you
chicken head! What notion have you got in that fool's noddle now? If
those rubies are not yours, whose do you think they are?"

I whirled about quickly. "Yours," I said, and laid them in his hand.

"My compliments, old chap," I added, smiling. By Jove! One time, at
least, I put it all over old Billings!

"No!" he gasped, crouching over and gripping my shoulder.

I grinned cheerfully.

He fell into a chair and just sat there mouthing at me and then at the
jewels in his hand. Old boy looked devilish silly. Really acted like he
had some sort of stroke--that sort of thing.

I laughed at him.

"Don't you see?" I said, trying to explain. "Wouldn't have known a
dashed thing about the buttons being rubies but for you. So lucky they
came to me so I can get a chance to help out your collection. Awfully
glad, old chap."

He clenched the jewels, and looked down.

"Dicky--" He coughed a little huskily as he paused. "Dicky." His voice
was so low I could hardly hear him. "Dicky, you're off your trolley, and
I'm a damned--"

He raised his arm and dropped it.

"Well, never mind what," he finished with a lift of the shoulders. "But
I want to say something. It's about what I offered you for those stones.
The price--the amount I named--wasn't even a decent gamble; but it was
all I could go, and oh, I wanted one so badly, Dicky! And now you've
made me feel like a dog. And I can't take your gift, old chap, any more
than I could afford to offer you the real value of one of these
beautiful stones. Here." And he passed them back to me.

"I _know_ each of them to be worth anywhere from forty to fifty thousand
dollars," he said quietly. "They're the kind the crowned heads scoop for
jewels of state."

I nodded, and, getting up carelessly, I strolled to a window.

"Devilish lovely night," I said, poking my head out. And it was. Stars
overhead and all that sort of thing, and lots of them below, too--I
could hear them singing over on Broadway.

"All right, old chap; then here they go into the street," I said. "If my
friend can't have 'em, then no jolly crowned heads shall. That's flat!"

Billings started forward with a regular scream.

I waved him back. "Don't come any nearer, old chap," I said, holding my
arm out of the window, "or, dash me, I'll drop them instantly. Six
stories, you know--stone flagging below."

"But, Dicky--"

"If you don't say you'll take 'em, time I count three, I'll give 'em a
toss, by Jove! One!"

"Here, Dicky! Don't be a--"

"Two!" I counted. No bluff, you know; I meant jolly well to do it.

"Just one word--one second, Dicky!" he yelled. "Let me off with one,
then. Dicky! Dicky, old chap! Be a good sportsman!"

I hesitated. Dash it, one hates to take an advantage.

Billings stretched out his arm appealingly. "Do, old chap!" he pleaded.
"Give me just one--one only!"

His hand shook like a quivering what's-its-name leaf.

I yielded reluctantly: "Oh, well then, call it off with one," I said.
And with a sigh I tossed him one of the rubies and dropped the other in
the pocket of my smoking-jacket. Billings wiped his forehead, and then
he thanked me and wiped his eyes.

"So good of you to give in, old chap," he snuffled. "Never will forget
you for it!"

"Oh, I say, chuck it, you know!" I protested.

"Whole family will thank you," he went on in his handkerchief. "Princely
magnanimity and all that sort of thing--you'll just _have_ to come up
for the week end with me this--"

"I _will_!" I reached forward eagerly and insisted on shaking hands. By
Jove, what luck!

And Billings looked regularly overcome. All he could do was just shake
his head and pump my arm. Why, dash it, this seemed to affect him more
even than giving in about the ruby. It was the first time I had ever
accepted his invitation, you know.

"Tell you what, old chap," he said, as soon as he could speak. "I'm
going to tell you what to do with that other stone. You save that for
_her_."

"Her!" By Jove, I was so startled I lost the grip on my monocle.
Billings nodded emphatically.

"Yes, sir--for _her_; she'll be along one of these days."

"By Jove, you know!" I was almost dizzy with a sudden idea. I fished out
the jewel and held it before my glass, squinting doubtfully at it. I
wondered if it was _good_ enough for "her."

"I say, Billings," I murmured thoughtfully. "Blondes or brunettes, you
know--which wear rubies?"

"Both!" He said it with a kind of jaw snap. "They wear anything in the
jewel line they can freeze on to."

"But which--"

"The worst? Blondes, my boy--blondes, every time; especially those going
around in black." Billings spoke gloomily. "Let me tell you, my boy--and
I _know_--don't you ever have anything to do with a blonde if she's in
_black_, especially black silk--hear?"

By Jove, his uplifted finger and fierce way of saying it gave me a
regular turn, you know. But then there was the ruby, and I was thinking
that--

"Perhaps the four of them in a bracelet," I muttered, "with something
else to help out. They _might_ do."

"They might," said Billings in a tone of coarse sarcasm. "They might do
for a queen!"

I flashed a quick look at him. "Just what _I_ was thinking," I answered
gently.

"Meantime," said Billings, yawning, "let's go to bed."

And just as I rang for Jenkins I suddenly was seized with a perfectly
ripping idea that checked a long yawn right in the middle and almost
broke my jaw. For I saw how I could do something handsome that would
even up with Billings in a way for the ruby he wouldn't take.

"Tell you what, old chap," I said, slapping him on the shoulder, "_you_
are going to have them to-night!"

"Have--have what?" burst from him. "Rubies? I tell you I won't take
another--"

"Rubies!" I ejaculated contemptuously. "Rubies nothing! Something
better--something worth while, dash it!"

I saw he would never guess it.

"Why, you shall sleep in the pajamas from China," I exclaimed. And
gathering them, I placed them in his hands.

"By George, Dicky!" Billings' face showed feeling. "How infernally
clever of you, old chap! How thundering timely, too!"

He held them up singly, studying their outlines critically.

"And see here, Dicky--why, great Thomas cats!" His eyes turned on me
wonderingly. "Never noticed it before--did you? But I do believe they
are just my size!"

His size! By Jove, I had forgotten all about the item of size! I just
collapsed into a chair as he said good night, and sat there blinking in
a regular stupefaction of horror as his door closed behind him.

For he was devilish sensitive about his bulk, and I dared not say a
word.




CHAPTER X

A NOCTURNAL INTRUSION


"Oh, but I say, it's impossible, you know!" And I stared at Jenkins
incredulously.

He grinned foolishly. "I know, sir; but he's in 'em, just the same, and
I must say they do fit lovely--just easy-like."

"By Jove!" I gasped helplessly. "Then the jolly things must be made of
rubber, that's all! Why, look here, he weighs over three hundred pounds,
you know!"

Jenkins' head wagged sagaciously. "I think that's how it is, sir; it's
wonderful what they do with rubber now; my brother wears a rubber cloth
bandage that ain't no bigger 'round than my arm when it's off of him,
and he--"

"Dare say," I said sleepily as I fell back upon my pillow. "Good night,
Jenkins; hope you'll get enough sleep to make up for the other night."

Jenkins sighed as he punched out the light. "Thank you, sir--and good
night," he murmured.

How long I slept I can not tell, as they say in stories, you know; but I
was brought jolly wide awake by a light that shone through the
bedroom's open door. For if there's one thing will wake me quicker than
everything else it's a light in the room at night. Fact is, I always
want it as black as the what's-its-name cave, or else I can't sleep. And
this light came from the small electric stand on the writing-desk. I
could tell that by the way it shone.

And just then the little silver gong in there chimed three. Jolly rum
hour for anybody to be up unless they were having some fun or were sick.
So I raised my head and called softly:

"Jenkins--er--Billings!"

No answer. Reluctantly I swung out and stepped within the next room. Not
a soul there, by Jove! Then I moved over to Billings' door, which was
wide open for coolness, like my own. I could not see the shadowed alcove
in which the bed was placed, and so I stood there hesitating, hating
awfully to risk the possibility of disturbing him, don't you know. And
just then my eyes, ranging sleepily across the room toward the private
hall, were startled by the apparition of an open doorway.

Startled, all right! And yet, by Jove, I was in such a jolly fog, I just
stood there, nodding and batting at it for a full minute before I could
take it in.

"What I call devilish queer," I decided. I walked over and stuck my head
out into the dark hall.

"Billings! Jenkins!" I whispered.

By Jove, not a word! Everything as silent as the tomb!

I didn't like it a bit--so mysterious, you know. Besides, dash it, the
thing was getting me all waked up! I just knew if once I got excited and
thoroughly awake, it would take me nearly ten minutes to get to sleep
again. And, by Jove, just then the excitement came, for I got hold of
the fact after I had stared at it a while, that the door of my apartment
opening into the outer corridor was standing ajar. Why, dash it, it was
not only standing, it was moving. Then suddenly the broad streak of
light from the corridor widened under the impulse of a freshening
breeze, and the door swung open with a bang.

And then I heard my name spoken.


By Jove, I had been standing there with my mouth open, bobbing my head
like a silly dodo; but, give you my word, I was suddenly wide awake as a
jolly owl wagon!

Away down the corridor, by the mail chute, a man was standing, reading a
framed placard. Nothing particularly remarkable in this, but as the door
banged he turned his head sharply and ejaculated:

"Dammit! Now, that will wake Lightnut!"

I was surprised, because I couldn't recall ever having seen him before;
yet, standing as he did under the light, I had opportunity for a
devilish good view.

He was a heavy set old party, rather baldish, with snowy mutton chops
and a beefy complexion that was jolly well tanned below the hatband
line, you know. The kind of old boy you size up as one of the prime
feeder sort and fond of looking on the wine when it is Oporto red. Had
something of the cut of the retired India colonels one sees about the
Service clubs in London--straight as a lamp post still, but out of
training and in devilish need of tapping--that sort of duck, you know!

What a respectable-looking old party might be up to, wandering around a
bachelor apartment building at three in the morning, was none of my
business. What's more, you know, I didn't care a jolly hang. But the
thing that dashed me was that just as I moved toward the door to close
it, he uttered my name again and came straight toward me as though to
speak.

So I had to wait, by Jove, for I couldn't close the door in his face.
Awfully rotten thing to do--that, you know.

"Lost his floor and wants to inquire," I decided.

And then as he toddled across the last yard and stopped before me, I saw
that the old chap was in his night things--some darkish sort of pajamas.

His bushy white eyebrows puckered in a frown.

"Hello! Just afraid my moving around was going to get you up--infernal
shame!" he said in a thunder growl.

I smiled feebly but politely. "Devilish considerate old cock," was my
thought. "Means well."

Aloud I said: "Not at all, you know. Up anyhow."

Then I moved the door just a little--just a wee suggestive inch or two,
you know, hoping he would go.

But, by Jove, he just walked right in!

Then he leaned against the wall in the corridor and chuckled.

"By George!" he exclaimed with a leer that showed his almost toothless
old gums. "Bet you never would guess what I got up for!"

No, dash it, I didn't even care to try. I just coughed a little.

"He, he!" he giggled. "Woke up and remembered had promised Flossie
Fandango of _The Parisian Broilers_ a box of steamer flowers. Gad, she
sails at ten; so I piled out and shot off a note to my florist, special
delivery. Been trying to find out from that infernal card back there
when's the first collection from the box below. You don't know, do you?"

By Jove, one of those foot-in-the-grave old stage-door Johnnies! The
surprise took my breath.

"Why, the cheesy old sport!" I thought disgustedly. And I answered
rather coldly: "Sorry, you know; no idea." And I opened the door wide.

But the old rascal never moved; just stood there, chuckling horribly.

"Well, she'll be back in the fall," he cackled. "And see here, old chap,
will introduce you if you like. You need waking up!"

And here I gave a jump and yelled "Ouch!"

For the old fool had dug his thumb into my ribs. Only then did it dawn
on me that he was drunk. Of course that was it, and unless I got rid of
him the old bore would stand and twaddle the rest of the night. I
reached for his hand and shook it.

"We'll have a talk about it some time," I said pleasantly. "Just now,
don't you think we'd better each get to bed? So devilish late, you
know."

He slapped me on the shoulder with a blow that almost brought me to the
floor. Felt like he struck me with a ham, don't you know!

"Right, old chap," he said; "very delicately put; won't keep you up
another minute. Believe I'd like a drink first, though, if you don't
mind."

Devilish bored as I was, I decided the easiest escape was to humor him.

"All right," I said, leaving the door open and stepping into the room;
"I'll get you a glass of water."

"Water!" he exclaimed, following me right in. "Say, don't get funny;
it's not becoming to you." He leered at me hideously.

He went right to the corner where stood my cellarette. By Jove, give you
my word I was so devilish stupefied I couldn't bring out a word. I
wasn't sure what was coming, and as I didn't want Billings' rest
disturbed, I quietly closed the door of his room.

The old cock in the black pajamas had uncorked a bottle and was smelling
its contents. He grimaced over his shoulder.

"That's infernally rotten Scotch, I say!" he exclaimed with a sort of
snort. "Regular sell, by George!"

I was glad Billings didn't hear him, for it had been a present from him
only the week before.

"Suppose I'll have to go the rye," he grumbled; and, grinning at me
familiarly, he poured himself a drink. He tossed it off, neat. I
reflected that perhaps he would go quietly now.

"Well," I said, advancing, "I expect you're anxious to get to your
quarters, so I'll say good night." I extended my hand. "That ought to
fetch him," I thought, "if he's a gentleman, no matter how jolly corked
he may be."

In my grasp his hand felt like a small boxing glove, but when I glanced
at it I saw that it was not unusual.

The old duck pumped my arm solemnly and cast his eyes to the ceiling.

"Fa-are-we-e-ll, old f-friend!" he murmured in a husky tremolo,
deflecting the corners of his mouth and wagging his bald pate. "If I
don't see you again I'll have the river dragged!"

And then, instead of going, dash me if the old fool didn't flop down
into Billings' favorite chair and reach for Billings' cigarettes that he
had left on the tabouret.

He waved his hand at me. "Oh, you go on to bed, Lightnut," he said,
puffing away with iron nerve. "All the sleep's out of me, dammit! I'll
just sit here and read and smoke as long as I like, then I'll go in
there and turn in." A jerk of his doddering head indicated Billings'
room.

By Jove, I hardly knew what to do! I was regularly bowled over, don't
you know. I was up against a crisis--that's what--a crisis.

"Oh, I say, you know--" I started remonstrating, and just then I gasped
with relief at the welcome sight of Jenkins, peeking round the
door-frame behind my visitor's back. His finger was on his lips and he
beckoned me earnestly.

At the same moment old whiskers shoved his chair up to the table,
switched on the reading-lamp and reached for a magazine.

"I'm on, sir," whispered Jenkins, as I joined him and we stepped aside.
"Hadn't I better ring up the janitor on my house 'phone?"

"By Jove, the very thing!" I agreed. "For he'll know where this chap
belongs. A fiver, tell him, if he gets a move on. Hurry!"

I slipped back into the room as Jenkins disappeared. The jolly old
barnacle had discarded his cigarette and was critically selecting a
cigar from my humidor.

"I don't see why the devil you don't go to bed," he said, fixing himself
comfortably with two chairs and lighting up.

"I--I'm not sleepy," I stammered, perching on the corner of a chair.

"I believe you're lying," he growled, scowling at me; "but if you're
not sleepy, listen to this joke here--it's a chestnut, but it's
infernally good."

I never did know what the joke was, for I was listening for other sounds
as he read. Suddenly I heard a whistle far down in the street; and I
thought it was followed by a patter of running feet.

Then came the quivering rhythm of the elevator rapidly ascending, and
while the anecdote was still being droned out between chuckles, I
slipped out again into the hall and rejoined Jenkins.

"Janitor says there's no such tenant in this building as I described,"
Jenkins imparted hurriedly. "Might be a guest, of course; but he doesn't
remember ever seeing him. So he whistled for a cop, to be on the safe
side, and caught two. Here they are, sir."

Out from the elevator sprang the janitor, half-dressed and looking
excited. Close on his heels came two big policemen.

I stepped into the outer corridor and explained the situation. The
officers nodded reassuringly.

"'Nough said," one of them commented. "We'll have him out, sir."

The janitor, who had been cautiously sighting through the door within,
came running out.

"He shifted around while I was looking, and I got a good look at him,"
he said with some excitement, "and I never saw him before. I wouldn't
forget _that_ mug!"

"Suppose you take a squint at him yourself, O'Keefe," suggested the
taller of the coppers. "You've been on this beat so long."

In a minute or two O'Keefe came slipping back hurriedly. He drew his
companion aside.

"Tell you what, Tim," I heard him say, "do you know, I'm after thinking
it looks like old Braxton, known in the perfesh as 'Foxy Grandpa.' He's
a swell con man, but has just finished a stretch at Copper John's for
going through a flat in the Bronx. He's done murder once."

The other turned to me.

"May save a muss in your rooms if you'll just kinder call him out, sir,"
he suggested. "It will be simpler." He grinned significantly and glanced
at his night stick.

"By Jove!" I ejaculated, looking at Jenkins. "By Jove, you know!"

Jenkins coughed. "Just say you want to speak to him a minute, sir," he
said. "They'll do the rest--h'm!"

They all followed me into the hall, and I stepped to the doorway. And
then I almost pitched forward, I was so devilish startled.

For, as a crowning example of his daring and reckless conduct, the hoary
old reprobate was emerging from Billings' room, his fingers overhauling
the contents of my friend's wallet, even as he waddled along, and so
absorbed that he never even saw me.

"Ah!" he breathed in a heavy sigh of satisfaction; and out came his
fingers, and in them, poised aloft, he held the ruby I had given to
Billings. His bleary eyes gloated at it.

"Mine!" he whispered. "Mine now to keep forever!"




CHAPTER XI

IRON NERVE


I just stood in the doorway, staring. Couldn't say a word, my throat was
that paralyzed. First time, you know, I'd ever seen a real burglar or
jolly hold-up man, and he looked so different from what I had expected.

But I knew now, of course, that the policeman was right and that the
respectable-looking old gentleman was no other than the desperate
criminal described as "Foxy Grandpa." But for the intervention of
outside assistance doubtless Billings and I might have had our throats
cut by the conscienceless old geezer.

He was so absorbed that he did not see me, nor the two helmets piking
above my shoulder.

"Up to his old tricks," O'Keefe whispered. "We've got him in the act,
Tim!"

"Great!" breathed Tim. "What won't the captain say!"

O'Keefe's breath tickled my ear again and swept my nose. I've never seen
beer or sauerkraut since but what I think of it!

"Got your stick ready?" he was saying. "Best not take any chances;
Braxton's a quick shooter, they say. When we jump him, better give him
the club right off."

Tim whispered an impatient demur. "That's all right; but I'm for coaxing
him out here first. I don't want to tap him on the gentleman's rugs; if
I do, I can tell you, it'll ruin 'em, that's all."

He swept his hand across his tongue and gripped his stick tighter.

Jenkins, at one side, bobbed his head up and down and smiled his
admiration of this sentiment. He leaned nearer to me.

"Just beckon him out, sir," his whisper advised. "Just tell him you want
to show him something in the hall--cat, or anything will do. Just so you
get him past the furniture and rugs, sir."

I advanced a step into the room. I expected the old knave to be a bit
dashed, don't you know. Not he; it never disquieted him a bit. Just gave
me a careless leer and went back to the ruby. Somehow I began to feel
riled. I'm not often taken that way, but this old scamp's persistent
audacity and impudence went beyond anything I had ever heard of.

"What in thunder's the matter with you, son?" he murmured, squinting
hideously at the jewel. "You prowl around like you had a pain." Then he
went right on:

"Say, did you ever see anything so corking fine?" He looked up, holding
the ruby in the light. "And to think how little I dreamed of scooping
anything like that when I came in here to-night!"

By Jove, this was a little too much, even for an easy-going chap like
myself! The jolly worm will turn, you know.

Dash me, before I knew what I was doing even, I had moved to his side
and jerked the ruby from his hand. My face felt like a hot-water bottle
as I did it.

"You haven't got it yet," I said, "and I'll take devilish good care you
don't get it."

He fell back as though from a blow.

"Why--why, old chap! Why, Lightnut!" he gasped. "What's the matter--what
makes you look at me like that?"

"Your liberties have gone just a bit too far, don't you know," I said,
looking steadily in his fishy old eye. "I've had enough of you, by Jove,
that's all!"

He stared at me, and I could hear him breathing like a blacksmith's
bellows. I would never have thought he had such lungs.

Slowly his hand came out, and dash me if it wasn't shaking like he had
the delirium what's-its-name. But for his tan, his face would have been
as white as his hypocritical old whiskers.

"Is this some infernal joke?" His face summoned a sickly smile that
almost instantly faded. His hand fell back to his side. "Why, old
fellow, you don't think that way about me, do you? As for the ruby, I--I
don't want it now--I just want you to accept my apology for anything
I've done, and--and let me get away."

There was a short laugh from the doorway.

"Likely enough," said Officer O'Keefe, his big figure swinging forward
with long strides. "Keep him covered, Tim!"

He planted himself between us with a grin.

"You're 'it' again, Foxy! Jig's up. Will you go quietly?"

It did me good to see how completely the old scoundrel was taken back.
His wide distended bleary eyes shifted from O'Keefe to me and back
again. It was a perfect surprise.

I motioned to Jenkins to close the door of my friend's bedroom. So far,
he had evidently slept serenely through all the trouble, and, if
possible, I wanted to avoid arousing him now. For a fat man, Billings
had the deuce of a temper when stirred up over anything like an
imposition upon him, and it would only add to the confusion for him to
appear on the scene and learn about his wallet and his treasured ruby
that I had rescued.

Foxy Grandpa's face had been rapidly undergoing a change. From pallor to
pink it went; and then from pink to red. Now it was becoming scarlet. He
threw his head back and faced me angrily.

"Lightnut, will you tell me what the hell this means?" And his heavy
voice thundered.

"Here! Here! That'll be enough o' that," cried Officer O'Keefe sharply.
"None of your grand-stand play here, or it'll be the worse for you. And
no tricks, Braxton, or--"

He clutched his stick menacingly.

"Braxton!" snorted the old fellow. "Why, you born fool, my name's not
Braxton!"

"Not now," grinned O'Keefe. "Say, what _is_ your name now, Foxy?"

"My name--" roared Foxy Grandpa, and paused abruptly. He looked rather
blankly from one officer to the other.

"See here; do I understand I'm under arrest?" he inquired.

"You certainly are talking, Foxy," chuckled O'Keefe.

"Then my name's Doe--John Doe," and I thought the fellow's quick glance
at me held an appeal. Of what sort, I had no idea.

"And what, may I ask, is the charge?" he asked again, with what was
apparently a great effort at calmness.

"Oh, come now, Braxton," said the officer in a tone of disgust, "stop
your foolery; you're just using up time. Ain't it enough that you're in
this building and in this gentleman's rooms?"

"In his rooms!" exploded Foxy Grandpa. "Why, you lunkhead, this
gentleman will tell you I am his guest!" He turned to me with a sort of
angry laugh.

"Tell him, Lightnut," he rasped. "I've had enough of this!"

The big policeman's features expanded in a grin, while Tim doubled
forward an instant, his blue girth wabbling with internal appreciation
of the Foxy one's facetiousness; and the janitor snickered.

Jenkins looked shocked. As for me, dash it, I never so wished for my
monocle, don't you know!

O'Keefe's head angled a little to give me the benefit of a surreptitious
wink.

"Oh, certainly," he said, his voice affecting a fine sarcasm; "if the
gentleman says you're his _friend_--"

"He's no friend of mine," I proclaimed indignantly. "Never saw him
before in my life."

Instead of being confounded, the artful old villain fell back with a
great air of astonishment and dismay. By Jove, he managed to turn fairly
purple.

"Wha-a-t's that?" he gasped stranglingly and clutching at the collar of
his pajamas. "Say that again, Dicky."

I looked at him severely.

"Oh, I say, don't call me 'Dicky,' either," I remonstrated quietly.
"It's a name I only like to hear my intimate friends use."

He kind of caught the back of a chair and glared wildly at me from under
his bushy wintry eyebrows. The beefy rolls of his lower jaw actually
trembled.

"Don't you--haven't you always classed me as that, Dic--er--Lightnut?"
he sort of whispered.

By Jove, the effrontery of such acting fairly disgusted me. I looked him
over from head to foot with measured contempt. "I don't know you at
all," I said coldly, turning away.

"Ye gods!" he wheezed, clutching at his grizzled hair.




CHAPTER XII

I SEND A MAN TO JAIL


The two policemen shifted impatiently.

"That'll about do, Foxy," growled O'Keefe. "It's entertaining, but
enough of a thing--"

But the old duffer caught his sleeve.

"Wait!" he panted. "One second--wait--just one second!"

He looked at Jenkins and ducked his neck forward, swallowing hard.

"Jenkins," he said with a sickly smile. "You--you see how it is with
Lightnut--poor fellow! None of us ever thought he would go off that bad
though. But, as it is, I guess you're the one now who will have to set
me right with these people. You'll have to stand for me."

Jenkins looked alarmed. He addressed the officers eagerly:

"S'help me," he cried, his glance impaling the prisoner with scorn, "I
never see this party before in the ten years I been in New York!"

Did that settle the fellow? By Jove, not a bit; his jolly nerve seemed
inexhaustible!

He blinked a little; and then with a roar he jumped for Jenkins, but
O'Keefe shoved him back. Panting and struggling between the two
officers, and fairly at bay at last, the desperate old man seemed to
determine one last bluff, don't you know, and with the janitor.

"Here, you," he bellowed, as the man dodged behind Jenkins. "You have
seen me come in this building often! Tell 'em so, or I'll kill you!"

The little man turned pale, but came up pluckily.

"If--if I had," he stammered, "you never would have come in again, if I
knew as much about you as I do now. I assure you, gents, I never laid
eyes on this man before."

"Well, I'll be--"

He broke off and seemed to fall out of the grasp of the men backward
into a big chair. Couldn't quit his jolly acting, it was clear to me,
even when he had played his last card.

"Is everybody crazy, or am I?" he said, brushing his hand across his
forehead; and dashed if the perspiration didn't stand on it in big
drops, clear up into his old bald pate.

"See here," he broke out again, addressing O'Keefe, "send for somebody
else in this building; send for--" He seemed to deliberate.

The policeman laughed derisively.

"Likely we'll be hauling people out of bed at this hour, isn't it," he
sneered, "just to let you keep up this fool's game!" He leveled his
stick menacingly. "Now, looky here, Braxton!" he exclaimed sternly.

"I'm being easy with you because you're a gray-headed old man, but--"

By Jove, it was plain he had struck a sensitive point!

"Gray-headed old man!" shouted the fellow, coming out of the chair like
a rubber ball, and pointing to his reflection in the long mirror. "Does
that look like gray hair--that red topknot? It'll _be_ gray, though, if
this infernal craziness goes on much longer--I'll say that much!" And
back he flopped into the chair.

The two officers exchanged glances, and, by Jove, they looked ugly!

"Call for the wagon, Tim," said O'Keefe shortly, indicating the 'phone.
"The fool's going to give trouble. Kahoka Apartments, tell them. Hurry;
let's get him to the street."

He made a dive at the figure in the chair and jerked him forward.

But his grip seemed to slip and he only moved his prisoner a few inches.
He tried again with about the same result.

"Get a move on, Tim," he said pantingly. "He's bigger, somehow, than he
looks, and awful heavy; it'll take both of us. Get up, Braxton, unless
you want the club!"

The man settled solidly in the depths of the chair.

"Club and be hanged!" he replied with a snap of his jaw. "I won't go in
any dirty police wagon--that's flat! You may take me in a hearse first.
Get a cab or a taxi, if I have to go with you!"

"Gamey old sport, anyhow, by Jove!" I thought with sudden admiration.
Couldn't help it, dash it! Heart just went out to him, somehow.

I gently interposed as O'Keefe prepared to lunge again.

"I'll stand the cab for him, officer," I said with a smile, "if your
rules, don't you know, or whatever it is, will allow."

I added in a lowered voice:

"Makes it devilish easier for you, don't you know, and avoids such a
jolly row. And--er--I want to ask you and your friend to accept from me
a little token of my appreciation."

The policeman exchanged a glance with Tim and considered.

"Well, sir," he said, "as to the cab, of course if you're a mind to want
to do that, it's your own affair."

He turned to his companion.

"Just cancel that, Tim," he directed. "Call a four-wheeler."

"Thank you, Lightnut," put in the old man gratefully. "You _have_ got a
grain of decency left, by George, after all!"

Meantime, Jenkins was answering my inquiry.

"I don't believe, sir, you have a bit of cash in the house. You told me
so when you were retiring."

By Jove, I remembered now! The poker game in the evening!

I was wondering whether they could use a check, when I spied Billings'
wallet on the table.

The very thing, by Jove!

Examination showed, first thing, a wad of yellow-backs, fresh from the
bank. I peeled off two and pushed them into the officer's hand.

"This belongs to a friend of mine," I remarked; "but it's just the same
as my own, don't you know, and he won't mind. Dash it, we're just like
brothers!"

A howl of maniacal laughter from the old fool in the chair startled us
both.

"Regular Damon and Pythias, damn it!" he gabbled, grinning with hideous
face contortions. "One for all, and all for one! And just help yourself;
don't mind me. Why--_hell_!"

O'Keefe prodded him sharply in the shoulder with his night stick.

"Stop your skylarking now, Foxy," he admonished angrily, "and come on.
Here the gentleman's gone and put up his money for a cab for you and you
ought to want to get out of his way so he can rest."

"He's sure been kind to you," supplemented Tim, whose eye had noted the
passing of the yellow boys.

"Kind!" mocked the old geezer, showing his scattered teeth in a horrible
grin. "Why, he's a lu-lu, a regular Samaritan!"

"No names!" warned O'Keefe, slightly lifting his night stick. "Come on
to the street--you seem to forget you're under arrest."

He added hastily:

"And I ought to have warned you that anything you may say, Foxy--"

"Oh, you go to--Brooklyn!" snarled Foxy. "For two pins I'd knock your
block off, you fat-headed Irish fool! Think I'm going down to the
sidewalk without my clothes?"

"Are your clothes somewhere in this building?" I asked with some
sympathy.

He whirled on me sneeringly and jeered like a jolly screech owl:

"Oh, no; not exactly _in_ the building--they're on the flagpole on the
roof, of course! He-he-he! Bloody good joke, isn't it?"

I sat on the edge of the table wearily; and, catching the policeman's
eye, shrugged my shoulders significantly.

"You're right, sir," he said apologetically. "We won't fool a second
longer. Here, you take that side, Tim. Let's pull!"

And they did pull, but, by Jove, they couldn't raise him.

"Queerest go I ever see," Tim gasped. "He ain't holding on to nothing,
is he? And, O'Keefe, he _feels big_!"

"Pshaw, it's not that," the other panted; "it's just the way he's
sitting. Why, you can _see_ he ain't so very big." He nodded to Jenkins
and the janitor. "Here, you two! Help us, can't you?"

And with one mighty, united heave, they brought the loudly protesting
old man to his feet and held him there. O'Keefe faced me.

"Might be well to take a look around, sir, and see if you think of
anything else he's stolen, before we take him off."

"Good idea, Lightnut!" Old Braxton stopped struggling and whirled his
head toward me, his face almost black with rage. "Ha, ha! Why don't you
have me searched? There's not a pocket in these damn pajamas!"

"Anything whatever, sir, we'll have him leave behind," said O'Keefe.

"By Jove!" I don't know how I ever managed to say it. Fact is, things
had just suddenly spun round before me like a merry what's-its-name. For
I _did_ recognize something! The old fellow's unabashed reference to
pajamas was what brought it to my attention.

"Ha!" O'Keefe nodded. "There _is_ something! Just say the word, sir."

I looked helplessly at Jenkins, and then I saw that of a sudden he
recognized them, too. His eyes rolled at me understandingly.

"What is it, sir?" demanded O'Keefe respectfully. "The law requires--"

I swallowed hard. "It--it's the pajamas," I said faintly.

The old rascal uttered a roar and tried to get at me.

"You cold-blooded scoundrel!" he bellowed. "So this is why--"

But here a jab of the night stick took him in the side with a sound like
a blow on a punching bag. Words left the old man and he gasped
desperately for breath. O'Keefe tried to shake him.

"Did you get those pajamas in here?" he demanded fiercely, and he drew
back his stick as though for another jab. But the old geezer nodded
quickly, glaring at me and trying to wheeze something.

"That's enough," said the officer. He turned to me. "You recognize them,
do you, sir?"

"I--I think so," I stammered, looking at Jenkins, who nodded. "They
belong to a friend of mine who--a--must have left them here."

"I see." He fished out a note-book. "Mind giving me the name, sir? Just
a matter of form, you know--" He licked his pencil expectantly.

"Oh, I say, you know--" I gasped at Jenkins. "I don't think she--I--"

"Certainly not, sir," affirmed Jenkins, solemnly looking upward.

"She?" The note-book slowly closed, then with the pencil went back into
the officer's pocket. "Excuse _me_, sir. H'm!"

"H'm!" echoed Tim apologetically. Then they both glared at Foxy.

The old man just snarled at them. He was like a dog at bay.

"All right!" he hissed. "You just try to take them off--I'll kill
somebody, that's all. Think I'm going to make a spectacle of myself?"

Jenkins whispered to me.

"To be sure," I said aloud. "He might as well wear them now to the
station. Just so he returns them when he gets his clothes."

"Very good, sir," said O'Keefe, relieved. "We'll see he does that. Come
along now, Braxton--_shut_ up, I tell you!"

And with all four of them behind the charge, they managed to rush the
loudly protesting old man to the door.

"I _won't_ go without my clothes, I tell you," he raged.

But he did. Fighting, swearing and protesting, the jolly old vagabond
was roughly bundled into the elevator.

"Good night, sir," called O'Keefe as the four of them dropped downward.
"We'll let you know if it seems necessary to trouble you."

Once again inside, Jenkins and I just stared at each other without a
word, we were that tired and disgusted. To me, the only dashed crumb of
comfort in the whole business was the wonderful fact that Billings
seemed to have slept like a jolly Rip through the whole beastly row.

Very softly I opened his door again, so that the breeze flowed through
once more. Jenkins put out the lights, and I stood there listening, but
could hear no sound within the room, for the street below was already
heralding the clamor of the coming day.

Jenkins' whisper brushed my ear as I moved away:

"Sleeping like a baby, ain't he, sir?"




CHAPTER XIII

FRANCES


By Jove, it seemed to me I had been asleep about a minute when I saw the
sunlight splashing through the blinds.

Jenkins stood beside me with something in his hand.

"Didn't hear me, did you, sir?" he was asking. "I said I thought the
address looked like Mr. Billings' handwriting. And he's gone, sir."

"Gone?"

I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I had a befogged notion that
Jenkins looked a little queer.

"Yes, sir. He's not in his room, nor in the apartment anywhere."

"Eh--how--what's that?" For Jenkins' hand extended an envelope.

"Perhaps you would like to read this now, sir."

It was from Billings--I knew his fist in an instant. It was very short
and without heading. In fact, above his name appeared just a half-dozen
penciled words, heavily underscored, and without punctuation:

     Damn you send me my clothes

"His clothes?" I looked perplexedly at Jenkins.

He was looking a little pale and held his eyes fixedly to the picture
molding across the room. He coughed gently.

"Yes, sir," he uttered faintly; "they're in his room, but _he_ ain't."

"By Jove!" I remarked helplessly. And just then I remembered something
that brought me wide awake in an instant.

I questioned eagerly:

"I say--that desk lamp in there, Jenkins--did you switch it on in the
night? And the doors I found open--know anything about them?" And
Jenkins' blank expression was the reply.

"By Jove, Jenkins!" I gasped.

Jenkins compressed his lips. "Exactly, sir."

"Er--what were you thinking, Jenkins?" I questioned desperately. And I
think Jenkins' stolidity wavered before my anxious face.

"It ain't for me to be thinking anything, sir--besides, the messenger's
waiting--but--" His hand sought his pocket.

He stepped back, leaving something on the stand by my bed.

"What's that?" I questioned in alarm. "Another note?"

"No, sir--not exactly, sir. But if I may suggest--without offense,
sir--that you fill it out, I will see that it gets to him."

"Him? Who's him--he, I mean?"

"Doctor Splasher, sir, the temperance party I was speaking of. I've
already filled out mine, and I'm going to put one in for Mr. Billings
when I send the clothes." From the doorway he turned a woebegone
countenance toward me. "It's heartrending, sir--if I may be permitted to
say so--to think of a nice gentleman like Mr. Billings wandering over to
the club with nothing on but red pajamas."

But when I telephoned they stated that Mr. Billings had not been at the
club since last evening. Some one who answered the 'phone thought Mr.
Billings was with his friend, Mr. Lightnut, in the Kahoka Apartments.
And, of course, I knew jolly well he was not.

As I turned from the telephone, something in Jenkins' expression
arrested my attention.

"Well?" I said impatiently, for he has so many devilishly clever
inspirations, you know; and, dash it, I like to encourage him.

"Pardon, sir, but don't you think--" Here he looked straight up at the
electrolier and coughed. "About Mr. Billings, sir; I was going to
suggest that though he isn't over at the club, he's _somewhere_, sir."

Why, dash it, I thought _that_ jolly likely, myself! I said so.


