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diff --git a/old/68334-0.txt b/old/68334-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f623536..0000000 --- a/old/68334-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7444 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Best laid schemes, by Meredith -Nicholson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Best laid schemes - -Author: Meredith Nicholson - -Release Date: June 17, 2022 [eBook #68334] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, the Research Assistants at - UNC Chapel Hill, Wilson Collection for providing a high - quality scan for the book's cover, and the Online - Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This - file was made using scans of public domain works put online - by Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEST LAID SCHEMES *** - - - - - -_BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON_ - - BEST LAID SCHEMES - THE MAN IN THE STREET - BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP! - LADY LARKSPUR - THE MADNESS OF MAY - THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY - -_CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ - - - - - BEST LAID SCHEMES - - - - - BEST LAID SCHEMES - - BY - MEREDITH NICHOLSON - - “_The best laid schemes o’ mice and men - Gang aft a-gley_” - - --ROBERT BURNS - - NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - 1922 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1922, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - COPYRIGHT, 1912, 1913, 1914 BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. - COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1921 BY THE MCCLURE PUBLICATIONS INC. - - Printed in the United States of America - - Published April, 1922 - - - - - TO - - WILL H. HAYS - - WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS MORE TO BE PRIZED - THAN MUCH FINE GOLD - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - THE SUSINESS OF SUSAN 3 - - THE GIRL WITH THE RED FEATHER 34 - - THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING 74 - - ARABELLA’S HOUSE PARTY 115 - - THE THIRD MAN 167 - - WRONG NUMBER 197 - - - - -BEST LAID SCHEMES - - - - -THE SUSINESS OF SUSAN - - -I - -Susan Parker was twenty-six and nothing had ever happened. To speak -more accurately, plenty of things had happened, but Man had never -happened. As a college girl and afterward, Susie had, to be sure, known -many men; but they had all passed by on the other side. A young man of -literary ambitions had once directed a sonnet at Susie, but she was -not without critical judgment and she knew it for a weak effort. This -young man afterward became the sporting editor of a great newspaper, -and but for Susie’s fastidiousness in the matter of sonnets she might -have shared his prosperity and fame. A professor of theology had once -sent her a sermon on the strength of a chance meeting at a tea; but -this, though encouraging, was hardly what might be called a thrilling -incident. Still, the young professor had later been called to an -important church, and a little more enthusiasm for sermons on Susie’s -part might have changed the current of her life. - -The brother of one of Susie’s Vassar classmates had evinced a deep -interest in Susie for a few months, spending weekends at Poughkeepsie -that might much better have been devoted to working off his conditions -at New Haven; but the frail argosy of their young affections had -gone to smash with incredible ease and swiftness over a careless -assertion by Susie that, after all, Harvard was the greatest American -university. All universities looked alike to her, and she had really -been no more interested in Harvard than in the academic centers of -Wyoming or Oklahoma. Now this young gentleman was launched successfully -as a mining engineer and had passed Susan by for another of his -sister’s classmates, who was not nearly so interesting or amusing as -Susie. - -Susie’s mother had died while she was in college, and her father, -in the year she was graduated. As he had chosen a good name rather -than great riches, Susie had found it necessary to adjust herself -to conditions, which she did by taking the library course at Witter -Institute. In Syracuse, where Susan was born, old friends of the family -had said how fortunate it was that her education made library work -possible for her. And, though this was true, Susie resented their tone -of condescension. In its various implications it dismissed her from the -world to which she had been accustomed to another and very different -sphere. It meant that if she became an attendant in the Syracuse -Library she would assist at no more teas, and that gradually she -would be forgotten in the compilations of lists of eligibles for such -functions as illuminate the social horizon of Syracuse. - -Whereupon, being a duly accredited librarian, entitled to consideration -as such wherever book warehouses exist, Susan decided to try her -luck in a strange land, where hours from nine to six would be less -heart-breaking than in a town where every one would say how brave Susie -was, or how shameful it was that her father had not at least kept up -his life insurance. - -The archives of Denver, Omaha and Indianapolis beckoned. She chose -Indianapolis as being nearer the ocean. - -In her changes of status and habitat the thing that hurt Susan most was -the fact that the transition fixed her, apparently for all time, among -the Susans. She had been named Susan for an aunt with money, but the -money had gone to foreign missions when Susie was six. In college she -had always been Susie to those who did not call her Miss Parker. Her -introduction to the library in the Hoosier capital was, of course, as -Miss Parker; but she saw Miss Susan looming darkly ahead of her. She -visualized herself down the gray vistas, preyed upon daily by harassed -women in search of easy catercorners to club papers, who would ask at -the counter for Miss Susan. And she resented, with all the strength of -her healthy young soul, the thought of being Miss Susan. - -Just why Sue and Susie express various shades of character and personal -atmosphere not hinted in the least by Susan pertains to the psychology -of names, and is not for this writing. Susie was a small human package -with a great deal of yellow hair, big blue eyes, an absurdly small -mouth and a determined little nose. As a child and throughout her -college years she had been frolicsome and prankish. Her intimates had -rejected Sue as an inappropriate diminutive for her. Sue and Susie are -not interchangeable. Sue may be applied to tall, dark girls; but no -one can imagine a Susie as tall or dark. In college the girls had by -unanimous consent called her Susie, with an affectionate lingering upon -the second syllable and a prolongation of the “e.” - -To get exactly the right effect, one should first bite into a tart -gooseberry. In her corridor at Vassar it had been no uncommon thing -to speak of her affectionately as Susie the Goosie. Another term of -endearment she evoked was Susie the Syracuse Goosie, usually when she -was in disgrace with the powers. - -And Susie was the least bit spoiled. She had liked these plays upon -her name. Her sayings and doings were much quoted and described in -those good old days before she became Miss Susan Parker on a public -library payroll. An admiring classmate had suggested the writing of a -book to be called the Susiness of Susie. And Susie was funny--every -one admitted that she was. She left behind her at college a reputation -as a past mistress of the unexpected, and a graceful skater over the -thin ice of academic delinquency. She had liked the admiration of her -classmates and had more or less consciously played for it. She did not -mind so much being small when it was so clear that her compact figure -contributed so considerably to her general Susiness. - -And the manner of the way in which Susan became Susie again fell in -this wise: - -Last summer the newest certain rich man in Indianapolis, having -builded himself a house so large that his wife took the children -and went abroad to be comfortable, fell under the fascinations of a -book agent, who equipped his library with four thousand of the books -that are books. The capitalist really meant to read them when he got -time--if he ever did; and, in order that he might the more readily -avail himself of his library when leisure offered, he acted upon the -agent’s hint that it should be scientifically catalogued. The public -librarian had suggested Miss Parker as a competent person for the -task; and Logan, the owner of the unread books, having been pleased -with the candidate’s appearance, had suggested that she live in the -house while doing the work, to be company for his wife’s aunt, who -was marooned there during Mrs. Logan’s absence. Logan thereupon went -to Alaska to look at an investment. The aunt proved agreeable and the -big Logan house was, of course, a much pleasanter place than Susan’s -boarding house, where she had been annoyed by the efforts of one or -two young gentlemen to flirt with her. Though her isolation emphasized -the passing of her Susiness, she was reasonably happy, and set up her -typewriter among the new books to do the cataloguing. In the long, -eventless evenings she read to the aunt or cut leaves, and felt the -years of her Susihood receding. - -And it was not until the very last week of her stay in the Logan house -that Miss Susan Parker experienced a recrudescence of her Susiness. - - -II - -Late one afternoon, midway of September, Susie, who had just returned -from a stroll, stood on the Logan portico watching the motors flit -past, and thinking a little mournfully that in a few days she must go -back to her boarding house and her place behind the library counter. -It was then that she observed Mr. Webster G. Burgess on his doorstep -adjoining, viewing the urban landscape reflectively. He was hatless and -in his hand he held a bit of yellow paper that resembled a telegram. -Noting Susie’s presence on the Logan veranda, he crossed the lawn in -her direction. She knew from a personal item in the afternoon paper -that Mr. Burgess had returned from his vacation, and that Mrs. -Burgess was to follow at once, accompanied by her younger sister, -Miss Wilkinson; and that she was to entertain immediately Mr. Brown -Pendleton, a wealthy young American explorer and archæologist, who was -coming to Indiana to deliver the dedicatory address at the opening of -the new Historical Museum at the state university. Mrs. Burgess always -entertained all the distinguished people who visited Indianapolis, and -it had occurred to Susan that by the exercise of ordinary vigilance she -might catch a glimpse of Brown Pendleton during his stay at the house -next door. Webster Burgess was a banker who had inherited his bank, -and he had always found life rather pleasant going. His wife diverted -him a good deal, and the fact that she played at being a highbrow -amused him almost more than anything else. He had kept his figure, -and at forty-two was still able to dance without fear of apoplexy. He -chose his haberdashery with taste, and sometimes he sent flowers to -ladies without inclosing his wife’s card; but his wife said this was -temperamental, which was a very good name for it. - -Susie, holding her ground as Burgess advanced, composedly patted the -head of one of the bronze lions that guarded the entrance to the Logan -doors. - -“Good evening! It’s mighty nice to see you back again,” said Burgess, -smiling. - -It was at this instant that Susan, hearing the god of adventure -sounding the call to arms, became Susie again. - -“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Burgess,” she replied; and ceasing to -fondle the bronze lion’s left ear she gave the banker her hand. “Summer -is hanging on,” observed Susie; “it’s quite warm this evening.” - -“It is, indeed, and most of our neighbors seem to be staying away late; -but I’m glad you’re back.” - -Susie was glad he was back. Her superficial knowledge of Mr. Webster -Burgess bore wholly upon his standing as a banker. In the year she -had spent in his ancestral city she had never heard anything to -justify a suspicion that he was a gentleman given to flirtations with -strange young women. There was something quite cozy and neighborly in -his fashion of addressing her. His attitude seemed paternal rather -than otherwise. He undoubtedly mistook her for a member of the Logan -household. It crossed her mind that he probably knew little of the -Logan family, who had occupied the new house only to leave it; but she -knew there were several Logan girls, for she was occupying the room -designed for one of them. - -“This is what I call downright good luck!” Burgess continued, glancing -at his watch. “Mrs. Burgess reaches town at six, with her sister--and -Brown Pendleton, the explorer, and so on. We met him at Little Boar’s -Head, and you know how Mrs. Burgess is--she wanted to be sure he saw -this town right. A mighty interesting chap--his father left him a -small mint, and he spends his income digging. He’s dug up about all -the Egyptians, Babylonians and Ninevites. He’s coming out to make a -speech--thinks of prying into the mound-builders; though I don’t see -why any one should. Do you?” - -“On the whole I think the idea rather tickles me,” said Susie. “I -always thought it would be fun to try a lid-lifter on the dead past.” - -Mr. Burgess took note of her anew and chuckled. - -“Open up kings like sardines! I like your way of putting it.” - -“A few canned kings for domestic consumption,” added Susie, thinking -that he was very easy to talk to. The fact that he did not know her -from a daughter of the royal house of Rameses made not the slightest -difference now that the adventurous spirit of the old Susie days -possessed her. - -Mr. Burgess was scrutinizing the telegram again. - -“I want you to dine with us this evening--as a special favor, you -know. It’s rather sudden, but Mrs. Burgess has a sudden way of doing -things. Just as I left my office I got this wire ordering me to produce -the most presentable girl I could find for dinner. Pendleton hates -big functions, but I nailed Billy Merrill at the club on my way up, -according to instructions--you can always get Billy; but I went through -the telephone book without finding any unattached woman of suitable age -I would dare take a shot at, knowing my wife’s prejudices. And then I -looked over here and saw you.” - -His manner conveyed, with the utmost circumspection, the idea that -seeing her had brightened the world considerably. - -“Certainly, Mr. Burgess,” replied Susie, without the slightest -hesitation or qualm. “At seven, did you say?” - -“Seven-thirty we’d better say. There’s my machine and I’ve got to go to -the station to meet them.” - -As Susan, the thing would have been impossible; as Susie, it seemed -the most natural thing in the world. Burgess was backing down the -steps. Every instant reduced the possibility of retreat; but the fact -was, that she exulted in her sin. She was an impostor and she rejoiced -shamelessly in being an impostor. And yet it did not seem altogether -square to accept Mr. Burgess’s invitation to dinner when it would -undoubtedly involve him in difficulties with his wife, whom she had -never seen in her life. - -Burgess paused and wheeled round abruptly. - -Her Susiness experienced a shock--the incident, in her hasty -conjecture, was already closed--for he said: - -“By-the-way, what is your name anyhow?” - -“Susie,” she said, lifting her chin Susily. - -Mr. Burgess laughed, as though it were perfectly obvious that she was -a Susie--as though any one at a glance ought to know that this young -person in the white flannel skirt and blue shirt-waist was a Susie, -ordained to be so called from the very first hour of creation. - -“Just for fun, what’s the rest of it?” he asked. - -“Parker, please. I’m not even a poor relation of the Logans.” - -“I didn’t suppose you were; quite and distinctly not!” he declared as -though the Logans were wholly obnoxious. “I never saw you before in my -life--did I?” - -“Never,” said Susie, giving him the benefit of her blue eyes. - -Burgess rubbed his ear reflectively. - -“I think I’m in for a row,” he remarked in an agreeable tone, as though -rows of the sort he had in mind were not distasteful to him. - -“Of course,” said Susie with an air of making concessions, “if you -really didn’t mean to ask me to dinner, or have changed your mind now -that you find I’m a stranger and a person your wife would never invite -to her house, we’ll call the party off.” - -“Heavens, no! You can’t send regrets to a dinner at the last minute. -And if you don’t show up I’m going to be in mighty bad. You see----” He -gazed at Susie with the keen scrutiny he reserved for customers when -they asked to have their lines of credit extended, and he carefully -weighed the moral risk. “We seem to be on amazingly intimate terms, -considering our short acquaintance. There’s something about you that -inspires confidence.” - -“I’m much uplifted by this tribute,” said Susie with a Susesque touch -that escaped her so naturally, so easily, that she marveled at herself. - -Burgess smiled broadly. - -“I’m afraid,” he remarked, “that you don’t quite fill the bill; but -you’ll do--you’ve got to do!” - -He handed her the telegram he had retained in his hand and watched her -face as she read: - - P. is greatly taken with Floy, and we must give her every chance. - Pick up an uninteresting young man and one of the least attractive of - the older girls for dinner tonight. This is important Make no mistake. - -“Those are my instructions. Can you ever forgive me?” - -“With my hair brushed straight back, they say I’m quite homely,” -observed Susie sighing. - -“I shouldn’t do my worst,” said the banker, “where Nature has been so -generous.” - -“It seems,” observed Susie meditatively, “that I’m your deliberate -choice as a foil for your sister-in-law, by sheer force of my -unattractiveness.” - -“I’m slightly nearsighted,” replied the banker. “It’s a frightful -handicap.” - -“I can see that glasses would be unbecoming to you.” - -“The matter of eyes,” said the banker, stroking a lion, “is not one I -should trust myself to discuss with you. Do you mind telling me what -you’re doing here?” - -“Cutting the leaves in the books and making a card catalogue. I use the -typewriter with a dexterity that has been admired.” - -“A person of education, clearly.” - -“French and German were required by my college; and I speak English -with only a slight Onondaga accent, as you observe.” - -Her essential Susiness seemed to be communicating itself to the banker. -His chauffeur loosened a raucous blast of the horn warningly. - -“I fear your time is wasted. The Logans will never read those books. -It’s possible that the hand of Fate guided me across the lawn to -deliver you from the lions. The thought pleases me. To continue our -confidences, I will say that, noble woman though my wife is, her sister -has at times annoyed me. And when I left Little Boar’s Head I saw that -Pendleton suspected that we were trying to kidnap him.” - -“And I take it that the natural fellow-feeling of man for man would -mitigate your sorrow if the gentleman whom your wife is carrying home -in a birdcage should not, in fact, become your brother-in-law.” - -“It would be indelicate for me to go so far as that; but Floy has -always had a snippy way with me. I should like to see her have to work -for the prize.” - -“My dinner frock is three years old, but I’ll see what I can do to -become a natural hazard. You’d better move upon the station--the blasts -of that horn are not soothing to the nerves.” - - -III - -Brown Pendleton, Ph.D., L.H.D., F.R.G.S., frowned as he adjusted his -white tie before the mirror of the Burgesses’ best guest-room. He was a -vigorous, healthy American of thirty, quite capable of taking care of -himself; and yet he had been dragged submissively across the continent -by a lady who was animated by an ambition to marry him to her sister, -toward whom his feelings, in the most minute self-analysis, were only -those of polite indifference. And the mound-builders, now that he -thought of it, were rather tame after Egypt and Babylon. As he surveyed -his tanned face above his snowy shirt bosom he wished that he had never -consented to deliver the address at the opening of the new Historical -Museum at Indiana University, which was the ostensible reason for -this Western flight. As for Miss Floy Wilkinson, she was a perfectly -conventional person, who had--not to be more explicit--arrived at a -time of life when people say of a girl that she is holding her own -well. And she was. She was indubitably handsome, but not exciting. She -was the sort of girl who makes an ideal house guest, and she had walked -down church aisles ahead of one after the other of her old school -friends all the way from Duluth to Bangor. Mrs. Burgess had become -anxious as to Floy’s future, and in convoying Pendleton to Indianapolis -and planting him in her best guest-chamber she was playing her cards -with desperation. - -Mrs. Burgess ran upstairs to dress after a hasty cross-examination -of the cook, to make sure her telegraphic order for dinner had been -understood, and found her husband shaking himself into his dress coat. - -She presented her back to be unhooked and talked on in a way she had. - -“Well, I suppose you got Grace Whiting or Minnie Rideout? And, of -course, you couldn’t have failed on Billy Merrill. I think Grace and -Billy are showing signs, at last, of being interested in each other. -You can’t tell what may have happened during the summer. But if -Pendleton should fail--well, Billy isn’t so dull as people think; and -Floy doesn’t mind his clumsiness so much as she did. Did you say you -got Minnie?” - -Mr. Burgess, absorbed in a particularly stubborn hook, was silent. Mrs. -Burgess was afraid to urge conversation upon him lest he should throw -up the job, and Floy was monopolizing the only available maid. When a -sigh advertised his triumph over the last hook she caught him as he was -moving toward the door. - -“Did you say Minnie was coming, Web?” - -“No, Gertie--no. You didn’t say anything about Minnie in your telegram; -you said to get a girl.” - -“Why, Web, you know that meant Grace Whiting or Minnie Rideout; they -are my old standbys.” - -“Well, Grace has gone somewhere to bury her uncle, and Minnie is -motoring through the Blue Grass. It was pretty thin picking, but I did -the best I could.” - -His tone and manner left much to be desired. His wife’s trunk was being -unstrapped in the hall outside and there was no time for parleying. - -“Whom did you get, then? Not----” - -“I got Susie,” said Burgess, shooting his cuffs. - -“Susie?” - -“Susie!” he repeated with falling inflection. - -“What Susie?” - -“Well, Gertie, to be quite frank, I’ll be hanged if I know. I haven’t -the slightest, not the remotest, idea.” - -“What do you mean, Web?--if you know!” - -The clock on the stairs below was chiming half past six. Burgess -grinned; it was not often he had a chance like this. In social affairs -it was she who did the befuddling. - -“I mean to say that, though her name is Susie, it’s rather more -than a proper name; it’s also a common noun, and chock-full of -suggestions--pleasant ones, on the whole.” She was trying to free -herself of her gown, and one of the hooks caught so that he had to -extricate her. Half angry, half alarmed, she seized him by his lapels, -for fear he might escape before she had put an end to his foolishness. -“She said her name was Parker; but I rather question it. She looks like -a Susie, but the Parker is something of a misfit. For myself, I prefer -to cut out the Parker.” - -“Web Burgess, tell me just what you have been up to! Don’t I know this -person?” - -“I doubt it. And I don’t hesitate to say that it’s a loss on both -sides.” - -“Do you mean to tell me that at this serious crisis in all our lives, -when there’s so much at stake, you’ve asked a girl to dinner in this -house that we don’t know? After all my work--after----” - -“After your telegram, which I interpreted literally to mean that I was -to land a girl for dinner who would serve merely to emphasize Floy’s -haughty grandeur, I did the best I could. Grace and Minnie were not -available; Susie was. So Susie is coming.” - -“Web, we’ve been married ten years and I have never had any reason to -suspect you or even complain of you; but if you think you can pick up -some strange girl among your admirations and bring her to my table I -shall resent it; I shall not pass it lightly by!” she ended tragically. - -Burgess walked to the window, drew back the curtain and peered across -at the Logan house. - -“I suspect that Susie’s getting into her fighting clothes. You needn’t -be afraid of Susie. Susie’s entirely respectable. And, as for my -relations with Susie, she hadn’t gladdened my sight an hour ago. You’d -better let me send Nora to help you. It would be awkward for you not to -be down when Susie comes.” - -He hummed inanely, “When Susie comes! When Susie comes!” and closed the -door upon her indignation. - - -IV - -At seven-twenty-nine Susie eluded the vigilance of the wondering lions -and ran up the Burgess steps. - -Burgess met her in the hall, where she stepped out of her wrap and -stood forth rather taller than he remembered her, by reason of her -high-heeled slippers. - -Mrs. Burgess, proud of her reputation for meeting emergencies, did -not wait for her guest to be presented. Her quick scrutiny discovered -nothing alarming in this young person. With a quick eye she appraised -the three-year-old gown, correctly placed its vintage and said: - -“So nice that you could come.” - -Pendleton, who knew a great many girls in different parts of the world, -saw nothing disquieting in this Miss Parker. She was merely another -girl. Billy Merrill, who was forty, wondered whether there would be -champagne or only sauterne besides the cocktail. He had never heard -of Pendleton, any more than he had heard of Miss Parker, and he was -speculating as to whether he had ever really been in love with Floy -Wilkinson, and whether he should venture to propose to her again just -after Christmas. Proposing to Floy was a habit with Billy. - -At the round table the forks for the caviar had been overlooked, and -this gave the dinner a bad start. Mrs. Burgess was annoyed, and to -cover her annoyance she related an anecdote, at which the guest of -honor only smiled wanly. He did not seem happy. He barely tasted his -soup, and when Burgess addressed a question to him directly Pendleton -did not hear it until it had been repeated. Things were not going well. -Then Billy Merrill asked Pendleton if he was related to some Pendletons -he knew in St Louis. Almost every one knew that Brown Pendleton -belonged to an old Rhode Island family--and Merrill should have known -it. Mrs. Burgess was enraged by the fleeting grin she detected on her -husband’s face. Web was always so unsympathetic. Burgess was conversing -tranquilly with Susie; he never grasped the idea that his wife gave -small dinners to encourage general conversation. And this strange girl -would not contribute to the conversation; she seemed to be making -curious remarks to Webster in a kind of baby talk that made him choke -with mirth. “An underbred, uncultivated person!” thought Mrs. Burgess. - -Mrs. Burgess decided that it would not be amiss to take soundings in -the unknown’s past and immediate present. - -“You don’t usually come back to town so early, do you, Miss Parker?” -she asked sweetly. - -“No; but Newport was rather slow this year--so many of the houses -weren’t open.” - -Mrs. Burgess and her sister exchanged a glance of startled surprise. -Brown Pendleton’s thoughts came back from Babylon. Merrill looked at -Miss Parker with open-eyed admiration. - -“Dear old Newport!” Pendleton remarked with feeling. “It has rather -lost tone. I’m not surprised that you didn’t care for it.” - -He examined Susie with deliberation. - -“The Niedlingers and the Parquetries didn’t show up at all; and the -Ossingtons are said to have cut it out for good,” observed Susie. - -“Yes; I saw Fred Ossington in London in the spring, and he said he had -enough. Nice chap, Fred.” - -“Too bad he had to give up polo,” said Susie, advancing her pickets -daringly; “but I fancy his arm will never be fit again.” - -“He’s going in for balloons. Can you believe it? Amusing fellow! Said -he preferred falling on the earth to having it fall on him. And, -besides, a balloon couldn’t kick when it had him down.” - -The conversation was picking up, and quite clearly it was the unknown -who was giving it momentum. Fish had been disposed of satisfactorily -and Mrs. Burgess began to regain confidence. The unknown must be -checked. It would not do for the girl to go further with this light, -casual discussion, conveying as she did all sorts of implications of -knowledge of the great in lofty places. The vintage of the dinner -gown testified unimpeachably against her having any real knowledge of -Newport, a place where Mrs. Burgess had once spent a day at a hotel. -Mrs. Burgess resolved to squelch the impostor. Such presumption should -not go unrebuked even at one’s own table. Pendleton was now discussing -aviation with this impertinent Susie, who brought to the subject -the same light touch of apparent sophistication she had employed in -speaking of Newport and polo. She asked him if he had read an account -of a new steering device for dirigibles; she thought she had seen -it in _L’Illustration_. Pendleton was interested, and scribbled the -approximate date of the journal on the back of his namecard. - -“I suppose you came back ahead of your family, Miss Parker? I really -don’t know who’s in town.” - -“Yes; I’m quite alone, Mrs. Burgess. You see,” and Susie tilted her -head Susily and spoke directly to Mrs. Burgess, “one never really knows -anything about one’s neighbors.” - -“Ah--you live close by?” asked Pendleton. - -Susie answered with an imperceptible movement of the head: - -“Oh, just next door, you know.” - -“How charming! At the sign of the lions? I noticed them as we came up. -I must have another look at them. Rather good, as near as I could make -out.” - -“They are rather nice, I think,” said Susie as one who would not boast -of her possessions. “Ernestenoff did them--one of Barye’s pupils.” - -Burgess wondered how far she would go. Merrill’s face wore the look of -a man who is dying of worry. He had lived in town all his life, and -it was inconceivable that this was one of Logan’s daughters. He had -forgotten the girl’s name, and he resolved to pay attention in future -when people were introduced. - -Mrs. Burgess was too far at sea herself to bother with his -perplexities. Thoroughly alarmed, she threw the conversation back three -thousand years and shifted its playground from the Wabash Valley to the -left bank of the Euphrates, confident that the temerarious person with -the yellow hair and blue eyes would be dislodged. - -“When you first began your excavations in Assyria, Mr. Pendleton, I -suppose you didn’t realize how important your work would be to the -world.” - -The table listened. Merrill groped for light. This Pendleton was, -then, a digger among ancient ruins! Miss Wilkinson’s eyes were ready -to meet Pendleton’s responsively and sympathetically: her interest in -archæology was recent and superficial, but this was only the more -reason for yielding ungrudging admiration to the eminent digger. -Pendleton did not reply at once to Mrs. Burgess’s question, and instead -of appearing pleased by its ingratiating flattery he frowned and played -with his wine-glass nervously. When he broke the silence it was to say -in a hard tone that was wholly unlike his usual manner of speech: - -“I’m not at all sure that it has been of importance; I’m inclined to -think I wasted five years on those jobs.” - -His depression was undeniable and he made no effort to conceal it. And -Mrs. Burgess was angry to find that she had clumsily touched the wrong -chord, and one that seemed to be vibrating endlessly. She had always -flattered herself that she had mastered the delicate art of drawing -out highbrows. Scores of distinguished visitors to the Hoosier capital -had gone forth to publish her charm and wit; and this was the first -cloud that had ever rested above a dinner table where a Chinese prince -had been made to feel at home, and whence poets, bishops, novelists, -scientists and statesmen had departed radiant. She had not only struck -the wrong note but one that boomed monotonously down the long corridors -of time. - -Burgess mildly sought to inject a needleful of bromide into the -situation. - -“You’re probably not a good judge of that, Mr. Pendleton. The world has -already set its seal of approval upon your investigations.” - -“It’s not the world’s praise we want,” said Pendleton; “it’s the praise -of the men who know.” - -This was not tactful; it apparently brushed aside his host’s approval -as negligible. Miss Wilkinson flashed Pendleton one of her brilliant -smiles, remarking: - -“You are altogether too modest, Mr. Pendleton. Every one says that -your ‘Brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar’ is the last word on that subject.” - -And then a chill seized Mrs. Burgess. The yellow-haired, blue-eyed -unknown moved her head slightly to one side, bit an almond in two with -neatness, and said: - -“If I were you, Mr. Pendleton, I shouldn’t let a faker like -Geisendanner annoy me.” - -Susie regarded the remaining half of the almond indifferently and then -ate it musingly. At the mention of Geisendanner Pendleton flushed, and -his head lifted as though he heard trumpets calling to action. Then he -bent toward Susie. The salad had just been removed. Mrs. Burgess beat -the table with her fingers and awaited the earthquake. Her only relief -at the moment was in the consciousness that her husband, from the -look of his face, at last realized the heinousness of his conduct in -bringing just any little whipper-snapper to her table. And Susie seemed -to be the only member of the company who was wholly tranquil. Mrs. -Burgess wondered whether she could be more than twenty, so complete had -been the reinvestiture of the girl in the robes of her Susiness. She -had spoken of Geisendanner as though he lived round the corner and were -a person that every one with any sort of decent bringing up knew or -should know. The effect of the name upon Pendleton was not pleasant to -see, and Mrs. Burgess shuddered. After the first shock of surprise he -seemed wonderfully subdued. Clearly this Geisendanner was an enemy or a -man he feared. The eminent Babylonian met Susie’s eyes apprehensively. -He said in a low tone of dejection: - -“So you know then?” As though of course she did, and that a dark -understanding had thus been established by their common knowledge. - -Susie nodded. - -“Rather absurd, on the whole, when you consider----” - -Her plate was being changed and she drew back during the interruption. -Pendleton shook his head impatiently at the delay. - -“Absurd! How absurd? If it’s absurd to have the results of years of -hard work chucked into the rubbish heap, then----” - -“But no!” Susie felt for her fork without breaking the contact of their -eyes. She was smiling as though quite the mistress of the occasion -and waiting merely to prolong the agony of the sufferers about her. -She was not insensible to their sufferings; it was pleasant rather -than otherwise to inflict torture. Still her attitude toward the -distressed scientist was kindly--but she would make him wait. Her -bearing toward Pendleton at the moment was slightly maternal. It was -only a matter of bricks anyhow; and trifles like the chronological -arrangement of bricks, where, one toppling, all went down, were not -only to the young person’s liking but quite within the range of her -powers of manipulation. “As I remember,” she continued, “Geisendanner -first attacked the results of the Deutsche Orientgesellschaft; but, of -course, that was disposed of.” - -“Yes,” assented Pendleton eagerly; “Auchengloss did that.” - -It seemed preposterous that the small mouth of this young person could -utter such names at all, much less with an air of familiarity, as -though they were the names of streets or of articles of commerce. - -“It was Glosbrenner, however, who paved the way for you by disposing of -Geisendanner--absolutely.” - -“The excavations they made in their absurd search for treasure in the -ruins confused everything; but Glosbrenner’s exposé was lost--burnt up -in a printing-office fire in Berlin. There’s not an assertion in my -‘Brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar’ that isn’t weakened by that bronze-gate -rubbish, for Geisendanner was a scholar of some reputation. After the -failure of his hidden-treasure scheme he faked his book on the Bronze -Gates of Babylon as a pot boiler, and died leaving it behind him--one -of the most plausible frauds ever perpetrated. They went in on top of -my excavations of the brickyard--thought because I was an American I -must have been looking for gold images. Glosbrenner was an American -student; and seeing that his fellow-adventurer’s book was taken -seriously he wrote his exposé, swore to it before the American consul -at Berlin and then started for Tibet to sell an automobile to the Grand -Lama--and never came back.” - -Pendleton’s depression had increased; gloom settled upon the -company--or upon all but this demure young skeleton at the feast, who -had thus outrageously brought to the table the one topic of all topics -in the world that was the most ungrateful to the man Mrs. Burgess most -particularly wished to please. She sought without avail to break in -upon a dialogue that excluded the rest of the company as completely as -though they were in the kitchen. - -“I was just reading that thing in the Seven Seas’ Review; but you can -see that the reviewer swallowed Geisendanner whole. He takes your -brickyards away from Nebuchadnezzar and gives them to Nabopolassar, -which seems v-e-r-y c-a-r-e-l-e-s-s!” - -This concluding phrase, drawled most Susesquely, brought a laugh from -Burgess, and Pendleton’s own face relaxed. - -“They’re all flinging Geisendanner at me!” continued Pendleton with -renewed animation. “It’s humiliating to find the English and Germans -alike throwing this impostor at my head. Those fellows began their -excavations secretly and without authority, in a superstitious -belief that they’d find gold images of heathen gods and all manner -of loot there. And it’s hard luck that the confession of one of the -conspirators is lost forever and the man himself dead.” - -“It certainly is most unfortunate!” mourned Mrs. Burgess, anxious to -pour balm upon his wounds. - -“It’s curious, however, Mr. Pendleton,” said Susie casually, “that I -happen to know of the existence of a copy of that Glosbrenner pamphlet.” - -“A copy---- You mustn’t chaff me about that!” - -“Yes,” said Susie; “it’s really quite the funniest thing that ever -happened.” - -“This seems to be an important matter, Miss Parker. You have no right -to play upon Mr. Pendleton’s credulity, his hopes!” said Mrs. Burgess -icily. - -“Nothing like that, Mrs. Burgess!” chirruped Susie. “I can tell Mr. -Pendleton exactly where one copy of that pamphlet, and probably the -only one in the world, may be found. And a small investment in a night -message to Poughkeepsie will verify what I say. There is a copy of -that pamphlet at Vassar College that was picked up in Berlin by one -of the professors, who gave it to the library. It had a grayish cover -and looked like a thesis for a doctorate--that sort of thing. It was -a little burned on the edges, and that was one reason why it caught -my eye one day when I was poking about looking for something among -a lot of German treatises with the most amusing long titles. And it -was a perfectly dee-li-cious story--how they dug and mixed up those -dynasties there; and then one of them wrote a book about it, just for -the money he could get out of it. It was all a fake, but they knew -enough to make it look like real goods. It was a kind of Huckleberry -Finn and Tom Sawyer joke, muddying the water that way.” - -The conjunction of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer with Nebuchadnezzar -caused even Merrill to laugh. - -“I must wire tonight for a confirmation of this--or, perhaps, if you -are an alumna of the college you would do it for me.” - -“I think,” said Susie, “they still remember me at college. I was the -limit!” - -“If what you say is right,” Pendleton resumed, “I can smash those -Germans and make that Seven Seas’ reviewer eat his words! I really -believe it would be better for you to wire for me to the librarian for -confirmation; I’d rather not publish my anxiety to the world. If you -will do this I shall look upon it as the greatest possible favor.” - -“Delighted!” said Susie, crumpling her napkin. - -Mrs. Burgess showed signs of rising, but delayed a moment. - -“Miss Parker, you rather implied that there was more than one reason -why you happened to notice a singed document in a strange language, -bearing upon a subject usually left to scientists and hardly within the -range of a young girl’s interests. Would you mind enlightening us just -a little further in the matter?” - -“I thought it was so funny,” said Susie, smiling upon them all, -“because of my papa.” - -“Your father?” gasped Mrs. Burgess. - -“Yes, Mrs. Burgess. Anything about bricks always seemed to me so -amusing, because papa used to own a brickyard.” - - -V - -A packet of newspaper clippings forwarded with other mail for Pendleton -did not add to the joy of the Burgess breakfast table the next morning. -The archæologist murmured an apology and scanned the cuttings with knit -brows. - -“How early,” he asked, “do you imagine Miss Parker can have a -confirmation of her impression about that thing of Glosbrenner’s?” - -“By noon, I should think,” answered Burgess. - -The husband of Mrs. Burgess had passed a bad night, and he was fully -persuaded of the grievousness of his most grievous sin. Never again, -he had solemnly sworn, would he attempt any such playfulness as had -wrought this catastrophe--never again would he expose himself to the -witchery of Susans prone to Susinesses! - -“Unless I have corroboration of Miss Parker’s impression before three -o’clock I shall break my engagement at the state university. With this -article in the Seven Seas’ Review lying on every college library table, -citing Geisendanner against me and discrediting me as the discoverer of -the brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar, I shall never stand upon a platform -again--and I must withdraw my book. My reputation, in other words, -hangs upon a telegram,” concluded the archæologist gloomily. - -“It is inconceivable,” said Mrs. Burgess in a cheerful tone that far -from represented her true feelings, “that Miss Parker would have -spoken as she did if she hadn’t been reasonably confident. Still it is -always best to be prepared for disappointments. I think you and Floy -had better take the motor for a run into the country and forget the -telegram until it arrives. I dare say Miss Parker will send it over at -once when it comes.” - -“Thanks, very much,” muttered Pendleton, not highly elated at the -thought of motoring with Miss Wilkinson, whose efforts to enliven the -breakfast table by talking of things as far removed as possible from -the brickyards of oblivion had palled upon the wealthy archæologist. He -was an earnest chap, this Pendleton; and the fact that his eligibility -as a bachelor was not, in certain eyes, greatly diminished by the -failure of his efforts to reëstablish the brick industries of Babylon -had not occurred to him. Floy and the Burgesses bored him; but he was -dazed by the threatened collapse of his reputation. He declined his -host’s invitation to walk downtown; and in an equally absent-minded -fashion he refused an invitation to luncheon at the University Club, to -meet certain prominent citizens. Whereupon, finding the air too tense -for his nerves, Burgess left for the bank. - -Pendleton moved restlessly about the house, moodily smoking, while -the two women pecked at him occasionally with conversation and then -withdrew for consultation. His legs seemed to be drawn to those windows -of the Burgess drawing room that looked toward the Logans’. In a few -minutes Pendleton picked up his hat and stick and left the house, -merely saying to the maid he saw clearing up the dining room that -he was going for a walk. It is wholly possible he meant to go for a -walk quite alone, but at the precise moment at which he reached the -Logans’ iron gates the Logan door opened suddenly, as though his foot -had released a spring, and Susie, in hat and coat, surveyed the world -from between the lions. Mrs. Burgess and Floy, established in an upper -window, saw Susie wave a hand to Brown Pendleton. For a woman to wave -her hand to a man she hasn’t known twenty-four hours, particularly -when he is wealthy and otherwise distinguished, is the least bit open -to criticism. Susie did not escape criticism, but Susie was happily -unmindful of it. And it seemed that as she fluttered down between the -lions Pendleton grasped her hand anxiously, as though fearing she -meditated flight; whereas nothing was further from Susie’s mind. - -“Good news!” she cried. “They have just telephoned me the answer from -the telegraph office. I think telephoned messages are so annoying; and, -as they take forever to send one out, I was just going to the office to -get it and send it up to you.” - -“Then,” cried Pendleton with fervor, “you must let me go with you. It’s -a fine morning for a walk.” - -At the telegraph office he read the message from Susie’s friend, the -librarian, which was official and final. Whereupon Pendleton became a -man of action. To the professor of archæology at Vassar, whom he knew, -Pendleton wrote a long message referring to the Seven Seas’ Review’s -attack, and requesting that the precious Glosbrenner confession be -carefully guarded until he could examine it personally at the college. -He wrote also a cable to the American consul at Berlin, requesting that -Geisendanner’s whole record be thoroughly investigated. - -“Why,” asked Susie, an awed witness of this reckless expenditure for -telegrams, “why don’t you ask the State Department to back up your -cable? They must know you in Washington.” - -“By Jove!” ejaculated Pendleton, staring at Susie as though frightened -by her precociousness; “that’s a bully idea! Phillips, the second -assistant secretary, is an old friend of mine, and he’ll tear up the -earth for me!” - -As they strolled back uptown through the long street, with its arching -maples, they seemed altogether like the oldest of friends. Pendleton -did not appear to mind at all, if he were conscious of the fact, that -Susie’s hat was not one of the new fall models, or that her coat was -not in the least smart. The strain was over and he submitted himself -in high good humor to the Susiness of Susie. It was when they were -passing the Public Library that a mood of remorse seized her. There -was, she reflected, such a thing as carrying a joke too far. She salved -her conscience with the reflection that if she had not yielded to the -temptations of her own Susiness and accepted Mr. Burgess’s invitation -she would not have been able to point this big, earnest student to the -particular alcove and shelf where reposed the one copy in all the world -of the only document that would rout the critics of the Brickyards of -Nebuchadnezzar. - -“That Geisendanner,” said Susie, rather more soberly than he had yet -heard her speak, “was, beyond doubt, an awful liar and a great fraud; -but I am a much greater.” - -“You!” exclaimed Pendleton, leaning for a moment on his stick and -staring at her. - -“Even so! In the first place, I went to Mrs. Burgess’s house for -dinner last night through a mistake; she had never seen or heard of me -before, and Mr. Burgess asked me merely because he had exhausted the -other possibilities and was desperate for some one to fill a chink at -his wife’s table. And the worst thing I did was to make you think I -knew all about Newport, when I was never there in my life--and never -saw any of the people I mentioned. Everything I said I got out of -the newspapers. It was all just acting, and I put it on a little more -because I saw that Mrs. Burgess and her sister didn’t like me; they -didn’t think it was a joke at all, my trying to be Susie again--just -once more in my life before I settled back to being called Miss Susan -forever. And the way I come to be living in that fine house is simply -that I’m borrowed from the library for so much a week to catalogue the -Logans’ library and push a paperknife through the books. Now you see -that Geisendanner isn’t in it with me for downright wickedness and most -s-h-o-c-k-i-n-g m-e-n-d-a-c-i-t-y!” - -“But if you hadn’t done all those terrible things where should I be?” -demanded Pendleton. “But, before dismissing your confession, would you -mind telling me just how you came to know--well, anything about me?” - -“I’m almost afraid to go that far,” laughed Susie, who, as a matter of -fact, did not fear this big, good-natured man at all. - -“Tell me that,” encouraged Pendleton, “and we will consider the -confession closed.” - -“Well, I think I’ll be happier to tell you, and then the slate will -be cleaned off a little bit anyhow. A sample copy of the Seven Seas’ -Review had strayed into the house; and, in glancing over the list of -book reviews on the cover, I saw the Brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar among -the books noticed. I spent ten minutes reading the review; and then I -grabbed the Britannica--four minutes more! And then in Who’s Who I saw -that you were a Newporter. It’s remarkable how educated one can become -in fifteen minutes! And, as I said last night when Mrs. Burgess asked -me how I came to be interested in that sort of thing, my father ran a -brickyard!” - -She was looking straight ahead, but the Babylonian expert saw -that there were tears in her eyes, as though called forth by the -recollection of other and happier times. - -“Thank you,” he said gravely; “and now let us forget all about this.” - -They walked in silence for several minutes, not looking at each other, -until she said as they neared the Burgess gate: - -“After all, I’m the foolishest little Susie in the world; and it’s a -lot better for me to go back and be Susan again, and not go to dinner -parties where I’m not expected.” - -And what Pendleton seemed to say, though she was not sure of it, was: - -“Never!--not if I know myself!” - - * * * * * - -“Do you suppose,” Mrs. Burgess asked her sister as they saw Susie -tripping along beside Pendleton, “that she has carried it through?” - -“From Brown Pendleton’s looks,” said Floy, “I should judge she had. -But--it can’t be possible that she’s coming in here again!” - -Susie and Pendleton lingered at the gate for an instant, in which he -seemed to be talking earnestly. Then together they entered; and in a -moment Mrs. Burgess and Floy faced them in the drawing room, where -Pendleton announced with undeniable relief and satisfaction the good -news from Poughkeepsie. - -“Then I suppose you will make the address at the university after all?” -said Mrs. Burgess. “I find that so many matters are pressing here -that I shall have to forego the pleasure of joining you; and Floy, of -course, will have to be excused also.” - -“On the other hand,” said Pendleton with the most engaging of smiles, -“I must beg you not to abandon me. Our party of last night was so -perfect, and the results of it so important to me, that I shall greatly -regret losing any member of it. I propose in my address tonight to -assert my claims to the discovery of the brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar -as against all the assertions that contradict me in Geisendanner’s -romantic fiction about the bronze gates of Babylon. I should like you -all to be present, and I am going to beg you, as a particular favor, -Mrs. Burgess, to invite Miss Parker to accompany us; for, without -her helpful hint as to the existence of that copy of Glosbrenner’s -confession, where, I should like to know, would I be?” - -Mrs. Burgess prided herself upon being able to meet just such -situations; and Susie was so demure--there was about the child -something so appealing and winning--that Mrs. Burgess dipped her colors. - -“Certainly, Mr. Pendleton. I’m sure that Mr. Merrill will feel honored -to be included. And I shall be delighted to chaperon Miss Parker.” - -“Miss Parker has agreed to help me run down some obscure authorities on -the mound-builders a little later, and the trip will give her a chance -to see what they have in the university library. I can’t afford to take -any more chances with so much doubtful scientific lore floating about.” - -“I should think,” remarked Floy carelessly, “you would find help of -some kind almost essential in your future work.” - -“I think, myself,” said Susie with an uncontrollable resurgence of her -Susiness, “that it would save an a-w-f-u-l l-o-t o-f t-r-o-u-b-l-e!” - - - - -THE GIRL WITH THE RED FEATHER - - -I - -Mr. Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, -started slightly as he looked up from the letter he had been reading -and found Hill, the Government detective, standing at the rail. Burgess -dropped the letter into a drawer and said briskly: - -“Hello, Hill--looking for me?” - -“No; not yet!” - -This was an established form of salutation between them and they both -grinned. Burgess rose and leaned against the rail, while the detective -summarized his latest counterfeiting adventure, which had to do with a -clew furnished by a bad bill that had several weeks earlier got by one -of the White River National tellers. Hill had bagged the maker of the -bill, and he had just been satisfying himself that the teller would be -ready to testify the next day before the Federal grand jury. - -Hill visited the bank frequently and Burgess knew him well. The -secret-service man was a veteran hunter of offenders against the -peace and dignity of the United States, and, moreover, a capital -story-teller. Burgess often asked him into his private office for an -hour’s talk. He had once given a dinner in Hill’s honor, inviting a -select coterie of friends who knew a good tale when they heard it and -appreciated a shrewd, resourceful man when they saw him. - -The White River National was one of the largest and strongest banks in -the state, and Burgess was one of the richest men in his native city of -Indianapolis; but these facts did not interfere with enjoyment of life -according to his lights, which were not unluminous. Having been born on -top, he was not without his sympathetic interest in the unfortunates -whose lot is cast near the burnt bottom crust, and his generous -impulses sometimes betrayed him into doing things that carping critics -thought not wholly in keeping with his responsibilities and station in -life. - -These further facts may be noted: Burgess was the best-dressed man in -Indianapolis--he always wore a pink carnation; and on occasions when -he motored home for luncheon he changed his necktie--a fact that did -not go unremarked in the bank cages. He belonged to hunting and fishing -clubs in Canada, Maine and North Carolina, and visited them at proper -seasons. There was a drop of adventurous blood in him that made banking -the least bit onerous at times; and when he felt the need of air he -disappeared to catch salmon or tarpon, or to hunt grouse or moose. -Before his father had unkindly died and left him the bank and other -profitable embarrassments, he had been obsessed with a passion for -mixing in a South American revolution; he had chafed when the Spanish -War most deplorably synchronized with the year of his marriage, and -he could think of no valid excuse for leaving the newly kindled fire -on his domestic altar to pose for Spanish bullets. Twice since his -marriage he had looked death in the eye: once when he tumbled off a -crag of the Canadian Rockies--he was looking for a mountain sheep; and -again when he had been whistled down the Virginia capes in a hurricane -while yachting with a Boston friend. Every one admitted that he was -a good banker. If he got stung occasionally he did not whimper; and -every one knew that the White River National could stand a good deal of -stinging without being obliged to hang crape on its front door. - -Burgess had always felt that some day something would happen to relieve -the monotony of his existence as the chief pilot of an institution -which panics always passed by on the other side. His wife cultivated -bishops, men of letters and highbrows generally; and he was always -stumbling over them in his home, sometimes to his discomfiture. With -that perversity of human nature that makes us all pine for what is not, -he grew restive under the iron grip of convention and felt that he -would like to disappear--either into the wilderness to play at being a -savage, or into the shadowy underworld to taste danger and share the -experiences of men who fight on the farther side of the barricade. - -“You always seem to get ’em, Tom,” he remarked to the detective in a -familiar tone, bred of long acquaintance. “Just knowing you has made -a better man of me. I’m bound to be good as long as you’re on the job -here; but don’t you ever get tired of the game?” - -“Well, when you’re up against a real proposition and are fencing with -a man who’s as smart as you are, or smarter, it’s some fun; but most -of my cases lately have been too tame. The sport isn’t what it was -when I started. All the crooks are catalogued and photographed and -dictagraphed these days; and when you go after ’em you merely send in -your card and call a motor to joy-ride ’em to jail. It’s been a long -time since I was shot at--not since those bill-raisers down in the -Orange County hills soaked me with buckshot. When they turn a man loose -at Leavenworth we know just about where he will bring up and who’s at -home to welcome him; and you can usually calculate pretty well just -when he will begin manufacturing and floating the queer again.” - -“You hang on to the petrified idea that once a crook, always a -crook--no patience with the eminent thinkers who believe that ‘while -the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return?’” - -“Yep--return to jail! Well, I don’t say reform is impossible; and -I’ve let a few get by who did keep straight. But it’s my business to -watch and wait. My best catches have been through luck as much as good -management--but don’t tell that on me; it would spoil my reputation.” - -He turned away, glanced across the room and swung round into his former -position with his arm resting on the railing by Burgess’s desk. He -continued talking as before, but the banker saw that something had -interested him. - -“See that young woman at the paying-teller’s cage--halfway down the -line--slight, trim, with a red feather in her hat? Take a look.” - -It was nearing the closing hour and long lines had formed at all the -windows. Burgess marked the red feather without difficulty. As the -women patrons of the bank were accommodated at a window on the farther -side of the lobby he surmised that the young woman was an office clerk -on an errand for her employer. She was neatly dressed; there was -nothing in her appearance to set her apart from a hundred office girls -who visited the bank daily and stood--just as this young woman was -standing--in the line of bookkeepers and messengers. - -“Well,” said the banker, “what about her?” - -While looking at the girl the detective drew out a telegram which he -scanned and thrust back into his pocket. - -“Her mother runs a boarding house, and her father, Julius Murdock, is a -crook--an old yegg--a little crippled by rheumatism now and out of the -running. But some of the naughty boys passing this way stop there to -rest. The place is--let me see--787 Vevay Street.” - -Burgess thoughtfully brushed a speck from his coat-sleeve, then looked -up indifferently. - -“So? Hardly a fashionable neighborhood! Is that what is called a fence?” - -“Well, I believe the police did rip up the boarding house a while back, -but there was nothing doing. Murdock’s able to make a front without -visible means of support--may have planted enough stuff to retire on. -He’s a sort of financial agent and scout for other crooks. They’ve -been in town only a few months. The old man must feel pretty safe or -he wouldn’t keep his money in a bank. Nellie, out there, is Murdock’s -daughter, and she’s stenographer for the Brooks Lumber Company, over -near where they live. When I came in she was at the receiving teller’s -window with the lumber company’s deposit. She’s probably waiting to -draw a little money now for her daddy. He’s one of the few fellows in -his line of business who never goes quite broke. Just for fun, suppose -you see what he has on the books. If I’m wrong I’ll decline that -cigar you’re going to offer me from the box in your third left-hand -drawer.” The banker scribbled the name on a piece of paper and sent -a boy with it to the head bookkeeper. “And I’d be amused to know how -much Nellie is drawing for Julius, too, while you’re about it,” added -the detective, who thereupon sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs -inside the railing and became absorbed in a newspaper. - -Burgess strolled across the lobby, stopping to speak to acquaintances -waiting before the several windows--a common practice of his at the -busy hour. Just behind the girl in the red hat stood a man he knew -well; and he shook hands and continued talking to him, keeping pace -with his friend’s progress toward the window. The girl turned round -once and looked at him. He had a very good view of her face, and she -was beyond question a very pretty girl, with strikingly fine gray eyes -and the fresh color of youth. The banker’s friend had been recounting -an amusing story and Burgess was aware that the girl turned her head -slightly to listen; he even caught a gleam of humor in her eyes. She -wore a plain jacket, a year or two out of fashion, and the red feather -in her cloth hat was not so crisp as it appeared at a distance. She -held a check in her hand ready for presentation; her gloves showed -signs of wear. There was nothing to suggest that she was other than -a respectable young woman, and the banker resented the detective’s -implication that she was the daughter of a crook and lived in a house -that harbored criminals. When she reached the window Burgess, still -talking to the man behind her, heard her ask for ten-dollar bills. - -She took the money and thrust it quickly into a leathern reticule that -swung from her arm. The banker read the name of the Brooks Lumber -Company on the passbook she held in her hand. - -“Pardon me,” said Burgess as she stepped away from the cage----“those -are badly worn bills. Let me exchange them for you.” - -“Oh, thank you; but it doesn’t matter,” she said. - -Without parleying he stepped to the exchange window, which was free -at the moment, and spoke to one of the clerks. The girl opened her -reticule and when he turned round she handed him the bills. While -the clerk went for the new currency Burgess spoke of the weather and -remarked upon the menace of worn bills to public health. They always -meant to give women fresh bills, he said; and he wished she would -insist upon having them. He was a master of the art of being agreeable, -and in his view it was nothing against a woman that she had fine eyes -and an engaging smile. Her voice was pleasant to hear and her cheeks -dimpled charmingly when she smiled. - -“All money looks good to me,” she said, thrusting the new bills into -her satchel; “but new money is certainly nicer. It always seems like -more!” - -“But you ought to count that,” Burgess protested, not averse to -prolonging the conversation. “There’s always the possibility of a -mistake.” - -“Well, if there is I’ll come back. You’d remember----” - -“Oh, yes! I’d remember,” replied Burgess with a smile, and then he -added hastily: “In a bank it’s our business to remember faces!” - -“Oh!” said the girl, looking down at her reticule. - -Her “oh!” had in it the faintest, the obscurest hint of irony. -He wondered whether she resented the idea that he would remember -her merely because it was a bank’s business to remember faces. -Possibly--but no! As she smiled and dimpled he put from him the thought -that she wished to give a flirtatious turn to this slight chance -interview there in the open lobby of his own bank. Reassured by the -smite, supported by the dimples, he said: - -“I’m Mr. Burgess; I work here.” - -“Yes, of course--you’re the president. My name is Nellie Murdock.” - -“You live in Vevay Street?” He dropped his voice. “I can’t talk to you -here, but I’ve been asked to see a young man named Drake at your house. -Please tell him I’ll be there at five-thirty today. You understand?” - -“Yes, thank you. He hasn’t come yet; but he expected to get in at -five.” Her lips quivered; she gave him a quick, searching glance, then -nodded and walked rapidly out. - -Burgess spoke to another customer in the line, with his eyes toward -the street, so that he saw the red feather flash past the window -and vanish; then he strolled back to where the detective sat. On -the banker’s desk, face down, lay the memorandum he had sent to the -bookkeeper. He turned this up, glanced at it and handed it to Hill. - -“Balance $178.18; Julius Murdock,” Hill read. “How much did Nellie -draw?” - -“An even hundred. I stopped to speak to her a moment. Nice girl!” - -“Gray eyes, fine teeth, nose slightly snub; laughs easily and -shows dimples. Wears usually a gold chain with a gold heart-shaped -locket--small diamond in center,” said Hill, as though quoting. - -“Locket--yes; I did notice the locket,” frowned Burgess. - -“And you didn’t overlook the dimples,” remarked the detective--“you -can’t exactly. By-the-way, you didn’t change any money for her -yourself?” - -“What do you mean?” asked Burgess with a scowl. “Wait!” he added as the -detective’s meaning dawned upon him. - -He went back into the cages. The clerk who had brought the new bills -from the women’s department found the old ones where they had been -tossed aside by the teller. Burgess carried them to Hill without -looking at them. He did not believe what he knew the detective -suspected, that the girl was bold enough to try to palm off counterfeit -money on a bank--on the president of a bank. He was surprised to find -that he was really deeply annoyed by the detective’s manner of speaking -of Nellie Murdock. He threw the bills down on his desk a little -spitefully. - -“There you are! That girl took those identical bills out of her satchel -and gave them to me to change for new ones. She had plenty of time to -slip in a bad bill if she wanted to.” - -Hill turned round to the light, went over the bills quickly and handed -them back to the banker with a grin. - -“Good as wheat! I apologize. And I want you to know that I never -said she wasn’t a pretty girl. And the prettiest ones are often the -smartest. It does happen that way sometimes.” - -“You make me tired, Hill. Everybody you see is crooked. With a man like -you there’s no such thing as presumption of innocence. ’Way down inside -of you you probably think I’m a bit off color too.” - -“Oh, I wouldn’t say just that!” said the detective, laughing and taking -the cigar Burgess offered him from a box he produced from his desk. “I -must be running along. You don’t seem quite as cheerful as usual this -morning. I’ll come back tomorrow and see if I can’t bring in a new -story.” - -Burgess disposed of several people who were waiting to see him, and -then took from his drawer the letter he had been reading when the -detective interrupted him. It was from Ralph Gordon, a Chicago lawyer, -who was widely known as an authority on penology. Burgess had several -times contributed to the funds of a society of which Gordon was -president, whose function it was to meet criminals on their discharge -from prison and give them a helping hand upward. - -The banker had been somewhat irritated today by Hill’s manner of -speaking of the criminals against whom he was pitted; and doubtless -Hill’s attitude toward the young woman he had pointed out as the -daughter of a crook added to the sympathetic fading with which Burgess -took up his friend’s letter for another reading. The letter ran: - - Dear Old Man: You said last fall that you wished I’d put you in - the way of knowing one of the poor fellows I constantly meet in - the work of our society. I’m just now a good deal interested in - a young fellow--Robert Drake by name--whose plight appeals to me - particularly. He is the black sheep of a fine family I know slightly - in New England. Drink was his undoing, and after an ugly scrape in - college he went down fast--_facilis descensus_; the familiar story. - The doors at home were closed to him, and after a year or two he - fell in with one of the worst gangs of yeggs in the country. He was - sent up for cracking a safe in a Southern Illinois post office. The - agent of our society at Leavenworth has had an eye on him; when he - was discharged he came straight to me and I took him into my house - until we could plan something for him. I appealed to his family and - they’ve sent me money for his use. He wants to go to the Argentine - Republic--thinks he can make a clean start down there. But there are - difficulties. Unfortunately there’s just now an epidemic of yegging - in the Middle West and all suspects are being gathered in. Of course - Drake isn’t safe, having just done time for a similar offense. I’ve - arranged with Saxby--Big Billy, the football half-back--you remember - him--to ship Drake south on one of the Southern Cross steamers. - Saxby is, as you know, manager of the company at New Orleans. I - wanted to send Drake down direct--but here’s the rub: there’s a girl - in Indianapolis he wants to marry and take along with him. He got - acquainted with her in the underworld, and her people, he confesses, - are a shady lot. He insists that she is straight, and it’s for her he - wants to take a fresh grip and begin over again. So tomorrow--that’s - January twenty-third--he will be at her house in your city, 787 Vevay - Street; and he means to marry her. It’s better for him not to look - you up; and will you, as the good fellow you are, go to see him and - give him cash for the draft for five hundred dollars I’m inclosing? - Another five hundred--all this from his father--I’m sending to Saxby - to give him in gold aboard the steamer. Drake believes that in a new - country, with the girl to help him, he can make good. - - Hoping this isn’t taking advantage of an old and valued friendship, I - am always, dear old man-- - -Burgess put the letter in his pocket, signed his mail, entertained -in the directors’ room a committee of the Civic League, subscribed -a thousand dollars to a hospital, said yes or no to a number of -propositions, and then his wife called him on the telephone, with an -intimation that their regular dinner hour was seven. She reminded him -of this almost daily, as Burgess sometimes forgot to tell her when he -was to dine downtown. - -“Anybody for dinner tonight?” - -“Yes, Web,” she answered in the meek tone she reserved for such moments -as this. “Do I have to tell you again that this is the day Bishop -Gladding is to be here? He said not to try to meet him, as he didn’t -know what train he’d take from Louisville, but he’d show up in time -for dinner. He wrote he was coming a week ago, and you said not to ask -anybody for dinner, as you liked to have him to yourself. You don’t -mean to tell me----” - -“No, Gertie; I’ll be there!” and then, remembering that his too-ready -acquiescence might establish a precedent that would rise up and smite -him later, he added: “But these are busy days; if I should be late -don’t wait for me. That’s the rule, you know.” - -“I should think, Web, when the bishop is an old friend, and saved your -life that time you and Ralph Gordon were hunting Rocky Mountain sheep -with him, and the bishop nearly died carrying you back to a doctor--I -should think----” - -“Oh, I’ll be there,” said Burgess; “but there’s a friend of Gordon’s in -town I’ll have to look up after a little. No; he hasn’t time to come to -the house. You know how it is, Gertie----” - -She said she knew how it was. These telephonic colloquies were not -infrequent between the Burgesses, and Mrs. Burgess was not without her -provocation. He resolved to hurry and get through with Gordon’s man, -Drake, the newly freed convict seeking a better life, that he might not -be late to dinner in his own house, which was to be enlivened by the -presence of the young, vigorous missionary bishop, who was, moreover, -a sportsman and in every sense a man’s man. - -He put on his ulster, made sure of the five hundred dollars he had -obtained on Gordon’s draft, and at five-thirty went out to his car, -which had waited an hour. - - -II - -A thaw had been in progress during the day and hints of rain were in -the air. The moon tottered drunkenly among flying clouds. The bank -watchman predicted snow before morning as he bade Burgess good night. - -Burgess knew Vevay Street, for he owned a business block at its -intersection with Senate Avenue. Beyond the avenue it deteriorated -rapidly and was filled with tenements and cheap boarding houses. -Several blocks west ran an old canal, lined with factories, elevators, -lumber yards and the like, and on the nearer bank was a network of -railroad switches. - -He thought it best not to approach the Murdock house in his motor; so -he left it at the drug-store corner, and, bidding the chauffeur wait -for him, walked down Vevay Street looking for 787. It was a forbidding -thoroughfare and the banker resolved to complain to the Civic League; -it was an outrage that such Stygian blackness should exist in a -civilized city, and he meant to do something about it. When he found -the number it proved to be half of a ramshackle two-story double house. -The other half was vacant and plastered with For Rent signs. He struck -a match and read a dingy card that announced rooms and boarding. The -window shades were pulled halfway down, showing lights in the front -room. Burgess knocked and in a moment the door was opened guardedly by -a stocky, bearded man. - -“Mr. Murdock?” - -“Well, what do you want?” growled the man, widening the opening a -trifle to allow the hall light behind him to fall on the visitor’s face. - -“Don’t be alarmed. A friend of Robert Drake’s in Chicago asked me to -see him. My errand is friendly.” - -A woman’s voice called from the rear of the hall: - -“It’s all right, dad; let the gentleman in.” - -Murdock slipped the bolt in the door and then scrutinized Burgess -carefully with a pair of small, keen eyes. As he bent over the lock the -banker noted his burly frame and the powerful arms below his rolled-up -shirtsleeves. - -“Just wait there,” he said, pointing to the front room. He closed the -hall door and Burgess heard his step on the stairs. - -An odor of stale cooking offended the banker’s sensitive nostrils. The -furniture was the kind he saw daily in the windows of furniture stores -that sell on the installment plan; on one side was an upright piano, -with its top littered with music. Now that he was in the house, he -wondered whether this Murdock was after all a crook, and whether the -girl with the red feather, with her candid eyes, could possibly be his -daughter. His wrath against Hill rose again as he recalled his cynical -tone--and on the thought the girl appeared from a door at the farther -end of the room. - -She bade him “Good evening!” and they shook hands. She had just come -from her day’s work at the lumber company’s office, she explained. -He found no reason for reversing his earlier judgment that she was a -very pretty girl. Now that her head was free of the hat with the red -feather, he saw that her hair, caught up in a becoming pompadour, was -brown, with a golden glint in it. Her gray eyes seemed larger in the -light of the single gas-burner than they had appeared by daylight at -the bank. There was something poetic and dreamy about them. Her age he -placed at about half his own, but there was the wisdom of the centuries -in those gray eyes of hers. He felt young before her. - -“There was a detective in the bank when I was in there this morning. He -knew me,” she said at once. - -“Yes; he spoke of you,” said Burgess. - -“And he knows--what does he know?” - -The girl’s manner was direct; he felt that she was entitled to a frank -response. - -“He told me your father had been--we will say suspected in times past; -that he had only lately come here; but, unless he deceived me, I think -he has no interest in him just now. The detective is a friend of mine. -He visits the bank frequently. It was just by chance that he spoke of -you.” - -“You didn’t tell him that Mr. Gordon had asked you to come here?” - -“No; Drake wasn’t mentioned.” - -Nellie nodded; she seemed to be thinking deeply. Her prettiness was -enhanced, he reflected, by the few freckles that clustered about her -nose. And he was ready to defend the nose which the detective, reciting -from his card catalogue, had called snub! - -“Did your friend tell you Bob wants to be married before he leaves? I -suppose you don’t know that?” - -She blushed, confirming his suspicion that it was she whom Drake was -risking arrest to marry. - -“Yes; and if I guess rightly that you’re the girl I’d like to say that -he’s an extremely fortunate young man! You don’t mind my saying that!” - -He wondered whether all girls who have dimples blush to attract -attention to them. The point interested Webster G. Burgess. The thought -that Nellie Murdock meant to marry a freshly discharged convict, no -matter how promising he might be, was distasteful to him; and yet her -loyalty and devotion increased his admiration. There was romance here, -and much money had not hardened the heart of Webster G. Burgess. - -“It all seems too good to be true,” she said happily, “that Bob and -I can be married after all and go away into a new world where nobody -knows us and he can start all over again.” And then, coloring prettily: -“We’re all ready to go except getting married--and maybe you can help -us find a minister.” - -“Easily! But I’m detaining you. Better have Drake come in; I want to -speak to him, and then we can make all the arrangements in a minute.” - -“I’m afraid he’s been watched; it’s brutal for them to do that when -he’s done his time and means to live straight! I wonder----” She paused -and the indignation that had flashed out in her speech passed quickly. -“It’s asking a great deal, Mr. Burgess, but would you let us leave -the house with you? The quicker we go the better--and a man of your -position wouldn’t be stopped. But if you’d rather not----” - -“I was just going to propose that! Please believe that in every way I -am at your service.” - -His spirits were high. It would give edge to the encounter to lend -his own respectability to the flight. The idea of chaperoning Nellie -Murdock