"Yes, sir," said Jenkins darkly. "And Mr. Billings usually knows _where_
he is. I guess, sir, he's in this neighborhood--h'm!"

I just sat staring at him a minute, thinking what a devilish wonderful
thing intuition is for the lower classes.

"By Jove, Jenkins!" I said; "then you think--"

"I think Mr. Billings, sir, might prefer to find himself--h'm! Yes,
sir." Jenkins lifted the breakfast tray with deliberation, removed it
from the room, and returned, moving about the furniture and busying
himself with an air of mystery. Dash it, I knew he had up his sleeve
some other devilish clever notion, and so presently I spoke up just to
touch him off.

"By Jove!" I remarked.

"Yes, sir." Jenkins rested the end of the crumb brush on the table and
considered me earnestly. "You know, Mr. Lightnut, last night as Mr.
Billings was retiring, he says to me: 'Jenkins, Mr. Lightnut has
promised to go up home with me to-morrow for the week end. There's a
tenner coming your way if he doesn't forget about it. He's to go
_to-morrow_, now, mind you, Jenkins; and it don't matter _what_ comes
up. _You_ see that he goes up to-morrow.'"

"By Jove!" I said as he paused, and I screwed my monocle tighter and
nodded. "I see."

Of course I didn't see, but I knew the poor fellow was driving at
something, and I wanted to give him a run.

"Exactly, sir." And he stood waiting. "So, shall I pack, sir? You'll
want to take the four-ten express, I suppose?"

By Jove, it was the most amazingly, dashed clever guess I ever knew
Jenkins to get off! Fact! I knew that if there was one thing more than
another in all the world that I wanted to do, it was to take that
four-ten express. To think of seeing Frances again, and _to-day_!

Of course, it was quite clear that Billings must have anticipated the
possibility of something unusual, and that was why he had impressed a
sort of personal responsibility upon Jenkins--kind of tipping him off,
as it were, so he would be sure to see that I got off in case he did not
show up himself. It was very easy to see this, especially as Jenkins saw
it that way, too, but what made it specially so awfully jolly easy to
see was the fact that I _wanted_ to go, you know.

So I let Jenkins shoot a wire up to Billings, stating my train, and I
just had to chuckle as in my mind's eye I saw old brazen face Jack
coming down to the station to meet me, and just ignoring his going off
in the middle of the night in my pajamas. By Jove, perhaps he would
bring _her_ down to the train in his car, so I would be sure not to ask
him any questions!

I left Jenkins to travel by a later train, and a little after four I was
whirling above Spuyten Duyvil and looking about the chair-car to see if
there was any one I knew. But, by Jove, there was hardly a soul in the
car--nobody except just women, you know, and these filled the whole
place. And they were talking about all sorts of dashed silly things.
Most of them were devilish pretty as the word goes, but, of course, not
a patch on _her_. Oh, well, of course, they _couldn't_ be that! Don't
know how they were behind me, you know--too much trouble to turn round
and fix my glass. So I just took the range in front, looking at the tops
of the hats and the chairs and wondering if women would ever become
extinct like that bird--the great what's-its-name, you know.

"By Jove, _she_ could be spared!" I thought, studying a young woman who
stood in the aisle beside me. She was rather heavy set--what you might
call egg-shaped. Her face and her heavy glasses seemed to proclaim a
mission in life, and the dowdyish cut of her rig and the reckless way it
was hurled on made it plain that she was on to the fact that nature had
made a blunder in her sex, and she wanted the world to _know_ she knew.

She was talking to the lady immediately behind me. At least, I
discovered after five minutes that she was talking. By Jove, up to that
time, I thought she was canvassing for a book! The other never got in a
word, don't you know. And I was getting devilish tired of it and wishing
she would move on, when she shifted, preparatory to doing so, and raised
her voice:

"Very well, then, if you don't care to come, I think I will go forward
again and finish the discussion with Doctor Jennie Newman upon the
metamorphoses of the primordial protoplasms. Watch out for Tarrytown
now, Frances."

Tarrytown! Frances! By Jove, my heart skipped a beat!

The other murmured something.

Her voice! Her blessed, sweet voice, of which every syllable, every
shade, was indented in my memory like the record of a what's-its-name!
By Jove, my Frances, and right behind me!

All I could do to sit still a minute longer, but I knew jolly well if I
turned now I would be introduced to the freak and lose I couldn't tell
how many precious moments with my dear one. So I sat low in the chair,
polishing my monocle, you know, and noting with satisfaction that my
part reflected all right in the little strip of mirror. I tried to get a
glimpse of her in it, too, but all I could see was a glorious white
hat--a stunning Neapolitan, flanked with a sheaf of wild ostrich plumes.

And then the freak left. I watched her spraddle down the aisle and out
through the little corridor before I dared risk the accident of a
backward turn of that funny green hat.

Then, when all was safe, I took a deep breath, gripped hard the arms of
the chair, and whirled suddenly around.

"Frances!" I whispered. "My darling!"




CHAPTER XIV

"YOU NEVER SAW ME IN BLACK"


"Oh!" she gasped faintly.

That was all she said at first, her big blue eyes wide distended, her
white-gloved wrists curving above the chair-arms as though to rise. Easy
to see she was completely floored at seeing me.

And as it was her move, I just sat kind of grinning, you know, and
holding her tight with my monocle.

Then her mouth twitched a bit; next her head went up and I heard again
that delicious birdlike carol of a laugh. Her eyes came to rest upon the
hat in my hand. I had slipped my Harvard band around it, remembering the
admiration she had expressed for our colors.

"Oh!" she said again, and she looked at me hesitatingly. "Mr. Jones, is
it not--or is it--"

I chuckled. "Mr. Smith, you know," I said. "Mr. Smith, of course."

And then I just went on chuckling, for I thought it so devilish clever
of her, so humorous. And just then I thought of a dashed good repartee:

"Months--so many months, you know, since we met!" And I thought it
delightful the way she puckered her lovely little forehead and looked me
over. But she just looked so devilish enticing, I couldn't keep it up
myself. I leaned nearer and spoke behind my hat, trying to look the love
I felt.

"Didn't expect to see me, did you?"

She looked at me oddly and bit her lip. But her eyes were dancing and
the delicious dimple in her cheek twitched on the verge of laughter. She
shook her head.

"Indeed I did not." And again came that odd look in her face as though
she were studying, kind of balking, don't you know. By Jove, she was
perfectly dazzling!

"My dearest!" slipped softly from me as I held the hat.

She stared. Then once more that canary peal of merriment.

"Oh, dear!" Then her face sobered and she almost pouted. "Now you
mustn't--please, _really_--it gets so tiresome. Don't you American, or
rather, you Harvard men, ever talk anything to a girl but love? Why,
it's absurd." She smiled, but her lashes dropped reproof. By Jove, I was
taken back a little! Evidently she was piqued with me about something,
but what the devil was it? And then I thought I had it.

I slipped nearer--to the edge of the chair.

"I didn't know you were in town to-day--'pon honor, I didn't. Billings
never said a word about it," I explained. "Why, dash it, I would have
given _anything_ to have known."

She looked at me with a queer little smile, stroked her little lip with
the point of one gloved finger and looked across the river at the
Palisades. Dash the Palisades! Never could see any sense in them,
anyhow!

"Oh, thank you, but Elizabeth and I didn't know ourselves until last
evening that we would make the New York trip. She wanted to hear a
suffragette lecture at the Carnegie, and I had some shopping to do."

And she just gave me one of those calm, self-contained, thoroughbred
sort of smiles that are harder to get past than a six-foot hedge. What
the deuce _was_ the matter with the girl? Something had changed her; yet
I knew that nothing could really change her at heart--never.

But it was certain that she was put out about something. I would just
have to play her easy and try to find out what it was. I remembered
hearing Pugsley say--and he has had no end of experience with them--that
when women are put out they expect you to find out what it is, no matter
how devilishly improbable or unreasonable it may be.

And just then I remembered another clever idea of Pugsley's--what he
said was a corking good way of diverting their minds.

"I say, you know," I said suddenly--and though I threw a whole lot of
enthusiasm into my face in carrying out his idea, I didn't have to try
very hard--"I think that's a ripping gown. White is ever so much more
your style than--than--"

By Jove, I swallowed just in time! But it had roused her. I could see
her brighten.

"Oh!" she said. "Let me see--what _is_ it you remember?" And she kind of
muttered, "Perhaps I can tell from that--"

She paused expectantly.

"Oh, I say, you know!" And I twirled the hat, feeling a bit rattled. Why
the deuce did she want to rub it in?

"But I want you to tell me." Her beautiful eyes were teasing.

"_You_ know--in black." I twirled the hat faster.

"_Black!_" She stared, her exquisite lips standing apart like the two
petals of a rose. "Why, I never wore black in my life. You _know_ you
never saw me in black."

I felt hurt. I couldn't blame her for wanting to appear to forget about
it, but still--

She must have seen my face fall, for I know, by Jove, I could just feel
it kind of collapse, I was that hurt and disappointed. Her face softened
kindly and I took courage, for my devilishly alert mind just then hit
upon another explanation. I recalled that she had thoughtlessly left the
pajamas in my rooms. I also realized with dismay that Foxy Grandpa had
promised, or rather the officers had promised for him, that they should
be returned promptly. And, by Jove, I had forgotten all about them!

"Never mind," I said, thinking aloud, as I frequently do. "I'll
telephone about them as soon as we get to Wolhurst." Then a terrible
shock struck me. "Oh, I say, you didn't have your name on them, did
you?"

"On what?" How kindly, even if quizzically, she was regarding me! The
big white hat shifted an inch or two nearer. I realized with joy that
she was beginning to forget about being put out with me.

"Why--" I looked about cautiously and dropped my voice, though it was
not likely any one could hear above the quiver of the train. "Why, in
your black pajamas you left in my rooms."

A kind of little gasp was all I heard, and then she was on her feet and
looking--not at me, but above my head--looking away off down the length
of the car. Somehow--why, I couldn't understand--I had a weird, horrible
feeling of abasement, as though I had killed a child, or had done some
other dashed unreasonable thing like that. Her face had flushed but now
was deadly white. And then, by Jove, I saw she was looking for another
chair.

I jumped up at once and moved into the aisle.

"I'm so sorry," I said miserably, "so sorry, dear, I hurt you. I didn't
mean ever to speak of the pajamas. I knew you wanted to forget about the
other night, and I knew you wanted _me_ to forget, too--"

"Oh, please--" She shrank back, her beautiful eyes like those of a
frightened deer. But it was the last car, and I blocked the aisle. I
didn't realize at the time that I was doing it. It came to me afterward,
and was one of the things I kicked myself about for hours, more or less.

Just at the moment I was so dashed wild about setting myself right with
her. The only other thing I had presence of mind to remember was the
nearness about us of a lot of beady-eyed cats, and so I drew nearer and
lowered my voice so none could hear. For I had another feeling of
inspiration as to what really was the matter with her!

Matter! I should say, rather! She was beginning to look
angry--splendidly angry--her eyes just blazing blue fire. I knew I would
have to get in my explanation quickly, and what's more, if what Pugsley
thought was true, I would have to hit the jolly nail on the head or else
everything was off, you know.

"Why, Frances--sweetheart," I pleaded softly--just loud enough for her
to hear above the train, "I know you are put out with me because you
found me gone the next morning, but honestly, dear, I acted for the
best--indeed, I did." And to be on the safe side, I profited by another
inspiration: "And, my darling girl, I'll never mention the pajamas and
the other night--never any more--as long as we live, nor the cigarettes
nor cigars nor whisky. Why, I don't care if you--"

"Tarrytown--all out for Tarrytown!" came in a high tenor voice from the
end of the car, and something bowled down the aisle and brushed me
aside. It was the frump.

"Come on, Frances!" she exclaimed sharply; "our station." Next instant
they were streaking it for the door, with me a good second. I saw
Frances look behind once with--oh, such a look! Dashed if it didn't
shrivel me, you know--that sort. And, by Jove, I knew Pugsley was right,
and that I had failed to put the ball over!

I was not six feet behind as they scrambled through the station to the
other side where a large car stood panting. I saw Frances clutch the
frump's arm and whisper something, and I heard the frump's reply, for
her voice was loud and strongly masculine.

"Crazy?" she rasped. "Nonsense! Drunk, more likely. Most of them are
half the time."

I didn't have time to see what she referred to, for just then we reached
the side of the car. I didn't see a thing of Billings, but the chauffeur
jumped to the ground and received the ladies and their bags. He seemed
to me devilish familiar, too. By Jove, the way he held my darling's hand
was the most infernally audacious, outrageous thing I ever beheld! I
should have liked to punch his head. He helped them into the tonneau and
was so busy with his silly jackass chatter that he closed the door
before he turned and saw me. I was just standing there, leaning a little
forward with my cane, you know, and fixing my monocle reproachfully on
Frances--trying to get her eye.

And then, by jove, I felt a blow on my shoulder that almost bowled me
over, for I had my legs crossed, you know.

"Well, I'll be hanged--it's Dicky!" And he was grinning at me like a
what's-its-name cat. And with the grin I recognized him. It was the
fresh young fool who had been so devilish familiar at the pier the
morning Frances left.

Then he banged me again, dash it, and tried to get my hand, but I put it
behind me. But he did get my arm, and he turned toward the car. His
voice dropped.

"See here, I want you to meet--Eh?" He broke off, staring at the frump,
who was making signs with her eyes, frowning and beckoning him with her
green flower-pot. He left me, murmuring something, and stepped to the
running-board. I could see the flower-pot bobbing about energetically
and twice Frances nodded, it seemed to me reluctantly.

"Crazy--drunk? Pshaw, you're batty!" he said to the frump rudely. Then I
heard another murmur and his harsh voice rose again: "Yes--Lightnut, I
tell you--Dicky Lightnut. Yes--Jack Billings' great friend. You just
wait till he's back from the city, and if he don't get upon his
hind--Eh, what? His name is _Smith_? Rats!"

All this time I was just standing there, trying to catch Frances' eye.
I felt sure if I could catch her eye she would see how devilish sorry I
was. I moved back a few feet, for, dash it, without a sign from her, I
had no idea now, of course, of considering myself as one of the party.
Not finding Billings with the car, and the information I caught that he
was still in the city, just left me high and dry, you know.

"All right, Miss Smarty," the yellow-topped chauffeur rasped, addressing
the frump, "I'll just show you!"

He turned about and jerked his head.

"Oh, Dicky! Here, just a minute, old chap--will you?"

Of course I took no notice of him whatever. In fact I looked in the
other direction.

"Lightnut!" he called. I just stared up at the castle on the hill. I
felt devilish annoyed, though. I recalled a conversation the other day
at the club in which Van Dyne remarked that the intimacy affected now by
chauffeurs was growing insufferable. Declared his man had asked him for
a light that morning.

The fellow stared a little; then he came toward me, smirking in a
jocular, impertinent way.

"Say, stop your kidding, old man," he muttered; "girls have no sense of
humor, you know. Come along--I've just been telling them you are my best
friend."

I stole another look at the car, but Frances avoided me; so I came to a
decision. I turned shortly on the driver.

"See here now, my good fellow," I said sharply, "you stop subjecting
those ladies to annoyance. Drive on, or I'll report you to my friends."

He stared--seemed to be trying to stare me out of countenance, in fact.
Then the grin slowly faded.

"Why, Dicky!" he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, "don't you remember
me--don't you know me?"

"I certainly do not," I answered with decision. I felt my face getting
red with vexation. "And what's more, my name is not 'Dicky.'"

His hand slowly swept his chin and he whistled.

"Wha--Well, I'll be jiggered!" He whirled toward the car.

"On me, this time, I guess! You're right!"

Then his face clouded and he moved down upon me.

"Here, you get along now about your business, whoever you are!" His hand
waved as though sweeping me away. "I've a mind to kick you for annoying
that young lady."

He looked toward Frances and I could see he was showing off. But I
thought she looked a bit disgusted. As for the frump, she suddenly
opened the door, stepped down and then up again, but this time behind
the steering wheel.

"If you don't come on, I'm going," she said quietly.

"Just a minute," he said, scowling back at her. He faced me.

"Look here, if I hit you once"--he leveled his finger--"well, they'll
have to pick you up with a sponge, that's all!"

But, except for fixing my glass for a better study of Frances, I never
moved. Didn't occur to me as necessary, you know, until she should drive
off. Just stood leaning on my cane and with feet crossed, you know, in
the way I had long ago found was the least exhausting, if one has to
stand at all. But, by Jove, the fellow was right in my face now, almost!
Devilish annoying!

"Did you hear me, you glass-eyed fool?" he barked in my ear. "You
masher! By George, _I'll_ mash you!"

And he looked at Frances again and laughed, but she was looking away off
up at the big stone castle on the Pocantico Hills behind. And I just
reveled in her glorious profile, splashed bright by the golden sunshine
reflected from the Tappan Zee opposite. Incidentally, I was trying in my
mind the three arm movements that must be made as one, and for which, to
learn, I had paid the great master, Galliard of Paris, a thousand francs
in gold.

The car began to edge away.

"All right--coming!" he yelled; and then he launched his blow. But so
rapid--instantaneous, in fact--are the famous three movements of the
great scientist, I don't remember that my eye even shifted its grip
upon the monocle. Therefore, as I came back into the same position again
as his shoulder hit the ground, I was in time to catch my darling's eye
at last just as they curved. And, by Jove, she looked amused--and
pleased.

As for the frump, she frankly and harshly laughed, and then moved up a
speed, just as a south-bound express took the station.

And I swung aboard it, back for little old New York. Didn't see what the
chauffeur did. Wasn't interested, you know, about that.




CHAPTER XV

BILLINGS' SYMPTOMS ALARM ME


"Most infernal outrage of the century, I tell you!" Billings stormed.
For an hour I had sat there in my rooms, limp and bewildered under the
tempest of his wrath. The wild and incoherent sputter over the 'phone
that Jenkins reported upon my return had sent me on a hunt for my
friend. I had found him sullenly dining alone over at the club, and as
soon as I entered he started to bolt from the room. Only through the
greatest pleading had I managed to coax him back to my chambers, hoping
I might screw out of him some explanation.

I had received it, by Jove!

Of course, I recognized it all as impossible and crazy, you know, but
when I said so to Billings his remarks were so violent, and he turned
such a dangerous apoplectic purple, dashed if I didn't renege.

"But then the old man, you know!" I protested weakly.

Billings leveled his big arm at me, mouthing wordlessly for a minute.

"That--that'll do, about that old man!" he choked at last. "Not--not
another word about _him_!" And finally he collapsed into his seat from
sheer exhaustion. Just sat there panting and glaring at me like a jolly
bulldog.

Gradually he became calmer.

"Tell you what: the only thing that lets you out, Dicky, is the way Van
Dyne and Blakesley did, in turn, when I got them there."

He spoke savagely, but I brightened a little.

"Oh!" I said. "Didn't they recognize you, either?"

Billings' snort made me jump.

"Recognize!" he bellowed. "They went back, mad as hell!"

"By Jove!" I said soothingly.

"That's not all," continued Billings grimly. "I was so sure it was a
put-up job, some asinine, fool joke, I wrote a cautious note to the
governor. After a lot of pleading, I got the fools to send it. He came."

Billings paused dramatically.

"Oh, yes, _he_ came!" he went on, fixing me with an excited eye. "And
when I staggered forward and did the prodigal son act on his neck, he
handed me a punch that jolted off his silk tile. Went straight up in the
air with the whole bunch down there and contracted to do things for them
that will keep him active for a year. Threatened to have _me_ sent up
for forgery--this is my own father now, mind you--forgery of my own
name! Huh!"

Billings strode to the end of the room and back. Then he sat down
again, beating with his foot upon the floor.

"Say, has everybody gone crazy?" he demanded.

I didn't dare say a word, for I had my own opinions, you know, and I
knew it wouldn't do to express them. Only excite him. Best way seemed
just to pretend to swallow it all, you know. Best way always, Pugsley
says, especially with best friends.

"They were pretty nasty after that," Billings went on gloomily; "and
they wouldn't send for any one else. Just had to sit there in that
infernal bastile with nothing on but pajamas and a pair of bedroom
slippers. Every once in a while somebody would come and address me as
'Foxy,' and want me to send for my clothes or else send out and buy
some. Finally, a big brute came and threw me some dirty rags and said
I'd _have_ to put on those or else buy some others. Buy some, Dicky--did
you get that?--_buy_ some!"

"Devilish rude, _I_ say," I commented indignantly. "Who wants to wear
_bought_ clothes? Why, dash it, my tailor says--"

"Pshaw!" Billings whirled his fat head impatiently. "You miss the whole
point, Dicky! I didn't have a cent of _money_; and what's more, I
couldn't get any." He paused. "See? Try to get that, Dicky--make an
effort, old chap."

I did, but, dash it, it was such a rum idea--very oddest thing he had
said--and silly, you know. Fancy any one not being able to send out and
get money! I just got to thinking what a jolly queer idea it was and
lost part of what Billings was saying--something about how he managed to
get them to send a note for his clothes. Here is what I _did_ hear:

"And I had just got into the togs and stuffed the rubies and pajamas out
of sight in my pocket, when the particular brigand who had charge of my
coop came back. He almost threw a fit when he saw me. 'Where's
Twenty-seven?' he wanted to know. And then, before I could say a word,
he blustered up to me with: 'And say, what business _you_ got in here?
Clear out!' And you bet I didn't lose a single golden minute--I cleared.
You should have seen me beat it down that corridor! The fellow followed
me a little, grumbling to himself. Then he called to a cop who was just
coming in: 'Say, O'Keefe, run that young fat freak out of here, will
you? It's one of that bunch of visitors that went through just now.
Fresh thing--snooping into the cells!'

"And so the same cop that brought me there--the very same--was the one
that shoved me out of the door, warning me that I'd best not go poking
into the prisoners' cells again if I knew what was good for me!"

"By Jove!" I ventured sympathetically.

Billings nodded. "Of course, I knew it was a semi-lucid interval with
them all, but for all I knew it might pass any instant and some bat
discover I was a Dutch scrubwoman escaped from Hoboken. So I broke for
the first taxi and hit it up for the club."

Billings took a deep breath and went on:

"By George," he said, laughing nervously. "I felt like a dog with a can
to its tail hunting for a place to hide. Every time a fellow looked at
me I had heart failure until he called me by my own name. Bribed Eugene
to lie about my whereabouts until his face hurt and then I went to bed.
Sneaked out of my hole this evening to get a bite of something, and then
you ran me down.

"And Dicky"--Billings finished excitedly--"I was sure you had come to
drag me back to my dungeon, and I looked behind you, fully expecting to
see those two Irish pirates. If I had, I should have swooned in my soup,
that's all!"

I murmured my sympathy. And, by Jove, I certainly did have a heartache
about him, but of course I couldn't tell him why. I was getting him
quieted--I could see that--and he was so far mollified as to help
himself to a cigar. When he had clipped a V from the end with his knife,
he leaned over and tapped me impressively on the knee with the blade.

"And just think, Dicky," he said, absently emphasizing with the sharp
point of the knife, "there I sat, moneyless--not even a dime, you
know--in a suit of pajamas whose three buttons were worth one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars!"

He fell back, his fat arms eloquently outspreading.

"Can you beat it?" he demanded.

I rubbed my palm on my knee and considered.

Privately, I thought I _could_ beat it--by Jove, I was sure I could! I
knew of a pair of pajamas worth a dashed sight more than money. And I
wondered gloomily where they were. I had telephoned as soon as I stepped
out at the Grand Central Station, and after a bit made them understand
who I was and reminded them that the black pajamas had not been returned
according to promise. And then they told me Foxy Grandpa had escaped,
but as he had nothing else on, they felt sure of rounding him up as soon
as he came out of his hiding-place--probably after dark.

"By the way, old chap," puffed Billings, his poise and good humor
improving under the spell of the cigar, "I was sorry to return the
pajamas torn and dusty and wrinkled as they were. But you see, on
account of the rubies, I was leary about having them pressed or fussed
over. So I wrapped and sealed them myself, just as one does a jewel
package. Got them, did you?"

I stared at Billings through my glass.

"Didn't you get them?" he questioned in alarm.

"Yes, yes--it's all right, old chap," I said hastily and as pleasantly
as I could. "Eugene delivered the box to Jenkins and I opened it myself.
Thought it was--h'm--thought it was something else." Then I proceeded
soothingly: "But you're just a little mistaken about the dust and
wrinkles, old chap--and about them being torn. Ha, ha! Good joke!"

But Billings' face was unresponsive.

"Why, you goop," he said with cheerful contempt, "there's a triangular
tear in the back of the coat you could stick your head through; and one
of the sleeves is in ribbons."

I just opened the drawer of the table and took out the box--glove box, I
think it was--containing the pajamas. I had read something somewhere
about the clearing effect--the reaction, and that sort of thing,
produced sometimes by a shock.

"See for yourself, old chap," I said gently. And I lifted out the
gossamer fabrics and again spread their crimson glory under the lamp.
Billings examined them eagerly, but just looked confounded.

"Don't understand it," he said, biting his nails. "Why, hang it, they
look smooth, too, as though never worn. And the rubies are all right,
too."

He rested his chin upon his hands and gloomed at the red sweep.

I caught a few sentences of his mumbling.

"By George, I'm half a mind to think there's something in the pajamas,"
he muttered--"something uncanny and disagreeable--something they're
alive with!"

I sprang up and back, overturning my chair.

"Good heavens--oh, I say!" I exclaimed in consternation, as I fixed my
glass on the garments. "It's your jail, then, you know--"

His hand checked my reach to the bell push.

"Don't be any more kinds of an ass than you can help, Dicky," he said
with rude irritability. "I'm talking about something else; and I haven't
got any jail, dammit! A station house isn't exactly a jail!"

He reached for another cigar and went off into a brown study, wrapping
himself in clouds of smoke. I thought that maybe if I kept quite still
he might come to himself all right. Meantime, for want of something to
do, and to keep from getting so devilish sleepy, I fell to turning over
the pajamas, admiring their beauty and daintiness and kind of
half-daringly wondering how _she_ would--

And suddenly I made a discovery; and I forgot about keeping still.

"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed excitedly. "Here's something inside the
collar--some sort of jolly writing!"

"What's that?" said Billings sharply. He jerked the garment from my hand
and held it in the light. All round the circle within the collar band
ran four or five darker red lines of queer little crisscross characters.

"Chinese laundry marks, you idiot," he commented carelessly. And then he
ducked his head closer with a quick intake of breath.

"By George, Dicky!" he cried, his voice tremulous with some excitement.
"Can't be that either; it's woven in--awfully fine, neat job, too. Now,
what do you suppose--"

He broke off wonderingly.




CHAPTER XVI

AN INSCRIPTION AND A MYSTERY


Billings rubbed his chin perplexedly.

"By jigger, now, I wonder what those hen tracks mean?" he uttered
musingly. Then he looked up at me with sudden animation in his face.

"Look here, Dicky," he exclaimed, "do you happen to know Doozenberry?"

I tried to remember. I shut one eye and studied the marks closely
through my glass, but had to shake my head at last.

"Sorry, old chap; don't seem to remember it at all if I ever did--not a
dashed glimmer of it left." I yawned. "Never tried to keep any of those
college things, you know."

Billings, who had been staring, uttered a rude comment.

"It's not a language, you cuckoo," he snapped; "it's a man. He's a
D.S.--distinguished scientist, you know. What's more, he's one of your
neighbors, right in this building."

"Don't know him," I said a little stiffly. "What's his club?"

Billings all but gnashed his teeth.

"Club, thunder!" he jerked out impatiently. "Why, man, he's a member of
all the great societies of the world--bodies whose rank and
exclusiveness put the blink on all the clubs you or I ever saw. Got a
string of letters after his name like a universal keyboard, and is the
main squeeze, the great scream, among all the scientific push over here
and in Europe. Lots of dough, but off his trolley with learning."

"And in this building?" I said wonderingly. "What's he like?"

For a moment I had a thought of Foxy Grandpa, but the janitor had said
he did not belong in the building. Besides, Billings' next words removed
that clue to the lost pajamas. By Jove, how I did long to ask his advice
about them! Once I was on the point of doing so--had devilish narrow
escape, in fact--but pulled up on the brink. So deuced hard to remember
that anything so delicate and sweet and fetching could be Billings'
sister, you know. I had been wondering for an hour whether I had better
say anything about my adventure up at Tarrytown--wondered if she would
like me to.

"Here, you moon calf, wake up!" Billings' coarse voice brought me back
to the present, and I had to blink and pretend I was listening. "I'm
telling you about Doozenberry! I say you surely must have seen him--you
couldn't miss him in a black cave. Queer-looking old skate, tall as a
street lamp and as thin; looks like a long cylinder of black
broadcloth. So dignified it hurts him."

I reflected.

"Awfully large head," continued Billings, elevating his hands some two
feet apart, "pear-shaped affair--big end up--bumps on it like halves of
grape fruit, porcupine eyebrows, and--"

"Oh, I know," I said, nodding eagerly; "and a little, shriveled--well,
kind of mashed sort of face, eyes beadlike and jolly small. I've got him
now! I've gone down with him in the elevator."

Billings nodded. "You've got him painted," he said drily. "That's the
professor; only, his eyes are anything but 'jolly.' I've ridden in the
elevator with him myself. Always manages to look like he was traveling
with a bad smell!"

"Devilish sensitive, I dare say."

Billings looked at me suspiciously, but I had got hold of the thing I
was trying to recollect and I went on quickly:

"By Jove, you know, I believe Jenkins knows his man--fellow who butlers,
and, I believe, cooks, for him. He and Jenkins belong to the same--how
do they call it?--same club of gentlemen's gentlemen."

Billings brought his fist down. "Let's have Jenkins in," he suggested.
And we did.

"I say, Jenkins," I began, "this Professor Doodle bug above us--"

"Doozenberry!" Billings sharply corrected.

"Well, some jolly rum thing about him, don't you know,
Jenkins--something you said his man told you--remember, eh?"

Jenkins' eyes batted a little.

He cleared his throat. "Why, yes, sir; he told me a lot of funny things
one night, sir. Don't suppose he would have done it, only him and me had
an evening off and we--we--"

Jenkins seemed to hesitate.

"And you went on a bat together," suggested Billings, rubbing his hands
pleasantly.

"It was, sir," Jenkins admitted, looking at me sadly. "Leastways, he
sort o' loosened up as he got--got--"

"Pickled," Billings helped smoothly.

"Quite so, sir; there's some is that way always: some is taken other
ways." Jenkins considered Billings moodily. "The power of the demon rum,
sir."

"Ah, true!" sighed Billings, lifting his eyes.

"This here chap, he got to going on and all but crying about his cursed
hard fate--them's his own words, sir--his cursed hard fate in having to
drink water all the time and eat cow feed--"

"Eat what?"

"I don't know, sir--that's what he called it--something the perfesser
has him fix out of cereals and nuts and sour milk. That's all they have,
sir; and they don't have no cooking, for the perfesser says it breaks
the celluloid--"

"Cellular," corrected Billings.

"Maybe so, sir," demurred Jenkins. "He _said_ celluloid--the celluloid
tissue papers, _he_ called it. And then his having no heat on all winter
and the windows kept open all the time and the snow piling up on his bed
at night kept him with colds all the year. And then, there was the
dampness--"

"_That's_ it, the dampness!" I exclaimed. "Tell him."

"Why, sir, he told me that every night he had to turn down the
perfesser's bed and go all over it with a two-gallon watering can--"

"Watering can!" gasped Billings.

"I'm telling you what he says, sir. Then he covers it all up again, and
in about a half-hour the perfesser turns the covers down; and if it's
what he calls 'fine'--that is, damp all over--he climbs in and sleeps
like a top."

"Cold-water bug, you know," I explained, but Billings shrugged his
shoulders.

"That's all right. Bug or not, he's the goods, all the same. Greatest
ever." He spoke with quiet conviction.

He deliberated a moment and turned to me.

"Tell you what, Dicky: I'm going up and ask him down. He's the one to
give us the right dope on these crazy letters--Eh, what you say,
Jenkins?"

"Beg pardon, sir; I was saying that the perfesser don't visit nobody;
and he never sees nobody but the big lit'ry and scientific sharps."

"Oh, he don't eh?" Billings snorted contemptuously. "Well, Jenkins, I
haven't been a prize fisherman in my time for nothing; I guess I know
how to select my 'fly.' I know what will fetch him: 'Mr. Lightnut's
compliments, and will he be pleased to honor him by passing upon an
Oriental curio of rare scientific interest?'--that sort of merry rot!
Why, you couldn't hold him back with a block and tackle. Oh, you needn't
worry; I'll do the proper curves all right." He turned toward the door.
"And, Jenkins, you come along and work me into the lodge."

"Oh, but dash it," I protested nervously, "he won't come--he'll be
insulted. Why, he'll know as soon as he sees you that you couldn't--"

I checked myself, recalling that the best thing after his recent
exhibition was to avoid every contradiction. And then, by Jove, I knew
that if he became ill and had to go to a hospital or somewhere, it would
be all off with his taking me up to Wolhurst next day.

Billings grinned confidently. "Watch me bring him down here," he said.

And by Jove, he did!




CHAPTER XVII

THE PROFESSOR


Billings ushered in the professor with a flourishing introduction.

The great man never spoke, but gave me the end of one finger, and
devilish grudgingly at that. He just came to anchor and stood there very
straight and stiff, ignoring the chairs thrust toward him from every
point. One hand was stuck in his stiff broadcloth bosom, with elbow
pointing outward, and his great topheavy head reared above us
impressively.

Billings rubbed his hands and bowed and smirked.

"Lovely weather we are having for summer, don't you think, Professor?
Jenkins, a chair for the professor."

He was already hedged in by chairs, but he remained standing. Dash it,
he was staring hard at me, his beady eyes boring like gimlets, don't you
know, and his little shriveled face all puckered up. By Jove, but he
looked sour! Looked like he would bite, or, as Billings said afterward,
would like to, if the human race wasn't poisonous.

"Wonderful stunt, science, isn't it, Professor?" gushed Billings, still
rubbing his hands and grinning like a wild what's-its-name. "Tracing
the orbits of the shooting stars or measuring the animals in the tiny
sewer drop. H'm! Fascinating pursuit! And how marvelous it must be to be
able to classify instantly any specimen of man's or nature's
handiwork--to--a--call the turn, so to speak--right off the bat, as it
were. H'm! We have here to-night--er--"

With his hand upon the pajamas, Billings paused, for the professor paid
no attention--did not even turn round, in fact. He just stood there
staring at me. Billings coughed suggestively.

"H'm! As I was saying, we have with us to-night a specimen," he resumed
a little louder, "I may say an example of something that, while
apparently commonplace and prosaic, is really a rare and unique--"

"Ha--specimen _genus cypripedium_," came in a squeaky bark from the
professor as he held me in his eye. "Linnaeus, 1753. Ha! _Species
acaule_--proper habitat, bogs. Very common--_very_ common, indeed."

He batted at me sourly and seemed disappointed. By Jove, I never felt so
devilish mortified in all my life! Never! I nearly dropped my monocle
and felt myself getting jolly red about the ears. This only seemed to
make it worse.

"Ha--_labellum_ somewhat pinker purple than normal," he proceeded. "H'm!
Unusually fresh specimen."

I looked appealingly at Billings. "Oh, I say, you know!" I exclaimed in
dismay.

Billings had been standing with his mouth agape, but now he made a
stride forward and touched the professor on the arm.

"That's Mr. Lightnut, Professor," he said blandly. "That's not _the_
specimen. H'm! Slight mistake."

Slowly the professor's big head turned on its axis and his little eyes
blinked at Billings nastily.

"I was referring to the orchid in the gentleman's coat," he observed
quietly, and turned back to me.

"Of course! Of _course_!" stammered Billings with eagerness. "My
mistake--one on me. _Stung!_" his lips pantomimed to me.

I addressed the professor hospitably: "Ah! won't you sit down,
Professor?"

He drew back, frowning. "Sit down, sir?" he questioned. And, by Jove, by
this time he showed his teeth. And devilish white, even teeth they were,
too, only they didn't fit.

"I never sit down, sir," he said stiffly; "never!"

"By Jove!" I explained.

"To be sure!" ejaculated Billings, looking extremely silly.

The professor appeared not ungratified with the sensation he had
produced and condescended to smile; that is, if you can call a creasing
and wrinkling like the cracked end of a hard-boiled egg a smile.

"You say, 'sit down,' sir," he said, addressing me. "I ask you, in
turn: Is not 'sitting down' recrudescence back to the primordial?"

So saying, he took a pinch at my shirt front and stepped back again
impressively. Still addressing me, he continued:

"It is such thoughtless indulgence of muscles growing obsolescent that
retards the evolution of our species, a species, sir, which I claim is
coessential in fundamental attributes with contemporaneous amphibia. Ha!
I surprise you, perhaps? Can you note in me a resemblance to a
batrachian?"

I didn't know. And, dash it, I was afraid to chance it. Tried my jolly
best to think what a batrachian was. It came to me like a flash that it
sounded like something in Italy.

"By Jove, you do, though, awfully!" I exclaimed, trying to brighten up
over it. "Doesn't he, Billings? Noticed a resemblance right off, don't
you know."