and her convict lover through an imaginable police picket -pleased him. - -She went out and closed the door. Voices sounded in the hall; several -people were talking earnestly. When the door opened a man dodged -quickly into the room, the girl following. - -“This is Robert Drake, Mr. Burgess. Bob, this is the gentleman Mr. -Gordon told you about.” - -Burgess experienced a distinct shock of repulsion as the man shuffled -across the room to shake hands. A stubble of dark beard covered his -face, his black hair was crumpled, and a long bang of it lying across -his forehead seemed to point to his small, shifty blue eyes. His manner -was anxious; he appeared decidedly ill at ease. Webster G. Burgess was -fastidious and this fellow’s gray suit was soiled and crumpled, and he -kept fingering his collar and turning it up round a very dirty neck. - -“Thank you, sir--thank you!” he repeated nervously. - -A door slammed upstairs and the prospective bridegroom started -perceptibly and glanced round. But Burgess’s philosophy rallied to his -support. This was the fate of things, one of life’s grim ironies--that -a girl like Nellie Murdock, born and reared in the underworld, should -be linking herself to an outlaw. After all, it was not his affair. -Pretty girls in his own world persisted in preposterous marriages. And -Bob grinned cheerfully. Very likely with a shave and a bath and a new -suit of clothes he would be quite presentable. The banker had begun to -speak of the route to be taken to New Orleans when a variety of things -happened so quickly that Burgess’s wits were put to high tension to -keep pace with them. - -The door by the piano opened softly. A voice recognizable as that of -Murdock spoke sharply in a low tone: - -“Nellie, hit up the piano! Stranger, walk to the window--slow--and yank -the shade! Bob, cut upstairs!” - -These orders, given in the tone of one used to command, were quickly -obeyed. It was in the banker’s mind the moment he drew down the shade -that by some singular transition he, Webster G. Burgess, had committed -himself to the fortunes of this dubious household. If he walked out of -the front door it would likely be into the arms of a policeman; and -the fact of a man of his prominence being intercepted in flight from a -house about to be raided would not look well in the newspapers. Nellie, -at the piano, was playing Schubert’s Serenade--and playing it, he -thought, very well. The situation was not without its humor; and here, -at last, was his chance to see an adventure through. He heard Bob take -the stairs in three catlike jumps. Nellie, at the piano, said over her -shoulder, with Schubert’s melody in her eyes: - -“This isn’t funny; but they wouldn’t dare touch you! You’d better camp -right here.” - -“Not if I know myself!” said Burgess with decision as he buttoned his -ulster. - -She seemed to accept his decision as a matter of course and, -still playing, indicated the door, still ajar, through which the -disconcerting orders had been spoken. Burgess stepped into a room where -a table was partly set for supper. - -“This ain’t no place for you, stranger!” said Murdock harshly. “How you -goin’ to get away?” - -“I’ll follow Bob. If he makes it I can.” - -“Humph! This party’s too big now. You ought to have kept out o’ this.” - -There was a knock at the front door and Murdock pointed an accusing -finger at Burgess. - -“Either set down and play it out or skip!” He jerked his head toward -the stairs. The music ceased at the knock. “Nellie, what’s the answer?” - -Murdock apparently deferred to Nellie in the crisis; and as the knock -was repeated she said: - -“I’ll get Bob and this gentleman out. Don’t try to hold the door--let -’em in.” - -Before he knew what was happening, Burgess was at the top of the -stairway, with the girl close at his heels. She opened a door into a -dark room. - -“Bob!” she called. - -“All right!” whispered Drake huskily. - -Near the floor Burgess marked Bob’s position by a match the man struck -noiselessly, shielding it in the curve of his hand at arm’s length. It -was visible for a second only. Nellie darted lightly here and there -in the dark. A drawer closed softly; Burgess heard the swish of her -jacket as she snatched it up and drew it on. The girl undoubtedly knew -what she was about. Then a slim, cold hand clutched his in a reassuring -clasp. Another person had entered the room and the doorkey clicked. - -“Goodby, mother!” Burgess heard the girl whisper. - -The atmosphere changed as the steps of the three refugees echoed -hollowly in an empty room. A door closed behind them and there was a -low rumble as a piece of furniture was rolled against it. Burgess was -amazed to find how alert all his senses were. He heard below the faint -booming of voices as Murdock entertained the police. In the pitch-dark -he found himself visualizing the room into which they had passed and -the back stairway down which they crept to the kitchen of the vacant -half of the house. As they paused there to listen something passed -between Drake and Nellie. - -“Give it to me--quick! I gotta shake that guy!” Drake whispered -hoarsely. - -The girl answered: - -“Take it, but keep still and I’ll get you out o’ this.” - -Burgess thought he had struck at her; but she made no sign. She -took the lead and opened the kitchen door into a shed; then the air -freshened and he felt rain on his face. They stood still for an -instant. Some one, apparently at the Murdock kitchen door, beat three -times on a tin pan. - -“There are three of them!” whispered Nellie. “One’s likely to be at -the back gate. Take the side fence!” She was quickly over; and then -began a rapid leaping of the partition fences of the narrow lots of -the neighborhood. At one point Burgess’s ulster ripped on a nail; at -another place he dropped upon a chicken coop, where a lone hen squawked -her terror and indignation. It had been some time since Webster G. -Burgess had jumped fences, and he was blowing hard when finally they -reached a narrow alley. He hoped the hurdling was at an end, but a -higher barricade confronted them than the low fences they had already -negotiated. Nellie and Bob whispered together a moment; then Bob took -the fence quickly and silently. Burgess jumped for the top, but failed -to catch hold. A second try was luckier, but his feet thumped the fence -furiously as he tried to mount. - -“Cheese it on the drum!” said Nellie, and she gave his legs a push -that flung him over and he tumbled into the void. “Bob mustn’t bolt; he -always goes crazy and wants to shoot the cops,” he heard her saying, -so close that he felt her breath on his cheek. “I had to give him that -hundred----” - -A man ran through the alley they had just left. From the direction of -Vevay Street came disturbing sounds as the Murdocks’ neighbors left -their supper tables for livelier entertainment outside. - -“If it’s cops they’ll make a mess of it--I was afraid it was Hill,” -said the girl. - -It already seemed a good deal of a mess to Burgess. He had got his -bearings and knew they were in the huge yard of the Brooks Lumber -Company. Great piles of lumber deepened the gloom. The scent of new -pine was in the moist air. Nellie was already leading the way down -one of the long alleys between the lumber. A hinge creaked stridently -behind them. The three stopped, huddled close together. The opaque -darkness seemed now to be diminishing slightly as the moon and a few -frightened stars shone out of the clouds. Then the blackness was -complete again. - -“They’ve struck the yard!” said Nellie. “That was the Wood Street gate.” - -“If they stop to open gates they’re not much good,” said the banker -largely, in the tone of one who does not pause for gates. - -The buttons had been snapped from his ulster at the second fence and -this garment now hung loosely round him, a serious impediment to -flight. He made a mental note to avoid ulsters in future. A nail had -scraped his shin, and when he stopped to rub it he discovered an ugly -rent in his trousers. Nellie kept moving. She seemed to know the ways -of the yard and threaded the black lumber alleys with ease. They were -close together, running rapidly, when she paused suddenly. Just ahead -of them in a cross-alley a lantern flashed. It was the lumber company’s -private watchman. He stopped uncertainly, swung his lantern into the -lane where the trio waited, and hurried on. - -They were halfway across the yard as near as Burgess could judge, -hugging the lumber piles closely and stopping frequently to listen, -when they were arrested by a sound behind. The moon had again swung -free of clouds and its light flooded the yard. The distance of half a -block behind a policeman stood in the alley they had just traversed. -He loomed like a heroic statue in his uniform overcoat and helmet. His -shout rang through the yard. - -“Beat it!” cried Nellie. - - -III - -Nellie was off as she gave the word. They struck a well-beaten -cross-alley--a main thoroughfare of the yard--and sprinted off at a -lively gait. It was in Burgess’s mind that it was of prime importance -that Drake should escape--it was to aid the former convict that he had -involved himself in this predicament; and even if the wedding had to be -abandoned and the girl left behind it was better than for them all to -be caught. He was keeping as close as possible to Bob, but the young -man ran with incredible swiftness; and he now dodged into one of the -narrower paths and vanished. - -The yard seemed more intricate than ever with its network of paths, -along which the lumber stacks rose fantastically. Looking over his -shoulder, Burgess saw that the single policeman had been reenforced by -another man. It was a real pursuit now--there was no belittling that -fact. A revolver barked and a fusillade followed. Then the moon was -obscured and the yard was black again. Burgess felt himself jammed in -between two tall lumber piles. - -“Climb! Get on top quick and lie down!” - -Nellie was already mounting; he felt for the strips that are thrust -between planks to keep them from rotting, grasped them and gained -the top. It was a solid pile and it lifted him twenty feet above the -ground. He threw himself flat just as the pursuers rushed by; and when -they were gone he sat up and nursed his knees. He marked Nellie’s -position by her low laugh. He was glad she laughed. He was glad she was -there! - -Fifty yards away a light flashed--a policeman had climbed upon a tall -pile of lumber and was whipping about him with a dark lantern. - -“It will take them all night to cover this yard that way,” she -whispered, edging close. “They’re crossing the yard the way women do -when they’re trying to drive chickens into a coop. They won’t find Bob -unless they commit burglary.” - -“How’s that?” asked Burgess, finding a broken cigar in his waistcoat -pocket and chewing the end. - -“Oh, I gave him the key to the office and told him to sit on the safe. -It’s a cinch they won’t look for him there; and we’ve got all night to -get him out.” - -Burgess was flattered by the plural. Her good humor was not without its -effect on him. The daughter of the retired yeggman was a new kind of -girl, and one he was glad to add to his collection of feminine types. -He wished she would laugh oftener. - -The president of the White River National Bank, perched on a pile -of lumber on a wet January evening with a girl he knew only as his -accomplice in an escapade that it would be very difficult to explain to -a cynical world, reflected that at about this hour his wife, hardly a -mile distant, in one of the handsomest houses in town, was dressing for -dinner to be ready to greet a guest, who was the most valiant member -of the sedate House of Bishops. And Webster G. Burgess assured himself -that he was not a bit frightened; he had been pursued by detectives and -police and shot at--and yet he was less annoyed than when the White -River National lost an account, or an ignorant new member preempted -his favorite seat in the University Club dining room. He had lost -both the sense of fear and the sense of shame; and he marveled at his -transformation and delighted in it. - -“How long will it be before that begins to bore them, Nellie?” he -remarked casually, as though he were speaking to a girl he had known -always, in a cozy corner at a tea. - -The answer was unexpected and it did not come from Nellie. He heard -the scraping of feet, and immediately a man loomed against the sky not -thirty feet away and began sweeping the neighboring stacks with an -electric lamp; its rays struck Burgess smartly across the face. He hung -and jumped; and as he let go the light flashed again and an automatic -barked. - -“Lord! It’s Hill!” he gasped. - -As he struck the ground he experienced a curious tingle on the left -side of his head above the ear--it was as though a hot needle had been -drawn across it. The detective yelled and fired another shot to attract -the attention of the other pursuers. Nellie was already down and ready -for flight. She grasped Burgess’s arm and hurried him over and between -unseen obstacles. There seemed to be no method of locomotion to which -he was not urged--climbing, crawling, running, edging in between -seeming Gibraltars of lumber. From a low pile she leaped to a higher, -and on up until they were thirty feet above the ground; then it seemed -to amuse her to jump from pile to pile until they reached earth again. -Running over uneven lumber piles in the dark, handicapped by an absurd -ulster, does not make for ease, grace or security--and wet lumber has a -disagreeable habit of being slippery. - -They trotted across an open space and crept under a shingle shed. - -“Good place to rest,” panted Nellie--and he dropped down beside her on -a bundle of shingles. The rain fell monotonously upon the low roof of -their shelter. - -“That’s a pretty picture,” said the girl dreamily. - -Burgess, breathing like a husky bellows, marveled at her. What had -interested her was the flashing of electric lamps from the tops of -the lumber piles, where the pursuers had formed a semicircle and were -closing in on the spot where the quarry had disappeared. They were -leaping from stack to stack, shooting their lamps ahead. - -“The lights dancing round that way are certainly picturesque,” observed -Burgess. “Whistler would have done a charming nocturne of this. I doubt -whether those fellows know what a charm they impart to the mystical, -moist night. The moving pictures ought to have this. What’s our next -move?” he asked, mopping his wet face with his handkerchief. - -“I’ve got to get Bob out of the office and then take a long jump. And -right here’s a good time for you to skedaddle. You can drop into the -alley back of this shed and walk home.” - -“Thanks--but nothing like that! I’ve got to see you married and safely -off. I’d never dare look Gordon in the face if I didn’t.” - -“I thought you were like that,” she said gently, and his heart bounded -at her praise. She stole away into the shadows, and he stared off at -the dancing lights where the police continued their search. - -Far away the banker saw the aura of the city, and he experienced again -a sensation of protest and rebellion. He wondered whether this was -the feeling of the hunted man--the man who is tracked and driven and -shot at! He, Webster G. Burgess, had been the target of a bullet; and, -contrary to every rule of the life in which he had been reared, he was -elated to have been the mark for a detective’s gun. He knew that he -should feel humiliated--that he owed it to himself, to his wife waiting -for him at home, to his friends, to society itself, to walk out and -free himself of the odium that would attach to a man of his standing -who had run with the hare when his place by all the canons was with the -hounds. And then, too, this low-browed criminal was not the man for a -girl like Nellie to marry--he could not free himself of that feeling. - -As he pondered this she stole back to his hiding-place. The ease, -lightness and deftness with which she moved amazed him; he had not -known she was near until he heard Drake’s heavier step beside her. - -“Bob’s here, all right. We must march again,” she said. - -She explained her plan and the three started off briskly, reached a -fence--the world seemed to be a tangle of fences!--and dropped over -into a coalyard. Burgess was well muddled again, but Nellie never -hesitated. It had grown colder; heavier clouds had drifted across the -heavens and snow began to fall. They reached the farther bound of the -coalyard safely; and as they were about to climb out a dog yelped and -rushed at them. - -“I forgot about that dog! Over, quick! The watchman for this yard -is probably back there playing with the police, or else he’s hiding -himself,” said Nellie. - -This proved to be the most formidable fence of the series for Burgess, -and his companions got him over with difficulty just as a dog snapped -at his legs. They landed in a tangle of ice-covered weeds and lay still -a moment. Bob was in bad humor, and kept muttering and cursing. - -“Chuck it, Bob!” said Nellie sharply. - -They were soon jumping across the railroad switches and could see -the canal stretching toward the city, marked by a succession of -well-lighted bridges. - -“They’ll pinch us here! Nellie, you little fool, if you hadn’t steered -me to that office I’d ’a’ been out o’ this!” - -He swore under his breath and Burgess cordially hated him for swearing -at the girl. But, beyond doubt, the pursuers had caught the scent -and were crossing the coalyard. They heard plainly the sounds of men -running and shouting. Bob seized Nellie and there was a sharp tussle. - -“For God’s sake, trust me, Bob! Take this; don’t let him have it!” And -she thrust a revolver into Burgess’s hand. “Better be caught than that! -Mind the bank here and keep close together. Good dog--he’s eating the -cops!” And she laughed her delicious mirthful laugh. A pistol banged -and the dog barked no more. - -The three were now on the ice of the canal, spreading out to distribute -their weight. The day had been warm enough to soften the ice and it -cracked ominously as the trio sped along. Half a dozen bridges were -plainly in sight toward the city and Burgess got his bearings again. -Four blocks away was his motor and the big car was worth making a break -for at any hazard. They stopped under the second bridge and heard the -enemy charging over the tracks and out upon the ice. A patrol wagon -clanged on a bridge beyond the coalyard and a whistle blew. - -A sergeant began bawling orders and half a dozen men were sent to -reconnoiter the canal. As they advanced they swept the banks with their -electric lamps and conferred with scouts flung along the banks. The -snow fell steadily. - -“We can’t hold this much longer,” said Nellie; and as she spoke there -was a wild shout from the party advancing over the ice. The lamps of -several policemen shot wildly into the sky and there were lusty bawls -for help. - -“A bunch of fat cops breaking through the ice!” chuckled the girl, -hurrying on. - -They gained a third bridge safely, Nellie frequently admonishing Bob to -stick close to her. It was clear enough to Burgess that Drake wanted to -be rid of him and the girl and take charge of his own destiny. Burgess -had fallen behind and was feeling his way under the low bridge; Nellie -was ahead, and the two men were for the moment flung together. - -“Gi’ me my gun! I ain’t goin’ to be pinched this trip. Gi’ me the gun!” - -“Keep quiet; we’re all in the same boat!” panted Burgess, whose one -hundred and seventy pounds, as registered on the club scales that very -day after luncheon, had warned him that he was growing pulpy. - -The rails on the bank began to hum, and a switch engine, picking up -cars in the neighboring yards, puffed along the bank. Burgess felt -himself caught suddenly round the neck and before he knew what was -happening landed violently on his back. He struggled to free himself, -but Bob gripped his throat with one hand and snatched the revolver from -his pocket with the other. It was all over in a minute. The rattle of -the train drowned the sound of the attack, and when Nellie ran back to -urge them on Burgess was just getting on his feet and Bob had vanished. - -“I couldn’t stop him--he grabbed the gun and ran,” Burgess explained. -“He must have jumped on that train.” - -“Poor Bob!” She sighed deeply; a sob broke from her. Her arms went -around Burgess’s neck. “Poor Bob! Poor old Bob!” - -The locomotive bell clanged remotely. It was very still, and Mr. -Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, stood -there under a canal bridge with the arms of a sobbing girl round his -neck! Under all the circumstances it was wholly indefensible, and the -absurdity of it was not lost upon him. Drake had bolted, and all this -scramble with the ex-convict and his sweetheart had come to naught. - -“He’ll get away; he was desperate and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t -even wait for the money Gordon sent me!” - -“Oh!”--she faltered, and her breath was warm on his cheek--“that wasn’t -Drake!” - -“It wasn’t Robert Drake?” Burgess blurted. “Not Drake?” - -“No; it was Bob, my stepbrother. He got into trouble in Kentucky -and came here to hide, and I was trying to help him; and I’ll miss -Robert--and you’ve spoiled your clothes--and they shot at you!” - -“It was poor shooting,” said Burgess critically as the red feather -brushed his nose; “but we’ve got to clear out of this or we’ll be in -the patrol wagon in a minute!” - -It was his turn now to take the initiative. His first serious duty was -to become a decent, law-abiding citizen again, and he meant to effect -the transformation as quickly as possible. He began discreetly by -unclasping the girl’s arms. - -“Stop crying, Nellie--you did the best you could for Bob; and now we’ll -get out of this and tackle Drake’s case. When that wagon that’s coming -has crossed this bridge we’ll stroll over to Senate Avenue, where my -car’s waiting, and beat it.” - - -IV - -The policemen had been pried out of the ice and the search continued, -though the spirit seemed to have gone out of it. The scouting party had -scattered among the grim factories along the railway tracks. Bob had -presumably been borne out of the zone of danger and there was nothing -more to be done for him. - -They waited to make sure they were not watched and then crawled up -the bank into Vevay Street. The rapidly falling snow enfolded them -protectingly. Now that life had grown more tranquil Burgess became -conscious that the scratch above his left ear had not ceased tingling. -It was with real emotion that Webster G. Burgess reflected that he -had escaped death by a hairbreadth. He meant to analyze that emotion -later at his leisure. The grazing of his head by that bullet marked -the high moment of his life; the memory of it would forever be the -chief asset among all his experiences. There was a wet line down his -cheek to his shirt collar that he had supposed to be perspiration; -but his handkerchief now told another story. He turned up the collar -of his buttonless ulster to hide any tell-tale marks of his sins and -knocked his battered cap into shape. Glancing down at Nellie, he saw -that the red feather had not lost its jauntiness, and she tripped along -placidly, as though nothing unusual had happened; but as they passed -opposite the Murdock house, where a lone policeman patrolled the walk, -her hand tightened on his arm and he heard her saying, as though to -herself: - -“Goodby, house! Goodby, dad and mother! I’ll never be back any more.” - -Burgess quickly shut the door of the tonneau upon Nellie; he had -cranked the machine and was drawing on the chauffeur’s gauntlets, -which he had found in the driver’s seat, when the druggist ran out and -accosted him. - -“Hello, Miller! Seen anything of my chauffeur?” - -“I guess he’s out with the police,” the man answered excitedly; -“they’ve been chasing a bunch o’ crooks over there somewhere. Two -or three people have been shot. There was a woman mixed up in the -scrimmage, but she got away.” - -“Yes; it was a big fight--a whole gang of toughs! I took a short dash -with the police myself, and fell over a dead man and scratched my -ear. No, thanks; I’ll fix it up later. By-the-way, when my man turns -up you might tell him to come home--if that harmonizes with his own -convenience.” He stepped into the car. “Oh, has the plumber fixed that -drain for you yet? Well, the agent ought to look after such things. -Call me up in a day or two if he doesn’t attend to it.” - -It was rather cheering, on the whole, to be in the open again, and he -lingered, relishing his freedom, his immunity from molestation. The -very brick building before which he stood gave him a sense of security; -he was a reputable citizen and property owner--not to be trifled with -by detectives and policemen. A newspaper reporter whom he knew jumped -from a passing street car, recognized him and asked excitedly where the -bodies had been taken. - -“They’re stacked up like cordwood,” answered Burgess, “over in the -lumber-yard. Some of the cops went crazy and are swimming in the canal. -Young lady--guest of my wife--and I came over to look after sick -family, and ran into the show. I joined the hunt for a while, but it -wasn’t any good. You’ll find the survivors camped along the canal bank -waiting for reenforcements.” - -He lighted a cigarette, jumped in and drove the car toward home for -half a dozen blocks--then lowered the speed so that he could speak -to the girl. He was half sorry the adventure was over; but there yet -remained his obligation to do what he could for Drake--if that person -could be found. - -“You must let me go now,” said Nellie earnestly; “the police will wake -up and begin looking for me, and you’ve had trouble enough. And it -was rotten for me to work you to help get Bob off! You’d better have -stayed in the house; but I knew you would help--and I was afraid Bob -would kill somebody. Please let me out right here!” - -Her hand was on the latch. - -“Oh, never in this world! I have no intention of letting the police -take you--you haven’t done anything but try to help your brother, like -the fine girl you are; and that’s all over. Where’s Drake?” - -Her gravity passed instantly and her laugh greeted his ears again. He -was running the car slowly along a curb, his head bent to hear. - -“Listen! Robert telephoned just as I was leaving the office. I told -him to keep away from the house. When I saw you in the bank I knew Bob -was here, but I thought he’d be out of the way; but he wouldn’t go -until dark, and I would have telephoned you but I was afraid. I really -meant to tell you at the house that Robert wasn’t there and wouldn’t be -there; but Bob was so ugly I made you go with us, because I wanted your -help. I thought if they nailed us you would pull Bob through. And now -you don’t really mind--do you?” she concluded tearfully. - -“Well, what about Drake? If he’s still----” - -She bent closer and he heard her murmurous laugh again. - -“I told Robert I’d meet him at the courthouse--by the steps nearest the -police station--at seven o’clock. That’s the safest place I could think -of.” - -Burgess nodded and the machine leaped forward. - -“We’ve got ten minutes to keep that date, Nellie. But I’m going to be -mighty late for dinner!” - - -V - -As Nellie jumped from the car at the courthouse a young man stepped out -of the shadows instantly. Only a few words passed between them. Burgess -opened the door for them and touched his hat as he snapped on the -electric bulb in the tonneau. Glancing round when he had started the -car, Burgess saw that Drake had clasped Nellie’s hand; and there was -a resolute light in the young man’s eyes--his face had the convict’s -pallor, but he looked sound and vigorous. On the whole, Robert Drake -fulfilled the expectations roused by Gordon’s letter--he was neatly -dressed, and his voice and manner bespoke the gentleman. One or two -questions put by the banker he answered reassuringly. He had reached -the city at five o’clock and had not been interfered with in any way. - -As they rolled down Washington Street a patrol passed them, moving -slowly toward the police station. Burgess fancied there was dejection -in the deliberate course of the wagon homeward, and he grinned to -himself; but when he looked around Nellie’s face was turned away from -the street toward the courthouse clock, to which she had drawn Drake’s -attention as the wagon passed. - -“Are you and Nellie going to be married? That’s the first question.” - -“Yes, sir; it’s all on the square. There’s a lawyer here who got me out -of a scrape once and he helped me get the license. If you’ll take us to -a minister--that’s all we want.” - -“Oh, the minister will be easy!” - -“Now,” he said as they reached his home, “come along with me and do -exactly what I tell you. And don’t be scared!” - -The evening had been full of surprises, but he meant now to cap the -series of climaxes, that had mounted so rapidly, with another that -should give perfect symmetry to the greatest day of his life. They -entered the house through a basement door and gained the second floor -by the back stairs. Nora, his wife’s maid, came from one of the rooms -and he gave her some orders. - -“This is Miss Murdock. She’s just come in from a long journey and I -wish you would help her touch up a bit. Go into Mrs. Burgess’s room and -get anything you need. Miss Murdock has lost her bag, and has to be off -again in half an hour; so fix up a suitcase for her--you’ll know how. -It will be all right with Mrs. Burgess. How far’s the dinner got? Just -had salad? All right. Come with me, Drake.” - -In his own dressing room he measured the young man with his eye. -Mindful of Gordon’s injunction that Drake might be picked up by the -police, he went into the guest-room, tumbled over the effects of the -Bishop of Shoshone and threw out a worn sackcoat, a clerical waistcoat -and trousers, and handed them to his guest. - -Webster G. Burgess prided himself on being able to dress in ten -minutes; in fifteen on this occasion he not only refreshed himself with -a shower but tended his bruises and fitted a strip of invisible plaster -to the bullet scratch above his ear. His doffed business suit and -ulster he flung into the laundry basket in the bathroom; then he went -into the guest-room to speak to Drake. - -“It was bully of you to stand by Nellie in her trouble!” said Drake -with feeling. “I guess you came near getting pinched.” - -“Oh, it was nothing,” remarked Burgess, shooting his cuffs with the -air of a gentleman to whom a brush with the police is only part of the -day’s work. - -“Nellie told me about it, coming up in the machine. I guess you’re a -good sport, all right.” - -Webster G. Burgess was conscious of the ex-convict’s admiration; he was -not only aware that Drake regarded him admiringly but he found that he -was gratified by the approbation of this man who had cracked safes and -served time for it. - -“Nellie is a great girl!” said Burgess, to change the subject. “I -believe you mean to be good to her. You’re a mighty lucky boy to have -a girl like that ready to stand by you! Here’s some money Gordon -asked me to give you. And here’s something for Nellie, a check--one -thousand--Saxby will cash it for you at New Orleans. Please tell your -wife tomorrow that it’s my wife’s little wedding gift, in token of -Nellie’s kindness in keeping me out of jail. Now where’s that marriage -license? Good! There’s a bishop in this house who will marry you; we’ll -go down and pull it off in a jiffy. Then you can have a nibble of -supper and we’ll take you to the station. There’s a train for the South -at eight-twenty.” - -Nellie was waiting in the hall when they went out. Nora had dressed her -hair, and bestowed upon her a clean collar and a pair of white gloves. -She had exchanged her shabby, wet tan shoes for a new pair Mrs. Burgess -had imported from New York. The mud acquired in the scramble through -the lumber-yard had been carefully scraped from her skirt. Voices were -heard below. - -“They’ve just come in from dinner,” said the maid, “Shall I tell -Bridget to keep something for you?” - -“Yes--something for three, to be on the table in fifteen minutes.” - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Webster G. Burgess always maintains that nothing her husband -may do can shock her. When her husband had not appeared at seven she -explained to her guest that he had been detained by an unexpected -meeting of a clearing-house committee, it being no harder to lie to a -bishop than to any one else when a long-suffering woman is driven to -it. She was discussing with the Bishop of Shoshone the outrageously -feeble support of missionaries in the foreign field when she heard -steps on the broad stair that led down to the ample hall. A second -later her husband appeared at the door with a young woman on his arm--a -young woman who wore a hat with a red feather. This picture had hardly -limned itself upon her acute intelligence before she saw, just behind -her husband and the strange girl, a broad-shouldered young clergyman -who bore himself quite as though accustomed to appearing unannounced in -strange houses. - -The banker stepped forward, shook hands with the bishop cordially, and -carried off the introductions breezily. - -“Sorry to be late, Gertie; but you know how it is!” Whereas, as a -matter of fact, Mrs. Burgess did not know at all how it was. “Bishop, -these young people wish to be married. Their time is short, as they -have a train to make. Just how they came to be here is a long story, -and it will have to wait. If you see anything familiar in Mr. Drake’s -clothes please don’t be distressed, I’ve always intended doing -something for your new cathedral, and you shall have a check and the -price of a new suit early in the morning. And, Gertie”--he looked at -his watch--“if you will find a prayerbook we can proceed to business.” - -Mrs. Burgess always marveled at her husband’s plausibility, and now she -had fresh proof of it. She blinked as he addressed the girl as Nellie; -but this was just like Web Burgess! - -The Bishop of Shoshone, having married cowboys and Indians in all -manner of circumstances in his rough diocese, calmly began the service. - -At the supper table they were all very merry except Nellie, whose -face, carefully watched by Mrs. Burgess, grew grave at times--and -once her eyes filled with tears; her young bridegroom spoke hardly at -all. Burgess and the bishop, however, talked cheerfully of old times -together, and they rose finally amid the laughter evoked by one of the -bishop’s stories. Burgess said he thought it would be nice if they all -went to the station to give the young people a good sendoff for their -long journey; and afterward they could look in at a concert, for which -he had tickets, and hear Sembrich sing. - -“After a busy day,” he remarked, meeting Nellie’s eyes at one of her -tearful moments, “there’s nothing like a little music to quiet the -nerves--and this has been the greatest day of my life!” - - -VI - -The president of the White River National Bank was late in reaching his -desk the next morning. When he crossed the lobby he limped slightly; -and his secretary, in placing the mail before him, noticed a strip of -plaster above his left ear. His “Good morning!” was very cheery and he -plunged into work with his usual energy. - -He had dictated a telegram confirming a bond deal that would net him -fifty thousand dollars, when his name was spoken by a familiar voice. -Swinging round to the railing with calculated deliberation he addressed -his visitor in the casual tone established by their intimacy: - -“Hello, Hill--looking for me?” - -“Nope; not yet!” - -Both men grinned as their eyes met. - -“Has the charming Miss Murdock been in this morning?” asked the -detective, glancing toward the tellers’ cages. - -“Haven’t seen her yet. Hope you’re not infatuated with the girl.” - -“Only in what you might call an artistic sense; I think we agreed -yesterday that she’s rather pleasing to the jaded eyesight. See the -papers?” - -“What’s in the papers?” asked the banker, feeling absently for a report -a clerk had laid on his desk. - -“Oh, a nice little muss out on Vevay Street last night! The cops made -a mess of it of course. Old Murdock’s son Bob shot a constable in -Kentucky and broke for the home plate to get some money, and I’d had a -wire to look out for him when I was in here yesterday. He handled some -very clever phony money in this district a while back. I went out to -Vevay Street to take a look at him--and found the police had beat me to -it! The cash Nellie drew yesterday was for him.” - -“Of course you got him!” - -“No,” said Hill; “he made a getaway, all right. It was rather funny -though----” - -“How funny?” - -“The chase he gave us. You don’t mean you haven’t heard about it!” - -Burgess clasped his hands behind his head and yawned. - -“I’ve told you repeatedly, Hill, that I don’t read criminal news. It -would spoil the fun of hearing you explain your own failures.” - -“Well, I won’t bore you with this. I only want you to understand that -it was the police who made a fluke of it. But I can’t deny those -Murdocks do interest me a good deal.” - -He bent his keen eyes upon the banker for a second and grinned. Burgess -returned the grin. - -“I’ve got to speak before the Civic League on our municipal government -tomorrow night, and I’ll throw something about the general incompetence -of our police force--it’s undoubtedly rotten!” - -The detective lingered. - -“By-the-way, I nearly overlooked this. Seems to be a silver card-case, -with your name neatly engraved on the little tickets inside. I picked -it up on the ice last night when I was skating on the canal. I’m going -to keep one of the cards as a souvenir.” - -“Perfectly welcome, Tom. You’d better try one of these cigars.” - -Hill chose a cigar with care from the extended box and lighted it. -Burgess swung round to his desk, turned over some letters, and then -looked up as though surprised to find the detective still there. - -“Looking for me, Tom?” - -“No; not yet!” - - - - -THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING - - -I - -It is not to be counted against Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward that at -forty-five she had begun to look backward a little wistfully and -forward a little disconsolately and apprehensively. She was a good -woman, indeed one of the best of women, loyal, conscientious and -self-sacrificing in the highest degree. But she was poignantly aware -that certain ambitions dear to her heart had not been realized. Robert -Fleming Ward had not attained that high place at the Sycamore County -bar which had been his goal, and he seemed unable to pull himself to -the level with Canby Taylor and Addison Swiggert who practiced in -federal jurisdictions and were not unknown to the docket of the United -States Supreme Court. - -Even as Mrs. Ward was a good woman, so her husband Robert was a good -man and a good lawyer. But just being good wasn’t getting the Wards -anywhere. At least it wasn’t landing them within the golden portals of -their early dreams. To find yourself marking time professionally and -socially in a town of seventy-five thousand souls, that you’ve seen -grow from twenty-five thousand, is a disagreeable experience if you -are a sensitive person. And Mrs. Ward was sensitive. It grieved her -to witness the prosperity flaunted by people like the Picketts, the -Shepherds, the Kirbys and others comparatively new to the community, -who had impudently availed themselves of Sycamore County’s clay to -make brick, and of its water power to turn the wheels of industries -for which the old-time Kernville pioneer stock had gloomily predicted -failure. - -The Picketts, the Shepherds, the Kirbys and the rest of the new element -had builded themselves houses that were much more comfortable and -pleasing to the eye than the houses of the children and grandchildren -of the old families that had founded Kernville away back when Madison -was president. The heads of the respective brick, box, match, bottle, -canning, and strawboard industries might be deficient in culture but -they did employ good architects. The Wards lived in a house of the -Queen Anne period, which it had been necessary to mortgage to send -John Marshall through college and give Helen a year at a Connecticut -finishing school. The Wards’ home had deteriorated to the point of -dinginess, and the dinginess, and the inability to keep a car, or to -return social favors, or belong to the new country club weighed heavily -upon Mrs. Ward. - -Her husband, with all his industry and the fine talents she knew him -to possess, was making no more money at forty-seven than he had made -at thirty-five. She was a little bewildered to find that socially she -had gradually lost contact with the old aristocracy without catching -step with the flourishing makers of brick and other articles of -commerce that were carrying the fame of Kernville into new territory. -And as Mrs. Ward was possessed of a pardonable pride, this situation -troubled her greatly. They had been unable to send John to the Harvard -Law School, but he had made a fine record in the school of the state -university, and his name now appeared beneath his father’s on the door -of the law office on the second floor of the old Wheatley block, which -had been pretty well deserted by tenants now that Kernville boasted a -modern ten-story office building. - -John Ward was a healthy, sanguine young fellow who had every intention -of getting on. Some of the friends he had made in law school threw him -some business, and it was remarked about the courthouse that John had -more punch than his father, and was bound to succeed. Half way through -the trial of a damage suit in which the firm of Ward & Ward represented -a plaintiff who had been run down by an inter-urban car, the senior -Ward was laid up with tonsilitis, and John carried the case through and -won a verdict for twice what the plaintiff had been led to believe he -could possibly get. - -Helen Ward was quite as admirable and interesting as her brother. The -finishing school had done her no harm and she returned to Kernville -without airs, assumptions or affectations, understanding perfectly that -her parents had done the best they could for her. She was nineteen, -tall and straight, fair, with an abundance of brown hair and blue-gray -mirthful eyes. The growing inability of her mother to maintain a -maid-of-all work, now that Kernville’s eligibles for domestic service -preferred the eight-hour day of the factories to house work, did not -trouble Helen particularly. She could cook, wash, iron, cut out a -dress and sew it together and if the furniture was wobbly and the -upholstery faded she was an artist with the glue-pot and her linen -covers on the chairs gave the parlor a fresh smart look. The humor -that was denied their parents was Helen’s and John’s portion in large -measure. They were of the Twentieth Century, spoke its language and -knew all its signs and symbols. They were proud of each other, shared -their pleasures and consoled each other in their disappointments, and -resolutely determined to make the best of a world that wasn’t such a -bad place after all. - -John reached home from the office on a day early in January and found -Helen preparing supper. - -“Great scott, sis; has that last girl faded already!” - -“Skipped, vamoosed, vanished!” Helen answered, looking up from the gas -range on which she was broiling a steak. “The offer of a dollar more a -week transferred her to the Kirby’s, where she’ll have nothing to do -but cook. The joke’s on them. She’s the worst living cook, and not even -a success in hiding her failures.” - -“I hope,” said John, helping himself to a stalk of celery and biting -it meditatively, “I hope the Kirbys suffer the most frightful tortures -before they die of indigestion. Haven’t invited us to the party they’re -giving, have they?” - -“Not unless our invitations got lost in the mails. And I hear it’s -going to be a snappy function with the refreshments and a jazz band -imported from Chicago.” - -“Look here, sis, that’s rubbing it in pretty hard! I don’t care for -myself, but it’s nasty of ’em to cut you. But in a way it’s an act of -reprisal. Mother didn’t ask Mrs. Kirby and Jeannette to the tea she -threw for that national federation swell just before Christmas. But -even at that----” - -“Oh, don’t be so analytical! We’re an old family and mama refuses to -see any merit in people whose grandparents didn’t settle here before -the Indians left. And as we haven’t the money to train with the ancient -aristocracy, we’ve got to huddle on the sidelines. Pardon me, dear, but -that’s a pound of butter you’re about to sit on! You might cut a slice -and place it neatly on yonder plate.” - -“Snobbery!” said John, as he cut the butter with exaggerated -deliberation;--“snobbery is a malady, a disease. You can’t kill it; -you’ve got to feed it its own kind of pabulum. It’s as plain as -daylight that we’ve got to do something to get out of the hole or we’re -stuck for good.” - -“We might bore for oil in the back yard,” said Helen, scrutinizing the -steak. “If we struck a gusher we could break into the country club and -buy a large purple limousine like the Kirbys.” - -“My professional engagements don’t exhaust my brain power at present, -and I’m giving considerable thought to ways and means of improving our -state, condition or status as a family of exalted but unrecognized -merit.” - -“You’re doing nobly, John! Tom Reynolds told me they were talking of -running you for prosecuting attorney. That would give you a grand -boost. And there’s Alice Hovey,--I understand all about that, John. I -think you’re mistaken about the Hoveys not liking you.” - -“Ah, Alice!” he exclaimed mockingly. “Papa and mama Hovey have quite -other ideas for Alice; no penniless barrister need apply! But I won’t -deny to you that I’m pretty keen about Alice, only when I go to the -house the fond parents create a low temperature that is distinctly -chilly. Listen to me, Helen,” he went on with an abrupt change of -tone. “You and Ned Shepherd were hitting it off grandly when something -happened. He’s a fine chap and I rather got the idea that you two would -make a match of it.” - -“Oh no!” she protested, quickly but unconvincingly as she transferred -the steak to the platter. - -“His family’s trying to switch him to Sally Pickett. He hasn’t been -here lately, but you do see him occasionally?” - -There were tears in her eyes as she swung round from the range. - -“I’ve got to stop that, John! I’m ashamed of myself for meeting him as -I’ve been doing--walking with him in the back streets and letting him -talk to me over the telephone when mama isn’t round. I didn’t know----” - -“Well, I just happened to spot you Monday evening, and I meant to speak -to you about it. Not exactly nice, sis. I’m sorry about the whole -business. Ned’s really a manly chap, and I don’t believe he’ll be -bullied into giving you up.” - -“All over now, John,” she answered with badly-feigned indifference. - -“Well, the course of true love never did run smooth. Father and mother -have done their almighty best for us, but changes have come so fast -in this burg they haven’t been able to keep up with the procession. -Father misses chances now and then, as in refusing the Pickett case -when the State went after him for polluting the river with refuse from -his strawboard mill. Dad thought the prosecution was justified and -foolishly volunteered to assist the State as a public duty. Pickett -lost and had to spend a lot of money changing his plant; so he’s -knocked us whenever he got a chance.” - -“That’s just like papa. I only wish we could do something really -splendid for him and mama.” - -“We’re going to, sis,” said John confidently. “Take it from me we’re -going to do that identical thing. Now give me the potatoes and the -coffee-pot. Precede me with the bread and butter. There’s mother at -the front door now. Step high as to the strains of a march of triumph. -We’ll give a fine exhibition of a happy family, one for all and all for -one!” - - -II - -Mrs. Ward, detained by a club committee meeting, began to apologize for -not getting home in time to assist with the supper. - -“Oh, John did all the heavy work! And we had a fine talk into the -bargain,” Helen replied cheerfully. - -As her father was tired and didn’t know the latest domestic had -departed hence, she went on with an ironic description of the frailties -and incapacity of that person and pictured the gloom of the Kirbys as -they ate her initial meal. Mrs. Ward had brought the afternoon mail to -the table. She was the corresponding secretary of a state federation -which used the mails freely. She ate in silence, absorbed in her -letters, while her husband praised Helen’s cooking. - -Ward found a real joy in his children. It was not lost upon him that -they were making the best of circumstances for which in a somewhat -bewildered fashion he felt himself responsible. Their very kindness, -their disposition to make the best of things, hurt him and deepened -his growing sense of defeat. John began talking of a case they were to -try shortly. He had found some decisions that supported the contention -of their client. They were explaining it to Helen, who teased them by -perversely taking the opposite view, when they were silenced by an -exclamation from Mrs. Ward. - -“Here’s news indeed! This is a note from Mrs. Campbell, the Ruth -Sanders who was my best friend at school,--Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell,” -she added impressively, looking round at them over her glasses. “It’s -short; I’ll just read it: - - “DEAREST IPHIGENIA:-- - - (“You know the girls at Miss Woodburn’s school always called me - Iphigenia--due to a stupid answer I once gave in the literature - class.) - - “It’s so sweet of you to remember me year after year with a Christmas - card. The very thought of you always brings up all the jolly times - we had at Miss Woodburn’s. We parted with a promise to meet every - year; and I have never set eyes on you since we sat side by side at - the closing exercises! The class letter doesn’t come around any more, - but your children must be grown up. Mine are very much so and getting - married and leaving Walter and me quite forlorn. - - (“Her daughter Angela married into that Thornton family of Rhode - Island--or maybe it was the Connecticut branch--who are so terribly - rich; made it in copper; no, I believe it was rubber.) - - “Don’t be startled, but Mr. Campbell and I are planning to go to - California next month, and as we have to pass right across your - state, it seems absurd not to stop and see you. I’ve looked up the - timetables and we can easily leave the Limited at Cleveland and run - down to Kernville. Now don’t go to any trouble for us, but treat us - just as old friends and if it isn’t convenient to stay with you for - a night--we just must have a night to gossip about the old days--we - can put up at the hotel. We shan’t leave here until February 17, - but wishing to acknowledge your card--I never can remember to send - Christmas cards--I thought I’d give you fair warning of our approach. - Always, dear Iphigenia, your affectionate, - RUTH.” - - -“That’s a charming letter!” Helen volunteered, as her mother’s gaze -invited approval of Mrs. Campbell’s graciousness in promising a visit. -“She must be lovely!” - -“Ruth was the dearest of all my girlhood friends! When she had typhoid -and her family were in Europe I was able to do little things for -her;--nothing really of importance--but she has never forgotten. She -was so appreciative and generous and always wanted her friends to share -her good times!” - -All their lives John and Helen had heard their mother sing the praises -of Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell, née Sanders, until that lady had assumed -something of the splendor of a mythical figure in their imaginations. -She had been the richest girl in the Hudson River school Mrs. Ward had -attended, and she had married wealth. The particular Campbell of her -choice had inherited a fortune which he had vastly augmented. When -occasionally a New York newspaper drifted into the house Mrs. Ward -scanned the financial advertisements for the name of Walter Scott -Campbell set out in bold type as the director of the most august -institutions. - -“I suppose----” Mrs. Ward’s tone expressed awe in all its -connotations;--“I suppose Mr. Campbell is worth fifty million at the -lowest calculation. I met him years ago at one of the school dances. -He was quite wild about Ruth then, and they were married, John, just -a year before we were. I still have the invitation, and Ruth sent me -a piece of the wedding cake. And from the photograph she sent me at -Christmas two years ago, I judge that time has dealt lightly with her.” - -“Campbell’s one of the most important men in Wall Street,” Ward -assented. “One of his institutions, The Sutphen Loan & Trust, financed -the Kernville Water Power Company, a small item of course for so big a -concern. Campbell probably never heard of it.” - -“Well, men of his calibre usually know where the dollars go,” said -John, whose wits were functioning rapidly. - -“Of course we simply can’t let them go to the hotel,” continued Mrs. -Ward; “the Kipperly House is a disgrace. And if Ruth hasn’t changed -a lot in twenty-six years she’ll accept us as she finds us. Our -guest-room needs redecorating, and we can hardly keep the jackets on -the parlor furniture right in the middle of winter; and the bathroom -fixtures ought to be replaced----” - -She paused, seeing the look of dejection on her husband’s face. He -was well aware that all these things were old needs which the coming -of important guests now made imperative. Mrs. Ward carefully thrust -the note back into its envelope. John exchanged telegraphic glances -with Helen. His eyes brightened with the stress of his thoughts but he -buttered a bit of bread before he spoke. - -“Well, mother,” he began briskly, “I’m sure we’re all tickled that your -old friend’s coming. I can just see you sitting up all night talking -of the midnight spreads you had, and how you fooled the teachers. Now -don’t worry about the house--you or father, either; I’m going to manage -that.” - -“But, John, we mustn’t add to your father’s worries. I realize -perfectly that we’re in debt and can’t spend money we haven’t got. Ruth -was always a dear--so considerate of every one--and we’ll hope it’s me -and my family and not the house she’s coming to see.” - -“That’s all right, mother, but this strikes me as something more than a -casual visit. I see in it the hand of Providence!” he cried eagerly. - -“If they carry a maid and valet as part of their scenery we’re -lost--hopelessly lost!” Helen suggested. - -“Oh, not necessarily!” John replied. “We’ll stow ’em away somewhere. In -a pinch, you and I can move to the attic. Anyhow, we’ve got a month to -work in. When we begin to get publicity for the coming of the rich and -distinguished Campbells, I miss my guess if things don’t begin to look -a lot easier.” - -“But, John,” his mother began, shaking her head with disapproval, “you -wouldn’t do anything that would look--vulgar?” - -“Certainly not, but the Sunday _Journal’s_ always keen for news of -impending visitors in our midst, and no people of the Campbells’ social -and financial standing have ever honored our city with their presence. -The president of the Transcontinental did park his private car in the -yards last summer, but before the Chamber of Commerce could tackle him -about building a new freight house he faded away.” - -“Walter Scott Campbell is a director in the Transcontinental,” remarked -Mrs. Ward. “I happened to see his name in the list when I looked up -the name of the company’s secretary to send on the resolutions of the -Women’s Municipal Union complaining of the vile condition of the depot.” - -“Such matters are never passed on in the New York offices,” Ward -suggested mildly. “Our business organizations have worked on the -General Manager for years without getting anywhere.” - -“Just a word, from a man of Mr. Campbell’s power will be enough,” -replied John spaciously. “For another thing the train schedule ought -to be changed to give us a local sleeper to Chicago. We’ll stir up the -whole service of the Transcontinental when we get Walter here!” - -“Walter!” exclaimed Mrs. Ward, aghast at this familiarity. - -“Better call him Walt, John, to make him feel at home,” suggested Helen. - -“The directors of the Water Power Company want to refund their bonds. I -suppose Mr. Campbell could help about that,” Ward remarked, interested -in spite of himself in the potentialities of the impending visit. - -“But it would be a betrayal of hospitality,” Mrs. Ward protested, “and -we mustn’t do anything to spoil their visit.” - -“Oh, that visit’s going to be a great thing for Kernville! It grows on -me the more I think of it,” said John loftily. “It’s our big chance -to do something for the town. And the Campbells can’t object. They -will pass on, never knowing the vast benefits they have conferred upon -mankind.” - -“Your imagination’s running away with you, John,” said his father. -“With only one day here to renew their acquaintance with your mother -they’ll hardly care to be dragged through the factories and over the -railway yards.” - -“While mother and Helen are entertaining Mrs. Campbell, we’ll borrow -the largest car in town and show Walter the sights. And it will be -up to us to prove to him that Kernville’s the best little town of -the seventy-five thousand class in the whole rich valley of the -Mississippi. All Walter will have to do will be to send a few wires in -a casual manner to the right parties and everything the town needs will -be forthcoming.” - -“But why should we worry about the town when it isn’t worrying -particularly about us?” asked Helen as she began to clear the table. - -“I don’t quite follow you either,” said his mother. “You can’t, you -really mustn’t----” - -“Such matters are for the male of the species to grapple with. You and -Helen arrange a tea or dinner or whatever you please, making something -small and select of the function, and I’ll do all the rest.” - -“In some way John and I will manage the money,” said Mr. Ward, slowly, -and then catching a meaningful look in John’s eyes, he added with -unwonted confidence: “Where there’s a will there’s a way. I want the -Campbells’ visit to be a happy occasion. You are entitled to it, -Margaret--you and Helen must get all the pleasure possible from meeting -a woman of Mrs. Campbell’s large experience of life.” - -“Mama will need a new frock,” said Helen, a remark which precipitated -at once a lively debate with her mother as to which--if any item of her -existing wardrobe would lend itself to the process of reconstruction. -This question seemed susceptible of endless discussion, and was only -ended by John’s firm declaration that there should be new raiment for -both his mother and Helen. - -“Father, we’ll show these upstarts from New York what real American -women are like!” - -“We shall be ruined!” cried Helen tragically, as she disappeared -through the swing door with a pile of plates. - -“Please, John, don’t do anything foolish,” his mother pleaded, but she -smiled happily under the compulsion of his enthusiasm. - -“Trust me for that!” he replied, laying his hands on her shoulders. -“We’re all too humble; that’s what’s the matter with the Ward family. -And for once I want you to step right out!” - -He waved her into the sitting room and darted into the kitchen, where -he threw off his coat and donned an apron. - - -III - -“Crazy! You’ve gone plumb stark crazy!” said Helen, as she thrust her -arms into the dishwater. “It’s cruel to raise mother’s hopes that way. -You know well enough that as things are going we’re just about getting -by, with the grocery bill two months behind and that eternal interest -on the mortgage hanging over us like the well-known sword of Damocles.” - -“The sword is in my hands!” declared John, balancing a plate on the tip -of his finger. “How does that old tune go? - - The Campbells are coming, tra la, tra la, - The Campbells are coming, tra la! - -There’s a bit of Scotch in us, and I feel my blood tingle to those -blithe martial strains! What’s the rule for drying dishes, sis? Do you -make ’em shine like a collar from a Chinese laundry, or is the dull -domestic finish in better form?” - -“If you break that plate I’ll poison your breakfast coffee! If I didn’t -know you for a sober boy I’d think you’d been keeping tryst with a -bootlegger! You don’t seem to understand that you sat there at the -table spending money like Midas on a spree. You couldn’t borrow a cent -if you tried!” - -“Borrow!” he mocked. “I’m going to pull this thing off according to -specifications, and I’m not going to borrow a cent. I expect to be -refusing offers of money gently but firmly within a week. Observe my -smoke, dearest one! Watch my fleet sail right up to the big dam in -Sycamore River laden like the ships of Tarshish that brought gifts of -silver and gold and ivory, apes and peacocks for Solomon’s delight!” - -“You’re not calling the Campbells apes and peacocks!” - -“Not on your life! All those rich treasures will be yours and mine, O -Helen of Kernville! The Campbells are rich enough. We’re not going to -embarrass them by piling any more wealth on ’em. But the magic of the -name of Walter Scott Campbell, if properly invoked, manipulated and -flaunted will put us all on the high road to fame and fortune.” - -“You’ll break mama’s heart if you begin bragging about her acquaintance -with this woman she hasn’t seen for a quarter of a century! She’s -already warned you against vulgar boasting.” - -“Keep mother busy planning for the care and entertainment of our -guests! I’ll hold father steady. This being Thursday I’ve got time -enough to plan the campaign before Sunday. I’ll lay down a barrage and -throw myself upon the enemy. To the cheering strains of ‘The Campbells -are Coming!’ we’ll cross the valley of death and plant our flag on the -battlements without a scratch or the loss of a man.” - -By the time the kitchen was in order he had her laughing and quite won -to his idea that it was perfectly legitimate to avail themselves fully -of the great opportunity offered by the Campbells’ visit. - -“Nothing undignified at all! The Campbells will never be conscious of -my proceedings as they don’t read the Kernville papers and will linger -only a day. By the way, it happens that Billy Townley, a fraternity -brother of mine, has just been made city editor of the _Journal_ and -Billy and I used to pull some good stunts when we were together at the -’varsity. When I hiss the password in his ear and tell him I’ll need a -little space daily for a few weeks he’ll go right down the line for me. -And the boys on the _Evening Sun_ are friends of mine, too. They have -less space but they make up for it with bigger headlines.” - -“You’re a dear boy, John, if you are crazy! I believe you can do most -anything you tackle, and I’ll stand by you whether you land us in jail -or in the poorhouse.” - -“Bully for you, sis!” And then lowering his voice, “This chance may -never come again! I’m going to wring every possible drop out of it even -as you wring out that dish rag. By-the-way, if it isn’t impertinent, -when did you see Ned last?” - -“Not since the day you saw me walking with him--for the last time. But -he telephoned this afternoon. He wanted to come up this evening.” - -“Well, he’s of age and the curfew law can’t touch him. What was the -answer?” - -“I told him I wouldn’t be at home. I’m not going to have him calling -here when his mother barely speaks to me! Ned didn’t say so, but I -suspect she gave him a good scolding for taking me instead of Sally to -the Seebrings’ dance.” - -“How do you get that? If he didn’t tell you----!” - -“Of course not! But Sally had to go with her mother and there were more -girls than men; so Sally only had about half the dances and the rest of -the time sat on the sidelines with her mother and Mrs. Kirby. I caught -a look now and then that was quite suggestive of murder in the first -degree.” - -“Helen,” said John, lifting his eyes dreamily to the ceiling, “I’ll -wager a diamond tiara against one of your delicious buckwheat cakes -that you and I will get an invitation to the Kirby party.” - -“Taken! The cards went out yesterday. I met some of the girls downtown -this morning, and they were buzzing about it.” - -“Let ’em buzz! Ours will probably come special delivery with a note of -explanation that in copying the list or something of the kind we were -regrettably omitted. And let me see,” he went on, rubbing his chin -reflectively, “I rather think Ned will ask you to go to the party with -him. It occurs to me that old man Shepherd owns some land he’s trying -to sell to the Transcontinental, and the railway people are shy of it -because it’s below the flood line on our perverse river. Yes; I think -we may jar the Shepherds a little too.” - -“Why, John!” she laughed as she hung up her apron, “you almost persuade -me that you’ve already got free swing at the Campbell boodle!” - -“I look at it this way, Helen. We can all spend our own money; it’s -getting the benefit of other people’s money that requires genius. I -must now step down to the public library and to the _Journal_ office -to get some dope on the Campbells. Also I’ll have to sneak mother’s -photograph of Mrs. Campbell out of the house. A few illustrations will -give tone to our publicity stuff.” - -“Be bold, John, but not too bold!” - -“‘The Campbells are coming, tra la!’” he sang mockingly, and spiking -her hands, hummed the air and danced back and forth across the kitchen. -“By jing, that tune’s wonderful for the toddle!” he cried exultantly. -“We’ll make all Kernville step to it.” - - -IV - -“The point we want to hammer in is that we--the Ward family--are the -only people in Sycamore county who are in touch with the Campbell -power, social and financial,” John elucidated to his friend Townley. -“Modest, retiring to the point of utter self-effacement as we, the -Wards, are, no other family in the community has ever been honored by -a visit from so big a bunch of assets. And when it comes to social -prominence their coming will link Kernville right on to Newport where -old Walter Scott Campbell owns one of the lordliest villas. Here’s -a picture of it I found in ‘Summer Homes of Great Americans.’ We’ll -feed in the pictorial stuff from time to time, using this photograph -of Mrs. Campbell mother keeps on the upright at home, and that cut of -Walter Scott I dug out of your office graveyard. Your record shows you -ran it the time the old money-devil was indicted under the Sherman law -for conspiracy against the peace and dignity of the United States in -a fiendish attempt to boost the price of bathtubs. The indictment was -quashed as to the said Walter because he was laid up with whooping -cough when the wicked attack on the free ablutions of the American -people was planned or concocted, and he denied all responsibility for -the acts of his proxy.” - -“You’ve got to hand it to that lad,” said Townley ruminatively. -“Anything you can do to put me in the way of a soft snap as private -secretary for his majesty would be appreciated. I’ve had considerable -experience in keeping my friends out of jail and I might be of use to -him.” - -John rose early on Sunday morning to inspect his handiwork in the -section of the _Journal_ devoted to the goings and comings, the -entertainments past and prospective and the club activities of -Kernville. Townley had eliminated the usual group of portraits of -the brides of the week that Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell’s handsome -countenance might be spread across three columns in the center of the -page. The photograph of Mrs. Campbell had been admirably reproduced, -and any one informed in such matters would know instantly that she was -the sort of woman who looks well in evening gowns and that her pearl -necklace was of unquestionable authenticity. - -The usual double column “lead” was devoted wholly to the announcement -of the visit of the Walter Scott Campbells of New York and Newport -to the Robert Fleming Wards of Kernville, with all biographical data -necessary to establish the Campbells in the minds of intelligent -readers as persons of indubitable eminence entitled to the most -distinguished consideration in every part of the world. Mrs. Campbell, -John had learned from “Distinguished American Women,” was a Mayflower -descendant, a Colonial Dame and a Daughter of the Revolution, besides -being a trustee of eighteen separate and distinct philanthropies, and -all these matters were impressively set forth. Mr. Campbell’s clubs in -town and country required ten lines for their recital. Any jubilation -over the coming of so much magnificence was neatly concealed under the -generalization that the horizon of Kernville was rapidly widening and -that there was bound to be more and more communication between New York -and Kernville. Mrs. Ward, the article concluded, had not yet decided -in just what manner she would entertain for the Campbells, but the -representative people of the city would undoubtedly have an opportunity -to meet her guests. - -“The first gun is fired!” John whispered, thrusting the paper through -Helen’s bed-room door. “Read and ponder well!” - -Mrs. Ward read the announcement aloud at the breakfast table as soberly -as though it were a new constitution for her favorite club. - -“That Miss Givens who does the society news for the _Journal_ has more -sense than I gave her credit for,” she said. “There isn’t a word in -that piece that isn’t true. But that portrait of Ruth is a trifle too -large; you ought to have warned them about that! When Tetrazzini sang -here they didn’t print her picture half as big as that.” - -“Well, mother, the _Journal_ simply begged for a photograph. People of -note don’t mind publicity. They simply eat it up!” - -“Well, the article is really very nice,” said Mrs. Ward, “but I hope -they won’t say anything more until the Campbells arrive.” - -John, aware that several columns more bearing upon the Campbell visit -were already in type in the _Journal_ office, was grateful to Helen for -changing the subject to a pertinent discussion of the proper shade of -wall paper for the guest-room. - -On Tuesday the _Journal’s_ first page contained a news-article on -the crying need of enlarged railway facilities, adroitly written to -embody the hope of the transportation committee of the Chamber of -Commerce, that when Mr. Walter Scott Campbell of the board of directors -of the Transcontinental paid his expected visit to the city he would -take steps to change the reactionary policy of the road’s operating -department. The same article stated with apparent authority that Robert -Fleming Ward, the well-known attorney, whose guest Mr. Campbell would -be, had pledged himself to assist the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce -to the utmost in urging Kernville’s needs upon the great capitalist. - -“See here, John, you’ve got to be careful about this Campbell -business!” Mr. Ward’s tone was severe. “I know without your telling me -you inspired that piece in this morning’s paper. Campbell never saw me -in his life and that article gives the impression that he and I are old -cronies. It’s going to cause us all a lot of embarrassment. It won’t -do!” - -“Sorry if it bothers you, father; but there’s nothing untrue in that -article. You’ll be the only man in town who can get Campbell’s ear. If -he refuses to interest himself in a new freight house and that sort of -thing, that’s his affair.” - -The stenographer knocked to announce Mr. Pickett. - -“Say to him,” replied John, indifferently, “that we are in conference -but he can see us in just a moment.” - -“Pickett!” exclaimed Ward, senior, as the door closed. “What on earth -brings him here!” - -“The Campbells are coming,” replied John with a grin. “Pickett’s -president of the Water Power Company, and he wants to line us up to get -Campbell interested in making a new bond deal.” - -“Humph! If that’s what he wants I like his nerve. We don’t even speak -when we meet.” - -“You’ll be speaking now! Let’s go out and give him the glad hand of -brotherly greeting.” - -A little diffident at first, Wesley T. Pickett warmed under the spell -of the Wards’ magnanimity. - -“I’ve regretted very much our little differences----” he began. - -“There’s no feeling on our side at all, Mr. Pickett,” John declared and -his father, a little dazed, murmured his acquiescence in this view of -the matter, and eyed with interest a formidable bundle of documents in -Pickett’s hands. - -“Fact is,” remarked Pickett, with a sheepish grin as he re-crossed -his legs, “you were dead right on that matter of the pollution of the -river. Swiggert probably did the best he could with our defense but you -were right when you told me I’d save money and avoid arousing hostile -feeling in the community by pleading guilty.” - -“It’s always disagreeable to be obliged to tell a man he hasn’t a good -case,” Ward announced. - -“Well, I want you to know I respect you for your honesty. Swiggert -encouraged me to think he might get us off on some technical defect in -the statute, and it cost me a two thousand dollar fee to find he was -wrong.” - -“The point he raised was an interesting one,” Ward remarked mildly, -“and he might have made it stick.” - -“But he didn’t!” Pickett retorted a little savagely. “Now I got a -matter I want the God’s truth about, absolutely. It’s a row I’ve got -into with a few of my stockholders in the glass company. The fools got -the idea of freezing me out! It’s all in these papers, and I want you -to give it all the time it needs, but I want an opinion,--no more than -you can get on a letter sheet. Swiggert uses too many words and I’ve -got to have a yes or no.” - -The thought of being frozen out caused Mr. Pickett to swell with -indignation. He turned from father to son in an unvoiced but eloquent -appeal to be saved from so monstrous and impious an assault upon his -dignity. - -“Certainly, Mr. Pickett,” said the senior Ward, accepting the papers. -“We’ll be glad to take up the matter. It’s possible I may have to ask -some questions----” - -“That will be all right, Ward! I don’t mind telling you I’m a good deal -worried about this thing. I’m at the Elks Club most every noon, and -if you’ll just ’phone when you’re ready to see me we can have lunch -together. Now, I guess a retainer’s the usual thing. What do you say to -a thousand or two?” - -John with difficulty refrained from screaming that two would be much -more to the taste of the firm, but his father’s gentle and slightly -tremulous murmur that one thousand would be satisfactory stilled him. -The check written with a flourish, lay on the edge of Ward senior’s -desk while Pickett abused the enemies who were trying to wrest from him -the control of the glass company. - -“I’m familiar with the general question you indicate,” said Ward, -senior; “I went into it a while back in a similar case for a client in -Newton county; we shall give it our best attention.” - -“I got confidence in you!” blurted Pickett. “That’s why I brought the -job here.” He thrust a big cigar into his mouth and began feeling in -his pocket for a match which John instantly supplied. - -“Notice by the paper,” remarked Pickett, “that Campbell of the -Transcontinental’s comin’ out. If you could arrange it, I’d like a -chance to talk to him about the Water Power bonds the Sutphen Trust’s -handled for us. I went to New York a couple of weeks ago to see -about refunding and I couldn’t get near anybody but the fourth vice -president. Wouldn’t want to bother you, but if I could just get a -chance at Campbell and show him the plant----” - -“I’m sure that can be arranged very easily,” John answered quickly, -noting a look of apprehension on his father’s face. “It will be a -pleasure to arrange a meeting for you.” - -“I’d particularly appreciate it,” said Pickett, shaking hands with both -of them; and John accompanied him to the head of the stairway, where -they shook hands again. - -“You don’t think,” asked Ward, senior, looking up from Pickett’s -papers, which he had already spread out on his desk,--“you don’t really -think the Campbells had anything to do with this----” - -“Not a thing, dad!” John replied gayly. “I’ll just call up Helen and -tell her to go ahead with the redecorating and other things necessary -to put our house in order for royalty!” - -John had deposited Pickett’s check and was crossing the lobby of the -Kernville National when he met Jason V. Kirby leaving the officers’ -corner. - -“Hello, John!” exclaimed the brick manufacturer affably. “Haven’t seen -you round much of late. Funny I ran into you; just going up to see you. -You know Taylor’s my lawyer, but he’s in Chicago trying a long case, -and I got an abstract of title I’m in a hurry to have examined. Glad -if you or your father would pass on it. Farm I’m buying out in Decatur -township.” - -“Certainly, Mr. Kirby; we can give it immediate attention,” John -replied as though it were a common occurrence for him to pick up -business in this fashion. - -To Kirby’s suggestion that if he didn’t mind he might walk over to -the brick company’s office and get the abstract, John answered that -he didn’t mind in the least. The abstract was bulky, and John roughly -estimated that a report on it would be worth at least a hundred -dollars. Kirby explained that the land was needed for the extension of -the brick business and that he had taken a ten-day option to keep a -rival company from picking it up. - -“Look here, John,” remarked Kirby carelessly, as John started off with -the abstract in his pocket, “I see that the Campbells are coming out to -visit your folks. Don’t let ’em overlook Kirby brick. We’re reachin’ -right out for New York business.” - -“Certainly, Mr. Kirby. Father has it in mind to take Mr. Campbell for -an inspection of all our industries, and I’ll give you the tip so you -can be all set to show off your plant.” - -“Occurs to me Campbell might make a short speech to our workmen; just a -nice friendly jolly, you understand.” - -“That will be perfectly simple, Mr. Kirby. Trust me to arrange it.” - - -V - -When John and his father reached home, Helen fell upon her brother’s -neck. - -“I’ve lost that wager! We’re invited!” - -“Ah! The poison is at work, is it? Did it come special post, or did -their dusky Senegambian bear the cards hither upon a golden plate?” - -“Neither! Mrs. Kirby and Jeannette called and left them personally. I -was making bread when they arrived but I had the presence of mind to -shed my apron on my way to the door to let them in. Mother was darning -socks but she came down and they stayed so long the bread burned to a -cinder.” - -“A few loaves of bread are nothing--nothing!” - -“But, John, dear, I think maybe----” began Mrs. Ward, uncertainly and -paused, noting that her husband was emptying a satchel of important -looking papers as though he expected to spend the evening at work. He -appeared more cheerful than she had seen him in years. - -“Better