Billings went to nodding with an air of pleased surprise. Dash me if I
believed he knew what a batrachian was, though, any more than I did. But
Billings never admits anything.

"Sure," he said glibly. "I was half suspecting it; why, look at the
skin, you know--and features!"

"By Jove, yes!" I said, feeling encouraged. "Head, mouth, nose, eyes
and--" I was going to say "hair," but I remembered in time about the
wig.

The professor looked awfully pleased. He gave me a finger again.

"Such perspicacity--ah--is rare in one who looks so--"

He coughed slightly, then resumed:

"How gratifying, indeed, to meet another investigator! A student in
zoötomy, no doubt? Ah! Do not deny it; I divined it at once. A
delightful recreation, sir--a game, absorbing but elusive."

"Awfully jolly, you know," I agreed. "Ripping, I say!"

"Surest thing you know," chirped Billings. I wondered if it was anything
like polo.

And then, by Jove, thinking of polo sent me off again thinking of
Frances. Not that she was like polo, dash it, but I wished she could see
me play.

The professor took another pinch from my shirt front and favored me with
a rusty smile.

"Ah!" he said: "You must take time to look into a little monograph of
mine: _Man in Miniature; a Study of the Anthropology of the Frog_. You
regard the frog, of course?"

"Oh, I say, yes--fine, you know!" I answered, my mouth watering. By
Jove! I thought of the devilish good things they got up in season down
at the Café Grenouille.

"My dear sir!" The professor bowed to me. "I can not express to you how
gratifying to me this meeting is. I must get a list of your societies
and degrees. So few appreciate the frog; so many, even in the scientific
world, deride my published claim that congenious with man is the _rana
mugiens_ or American bullfrog."

By Jove! they were certainly congenial with me, all right.

"Awfully hard to swallow unless well done, don't you know," I demurred
thoughtfully.

"Truly incredible, sir!"

The professor took another pinch and held it in front of him.

"But I have allowed for that," he added, emphasizing with his other
hand. "My frog brochure meets that difficulty and whets the appetite of
the most mediocre."

"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed eagerly, "we must tell Marchand about
it over at the club." I was so devilish tired of his eternal _sauce
délicieuse_, his _sauce aigre_, his _sauce écossaise_ and the rest,
don't you know.

The professor inclined his head gravely.

"Ha, French! Then Monsieur Marchand has done something with the frog,
has he?" he questioned.

"Twenty-nine different stunts," Billings replied proudly. "I _know_
because I'm on the House Committee. Yes, _sir_, frogs are his specialty;
that man can get more out of a frog than any other living man."

The professor looked a little nettled.

"Oh, indeed!" he said rather coldly.

"I tell you, Professor, he's got 'em _all_ skinned!" Billings enthused.

The remark provoked a contemptuous sniff.

"Undoubtedly, that being the proper condition preliminary to comparative
anatomical study," said the professor loftily. "Then the physical
resemblance to a man becomes startling. I have identified every analogy
with man except the beautiful phenomenon of the beating of the frog
heart twenty-four hours after separation from the body--the living body,
sir. Experiment upon the living human specimen is necessary for
confirmation of the homologous structure of the two hearts, however.
This I have not done--not yet."

He spoke gloomily. I looked at Billings blankly but I found Billings was
looking at me the same way.

Every once in a while he had been lifting the pajamas. He would cough
and open his mouth, but just then the professor would start off again.
Once Billings, with an awfully savage expression, shook his fist at our
visitor's back and danced up and down upon the rug.

"The indifference, not to say prejudice, of the public upon the matter
of human vivisection is heartrending," went on the professor sadly.
"Sir, I have advertised in the 'help wanted' columns of the daily press,
and have interviewed scores without arousing one spark of ambition or
awakening one thrill of gratitude over the opportunity offered to assist
me in the investigation of scientific phenomena. I pleaded, sir; I
reproached; I even showed them the demonstration upon the frog. Did I
move them? Were they affected, do you think?"

I shook my head sympathetically. Seemed the safe thing to do.

"A lot of pikers, by George!" said Billings with an air of indignation.
"Must have been shameless!"

"Deuced indifferent," I ventured. "I should have been regularly cut up."

"Ah! of course you would," cried the professor, lifting another pinch.
"There speaks the intelligent devotee of science! But did they see it
that way? Not at all, sir; they were only indifferent and
ungrateful--they were rude and--ah--boisterous! One savage primate
assaulted me with his bare knuckles. A blow, gentlemen, a blow from the
boasted family of anthropina!"

"Beastly outrage, Professor," growled Billings. "Leave it to me; I know
a chap who's got a pull with the police commissioner, and I'll just tip
him off, by George. It's no matter what family they are or how much they
boasted. It'll be the hurry wagon and the cooler for them, eh, Dicky?"

He gestured to me wildly, nodding his head like a man with the
what's-it-name dance.

"Deuced good idea. Awful rotters, I say," was my comment.

The professor seemed affected by our sympathy. He withdrew from his
pocket a folded handkerchief, slowly opened it and pressed it lightly to
each eye. Then he carefully refolded and replaced it.

"Strange thing, the persistence of the primitive emotions," he said,
sniffing thoughtfully. "Singular how they affect the lachrymal
_apparati_. Peculiarly disagreeable taste, gentlemen, that of tears,
despite their simple elementary composition--ninety-nine and six-tenths
per cent. water, you remember, and the rest a modicum of chloride of
sodium, mucus, soda and phosphates. H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen, for
this digression, but to have sustained a stab under this very roof from
_genus homo_! It is indeed hard."

Here Jenkins, who had been lingering and busying himself about the
apartment, whispered to me from behind:

"It's that dago, sir, that delivers fruit every day."

"Eh?"

"That's the name. I see him going back every morning."

Jenkins moved off, nodding mysteriously, as I stared at him through my
glass. In his way, Billings was speaking words of comfort and all that
sort of thing to the professor.

"Never mind; the law will get 'em for you," he reassured him.

"Ah! that's just where you are in error," sighed our guest. "The law,
sir, will not get a single subject for me. In this age of unrestrained
liberty of all classes, the law lends no aid whatever to science. It is
not as it was in the glorious past when, under imperial patronage,
Vesalius, the great father of anatomy, was protected when by mistake his
scalpel cut the living heart of a Spanish grandee. Times worth while,
gentlemen, those great days of supreme imperialism! Ah! there was no
lack of material available if one stood in a little at court; one had
only to designate a selection and the thing was done. Gracious, gentle
times, my friends! Gone, alas, for ever! Such opportunities are
impossible under a republic."

The professor shook his head and reached for his handkerchief again. But
this time he only blew his nose.

"_Tempora mutantur_," he murmured regretfully, "Eh, gentlemen?"

"True," said Billings, pursing his lips. "Ah, how true!"

"By Jove, ought to be something done, you know," I declared.

"Out of millions, not a single human specimen available," groaned the
professor dismally. "And my instruments ready for over a year."

"Cheer up, sir; you'll have a go yet," Billings encouraged.

"Ah!" The professor's little eyes swept Billings' person critically.
"Perhaps you, sir, would like the privilege--"

Billings staggered back a step or two precipitately.

"Delighted; nothing'd give me greater pleasure, but so infernally busy,"
he explained hurriedly. "Just my confounded luck; unfortunately, got to
go to Egypt right away--probably to-morrow morning."

The professor sighed again in his disappointment.

"No matter; I shall find some one in time," he said grimly. "But I shall
abandon this foolish persuasion and cajolery as unworthy of the
scientist. Do we lower ourselves with such devices in securing a
butterfly or a grasshopper or a frog or any animate specimen except man?
Certainly not; we capture and etherize them."

He glanced about the room and beckoned us with his finger.

"I have lately had my eye upon the gas man," he said in a low tone. He
closed one eye impressively.

"Ah!" said Billings, his mouth dropping open wide.

"The individual who comes at intervals to take the quarters from the
slot meter. H'm, fine subject, gentlemen!"

"Great!" agreed Billings.

"Ripping idea," I tried as a reply.

The professor clasped his fingers tightly and rubbed his thumbs one over
the other. He brightened visibly.

"The party has to go down upon his knees and stoop behind the end of the
tub in the bath-room," he continued. "It was my thought that while in
that advantageous position the sudden, quick application of a Turkish
bath towel saturated in ether would--Eh? Do you follow me?"

"Devilish clever, you know," I said. I had already selected this for
reply for this time.

Billings failed to come up. He just stared hard, rolled his eyes and ran
his finger around under his collar.

The professor, in the act of taking another pinch from my shirt front,
paused with a little jerk. Then his great head shot forward in front of
his rigid neck--so suddenly, by Jove, that I reached out to try to catch
it, don't you know. He made just two strides to the table, ten feet
away, and pounced upon the pajamas with obviously trembling hands.

And behind his back Billings relapsed into an arm-chair and fanned
himself with a magazine.

His head dropped back, and upon his fat face was a what-you-call-it
smile of peace. He closed his eyes for an instant.

"Suffering Thomas cats! At last!" I heard him murmur.




CHAPTER XVIII

I RECEIVE A SHOCK


The professor fumblingly sought through his pockets, and producing a
pair of spectacles with phenomenally large lenses, adjusted them
shakily.

He bent over the pajamas eagerly.

"Impossible! And yet, it is, it is!" he muttered. "I would know the
weave among a thousand. It is hers undoubtedly, undoubtedly--the lost
silk of Si-Ling-Chi! How comes it here?"

He glared around rather wildly at each of us in turn. Without waiting
for a reply, he whisked back to the pajamas, and fishing out a thick
magnifying lens, scrutinized the garments closely. It seemed that he
would certainly nod his big head off its jolly hinge; and his quick side
glances at Billings and myself, together with his growling and
muttering, just reminded me of a dog with a bone, by Jove!

I stared at Billings and Billings stared at me, and then he slipped over
to the divan upon which I dropped, completely exhausted, dash it, from
standing so long.

"_Whose_ did he say?" he whispered.

"Celia something," I answered. "Dash it, I didn't catch her surname.
Oh, I say, you know, this is _awful_!"

I felt devilish mortified. Wondered what Frances might think, you know.
Billings drew in his lips and wagged his head ominously. He waved me
nearer.

"He's on," he breathed behind his hand; "he's looking for her laundry
mark. Now, wouldn't that feaze you?"

An exclamation of triumph from the professor, another glance at us, and
a hoarser and more prolonged mutter. I shifted uneasily. By Jove, I
didn't like it at all!

Billings looked at me in consternation. "I wouldn't be in your shoes,
Dicky," he whispered. "You'll be pinched for this, sure."

"Oh, I say, now! I tell you, a friend in China--"

Billings shrugged impatiently. "Just a plant, you chowder head," he
said, viewing me pityingly. "I tell you that's how all these
blackmailing schemes are worked. You ought to be more careful."

"But, dash it, I don't even know her, this Celia what's-her-name," I
protested miserably. If Frances' brother thought that way, what would
_she_ think?

"Um! Maybe you don't, but they'll expect you to say that, anyhow. You're
up against it, old chap; the professor here evidently knows her and he
knows her pajamas--relative, probably."

By Jove, I felt a little faint!

"It will be all over New York to-morrow," continued Billings gloomily.
"Your picture and hers will be in the extras."

Out of the professor's mutterings we caught a random sentence.

"Found, found again," we heard him say. "Hers beyond peradventure of a
doubt. I am _not_ mistaken."

Billings rose, and his beckoning finger summoned me to a corner of the
room.

"This is going to cost you a pot of money, Dicky," he said with a
serious air, "to say nothing of the scandal. My advice is, try buying
him off--best thing in the long run. I'll feel him for you."

Nodding solemnly to me he cleared his voice. "H'm! I say, Professor."

The professor, with his eye glued to the lens and the lens to the silk,
turned slowly about.

"H'm!" began Billings. "The--h'm--articles you have there--you recognize
where they are from--eh?"

"Of course," he snapped, without looking up.

"H'm! And whose did I understand you to say--I--er--did not catch her
name."

His glance uplifted and scoured us sourly.

"Si-Ling-Chi. Did you think I did not know? I recognized at sight her
wonderful disappearing weave." He bent again with his lens. "Marvelous,
indeed, after all these years," he muttered. "So long, so long!
Incredible preservation!"

Billings placed his finger against his nose, rolled his eyes upward and
emitted the faintest of whistles. He caught my arm sharply.

"Say, how old are you, Dicky?" he whispered excitedly.

"I--er--twenty-seven, I think, old chap," I replied hesitatingly.

Billings noiselessly slapped his leg. His face brightened.

"Been of age six years," he calculated to himself. "By George, maybe you
can prove an alibi!"

He coughed again at the absorbed figure stooping over the table.

"Ah, Professor--h'm--how long now would you say it might be since--well,
she you mention--how long a time since she last saw--er--what you have
there--eh?"

"How long?" repeated the professor absently. Then he moved, but his hand
only, and he flipped it, don't you know, as one does to banish a fly or
a dashed mosquito--that sort of thing, by Jove!

"Can't you figure it out yourself?" he questioned irritably. "You
remember chronology gives Hwang-Si's reign as in the twenty-sixth
century before Christ; and of course, that of Si-Ling-Chi, his empress,
would be the same."

Billings subsided limply into a chair.

"Great Thomas cats!" he gasped weakly.

"I think I divine the astute purpose of your inquiry," said the
professor, pausing to polish his glasses and favoring us with a wintry
smile. "It does not deceive me. You have in mind, sir, the erroneous
chronology that places Si-Ling-Chi thirteen centuries earlier. Ha! Is
not my suspicion correct?"

"Regular bull's-eye!" responded Billings. "I mean," he added hastily,
"what's the use of denying it?"

"Twenty-six centuries before the Christian era is the best we can give
Si-Ling-Chi," said the professor, carefully affixing his glasses and
falling once more upon the pajamas.

"By Jove!" I said dazedly. "Then the lady--er--I mean the party--she's
rather far back--er--isn't she, don't you know?"

The professor answered abstractedly:

"Two thousand years before Confucius; twenty-four hundred and
twenty-nine years before the building of the Great Wall," he murmured
mechanically.

Jove, but I was relieved! I looked inquiringly at Billings. He just sat
there kind of drooping, and shook his head. "I'm all in," he motioned
with his lips; and he wiped his forehead.

"Ah, gentlemen!" exclaimed the professor, coming back again, "what a
thing this little Chinese woman did for civilization when she gave the
world silk culture and invented the loom! No wonder the Chinese deified
her as a goddess."

"Goddess!" Billings swallowed hard. "And did these--h'm--garments belong
to the lady?"

The professor frowned at him in surprise. "Garments?"

"Them," said Billings in devilish questionable grammar, pointing to the
table. "They are pajamas, you know."

"Ha!" ejaculated the professor, holding them up. "So they are. You are
very observing, sir, very. Now, I had not noticed that at all; I was so
interested in the material itself--the wonderful silk of Si-Ling-Chi,
gentlemen. Ha! Indeed a rare privilege!"

By Jove! He stroked the stuff lightly, tenderly--as one likes to do a
little child's hair, don't you know.

"Beautiful, beautiful fabric," he sighed half to himself. "Only once
before have I seen a piece of it--but it was enough; I could never,
never forget." Something like a groan escaped him.

Billings angled his head toward me and tightly compressed one eye.

"H'm! Something in the petticoat line--eh, Professor?"

The professor's face wrinkled with the most matter-of-fact surprise.

"Petticoat?" he piped querulously. "You are forgetting that the
petticoat is a vestment unknown in China."

"Oh, in China! I was thinking of Paree," chuckled Billings, with a gay
air and another glance at me. Then his nerve withered under the
professor's blank stare, and he added hurriedly:

"H'm! So it was in China you saw the other piece of silk?"

The professor sighed profoundly. His reply came dreamily, regretfully:

"In the Purple Forbidden City; but I was not quick enough."

"Not quick enough?" Billings' echo was solicitous, sympathetic.

"It was among the palace treasures, the imperial properties--things
unhappily lost to the world and civilization. Ah, gentlemen, I erred; I
committed a fatal mistake; it has been a matter of deep mortification to
me often!" His head wagged somberly.

Billings looked a little embarrassed and rubbed his chin. "H'm!" he
coughed. "I guess we all slip a cog now and then. I know I've done
things myself I've been rather ash--"

"I erred, gentlemen," went on the professor, "in trusting most
unscientifically to the false principle that the hand is quicker than
the eye. It is _not_ true, for one of the guards saw me and my
carelessness cost me dearly: I not only lost the silk, but a singularly
beautiful gold thread altar cloth and a matchless amulet of _yu-chi
jade_, you know--white jade, at that, gentlemen, I assure you--a rare
bit of carving of the second century--real Khoton jade, too--no base
_fei-tsui_. But, alas! I lost them, my friends; they confiscated them,
and no doubt they are still there in their original places from which I
had--a--attached them. Do you wonder at my mortification? And then the
sacrifice of a whole year of planning, watching, bribing and perfecting
of preliminary disguise! All fruitless, fruitless!"

The professor lifted and dropped his palms in eloquent deprecation.

Billings' foot pressed mine. "Now, wouldn't that frost you?" he
whispered under his breath. Aloud he exclaimed indignantly:

"Beastly outrage; it must have been painful."

The professor started in the act of lifting the pajamas again.

"Pain? I did not speak of the physical consequences. They were too
terrible to discuss. I--"

The pajamas dropped from his hands and his eyes took on that
somewhere-else, far-off look, don't you know.

"Sort of 'third degree' work, Professor?" Billings prodded him.

The professor did not reply. His long, slim fingers swept his forehead
for an instant and he looked away again, his little eyes dilated.
Somehow it made one feel devilish uncomfortable, dash it!

Billings cocked his eye at me and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Then
he deliberately kicked at the tabouret and sent its brass fixture set
clattering noisily across the room.

The professor shivered, compressed his lips and blinked at us.

"Your pardon, gentlemen," he observed in some confusion. "Some one was
asking me--"

"What they did to you when you lift--I mean when you lost
the--er--loot."

He stared, shivered again and returned to the pajamas, muttering an
almost inaudible reply.

We caught a word or two: "Long imprisonment--much physical
pain--unspeakable things--do not like to think of it--I--"

His eyes closed. He folded his long, thin arms shudderingly. Billings
and I sat very still. The professor's voice came as from far away:

"I could tell you of some experiences in China and in Tibet," he
murmured. "Perhaps I--some other time--such horrible details, I--"

He leaned heavily upon the table with both hands. His head dropped
forward an instant.

"No matter _now_," he muttered. "It was long, long ago!"




CHAPTER XIX

THE SPELL OF THE PAJAMAS


"George!" breathed Billings, breaking a curious, tense silence.

The professor suddenly faced us, holding up the pajamas with a gesture
of inquiry.

"From a friend of Mr. Lightnut's in China," Billings explained.

Aside, he whispered hurriedly: "Don't say a word about the rubies! You
heard him--murder, grand larceny or arson--it's all one to the old
gazabe! Anybody can see that. He doesn't let little things like those
stand in the way of getting what he wants!" He frowned warningly.

"H'm! In the neck, Professor--I mean inside the collar," he said,
approaching the table--"there's some kind of freak lettering. Looks
foolish to me."

The professor looked perplexed.

"I mean, looks like it was done by some one who was batty--had wheels,
you know; probably some chink whose biscuit was drifty," floundered
Billings. "_You_ understand!"

The professor didn't. I knew that jolly well by the way he cocked his
head on one side, standing like a puzzled crow, don't you know.

"Ha! I fear I do not as I should," he said with an apologetic cough.
"Perhaps I do not intelligently and logically follow your deductions
because your premises are inscrutable until I have seen the lettering.
Ah!"

Out came glasses and lens again and he bent over the collar eagerly.

"H'm! The _Hwuyi_, or ideographic characters, rather than the
ideophonetic!" He looked up at Billings and myself inquiringly. "Ha! I
trust we start together in accord upon that conclusion, eh, gentlemen?"

Billings nodded emphatically.

"Surest thing you know," he declared firmly, and whispered to me
triumphantly. "Didn't I tell him it was idiotic?"

The professor's lips moved rapidly and his visage twisted into a
horrible frown.

"Why, why--a--what!" With mouth open, and gripping the pajamas tightly,
he glared at us each in turn.

"Oh, impossible!" he rasped harshly, seizing the lens and bending again.
"Incredible--poof--absurd--tut, tut, what nonsense!"

The glass swept the lines rapidly. Suddenly, with a cry, the professor
dropped the lens, a violent start almost lifting him from the floor.

"_Papauhegopoulos!_" he cried explosively, and whirled on us again.

Dash me, if I didn't fall back a step, his eyes rolled so wildly. But
Billings stood his ground, by Jove!

"I didn't quite catch--" he began hesitatingly, angling his bristly red
head forward and smiling pleasantly.

The professor seemed abashed of a sudden.

"H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen! Merely an expletive--h'm--a Greek word I
indulge in sometimes when--when excited; a weakness, I might say. H'm!"
He seized his lens again.

Billings' eyes yielded admiration.

"Great Scott, Dicky!" he whispered in my ear. "See what a thing
education is! Think of being able to swear _in Greek_--in Greek, Dicky!"
Billings' voice expressed awe. "Why, he's got an Erie Canal skipper
backed clear off the board, and if he wanted to turn loose, I'll bet he
could make a certain railway president I know look like a two-spot!"

At this point the professor struck his fist angrily upon the pajamas.
The face that he turned was unnaturally flushed and his chin quivered
excitedly.

"Ridiculous, I say! Poof!" He snapped his fingers. "Necromancy and
thaumaturgy transmitted in pajamas! Absurd!"

"Piffle!" said Billings emphatically. "Don't know what they are," he
whispered to me, "but I'll take a hundred-to-one shot on anything he
says. The professor's a corker!"

"By Jove!" I remarked. "Perhaps Professor Huckleberry won't mind telling
us--"

"What I think, gentlemen? What _could_ I think but what I am sure is
your own conclusion--though you have generously and considerately left
me to form my own opinion--namely, that the claim of supernatural
attributes of these garments is preposterous. Enchanted pajamas! Haunted
pajamas! Poof! Nursery lore; children's fairy tales! Ghosts, gentlemen?
Tut, tut--nonsense!"

He snorted indignantly.

"Ghosts!" faltered Billings.

"Oh, I say!" I rather gasped. Dash me if it didn't give me a turn,
rather!

The professor shrugged his shoulders.


"What other interpretation is admissible, gentlemen?" he questioned
somewhat peevishly, taking up the coat. "Here we have the royal insignia
of the cruel emperor, Keë, and we note that these garments were given
some one in his court by the alleged sorcerer, Fuh-keen. Perhaps it was
revenge--perhaps some court plot in which Fuh-keen, for reasons of his
own, was an active participant; it is of no importance, that part of it.
So much for the first line: but now we come--"

He paused to polish his spectacles.

"Tell me," he said more cheerfully, "do our free translations of the
ideographs so far agree in essentials--eh?"

"Like as two peas!" Billings declared with manifest enthusiasm.

The professor looked gratified and bowed.

"Of course, the rendition is entirely a free one," he remarked. "You
must not expect too much."

"Devilish handsome and clever of him!" I whispered to Billings, as the
professor proceeded to adjust his spectacles. "Dash it, I wish he'd let
me pay him, though."

"Forget it!" hissed Billings. "Didn't he just say it was free? He's no
cheap skate, I tell you."

The professor resumed:

"Now we come to the second line, or, more strictly speaking, column," he
said, straightening impressively. "Here we find the astonishing claim
made that there will be a change or metamorphosis of any kind of animal
life that these habiliments enshroud. Um!"

The great man breathed heavily and batted at us over his glasses.

"_Credat Judaeus apella_--eh, gentlemen?" And he winked knowingly.
Dashed if he didn't almost catch me swallowing a yawn, too! For I hadn't
any idea what he was talking about or driving at, and, by Jove, I _did_
know I was getting devilish sleepy.

The professor waved his glasses. "Did you ever read such a childish,
ridiculous, extravagant asseveration?" he demanded.

"Ass--eh? I should say so!" I worked this off indignantly.

"Tommyrot!" murmured Billings absently. He seemed thoughtful.

I was thoughtful, too--wondering, by Jove, whether the professor would
go soon, so we could turn in and get the earlier start to-morrow up the
river. But chiefly I was wondering wistfully if Frances would still be
angry with me.

"Moreover," broke in the professor's voice as he turned again to the
lettering, "to assert further that there will be a semblance--not
actual, gentlemen, mind you, but an optical illusion--taking the form of
some creature of the same kind that this silken tenement has previously
inclosed.

"In other words, gentlemen, if I were to don these garments, I might no
longer look like myself, but like some one else who had worn them upon
some previous occasion--perhaps last night--perhaps a thousand years
ago. Eh? Is that what you understand?"

He ducked again over the letters and came up, looking chagrined.

"Moreover, I am forced to confess, gentlemen, that I fail to find a
system--any rule governing these ridiculous transformations. The
hypothesis is, therefore, that the alleged materializations merely
follow the arbitrary caprice of the magic." He shook his head. "Well,
gentlemen, I--really, I must laugh!"

And he did! I hadn't caught the drift of what it was he thought he was
laughing at--I got the words, but I was too dashed sleepy to get the
sense. But I was awfully glad I understood this much--that what he was
attempting now _was_ a laugh. I never would have known it. It was more
like a shrieking squeak--rusty hinge, you know, that sort of thing.

"First-time-I've-laughed-in-twenty-years!" His shrill cackle ran a
treble scale that ended in high C. "I know you--you won't believe it!"

"Believe it?" said Billings drily, "I'd bet a purse on it." He whispered
to me: "Don't need any affidavit; it _shows_. Sounds like a country
wagon on a down grade, brake on, and shrieking like a banshee."

Behind me the door opened slightly. I turned to see Jenkins, looking
devilish chalky and a little wild-eyed. He lifted a coil of stout sash
cord questioningly.

"Eh? Why, no!" I whispered through the opening. "He's just _laughing_.
Don't be a jolly ass!" And I closed the door sharply.

The professor looked up from the pajamas, and folding his arms, eyed
Billings with a cunning leer.

"I think I see," he said, leveling his finger. "You have both
demonstrated how nonsensical is the assertion in this inscription.
Doubtless you desire an experiment upon my part to confirm your proof of
its absurdity. _Reductio ad absurdum_--eh, gentlemen?"

Billings looked at me, but I couldn't help him. Why, dash it, I didn't
even know yet what the inscription was. And, by Jove, I didn't know
what experiments he wanted to try with the pajamas, but I didn't care.
He could boil them, if he wanted to, if he would only let us get to bed.

So at random I just nodded eagerly.

"Excellent!" The professor's chuckle sounded like dice rattling in a
metal box. "An excellent jest upon this fellow, Fuh-keen, to furnish a
demonstration by twentieth-century scientists of the presumption of his
claims of necromancy and thaumaturgy. You have done so--now I will do
so, in turn. Eh, gentlemen?"

I hadn't the ghost of an idea what he was talking about. Fact is, I was
thinking of my darling and wondering if she was asleep. By Jove, I
wished that _I_ was!

But a devilish queer look had come into Billings' face. He nodded,
gathered the pajamas into the professor's arms and patted him on the
shoulder in a way I thought offensively familiar.

"You've got it, Professor!" he said, grinning.

Then he whispered to me aside:

"Not a word, Dicky--great Scott!" But he needn't have said that, even if
I had been mind-reader enough to guess what word he meant. It was about
all I could do to get out a last word to the professor as he went out
the door:

"'Night!"




CHAPTER XX

BILLINGS RAMBLES


Ten minutes later I was almost wide awake, for Billings was talking over
long distance--and to _her_!

But I did not like the way he did it.

"Shut up, Francis!" he bellowed. "Now you listen to what I'm telling
you--and do _just_ as I tell you to, too--if you don't, I'll mash your
face when I come up there! You hear?"

And he swore at her--yes, by Jove, _swore_!

"Oh, here--I say now!" I remonstrated indignantly.

"It's all right, Dicky," and he waved his fat hand indifferently as he
hung up the receiver. "Francis wants to drive that car down for us in
the morning--Francis, now!" And his hands went out impressively.

And dash it, I _was_ impressed--I was delighted.

"By Jove!" I cried. "Fine!" For I knew by that that she had forgiven me.

"Fine!" snorted Billings. "You don't know what you're talking about!
Francis hasn't got sense enough to get a road engine ten feet without
smashing it, much less a car twenty-five miles."

"Oh, look here!" I growled protestingly, "I don't like to hear you
talking about--er--Frances that way."

Billings grunted and bit a cigar savagely without stopping to clip it.
He pulled fiercely at it a moment.

"Kind of you, old chap," he exclaimed, "but you don't know our family as
_I_ do. If Francis has got a headache _now_, I know that by morning--"

"Headache?" I cried in dismay.

He nodded. "So I understood over the 'phone--been getting at the
governor's private stock, I'd bet all I've got." He shook his head
gloomily. "No, sir; that car cost five thousand, and when you can't
trust people sober, how are you going to trust them drunk?"

I sighed as I remembered the half pint of whisky she had taken--but,
dash it, I didn't care! It somehow didn't seem to make any difference in
my loving her. The only thing important, really, in the matter of the
car was that she might hurt herself. Billings didn't seem to think of
that. And yet, by Jove, she _wanted_ to come! She _must_!

"See here," I said coaxingly, for Billings seemed to have gone off in a
moody, brown study, "you must remember, old chap, your sister has been
cooped up there in Radcliffe for months. Why not let her have the run
down to the city and back? It will do her good, you know."

"Of course," he said absently. "She's going to drive the car down."

"Eh--what say?" I was sure I had not heard aright.

"I say she's going to bring the car down--my chauffeur's sick, it
seems."

I didn't wonder at that, but I _did_ wonder at his sudden change.

"Then you're not afraid--"

"Afraid? I should say not! She can drive better than I can--better than
anybody in Westchester County!"

"I see--I see!" I said in a low voice. And I _did_ see, poor fellow! By
Jove, my spirits sank to zero.

"Yes, _there's_ somebody you can always rely on!" he enthused under his
changing mood. "Good thing in this blankety world there's _somebody_ you
can rely on--among women, I mean. There's a girl with a purpose in
life--yes, sir! Never dances, plays bridge, nor uses slang--no, sir! And
what's more, in this cursed age, she's one woman who can go through life
and say she never touched a cigarette or a cocktail."

"Of course--of course!" I agreed soothingly. By Jove, it was a devilish
sight better to have him talk this way about her. I wouldn't antagonize
anything he might say now. And I had turned his mind just by a simple
hint--the power of suggestion, you know. Just as I had myself forgotten
I was sleepy.

"Of course, you never have met my sister, have you?" he puffed. "I mean
the one that's been up at Radcliffe."

"Oh, _never_!" I said promptly.

"You will in the morning," said Billings, flicking his ash. "Not much to
look at--I mean not what you would call handsome--"

I interrupted. "Oh, but I say," I exclaimed unguardedly, "how can you
say that? I think she's just beautiful."

"Eh?" He stared so hard I was afraid I had got his mind off again.
"Thought you said you had never met her."

"No, no, I never did," I stammered. "Mistake, you know."

He went on musingly: "But I understand that her room-mate--who has come
home with her, by the way--is a peach. English girl, you know. They tell
me Francis is crazy about her beauty."

Dashed if I could see how she could be, for, by Jove, I had seen her
myself. It was the frump! Peach? She was a _fright_!

Here Billings' eyes hung on the ceiling as though he would bore through
it.

"Say, do you know"--he dropped his voice, still looking up--"I hope the
old gazabe up there won't get wise to those rubies. Awfully careless of
us--forgot all about them. By George, I've half a mind to go up there
and get the pajamas back."

"Oh, dash it, no!" I protested, for I was getting sleepy again. "It's
the silk the old fellow was interested in; he wants to examine it--try
some experiments--something. He'll never think of the jolly rubies, you
know."

Billings looked at me oddly. "That's so," he agreed. "Still, I know I
won't sleep, thinking about those rubies." Then he looked up at the
ceiling again and muttered: "Wonder if the old boy _will_ have any
visitors to-night?"

I yawned. I knew it wasn't likely--not with _him_!

Billings rose. "Well, I'll get along over to the club, old chap. Now
mind, the car will call for you about nine. Then you are to pick me
up--that is, unless I should come over here. And, oh, say, Dicky!" He
turned back from the door where Jenkins waited with his hat and cane.
"Speaking of pajamas--er--what do you think of black ones--eh?"

By Jove, I got red--could just feel it, you know!

"Ever see a suit of black silk pajamas?" Billings chuckled.

Now for it! "I--I--never did," I managed to get out.

"Never heard of any myself before," Billings gurgled. "But great idea,
don't you think? Good thing, traveling--Pullmans, hotels--that sort of
thing--eh? Just got them to-day--ordered two weeks ago."

By Jove, what a relief! I felt myself breathing again.

"Wish you would stay," I said, for I felt uneasy about him.

"Oh, no," carelessly; "all my traps are over there, you know." He
smiled. "To say nothing of the new pajamas."

Standing in the door, he looked upward again, twirling his cane. His
head shook dubiously.


"Could kick myself about those rubies," he grumbled. "Just half a mind
to go up there--" He shrugged. "Oh, well, good night, old chap; see you
in the morning."

I murmured some reply as I followed him without. Then I stood a moment
looking down the shaft after he had descended.

"Hope he'll be all right in the morning," I mused. "And hope his
infernal mood won't shift round again as to Frances!"




CHAPTER XXI

THE COLLAPSE OF BILLINGS


"Are you _sure_, Mr. Lightnut?"

I stood, cap in hand, one foot on the sidewalk before the Kahoka, the
other on the running-board of the car--a big double-tonneau red whale
sort of affair. This was as far as I had been admitted to the vehicle.

For the frump was sitting there behind the steering wheel, looking down
at me in a nasty, sidewise fashion. Ever have them do you that way?
Besides, I somehow felt that she had a feeling toward me as a man, an
unvoiced protest against my existence at all. It found expression in her
suspicious, sniffy manner. Dash it, I just hated that woman from the
start! I felt it was bad enough, her English clumsiness in getting the
introductions twisted as I advanced to meet the car, but now I was of
half a mind that she had done it purposely. Could see with half an eye
that she was determined to make trouble about yesterday.

"Haven't we met before, Mr. Lightnut?" she had asked.

But it struck me that Frances glanced at me with a kind of wistful
light in her lovely eyes, and I saw that the game was to lie like a
gentleman--that sort of thing, you know. And, by Jove, I was getting
kind of used to it now, anyhow--I mean since I had broken the ice last
night. Not hard at all, though, after a few goes--really!

So I stood out that I had never had the pleasure, you know--all that
sort of polite rot. And all the time felt like a jolly cad, too, meeting
a girl with that, when _she_ remembered! But, by Jove, it was worth
sacrificing the frump fifty times over just to see Frances' face
brighten and note her faint flush and smile as she looked at me. For,
dash it, I knew then I had done the right thing!

"Um!" grunted the frump, compressing her lips and looking at my darling.
"There's one good thing: the experience with Mr. Smith will teach
Francis a lesson!"

The cat! Nice sort of host!

But the dear girl just laughed--how I remembered that laugh!

"Poor Francis!" she said lightly. "Do you know," she added, "I believe I
can forgive a Harvard man almost anything, Mr. Lightnut."

By Jove! The angel! And before I knew what I was doing or thought about
the frump, I had stretched out a hand to her, looking her straight in
the eye and smiling. She hesitated an instant only, then laughed, and I
felt her little fingers just brush my palm--but it was enough.

She flushed a little shyly and addressed the frump.

"Are we going to keep Mr. Lightnut standing like this all day?" she
asked.

"Half on earth and half in heaven--like what's-his-name's coffin," I
suggested. Devilish good, that, don't you think? _She_ thought so, for
she opened the door herself as the frump turned, murmuring some silly
thing about China and the open door to America. What did China have to
do with it?

And it was just then that Jenkins bolted wildly from the building.

"Mr. Lightnut--quick, sir! Mr. Billings, sir!"

I thought of the telephone right off, but he just caught my arm. First
time ever knew Jenkins to take a liberty.

"Come quick, sir!" he exclaimed. "He's up-stairs and, oh, off his nut,
sir--_awful_!"

"By Jove!" I gasped. "Excuse me--will see--come right back and tell
you--I feared this last night." And I rushed to the elevator with
Jenkins.

"He's in them black pajamas he was talking about," said Jenkins
gloomily, "and he's run the perfesser off. Leastwise, he ain't there,
and his man can't get Mr. Billings to go. He came down for me, but I
couldn't do a thing with him, either."

I knew--I understood. It was the dwelling of his mind upon the rubies!
He had gone back in the night for them--in his sleep, for all I knew.
But I thought most likely awake, for recent experience with him showed
me that he didn't think anything of wandering around the neighborhood in
his pajamas.

The janitor's pale face met us at the landing.

"I've sent for the police, sir, and it would be a good idea, don't you
think, if you could get him away before they come. I don't want to get
Mr. Billings into no trouble."

"Good idea," I agreed. "We'll just rush him to the car--but, h'm!"

I suddenly remembered he was in pajamas. It might be all right to
Billings to wander around in public streets and vehicles in his night
things, but it certainly wouldn't do under the present circumstances.
_He_ might not care, but then, there were the feelings of the girls to
consider. And besides, dash it, I had some sort of idea it was against
the law.

I stood there in the corridor, puzzling.

"We must get his clothes," I said to Jenkins. "No, wait, _wait_--not
time! I want to get him away before the police get here.
Um--dressing-robe--bathrobe--can't you get something of that
sort--quick?"

Jenkins shook his head distractedly.

"Thought of that, sir--no use--nothing anywhere around here would
half-way meet on Mr. Billings."

Here the professor's man interposed.

"Please hurry, sir; he's going through the professor's papers and
things!" I dashed for the apartment, shouting to Jenkins to get a bundle
of rugs and blankets to the car.

Billings was standing by the window looking at a glass thermometer that
he had just withdrawn from his mouth.

"Um!" he grunted complacently. "Ninety-seven and a quarter--my usual
healthy subnormal temperature. Pulse sixty-five--respiration,
twenty-four and two-fifths--excellent, excellent! I am myself. Ha!" And
he whirled triumphantly.

"Ah!" he said, advancing eagerly and rubbing his hands. "It is you! You
have heard, then? Marvelous, isn't it--wholly incredible! But do you
know"--here he plucked at my shirt front, took a pinch, as it were, just
as he had seen the professor do--"I can not find any transmigration. The
materialization appears to be wholly optical."

"Never mind," I said anxiously, for I knew he was talking about the
rubies; "_we_ don't care." I smiled brightly. "Let's go down and see the
car--_nice_ car!" And I tried to get hold of his fat side, but missed
it.

"Car?" Billings looked puzzled. Then his face broke into a smile.
"_Carpe diem_--eh, am I not right? True, true! Whither you say." He
looked about on a table. "Um--my notes, now," he muttered; and he caught
up a small book and a pencil.

The professor's man protested: "Professor Doozenberry don't like--"

"Oh, dash it, let him have them!" I exclaimed, for Billings was already
chuckling happily and writing in the little blank book.

"Come on," I pleaded, catching a fold of the pajamas. "Wouldn't you like
to come get some clothes on?"

He drew back in alarm. "No, no--not yet--not until I complete my notes,"
was his crazy answer. "You know: _sublata causa, tollitur effectus_!"
And he looked as though he thought this would finish me.

"But your friend," he exclaimed suddenly, as he allowed me to throw a
blanket about his shoulders and we moved out of the door, "the gentleman
I met last night--Billings--is not that the name?"

I looked at him miserably as we entered the car to go down.

"Oh, I say, Billings, old chap," I protested earnestly, "don't you know
me?" I pointed to the little panel of mirror in the cage. "Don't you
know _you_ are Billings? Can't you _see_?"

His fat head pecked at the glass for an instant. Then he looked at me
with eager, batting eyes. He chuckled hoarsely, gurglingly, and out came
the note-book and pencil from his sleeve.

"Better and better," he muttered. "Now, if we could only go to _him_!"
He caught my arm. "In the interest of this investigation of scientific
phenomena, would he consider a call intrusive--could we not seek your
friend, Mr. Billings?"

"It's all right, you know," I gently reassured him. "Yes, we're going to
him--going right there. Just a little ride, you know."

By Jove, the way he cackled made my heart ache! I whispered to Jenkins
to run ahead and prepare the ladies. But the first thing we saw as the
cage hit the bottom was a woman--and, dash it, the frump from China!

She gave a little scream and fell on Billings' neck, almost bearing him
to the ground.

"Oh, Jacky, Jacky!" she sobbed.

By Jove, I almost fell myself! So _that_ was the way the wind lay! And I
had never even so much as suspected. _That_ was why he had raved so
about her beauty! Beauty! Poor old Jack! If I had been sad about him
before, it was a devilish sight worse now--

Worse? Why, dash it, she _kissed_ him!


And to see him standing there, kind of batting and rolling his eyes and
looking like a girl does when she's trying a strange piece of candy out
of the box--oh, it just broke me all up!

No wonder he was crazy! Why, dash it, he would _have_ to be crazy!

He was muttering to himself.

"Remarkable!" I heard. "Singularly sensate and exhilarating! Now, I
never would have thought--um!"

And then he very deliberately took her head between his hands
and--kissed her. Then he looked upward thoughtfully and did it
again--like a chicken drinks water--_you_ know!

And then while we--that is, Jenkins and I--were trying to urge him on,
out came the note-book again and he scribbled rapidly, muttering
audibly: "Labial osculation--extraordinary stimulation--sensatory
ganglia--mucous membrane--"

"Police!" I whispered brutally in the frump's ear. "Better let's get him
away!" And, by Jove, that woke her out of her trance! In two minutes she
had cajoled him to the car and we had him inside on the cushions. We
bunched blankets and rugs about him to hide the pajamas.

"Jacky, dear," gushed the Chinese freak, "wouldn't you like for me to
sit by you and hold your poor hand?"

It looked as if he would.

The frump turned to me. "Can you drive the car, Mr. Lightnut?"

_Could_ I? Well, I would show her! Especially as Frances had changed to
the front as she saw us bringing out Billings.

"Take the train--get Billings' things from the club," I called to
Jenkins. "Sharp, now! And here, unhook that number there on the
back--give it here!"

Jenkins hesitated. "I think there's a heavy fine, sir," he hinted.

I snapped my fingers at him and he jumped to obey.

"Worse things than a jolly fine," I said, looking at poor Billings
smiling crazily over the frump. I threw the number plate into the car.

And just in time!

Around the corner whirled a policeman--and, by Jove, no less than that
fat Irishman, O'Keefe! With him was the professor's man.

"Don't tell me," panted the officer; "I know my--"

And then he gave a shout and sprang for the car.

"It's that fellow that was prowling around the station house!" he
yelled. "Here, stop there!"

But I didn't want to. For one thing, we were a half-block away, and I
had badly coasted a towel supply wagon and scattered the wares of a
push-cart across three sidewalks.

My cap went flying as we skidded a corner, and I was devilish glad, for
the inertia threw Frances' head almost against mine and I felt the
tickling brush of a little hair wisp as it swept my nose.

Her eyes were dancing with excitement. She looked back, waving her hand
at the figure of O'Keefe trotting from around the corner, and her
laughter pealed joyously, deliciously in my ear.

"Oh, I think American men are great--are _wonderful_!" she cried,
striking her little hands together. "Especially Harvard men--and
especially--" She stopped with the faintest catch.

"By Jove!" I cried. "Do you _mean_ it?"

And for the briefest instant the hands were three; but her scream
brought me back to earth just in time to save the lives of a man and a
boy. Devilish ungrateful, too, for I could see the man, three blocks
behind, and still shaking his fist. The way with these pedestrians!

At Fifty-ninth Street we caromed with a hansom trotting too leisurely
across the plaza, and I listened for nearly a block to the remarks of a
bicycle cop before he dropped behind. What dashed me not a little was
Billings' indifference to the record I was making for his car--didn't
seem to care a jolly hang.

The frump was still hanging on him in a way to make you sick, and cooing
and going on in a nervous, half-hysterical way I never would have
thought her able to chirp up to. And Billings was holding her hand!

"Hello!" I called to him, just after we clipped Yonkers.

He looked up at me, smiling and nodding.

"Feel all right now, old man?" I inquired cheerily.

Billings looked at me hard, and then, dash it, he _winked_! And I began
to wonder, by Jove, if it was just plain drunk.




CHAPTER XXII

MY DARLING IS SLANDERED


Three miles south of Irvington, Billings jumped wildly in the air and
yelled for me to stop.

"A _coleopteran_!" he shrieked excitedly as I throttled down. "A
_coleopteran_ struck me in the eye--one of the _hydrophilidae_ family!"

And hurling aside rugs and blankets, he twisted open the door and in a
moment was in the road running back. It was then I went back to the
crazy theory, for it was an open stretch of road and there wasn't a soul
in sight. But it was so funny to see his fat figure waddling along there
in the pajamas and bedroom slippers that Frances and I just threw back
our heads and screamed. Couldn't help it, by Jove!

And the frump, jogging along behind, looked just as funny. I wasn't
alarmed, for I knew she could control him. And, dash it, she did it by
humoring him! For we saw her twist her veil about the fork of the stick
he extended to her, and both of them went to slapping wildly at the air
and the ground. Presently they both came waddling back, she with a
butterfly and he with a bug which he was craning at with a lens he had
fished from his sleeve somewhere. He was trying to do this and at the
same time hold together a great armful of gaudy weeds he had gathered.

Billings got in and then I helped her. "Awfully jolly good of you to
humor his crazy whims," I whispered gratefully.

"Crazy!" she ejaculated, one foot on the running-board. "Why, he's just
getting sane! He's been a born fool all his life! And now, Jacky, as you
were saying of the _antennae_--" And she flopped eagerly by him and
together they bent over the glass.

It was rum, but I was getting along so swimmingly with Frances that I
didn't much care what they did. Seemed to be only about a minute more
and we were clipping through the curves of the Wolhurst park--Frances
pointed the way--and had slowed down under the _porte-cochère_.

The frump whispered to the man who opened the door.

"As quietly as possible, Wilkes," she said, "and without his father
seeing him."

"The judge is away, miss," said the man. "He drove down to the village
with Senator Soakem, who had to catch a train back to Albany; but I'm
looking for him every--"

"Be quick, then," jerked the frump. "You know what to do."

"I guess I do, miss," answered the butler gloomily. "I've _had_ to do it
often enough--Perkins and me. A good cold souse--that's the thing--and
then bed. _I_ know!"

Billings waved his hand to the frump as he mounted the stairway inside.
And then, dash it, he kissed his fingers.

"_Vale!_" he chirped, leaning over the marble balustrade. "_Vale, sed
spero non semper!_ I will resume the discussion _in propria persona_."

And, by Jove, if she didn't come back at him quick as lightning, and
with his own gibberish, too:

"_Confido et conquiesco!_" she cooed, waving her handkerchief.

Oh, it was tragical, dash it--that was the word, tragical! And yet the
frump looked almost happy. And as for Frances, except for being amused,
her brother's condition didn't seem to trouble her spirit at all. But
then, dash it, I remembered she was used to him this way. She did not
even wait, but with a bright smile and a murmured word to me, left her
friend and myself to await Wilkes' report.

The frump kind of glared down the deserted vista of the fine old hall
and shrugged her shoulders.

"Everybody loafing, as usual," she muttered sourly, and she hurled her
coat at the carven back of a great cathedral chair--and missed it.

It was clear that her type scorned conventionalities and knew how to
make themselves thoroughly at home.

"I hope you'll be made comfortable here, Mr. Lightnut," she said,
peeling a glove with a jerk, "but I have my doubts."

And she gave a kind of hollow laugh.

I shifted distressfully. "Oh, really now," I began protestingly, but she
marched right over me:

"I can assure you that a guest _here_ earns a martyr's crown," she said,
lifting her eyebrows. Then she shook her head, her lips compressed.

I coughed. _Couldn't_ say the thing I _wanted_ to say, you know--seemed
too devilish rude. Just have to stand it when they talk that way.
Pugsley says best thing to do is to purse up your lips and bob your
head--you don't have to mean it.

So I just went through all this and threw in a shrug, too. Thought no
use having her mad and working against me with Frances. Catch the idea?
Simple thing, you know, just to play her with my _finesse_.

"Awfully tiresome, these country places," I said sympathetically. I
screwed my glass at a couple of footmen who came into view at the far
end of the hall, and who were whispering and chuckling about something.
"Things seem to be run a bit loose, don't you know--that's a fact. Don't
mind for myself, but fancy a girl might find it rather trying visiting
here."

By Jove, how she opened her eyes at me--surprised, I knew, at finding me
such a devilish keen observer. My sympathy touched her, too, for her
eyeballs shone moist of a sudden and I saw her lip tremble as she
stared. Then she swallowed hard and slapped her gloves sharply across
her palm.

"It's Francis that's to blame for that sort of thing," she rasped,
nodding down the hall.

"Frances?" I ejaculated in protest. "Oh, here, I _say_, now--"

"You don't _know_ Francis, Mr. Lightnut!" Her jaw grounded with a snap,
and what a look she gave me! "Wait till you do--you just wait!" And eyes
and hands lifted to the ceiling.

I coughed again.

The cat! And _this_ was my darling's friend!

But her claws raked on: "I tell you you just can't be familiar with
grooms and hail-fellow-well-met with footmen without demoralizing
them--and that's what Francis does." She jerked this out viciously, and
while I gasped, went on: "_You_ know very well, Mr. Lightnut, if you
play cards and drink and carouse with your men-servants until two or
three o'clock in the morning, you can't reasonably look for respect from
them." She breathed heavily. "The trouble is, Francis has no
self-respect--no _pride_!"

Her uplifted hands fumbled and jerked the hat from her tossing head.
"Sometimes," she breathed through her teeth, "when I think of Francis, I
feel like I'd like to--" The words died behind her teeth as she ground
them--yes, _ground_ them. She jabbed the pins into the hat savagely and
at random and tossed it after the coat. And this time she put the
ball--in a big Benares jar that stood against the wall.

But I was counting forty-four!

Ever try that when you were angry and wanted to insult somebody?
Preacher told us about it once at the old Harvard Union, and _I_ thought
it a devilish good idea. Gives you time, you know, to think up the
things to say that otherwise you would be turning over in your mind
afterward as the scathing, clever things you _might_ have said.

So, by the twenty-eighth count, I had her; and jamming my hands almost
through my pockets, I faced her with a withering frown.

"By Jove, if I were you, Miss--er--" Dash me if I hadn't forgotten her
name! "If you feel that way, _I_ don't see why the de--H'm! I mean why
do you stay on here and--er--_sacrifice_ yourself?" I drawled this in
the most devilish sarcastic way! "I'd pack my jolly trunk and get as far
away as I could."

I added earnestly--coaxingly: "And _stay_ away, you know!"

And I took a deep breath, for I expected to see her wilt or go straight
up in the air. I knew it was a toss-up for either.

Not she! She just twisted a sour smile at me.

"Ummh!" she grunted. "Perhaps you don't know that Francis has suggested
that to me several times--frankly and rudely--when I have complained.
That may surprise you."

It did not surprise me--not at all, by Jove! What _did_ surprise me was
that my Frances had ever allowed this jolly female barnacle to fasten on
her in this way. Remembered a remark of Jack Ellsworth's about some
bounder visiting at his house that he said "the old man couldn't pry
loose with a crowbar." Devilish coarse way to express it, I had thought;
but now I understood.

[Illustration]

The frump was _this_ sort! Poor Frances! Poor Frances!

I was just considering the advisability of tactfully trying to shame
this girl into taking the next train, or whatever it is, back to China,
when suddenly my devilish active mind hit right on the explanation of
her conduct! Bores me, you know, the way things come to me at times when
I am not looking for them at all. Still, this time, I was rather glad.
Might confound her and put her on the run if she knew that a shrewd,
eagle-eyed man of the world had penetrated her mask.

So I coughed significantly in lieu of using her dashed name, and lifted
my monocle so I could bore her sidewise through narrowed eyes.

"Dare say you've put up with Frances though for _Jack's_ sake!" I let
her have it coldly, deliberately. "Brother Jack has been a sort of
compensation--_that's_ it, eh?"

And I shot her a foxy wink!


That is, I _almost_ did--pulled up, though, just on the brink. By Jove,
gave me cold marrows for an instant, thinking how I might have
compromised myself, you know. Besides, I could spare her _that_--had
rubbed it in so devilish raw, anyhow. That is, you would have thought
so; for that sort of thing said to a normal Yankee girl would have
stirred her pride or unchained the jolly lightnings from her eyes--_you_
know!

But dashed if this imported freak didn't suddenly nod with a sort of
chokey snuffle and reach out her hand for mine.

"How you _do_ understand!" she crooned unblushingly, and she leaked a
big cold tear down upon my hand and let another splash my cuff--and
Jenkins hadn't come with my things yet, dash it! "I _do_ try to be
patient about Francis for Jacky's sake--he asked me to: and I do try not
to mind the way things are run, but oh, Mr. Lightnut, what this place
needs is a _head_!" She almost squeezed my hand, and blinked damply at
me out of her pasty face. "And then," she snuffled, "I do so want to
make a home for my father and my brothers. They have _never_ known what
it was to have a _home_--think of it!"

I didn't want to think of it--besides, I didn't believe it. I knew
people _have_ to have homes, dash it--it's the law. If they go in for
that sort of thing--not having homes, you know--they're arrested. Still,
in a rum country like China, it might be different, of course. However,
I didn't take time to give this much thought, for I was so devilish
floored--irritated, you know--at the girl's cold-blooded, brazen
effrontery.

By Jove, I wondered if I _could_ pink her!

I wasn't sure. I had gone at her in a cunning, subtle way: the hand of
steel in the glove of what's-its-name, you know; the curving, velvet
thrust of the needle rapier--all that sort of rot--and she had merely
given me back a Roland for my what's-its-name. I felt a bit dashed, you
know.

Idea seized me that perhaps, though, something more brutally direct
would--

"See here," I said, fixing my monocle sternly and folding my arms--for I
had got back my hand under pretense of fixing my part. "You don't mean
to say that Jack would ever ask _you_ to take charge here!"

Rather plain and direct, that, don't you think? Sort of heavy broadsword
stroke, you know. But she took it full and clean--never winced or turned
a hair. Just looked thoughtful.

"Yes," she said slowly. "Jacky says it'll have to come to that some
day--_some_ arrangement. Neither of us ever want to marry."

"Oh!"

And my monocle dropped!

Couldn't chirp another word, you know! Just stood there, round-mouthed
and staring blankly--kind of fascinated, too, dash it--and wondering
what particular freak cult _hers_ was. And I felt myself getting redder
and redder every second! Then the awful thought came to me that this
advanced and emancipated dowd had been the friend and companion of my
darling--that her poisonous influence had been felt for months; was
being exerted still. I wondered how she could look me in the face, but
she _wasn't_. No, she had switched her head around and was glaring at
the servants down the hall. So I just swayed there, trying to think, and
boring at the back of her head, till it came to me dully that her hair
didn't match her what-you-call-'ems, and my dashed brain just seized on
and clung to this like a drowning man does to a what-you-may-call-it.

"_Thom_-as!" the frump exploded.

One of the footmen who was doubled over, red-faced and writhing, in the
exercise of some pleasantry with his companion, straightened with an
aggrieved air. He ambled toward us.

"Some specimens that Mr. Billings gathered--plants and foliage; he left
them in the car," jerked the frump. "See they are cared for."

The man nodded indifferently and slouched away.

Her frown gloomed after him and her voice snapped at his laggard heels:

"And Flora--send Flora to me. Is she asleep somewhere?"

She faced me with an acid grimace and shrug.

"You see how it is here, Mr. Lightnut," she grumbled querulously; "but
_you_ understand!"

Understand! By Jove, yes--I thought I _did_! I could see that the fellow
was just sullen under the too free and easy assumptions of a guest from
whom little had been experienced in the way of an occasional douceur.
And dashed if I blamed him!

But I murmured some jolly rubbish, hoping every instant that Wilkes
would come and lead me away.

"That's the way with them all here, from the housekeeper down," she went
on gloomily. "They take advantage of the fact that the mistress of the
house is abroad and the master absorbed and busy." Her voice quickened
sharply: "Then do you think they care two pins about the authority of a
silly girl who has been allowed to grow up untrained and ignorant of the
first a b c of anything practical?"

I felt my face tingling.

"See here--Oh, dash it all!" I protested. "That's not _fair_, you know!"

"Fair?" She bit the word out of the air and just glared at me. "Why,
they know she's a _fool_!"

I opened my mouth two or three times; then swallowed helplessly and grew
red. Somehow, it came back to me--a time when I was a little boy and my
nurse had been so shocked when I said "shucks!" I remembered how that
night she read to me a tract about swear words and told me how when I
grew up to be a big man, I would have to choose whether I was ever going
to learn to swear or not. She said that if I didn't choose right, a day
would come when I would be--oh, _so_ sorry!

And now, dash it, the day had come and I knew that she was right! For I
_was_ sorry, by Jove!




CHAPTER XXIII

A MESSAGE AND A WARNING


"It's all right, miss," Wilkes reported; "at least, I hope so. Perkins
is with him--we've been trying to persuade him to have a bath and lie
down. But I don't know--"

He shook his head gloomily, then turned to me.

"If you will come with me, sir--" Then he added, and it seemed a
question: "You must have made a quick run, sir. Seems like only a few
minutes since we got Mr. Jack's 'phone message." His voice dropped:
"From the station house, you know."

"Eh--what's that?" I paused with my foot on the first tread of the
stairway. "Jack's 'phone message--from the station house?" I repeated
blankly. "What are you talking about?"

Wilkes coughed reproachfully. "Why, you know, sir, he told about being
arrested in front of the Kahoka Apartments. He mentioned that it was
about--h'm!" He stole a furtive backward glance at the frump, but she
was enjoying herself berating a fat girl she addressed as "Flora." He
looked at me eloquently and whispered: "About his--h'm--stealing some
black silk pajamas."

My monocle dropped, and I almost did myself.

"By Jove!" I gasped feebly.

"Yes, sir." Wilkes looked up at the paneled ceiling and stroked his
chin. "He mentioned that they found them--or _thought_ they found them
in the bag he had with him."

"But he's got them _on_, and they are his own," I managed to get out.

Wilkes' face lightened understandingly. "Oh-h, I _see_, sir," he said,
nodding with his jolly chin hanging; "so _that's_ how you got him
off--I was a-wondering!" He looked at me, his fishy old eyes twinkling
admiration. "Very neat, if I may say, sir--making, as it were, a sort of
alibi--_very_ neat, indeed! Of course, when they puts 'em on him, they
see for themselves they are his'n, and not any lady's what had been
stolen--Oh, _I_ see!"

Dash me, if _I_ did! The only thing I saw was that it must have been
Jenkins that had telephoned and the message had been twisted. What he
_had said_, of course, was that Billings had _almost_ been arrested. But
the police finding the pajamas in his bag--I did not like that. Could it
be that, after all, Billings _had_ found his sister's pajamas in the
guest-room and had quietly confiscated them? It looked devilishly,
ominously like it! Or perhaps he, himself, had recovered them from Foxy
Grandpa, and with more delicacy than I thought him capable of, had kept
the whole matter to himself. One thing only was certain: the sleuth
hounds of the law, stimulated by the extravagant reward I had offered
over the telephone, _had_ run down and recovered _her pajamas_. It was a
relief that they were out of his hands, anyhow--_I_ could get them
again, but _he_ couldn't. By Jove!

Alone in my room, I stood before the mirror, hands in pockets and
rocking on my toes--kind of smiling, you know--and thinking what a
daredevil, reckless thing it had been--clever, too, dash it--in getting
them away from old Jack, and right under his nose. By Jove, I felt a bit
proud about it--sort of exultation, don't you know--and I had just got
off a wink at myself, when Wilkes appeared again.

"Pardon, sir, for disturbing you, but Mr. Billings is acting so queer,
we are afraid to cross him; and he just insisted I take his message to
you at once."

"Message?" I repeated, sobering.

"Yes, sir--something about some pajamas--"

"Pajamas?" I faltered, and I dropped into a chair. "Oh!"

Wilkes looked grave. "Pajamas seem to be the thing with him this time,
sir--it's the queerest go! That's a _new_ one, _that_ is!" He shifted
contemplatively. "The last time it was lizards and the time before blue
dachshunds, but his main stand-by, so to speak, is piebald
rattlesnakes--them we're _used_ to; but this new turn, pajamas, gets
me!" He shook his head dubiously. "And he won't take his off--you can't
get him to; he just gets kinder peevish and goes off on the queerest
streak of freak talk you ever heard. Perkins tried to coax him to take
a bath, but he said he never had taken a bath in his life--and he
called Perkins something awful--some name about a yard long. It
squelched Perkins so that he--"

"But the _message_?" I suggested nervously.

"I was just a-coming to that, sir. He asks me if I knew whether you were
still on the place; and when I said you were, he says to me kinder
excited and impressive like: 'Well, you go to him at once--_at
once_--and tell him I'm on the trail of the mystery of those pajamas,
and I'll soon know as much about 'em as _he_ does. Just tell him
that--_he'll_ know what I mean.'"

"Oh!" I gasped shortly.

"Yes, sir," Wilkes nodded, "but that ain't quite all. He says: 'Tell Mr.
Lightnut that when I first saw those pajamas in his rooms--'" Wilkes
paused inquiringly. "Did you say something, sir?"

I had not--I had only groaned!

He went on, repeating as by rote: "'When I found and took them away, I
was curious and amused, but skeptical--firmly skeptical--of there being
any dark mystery about them. But now I know I let myself be deceived and
I mean to get at the bottom of the whole thing.'"

Wilkes seemed to kind of waver and fade before me, and then go out like
a candle. Then he came back into view and I heard his voice again:

"'And what's more, you tell him I say--'"

The butler hesitated and seemed embarrassed--his heavy jowls reddened a
little. He looked beyond me and coughed.

"Of course _you_ know, sir," he said, shifting uneasily, "Mr. Billings
ain't exactly himself, so to speak, so you mustn't mind. Fact is--if I
_may_ say so--he's got the most considerable case of jimmies I ever see
him with, so--"

"Oh, _go_ on!" I breathed miserably.

"Yes, sir--h'm!" Wilkes heaved distressfully, then drove doggedly ahead:
"Oh, well, sir, what he _says_ was that it was his duty, he thought, to
tell the family the truth about those pajamas, so that they would know
that the man they were harboring under their roof wasn't what he seemed
to be." His gaze bored higher over my head, his voice tapering off so
faintly I could hardly hear.

But I heard all right! Oh, yes, I got the full devilish force of it; but
I couldn't speak. My dry lips touched wordlessly and I hunched deep into
the hollow of the big leather rocker. I would have liked to get even
deeper, and I studied wistfully a tiny floor-crack under the radiator. I
thought I could make it if I were alone!

Wilkes coughed again. I winced--there was evidently more!

"Yes, sir," he murmured, as I cut a quick glance upward. "He _did_ say
further that if you weren't satisfied, though, and would prefer another
trial--"

"Eh?" I bounded out of the chair. "What's that? Oh, dash it, _yes_--I
would, by Jove!"

"Very good, sir." Wilkes looked relieved, himself. "In that
case, he said he was willing to experiment again--that was his
word--_experiment_. He said he wouldn't detain you here on _his_
account, but he would _have_ to ask you to stay another day or two while
he made his observations."

It was a devilish cold shoulder, but I had no choice. Fact was, by Jove,
I was so jolly glad for _that_ chance, and for being trusted again by
Billings, even in this half-hearted way, that I just ground my pride
under my heel--why, dash it, I would have ground anything under my heel
for _her_! I was as happy as a bird, and life was again one grand, sweet
what's-its-name.

"Tell him certainly, Wilkes, and thank him--don't forget to thank him."
And I believe I wrung his hand. "And--er--wait, Wilkes--couldn't you use
a tenner?" I checked him on the threshold. "Let's see--no, that's a
twenty--say, take _that_; take them both--_thank_ you, Wilkes!--and
there's a five, too. Oh, yes, you _must_ take it all--I have no use for
it, you know--never _would_ use those particular ones!"

And, by Jove, he took it--just made him, you know. These butlers are not
half bad fellows if you go at them right--I can _always_ manage them. He
sympathized with me--you could see that--dashed if the fellow wasn't
almost weeping as he closed the door.

And then I just flopped down upon a divan and lay there panting like a
what's-its-name--reaction, you know. So he _had_ known! He had known
when he let me come to Wolhurst, and had waited for the moment when he
would have me under his roof and be able utterly to confound me. This,
then, explained his mental condition, his relapse to drink again--his
madness on the subject of pajamas. It was _awful_! By Jove, as I lay
there thinking of his suspicions and diseased imaginings induced by his
monstrous folly of drink--the awful curse of drink--and of what it had
almost brought upon two innocent lives, I felt indignant--almost sick.
Lay there helpless, wishing Jenkins would come, and wondering if I
wasn't getting a bit feverish--mouth dry and craving moisture, you know.
But not a thing could I find in the room except a glass--and empty.
Carafe beside it, but nothing in it but water, you know, and a large,
round ball of ice. So just had to fall back on the couch and try not to
think of my throbbing, swollen tongue.

Mind got to wandering then, I think. Thought of Frances and how much I
loved her, and of cooling streams--fizzy and gurgling--and of amber
fountains, crested with sparkling, pearly sunbursts--_you_ know! I even
got to wondering if she really loved me--fact! And then came the
disquieting thought of how devilish disappointing and awful it _would_
be if Jenkins should forget a stock of my Egyptian Koroskos. What _was_
it she had told me that night about being engaged to another and wanting
to be free, now that she had met me--the darling! Then, dash me if I
could remember to save me whether Jenkins had or had not said something
to me that morning about packing my ashes-of-roses socks and ties--or
was it about my lilac silk underwear with the mauve fleur-de-lis?
Devilish annoying I couldn't remember. Of course it was this that was
making her so reticent and offish about any reference to the other
night--I mean it was this thing of being entangled with this other chap.
So jolly sensitive and high-minded, don't you know, she didn't want to
talk about _our_ future until she had dumped the other fellow in the
road--that was it.

Struck me suddenly that there was some jolly proverb thing about it:
something about the old love and the new--some dashed wise, old, musty
rot about _that_. What the deuce was it?

And luckily, just then Jenkins came!

And when he had laid out my things, and I found I was to wear a scarf of
Harvard crimson--the color _she_ admired--I was so devilish pleased and
grateful to Jenkins for the decision that I thought that now I would let
him have a try at the proverb.

"I say, Jenkins," I began carelessly, "there's some jolly saying or
proverb--eh, _you_ know?"

"Certainly, sir," responded Jenkins absently, for he was intensely
concentrated on the selection of a scarf-pin.

I went on: "It's about--oh, don't you know--about when you've tried
being engaged to one person and you don't like it, and you are thinking
of being engaged to another--something of that sort, dash it--oh, _you_
know!" And I wondered if it would be the sardonyx or the ruby, and hoped
it would be the ruby.

"Mm-m-m," murmured Jenkins, blinking thoughtfully. "Let's see, sir--it
ain't that one about the hair of the dog, is it?"

"Hair of the--Certainly _not_!" I exclaimed with indignation. "No, it's
some jolly saw about being off with the old and on with--" I stalled.

"Off and on," came quickly from Jenkins; then he went back to his jolly
pins.

"Maybe," I said, trying to think, "but there's something else about
being on with the new--or being on to the new--Oh, yes, the devilish
thing starts off: ''Tis well to be off'--um, off--Dash it, off _what_?
You catch the idea, don't you?"

"Certainly, sir." He tried the ruby and sardonyx in turn against the
silk and rejected both--_he_ took a garnet. It wouldn't have been _my_
taste, but then it wasn't my business, you know! His jolly old lips
moved as he repeated something to himself; he rolled his eyes to the
ceiling and cleared his throat--and _then_ I knew he had it!

"I don't seem to remember it, sir--not _precisely_--h'm--but could it be
this: ''Tis well to be off--'" He paused with finger on chin, rolling
his eyes upward.

"Oh, dash it, yes!" I said disgustedly. "Why, _I_ told you--"

He lifted his hand. "'Tis well to be off and on--'" And he stuck again,
dash it! Then his lips worked some more and his face cleared. "Oh,
_here_ it is, sir--_I've_ got it now! See if this ain't it:"

And he laid it off with his fingers the way a woman counts the words in
a telegram to keep from going over ten:

"'Tis-well-to-be-off-and-on-with-the-old-love,
but-don't-let-on-to-the-new'--_there you are, sir_!"

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, batting at him; and the brushes in my hands
paused and pulled hard on each side of my part. "Oh, I say!" And I had
him repeat it again.

The thing troubled me! Odd I had not more carefully noticed before the
wording of the jolly thing! But then of course my interest in it had not
been so dashed personal as now. Kept running in my head now and
disturbing me all the while Jenkins was busying himself about me. And
_then_, as if I didn't have quite enough already to try me, Jenkins at
the last moment chucked the crimson scarf altogether, and slipped
through my collar a Persian bat! By Jove, I was so dashed annoyed, I
took it from him to tie myself.

"Off and on with the old love!" It kept whispering itself in my ear till
I hardly knew what I was doing. _Could_ it be that she would--but, oh,
dash it, _no_! I knew she wouldn't! And yet another chap might come
along and she might find she would rather be engaged to _him_! Oh, but I
was sure _she_ was not so variable as that. Still a vague fear kept
recurring; a miserable, tiny, pricking doubt--the crumpled
what's-its-name in the bed of down, you know--that sort of thing!

What the deuce was the best thing to do?

"Pardon, sir," came in Jenkins' voice, and in the glass I saw his head
piking anxiously over my shoulder; "but _I_ think with them changeable
kind, the best thing to try for is a sudden, firm knot!"

"Eh?" I said, staring. And then I whirled upon him, seizing both his
hands.

"By Jove, Jenkins!" I exclaimed admiringly. "What a perfectly
out-and-out corking idea--a regular ripper, you know! How devilish
clever of you, dash it!"

"Certainly, sir!" Jenkins batted a little--always does when I notice
these little things--so modest, don't you know.

But I had the idea now, and I gripped it tight along with my monocle,
as, ten minutes later, I sauntered down the stairs.

I would speak to her father at once!




CHAPTER XXIV

I SPEAK TO HER FATHER


"So glad to see you here, my boy," the judge was saying. And his little
round face beamed at me across the library table. I had encountered him
in the hall just as I had descended to rejoin the girls in the
living-room. Forthwith, he elbowed me into the library.

"Know from Jack how glad you always are to escape girls," he remarked
cheerily as he produced cigars. "Don't blame you at all--in fact, do you
know it refreshes me to find--"

Don't know what dashed thing it refreshed him to find, for I never
caught it. For just then through the doorway there floated, from across
the hall, a bar of music--the laugh of the dearest girl in the world!

I strained for another bar.

"Hah!" ejaculated the judge, pausing with questioning uplift of cigar.
"The silly cackle of those girls--it disturbs you. Yes, it does--I can
see it--you _look_ disturbed." And, dash it, he insisted upon closing
the door. "You mustn't let _them_ bother you while you are here," he
urged pleasantly; "you must just go ahead and do the thing you _want_ to
do."

By Jove, there seemed little opportunity for it!

"Thanks awfully," I murmured feebly.

The judge proceeded genially: "Of course we all understand that you just
came up to Wolhurst to please Jack." Then his face clouded. "H'm! Sorry
to learn that he came home with another--" his eyes rolled through a
circle--"er--is not feeling just fit. It's too bad, for I wanted some
one to take you over the neighborhood--interesting landmarks, you know,
reminiscent of Major André and Washington Irving."

"Charmed, I'm sure," I chirped up. Jolly lie, though, for I wasn't
impressed; didn't know _who_ the other fellow was, but I had _seen_
Irving in London--scores of times. Not a patch on John Drew to _my_
thinking!

The judge was murmuring something apologetic:

"So I can't go with you, myself, you see--but I know you will
understand. Just so infernally tied up with preparation of rebuttal in
suit the attorney-general is bringing against one of my
corporations--most unreasonable thing you ever heard of!" The judge
crossed his legs with a fling of impatience and pulled savagely at his
cigar. "By George, Lightnut, we are getting to a pass with politics
where party organization is going to the dogs--don't you think so, eh?"

"Oh, dash it, yes--rotten, you know!" I worked off indignantly--her
father, don't you see! Sat wondering when I would get to see her--by
Jove, they would _have_ to let me see her at luncheon! I just caught
back in time to get the end of a sentence:

"Utter defiance of personal obligations!" His hands spread eloquently.
"Tell me what is the use of electing men to office, when they
time-servingly yield before the clamor of the cursed populistic and
revolutionary spirit of the times?" He was leaning toward me now, his
jolly face swelling with indignation, his fist beating upon his knee.
"What has become, Mr. Lightnut," he pounded, "of the time-honored
sanctity of the 'gentleman's agreement'--eh? Where now the _pact
conventa_?"

"Where?" I shrugged, and I let it go at that, pretending to be busied
with a match; for dash me if _I_ knew! Never had seen it even--in fact,
didn't care a jolly hang if I never did, don't you know.

He went on hammering: "Here I've got to go and stultify myself, arguing
against my own decision when I was on the bench!" He snorted. "It's
perfectly abominable, sir--outrageous!"

And the judge hurled his little body back into the chair and furiously
pumped himself into a cloud of smoke. He glared at me expectantly, and I
knew I had to come up.

"Beastly bad form, you know!" I tried, sending a great funnel upward and
frowning after it. Fact was, I never took any interest in political
questions--dashed bore, you know. Wondered if he would spring them much
when Frances and I were--

"Um--well, I should say so!" he grunted; and my jerk sent ashes all
over me. But I saw that he was just mollified because I agreed with him.
Best system, Pugsley says, is always to agree with _everybody_ in
politics--"humor 'em gently, just like children," were his exact words;
"you know it really _don't_ matter!"