let John have his way,” said Ward, senior. “The Campbells are -driving business into the office and we’re not going to turn it away.” - -“It’s your ability that’s bringing the business; you’ve always been a -bigger man than Taylor or Swiggert!” declared Mrs. Ward, when the day’s -events had been explained to her. - -“We’ll pretend that’s it anyhow,” Ward assented. “There’s a mighty -interesting question in that case of Pickett’s. You may be sure I’m -going to give it my best care.” - -“I’m so proud of you, Robert!” - -“Be proud of John,” he laughed; “the boy’s bound to make or ruin us in -these next few weeks.” - -It was astonishing the number of ways in which the prospective visit -of the Campbells became a matter of deep concern to Kernville. Billy -Townley had entered with zest into John’s campaign, and Martin -Cowdery, the owner of the _Journal_ and the congressman from the -district, wired instructions from Washington to cut things loose on -the Campbell visit. Under the same potent inspiration the _Journal’s_ -venerable editorial writer took a vacation from his regular business -of explaining and defending the proprietor’s failure to land a fish -hatchery for the old Sycamore district and celebrated the approach -of the Campbells under such captions as “The Dawn of a New Era,” and -“Stand up, Kernville.” He called loudly upon the mayor, who was not -of the _Journal’s_ politics, to clean the streets that their shameful -condition might not offend the eyes and the nostrils of the man of -millions who was soon to honor the city with his presence. - -The _Sun_, not to be outdone, boldly declared that Campbell was coming -to Kernville as the representative of interests that were seeking an -eligible site for a monster steel casting plant, an imaginative flight -that precipitated a sudden call for a meeting of the Bigger Kernville -Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and the expenditure of fifteen -dollars with war tax to wire a set of resolutions to Walter Scott -Campbell. A five-line dispatch in the press report announcing that -Walter Scott Campbell had given half a million toward the endowment of -a hospital in Honolulu was handled as a local item, quite as though -Kernville alone vibrated to Campbell’s generous philanthropies. - -“Helen, we’ve got ’em going!” John chortled at the beginning of the -second week. “Three automobile agents have offered me the biggest -cars in their show rooms to carry the Campbells hither and yon. I’m -encouraging competition for the honor. The Chamber of Commerce wants -to give a banquet with speeches and everything for our old friend -Walter. Old man Shepherd climbed our stairs today, risking apoplexy at -every step, to ask as a special favor that the Chamber be granted this -high privilege.” - -“Ned’s asked me to go to the Kirby party with him,” confessed Helen. -“The embargo seems to be off.” - -“Ha!” cried John dramatically. “Mrs. Hovey called me up to request my -presence at dinner Wednesday night. Alice has a friend visiting her. -Alice with the hair so soft and so brown, as stated in the ballad, is -the dearest girl in the world next to you, sis; no snobbery about her; -but her mama! Ah, mama has seen a great light in the heavens!” - -The population of Kernville was now divided into two classes, those -who would in all likelihood be permitted to meet the Campbells, and -those who could hardly hope for this coveted privilege. The _Journal_ -followed a picture of the Campbells’ Newport villa, fortified with a -glowing description of its magnificence, with a counterfeit presentment -of the _White Gull_, which had almost the effect of anchoring the -Campbells’ seagoing yacht in the muddy Sycamore at the foot of Harrison -street. - -“The yacht’s the biggest thing we’ve pulled yet,” John announced to -Helen, a few days after the craft’s outlines had been made familiar to -the _Journal’s_ constituency. “Since we sprung it our office has drawn -four good cases, not including the collection business of the Tilford -Casket Company, which ought to be good for a thousand bucks a year if -the death rate in the rich valley of the Sycamore doesn’t go down on -us.” - -“It’s wonderful, John!” said Helen, in an awed tone. “Mrs. Montgomery -spent an hour with mother this afternoon talking of the good old times, -and how all us old families must stand together, and she insisted on -throwing a tea for Mrs. Campbell--just for our old friends--you know -how she talks! She’d no sooner rolled away than Mrs. Everett Crawford -invaded our home and interfered terribly with the paper hangers while -she begged to be allowed to give a dinner for the Campbells in the new -home they’ve built with boodle they’ve made canning our native fruits.” - -“Splendid! There may be some business there before we get through with -it! Young Freddie Crawford is the gayest of our joy riders, and it -would be worth a big retainer to keep him out of the penal farm.” - -A second stenographer had been established in the office of Ward & -Ward to care for the increased business when Cowdery left the halls -of Congress for a look at his fences, held conferences with John in -an upper room of the Kipperly House, sacred to political conspiracy, -and caused the _Journal_ forthwith to launch a boom for John Ward for -prosecuting attorney subject to the decision of the April primaries. - -“Look here, little brother,” said Helen, coming in from a dance to -which Ned Shepherd had taken her, and finding John in the sitting room -at work on one of the new cases that had been bestowed upon Ward & -Ward, “we’ve got to put on brakes.” - -“What’s troubling you, sis? Isn’t everybody treating you all right?” - -“A queen couldn’t receive more consideration! But what’s worrying me -is how we’re ever going to satisfy these silly people. If all the -plutocrats in New York should come to visit us we couldn’t spread -them around in a way to please all our fellow townsmen. We’re -certainly in the lime light! People were buzzing me tonight about the -prosecutorship--say you’ll win in a walk. But tell me what you think -Cowdery’s going to expect from you in return. Does he want to shake the -Campbell cherry tree?” - -John eyed her with philosophical resignation. - -“Now that you’ve been enfranchised by the Nineteenth Amendment to the -Constitution of this more or less free republic, you must learn to view -matters with a mind of understanding. Cowdery hankers for a promotion -to the senate. If the accursed money interests of the nation are -persuaded that he is not a menace to the angels of Wall street they can -sow some seed over the rich soil of this noble commonwealth that will -be sure to bear fruit. There’s a lot of Eastern capital invested in the -state and a word carelessly spoken by the right persons, parties or -groups in tall buildings in New York and a substantial corruption fund -sent out from the same quarter will do much to help Cowdery through the -primary. In me, sweet child, Cowdery sees a young man of great promise, -who can hitch the powerful Campbell to his wagon.” - -“And if you can’t do the hitching----?” - -“Been giving thought to that, sis. Those resolutions the enterprising -Bigger Kernville Committee sent Campbell annoy me a great deal. We can -only hope that Walter has a sense of humor. The _Journal’s_ got a new -untouched photograph of him from somewhere and the boy looks cheerful. -He has a triple chin and there are lines around his eyes and mouth that -argue for a mirthful nature. The rest, dearest, is on the knees of the -gods!” - - -VI - -It was in the third week of Mr. John Marshall Ward’s vigorous -campaign of education that Walter Scott Campbell, in his office in -New York, tossed the last of the letters he had been answering to his -stenographer and rang for his secretary. - -A pale young man entered and waited respectfully for the magnate to -look up from the newspaper clippings he was scanning. - -“Parker, where the deuce did you get this stuff?” Campbell asked. - -“They came in our usual press clipping service. Your order covers the -better papers in the larger towns where you have interests. It’s not -often I find anything worth showing you.” - -“Well, don’t let me miss anything like this!” replied Campbell with a -chuckle. - -He unfolded a page that had been sent complete, being indeed the -society page of the Kernville _Morning Journal_ of the previous Sunday. -Campbell chuckled again, much to the relief of the pale secretary, who -feared he might have brought to his employer’s attention some news of -evil omen. Campbell continued to read, chuckling as he rapidly turned -over the cuttings. - -“You look a little run down, Parker,” he remarked affably. “A change of -air would do you good. Give Miss Calderwood my calendar of appointments -and any data I may need in the next few days, and take the first train -for Kernville. Study this stuff carefully and find out what it’s -all about. There are some resolutions from the Kernville Chamber of -Commerce about a site for a steel casting plant. Curious about that! -Must have been a leak somewhere. We discussed possible locations in -that secret conference at Pittsburgh last week, but Kernville wasn’t -mentioned. But that town, with its water power, might possibly be -just right. Give it a looking over, but be very guarded in all your -inquiries. And learn all you can about these Wards, father and son.” - -“Yes, Mr. Campbell,” and Parker glanced at his watch. - -“Mrs. Ward is an old friend of Mrs. Campbell--you understand. There’s -an old attachment and an obligation, as I remember. Mrs. Ward was -exceedingly kind to Mrs. Campbell back in their school-days when my -wife was ill. She has never forgotten it.” - -“My inquiries as to the Wards are to be made in a sympathetic spirit? I -understand, sir!” - -“We are scheduled to stop at Kernville for a day on our way to -California--is that right?” - -“Yes, Mr. Campbell. Your car is ordered attached to the -Transcontinental Limited leaving at five twenty-one on Tuesday, -February seventeen.” - -“Take several days to this investigation. Learn what you can of these -people, the town itself and so on. All this whoop and hurrah out there -is unusual. Most amusing thing that’s turned up since they wanted me -to go out to some town in that neighborhood and preside at a barbecue. -What place was that?” - -“Scottsburg, Indiana, during the campaign of 1916,” replied the -invaluable Parker. - -“A great people, those of the Middle West,” remarked Mr. Campbell -reflectively. “As the phrase goes, you’ve got to hand it to them. -That’s all, Parker.” - -Mr. Elwell Parker had frequently played the role of confidential -investigator for Walter Scott Campbell, and established the following -evening at the Kipperly House he began his labors with his usual -intelligence, thoroughness and discretion. Within twenty-four hours -there was little pertaining to the Wards, the social or business -conditions of Kernville that he did not know. Twenty-four hours more -sufficed for his complete enlightenment as to the thriving city’s -advantages as a manufacturing point, the value and possibilities of -its water power, and the financial and moral status of its leading -citizens. He thereupon wrote a report, condensed it with faculties -that had been trained in the ways of Walter Scott Campbell, and then -imparted it by telephone to the magnate. - -The famous Campbell chuckle rewarded the secretary several times. The -idea that the son of his wife’s quondam schoolmate was shaking the -foundations of Kernville to bring the inhabitants to a realization of -the high condescension of the Walter Scott Campbells in visiting their -city with resulting benefits to the firm of Ward & Ward, tickled Walter -Scott enormously. - -“Very good, Parker! Come back at your convenience. Subscribe for the -local papers in your name. We don’t want to overlook anything!” - - -VII - -The Campbells’ visit was still ten days distant when John, rising in -the Sycamore Circuit Court to ask for an injunction against certain -persons who were removing gravel from the pits of a company that had -lately carried its business to Ward & Ward, was interrupted by the -bailiff who handed him a telegram. - -“If your honor please----?” said John, bowing deferentially toward the -person of the court. - -The judge nodded, not a little impressed as the young attorney tore -open the envelope and scanned the message, which read: - - Have recommended your firm to certain corporations in which I am - interested to counsel them in legal and business matters affecting - your city. Please feel no compulsion to accept their commissions if - not wholly agreeable to you. - W. S. CAMPBELL. - -John thrust the message carelessly into his trousers’ pocket, -straightened his shoulders and proceeded with a terse explanation of -the injury inflicted upon his client and the grounds upon which he -sought the immediate relief of a restraining order. - -The order was granted and in the midst of a parley over the amount of -bond to be given by the petitioner the bailiff delivered into John’s -hands three more telegrams, one from the Sutphen Loan & Trust Company, -another from The Ironsides Steel Casting Company, another from the -general manager of the Transcontinental Lines west of Buffalo. - -The message of the Sutphen Loan & Trust Company stated that it was -sending an engineer to examine the plant of the Sycamore Water -Power Company and would appreciate such confidential assistance as -Ward & Ward might give him as to the personnel of the corporation. -One of the vice-presidents of the steel casting company wished to -make an appointment with Ward & Ward at the earliest date possible, -letter of explanation to follow; matter strictly confidential. The -Transcontinental official would reach Kernville shortly to take up the -matter of certain improvements, and wished a conservative estimate of -the local needs uninfluenced by the Chamber of Commerce or owners -of property that might be needed in extensions. Matter confidential; -letter to follow; please wire answer. - -Ward, senior, with law books overflowing upon the floor from his desk, -heard John’s report of his success in protecting the gravel pits, read -the telegrams, and asked hoarsely: - -“Are we crazy, John, or has the whole world gone mad?” - -“Nothing of the kind! We’ve been discovered; that’s all! Campbell’s -a man of discernment, and he’s spotted us as the solidest and most -trustworthy citizens and lawyers of the Sycamore valley. Though all -these messages are addressed to me, it’s the brains of the firm he’s -recommending and that’s you. I’m only the field man and business -getter.” - -“You certainly get the business, son! Not counting anything we may -get out of those people Campbell’s sending us, we’ve got at least -twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of business on the books right now!” - -“Don’t look so scared, dad! We’re handling it all right. Within a -week I’ve turned down four divorce cases and a breach of promise -suit with love letters I’d rejoice to read to a farmer jury! Pick -and choose; that’s our motto! Where are the papers in Shipton versus -Hovey. I’m getting a settlement there that will save Hovey about ten -thousand bucks, and I want to tell him about it when I go up to see -Alice tonight. I’ll now wire our thanks to Campbell and date up these -people he’s sending to see us. Those wise guys that run the Chamber of -Commerce are going to be frantic when they find the hope of a bigger -Kernville lies right here in our office.” - - -VIII - -“I never expected a simple tea would cause so much trouble!” exclaimed -Mrs. Ward at the dinner table five days before the day set for the -Campbell visit. “I’ve simply got to send out the cards tomorrow!” - -“Let me see that list again,” said John. “It’s first rate as it stands. -You’ve put in all our new clients and that’s the main thing. But if -Mrs. Shepherd is to pour chocolate, you’ll have to affix Mrs. Hovey to -the tea pot to prevent hard feeling. I’ve got everything all set with -Townley to make a big spread of Helen’s engagement to Ned and mine to -Alice next Sunday.” - -“Please don’t be too noisy about it,” pleaded Helen. “Since you began -boosting the family I’m ashamed to look at the papers.” - -“Circulation of both sheets has gone up, sis. Everybody in the Sycamore -valley’s on tip-toe for news of the Wards and Campbells. Tomorrow the -_Journal_ will print exclusive information from our office that the -mighty Ironsides corporation is to build a plant here. The happy word -that the railroad yards are to be doubled and the shops enlarged will -come from headquarters, but father will be interviewed to make sure we -get the credit.” - -“I think I understand everything,” said Helen gazing musingly at -the engagement ring of which she had been the happy possessor for -just twenty-four hours, “except how Mr. Campbell began sending those -important people to you and father. You might almost think it was a -joke of some kind.” - -“The joke certainly isn’t on us! I’ve decided to turn down the -nomination for prosecutor. As things are going I’d be a fool to -sacrifice my private practice for a public job. The general counsel -of the Transcontinental’s feeling us out as to whether we’ll take the -local attorneyship of that rascally corporation. Canby Taylor’s had it -for twenty years, and it would be some triumph to add it to our string -of scalps.” - -The invitation list, rigidly revised and cut to one hundred, was -finally acceptable to all the members of the family, and Helen and John -had begun to address the envelopes when this task was interrupted by -the delivery of a telegram. - -“It’s for you, mother,” said Helen, taking the envelope from the capped -and aproned housemaid who had been installed in the household against -the coming of the Campbells. - -Mrs. Ward adjusted her glasses and settled herself to read with the -resigned air of one inured to the idea that telegrams are solely a -medium for communicating bad news. - -“What is it, mother? Somebody dead?” asked John without looking up from -the envelope he was addressing to The Hon. and Mrs. Addison Swiggert. - -“Worse!” murmured Mrs. Ward, staring vacantly. - -“Nothing can be worse!” ejaculated Helen, catching the bit of paper as -it fell fluttering to the floor. “The Campbells are not coming!” she -gasped. - -“Not coming!” faltered Robert Fleming Ward, throwing down a brief he -was studying. - -“Read it, for heaven’s sake!” commanded John. - -Helen, with difficulty bringing her eyes to meet the dark tidings, -began to read: - - So sorry we are obliged to change our plans and cannot pay you the - visit to which we had looked forward with so much pleasure---- - -“It’s horrible! It’s positively tragic,” sobbed Mrs. Ward, groping for -her handkerchief. - -“Hurry on, Helen!” ordered John. “There’s a lot more of it.” - - Walter feels that he ought to attend a conference of Southern bankers - unexpectedly called for February eighteen at Baltimore, and we are - obliged to defer the California trip indefinitely. However, we are - going down in the yacht and Walter has happily solved the whole - problem by insisting that you all come to New York and make the - cruise with us. - -“Glory! glory hallelujah!” John shouted. - - The yacht is big enough to be comfortable for even a poor sailor like - me, so we can have a cosy time together. We want your husband, son - and daughter to come of course, and you will be our guests throughout - the journey. The Manager of the Transcontinental will put his private - car at your disposal. Do wire at once that you will come. With much - love. - RUTH CAMPBELL. - - -“Can you beat it! _Can_ you beat it!” cried John. - -“After all this talk--and the publicity and everything----” his mother -began plaintively. - -“And all these people who’ve brought us business in the hope of meeting -the Campbells and getting favors from him!” his father added hopelessly. - -“My dear parents!” cried John pleadingly, flinging up his arm with a -dramatic gesture he had found effective in commanding the attention of -juries,--“my _dear_ parents, nothing could be more fortunate! If the -Campbells had come we’d have been hard put to please all these people -who want the joy of shaking big money by the hand. The old boy very -shrewdly switched all these business matters to father and me to handle -so we’ve already got about everything Kernville needs, and we’ve done -it in a way that makes us the best advertised law firm in the state.” - -“But the humiliation----” his mother began in a hoarse whisper. - -“Humiliation nothing!” John caught her up. “Don’t you realize that an -announcement that the Campbells are sending a private car to haul us -down to their yacht will make the biggest hit of all! And you’re going, -mother--and you, Helen; and father’s got to go, too! You all deserve -it, and I’ll stay right here and bask in the warm radiance of your -grandeur while the _White Gull_ rides the waves.” - -“You think, then, the change won’t ruin _everything_?” his mother asked -with a gulp. - -“John’s perfectly right!” declared Helen. “The Campbell name has -already worked magic in our lives and through us done wonders for -Kernville. It will be glorious to sail in a yacht! They didn’t need -to ask us, and nothing could be friendlier or more cordial than that -telegram.” - -“That’s true,” Mr. Ward assented. “But I can’t possibly leave right -now. There’s that Lindley coal case coming up for trial next week, and -John’s not familiar with it.” - -“Yes, my dear father, but when you ask for a postponement on the -perfectly legitimate ground that Walter Scott Campbell wants you to go -yachting with him, that case will be set forward and you will acquire -much merit in the eyes of the court! You’ll need a couple of white -flannel suits and some rubber-soled shoes, but you can pick them up in -New York. Really this change of plans is the biggest thing of all. -Take this pad, mother, and write your acceptance, carefully expressing -my deep regret that owing to pressure of professional duties I am -unable to leave.” - - * * * * * - -The announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell had been -obliged to postpone their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fleming Ward -until spring, but that Mr. and Mrs. Ward and Miss Helen were to -cruise with them in the _White Gull_ did not fail of the impression -which John had predicted such a revelation would make upon his fellow -citizens. A yacht that would sail the winter seas was a challenge to -the imagination of home-keeping folk whose most daring adventure upon -the deep was an occasional cruise in an excursion steamer on the Great -Lakes. - -Kernville was proud of the Wards, and so many citizens of both genders -expressed their affection with flowers that the car in which the trio -set out for New York looked like a bridal bower. - -Ned Shepherd and Alice Hovey were at the station with John to see -them off and several hundred other citizens looked on with mingled -emotions of admiration and envy. The _Journal’s_ photographer caught -an excellent picture of Mrs. Ward and Helen, their arms full of roses, -standing on the rear platform as the train pulled out. - - * * * * * - -“That boy of yours,” remarked Walter Scott Campbell, as he sat with -Robert Fleming Ward in the smoking room of the _White Gull_ as the -yacht felt her way cautiously up Chesapeake Bay,--“That boy must be -a good deal of a lad. Even at long range you can feel his energy and -enterprise.” - -“He’s a good boy,” Ward agreed diffidently, “and full of ginger. I get -out of breath trying to keep up with him.” - -Campbell chuckled. “Knows a chance when he sees it.” Another Campbell -chuckle. “I like youngsters of that type. He’s profited of course by -your own long experience in the law?” - -“He’s as good a lawyer as I am now--more resourceful, and a better hand -in dealing with people.” - -“That boy knows more than the law,” declared Campbell with another -chuckle. “He knows human nature!” - -As their eyes met Ward’s face broke into a smile as he realized that -Campbell understood everything, and was not at all displeased at the -outrageous fashion in which John had used his name. - -“You know of Gaspard & Collins, in New York?” asked the magnate. “They -do a good deal of my legal work. They’re looking for a young man, -westerner preferred, to go into the firm, and it just occurs to me that -your John would just suit them. I can understand how you would feel -about losing him, but it’s a good opportunity to get in touch with -important affairs. Talk it over with your wife, and if you think well -of the idea you can wire him tomorrow. It’s a fair night; let’s go on -deck and watch the lights.” - - - - -ARABELLA’S HOUSE PARTY - - -I - -Farrington read the note three times, fished the discarded envelope out -of his wastepaper basket, scrutinized it thoroughly, and then addressed -himself again to the neat vertical script. What he read was this: - - If Mr. Farrington will appear at the Sorona Tea House, on Bayfield - Road, near Corydon, at four o’clock today--Tuesday--the matter - referred to in his reply to our advertisement may be discussed. - We serve only one client at a time and our consultations are all - strictly confidential. - -The note was unsigned, and the paper, the taste and quality of which -were beyond criticism, bore no address. The envelope had not passed -through the post office, but had been thrust by a private messenger -into the R.F.D. box at Farrington’s gate. - -Laurance Farrington had been established in the Berkshires for a -year, and his house in the hills back of Corydon, with the Housatonic -tumbling through his meadow, had been much described in newspapers -and literary journals as the ideal home for a bachelor author. He -had remodeled an old farmhouse to conform to his ideas of comfort, -and incidentally he maintained a riding horse, a touring car and a -runabout; and he had lately set up an Airedale kennel. - -He was commonly spoken of as one of the most successful and prosperous -of American novelists. He not only satisfied the popular taste but he -was on cordial terms with the critics. He was thirty-one, and since -the publication of The Fate of Catherine Gaylord, in his twenty-fourth -year, he had produced five other novels and a score or more of short -stories of originality and power. - -An enviable man was Laurance Farrington. When he went back to -college