"And now, let's see," resumed the judge, brightening. "I wonder who we
_can_ get to take you!" His fingers drummed together thoughtfully. "Um,
of course, there is Francis--" my heart took a jolly leap--"but Francis
is impossible--_quite_ impossible!"

"By Jove, no!" I ejaculated eagerly, and I came up in my chair like a
galvanized what's-its-name. "Just the thing--be delighted, you know."

He smiled grimly. "Natural _you_ should say that, but--" He expectorated
with deliberation, glowering at me as he did it. "_No_, sir!" His head
shook with decision. "Wouldn't do--I wouldn't think of trusting you with
Francis," he finished shortly.

"O!" Just a gasp, you know; and my jolly cheeks stung as from a dash of
fiery what's-its-name sauce. So _he_ knew about the pajamas, too!

I half rose from my chair.

"I--I assure you, sir--" I began stiffly.

His fussy shrug checked me. "No, no, we'll just have to wait till Jack
gets up. The only thing _I'm_ anxious about is the scenery and the view
points; and I just know if Francis went with you, you would never see
any of it."

By Jove, I thought that quite likely enough, but of course it was
devilish personal of him to say so. And dash seeing the scenery and view
points, anyway--who wanted to see _them_, if they could see _her_? I was
just going to suggest this, when he went on:

"The fact is--" He hesitated, then flicked his ashes with a sigh. "Oh,
well, since I've said as much as I have, I should go further, I suppose.
It's only fair not to leave you in the dark, especially as my daughter
was enthusiastically telling me just now"--puff--"that she already looks
on you as one of the family."

"By Jove, did she though?" I hitched to the front of the chair. "How
dev--I mean how--"

He nodded. "And so I feel justified in talking to you frankly--not that
I want to prejudice you against Francis, you understand, but just
because"--his head wagged soberly--"_Francis won't do!_" And he looked
at me steadily.

Something like a sharp pain struck through me. Again--and this time from
her own father! I just sat there kind of frozen, you know, except that I
could feel the smile slowly loosening in my face. He moved to a seat
nearer.

"I don't like to seem to be disparaging my own flesh and blood, Mr.
Lightnut," he proceeded gravely, "but the truth is Francis is the only
one of my children that gives me any anxiety."

"Oh!" I felt myself shrink together, my knees slanting away from him.
My dashed monocle hung limp.

He angled closer. "Jack's drinking is bad--that I admit, but
perhaps--h'm--he comes by it naturally; still Jack has never forgotten
that he is a gentleman--the son of a gentleman--and has never been what
you would call fast, but--" His chest lifted under a deep breath--"but
Francis--_whew_!"

"Fast--Frances?" It faltered tremulously from my lips; my cigar dropped
with a soft thud.

His eyes widened. "_Oh_, yes--frightfully!" And he tendered me another
cigar, and I had to light it--he made me! "Of course, the mistake was in
ever sending Francis away to school--not always a wise thing, Mr.
Lightnut, especially when the home life has been too cloistered. I think
the reaction was too much for one so green and inexperienced as Francis.
And extravagance--my!" He lifted his hands. "I thought Jack was bad
enough at Cambridge with a thousand-dollar apartment on the 'Gold
Coast,' as you call it--and, by George, you Harvard men have got the
right name for it!--but Francis beat that in one term's drain on me for
poker losses and--"

"Poker?" I moistened my lips. Then I brightened, for perhaps he meant
bridge--and _that_ was good form, for there was my Aunt Julia, who lived
by it--fact! But his head shook impatiently when I suggested that he
meant this.

"Bridge!" he exploded. "Why, Francis doesn't know bridge from casino!
_Poker_, I tell you, and faro--and all the rest. The plucking was done
nightly at a certain--er--club, the establishment of a gentleman by the
name of McGinty--'Spot' McGinty--oh, you _know_ the place, then?"

For I had gasped audibly. "Only--only by reputation," I responded
hastily.

"Um, dare say it has got 'reputation,' all right. I guess, too, there
are more crooked things than streets within a couple of miles of Harvard
Square, eh? Why, do you know, Francis and a couple of classmates were
caught in a raid there one night and lugged off to the station in a
patrol--I had to bail 'em out by wire. That's how _I_ know about the
place." And, discriminatingly, he selected a fresh cigar and lighted it.

"You--you don't mean they were really arrested?" I faltered.

He nodded grimly through a funnel of smoke. "How could they help being?
Why, dammit, they were too drunk to get away!" He settled in his seat
with a scowl. "I can tell you it was all I could do to stave off
expulsion!"

My jolly head spun. By Jove, Radcliffe girls must have moved on some
since my day! Then they were coldly intellectual--went in strong for the
earnest life, you know--the serious purpose existence--all that sort of
thing. All of us looked on them with more or less awe--that is, except
Smithers; he tried some intimate flirtations, one morning with a bunch
in the Botanic Gardens and got stung. _He_ said they were "prunes."

But _Frances_--and "Spot" McGinty's! Surely I had not heard aright.

I faced him earnestly. "I--er--Judge Billings, do I understand you--that
is, it can't be that you are speaking of--er--Frances?" I stammered
incredulously. "I mean _your_ Frances--surely you are not!"

"I just am!" His jaw set with a snap. "Just who I'm talking about and
nobody else, young man! I mean, _my_ Francis--Francis Leslie
Billings--who else could I mean?" He almost groaned. "Oh, you don't
_know_ Francis!"

Dash it, what they all chorused at me! They seemed pretty positive about
it, too, and I was jolly miserable; but looking back now, I somehow
think of that moment as being the point where I reached the parting of
the what-you-call-'ems. Didn't know what to think, but knew I had to
make up my mind right then and there--and for _always_, don't you know.
Knew, of course, that it was just pure _luck_ that Frances cared for
me--realized jolly well I wasn't particularly clever and all that, you
know; but _she_ didn't seem to mind. It was then that it came to me all
of a sudden that the only dashed thing in all the world that I could
give _her_, that she didn't seem to have already from somebody,
was--well just _trust_.

And, by Jove, as soon as I got hold of this perfectly corking idea, I
knew I had it for life, and--well, nothing else mattered in all the
world, you know!

Meantime, her father was studying me a little oddly and smiling.

"I see you don't quite like what I say about Francis," he remarked,
puffing complacently.

I looked him straight in the eye. "Frankly, I don't, if you must know,"
I blurted. Then I screwed my monocle tight and straightened forward. "By
Jove, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you know!"

"Wh--what's that?--_Lightnut!_" He turned a beet color and grasped the
arms of his chair.

"Oh, I do." I stood up and he followed. "I think if that poor child had
had a little--er--forbearance and kindness--that sort of thing--oh, dash
it, I just think you've been infernally harsh always--yes, I do!"

"Well, I'll be--" He swallowed it, neck forward, and stood panting a
bit. "_Harsh_, eh?" he jerked at me. "Um!" He stood there, his feet
braced apart, his white brows beetling at the floor. "Harsh!" He cocked
his head on one side, thrusting out his heavy under-lip. Then came a
sniff and a grunt, and oh, he looked black!

I was feeling devilish pale--you can, you know--and a little trembly
from excitement. Wasn't quite sure what I had said, but knew jolly well
I must have meant it, whatever it was. Knew, of course, that in another
minute it would be his come-back and he would simply slay me. He would
look at me coldly through his glasses, bow with dignity, and leave the
room.

And then--

I wondered if Jenkins had a time-table!

And just then came a quick breath, and I caught a murmur: "I wonder now
if, after all, that is true! By George, they say children and--" The
mutter trailed off. "Here, here, my boy--sit down," he exclaimed
suddenly; and he made me.

"I want to thank you, Lightnut," he said impressively. "It may be that
you are right. Perhaps the better course would be gently to reason with
Francis."

"Oh, Judge, I am sure of it," I urged feelingly.

"Well, well, my boy--we'll see." He patted me on the knee. "I'm going to
try your way--by George, I'll do it to-night!" His eyes seemed to hold
me with a more kindly and personal interest. "Do you know I can't tell
you how glad I am that you find so much in Francis to like; indeed, I am
_delighted_." Still studying me attentively, he musingly reached for a
fresh light. "In point of fact, Lightnut, I am free to say I hope the
intimacy begun between you two will grow closer. It would be a
thundering good thing for Francis and a great comfort to me."

And, by Jove, he smiled at me--a devilish pleasant smile!

I sat up straight, uncrossed my legs and tried it over the other way.
Awfully helpful dodge, you know, when you are under some mental
agitation.

He was looking at me through his lashes as he drew the flame to his
cigar, and I knew that now was the time for me to speak. He _expected_
it--had deliberately given me an opening, and a prime one, and now--was
waiting! Of course he couldn't know that I was so dashed
inexperienced--unpractised, you know--in speaking to a girl's father
and that I didn't even know the correct forms and usages. An out-and-out
man of the world like Judge Billings just _couldn't_ understand this,
don't you know, and to have him suspect the truth--oh, it would have
been too mortifying--too _humiliating_, dash it!

So I just leaned forward and made a go:

"Thanks awfully; and--er--by the way--" Then I stuck, boggled wildly an
instant and went on: "That is to say, this intimacy, you know--has it
been too short to justify--" I gulped. "Er--would you be willing to
trust--" And I lost the dashed idea again, floundered a bit and took
another shy: "Oh, I say, you know, have I your permission to speak to
Frances--er--_you_ know?"

"You speak to Francis?"--he just leaped toward me--"Why, my _boy_!" And
he was wringing my arm with one hand while the other clasped my
shoulder. "My _de-e-ear_ boy--why, Lightnut!" By Jove, he almost gushed!
"You're not joking now, are you?" He peered anxiously into my face. "No,
by George, I believe you really mean it!" And he went to pumping like
mad. "How awfully good of you--_self-sacrificing_ is the word! Are you
quite sure you don't mind?"

"_Mind?_" By Jove, I think I looked what I felt at such a dashed silly
question.

"Well! well! _well!_ My dear young friend!" And oh, he went on in the
most disgusting way--why, dash it, you would have thought I was doing
him some favor! I guessed, though, that it was the usual custom, but it
seemed rum--for _I_ should have thought that in giving your daughter
away, you put the thanks up to the other fellow. But Pugsley says the
rule varies--quite often varies! Anyhow, I felt so gratified that I had
taken the honorable course and spoken to her father--understand so many
do not at all, you know. As it was, it gave me quite a comfortable glow
of pride, and I reflected how much better it always is to follow the
wise dictates of your what's-its-name!

"By Jove!" I thought, as I nodded and smiled back, "I wonder what he
would say if he knew that Frances and I are _already_ engaged!"




CHAPTER XXV

THE FAMILY BLACK SHEEP


Presently I got in a word:

"Then, Judge, I have your permission to speak to Frances?"

"Permission?" He lifted his hands and eyes. "You certainly have, my
boy--don't I make it clear? Why, I'm simply delighted--and grateful--oh,
so _grateful_ to you!"

And, by Jove, he meant it--there was no mistaking his fervency! But it
made me feel like a silly ass, you know. Custom or no custom, it just
made me a bit nifty to think _her_ father would speak this way. Might be
good form, but it appeared rotten taste--lots of things seem that way,
dash it! Suggested this to Pugsley once, but he was so devilish shocked
couldn't eat his luncheon--wasn't able to fetch a dashed word for four
hours!

"Why, Lightnut," he dropped to a chair, leaning forward, with shining
eyes, "you can't possibly know what this means just at this time! Why,
if you hadn't offered to speak to Francis, it's not likely that any one
else _ever_ would!"

"Judge!" I ejaculated, shocked.

"Who would want to?" And he grimaced horribly.

"Oh, I say now!" I protested warmly.

"My boy, I tell you I know--you _don't_!" He lifted his hand eloquently,
deflecting the corners of his mouth--oh, such a way! "No, siree, I tell
you there's not another living man would dare chance it!" He threw
himself backward, puffing his cheeks at me and walling his eyes
frightfully. "In fact, hereabouts--where Francis is known, there have
been two men--only just two--who ever had the temerity to do it."

"Oh!" I commented. Wondered if one of these was the other chap she was
engaged to.

He proceeded impressively: "One of these, my dear sir, was our rector--a
most charming and venerable old man, now nearly eighty-three and
partially paralyzed and deaf; lives a sweet, patient life all alone, you
know, with no one in the world to care for him. _Well_, sir," he
stiffened dramatically, leveling one finger at me, "do you think that
Francis would even listen to him?"

Did I? Well, dash it, _did_ I?

But I tried to mumble something polite.

"And then--" he puffed as he relighted his cigar, "there's Jack's
chauffeur, you know."

"Eh, Jack's--_what's_ that?" I gripped the arms of my chair.

"Yes," he nodded, "Jack's chauffeur. Oh, I was _so_ disappointed at the
result of his effort!" The old gentleman slipped back in his chair with
a sigh. "Francis just swore at him, you know!"

"By Jove!" I managed to get out--and yet, somehow, I was devilish
pleased about it.

"You see?" And he spread out his hands. "Absolutely no sense of
appreciation, you observe; and it had seemed such a splendid chance! You
see they had been so intimate--oh, are still, for that matter."

I caught my breath. "In--intimate!" I stammered. "You don't mean Frances
and this chauffeur?"

"_Oh_, yes," carelessly, "Scoggins is all right; very superior young man
for his position--fond of Francis, you know, and I really think has
great influence." He puffed complacently an instant. "Fact is, they are
always together when Francis is home"--puff--"motoring, boating, or else
off somewhere camping together."

"Wha-at--what's that--not _camping_?" I looked at him aghast. "Oh, come
now, Judge--really you don't mean _that_, do you--not camping together?"

I spoke excitedly, but he just stared at me with an expression of blank
surprise.

"Eh? Why, certainly, my dear boy--for weeks at a time--and why not?" His
shift manifested some impatience. "Pshaw, Lightnut," he growled,
flicking his ash, "what's the odds--why be so particular? _I_ don't
mind!" He jammed his hands into his trousers pockets till it seemed he
would go through them. "I tell you, I'm glad I'm democratic!"

"Oh!" I uttered, seeing a light.

So _that_ was it! Well, in any case, I knew now that I was a republican,
by Jove! Never did know before what I was and it was a devilish relief
to find out. Half made up my mind, then and there, I would vote next
election--never had, you know; few of our set ever did. Pugsley, for
one, held it to be doubtful form.

"Bright, self-made young man," I caught as I came back. By Jove, he was
still talking about that beastly chauffeur! "Such fine morals, you
know."

"Oh, dash it, _yes_!" And I think this must have been when I broke the
corner out of a filling.

"That was why I was so sorry he failed with Francis," he continued
regretfully, "but _you_ may succeed better--oh, I don't know but what it
will do just as well!"

"Thanks--er--awfully!" I murmured weakly.

"Oh, I think so--_oh_, yes!" He bobbed his head as though he were quite
resigned to it--then went on thoughtfully:

"And anyhow, if Francis finds _you_ are in deadly earnest, why it--" His
voice dropped off musingly: "Well, I believe _that_ would make it
easier--oh, lots easier for Scoggins."

I blinked a little with my free eye.

Wasn't sure, you know, but somehow it seemed to me a rum thing to
say--almost offensive, dash it! But then, for that matter, everything
was rum of late--so _that_ counted for nothing. Fact was, it just seemed
to me like there was something in the air--everybody seemed so
queer--well, jolly muddled, I should call it! Idea had been gradually
coming to me that I was the only one who appeared to have any clear
understanding of things; and somehow the realization just made me
devilish nervous--the responsibility, don't you know!

And just then the judge looked suddenly at his watch, muttered
something, and hitched up to the table strewn with papers. He bent over
these with a frown, coughed oddly, glanced at me--and bent again with a
mutter. Of course, I saw he was annoyed over sudden consciousness of the
break he had made, and was striving to cover his embarrassment.

And, by Jove, it seemed to me he _ought_ to _feel_ embarrassed, for the
very rummest thing yet was this crazy infatuation for this infernal
chauffeur. It was pitiful--oh, disgusting, if you ask _me_--and the more
so because it was something she did not share. I _knew_ she didn't, you
know! No, it was plain enough, dash it, that between her father and this
mucker of a chauffeur, my poor darling was being crowded to the
what's-its-name. _This_ was what she had meant--had hinted at--and, by
Jove, I was ready to wager anything on it; eager to put up all I was
worth, you know!

Didn't know, dash it, how much I _was_ worth Went down in Wall Street
one day and asked old Morley, my man of affairs, but forgot what he
said. Never could remember afterward whether it was one million or ten
and always hated to ask again.

Truth was he had stared at me so and seemed so oddly surprised, I just
worked off some jolly apologetic rubbish and got out. Pugsley thought I
must have violated some rotten, silly law of commercial ethics--that
sort of thing, you know; declared that his attorney had had the dashed
impertinence once to ask him about some investments, so he got another
man and gave him a power of what's-its-name. Never was bothered now, he
said, by checks or reports or any boring distractions of that sort;
_this_ man just kept him supplied with money, and once in a while he
scrawled his name on something--all he had to do. Devilish simple, you
see, but then Pugsley is so ingenious, so--oh, _clever_, you know.

"H'm!" coughed the judge, "Er--h'm!" And I stopped snapping the cover of
my cigarette case, thinking he was about to say something, but he did
not look up. By Jove, how I wished that he were _really_ busy, so I
might slip out without danger of offending him! But I was afraid to
chance it--did so want to rub him right, don't you know, on account of
Frances. Knew he was still feeling a bit plucked over his slip of the
tongue--showed plainly he was bothered, you know; you could tell by his
puckered brows and the way he kept clearing his throat. So meantime,
knowing that the best thing was to appear unconscious--just give him
time, you know--I fell carelessly to jingling some coins in my pocket
and tapping my foot upon the hardwood, as I hummed a devilish neat
little air from _La Juive_ that I almost knew by heart:

                    "_Qu'il, l'apprenne de vous?
    Hélas, je vous implore, bénissez mon époux_--"

By Jove, I had just got that far, when he shook his head with a kind of
snort, threw down his pen, and got to his feet, facing me with a sickly
smile.

"I am going to ask you to excuse me, my dear Lightnut"--came right out
frankly like that, you know! "But the fact is--" he opened and shut his
watch--nervously, you know--"I have just realized how--"

But I stopped him--couldn't let him go on, of course: "Oh, I say, you
know! Not another word, my _dear_ Judge--I don't care a jolly hang, dash
it!" And to show him, I smiled, got out a cigarette, and perched kind of
sidewise on the edge of the table. "I'm not a bit sensitive, don't you
know!"

He stared. "Indeed, no--I see you are not!" he said warmly.

I drew a light a bit airily. "Of course," I puffed, "what _you_ are
thinking of is your servant, but I"--I shot him a light wink--"I've got
to think a little about my own affair, don't you--"

"_Lightnut!_" He caught me by the arms, his face reddened almost black.
"My _dear_ boy, ten thousand pardons! I assure you--"

"That's just all right, Judge," I reassured him soothingly. "All I am
holding out for is just to be sure we understand each other about
Frances--that I may be sure I have your authority--"

"So _that's_ it!" He relaxed with a deep breath. Then quietly: "My dear
boy, you make me ashamed of myself--I _was_ rude!" And he shook my hand.
"Yes, indeed--you just go right ahead; almost anything is preferable to
the vicious life Francis is leading--_anything_!" He sighed and his
voice dropped confidentially: "I'm afraid even you would be discouraged
if I told you of one or two disgraceful episodes at Cambridge--I _know_
Scoggins would be!"

Scoggins again--always Scoggins! _Dash_ Scoggins! Of course he would be
discouraged, but I should not. Devilish simple reason, you
know--wouldn't believe it, by Jove!

"Yes, I learned all about it from my daughter when she came home," he
proceeded gloomily; "she feels that in a measure it has marred Miss
Kirkland's visit with her."

Miss Kirkland! I recalled now that that was the name of the girl from
China. By Jove, _I_ preferred to think of her as the frump!

"For Miss Kirkland heard the gossip at Cambridge--seems she has friends
there among the residents; and they were kind enough to tell her of
these things of the year before as soon as they noticed how devoted
Francis was to her. At least this is what my daughter suspects--Miss
Kirkland is not the kind to talk, you know."

Oh, _wasn't_ she! By Jove, I wondered what he would think if he had
heard our conversation in the hall! But it wasn't for _me_ to tell him
he was warming a what's-its-name to his bosom, so I just mumbled a
reply.

"Nevertheless," he shrugged, "it is easy to see that she can't stand the
sight of Francis." He shook his head dismally. "Charming girl, Mr.
Lightnut--a rare and perfect type of the English beauty at her best."

Oh, _was_ she! Not if I knew anything about it, and I had seen three
seasons in London. By Jove, I was so terribly shocked I could just feel
it in my face!

He seemed surprised. "Don't you think so?" he insisted.

"Well, I rather _don't_, you know!" It just blurted out of itself. "Oh,
I say--now, you're not really in earnest?" And I screwed my glass so
hard in my embarrassment, I hurt my eye--"You know she's a freak! Why,
dash it--" I pulled up, for after all, she was a fellow guest.

He stared, jammed his hands deep in his pockets and bent toward me.
"Now, look here, my boy, _do_ you mean to say you don't think Miss
Kirkland a beautiful and winning girl?"--I guess he did see I meant it,
for he slowly emitted an expressive whistle--"Well, you _are_ hopeless
then--utterly hopeless!" and dash it, he just groaned!

"But now, my dear young friend," he went on, and with a glance at the
littered table, "I want you to go out and get some fresh air before the
bloom of the morning is past--if you go out this way, you will avoid
encountering those girls"--his hand gently but firmly urged me. "It has
been just abominably selfish of me to have kept you stuffed in here; I
know I have bored you to death with all this about the family black
sheep--I feel that now I must let you escape."

"Oh, no--not at all!" I protested hastily and pulling back. Never would
do to let him feel that way, you know! "Really, 'pon honor now, thing I
want to do is just stay here and talk to you about Frances."

"Oh, _damn_ Fran--h'm--I mean Francis will keep!" He caught himself
hastily before the stare of my glass, fumbling with the papers to cover
his confusion. Then he clapped me on the shoulder, pressing me again
toward the door. "You just go ahead and do whatever you can with
Francis, yourself--you are my only hope! Or wait, and I'll prepare the
way for you to-night--that's it; that's best!"--and he went to nodding.
Then he halted my progress and eyed me intently. "There's another
thing:"--his voice dropped--"I think it's just as well Jack shouldn't
know of your intentions about Francis; he would never approve--oh,
_never_!"

He pursed his lips to just a thin curve as he shook his head positively.
His eyes bored at me over his glasses. I moistened my lips.

"I know _he_ feels you have already concerned yourself enough about
Francis," he said deliberately. "The other night at your rooms--er,
_you_ know! Jack is so particular in those little things. Ah, there's a
model for you!"

He looked upward and wagged his head as he laid his hand upon the
door-knob. By Jove, how I wished he would open it, for the room was
getting devilish warm!

"And as for things I deplore in Francis--oh, no, never any of that with
Jack!"--he stiffened proudly--"he may, as I have said, imbibe a little
too much, now and then; but when it comes to _scandal_--well, I have yet
to hear the slightest breath--"

A sharp knock cut in abruptly.

"Come in!" And he swung the door open.




CHAPTER XXVI

FLORA


In the doorway stood the butler, looking rather pale. With him was a
woman--one of the angular sort, you know, and whom I judged to be the
housekeeper.

_She_ wasn't pale! No, by Jove, she was fiery red, even to her hair; and
red, too, the anvil sparks that were snapping from her eyes. She marched
right in, followed by Wilkes, who carefully closed the door--then stood
discreetly aloof. Pantingly, she faced the judge, who was staring at her
in amazement.

"Why, Miss Warfield," he began, "what--"

"Judge Billings!" she exploded. And, by Jove, it was like the blast from
a mighty bellows! "It's about Mr. Jack!"

The judge's face flushed apprehensively.

"Jack--about Jack?" he repeated. "Is he--er--worse?"

"_Worse?_" The bellows inflated sharply. "Worse is just it--it's the
shock of finding out things I never even suspected!" She whirled upon
the butler.

"_You_ tell him!" she snapped sharply.

Wilkes shivered as under a sudden cold what's-its-name. He looked at her
protestingly, his eye cutting a suggestive hint of my presence.

"Oh, go on!"--the judge nodded to him with some impatience. "It's all
right--Mr. Lightnut is like one of us. Out with it, whatever it is!"

"Yes, sir." Wilkes coughed acquiescence, but shot a glance,
half-reproachful, half-apprehensive, at the housekeeper.

She straightened, bristlingly.

"_Are_ you going to tell him or not--and you a man?--or will you put it
on me?" And she began to inflate again.

The poor devil took the plunge:

"The fact is, sir, Mr. Jack--h'm!"--he fidgeted through an instant's
misery, then let it come: "It's about him and one of the maids, sir!"

"_Wh-a-a-t?_"

In the jaw-twisting roar, the judge all but lost his plate--his hand
came up just in time to save it. As for Wilkes, his portly figure seemed
to lift, balloon-like, from the floor for an instant, then settled back.

"It's Flora, sir," he uttered faintly.

"Flora?"

"Yes, sir." And Wilkes quailed before the judge's brows.

Miss Warfield sniffed.

The judge scowled at her. "Are you both crazy?" he demanded. "What is
all this--what is it you have to tell? Say it all in a word--one or the
other of you--and have done!" His jaw settled with a snap.

The housekeeper assumed an injured air. "Well, sir," she said with a
toss, "it just means this: either I or Flora go at the end of this
week--I give notice now!"

"All right," said the judge with a sort of bland ugliness, "then that's
settled--_you_ go! That is, unless you can get right down to brass tacks
this instant and say what you've got to say."

And, black as thunder, the old boy laid his hand upon the knob. By Jove,
it did me good to see her crinkle up!

"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Judge," she said, her voice modifying to a
snuffling twang, "but this has so upset my nerves--Mr. Jack, of all
men!" She fumbled for her handkerchief before she found it--Pugsley says
they _always_ do! "Such talk, sir! I _never_--" With a kind of gurgle,
she suddenly flopped into the nearest chair and lay there, wriggling
like a jolly auto freshly cranked, and snorting like its horn.

The judge, with head down, glared at her through his glasses.

"Talk? _That's_ nothing!"--he uttered a snort. "Why, hang it, madam,
he's _drunk_! Can't you have a little Christian charity and put yourself
in his place? The poor boy doesn't know what he's saying!"

She looked up with a head jerk. "That's _it_--that's just what makes it
so awful," she sniveled; "the revelations, you know!"

"Revelations, fiddlesticks!" champed the judge, and he jerked his head
to the butler. "Go on, Wilkes! What has Mr. Billings said that's queerer
than--er--usual?"

Wilkes rubbed his neck. "Well, sir, to _my_ thinking, it ain't so much
what he's said that's queer--leastwise, it wasn't at first--as what he
_did_. First off, there was his stalling about taking his bath, which
was _on_-usual, for Perkins says, generally speaking, he's right keen
for it--more 'specially when he's rather well soused--" Wilkes coughed.
"H'm! I beg your pardon, sir! Anyhow, this time he wouldn't have it at
all; _no_, sir! He was very excited about it--kinder out of his head, I
may say--and buttonholed me and Perkins and went on a whole lot about
only the under man being--no, let me see, _lower_ man was what he
said--the lower man being an--an"--Wilkes' brows contracted as he
strained for it--"an am--h'm--funny I can't remember that word--a
am_fibby_ something--Well, anyhow, he said he never used water
_ex_-ternally."

A penetrating moan from the handkerchief startled us.

"Then--then he never uses it at--_at all_!" came in a muffled wail.

The judge's teeth glittered at her in one united row; then he jerked a
nod to Wilkes. "Go on!" he commanded shortly.

But the butler was glooming sullenly at the fiery head that topped the
bundle of black.

"He does, too!" he protested. "'Cause Perkins asked him if he wouldn't
like some ice-water and he said he would if he might drink it his own
way."

"His own way--um--well?"

"And when Perkins brought it, he poured it down his neck--yes, sir,
every drop--"

The master cut in irritably: "His neck--confound it, man, tell your
story without slang--or leave off! You know I detest--"

"_Not_ slang, sir"--hastily--"his neck--outside, I mean--"

"Oh, stuff!"--incredulously--"mean to tell me--"

"He _did_, sir--I'll swear it!" The butler was respectful, but firm as
the rock of what's-its-name. "Perkins tried to stop him and says: 'Wait
a minute, Mr. Jack--you're making a mistake--it ain't 'round there; it's
in _front_, you know!' And he turned on Perkins with a scowl something
awful, and his langwige--well, it wasn't langwige at _all_! Perkins
thought--" He paused.

"Um!" The judge had drawn me aside. "The alienation is unusual--what do
you think, Lightnut?"--he looked grave--"it doesn't seem the ordinary
hiatus--the passing alcoholic dementia, you know--there seems in it
something hydrophobic--eh?"

"Oh, dash it, yes--_that's_ all!" I said offhand--just took a chance,
don't you know!

"Um!" He blinked at me; then faced square about. "I guess I'd better go
up; perhaps when he sees me--"

He halted, leveling a stern glance at Wilkes.

"What the dev--what are you grinning about?" he rasped.

"I'm not, sir!" And the butler's hand came down, revealing a sobered
countenance. "I was just a-wondering if he would try to get you to put
on the pajamas--he did all the rest of us, even--" His eye angled
cautiously at the housekeeper, then batted at us significantly as her
red head wriggled deeper. "Fact is, I think he's kinder gone off about
pajamas--just as I told you, sir." His glance appealed to me. "Yes, sir,
when I took you his message--you know--and brought back yours, it was
even more so then."

I felt myself get devilish red, then pale, for the judge's eyes were on
me.


"Yes," he muttered, still looking at me, "he _was_ telling me something
the other day about some silk pajamas."

And then I knew he _knew_!

"Yes, sir," continued Wilkes, "when I got back with _your_ message, Mr.
Lightnut, he seemed to get more excited about them--about pajamas, I
mean. He talked to me and Perkins through the door crack and wanted one
of us to put 'em on--'in the interests of science,' _he_ called it--and
offered to pass 'em out."

"Poor fellow--_poor_ fellow!"--and the judge looked pitiful--"well, why
didn't you humor him?"

"I--I don't know, sir!" The butler looked embarrassed. "And, anyhow, it
was just then Mrs. Warfield came, and he tried to get--"

"Oo-o-o-o!" from the black bundle.

"And then--" Wilkes hesitated, looking uneasy.

"_Go_ on, man!"

The butler coughed faintly. "Well, sir, when she--h'm--refused--it was
then he asked for Flora. 'All right, then you bring me my Flora,' was
what he said, and he sounded irritated like. 'Beg pardon, sir?' says
Perkins, putting his head to the crack kinder inquiringly. 'My Flora,
man!' he comes back sharp; 'just find and bring my Flora--and some
_pins_;'--he seemed particular about the pins--'if I've got to stay
alone, I want something to divert me--I want my Flora!'" And the butler
mopped his forehead.

The bundle erected itself. "His '_wild_ Flora,' was what he said," Miss
Warfield corrected sharply; "he said he wanted to embrace--"

"Press," Wilkes corrected in turn.


She inflated with one drive of the piston. "If there's any difference,
_I_ don't know it!" came in a blow-out. And, dash me, if I believe she
_did_. She looked it, by Jove!

She faced the judge, who was leaning back against the table, looking
kind of punctured, don't you know. By Jove, it seemed to me he had grown
five years older in as many minutes!

This seemed to brighten her. "Wanted to _press_ his 'wild Flora'--his
very words!" her voice rasped.

My, but that woman looked vicious! She blew her nose, crossed her hands,
and propped herself on one foot with an air of ladylike resignation.

"I was so shocked you might have knocked me over with a feather, but I
managed to speak to him--I don't know how I ever did it!--and I said:
'You don't mean Flora, sir--_you_ can't treat Flora that way!' And if
you could have seen the way he flew to pieces! 'Why can't I?' he yelled
at me. 'Do you think I haven't done it before?' Exactly what he said and
I could hardly believe my ears; and then"--here she began to wabble and
the handkerchief came up--"then he--he called me a wo-woman!"

And, by Jove, she was off the road!

But it seemed to give the judge new interest in life! He just needed
some jolly thing, you know; and now he flared up sudden and went up in
the air like a freshly touched-off what's-its-name:

"A woman?" His cheeks blew out like little red balloons. "Well, dammit,
madam, what are you--_aren't_ you a woman?"--hands on hips he just
howled it at her--"what do you _think_ you are?"

For an instant she quailed before him like the stricken
what-you-call-it--but _only_ for an instant! Then her long neck coiled
back and her eyes glittered beady and snake-like; I heard a sort of
rattle in her throat, and then, of course, I knew she was going to
strike--and she did!

"Very good, Judge!" She sniffed it. "Still it's my duty to tell you--or
any one that asks me, for that matter--exactly what Mr. Jack said!" She
moistened her lips with the end of a red tongue, and clucked in a sad,
pitying sort of way. "Your son looked straight at me through the
door-crack and laughed in the most contemptuous way, and he said: 'You
just leave my Flora to me, woman! This time you're talking of something
you know nothing about and never did know--why, I've pressed Flora a
thousand times!'--yes, sir, just what he said!"--she whirled on
Wilkes--"you heard him say it, too!"

The butler's sullen eye-droop admitted it.

"Huh!" And she tossed her head back with a nasty smile.

By Jove, she had got the judge full and square--you could see it as he
stood there looking down, his face jolly gray and drawn and his
under-lip kind of dragging through his teeth. He was a gamey old boy,
but he had had a devilish hard knock where he lived you know--Jack!

"George!"--just a deep breath, you know--then he faced me. "You will
excuse me, Lightnut? I must see to this." And he walked out, followed
by Wilkes.

Somehow, dash it, it just bowled me over to see his gray hairs humbled
in this way to the what-you-call-it--he had such a devilish few of 'em
left, too, you know! So, before I knew it, I had walked right up to the
old mountain cat and took a hand myself.

"I say, you know!" I said, screwing my monocle down on her. "Too
devilish bad you've got yourself in such a pickle--"

"_Me_ in a pickle?" she snorted. "Huh!"--and her ropy neck went up
again, but I struck first:

"You've played smash, don't you know," I went on, tightening my glass.
"Awfully sorry--just wanted to give you a hint. You know this sort of
thing's against the law--something or other criminal--malicious libel or
malfeasance or--er--felonious assault or some dashed thing of that
sort"--her eyes began to widen--"Oh, yes," I drawled, "you're in for the
very deuce of a scrape unless you keep quiet!"

"Who says so?" she tried to bridle.

"_I_ do!" I said, boring her steadily. "Witness, you know! So is
Wilkes--both of us--to whatever dashed thing it is the judge decides
you've done--_I_ don't know, you know!"--I shrugged carelessly. "But
_he_ knows--he's a lawyer--and of course he'll explain it to Wilkes and
me as witnesses. That's what witnesses are for, don't you know! Better
go to your room and await arrest quietly."

"Oh!" She kind of caught her breath, turning green and dropping her
skinny hand upon a chair-back. And I was going on explaining to her,
when I looked up and there was Jenkins.

"Pardon, sir," he said, looking at me oddly, "but there's a caller
waiting, and he was so urgent and particular, I came--"

"Card!" I suggested, extending a couple of fingers.

Jenkins looked shocked and his arms remained rigidly down.

"Oh," I said, polishing my glass, "the gentleman--is he one of my--"

"It ain't a gentleman, sir,"--Jenkins got it out with difficulty; "it's
only just--er--a person!"

"Eh? Oh, I say, now, Jenkins!" I protested.

"A person from the--" Jenkins blinked. "In fact, a police person--" his
chin went up and he so far forgot himself as to indulge in a
sniff--"come to see you about--" his eyebrows angled a lofty protest at
the housekeeper's strained poise--"h'm--to see you about--_you_ know!"

I was dashed if I knew--but not so Miss Warfield! She gave a sudden gasp
and whirled herself in front of me, hands up and clasped like the other
woman in a jolly play you know.

"Oh, sir!" she tremuloed, "Please--_please_--"

"Eh?" I said in alarm and stepping back, for, dash it, _I_ didn't know
what she wanted; and for a moment I had an awful thought she wanted me
to--_you_ know! But the next second, I had her right.

"Um!" I said, tightening my lips. "Well, I'll see!" And she looked so
white--white as the driven what's-its-name, you know--that I felt my
devilish heart go out to her a bit. "All right," I added soothingly,
"you just go on about your duties and sit tight, you know, and I'll see
if I can--er--fix things!"

And, by Jove, I got past just in time to keep her from catching my hand
and wringing herself over it.

"What the deuce--" I began outside, as Jenkins steered me toward the
_porte-cochère_.

He looked warily at the footman waiting to serve us at the door--dashed
if he didn't almost lay his hand on my arm!

Then, behind his hand: "It's about the pajamas, sir!"

"Eh?" I gasped, falling back.

He stooped after me and his breath tickled my ear:

"_Hers_, sir! _You_ know, that night--h'm!"

"Oh!" I said faintly. And this time he _did_ catch my arm, and I was
devilish glad, by Jove!




CHAPTER XXVII

I RECOVER THE PAJAMAS


Outside, swinging his club and kicking his heel in the macadam, I found
a fat policeman--from New York, I knew by his helmet.

He turned and I saw--O'Keefe!

"Oh, there you are, sir!" And with a careless duck and a wave, he ambled
forward and placed in my hands a parcel.

"It's them, all right!" he said with a fat wink. "The black silk
pajamas--we got 'em, you see!"

"Jove!" I ejaculated, staring. Then suddenly I got the jolly idea full
and strong, you know, and I was just so dashed relieved and delighted, I
shook hands with him--fact!

"Oh, I say, Jenkins," I remarked, twisting my glass at him, "by Jove,
you know--eh?"

"Certainly, sir!" Jenkins admitted calmly. "I knew in a minute soon as
he told me!"

And, by Jove, I believed him! Had to, you know; it was only just one
instance of the devilish clever, intuitive way Jenkins had of boring
into things!

"Yes, sir,"--O'Keefe thoughtfully transferred a big wad to the other
cheek--"the captain gave me a little lay off so's I could bring 'em
up,"--he studied with interest the top of one of the pillars of the
_porte-cochère_ and shrugged lightly--"of course it wasn't just because
of the reward, though of course five hundred bucks is five hundred
bucks, but we thought you might like to have 'em--_thank you_, sir!" For
out of my folder I peeled five crisp centuries and laid them in his
palm.

This done, Jenkins glanced at me and turned suggestively toward the
entrance, but O'Keefe didn't make a move to go and no more did I. Fact
was, I had a devilish keen notion that the old cat up-stairs would be
watching for the policeman's departure through the grounds, and it came
to me that to play him a little longer wouldn't do any harm, but might
seal her jolly mouth the tighter.

O'Keefe thanked me again. "You're sure solid with the force, sir," he
assured, nodding earnestly. "Just remember my number and the name of
Captain Clutchem if any time in town you get rounded up in any of our
little--er, _you_ know!"--he dropped a cheerful wink at me and glanced
again at the bills. "Expect maybe you're anxious to know if Tim gets a
divy outer this," he proceeded; and I murmured some jolly something. Of
course, I _wasn't_ anxious, you know; fact is, I didn't care a
dash--didn't even remember who Tim was. "Yes, siree, he'll get ten of
this!" he finished impressively.

Meantime, he had been hunching himself up until now he succeeded in
wrenching from somewhere behind, a ragged and shiny old wallet, bulging
with worn and greasy papers. Within this, with a flourish, he laid the
bills.

Then he faced us with an air of increased cheerfulness.

"So much all for the velvet!" he remarked with another wink.

Of course it was of no importance to set him right about the material;
as for that, I didn't care a jolly hang if he thought they were made of
linoleum! But it gave me the idea of just peeking into a corner of the
parcel to satisfy myself that its contents were of filmy black silk--and
they were! I went no further; not for all the gold of what's-its-name
would I have profaned the package with further investigation.

"Why, sir, I don't think you need be worrying but what they're all
right," and the big policeman nodded confidently; "in fact there don't
seem to be no damage at all." He added meditatively: "Which is some
wonder, considering how we had to roughhouse Foxy Grandpa before we
softened him down in his cell th' other night." Here his cheeks swelled
and he sent a long sheaf of brown liquid at a grasshopper on the freshly
whitened door-stones--and got it, too, neatly missing the polished toe
of Jenkins' boot. "No, sir!"--emphatically--"I don't think you'll be
hearing any holler from your lady friend when she goes to--_eh_,
what?"--he stared at Jenkins blankly, for Jenkins had coughed--"Oh,
excuse _me_!"--and his big hand lifted apologetically to his mouth,
while his eyes rolled upward--"What I just meant was that I know they're
all to the good; I went _all_ over 'em!"

"_Oh!_" I muttered, turning rather faint. I dropped the parcel and
Jenkins picked it up. By Jove, for a moment, he came jolly near having
to pick _me_ up, too, I was that shocked and prostrated!

"The _only_ thing--the only thing 'tall--" I had to wait through an
agonizing moment while his tongue gathered his wad and peremptorily
expelled it, this time enlivening the cold, dead monotony of the
silver-gray macadam--"was her--I mean, was the pants."

"Ah-h!" I put my hand to my side and looked at Jenkins appealingly, but
he was looking upward, his eyes kind of cast over like a bird's; the
lines of his mouth tightened to an arch--and I knew _he_ was suffering
too! But we _must_ try to stand it a little longer--just a little!

Through one instant's respite, Mr. O'Keefe's thick tongue was occupied
in striving to glutenize the entire wrapper of a much crushed and
awfully yellow cigar. Then he separated a mouthful from the end and
proceeded:

"I did notice with the legs, that one of 'em was just a bit longer than
th' other, and down at the station we was a wondering if--" the brown
head of a crackling match drew a long, curving what-you-call-it on the
smooth, creamy masonry, and he paused to pump madly, striving to coax a
draft of smoke--"we wondered if 'twas--_intentional_." His eyes sought
mine inquiringly.

By Jove, I was so frozen with horror, I couldn't even look away; just
stood there, helpless, you know, and my jolly monocle hanging
limp--couldn't have lifted it to have saved my life! Felt my senses just
growing numb all the while with the tragedy of the thing, the thought of
this coarse monster's touch defiling the dainty, gossamer garment that
had shrouded her sacred what-you-call-'ems--Oh, it was _awful_!

I wondered if the housekeeper could be looking still from her tower,
like Sister Anne in the story of what's-his-name! Perhaps, if I could, I
would better hold out just--

"Um--_ah_, I see! It _was_, then!"--he was nodding with an air of
understanding, pausing in the struggle with the refractory cigar. His
strained and reddened face shaped sympathetically. "Just what _I_
thought and told 'em!" he bobbed with satisfaction. "_I_ understand! You
ain't got no need to make no explanations to _me_!" and he lifted his
fat hand to restrain them. "Why, my wife's own grandmother had a club
foot, and to her last day if she got outer bed on the wrong side, the
old lady went a header sure--oh, _I_ know!"

A moment before, I had thought that so far as the mere matter of jolly
misery was concerned, I had sounded the what-you-call-'ems; but now my
dashed brain was reeling before this new horror! To think that _she_
was--but oh, it _couldn't_ be! And yet I recalled ominously that most of
the time I had known her, I had only seen her sitting!

Mr. O'Keefe exerted another vain pull at his cigar and poised it
critically between his fingers. "I don't seem to make this piece of rope
go," he remarked superfluously, and I thought his eye cut me with a mild
reproach. There was nothing to do but take the hint and produce my
case--just refilled in my room with Paloma perfectos. Oh, I was glad to
do it, by Jove!--glad to be able to do it--devilish glad to find I
wasn't paralyzed, I mean!

"Why, thanks!" His fingers only removed three cigars, but I just made
him take them all! _Oh_, yes, for the case would _have_ to be refilled
now, anyhow, dash it!

"By-y-y the way, sir!" He closed one eye at me as he carved from the
brown beauty a half inch of its waxy bud, using for the maltreatment a
perfectly brutal knife. "That was a neat try-on you made to copper the
thief yourself--a _leetle_ irregular, you know," he shook his head at
me, "but, as the captain said, we ain't making no point about that with
a gent like _you_--sure not!"--another imperishable line of beauty upon
the receptive stone, and he puffed inhalations of joy. "But I knew you
never could get him to the station--I could have told you."

"Oh!" I remarked, puzzled. By Jove, I had a dashed awful thought for a
moment that I must be losing my intelligence! I looked at Jenkins again,
but he had not yet come back to the ground.

"Oh, I'm on, sir!" Another one of those awful winks as his club
scratched his helmet sideways. "You know I saw everything--I was right
there at the Kahoka, you know!"

"Oh, _that_!" I said, understanding. For I knew then that he was talking
about Foxy Grandpa in my rooms. I had almost forgotten the jolly old
vagabond, but it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to show some
interest as they must have recaptured him along with the pajamas. "I
say!" I chirped up, "did you have much trouble about it--getting him
again, you know?"

"Trouble?" O'Keefe's lip doubled contemptuously. "It was easy as
butter!" His hand spread, palm downward, in an expressive gesture. "Why,
he doubled right back to the Kahoka!"

"By Jove, you know!" I exclaimed, startled.

"Surest thing you know! I collared him right in front and with the
goods!" Mr. O'Keefe expectorated eloquently. "My, but he did put up an
awful holler--said the pajamas were his own and he had just had 'em
made. And bluff--_well_!"--he fanned the air for a moment in the effort
to find an appropriate gesture--"I'm used to these swell con men, but
that gun was the limit--pulled out a card case, mind you, and letters,
and wanted me to go with him to his club--his _club_--" the big fellow
doubled over in a spasm of mirth that all but choked him. "I told him
I'd _give_ him the club if he didn't go quietly--for you see I
recognized him in a minute; you can't lose them freak kind! Besides, he
give himself away: told me he'd overlook my conduct on this occasion
_and the other_, if I would release him. Well, that was enough! I
beckoned Jimmy Dwyer across and we run him down the line to the station.
Oh, we got him there, but it wasn't easy--for _him_! And there he'll
stay a while!"

He had to pause and pump air, he was so winded.

"Jove!" I said absently. Fact is, I was getting jolly tired standing so
long--never had stood so long that I could remember. Wondered if the
housekeeper wasn't getting tired, too, wherever she was watching from!
Better give her a few minutes more, though; so I shifted to the other
leg, but yawned comfortably and openly. As for Jenkins, he had just
frozen up like a jolly image, his eyes getting filmier and duller as
O'Keefe proceeded, his chin gradually working higher and his mouth
corners lower, until now they almost pointed to the ground. He was
impressive and devilish correct, but somehow the whole dashed thing
seemed lost on O'Keefe.

He even asked Jenkins for a match--but of course received no attention.
"Gone off in a trance!" he said to me, with a vulgar jerk of his fat
thumb. And then he touched Jenkins with his stick--fact; touched
him!--and winked!

"But it _woulder_ tickled you," he resumed, using one of the vestas I
extended and puffing the cigar until it almost flamed, "if you coulder
seen the grand-stand play this guy put up before the sergeant! But the
old man just let him blow it all off; just sat there calm behind the
desk, chewing away and jabbing a pen through the blotter, while this
stiff fumed and spouted--oh, something scandalous--bringing in the names
of mighty near all the important people in New York; his _friends_, he
said! Oh, yes, he mentioned _you_ in particular, sir!"--and his face
expanded in a relishing grin.

"Dashed impudence!" I murmured feebly.

"_Oh_, yes," carelessly, "but the sarge quieted him--just purty near
soothed him to sleep before he got _through_, you know--it's one of his
ways!"--his glance lifted solemnly.

"Fine, you know!" I murmured admiringly. I reflected approvingly upon
what a dashed good thing it was to have a man in that position--whatever
it was--who was of such a devilish mild and gentle temperament: the
quiet word--the soft answer--the kindly remonstrance--all that sort of
thing, you know.

"We're a leetle crowded now," the big cop pursued, reflectively gouging
into the mortar with the long blade of his knife, "and we had to put him
in the cell with a gorilla what's always wandering back to the jungle
for too much strong-arm work--maybe you read about him? He scragged a
whole family th' other night and threw 'em down the fire-escape."

"Oh!" I said uneasily. "But isn't he--er--rather dangerous?"

"_Naw!_" A careless but vigorous head shake. "_Only_ in his sleep, you
know--it's his dreams leads him off--_or_ unless some one touches or
crowds him; then he gets peevish and--oh, well he _might_, of course--"
Mr. O'Keefe's expressive shrug finished out the idea. But I wouldn't
have heard it anyhow, I was in such a yawn.

By Jove, I was sure the housekeeper would have chucked it by now, or
else worked herself up into a swoon! Why, _my_ jolly foot was asleep! It
was safe to let him go. I looked at my watch and coughed, and Jenkins
came to and backed up to the door, sidling for me to pass within. The
policeman straightened his helmet and murmured words of adieu.

"But, if no offense, there's just one question I'd like to ask you,
sir." He swung his club with a smiling, genial air.

"Oh, dash it, no!" I responded absently.

My eye had been suddenly attracted by a feathery gleam of white through
the trees. It was slowly moving up the slope to a pavilion overlooking
the Tappan Zee.

He drew nearer with a confidential air. "Just a little argument I had
with the old woman, you know, about them pajamas. Would you mind telling
me--_as_ man to man, y'understand--if them garments is"--his voice
dropped--"is like her real shape--figger, I mean--h'm?" And he tapped
the parcel lightly with his stick.

Jenkins cleared his throat loudly and shifted the pajamas to his other
side. As for myself, I just winced as under the stroke of a
what-you-call-it, but one end of my dashed brain was being pulled by the
flashing play of the dappling sunlight there upon--

"By Jove, her figure exactly!" I ejaculated, staring.

For it _was_ her--no, dash it, _she_, I mean! I had a perfectly clear
view of her now as she paused on a little point and hung there looking
out over the Hudson. In her hand was a full-blown, ripened rose, and her
lips were shaping in ravishing little pouts as musingly she blew the
petals from her. But go they would not, but hugged back in the arms of
the light breeze, circling and fluttering about her glorious sunny head
like a swarm of rosy butterflies. It made a pretty picture!

"And what's more, they're just her color, too!" I murmured tenderly,
forgetful of everything but her, unmindful that I was not alone. For
under my hand I could feel my jolly heart quivering like a champagne
cork, freshly unfettered and thrilling eagerly under the impulse of the
mad, dancing, joyous spirit within.

"The one lovely woman in all the world!" I breathed aloud, and I felt my
eyes grow oddly moist.

And for a minute I went off in a jolly trance.

"Good-by, sir!"

It was O'Keefe's voice--oddly constrained.

"Eh?" I ejaculated, blinking at him as I came back. Then I
remembered--but what was it he had been asking? Something--

"Just, good-by!" he repeated with elaborated gentleness. Then,
straightening: "_No_ offense, I hope, if we let it go at that--I mean, I
guess you won't miss it if we _don't_ shake hands?"

I glanced at the gloves he was drawing on.

"Oh, dash it, no!" I responded absently, and my eyes coasted up the
slope again--then dropped back disappointedly, for she had disappeared
within the pavilion.

"Of course, rich people has got privileges," Mr. O'Keefe was ruminating
somberly; "and I ain't saying a word, not a word, mind you!"--the glove
that lightly emphasized this displayed all fingers widely and generously
spread. "The captain'll tell you he ain't having to tell me, like some
of 'em, to be careful about keeping off the grass"--he shrugged--"oh,
well, perhaps enough said!"--and he turned away.

Then he turned back. "Of course, that other part of it"--it would seem
that his club, extended pistol-like, was not leveled at Jenkins so much
as at the pajamas--"of course, nobody can't _help_ that--that's
Nature--I'm some that way myself, though nothing like _so_ much, and
nothing like so heavy as I was. We'll leave that part out of it--_I'm_
willing--but, _gentlemen_"--Jenkins paled, and swayed so horribly, I was
almost sure he would go--"when it comes to--comes to--" With a helpless
head-shake, he gave it up and contented himself with expectorating
violently upon the ground. Then he moved slowly away.

His helmet tossed as he looked back. "I guess we _all_'ve got our little
prejudices," he remarked sententiously; "I know _I_ have! I'm from the
South!"

And without another word, Mr. O'Keefe presented his broad back to us,
and swinging his stick carelessly, sauntered down the drive.

"What the deuce!" I exclaimed, looking after him. "I say, Jenkins, what
did he mean?"

Jenkins' face expressed mild reproach and surprise.

"Can it possibly matter, sir?" he questioned wearily. "Persons
of--er--that sort, you know, sir?"

"Jove!" I uttered, relieved.

Jenkins' coldly elevated brows dismissed the matter from further
consideration. He lifted the parcel with a slight gesture of inquiry.

I had already come to a decision about it: I would send it to Billings!
Perhaps the retrieving of the pajamas would have a soothing effect upon
his poor mind!

I gave Jenkins instructions. "H'm! Of course, manage to speak with him
alone," I cautioned, having thought of Judge Billings; "and don't forget
the message."

"Certainly, sir," said Jenkins attentively. "I'm just to say: 'Mr.
Lightnut's compliments, sir, and he says _you'll_ know what to do with
these.'"

I nodded. "Exactly, and I'll wait here--but, oh, hurry, dash it!" And I
looked longingly at the pavilion and tried to feel if my part was right.

He _did_ hurry! By Jove, he was back almost immediately and looking a
bit rattled.

"Yes, sir!"--he coughed as I screwed my glass inquiringly--"I got there
just as the judge went into his room across the corridor, and Mr.
Billings opened the door the minute I said I was from you. I gave him
the package and the message and he took it over in a corner; and then in
about a minute I heard him chuck it somewhere and say some long word. He
came back to me, looking kinder irritated and with his eyes snapping."

"Oh!" I uttered nervously. "Er, what did he say, Jenkins?"

Jenkins sighed. "Oh, well, sir, nothing as you might say was anything,
_really_; he jerks out kinder crossly: 'Tell Mr. Lightnut, I say one
thing at a time, and give him this!'"

On the scrap of paper I clutched out of Jenkins' hand was a crazy scrawl
of just a half-dozen words:

_I'm a biped, not a centipede!_

I squinted through the dashed thing twice, but could make nothing of
it--I even tried it backward!

"Jove!" I muttered perplexedly. "It's rum, Jenkins!"

Jenkins' mouth tightened and relaxed. "H'm, what _I_ thought, sir," he
responded soberly. "The demon rum, sir!"




CHAPTER XXVIII

"IF EVER I FIND A MAN!"


"I trust you've not been getting into trouble, Mr. Lightnut!"

Her lovely eyes were dancing with mischief as they hung there below
mine--eyes, bluer than the Hudson at our feet; yet between the jolly
ripples that played across those pools of truth I could glimpse far down
into depths that were the most devilishly entrancing, darkly, deeply,
beautifully--oh, _you_ know!

Why, by Jove, I almost took a cropper right into them! Only caught just
in time, you know; straightened right on the verge, as it were--and came
up with a gasp, monocle dangling.

Had almost forgotten the dashed windows--and the two cats that might be
looking out!

I murmured some jolly apology, adding:

"Oh, yes--quite so; certainly! I _mean_--eh what?"

She was smiling, her rose-petal lip dragging through her teeth.

"The 'bobby,' you know, just now"--she nodded toward the
_porte-cochère_--"I was positive he had come to drag you away to your
loathsome dungeon. And when he retired, I was--oh, _so_ relieved!" And
she clasped her hands, her eyes lifting upward.

"Oh, I say now--were you, though?" I grinned delightedly and slipping to
a rustic chair beside her, looked her affectionately in the eye. For all
her air of chaffing, I knew that under it was a current of anxiety for
me--the darling!

I screwed my glass at her tenderly.

"What would you have done," I said softly, "if he had--er--lugged me
off, you know?"

"_Can_ you ask?" What a reproachful side-glance she shot me through the
meshes of her silken what-you-call-'ems! "Why, of course, I should have
drawn my good excalibar and run him thr-r-rough and thr-r-r-ough!"

By Jove, how she said it! And she illustrated with the stemless
rose--dash it, no; the roseless stem! She was _superb_--looked like the
jolly fencing girl; only a dashed sight more stunning, don't you know!
And her excalibar, too! Didn't know what a jolly excalibar was, but
guessed it was some delightfully mysterious but deadly feminine
thing--some kind of submerged hat-pin-sort-of-thing, you know--_that_
sort, dash it! Yet she would have drawn it--and her _good_ one, too, she
said!

"Jove!" I said feelingly. "Would you, _really_?" And I almost took her
hand--and again remembered the windows! So I just shot her a look.

Her glorious eyes sparkled. "That is, I would if I had one," she said
smiling; "but I'm afraid poor Arthur lost the last and only one. Sad,
isn't it?"

"Oh!"

I just felt my jolly heart sink like what's-its-name. Who the deuce was
"poor Arthur?" This must be another--some other thundering chap who had
been engaged to her. And what a rotten, careless beggar, too, to have
lost it--that is, if he _really_ had! Of course, he would say so,
anyhow. And how the deuce did he get it, in the first place--did she
give it to him, or did he--

By Jove, how I should have liked to punch Arthur's head! Always did hate
a chap with that name! I flushed guiltily, but she did not see. For the
moment, she was looking off dreamily across the valley.

"I wonder," she said pensively, "why it is one can never find another
man like Arthur. Do you suppose it is because he was the ideal?"

For an instant, I swallowed hard--then I plucked up bravely, or tried
to, don't you know.

"Jolly likely!" I chirped. Then gloomily: "Oh, I say, you know, was he
_your_ ideal?"

"Always!"--the blue eyes lighted wistfully--"I suppose it's because he
was my first love; I found him so brave, so noble-mannered, you know--so
simple!"

_Simple!_ Dash simple people--never could stand them! Thing _I_ admired
was brains! Aloud I said gently--almost humbly:

"So glad you like him, don't you know--_did_ like, I mean!"

"_Did_ like? I do still!"--her tone lifted in earnest protest--"I love
to think of brave, dear Arthur and his knights--so few, and yet so full
of love, of gallantry and daring!"

So _his_ nights were like that! By Jove, I was devilish glad then that
they had been _so few_--that was some comfort, dash it! I wondered if
the beggar was dead. But what difference did it make now, after all? She
was mine now and she knew I knew it; that was why this sweet, ingenuous
child was laying bare to me her past--the darling!

Really, I ought not to let her go on.

"Never mind them now," I urged soothingly. And heedless of the windows,
I hitched a wee bit closer. "That's all past and gone and you and I will
yet see as good nights as they _ever_ were." I spoke with assurance.
"Don't _you_ think so?" I added softly.

She sighed. "I don't know--I hope so!"--she lingered dubiously over it,
looking away again, the while her hand put back the fleecy, golden
what-you-call-it that was snuggling to her eyes. I looked at the
goddess-like forearm, bared to above the elbow, where it slipped from
sight under the roll of sleeve, and thought of that night in my
apartment when she had made me feel of her biceps, don't you know.

How deliciously shy she was! Remembered hearing Pugsley say they are
often that way with the development of love. Told me he thought he'd get
married once--looked over the girls of his set and picked out one; then
he went to see her. She was devilish cordial at first and until Pugsley
began to tell her about it, then she began to grow agitated--finally
went out of the room and had hysterics. _Next_ time he saw her she
hardly was able to speak to him! Said that ended it and he passed her
up--too dashed much bother trying to follow 'em, he decided; they were
too high-strung, too emotional, too uncertain of themselves, _he_
thought.

I gave her five seconds, and then--

"You don't _know_?" I repeated with gentle reproach. "Oh, I say, you
know! You know you _know_ you know!" By Jove, that sounded rather rum,
but I knew she knew I knew she _knew_--see?

She looked at me sidewise, her slender forefinger pressing the
half-parted lips slowly shaping in a curve. Then her little teeth
flashed, jewel-like--regular jolly pearl setting in the frankest,
sweetest smile!--and then her glorious arm and wrist arched suddenly
toward me.

"Yes!" she said contritely, and with the most delightful, kindest
inflection and laugh--such a laugh!--a laugh gurglingly melodious--oh,
dash it, yes; I mean just that!--like the flute notes in the overture to
what's-his-name--_that_ sort!

"That's the way I love to hear a man talk!" she said warmly. "I think
it takes an American to stand up for his own place, his own
times--_please_!"

And gently, but with a lovely smile, she withdrew her hand that I had
folded close in mine. I let it go, for I saw her look toward the house,
and, of course, _I_ understood--jolly careless of me not to have
remembered--but she would know from my nod and shrug that I
comprehended.

And really, by Jove, it was almost as pleasant as holding her hand, just
to watch her leaning back against the iron pillar about which curved the
dark-leaved tendrils of some purple-flowering vine. By Jove, she just
looked like a stunning, white, Easter-card angel--that's what!--even to
the golden hair they always have and the jolly wings; for her gleaming
arms, spread behind her head, made you think of that. But _that_ was as
near as one of them could come to her, for no golden-haired angel in
white flowing nightgown was ever a patch on her for _style_!

Never a one could look so _chic_ as she did in her smart linen suit,
with its blue flannel collar, caught low with a flowing, breezy tie; and
no jolly angel _I_ ever saw pictured could sport a waist like that, so
dainty, so modish, so jolly snug and--er--squeezable, don't you
know--_never_! And I was devilish sure that no barefooted or sandaled
angel would ever dare to put a foot beside one of those little white
Oxfords or that arching instep, just blushing faintly through the silken
mesh that held it--well, I guess not! And where the angel, I should
like to know, that could match her glorious, fluffy pompadour or the
distracting little golden smoke wisps that whirled and pulled and
tangled and tossed and twisted and tugged, trying to lift her in their
feeble arms into the current of the wandering breeze?

I sighed, and my deep breath brought her gaze back to me and her
flashing smile as well.

"And so," she said, lifting her little chin, "you think there are just
as many knights now as there used to be?"

I almost laughed at the child-like question--but I didn't! Dash it, no,
I wouldn't have done so for the world. Just looked at her seriously and
answered her in kind:

"Perfectly sure of it, don't you know!"

And, by Jove, I was! Knew if there had been any change, some
newspaper-reading chap at the club would have mentioned it--_that_ was
safe: especially one silly ass who was always reading of some jolly
comet that was coming. _He_ would know about the nights.

"Yes--oh, yes, there are just as many," I affirmed positively, and added
quickly: "_More_, you know!" For suddenly I remembered it was leap-year,
and I knew there was some jolly rhyme about leap-year gives us one day
more--so, of course, there'd be another _night_!

"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that," she said musingly.
"There are just as many knights, you mean, but the conditions have
changed--the _man_ is changed--is that it?"

I should say the man was changed! "Oh, dash it, yes!" I blurted. By
Jove, I hoped there wouldn't be another change.

"You mean"--with a little, challenging, puzzled smile, she leaned
forward, her elbow resting upon her knee like a sculptured, Grecian
pillar; her flower-like curving fingers supporting her chin like a
Corinthian what's-its-name, you know, the sort of thing the ancient
what-you-call-'ems always added to top off their stunning marble
columns--_you_ know!--well, like that--"you mean we may find knights,
not only in the field, but in the shops, upon the streets--even in the
slums; or in the hospitals, in the church or even on the bench--_that_
is your idea?"

It _wasn't_ my idea at all--I should say not! Who wanted to spend nights
prowling around _that_ way? Why--why, it wasn't respectable, dash it!
Besides, that sort of thing--excursioning about seeing things--was
devilish tiresome, if you asked me. I never did do it, even abroad,
where you meet Americans, jolly bored and tired, doing all sorts of rum
places no one else ever thinks of, don't you know.

And as for a _bench_! Well, it was like her, in her innocence of the
world, not to know how downright vulgar that would be. I had seen
couples sitting evenings in the park--and I _knew_!

But I answered tactfully:

"I don't mean those places so much, don't you know--I think we can find
lots jollier and better nights elsewhere." And I closed my free eye and
beamed at her through my glass. "Don't have to go so far, you know;
under one's own roof, or--er--some one else's roof, for instance--why
not _here_?" I jerked my head toward the old stone pile behind us.

"Oh!"--her eyebrows lifted at me--"so you've thought of that, too?"--she
nodded gravely--"you mean in the library there?"

I winked assent.

The library suited _me_ all right!

"Just now," she said in an oddly sobered voice, "I looked in as I passed
through, and he was looking so crushed, so worn and tired, you know--he
had just come from up-stairs; and yet he faced me so bravely and
smilingly"--she shook her head--"poor fellow!"

I stared--puzzled, don't you know. Offhand, dash me if I could see what
the judge had to do with our evenings together--why, I had his own
approval of my suit. Then I remembered that she, of course, didn't know
that--_yet_. Probably what she had in her dear little mind was that he
might be holding the library--and he _would_, if he continued to think
he was busy; for I had heard him say he expected to work all night. But
then, there were dozens and dozens of others places we could go--well,
I should just _say_!

I had just bent forward to suggest this to her when I saw she was going
to speak. So I waited, smiling at her tenderly.

"And about Arthur--" she began, and I cut myself a painful stab with my
nails--right in the palm--"now there is a case where I think you
find"--she nodded toward the house again--"where you find one of his
superb qualities, the one quality that, of all, I admire in a man the
most."

"By Jove!" I said, leaning forward. I wondered what it was--and then,
dash it, I asked her.

"Just _trust_!" she said simply, and her face grew luminous. "Faith,
perhaps I should say. _My_ father has it larger than any man I ever
knew; it is something that goes out from him with his friendship, with
his love, making a dual gift"--her voice dropped thoughtfully--"I have
studied it in him all my life, and it has always seemed so beautiful to
me--so wonderful--the unquestioning peace he has"--her blue eyes
widened, shining--"has ever in return for the perfect, abiding trust
that he gives to the thing he calls his own. I _know_, for he has made
_me_ feel it from the time I was a tiny little girl!" The last word was
almost a whisper, so tense, so vibrant with feeling was it--she _seemed_
to have forgotten my existence. "And if ever I find a man--" she
breathed.

I coughed slightly and she started, stared at me--and then the dimple
deepened in her cheek, lost in a bed of jolly roses. Her laughter pealed
forth, birdlike--delicious!

"I _beg_ your pardon!" she said. "But when I think of papa and of how he
believes in his children, especially poor little _me_, I think I must
get--" Her roguish, puzzled smile searched my face. "_How_ is it you say
it?--oh, I know--'I think I must be getting _dippy_!'"

And it was the first slang I had heard from those sweet lips since the
night she was in my rooms!




CHAPTER XXIX

"BECAUSE YOU--ARE YOU"


Poor, brave-hearted girl! How pitiful and heartrending to a keen-eyed
man of the world, seemed her poor, little sham about her father's trust
in her! For _I_ knew the facts, you know!

What a little thoroughbred she was! By Jove, I just sat there for a full
two minutes, bending toward her worshipfully, but with such a lump
choking my devilish throat that dash me if I could chirp a single word.
Just sat there--that's all--blinking damply at her with my free eye,
studying with growing wonder the light she managed to summon to her
face; heartsick for the care-free mockery of the cherry lips, shaping
seemingly in a meditative whistle; all my jolly heart beating time to
the lithesome tapping of her smart little boot upon the wooden floor.
And she? She, brave heart, leaning back watching me through her long,
fringing lashes--forcing a quizzical smile to her face, the while the
jolly worm was gnawing at her what-you-call-'ems!

And suddenly it came to me that I just couldn't and wouldn't let her go
on this way, without the sympathy of the man she loved; without the
precious consolation of knowing that he knew! She was being badgered and
rough-shouldered and put upon and distrusted and maligned by every one
she knew, and she had _no_ one in all the world to turn to but me--and--

Oh, I wanted her to know what _I_ thought, don't you know!

I slipped to the seat beside her.

"Er, Miss Billings--" I began, thinking absentmindedly of what I should
say, and forgetting that we were quite alone.

"'Miss Billings!' _Why_ do you call me that?" Her lovely brows puckered.
"I remember, now, that's twice you--"

"_Frances_, then!" I corrected softly.

She straightened, her bosom lifting with a quick intake. By Jove, that
was what she wanted!

"Oh!" Then she leaned slowly back, looking at me thoughtfully through
half-closed eyes, her lips parted in the oddest smile.

And I screwed my monocle tight and let her have smile for smile,
determined to chirp her up and make her feel our oneness--that sort of
thing, you know. And I succeeded! For of a sudden her head went back and
the joyous peal of her canary laugh started off the jolly birds in the
trees above us.

"Oh, you--" A stare, and then another burst as she bent forward, face
buried in her hands. Then it lifted sharply, flame-dyed--her lips
tremulous, her eyes shining like sapphire stars. "Oh!" she gasped, and
how I envied the little hand she pressed against her waist; but the
windows--dash the windows! "That's--that's _it_--Frances--just that
much! But, do you know, I don't--don't believe you really know my full
name. I remember now several th--" She bent toward me witchingly, her
wide blue eyes challenging my candor. "_Honestly_, now--_do_--you?"

So it was _that_ thought that was tickling her! Well, by Jove, I had her
there, for I had heard the judge mention her name in full. I would
surprise her!

"Oh, _don't_ I?" I exclaimed, winking as I polished my glass. "Well, how
about Frances Leslie Billings?" I let her have it slowly, distinctly,
and with yet a note of triumph I could not altogether hide. And then
remorseful for her amazed expression, I explained frankly: "Got it from
your father this morning, don't you know, during our long talk about you
in the library."

"Wh--"

Then she swallowed and her face fell perfectly blank. By Jove, I could
have kicked myself for a jolly ass for breaking it to her so raw! Of
course, she would know that if her father talked of her, it would be
nothing for me to hear that was true or kind--nothing she could wish
might be said to the man she loved.

I hastened to reassure her:

"But I don't believe a dashed word of anything he said about you"--I
spoke hotly--"and I don't care a jolly hang for what the others said,
either--so there you are!"

"Oh, you _don't_?" Could tell how I had touched her by her expression,
don't you know; and she fell to looking at me the queerest way. "And
would you mind telling me who the 'others' are?"

I eyed her gloomily, sympathetically. As _if_ she didn't know already!

"Well--oh, dash it, my mind has been filled with--er--just anything!" I
began cautiously.

"_I_ know,"--she murmured it as if to herself--"one can _see_ that!" And
she bit her lip.

"In the first place, you know"--and there I pulled up. No, dash it, I
wasn't going to say a jolly word about poor Jack--no, _sir_! But then,
about the other one--well, _she_ was just a treacherous snake in the
what's-its-name, and she ought to be exposed. By Jove, she should be!

"It's the frump, you know," I said indignantly.

"The--the _what_?"

Her pretty teeth flashed like the keyboards of a tiny organ--you could
even hear a little gurgly, musical quiver somewhere behind. And then I
remembered that, of course, she wouldn't know whom I meant.

"Oh, your guest, you know--your friend from school," I went on, trying
to tread cautiously and yet feeling myself growing red. "Oh, see here
now, I don't like to say things, but--er--"

"Oh, _go_ on!" she trilled, her sweet face shining wistful.

"Well, I mean this--er--Miss Kirkland; came out with us this
morning, don't you know. _I_ think of her as _the frump_--little
idea--er--nickname of mine, you know, she's so _awful_!" And I screwed
my glass with a chuckle.

For an instant I thought she wouldn't catch it, she stared at me so
blankly. _Then_ the joke of it--the jolly aptness, so to speak--got her
full and square, and she just lifted a scream, hugging her knee and
rocking back and forth, her face suffused, her laughter pealing like a
chime of bells.

And I just rocked, too, keeping her company. Really, I don't think I
ever laughed so much since some chap plunked down on the hard crown of
my new tile last winter. At least I _wanted_ to laugh--in church, you
know, and it's so awful how you feel there when something--oh, _you_
know! And if you could have seen that poor fellow's face!

By Jove, how glad I was for her jolly sense of humor that could see the
point of things so quickly, and think them _clever_. Always had so
dashed little patience with stupid people, don't you know. And just here
another little thing came to me and I let her have it:

"Oh, I say!"--I leaned nearer, chuckling--"your father pretends to
think her a most beautiful and winning girl--_fancy_!" And my face
stretched itself in such a jolly grin that I could hardly hold my glass.

She bent toward me, smiling adorably. "You mean this--er--'Miss
Kirkland'?"

I nodded chortlingly.

She peered at me through her long what-you-call-'ems--oh, _such_ a way!

"But _you_ don't think so, _do_ you?" How sweetly, how fetchingly she
said it!

"Me?" I gasped. By Jove, in my horror, I lost my grip upon my jolly
grammar. "Oh, I say now! _I_ think the frump--this Miss Kirkland, you
know--is a fright--regular freak, dash it! I told the judge so!"

"You--you--"

"Of _course_!" And I shrugged disgustedly, making the ugliest grimace I
possibly could. "Why, dash it, if I were a woman and had a face like
hers, I never would have left China, or England--or wherever her jolly
home was--_no, sir_!"

She caught her breath with a little gasp--then she was off again! This
time she rested her arms upon the rail behind and buried her head in
them, her lovely shoulders jiggling up and down, her sobbing laughter
sending her off at last into a spell of coughing.

"Oh!" she breathed, lifting at last her gloriously blushing face and
dabbing at it with her ridiculous little handkerchief, "oh, you'll
_kill_ me--I know you will!"

I certainly had stirred her up, and I was delighted. It _was_ funny to
think of any one calling the frump beautiful--it must seem funnier still
to her, of course--to Frances, I mean. Why, dash it, _she_ seemed to
find a funny side to it that I didn't, don't you know!

"Tell me, now"--she clasped her knee, lifting her lovely face
coaxingly--"tell me all that she said about me--_everything_!"

And I did--every word, by Jove!

And no one could look into that sweet, ingenuous face as I proceeded,
and doubt that the slanders were new to her. Never a jolly one touched
her--only you could see their absurdity amused her. Several times I had
to pause as she bent under a gale of laughter.

Only once was she brought up, shocked.

"Oh!" she uttered faintly, as I came to the intimation about her being
hail-fellow-well-met with the footmen and her drinking and carousing
with them and other men-servants until three in the morning. I realized
that it wasn't the matter of the drinking that feazed her and drew from
her little gasps as I came to this--knew _that_ didn't bother her, don't
you know, for I knew she did drink--_could_ drink, I mean to say; for I
had not forgotten the two full whisky glasses of high-proof Scotch she
had tossed off that night in my rooms. Why, no, dash it, she was _able_
to drink--it went in the family! I could never forget with what pride
she had told me of putting her brother Jack under the table two nights
running. _That_ was all right--it was the other part of the frump's
scandal that brought her up, standing, so to speak.

For _now_ she really looked embarrassed, despite another lapse to
laughter. Her face and neck were dyed a lovely crimson.

"Oh, dear!" she said finally; and she wiped her eyes. "_What_ you must
think of me!"--and she looked away, a pretty frown contracting her face;
then the jolly dimple deepened once again and she choked into her
handkerchief. "Oh, _dear_!" she repeated, biting her lip to hold her
quivering mouth corners. "Oh, it's a shame," I heard her mutter; "I
_mustn't_ let him--it's too--" She wheeled upon me, her lips tightened.
"Oh!" she ejaculated sharply, almost petulantly, and her foot struck
smartly on the boards. "I wonder how much you think--think--"

"Think _lots_," I said simply, watching her little toe as it tapped.

"Well, _I_ should think as much!" And this time her laugh was
short--oddly constrained. She looked away off down the slope to the
river. "_Oh!_" This time it was a tiny gasp as of dismay. And the toe
tapped like an electric what's-its-name.

"Yes," I said, watching it musingly, "I suppose it's because you're the
only girl, don't you know, that I ever _did_ think of before--oh, ever
at all, dash it!"

The toe stopped. I could _feel_ her looking at me sidewise, but I did
not glance up, that I remember; was looking down, trying to get hold of
a dashed idea I wanted to express.

"Don't know," I continued, boring away at her toe, yet hardly seeing it,
"but suppose that's the reason I knew all the time she was _lying_; but
still, somehow that doesn't seem to be the _real_ reason I knew. I think
the real reason I knew it couldn't be and wasn't true was"--I sighed
heavily--"oh, dash it, it's _so_ hard to get hold of the jolly thing!"

And there was a pause.

"The real reason?" her voice coaxed gently.

"Was because--" Then she moved the toe and it put me out--"I think just
because--oh, yes, I _know_ now!" And I looked up eagerly. "Just because
I knew that you--are _you_!" I finished beamingly.

"Oh, I see!" She said it musingly, her finger lightly pressing upon her
lips, her beautiful eyes studying me with the oddest, keenest
side-glance.

A pause; and then: "And _how_ long have you known me, pray? Just a--"

"A thousand years!" I said promptly and earnestly. "A thousand years and
all my life, don't you know! Never will know you any better."

"I wonder," she murmured, nodding slowly. And then for a moment she
didn't say a word, just sat there looking me over curiously, her
expression half shy, half quizzical, don't you know.

Then her smile flashed again--a radiant, dazzling brightness that
brought her nearer, like the effect of the sunlight's sudden gleam there
at times upon the blue line of the "West Shore" away across the broad,
three-mile span of the old Tappan Zee.

"And now"--again her splendid young arms were clasped, wing-like, behind
her head; and its golden glory hung like a picture against the dark vine
leaves, bossed with the clustered purple flowers--"now," she repeated,
settling comfortably, "you must just go on and tell me the rest--I can
bear it! What did my"--her big blue eyes twinkled as she smiled--"my
father say about me?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, I can't, you know!" I demurred. "I say,
what's the use, dash it?" Poor old boy, somehow I just hated to round on
him--he was so jolly hard hit already; Jack, don't you know! Besides--

"Please!" Jove, how she said it!

"Oh, dash it, I'm afraid it will hurt you," I protested uneasily; "and I
don't think the judge really--"

"I just don't care _that_"--a snap from her little fingers and her arm
went back--"for anything _he_ ever said about me that was _mean_! So,
please go on--I must go dress for luncheon."

And so I just took a deep breath, a long running leap, and cleared the
bar--told her all, you know!

Oddly, this time she didn't laugh--and I knew why: it was her father,
and it had cut her to the heart. This was what I had feared. As I
proceeded, narrating the interview in the library, she just grew rosier
and rosier red, but sat looking at me wide-eyed and unflinching. The
pulsation of her bosom quickened a little, but her dear face remained
unchanged, save for her little trick of dragging her under-lip through
her white teeth.

"And, by Jove, that's all!" I finished with relief as I mopped my face.
"But who cares, don't you know, or believes any bit of it? Anyhow, _we_
don't--for we know!"

"Are you _sure_?" She spoke gravely, yet in her eyes were the dancing
star-motes of a laugh. "The extravagance, the gambling, and the--oh, all
of it? I must tell you _I_ heard some sad things myself about Francis
Billings while I was at Cambridge--"

I grunted scornfully. "_I_ know: from that two-faced cat, Miss Kirkland!
Say, how I wish, by Jove, that woman would pack up and go back to
China--the _sponge_!" And I screwed my glass indignantly.

"Oh, now!" she remonstrated sweetly, "you mustn't say _that_! You might
be sorry!" She smiled archly.

I grunted contemptuously.

Again she rested her little chin upon her hand, eying me thoughtfully,
earnestly.

"And so you don't believe any of it?"

I chuckled at the idea. "Oh, I say now, Frances, you _know_ I don't!"
And I shoved a bit nearer, looking into her eyes. But just then I saw
Wilkes come out and look around.

And _she_ must have glanced about quickly and have seen him, too, for as
I shifted my eyes to her again she was blushing furiously and had moved
a bit.

"I'm afraid," she said measuredly, her chin lifting a little, "you do
believe--_part_ of it!" And in her eyes was a glint of fire.

And then as my face fell blankly, a slow little smile came creeping back
to hers. Her eyes softened.

"Forgive me," she said gently; "I misunderstood!"

The darling! And, dash it, if they were going to have vines to a
pavilion, why didn't they _have_ vines?

"Do you know," she said, "I don't believe you _do_ believe any of these
awful things could be true about me,"--her voice quickened here--"and do
you know I just think it's lovely of you! I _do_!" And her dear voice
dropped like the softer notes of a what's-its-name. Her hands lay in her
lap and she was studying me in the kindest, sweetest way! And I wanted
to tell her how good she was and how much I loved her, don't you know,
but just then, behind the pavilion, came the gardener. He was talking to
one of his assistants about slugs--_dash_ slugs!

And then her face lighted again as though she would speak and I leaned
eagerly toward her--waiting, expectant.

"When Arthur made his court at--" she began, and, by Jove, my jolly
heart sank. If she would only drop Arthur and give me a chance to make
_my_ court, dash it! "Camelot, you know," she went on, and I almost
groaned. What did _I_ care that he came a lot? Perhaps, now, if I could
divert her mind--

"Oh, I say, you know," I broke in interestedly, "what was it you
were--er--humming--just now, don't you know."

"Vivian's song--don't you remember it?"

I tried to think, but I couldn't seem to place her, though I knew the
whole line of 'em back to Lottie Gilson.

I finally had to shake my head.

She smiled. "Don't you know," she said:

    "'I think you hardly know the tender rhyme
    Of "trust me not at all or all in all."'"

She was right! I didn't know the jolly thing, that was a fact, but
somehow I liked the swing of it. She went on, and struck me with another
remark. By Jove, she seemed to have forgotten about the jolly song and I
was devilish glad, for _I_ had rather hear her _talk_, don't you know.

    "'In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours--'"

"_If?_" I ejaculated reproachfully, hitching nearer. But she only
smiled, and continued her remark:

    "'Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers;
    Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.'"

"Oh!" I uttered. For, by Jove, she had said it--the thing I had felt all
the time and couldn't express; the something that had been with me all
along in connection with herself. And here _she_ had the jolly idea pat
upon her tongue! I just blinked at her admiringly--didn't dare speak,
you know; afraid I'd break the thread of what's-its-name.

She went on telling me something about a lover's lute, and it was hard
not to speak _then_, for I did so want to ask what a jolly lute was. And
then some remark about specks in garnered fruit--here her line of
thought had been changed, I knew, by some remark of the gardener
outside: something about worms and the orchard. However, I just chirped
up a nod and listened as attentively as though she had gone right on.
She was busy with her hair now, but with her mind still on the worm,
murmured abstractedly:

    "'That rotting inward slowly moulders all.'"

And just here, with a little clatter, her back comb struck the floor,
bounding to the other side of the pavilion. As I scrambled to get it,
her voice lifted through a choke of laughter:

    "'It is not worth the keeping; let it go!'"

The idea!

I laughed as I caught the thing up and whirled, my hand outstretched to
lay it in her own. She was on her feet, pulling down her belt, and
paused to lift away a leaf that clung to her snowy skirt. And just here,
the gardener's voice lifted startlingly across the park to some one
distant and invisible:

"Better bring paris green, Jud; it's the only way we'll ever get rid of
'em," he bawled. "I see they're going after the leaves now, and they can
live on them and air. Pizen'll fix 'em, though!"

The comb outstretched, I stood staring at Frances, doubled over and
writhing. And then, with a long-drawn gasp that was half a screech, her
lithesome figure straightened, her head went back, and from her throat
there trilled the very joy of health and youth and happy days.

"Oh!" she gasped, her hand pressing to her side. And while I looked at
her anxiously, she went on pantingly, her eyes bright with tears:

    "'But shall it? Answer, darling, answer no,
    And trust me not at all or all in all.'"

"Jove!" I said delightedly, placing the comb in her outstretched hand
and pressing it--the hand, I mean, dash it! "I _do_, don't you know! I
trust you all in all!"




CHAPTER XXX

THE JUDGE FIXES "FOXY GRANDPA"


"But tell you, sir, he is _not_ my son!" The judge was bending over the
desk 'phone as I looked in a half hour later. His voice rose in a
crescendo of rage: "Wha--what's _that_? Do I want to speak with him?
Certainly _not_, sir--and I _won't_!... Um, yes--John W. Billings--yes,
that's his name.... Stuff and nonsense, sir! He's up-stairs now in his
room.... Says what?"--the judge's eyes rolled frowningly upward as he
listened; then he licked his lips and bent again, speaking with
passionate incisiveness: "Why, dammit, man, I've just this minute been
talking to him--just left him, y'understand.... _Certainly_ your man's
an impostor--_you_ ought to know that!... Yes, this is Judge Billings,
himself.... Eh? Oh, that's all _right_, but now let me tell you
something"--he cleared his throat and gathered his voice in cold,
deliberate accents: "You let me be annoyed again from your precinct, and
I can promise _you_ that.... Um, well that's all right then.... 'Bye!"

He banged the receiver to the hook and faced about, muttering things to
himself.

"Well, upon my word! Of all the--excuse me, Lightnut!" He wiped his
forehead, his glance abstracted and scowling. "Somebody is putting this
fool up to this--somebody trying to annoy me!" He uttered a short laugh
that was more of a snort. "There's some fool lunatic down in New York
that they've arrested and he's got a bug that he's my son! This is the
second offense. Caused me to lose two hours from my office yesterday in
the city and upset me for the whole day! And me so busy! busy!"--his
hands lifted toward the papers on the table--"so busy I can
hardly"--another snort, and he relighted his cigar, puffing
savagely--"looks like there's just one fool thing after another
interrupting me or absorbing my time!"

"Jolly shame, you know!" I responded, dropping sympathetically into a
chair. I pushed the papers to one side so I could rest my elbow on the
table edge; besides, I saw they were fretting him--could tell by his
glances, you know.

For another thing, I had got hold of a devilish shrewd idea I wanted to
break to him--about this chap who was pretending to be his son. I
remembered that the old rascal who had invaded my rooms had tried to
make me believe that _I_ was his bosom friend.

"Oh, I say, you know," I began, declining a cigar and selecting a
cigarette from my case, "I've an idea!"

And I faced him impressively.

"You've _what_?"--he straightened forward, with a kind of twisted
smile--interested, you know--"whatever makes you think _that_, my boy?"

I waited, sending a long, thin smoke funnel upward. Kept him expectant,
you see, and gave me time to get hold of the corners of the jolly thing
myself. Catch the point? So devilish important when you have to lift an
idea, don't you know.

"Rather fancy your chap's the same one I know of," I drawled, "an oldish
duffer--white mutton-chops--beefy sort of face--sunburn line and
baldish--all that sort of thing!"

"Well, by-y-y George!"--he slapped his hand down--"I should say that
_was_ a real idea! And you say you know this crazy fool?"

"Crazy? He's not crazy!" I exclaimed indignantly, thinking of her
pajamas. "And he's no more _fool_ than I am!"

He fell back with a grunt. "Oh, well, I _know_--but--"

He coughed. By Jove, he seemed disappointed, somehow!

I proceeded calmly: "Real truth is, the beggar's a notorious criminal,
known to the police as Foxy Grandpa--pretends all sorts of things about
people, don't you know."

"My dear Lightnut,"--he was staring at me, mouth distended--"why--how
the devil do _you_ know this?"

I inhaled deliberately. "Awfully simple, don't you know," I responded
quietly; and I let him wait till I had blown six rings. "Fact is, _I'm_
the one sent him to jail!"

"You!"--his laugh was frankly amused, incredulous.

"Oh, yes!"--carelessly--"found the fellow thieving in my rooms the other
night and called in police--oh, they recognized him in a minute!"

He looked floored. "Well, what do you think of that?" he murmured
slowly. Then his face flushed and he sat erect. "And so _that's_ all the
crazier the ruffian is--_that's_ the kind of smart Alex that's been
trying to get gay with me--with _me_!" He started up, snorting like a
war-horse--"Huh! Well, _two_ can play at that game, and"--his eyes
twinkled wrathfully--"I'll show him who's got the best hand! I'll
just--"

The rest trailed off in a mutter. He had dropped beside the telephone
again, his cigar crushed firmly in the corner of his mouth, his gray
mustache bristling aggressively. I tried to trace the family resemblance
to Frances, but clashed if I could see a single point. And while I was
thinking of this, he got his number.

"Yes, yes," I heard, "I _do_ want to speak to him personally--this is
Judge Billings!"--a moment, and then: "Morning, Commissioner--this is
Billings.... Fine, thank you!... Oh, no! No bad effects at all--takes
more than that to throw a seasoned old diner like my--.... What say?"--a
cackling chuckle--"yes, I knew the dinner would loosen _him_ up! Had his
promise before we left the table; Soakem heard him--so did Benedict....
Yes--_oh_, yes; he's got it--had it with me, you know, _in case_!...
No-o-o, of course not; not a single line or scrap!"--a lower drop of
tone--"just in a plain, blank envelope--best way always, you know....
Yes, that gives us a safe margin in the Senate now, not even counting
upon what they do in committee--and Soakem'll take care of that end....
Yes, he went back to Albany this morning--he says the bill's safely
deader'n Hector _now_.... Er, by the way, Commissioner,"--the judge
cleared his throat and his voice sobered: "Little favor I want to
ask--h'm! I'm being greatly annoyed by some low vagabond confined at one
of the stations.... _Yes_, I really mean it!--Captain Clutchem's
precinct, you know--and this ruffian insists to them that he's my
son.... No, _indeed_, I'm not joking at all.... All right, you may
laugh, but I fail to appreciate the funny side, myself--especially now,
you know, when I'm up to my neck in this merger case.... How's that?
What do I want _done_? Oh, I wouldn't venture to say as to _that_! I
leave that to _you_!... _I_ know.... Yes, I understand all that, but ...
wait--wait just a minute! Now you listen--"

The judge concentrated more intensely over the instrument.

"You know what you asked me to do when I saw you last night--and I
refused"--another voice drop--"with the mayor, you know? Well--now
listen--you make assurance that this scoundrel will not bother me for
thirty days and--well, I give you my word that I'll do all I can to
bring things the way you want.... Good!... What'll you do with him? Why,
what in Sam Hill do _I_ care what you do with him?... Oh, but _say_,
Commissioner--yes, I do care, too!"--a laugh here like a jolly fiend--"I
_shouldn't_ like for him to be put away off in some nice, damp, dark
cell to cool off--he! he! he!--y'understand?"

He got so mixed up in his chuckling and coughing that he couldn't get
out another word for a moment. Then--

"Oh, no! _Cer_-tainly not; nor one too hot and airless, as you say--he!
he! he! And don't put him--don't put him--" the judge was gasping for
air now--"don't put him on bread and water, or anything of that kind,
nor in a cell with rude, rough men who would tame his playful
spirit--he! he! he!--oh, _don't_ do that!... What say? I didn't quite
catch--" And then, dash it, it seemed he _did_ catch it, for he began
waving his arm and pounding the desk. "Oh--oh, no, that would be _too_
bad--really!... Eh? Oh, well, you know best--it's up to you now!...
'Bye, and many thanks, Commissioner! Eh? All right, to-morrow then at
one at the Lawyers' Club--you can go over again the points of what you
want with the mayor. 'Bye!"

And with good humor perfectly restored, he faced me, wabbling like a
jolly jellyfish.

"'S greatest joke ever heard of in my life!" he chortled.

"Oh, I say, how did you find Jack?" I asked, for that was the thing I
had begun to think of.

His face collapsed so dashed sudden, I was afraid it would break. And
from being a peppery red, he changed to a devilish sickly yellow.

"Awful!" he said jerkily. "Something awful!" And he groaned like a jolly
horse in pain. "Went up there, you know, but--" his hands lifted and
dropped; he shook his head--"didn't seem to know me at all--was sitting
there in his pajamas examining with a magnifying glass some leaves he
had pulled at the window. Seems obsessed with some crazy patter of talk
I couldn't understand--poor fellow!" The judge sighed. "Only thing he
seemed to want me to do for him was to promise to wear his pajamas
to-night--pajamas seem to be the focus of his malady this time."

I swallowed pretty hard and looked down.

"I promised," continued the judge gloomily. "And I'll do it--oh, yes,
anything to humor him! He's to put them outside his door to-night--it's
his own whim, you know." He went on moodily: "He won't allow any
luncheon sent up; says if not too much trouble, would be grateful for
two and one-half ounces of unleavened bread and clabber--what the
devil's _clabber_?"

I had never heard of it--knew, of course, no one had!

"Well," he said with a deep breath, "we'll just have to do the best we
can. Of course, under the circumstances, it's best for him to keep his
apartment--Oh, say, would you like to go up?"

"Oh--er--think not!" I stammered. "Don't believe I--"

"You're right! You're right!" He pursed his lips: "Too pitiful a
sight--only sadden you!" He began gathering up the papers behind my arm,
though I murmured that they were not in my way at all. The cathedral
chimes in the hall had played the half hour. The judge strolled over to
the French windows that opened upon the loggia.

"I say, Lightnut, have you ever noticed the view from out here?" he
asked briskly. "Fine, you know! Nice to sit here and watch the
boats--have you your cigarettes? _Oh_, yes! Try _this_ chair! Now, if
you'll excuse me I'll be with you in--"

"Luncheon is served!" intoned a human machine.

"Ah-h!" The judge's tone evinced satisfaction. "My dear Lightnut," his
hand upon my arm, "do you know I look upon you as so nearly one of
us--?"

"Thank you, judge!" I said feelingly. By Jove, it was devilish comfy to
have her father so jolly friendly about it!

"That I'm just going to ask you to excuse me from lunching with
you--know you'll understand, my boy!--so infernally busy, you see!"

I _didn't_ see, though he had been _saying_ this all morning. But as he
seemed to think he was busy, I wasn't going to make any dashed break
contradicting him, you know. So I pretended I _did_ see.

"Thank you--thank you, my boy!" He patted me on the back. "And as you'll
have an opportunity of seeing a little more of that charming girl, Miss
Kirkland--" Charming girl, indeed! I wondered what he would think, if he
knew of her designs on poor Jack! "I want you to go in for her a
bit--cultivate her a little; you may change your opinion--eh?" He
laughed softly and paused in our progress through the library to dig me
sharply in the side. "Go ahead--_flirt_ with her, my boy! She will like
it--all girls do--and it will do you good; do both of you good!" The old
boy beamed at me over his glasses as he vented a horrible chuckle;
didn't seem to notice how painfully shocked I was.

A flirtation, indeed! And with the frump, of all others! Of course he
was just having his little joke, and didn't seem to realize what
devilish poor taste he exhibited as the father of my darling.

"Thank you," I said rather coldly, "but I don't think that--er--sort of
thing would show much consideration for Frances and--"

"Rubbish!" And, by Jove, how he laughed! "Do you think Francis would
show any consideration for _you_?"--he snapped his fingers. "I think
you're a bit too quixotic, young man!"

I didn't know--don't know now; never was up on any of those legal
terms. _He_ knew what he meant!

"Pshaw, now!" he went on, "if _that's_ what's restraining you, you must
drop it! I want you to have a pleasant time while you are here with Miss
Kirkland--get along with you!"--then he pulled me back again--"You
needn't be thinking about the slightest obligation so far as Francis is
concerned. Why should you when the affair is all one-sided?"

"One--one-sided?" I repeated falteringly.

"Why, yes; the girl doesn't care for anybody in the whole word except
her old father--and he idolizes her!"

Oh, _did_ he!

"So you go on in there and loosen up--have a good time--and make her
have one; and keep it up this afternoon. I'm so anxious for you to find
something to interest and _occupy_ you--" His glance dropped an instant
to the papers and law books as though wishing he had something better
with which to occupy himself. "Besides," he added carelessly, "Francis
won't be here to see what you do--gone off with Scoggins up somewhere in
the hills--big dog-fight up there and Francis took four curs, Scoggins
two--they won't be back till night--so go ahead!"

But I had caught the back of a chair.

"Dog-fight?" I said faintly. "Frances up in the hills--and--and with
Scoggins?" And she had only left me a half-hour ago!

"Why, _certainly_!" he said wearily, almost testily. "What of it? I tell
you you've got to get your ideas all readjusted about Francis. What's
the matter with the dog-fight?"

"So--so surprised," I faltered; "so unexpected, you know!"

"Poof!"--and he pushed me out through the doorway--"I never face
anything unexpected in that quarter!"

But I think he would have, if he had followed me across into the
dining-room and had faced, as I did--

Frances!

"_So_ glad you didn't go to the dog-fight!" I said presently, beaming
across at her delightedly.

Her sweet lips glowed at me as her dainty fingers poised the tiny
trident before her lips. Jove, how I envied that jolly oyster! Then she
smiled witchingly, teasingly.

"It wasn't because I didn't have an invitation," she responded archly.
_I_ knew! That beast, Scoggins!

"Umph;" grunted the frump, seated on the curve between us. "I verily
believe Francis would go to anything!"

I scowled--couldn't help it, dash it! And Frances saw, and ducked her
head, biting her lip and blushing. I could have choked the frump for so
embarrassing her!

Yet the woman _did_ try to be pleasant to me.

"Did you ever find a pearl in an oyster, Mr. Lightnut?" she asked.

"By Jove, no!" I said, staring at her for the fool question. For _who_
could ever lose a pearl in a jolly oyster, don't you know? And yet, the
next instant:

"_I_ have!" said my darling, glancing up at me the oddest way.

"Have you, Frances?"--the frump faced her interestedly. "You should
examine with a microscope the interstratifications of calcareous matter
and animal membrane."

My beauty looked down at her plate.

"I _am_ examining it," she said gravely, "and microscopically. Probably
shall this afternoon."

But she _didn't_! No, by Jove, we were together almost all
the afternoon, though we never could get away from the frump--dash
it, she just took charge of us. And it was the same again in the
evening. By Jove, it was disgusting--really, that's the only word to
use--the way that woman assumed toward everybody the air of
expect-to-be-mistress-here-some-day-and-might-as-well-begin-now!

Once she did break away from us for fifteen minutes while she went up to
see how Jack was. She came back much relieved.

"He was _so_ glad to see me," she said, "and he kissed me twice. We had
such an interesting discussion about the _amoeba_."

"The _what_?" asked Frances.

"The _amoeba_--tiny animalcules, don't you know, that have the power of
changing their form and appearance. Jacky thinks that perhaps man, too,
in the process of time and evolution might scientifically acquire
this--"

"How silly!" laughed my darling. And I thought so too. Of course if a
man looked like himself once, he would _always_ look like himself. Any
fool knew that!

Later, the judge came to my room, accompanied by Wilkes with some
Heidelberg punch, _frappé_.

"Couldn't leave you out of this," he said genially; "besides, wanted to
toast your first night under the roof of Wolhurst!

"Hope they're making you comfortable," he went on. "Infernal shame,
Lightnut, that I've had to neglect you so; so absurdly busy, you
know--_you_ understand?"

I pretended to, for I knew he wanted me to _think_ that, but I had heard
the butler tell the frump that the judge was _reading_.

"Don't expect to retire at all," he continued; "and then there's my
promise to my poor boy--I _must_ keep that somehow; never failed on a
promise in my life--I mean, you know, about wearing his new pajamas." He
shook his head sadly.

"T' be sure!"--and I swallowed hard--Jove, but the very word, "pajamas,"
gave me cold marrows!

"And, my boy, I haven't forgotten my promise to _you_, either," he
continued, smiling kindly and replenishing my glass to the brim. "I'm
still going to have a word with Francis to-night--that is, if they ever
get back from that infernal dog-fight--I want to pave the way for you,
you know."

"Thanks awfully!" I murmured nervously.

Somehow, I felt mean--always hate to feel mean, dash it--felt almost
like a jolly cad, in fact. _Couldn't_ tell him how far Frances and I had
progressed already; he might take it out on her, you know. And _then_,
to find out that he didn't know she hadn't gone to the dog-fight after
all!

"Well," he sighed, "I will manage it all somehow, even about the
pajamas. Perhaps, when the house is quiet, I may--_here_, have
another--oh, yes, you must!--won't hurt you; only a pint or so of rum in
the whole mixture. Fine, isn't it? Yes, I think Wilkes is certainly an
artist when it comes to a nightcap. Now, let me fill yours again--_oh_,
yes!"--and he did it--"Won't hurt a baby--make you sleep tight, you
know!"

And, by Jove, I had to go it!

"Well--" he shifted as if to go, and sent me a smile over his glass's
rim, "pleasant dreams!"

And then the door closed behind our "good nights."

Jenkins was studying me somberly.

"Yes, sir," he said presently, when I had made comment about the bully
punch. And that was about all I could get out of him, until he was ready
to push out the light.

Then he addressed me gloomily:

"Good night, sir," he said with a sickly, feeble smile, "I hope you'll
sleep well; and--" he coughed faintly--"and--er--wake up--h'm--all
right!"

"Frisky as a--" I bunched my head sleepily into the pillow--"as a
jolly--" But the idea wouldn't come!

"Night!" I murmured; and let it go at that!




CHAPTER XXXI

THE DEMON RUM


I _didn't_ feel frisky when I awoke!

No, dash it, I had a devilish headache and my mouth had that gummy,
warm-varnish taste--_you_ know! The sunlight lay across the floor, and
outside I could hear the jolly birds twittering among their
what's-its-names. Jenkins stood by the foot of the bed and somehow had a
gloomy look. He cleared his throat, and I had a feeling that he had
already done it several times. I raised to my elbow, mouthing at him
heavily.

"Morning, sir!" He said it very gently--I thought solicitously. "_How_
do you feel, sir?" This last in the kind of tone you use when the chap's
going to die to-morrow, don't you know, and doesn't know it yet himself.

I mumbled reply, gulping down the glass of ice-water he tendered.

He rubbed his hands one over the other and stooped above me anxiously.

"I _hope_, sir, you're not in much pain--from last night, sir, I mean?"

"Pain?" I ejaculated crossly. "Why should I be in pain? Don't be a silly
ass!"

"Yes, sir!"--very softly, and with a deep sigh as he dropped back. By
Jove, he looked as cheerful as a jolly tombstone!

"What the deuce--" I began.

"Noth--nothing, sir!"--hastily--"I was just a-thinking of the--h'm--may
I say scrimmage, sir?"

I waited till I had taken from his hand the second glass of ice-water
and swallowed it, thinking maybe I would get hold of it--the dashed
idea, I mean.

I batted at him perplexedly.

"What was that? _Scrimmage?_ I don't remember hearing anything--_what's_
that?"

And I reached for another glass.

"Pardon, sir--" Jenkins' eye shifted unhappily; "but may I ask, sir,
what _is_ the last thing you do remember?"

"Eh?"

I sat up a bit straighter, rubbing my head and devilish annoyed at being
made to try to think at all. Then I remembered: We were in a jolly blue
aëroplane drawn by golden humming-birds and she was just telling
me--_no_, dash it, that was a dream--just a dashed dream! I groaned,
dropping my head upon my knees. "Why, the last thing I remember was the
punch--punch--"

"Punch--yes, sir!" And Jenkins sighed.

"_Your_ punch to put out the light," I finished. Then I looked at him,
startled. "Oh, I say, now, it wasn't burglars, was it?"

You see, I thought at once of Foxy Grandpa and my darling's pajamas.

"_Not_ precisely, sir." Jenkins hesitated; then moved a little nearer.
"I--I hope you'll pardon me, Mr. Lightnut, sir; but I can't help a
feeling that you ought to know everything before--h'm--I was going to
say, sir, before you see the family. I _hope_ you'll pardon me,
sir!"--he heaved desperately--"I mean about all that happened last
night."

I stared. "Oh, I say, Jenkins," I said, with an anxious thought, "_you_
didn't--er--_you_ know--I mean you and Wilkes didn't drink the rest of
the punch--after he took it away, you know--eh?"

"_Me?_" Jenkins' hand clutched the heavy brass curve at the foot of the
bed. "No, _sir_!"--and he added sadly: "Besides, sir, there _wasn't_ any
rest of it! Mr. Wil--I mean Wilkes, was a-commenting on it. That was how
I come to find I didn't have any more of the blank pledges. So I just
walked across the park to get some extra ones I had given the gardener,
and he said I could have 'em _all_, if I'd just let him get a little
sleep; and he chucked 'em all out of his window. Seemed irritated like
because I woke him up. And then, sir, I don't know whether it was
because of the splashing of the fountains, but I had an idea."

"_That's_ nothing," I said contemptuously, "I often do at night when I
hear water splashing. I _often_ get up and get something."

Jenkins' face sobered. "I _know_ it, sir--pardon, sir, I mean I
frequently know you have--h'm--know by the glasses--_you_ understand,
sir!" Then he went on: "The idea that came to me was a great liberty--I
know that, sir, and I'm sorry--but I guess I was thinking that about the
end justifies--_you_ know it, sir?"

I didn't know, but I did wish _he_ would make an end!

"The library windows was open on the loggia, sir, and when I looked in,
I didn't see anybody and I thought--" Jenkins coughed and looked
devilish rattled--"thought I would just slip in and lay a few of the
temperance pledges between the papers the judge had been working on."
Jenkins reddened, looking at me in an appealing way.

"Jove!" I ejaculated, staring. "Oh, I say, now!"

"Yes, sir,"--faintly--"I knew how you would feel--I ain't excusing
myself, sir; and when I heard your voice I tried to get out, but there
wasn't time, so I--" Jenkins touched his hands in front, then behind
him, and shifted distressfully, "I--I hid behind the alcove
curtains--h'm--and just then--"

"Here!" I broke in, "_Wait_, dash it! _Whose_ voice did you hear?"

Jenkins' eyes ducked.

"Yours, sir," he said faintly. "And then you came in."

I stared, trying to take it in. Couldn't chirp a word, don't you know,
for to _think_ I had taken to sleep-walking--and _here_!

Jenkins proceeded rapidly: "You was cording a dressing-robe about you as
you came in and I see a glimpse of one of your dark suits underneath.
And following right behind you was that young Mr. Bi--h'm--pardon, sir,
I remember you said I wasn't to mention any one connected with that
ni--h'm! _You_ know who I mean, sir?"--he paused anxiously--"Young man,
sir--freckled face--and the big lot of"--his spreading fingers curved
above his head--"_awfully_ yellow hair--um, _you_ know, sir?"

"Oh, _that_!" I said with contempt, for I knew he meant that mucker,
Scoggins. Then incredulously: "Oh, I say, you don't mean I was talking
to _him_? And asleep?"

Jenkins eyed me reproachfully. "Not asleep, sir," he remonstrated
gently.

"But I tell you--"

"Mr. Lightnut, sir, it was the _punch_!" He shook his head. "If you'll
excuse me for mentioning--"

"Oh!" I remarked weakly, falling back upon my pillow. "Jove, Jenkins!"
And I just looked at him stupidly--fact!

Jenkins stroked his chin, his eyes fixed somberly above my head. "The
demon rum, sir," he said slowly, and using the deep, heavy chest tones
like the high-up politicians and expensive lecturers, "is rampant in our
fair land--that's what I heard Doctor Splasher remark--and the insid'jus
monster is slowly--"

And he went on, but I didn't hear. I was trying to think. So I hadn't
been sleep-walking, but had been just plain drunk--and _in her
home_!--so jolly well corked, in fact, I hadn't even a dashed glimmer of
memory of it. Had been making a spectacle of myself, going all about the
house in the wee what-you-call-'em hours of the night and probably--oh,
good heavens, probably _singing_!

I dropped my head back upon the pillow.

"Go on," I said. "Tell me _all_!"

"Yes, sir," resumed Jenkins, "as I was saying, you came in with--_you_
know--er--the young fellow. He kinder slouched in, looking a bit sulky.

"'I've been watching for you to get back from the dog-fight,' you says
to him; 'sit down, I want to talk to you.' But the young fellow just
stood square in the middle of the floor and just kinder scowled black.

"Then you says, pleasant-like: 'I've been talking with a friend of
yours, my son, who thinks I haven't treated you quite fair.'

"'O!' says this young fellow, and seems kinder surprised. Then he got
red.

"'And so, my boy,' you went on, tightening your glass as you looked at
him, 'if I've been harsh I'm sorry--suppose we start all over
again--what do you say? I don't want to cross you in anything if I can
help it--I want to _help_ you.'"

My abrupt ejaculation halted Jenkins an instant, then he proceeded:

"'I say, do you mean that?' asks young Mr. Bi--I _mean_, this young
fellow"--Jenkins stirred nervously--"and you says, kinder laughing:
'there's my hand on it!' and then you both shook.

"'One minute,' says the boy, still looking kinder puzzled and uncertain,
'I want to know what about Frances. How do we stand about _that_?'

"You just laughed sorter and went up and clapped him right on the
shoulder and you says: 'Why, if you can, my son, just go in and win her.
_I_ don't care!'--and you said it hearty-like. You went on: 'I haven't a
word to say--in fact, I'd be only too _glad_ to see you succeed.'"

Here I straightened with almost a screech:

"_What?_ I said that? Oh, now, Jenkins, you--oh, you're mistaken!"

Jenkins eyed me sorrowfully.

"Your words, sir, exactly, and then you went on, kinder persuadingly:
'Why, I haven't meant to stand in your way at all!'"

I groaned.

"Go on!" I breathed through my teeth. Then I straightened forward.
"_What_ did the judge call that punch--what kind?"

"Heidelberg punch, sir,"--a sympathetic pause as I swept my hand through
my hair. "Yes, sir, it certainly must be something high--oh, _awful_,
sir!"

He went on as I dipped my head at him. "Then this young chap catches you
by the hand and he says, 'Why, you're a brick, after all!' And you says:
'Yes, we'll get along better now, my boy, and _you_ want to be mighty
grateful to Dicky Lightnut for it.' And this young fellow says, kinder
smiling: 'Indeed, I am!' And then him and you just shook hands again all
over."

Jenkins stopped for breath, but I didn't say a word. By Jove, it all
made me a bit sick, don't you know. Oh, I must have been maudlin, that's
what--_maudlin_. I managed to wag my head to start him off again;
couldn't speak, you know!

"Yes, sir. Then you says: 'That's all right, now, my boy; so you run
along, because I'm awfully busy. To-morrow we'll talk some more.'

"'Bully!' says the chap. 'Good night, old man!' Then he turns back,
kinder smiling sidewise. 'It's sure on the level, is it, that you're
going to let me have a clear road with Frances?'

"'Oh, bother Frances!' you says laughing. 'Yes, yes, and when you win
her, she'll be to me as my _own_ girl. And I know I'll have her love,
too.'

"'What's that?' says the young fellow, kinder frowning. And you says,
easy-like, 'Why, we'll just be one happy family.' Then you chuckled like
you was mighty pleased and says: 'And I think she is learning to like me
pretty well already. Why, do you know what she did to-night? She came
right up to me and in the sweetest way kissed me good night.'"

"Oh!" I said, digging my fingers into the bedclothes, "Oh!"

"Yes, sir!" said Jenkins chokily. He went on: "This young fellow just
marches right close up to you and says, speaking kinder quiet and his
eyes shining, 'You say Frances kissed you?' And you sorter gave a laugh
and dug him in the side and you says, 'I do believe the boy is jealous!
Why, yes, you rascal, she certainly did--she kissed me!'

"'Well, it's a lie!' he says back, pointing at you with his finger.
'Because it ain't like her.' And he got closer.

"'See here,' he says, 'have you just been trying to get gay with me
to-night? Huh!--well, I'm just going to box your jaws for luck!'

"'What?' you gasps--'what's that?'--and you storms up to him--'Why, you
young puppy, do you know who you're talking to?' you says.

"'Bah!' he says, and he just goes up and snaps his fingers in your face.
You chokes kinder, and then you yells at him: 'Why, you young ruffian,
I've spanked you before, and I can do it again--'

"'Yah!' he says, making faces at you. '_You_ spanked! You hit me when I
wasn't looking. My foot slipped.'

"'Foot slipped, you blanked fool!' you shouts at him, and then--"
Jenkins wiped his forehead--"Then the next thing I see, you mixed."

"Ah!" I breathed with relief. "That's _better_!"

I chuckled. Then suddenly I felt remorseful.

"Where did I hit him this time, Jenkins--did you notice? Was he hurt
much?"

Jenkins looked down, avoiding my eyes. "Um, _not_ exactly, sir," he
said; "in fact, it was--er--kinder the other way."

I stared, aghast.

"You don't mean, Jenkins--"

Jenkins evidently did! His eyes expressed both pity and embarrassment.

"What he did to you,"--he rolled his glance upward, trying to shape the
idea--"I believe, sir, it's what you might call"--his voice dropped--"I
believe it's what they _do_ call wiping up the floor with."

I closed my eyes an instant.

"Finish!" I whispered, feebly flipping my hand at him.

"He left then, sir, but the noise brought Wilkes and we helped you
up-stairs. You wouldn't go any farther than the door of the judge's
bedroom--wanted to tell him, we supposed. When we got that far, I
noticed Mr. Jack Billings' door--it's right opposite, you remember,
sir--was standing just a little open. He called out very anxious and
shrill: 'Oh, _do_ be very careful of the pajamas! My! my! I hope the
pajamas are not hurt!'

"And at that, you just bangs inside the judge's room and in about two
minutes, _he_ stuck his head out, looking kinder towsled and mad like
he'd been waked from a sound sleep, and he fires a wrapped-up parcel at
the door opposite and yells:

"'There are your pajamas, you unnatural, heartless prodigal! Pajamas,
indeed, at such a time!' And then I see Mr. Jack's arm come out and
fish the package inside.

"Then the judge turns on me and Wilkes and ordered us to clear out and
to go to bed. And Wilkes said we'd best do it because the judge would
take care of you and get you to your room quietly. And the last thing I
heard before he slammed inside his room was:

"'There's one thing; I've got a daughter!'"

I looked at Jenkins miserably. He was _right_; he did have a daughter,
and I wanted her. But just now, I wished with all heart that she was
somebody's--anybody else's daughter--than that of the man who had
witnessed my humiliation.

And afterwards--

_How_ had he managed to get me to my room? And had she seen or heard me?
Oh, she must have!

Well, nothing mattered now--nothing could ever matter any more. It was
some miserable comfort to feel, and _know_, that nothing worse could
ever happen!

Why, there was nothing _worse_ left in all the world. By Jove, I was
sure of _that_ much!

And just then a knock sounded.




CHAPTER XXXII

I TOUCH BOTTOM


"Pardon, sir, for not waiting till you came down," the butler was
saying, "but Mr. Billings was just so set on me bringing this to you, I
_had_ to."

He had entered, responding to Jenkins' invitation, bearing in his hand a
gray paper parcel.

"For me?" I questioned, as he laid it on the table, and I eyed it
ominously. Yet it could not be the same I had sent Billings myself--I
could see that--for it was smaller, more compact, and in a different
wrapper. But I was _afraid_ to examine it.

"Yes, sir--he's very bad this morning, sir; the--er--that is, something
last night seems to have excited him."

His eye roved eloquently between Jenkins and myself. He continued
soberly:

"He's locked me and Perkins out of his rooms again, and wouldn't open
the door only wide enough to stick this through. And his
message"--hesitatingly--"he said just tell you you had better get these
pajamas back where they came from just as quickly as you could--you
would _if you were wise_, he said."

"Oh!" I uttered, dazed by this new blow. So it _was_ her pajamas.

But there was more of the message--I could see it in Wilkes' eye.

"Yes, sir," he went on as I gave him a nod. "Mr. Billings
called through the door-crack--and his voice was particularly
shrill--screechy-like--very unnatural, sir--and he said: 'You tell him I
say he'll find it very dangerous to keep them by him a moment; tell him
my advice is to return them _immediately_!'"

Here the butler hesitated an instant and added: "And he said for me to
try to remember three letters I was to mention--said you would
understand."

"Three letters?" I repeated dully.

"Yes, sir, three letters--I did remember 'em, too, because they happened
to be the initials of a young woman I--h'm! Q. E. D., sir."

"Q. E. D.?" I said, puzzled and miserable. "What's Q. E. D.?" And then
an idea startled me.

"Oh I _say_, you mean--er--P. D. Q.--eh, Wilkes?" It sounded like Jack!


But he seemed sure he didn't; insisted on Q. E. D. When he had
withdrawn, I sat there a moment, swallowing hard. By Jove, when a chap
has had the hardest blow of his life, and that, too, from his best
friend, it's devilish hard to come up smiling. I took a deep breath and
tried to pull myself together. I knew, of course, it was all
over--everything; it was all over, just as everything was beginning
with me. For I knew my life never had been worth a whoop before. Why, by
Jove, I never even noticed how beautiful were the trees and the sunshine
through the leaves until the last two days! But I _had_ seen it, because
_she_ had seen it! And now--now it was all dull and flat and dead again,
and all the world was gray! Ever been there--eh?


I climbed heavily to my feet, for I knew, after all, he was acting
devilish considerately as _he_ saw things, and I must just have the
decency to do as he said--and then go. I couldn't explain, of course.
Mustn't try to do that--so dashed clumsy, I would only complicate it for
her. No, I--By Jove, I suddenly felt sick. Sat there, doubled forward,
my head between my hands, as the butler retired, softly closing the door
behind him.

Presently I pulled myself together. Jenkins, as he helped me dress, eyed
me in a frightened way, his face kind of pale and greenish. Neither of
us said a word, but I knew I had _his_ sympathy, poor fellow--and it
helped! Then, with the parcel in my hand, I marched slowly down the
stairs, forgetting even some instructions I should have given Jenkins.

She was there in the living-room--she and the frump. And when I saw her
dear face and realized what disaster had come between us, I felt things
whirling around me like a jolly what's-its-name and dropped my hand on a
chair-back hard, until I could stiffen and smile up. But, by Jove, she
was on!

"Is anything the matter, Mr. Lightnut?" she asked, coming toward me--and
how kindly, almost tenderly, her sweet face softened!

"Is it anything about Jacky?" snapped the frump.

I shook my head and just gently placed the little wrapped parcel in
Frances' hands. My hand shook so I almost dropped it.

"Some--something of yours that was lost," I said, and I knew my voice
shook a little, too. "I was fortunate in recovering it." I looked at
her--for the last time, I knew--and it was just my devilish luck that
she got misty and dim. I whispered hoarsely: "Open when you are alone."

And then I walked straight out of the house!

A gardener directed me to the park gates, but there were so many dashed
curves and terraces I got hopelessly twisted, and pretty soon didn't
know whether I was leaving or coming, don't you know. I sat down on an
iron bench to think it over, and, by Jove, I must have dozed off, for
the first thing I knew some one yelled my name, and I looked up to
see--Billings!

He was looking a bit soiled and disheveled, and his eyes had a hunted
look.

"What the devil are you doing, sitting here?" he demanded.

"I--I'm going," I said, hurriedly getting to my feet. "Just
resting--I--"

"They told me I would find you here," he said. "Here you are, sitting
out here in the hot sun without any hat! Good thing, Dicky, you haven't
got any--h'm!" Then he panted at me: "Say, nice way you and my sister
treated me--I don't _think_! But I'll forgive you this time." Here he
linked his arm in mine. "I'll forgive you, if you never say anything at
the club about those damned black pajamas--nor in the family, either.
Great Scott! I wouldn't have this get out!"

"I wouldn't think of such a thing!" I exclaimed, immeasurably relieved,
but indignant, as well. He led me across the turf.

"Oh, I've had an awful time, Dicky! Awful!"--he lifted his hands--"Oh, I
don't want to tell you about it--I don't want even to think about it
myself!"

I murmured something sympathetic, for I _felt_ sympathetic with
anything; besides, there still lingered a bit of headache from the
Heidelberg punch and I could imagine from that what _his_ feelings must
have been.

"By George, Dicky," he burst out again, "the way I've been shut up and
treated just seems like some infernal conspiracy. Good thing Jack
Ellsworth's dad had a pull with the mayor--tell you all the whole rotten
business when I can talk about it quietly."

"That's right! that's right!" I said soothingly, "wouldn't think about
it at all now, old chap!" No use reminding him, you know, that he had
shut _himself_ up. Besides, the wandering of the mind to Jack Ellsworth
and his father showed me that even yet he was not quite himself.

Billings mopped his forehead. "My, but it was hot in that hole!" he
exclaimed. "And that reminds me--have you seen the governor this
morning? No? Well, talk about hot! _George_, but the old man was hot
under the collar when I saw him just now! And he looks like he had been
dropped from a shot tower! It's this case he's working on, I guess, or
else it's about Francis. He's found out what _I_ knew."

"Do--do you think so?" I questioned nervously.

"Pretty sure," said Billings carelessly. "Fact is, he's already fixing
up to send Francis to some kind of reformatory--heard him making the
arrangements over the 'phone"--I was glad he didn't look at me as he
rattled on--"and, by the way, the governor told me to tell _you_ not to
say a _word_ to Francis--I suppose you'll understand."

Understand? Oh, yes, _I_ understood!

"And he said he wanted to see you."

"Is--is he here?" I stammered, pulling back.

"Thank goodness, no. Gone to meet Colonel Francis Kirkland--say, don't
say anything about it--wants to surprise his daughter, you know. On his
way to London via San Francisco--arrived at Washington a few days ago."

Oh, the frump's father! Much I cared! But knowing how interested _he_
was in her, I tried to show an interest.

"Colonel Francis--er--isn't his daughter named after him?" And I felt
myself grow jolly red, for I remembered that _she_ had told me that
about her friend as she sat on the arm of the Morris chair and in the
black pajamas.

"Hanged if _I_ know," said Billings carelessly. "I don't know what her
name is--don't remember that I ever heard." He whistled. "Say, but did
you ever see anything as stunningly pretty in your life?"

I balked. By Jove, I had been doing some mild lying within the past
twenty-four hours, but this was asking _too_ much! Dash me if I just
could go it, that's all. But he didn't seem to notice.

He slapped me on the back. "By George, Dicky, there's just the girl cut
out for you, old chap--take my tip. I think she likes you, too--could
see it just now when I was talking about you."

So that was it, I reflected gloomily. The frump now was to be worked off
on me, and I was expected to stand for it. I was to be a sort of
what-you-call-it offering on the altar of friendship. _That_ was the
condition upon which he was patching up things!

Billings laughed suddenly. "But, oh, I tell you it would be hard on
Francis--a regular knockout, by George!"

Devilish brutal for him to say so, I thought.

"Do you think so?" I questioned dismally. "Would Frances really care?"

"Oh, yes," he said lightly. "Soon get over it, though--puppy love, you
know."

Puppy love, indeed! By Jove, how I hated Billings!

He went on: "Suppose you never heard anything of the professor and the
pajamas?"

I had not, and I was devilish sick of pajamas, anyway.

"And say, Dicky, I don't remember that I ever thanked you properly, old
man, for putting up my kid brother the other night. He says you treated
him like a brick and that you and he got to be great pals. So much
obliged, old chap, because he wanted to go running around, you know."

"Your brother?" I questioned, astonished, and I guess my face must have
showed it, for Billings' eyes, first opening wide, narrowed, and his
countenance began to gather an angry red. He stopped short.

"_Didn't_ he stay with you?" he snapped.

I stared blankly. "Why, Billings--I didn't know--I didn't remember you
had a brother. I never have seen him."

Billings' face swelled redder, and he struck his fist down with an oath.
He looked angrily toward the house. Then he stepped hurriedly in advance
of me.

"Excuse me, old chap, will you?" he said, his voice hardened. "Will see
you at luncheon--make yourself at home, won't you?"




CHAPTER XXXIII

UNDER THE PERGOLA


Make myself at home! I sneaked under the quiet shade in a convenient
pergola, and, dropping upon a bench, gazed gloomily at the sunlight
patches at my feet.

"Oh, _here_ you are, eh?" broke harshly upon me.

I looked up, startled from my mood. There, hands upon his hips and
scowling, stood--the chauffeur!

I frowned, but the fellow just moved nearer.

"I guess mamma's baby don't feel so spry this morning!" he jeered. "Does
its little heady-cums ache-ums--eh?"

I grunted rather wearily. "If it does, my good fellow, it's none of your
business. Don't bother me!" I shifted the other way.

"Oh, isn't it?"--his tone quickened truculently--"Well, maybe I'll make
it my business!" He jerked his arm at me, continuing sharply: "Look
here, you glass-eyed monkey-jack, don't you get _flip_ with me this
morning"--he laughed coarsely--"or I'll think you want some more! _Do_
you?"

I turned my head and, polishing my monocle carefully, gave it a tight
screw and took him in slowly, beginning with his yellow mop of hair and
ending with the toes of his soiled canvas shoes. By Jove, I was _sure_
they'd never been whitened since he bought them.

I seemed to anger him. He uttered a sort of snort with a mutter
uncomplimentary and strode forward, towering above me where I sat.

"_Answer_, when I'm talking to you, you sap-headed fool," he bellowed,
"or I'll wring your neck! I asked if you wanted some more."

I stretched my arms, trying their muscle room in a lengthy yawn, and
blinked at him with my free eye, wondering where the deuce he got the
crimson hat band. By Jove, _that_ was the most dashed impertinent thing
of all!

"More what?" I drawled indifferently.

"More--of _that_!"--viciously--and _thwack_ his knuckles struck against
the iron back of the jolly bench. For I wasn't there, don't you know.

"Huh! Think you're some smart, don't you?" he sneered, hitching his
trousers band. "Now, look here"--he leveled his finger--"you're a guest
here and I know I oughtn't to do it, and I _hate_ it for Jack's sake,
but I'm feeling I'll just _have_ to give you another trimming this
lovely morning!" He chuckled, rolling his lips and spreading them till I
could see every tooth. He moved toward me leisurely, slipping up his
sleeves. "What you got last night, sonny, was for your own sake, but
_this_ time it's going to be for Frances'--you _fishworm_!"

"Guess we'll leave Miss Frances out of it, don't you know," I
remonstrated. _Dash_ the fellow's impudence! Then, remembering I was
wearing a coat of dark cheviot that was the very devil for showing every
speck of dust, I slipped out of it and looked about for somewhere to
hang it. Not a dashed place, of course; not a thing, you know, except
nails here and there in the wooden uprights of the pergola, and of
course _nails_ wouldn't do to hang a coat on. So I just folded the jolly
thing carefully--very carefully, just as I had seen Jenkins do--and then
I held it on my arm.

The chap had been shifting about me in a curve, clucking his tongue
contemptuously and muttering, and getting more jolly red-eyed and
abusive every minute.

"Be a man!" he snarled. "You blame tailor's dummy, be a _man_!" And he
struck his chest a blow to show me what he meant.

And just then I remembered to smooth my hair-part.

"Oh, _you_--" With a growl like a bear, he swept both his hands to his
head and whirled them through his great yellow pile, leaving each hair
standing on end like the quills on the fretful what's-its-name. Then he
danced toward me, pausing irregularly to double over with a chuckle.

"Oh, this is _too_ good!" he yelped. "But I can't help it; I jest can't
refuse the money, Lizzie! I know they'll send me away for this,
but--Oh, mamma!"

And over he'd double again.

Oddest thing, isn't it, how your jolly active mind _will_ wander at the
rummest times; and I had a thought then of how, when I was a delicate
boy, bully old Doctor Dake and Doctor Madden had prescribed a
punching-bag, and later boxing-gloves. And I thought with a pang of what
ripping times the governor and I had, scrapping, and of what knocks he
gradually began to give me until he forced me to learn to come back
harder. Jove, what corking hours we had! And then when Chugsey, the
retired English light-weight champion, came to butler--_oh_, what
smashing three-handed rounds we used to have! Bully old governor, who
was never so busy on his sermons but what he could take a walk or a ride
with me; or talk with me, or _fight_ with me! Why, he--

By Jove, my dashed monocle got so cloudy of a sudden, I almost missed
the chauffeur's move--_almost_, don't you know!

And then--

"I say, you know!" I said disgustedly, as I screwed my monocle at him
there, his big yellow mat sticking out of sight through the jolly vines.
"Awfully raw thing to strike at a man and leave your guard open like
that--I _could_ have put it over your heart, don't you know!"

I heard a little sound behind me and there was she!

"Oh!" I gasped as I slipped into my coat. And now I _was_ miserable, for
I remembered how kind this chauffeur, Scoggins, had been to her. And for
her to have seen me in this vulgar row!

"Yes, I saw it all," she said, as I moved toward her, murmuring some
jolly effort at apology. Her eyes were shining. "I saw it all, sir--and
_heard_. And just when I had hunted you up with _these_!"--and then I
saw that her arms were burgeoning with roses. "See what I've been doing
for you, sir!"

"For me?" By Jove, it was all I could say as I took them!

"And you ran off!" She pouted adorably--naturally, too, dash it. I've
seen them put it on when they looked like they had toothache. "How am I
ever going to thank you about the pajamas?" By Jove, her big blue eyes
looked me frankly in the face. There was never a quiver of
embarrassment. "It's wonderful--and to find them _here_!"

"I'd--I'd have got 'em to you sooner," I faltered, swallowing, "but
they've been lost a day or two--thief stole them from my rooms, you
know."

"How on earth _did_ you ever get hold of them? I never expected to see
those pajamas again. Oh, you must tell me all about how you managed
it!"--and we moved away--"I just _wish_ father were here!"

_I_ didn't! Dash it, it made me squirm to think of his return.

As we left the pergola behind, I looked backward through its arch, and
there was the chauffeur, standing in the shadows, looking after us. And
long after, as we turned from the straight avenue leading through the
pergola, I descried his figure, still looking after us, unchanged,
immovable.

It was rum!

But I had other things to think of as we sat out in the loggia--chiefly
of her, herself; withal, wondering gloomily what her father would say
when he found I had disobeyed his injunction about not speaking to her.
Presently the summons to luncheon came, and we went in.

From up-stairs came sounds indicating great hilarity on Billings' part.
In fact, we could hear him slapping his knee and screaming. The frump
looked at me anxiously.

"Why, I understood he was all right again," she said aside.

I shook my head dubiously. I had seen in the past day or two how rapidly
Billings' moods shifted. Twenty minutes since he had looked enraged.

"Oh, this is too good--but keep it mum!" we heard. "Come on, Professor!"

"Professor?" The frump looked at Frances, then at Wilkes inquiringly.

"I didn't know, miss," he murmured contritely. "'S why I didn't mention
it."

We were crossing the great hall in the direction of the beautiful
dining-room beyond--Elizabethan, I think Frances said it was. We all
paused expectantly as Billings rolled down the stairs in his usual
jolly, elephantine way. And then on the landing appeared an
apparition--not only an apparition, but, by Jove, a scarecrow, as well!

Professor Doozenberry, blandly smiling--his rail-like figure shrouded
flabbily in one of Billings' largest and loudest suits! Billings went
through the form of introductions, chuckling idiotically the while. But
the professor scarcely noticed any one but the frump.

"Don't wait, Wilkes," Billings directed. His nod beckoned me aside.

"Gentleman sulking in his tent over here I want you to meet," he said.
And I followed him to the library. A figure pacing the floor turned
sharply. By Jove, it was the chauffeur, and how he did scowl at me!

"Now, young man," said Billings sternly, "perhaps you'll have the nerve
to tell me before Mr. Lightnut himself that you were his guest on your
way home from Harvard."

"I certainly was!" He made the statement, chin up and eyes blazing. "I
was his guest at the Kahoka Wednesday night, and he knows it."

Billings looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't bother denying it, old man," he said. "It's all right."

"Oh, but I say--it isn't!" I exclaimed in disgusted amaze. "Dashed
impertinence, you know--never saw this fellow before the morning at
the--er--boat, and day before yesterday when I--" I halted, remembering.

But the fellow was shaking his finger at me.

"A-a-a!" he jeered like a school-boy. "Why don't you finish? Bet you
don't know, Jack, that this paragon friend of yours was up here on the
train day before yesterday." Billings stared, for he did not know.

The chap grew more impudent. "Yah, see him turn red!"

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, warming up, you know. "Say, Billings, who the
devil is this fellow?" And I advanced angrily--dashed annoyed, you know.

Billings interposed. "My brother," he said quietly.

"Yes, his brother," almost shouted the other. Then he lowered his voice
at Billings' command: "And I say, you didn't tell Jack you were on the
train yesterday, posing as a 'Mr. Smith,' and that you insulted
Frances." He shook off his brother's hand angrily. "Oh, yes he
did--sister told me about it! I knew it was you when I got to thinking
about it this morning!" He panted for breath. "I can't call you a liar,
Lightnut, when you say I wasn't at your rooms, because you're a quicker
hitter than I am, and--" He looked around and shrugged. "And because we
are in this house. But you're an infernal hypocrite, and I want Jack to
know it." He laughed mockingly and faced his brother. "Ask your friend,
Mr. Lightnut, about that girl in black pajamas in his rooms!"

And he flung himself from the room with a Parthian shot: "Ask him to
tell you about her as he did me. Ask him who it _was_!"

Billings seemed to groan. "More black pajamas!" he muttered.

I faced him eagerly. "I never told him about her--I'll swear I didn't,"
I pleaded miserably. "You know all there is to know, Jack. I wouldn't
tell anybody in the world a thing like that. I--love her too well. Much
less would I go and tell her own brother."

"Wha-a-a-t?" Billings' fat body almost leaped into the air. "What the
devil--say, old chap, _what_ are you talking about?"

"And, besides, she's forgiven me," I persisted gloomily. "And I love
her--and--and we're going to be married--or I hope so, dash it!"

Billings stared at me with popping eyes for an instant. Then he lifted
my chin and looked at me anxiously. "Are you quite well, old man?" he
asked. "Headache, or anything like that? By George, it's from sitting
out in that sun without a hat. Marry my sister?" He wagged his head
lugubriously. "What--Elizabeth? Oh, good heavens!"

"No--Frances," I explained anxiously.

He stared. "Francis?" Then his arm led me out. "Come along, old chap,"
he said with an air of concern. "We'll get a little ice--"

There was a bustle near the hall entrance, and I heard a commanding
voice I recognized as that of Judge Billings:

"Come right in, Colonel, and we will try to make you forget that little
exasperation--do you know I just can't get over the idea that I've seen
you somewhere and _recently_--Hello, Jack! Colonel Kirkland, my eldest
boy, Jack--named after his mother, Johanna. Look here, Jack, has
everybody on the blithering police force gone crazy about _pajamas_?
Most infernal outrage--pardon me, Colonel Kirkland--three policemen
wanted to arrest him on description--dragnet order, they said--for
stealing a pair of black silk pajamas. Ever hear the like of that?"

Billings' voice murmured something, and then I was dully conscious of my
name being passed and of the fact that I was limply shaking a hand. But
I don't remember uttering a word--couldn't, by Jove, for my jolly tongue
was paralyzed. Didn't know what to do; didn't know what to say, you
know, for there before my eyes, recognizable and unmistakable, despite
frock coat and white choker tie, was the figure of "Foxy Grandpa."

The beefy face, white mutton chop whiskers and bald head were as
indelibly imprinted on my memory as the sunburn line that fenced his
fiery face.

And _this_ was the frump's father, and it was for him she was scheming
to make a home!




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE CUB


I didn't go in to luncheon.

Instead, I lay down up in my room, wondering what Jenkins would think
when he saw Foxy Grandpa a guest with me under this roof, and wondering
also what I ought to do, or if I should do anything. I came to the
conclusion finally that I wouldn't say anything for the present, for I
had about all the complications I could carry.

Presently I went down to the living-room, where they were all assembled,
and my heart leaped as I thought I detected a brightening in Frances'
face as I entered.

Billings was waving the frump away with his fat hand. "Take it away," he
said. "I hate bugs."

"But, Jacky," said the frump pleadingly, "I think it's a _phusiotus
gloriosa_."

"I don't care if it's a giraffe," said Billings rudely.

But the professor was already across the room to the rescue.

"Ha! not a _gloriosa_," he said animatedly, as he snooped over the
little greenish thing in the frump's hand. "Observe the shortened
_prothorax_ and _mesothorax_ and--"

"And _metathorax_," chimed in the frump, her head close to his.
"Hence--"

"It is a _phanaeus carnifex_," said the professor positively.

By Jove, it looked to me like what we used to call a dung beetle!

And then the two cranks went out in the sun with butterfly nets, and
Frances and I drifted out to our pavilion overlooking the broad sweep of
the Tappan Zee. As yet, her father had said nothing to me, but I knew
that the blow might fall any moment. Only the arrival of the frump's
father had so far saved me. And though I had gone right ahead violating
his jolly injunction about Frances, I kept a sort of parole with him by
avoiding any discussion of things that I knew would have interested my
darling the most--that is, our love and our future. Later we took a
drive through Sleepy Hollow and the Pocantico Hills. But though we grew
better and better acquainted every minute, I couldn't help feeling
devilish disappointed, for never once did she ever call me "Dicky." I
wondered moodily whether her brother had told her yet of his plans for
me.

In the evening, the younger brother showed up at dinner, but sulked,
which I thought under the circumstances was about the most considerate
thing he could have done.

Once during the evening, Billings, who had been talking with the
professor, turned to me. "By the way, Dicky--those pajamas, you
know--what did you do with them this morning?" He and the professor
whispered again; then Billings turned back. "Gray paper parcel--um--you
know?"

Know? Dash it, of course I knew, but I--

"Why, _I_ have them now," came quietly from my companion, "thanks to Mr.
Lightnut. He gave them to me this morning."

"_Gave_ them to you!" gasped Billings. He whispered to me: "But the
rubies, you cuckoo--you didn't give her _those_?"

Rubies? Dash it, I had to think hard to remember what had become of the
rubies. But I got the idea.

"Why, the professor has those," I reminded him. "The red pajamas, you
know--don't you remember?" I drew him aside.

Billings stared. "But he says he returned them," he exclaimed, cutting
an odd sidewise look at the professor, who was talking to Frances and
the frump. Billings frowned.

"Haven't seen them," I said carelessly, for I wanted to talk to _her_.
"Oh, dash the rubies--wait till morning!"

Billings looked sourly at the professor and went off and sat alone. He
seemed put out about the old boy not returning the garments. Never
seemed to occur to him that the professor was a devilish busy and
absent-minded old chap. Might not return them for a month. _I_ knew
that.

"Oh, really, Frances?" the frump was saying, "How exceedingly nice of
you, dear!" The professor was occupied for the moment with a moth. "I
hope I won't frighten you in them as you say your maid was frightened at
you. If pajamas are unbecoming to you, why just imagine me in them!"

By Jove, I was devilish glad I was not supposed to hear, for I didn't
want to be required to imagine it. But as for them being unbecoming to
my darling--well, I knew she knew what I thought!

Later, when the evening had shaded off and the ladies had left us, we
sat in the smoking-room talking till late. I was astonished to find Foxy
Grandpa devilish entertaining and clever--not a bad sort at all. He
seemed to have no recollection of me at all, and therefore no grudges. I
had made up my mind by this time I wasn't going to marry the frump, no
matter what came or what Billings wanted, and I would tell him so in the
morning. But whoever did marry her--and it looked like it was going to
be the professor--would have some sort of compensation in Foxy Grandpa's
entertaining stories of Eastern scandal.

Billings' cub brother smoked in a corner of the room by himself and
drank innumerable slugs of whisky straight. Once I saw his father go
over to him and seem to remonstrate, but without effect.

Billings wanted his father to try my special import of cigarettes, so I
sent for Jenkins, who had arrived, to bring some down. And when he saw
Foxy Grandpa calmly sitting there by me, pulling at a straw, he almost
lost his balance. But I shook my head with covert warning.

"Ever see me before--eh?" asked the cub harshly, as he waved aside the
cigarettes Jenkins extended. "Last Wednesday night--remember?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jenkins, hesitatingly. Then he rolled an eye at me
and corrected himself hastily but firmly:

"No, sir; I don't recall _ever_ seeing you before, sir."

Of course, I knew he had not, but the cub got up with a sour laugh. Then
with a murmured gruff apology, he withdrew, saying he had a headache and
was going to bed. And, by Jove, what a look he gave me from the door!

"Midnight!" ejaculated some one at length, just as the professor
finished a jolly rum but interesting yarn of adventures in Tibet. We all
rose and I was answering a challenge of Billings' for a Sunday morning
game of billiards, when all of a sudden a scream rang out from somewhere
above. Then came a greater commotion--two voices raised in rapid and
excited colloquy. On top of this another scream, louder and more
piercing--a woman's call for help.

"One of the maids," Billings hazarded. "A mouse--"

"That was Frances!" I answered him excitedly, and we all piled out into
the hall and peered down its long vista.

Down one of the dimly illumined angles of the great stairway a white
figure darted, then paused, abashed, crouching back against the wall at
sight of us advancing. Above her sounded a man's voice, and even as she
screamed again, he overtook her, clasping her arm.

"Frances--dear, dear Frances!" he cried. "Are you afraid of _me_?"

And he threw his arms around her. "Come on back, dearest!" he pleaded.
"You have been dreaming."

And under the light of a great red cluster of grapes, pendent from the
mouth of a grinning Bacchus, I recognized with horror the yellow mat of
hair and freckled face of Billings' cub brother. On the instant, with a
bull-like roar, Billings sprang forward, but I was quicker still. But
fleeter than either of us to reach the scene were the two elderly men,
together with Miss Warfield, the housekeeper, and a couple of the maids.
Frances darted like a bird to Foxy Grandpa, and then the figures of the
women shut her from view.

Billings and I had paused, half-way to the landing. It looked as though
the elder Billings was amply capable of handling the occasion now. He
had backed the youth against the wall behind, and his language was of a
kind I hated to have my darling hear. Every time the other offered to
expostulate, his father broke out again.

"You are a disgrace to an honored name!" he roared. "And the only
explanation left for me to offer our guests is that you are drunk and
don't know where you are!"

"Oh, father!" faltered the boy. And then he turned his black shrouded
figure to the pale marble against which he leaned, and it seemed to me
his very heart would sob away.

"What's the matter, dad?" came a voice from the head of the stairway.
"What in thunder is all the row about?"

"By George!" gasped Billings. Everybody looked upward--one of the women
screamed. For there, slowly advancing down the angle leading to the
landing, his yellow mop of hair shining above the dark collar of a
dressing-robe, was the duplicate of the youth cowering under the elder
Billings' wrath.

And out of a dead, tense silence, came his voice again:

"Can't any of you speak?" He touched the figure on the shoulder. "Who
are you?" he asked in an odd, strained voice.

The black figure turned toward him a face agonized in grief.

"I--I don't know," came a voice pitifully--his voice, it seemed.

The cub just stood like a statue for a moment--stood as we all stood.
Then slowly his hand went out and touched the hand of his double.
Slowly his fingers swept the face, the hair; gradually his eyes closed,
as though he were sensing by touch alone.

Suddenly a loud cry leaped from his throat.

"Sister!" he shouted. And he swept the black figure to him.

Then, tossing back his head, the youth faced us with blazing, angry
eyes, looking as David must have, when he faced old what's-his-name.

"If there's a man among you, I'd like to know what this means?" he
cried.

There was a blank silence for an instant, and then--

"Perhaps I can explain," said a voice.

And up the stairway advanced Professor Doozenberry.




CHAPTER XXXV

IN THE GLOW OF THE RUBIES


Evening had come again.

In fact, it was almost bedtime. Frances and I sat before the hearth in
the library, looking silently into the red heart of the dying embers of
fragrant pine cones. For in the heights of the Pocantico Hills it often
is chilly on summer nights.

My darling sat on a low _fauteuil_, her chin resting upon her hand, her
beautiful eyes fixed dreamily, inscrutably, upon the fading coals. In
her lap lay the spread of the crimson pajamas.

She was thinking--thinking--I wondered what! And I was thinking how
jolly rum it all was; that Francis wasn't Frances, that the professor
wasn't Billings, Colonel Francis Kirkland wasn't Foxy Grandpa and wasn't
the frump's father after all; and that the frump, herself--bless her,
her name was Elizabeth--wasn't Frances, and wasn't a frump at all, but
just a jolly, nice, homely old dear, you know. And I was trying to catch
and hold some of the deuced queer things the professor had discoursed
upon about ancient Oriental what's-its-name, and astral bodies,
obsession, psychical research and all that sort of thing. Somehow, dash
it, it had all seemed devilish unreasonable and improbable to
_me_--couldn't get hold of it, you know; but as everybody else had said
"Ah-h-h!" and had wagged their heads as though they understood, I just
said: "Dash it, of course, you know!" and recrossed my legs and took a
fresher grip on my monocle.

The most devilish hard thing to get hold of had been that Frances had
never sat on the arm of my Morris chair, had never told me she liked me
better than any man she had ever met, and had never called me "Dicky" at
any time or anywhere. I wondered if she ever would, and how the deuce
fellows went about it when they proposed to the girl they madly loved. I
was devilish put out, you know, that I had never tried it so I _could_
know.

From across the hall droned the voices from the smoking-room--Colonel
Kirkland and the judge debating something about treaty ports and the
Manchurian railway. Through the French windows from the open loggia came
the eager, pitched tones of the professor and the frump--no, Elizabeth,
I mean--discussing Aldeberan and Betelguese, dead suns, star clusters
and the nebular hypothesis.

Within the room Billings had snapped out the lights, to bring out the
blazing fire of his treasured ruby, and from the tray in the dark corner
where he was closing it in his collection vault, it gleamed like the end
of a bright cigar. The other four were absently clutched in my darling's
hand and the crimson shine gleamed bravely through her finger bars.
"Carbuncles--ancient carbuncles," the professor had called them, "that
the Chinese believed their dragons carried in their mouths, in their
black caves in days of old, to furnish light whereby they could see to
devour their victims." And _that_ I believed, for I could see some
practical sense about it!

"What _I_ should like to know," said the dear, precious cub, hugging his
knee by the mantel, "is where _I_ come in!"

"You don't come in," said Billings, lifting him playfully by the ear;
"you come _out_!" And out they went.

And my dear girl and I were like what's-his-name's picture--alone at
last, you know. She stirred softly and her sigh came like the wind
through the trees at night.

"I suppose we will have to burn them," she said dolefully; "the
professor says it is the only thing to do."

"Jolly shame, I say!" I murmured indignantly.

"It seems a crime," she said softly, and there was a little choke in her
voice. She slipped to the soft-fibered rug before the fire. I gently
brought my chair closer to her.

[Illustration]

For a moment she pressed her cheek against the crimson mass, then
kneeling forward, laid it gently on the glowing coals. There was a
flash, a lightning blaze of red that almost blinded us, and then for a
brief space a field of shining ash. Against this the tiny serpent frogs
writhed and twisted and turned at last to leaden gray. Over the spread
of all, swept wave after wave of golden, crimsoned pictures--temples and
pagodas--dragons that licked fiery tongues at us--strange faces that
came and went, leering hideously into our own.

And then of a sudden it was all faded--gone! The breeze from the open
window stirred the ashes to the side. She dropped back with a deep sigh.

"They're gone," she breathed mournfully.

"Never mind," I said; "you've these left." And daringly I laid my hand
upon the one that clasped the rubies. And I thrilled as it lay still
beneath my own.

"Good-by, you dear old, wicked, enchanted pajamas," she said. "I don't
care--I just love you, because--" She paused.

"Because they brought us together?" By Jove, I didn't know I had said
it, till it came out!

An instant, and then I caught it--just a little whisper, you know:

"Yes--Dicky!"

By Jove! And then, dash it, my monocle dropped! But I let it go.

Presently she looked at the glowing rubies in her hand.

"They are from India, you know, Dicky--from Mandalay, the professor
said." And she murmured: "'On the road to Mandalay, where the old
flotilla lay'--don't you remember? I've been there, Dicky."

"By Jove!" I said. "Have you, though? Is it jolly?"

"The poet seemed to think so--" She laughed. "Do you know Kipling,
Dicky?" I tried to think, but dashed if I could remember.

I wondered if it would be a good place to take a trip to!


I hitched closer. "What does--er--this poet chap say about it? What's it
like, you know?"

She laughed. "I'm afraid it's wicked, Dicky, a good deal like the
haunted pajamas." She leaned forward, chin upon her hand again, looking
into the fading coals. "I'll tell you what he says."

Then her voice went on:

    "Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
    Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst."

"By Jove!" I said, interested.

    "For the temple bells are callin', and it's there that I would be--
    By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea."

I brought my hand down on my knee.

"Oh, I say, you know--er--Frances," I exclaimed with enthusiasm, "we'll
go there for our honeymoon, by Jove! Shall we--eh?"

And then the jolly rubies rolled unheeded to the floor. And nothing
stirred but the ashes of the haunted pajamas!

And then--Oh, but Frances says that's _all_!


THE END




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