for commencement he shared attention with presidents and -ex-presidents; and governors of states were not cheered more lustily. -He was considered a very eligible young man and he had not lacked -opportunities to marry. His friends marveled that, with all his writing -of love and marriage, he had never, so far as any one knew, been in -love or anywhere near it. - -As Farrington read his note in the quiet of his study on this -particular morning it was evident that his good fortune had not brought -him happiness. For the first time he was finding it difficult to write. -He had begun a novel that he believed would prove to be the best thing -he had done; but for three months he had been staring at blank paper. -The plot he had relied on proved, the moment he began to fit its parts -together, to be absurdly weak; and his characters had deteriorated -into feeble, spineless creatures over whom he had no control. It was -inconceivable that the mechanism of the imagination would suddenly -cease to work, or that the gift of expression would pass from him -without warning; and yet this had apparently happened. - -Reading somewhere that Sir Walter Scott had found horseback riding -stimulating to the imagination, he galloped madly every afternoon, -only to return tired and idealess; and the invitations of his neighbors -to teas and dinners had been curtly refused or ignored. It was then -that he saw in a literary journal this advertisement: - - PLOTS SUPPLIED. Authors in need of assistance served with discretion. - Address X Y Z, care of office, _The Quill_. - -To put himself in a class of amateurs requiring help was absurd, but -the advertisement piqued his curiosity. Baker, the editor of The Quill, -wrote him just then to ask for an article on Tendencies in American -Fiction; and in declining this commission Farrington subjoined a -facetious inquiry as to the advertisement of X Y Z. In replying, Baker -said that copy for the ad had been left at the business office by a -stranger. A formal note accompanying it stated that a messenger would -call later for answers. - -“Of course,” the editor added jocularly, “this is only another scheme -for extracting money from fledgling inkslingers--the struggling -geniuses of Peoria and Ypsilanti. You’re a lucky dog to be able to sit -on Olympus and look down at them.” - -Farrington forced his unwilling pen to its task for another week, -hoping to compel the stubborn fountains to break loose with their old -abundance. His critical faculties were malevolently alert and keen, now -that his creative sense languished. He hated what he wrote and cursed -himself because he could do no better. - -To add to his torture, the advertisement in The Quill recurred to -him persistently, until, in sheer frenzy, he framed a note to X Y -Z--an adroit feeler, which he hoped would save his face in case the -advertisement had not been put forth in good faith. - -Plots--he wrote--were the best thing he did; and as X Y Z seemed to be -interested in the subject it might be amusing if not indeed profitable -for them to meet and confer. This was the cheapest bravado; he had not -had a decent idea of any sort for a year! - -X Y Z was nothing if not prompt. The reply, naming the Sorona Tea -House as a rendezvous, could hardly have reached him sooner; and the -fact that it had been dipped into his mail box unofficially greatly -stimulated his interest. - -The Sorona Tea House stood on a hilltop two miles from Farrington’s -home and a mile from Corydon, his post office and center of supplies. -It had been designed to lure motorists to the neighborhood in the hope -of interesting them in the purchase of property. It was off the main -thoroughfares and its prosperity had been meager; in fact, he vaguely -remembered that some one had told him the Sorona was closed. But this -was not important; if closed it would lend itself all the better to the -purposes of the conference. - -He lighted his pipe and tramped over his fields with his favorite -Airedale until luncheon. It was good to be out-doors; good to be -anywhere, in fact, but nailed to a desk. The brisk October air, coupled -with the prospect of finding a solution of his problems before the day -ended, brought him to a better mood, and he sat down to his luncheon -with a good appetite. - -When three o’clock arrived he had experienced a sharp reaction. He was -sure he was making a mistake; he was tempted to pack a suitcase and go -for a weekend with some friends on Long Island who had been teasing him -for a visit; but this would not be a decent way to treat X Y Z, who -might be making a long journey to reach the tea house. - -The question of X Y Z’s sex now became obtrusive. Was the plot -specialist man or woman? The handwriting in the note seemed feminine -and yet it might have been penned by a secretary. The use of _our_ -and _we_ rather pointed to more than one person. Very likely this -person who offered plots in so businesslike a fashion was a spectacled -professor who had gone through all existing fiction, analyzing devices -and making new combinations, and would prove an intolerable bore--a -crank probably; possibly an old maid who had spent her life reading -novels and was amusing herself in her old age by furnishing novelists -with ideas. He smoked and pondered. He was persuaded that he had made -an ass of himself in answering the advertisement and the sooner he was -through with the business the better. - -He allowed himself an hour to walk to the Sorona, and set off rapidly. -He followed the road to the hilltop and found the tea house undeniably -there. - -The place certainly had a forsaken look. The veranda was littered with -leaves, the doors and windows were closed, and no one was in sight. -Depression settled on him as he noted the chairs and tables piled -high in readiness for storing for the winter. He passed round to the -western side of the house, and his heart gave a thump as he beheld a -table drawn close to the veranda rail and set with a braver showing -of napery, crystal and silver than he recalled from his few visits to -the house in midsummer. A spirit lamp was just bringing the kettle to -the boiling point: it puffed steam furiously. There were plates of -sandwiches and cakes, cream and sugar, and cups--two cups! - -“Good afternoon, Mr. Farrington! If you’re quite ready let’s sit down.” - -He started, turned round and snatched off his hat. - -A girl had appeared out of nowhere. She greeted him with a quick nod, -as though she had known him always--as though theirs was the most usual -and conventional of meetings. Then she walked to the table and surveyed -it musingly. - -“Oh, don’t trouble,” she said as he sprang forward to draw out her -chair. “Let us be quite informal; and, besides, this is a business -conference.” - -Nineteen, he guessed--twenty, perhaps; not a day more. She wore, well -back from her face, with its brim turned up boyishly, an unadorned -black velvet hat. Her hair was brown, and wisps of it had tumbled down -about her ears; and her eyes--they, too, were brown--a golden brown -which he had bestowed on his favorite heroine. They were meditative -eyes--just such eyes as he might have expected to find in a girl who -set up as a plot specialist. There was a dimple in her right cheek. -When he had dimpled a girl in a story he bestowed dimples in pairs. Now -he saw the superiority of the single dimple, which keeps the interested -student’s heart dancing as he waits for its appearance. Altogether she -was a wholesome and satisfying young person, who sent scampering all -his preconceived ideas of X Y Z. - -“I’m so glad you were prompt! I always hate waiting for people,” she -said. - -“I should always have hated myself if I had been late,” he replied. - -“A neat and courteous retort! You see the tea house is closed. That’s -why I chose it. Rather more fun anyhow, bringing your own things.” - -They were very nice things. He wondered how she had got them there. - -“I hope,” he remarked leadingly, “you didn’t have to bring them far!” - -She laughed merrily at his confusion as he realized that this was -equivalent to asking her where she lived. - -“Let’s assume that the fairies set the table. Do you take yours strong?” - -He delayed answering that she might poise the spoonful of tea over the -pot as long as possible. Hers was an unusual hand; in his tales he had -tried often to describe that particular hand without ever quite hitting -it. He liked its brownness--tennis probably; possibly she did golf too. -Whatever sports she affected, he was quite sure that she did them well. - -“I knew you would like tea, for the people in your novels drink such -quarts; and that was a bully short story of yours, The Lost Tea -Basket--killingly funny--the real Farrington cleverness!” - -He blinked, knowing how dead the real Farrington cleverness had become. -Her manner was that of any well-brought-up girl at a tea table, and her -attitude toward him continued to be that of an old acquaintance. She -took him as a matter of course; and though this was pleasant, it shut -the door on the thousand and one questions he wished to ask her. - -Just now she was urging him to try the sandwiches; she had made them -herself, she averred, and he need not be afraid of them. - -“Perhaps,” he suggested with an accession of courage, “you won’t mind -telling me your name.” - -“It was nice of you to come,” she remarked dreamily, ignoring his -question, “without asking for credentials. I’ll be perfectly frank and -tell you that I couldn’t give you references if you asked for them; -you’re my first client! I almost said patient!” she added laughingly. - -“If you had said patient you would have made no mistake! I’ve been out -of sorts--my wits not working for months.” - -“I thought your last book sounded a little tired,” she replied. “There -were internal evidences of weariness. You rather worked the long arm -of coincidence overtime, for example--none of your earlier bounce and -zest. Even your last short story didn’t quite get over--a little too -self-conscious probably; and the heroine must have identified the hero -the first time she saw him in his canoe.” - -She not only stated her criticisms frankly but she uttered them with -assurance, as though she had every right to pass judgment on his -performances. This was the least bit irritating. He was slightly -annoyed--as annoyed as any man of decent manners dare be at the -prettiest girl who has ever brightened his horizon. But this passed -quickly. - -Not only was she a pretty girl but he became conscious of little graces -and gestures, and of a charming direct gaze, that fascinated him. And, -for all her youth, she was very wise; he was confident of that. - -“I must tell you that though I had dozens of letters, yours was the -only one that appealed to me. A majority of them were frivolous, and -some were from writers whose work I dislike. I had a feeling that -if they were played out they never would be missed. But you were -different; you are Farrington, and to have you fail would be a calamity -to American literature.” - -He murmured his thanks. Her sympathetic tone was grateful to his -bruised spirit. He had gone too far now to laugh away his appeal to -her. And as the moments passed his reliance on her grew. - -They talked of the weather, the hills and the autumn foliage, while he -speculated as to her identity. - -“Of course you know the Berkshires well, Miss----” - -“A man who can’t play a better approach than that certainly needs -help!” she laughed. - -He flushed and stammered. - -“Of course I might have asked you directly if you lived in the Hills. -But let us be reasonable. I’m at least entitled to your name; without -that----” - -“Without it you will be just as happy!” - -“Oh, but you don’t mean that you won’t----” - -“That’s exactly what I mean!” She smiled, her elbows on the table, the -slim brown fingers interlaced under her firm rounded chin. - -“That isn’t fair. You know me; and yet I’m utterly in the dark as to -you----” - -“Oh, names are not of the slightest importance. Of course X Y Z is -rather awkward. Let’s find another name--something you can call me by -as a matter of convenience if, indeed, we meet again.” - -She bit into a macaroon dreamily while this took effect. - -“Not meet again!” he exclaimed. - -“Oh, of course it’s possible we may not. We haven’t discussed our -business yet; but when we reach it you may not care for another -interview.” - -“On a strictly social basis I can’t imagine myself never seeing you -again. As for my business, let it go hang!” - -She lifted a finger with a mockery of warning. - -“No business, no more tea; no more anything! You would hardly call -the doctor or the lawyer merely to talk about the scenery. And by the -same token you can hardly take the time of a person in my occupation -without paying for it.” - -“But, Miss----” - -“There you go again! Well, if you must have a name, call me Arabella! -And never mind about ‘Miss-ing’ me.” - -“You’re the first Arabella I’ve ever known!” he exclaimed fervidly. - -“Then be sure I’m the last!” she returned mockingly; then she laughed -gayly. “Oh, rubbish! Let’s be sensible. I have a feeling that the girls -in your stories are painfully stiff, and they’re a little too much -alike. They’re always just coming down from Newport or Bar Harbor, and -we are introduced to them as they enter their marble palaces on Fifth -Avenue and ring for Walters to serve tea at once. You ought to cut out -those stately, impossible queens and go in for human interest. I’ll -be really brutal and say that I’m tired of having your heroine pale -slightly as her lover--the one she sent to bring her an orchid known -only to a cannibal tribe of the upper Amazon--appears suddenly at the -door of her box at the Metropolitan, just as Wolfram strikes up his -eulogy of love in Tannhauser. If one of the cannibals in his war dress -should appear at the box door carrying the lover’s head in a wicker -basket, that would be interesting; but for Mister Lover to come wearing -the orchid in his button-hole is commonplace. Do you follow me?” - -She saw that he flinched. No one had ever said such things to his face -before. - -“Oh, I know the critics praise you for your wonderful portrait gallery -of women, but your girls don’t strike me as being real spontaneous -American girls. Do you forgive me?” - -He would have forgiven her if she had told him she had poisoned his tea -and that he would be a dead man in five minutes. - -“Perhaps,” he remarked boldly, “the fact that I never saw you until -today will explain my failures!” - -“A little obvious!” she commented serenely. “But we’ll overlook it this -time. You may smoke if you like.” - -She lighted a match for him and held it to the tip of his cigarette. -This brought him closer to the brown eyes for an intoxicating instant. -Brief as that moment was, he had detected on each side of her nose -little patches of freckles that were wholly invisible across the table. -He was ashamed to have seen them, but the knowledge of their presence -made his heart go pitapat. His heart had always performed its physical -functions with the utmost regularity, but as a center of emotions he -did not know it at all. He must have a care. Arabella folded her hands -on the edge of the table. - -“The question before us now is whether you wish to advise with me as -to plots. Before you answer you will have to determine whether you can -trust me. It would be foolish for us to proceed if you don’t think I -can help you. On the other hand, I can’t undertake a commission unless -you intrust your case to me fully. And it wouldn’t be fair for you -to allow me to proceed unless you mean to go through to the end. My -system is my own; I can’t afford to divulge it unless you’re willing to -confide in me.” - -She turned her gaze upon the gold and scarlet foliage of the slope -below, to leave him free to consider. He was surprised that he -hesitated. As an excuse for tea-table frivolity this meeting was -well enough; as a business proposition it was ridiculous. But this -unaccountable Arabella appealed strongly to his imagination. If he -allowed her to escape, if he told her he had answered the advertisement -of X Y Z merely in jest, she was quite capable of telling him good-by -and slipping away into the nowhere out of which she had come. No--he -would not risk losing her; he would multiply opportunities for -conferences that he might prolong the delight of seeing her. - -“I have every confidence,” he said in a moment, “that you can help me. -I can tell you in a word the whole of my trouble.” - -“Very well, if you are quite sure of it,” she replied. - -“The plain truth about me is,” he said earnestly--and the fear he had -known for days showed now in his eyes----“the fact about me is that -I’m a dead one! I’ve lost my stroke. To be concrete, I’ve broken down -in the third chapter of a book I promised to deliver in January, and I -can’t drag it a line further!” - -“It’s as clear as daylight that you’re in a blue funk,” she remarked. -“You’re scared to death. And that will never do! You’ve got to brace up -and cheer up! And the first thing I would suggest is----” - -“Yes, yes!” he whispered eagerly. - -“Burn those three chapters and every note you’ve made for the book.” - -“I’ve already burned them forty times!” he replied ruefully. - -“Burn them again. Then in a week, say, if you follow my advice -explicitly, it’s quite likely you’ll find a new story calling you.” - -“Just waiting won’t do it! I’ve tried that.” - -“But not under my care,” she reminded him with one of her enthralling -smiles. “An eminent writer has declared that there are only nine basic -plots known to fiction; the rest are all variations. Let it be our -affair to find a new one--something that has never been tried before!” - -“If you could do that you’d save my reputation. You’d pull me back from -the yawning pit of failure!” - -“Cease firing! You’ve been making hard work of what ought to be the -grandest fun in the world. The Quill had a picture of you planted -beside a beautiful mahogany desk, waiting to be inspired. There’s not -much in this inspiration business. You’ve got to choose some real -people, mix them up and let them go to it!” - -“But,” Farrington frowned, “how are you ever going to get them -together? You can’t pick out the interesting people you meet in the -street and ask them to work up a plot for you.” - -“No,” she asserted, “you don’t ask them; you just make them do it. -You see”--taking up a cube of sugar and touching it to the tip of her -tongue--“every living man and woman, old or young, is bitten with the -idea that he or she is made for adventure.” - -“Rocking-chair heroes,” he retorted, “who’d cry if they got their feet -wet going home from church!” - -“The tamer they are, the more they pine to hear the silver trumpet of -romance under their windows,” she replied, her eyes dancing. - -He was growing deeply interested. She was no ordinary person, this girl. - -“I see one obstacle,” he replied dubiously. “Would you mind telling me -just how you’re going to effect these combinations--assemble the parts, -so to speak; or, in your more poetical manner, make the characters -harken to the silver horn?” - -“That,” she replied readily, “is the easiest part of all! You’ve -already lost so much time that this is an emergency case and we’ll call -them by telegraph!” - -“You don’t mean that--not really!” - -“Just that! We’ll have to decide what combination would be the most -amusing. We should want to bring together the most utterly impossible -people--people who’d just naturally hate each other if they were left -in the same room. In that way you’d quicken the action.” - -He laughed aloud at the possibilities; but she went on blithely: - -“We ought to have a person of national distinction--a statesman -preferred; some one who figures a lot in the newspapers. Let’s begin,” -she suggested, “with the person in all the United States who has the -least sense of humor.” - -“The competition would be keen for that honor,” said Farrington, “but I -suggest the Honorable Tracy B. Banning, the solemnest of all the United -States senators--Idaho or Rhode Island--I forget where he hails from. -It doesn’t matter.” - -“I hoped you’d think of him,” she exclaimed, striking her hands -together delightedly. - -“He owns a house--huge, ugly thing--on the other side of Corydon.” - -“Um! I think I’ve heard of it,” she replied indifferently. - -She drew from her sweater pocket and spread on the table these -articles: a tiny vanity box, a silver-backed memorandum book, two -caramels and the stub of a lead-pencil. There was a monogram on the -vanity box, and remembering this she returned it quickly to her -pocket. He watched her write the Senator’s name in her book, in the -same vertical hand in which the note making the appointment had been -written. She lifted her head, narrowing her eyes with the stress of -thought. - -“If a man has a wife we ought to include her, perhaps.” - -Farrington threw back his head and laughed. - -“Seems to me his wife’s divorcing him--or the other way round. The -press has been featuring them lately.” - -“Representative of regrettable tendency in American life,” she -murmured. “They go down as Mr. and Mrs.” - -“Now it’s your turn,” he said. - -“Suppose we put in a gay and cheerful character now to offset the -Senator. I was reading the other day about the eccentric Miss Sallie -Collingwood, of Portland, Maine; she’s rich enough to own a fleet of -yachts, but she cruises up and down the coast in a disreputable old -schooner--has a mariner’s license and smokes a pipe. Is she selected?” - -“I can’t believe there’s anybody so worth while on earth!” - -“That’s your trouble!” she exclaimed, as she wrote the name. “Your -characters never use the wrong fork for the fish course; they’re all -perfectly proper and stupid. Now it’s your turn.” - -“It seems to me,” he suggested, “that you ought to name all the -others. As I think of it, I really don’t know any interesting people. -You’re right about the tameness of my characters, and my notebooks are -absolutely blank.” - -She merely nodded. - -“Very well; I suppose it’s only fair for me to supply the rest of the -eggs for the omelet. Let me see; there’s been a good deal in the papers -about Birdie Coningsby, the son of the copper king, one of the richest -young men in America. I’ve heard that he has red hair, and that will -brighten the color scheme.” - -“Excellent!” murmured Farrington. “He was arrested last week for -running over a traffic cop in New Jersey. I judge that the adventurous -life appeals to him.” - -“I suppose our Senator represents the state; the church also should be -represented. Why not a clergyman of some sort? A bishop rather appeals -to me; why not that Bishop of Tuscarora who’s been warning New York -against its sinful ways?” - -“All right. He’s at least a man of courage; let’s give him a chance.” - -“A detective always helps,” Arabella observed meditatively. - -“Then by all means put in Gadsby! I’m tired of reading of his exploits. -I think he’s the most conceited ass now before the public.” - -“Gadsby is enrolled!” - -She held up the memorandum for his inspection. - -“That’s about enough to start things,” she remarked. “It’s a mistake -to have too many characters in a novel. Of course others may be drawn -in--we can count on that.” - -“But the heroine--a girl that realizes America’s finest and best----” - -“I think she should be the unknown quantity--left up in the air. But if -you don’t agree with that----” - -“I was thinking,” he said, meeting her eyes, “that possibly you----” - -One of her most charming smiles rewarded this. - -“As the chief plotter, I must stand on the sidelines and keep out of -it. But if you think----” - -“I think,” he declared, “that the plot would be a failure if you -weren’t in it--very much in it.” - -“Oh, we must pass that. But there might be a girl of some sort. What -would you think of Zaliska?” - -“The dancer! To offset the bishop!” - -The mirth in her eyes kindled a quick response in his. She laughingly -jotted down the name of the Servian dancer who had lately kicked her -way into fame on Broadway. - -“But do you think,” he interposed, “that the call of the silver horn is -likely to appeal to her? She’d need a jazz band!” - -“Oh, variety is the spice of adventure! We’ll give her a chance,” -she answered. “I think we have done well. One name more needs to be -inscribed--that of Laurance Farrington.” - -She lifted her hand quickly as he demurred. - -“You need experiences--adventures--to tone up your imagination. Perhaps -Zaliska will be your fate; but there’s always the unknown quantity.” - -They debated this at length. He insisted that he would be able to -contribute nothing to the affair; that it was his lack of ideas which -had caused him to appeal to her for help, and that it would be best for -him to act the role of interested spectator. - -“I’m sorry, but your objections don’t impress me, Mr. Farrington. -If you’re not in the game you won’t be able to watch it in all its -details. So down you go!” - -For a moment she pondered, with a wrinkling of her pretty brows, the -memorandum before her; then she closed the book and dropped it into her -sweater pocket. He was immensely interested in her next step, wondering -whether she really meant to bring together the widely scattered and -unrelated people she had selected for parts in the drama that was to be -enacted for his benefit. - -She rose so quickly that he was startled, gave a boyish tug at her -hat--there was something rather boyish about her in spite of her -girlishness--and said with an air of determination: - -“How would Thursday strike you for the first rehearsal? Very well, -then. There may be some difficulty in reaching all of them by -telegraph; but that’s my trouble. Just where to hold the meeting -is a delicate question. We should have”--she bent her head for an -instant--“an empty house with large grounds; somewhere in these hills -there must be such a place. You know the country better than I. -Maybe----” - -“To give a house party without the owner’s knowledge or consent is -going pretty far; there might be legal complications,” he suggested -seriously. - -“Timidity doesn’t go in the adventurous life. And besides,” she added -calmly, “that matter doesn’t concern us in the least. If they all -get arrested it’s so much the better for the plot. We can’t hope for -anything as grand as that!” - -“But how about you! What if you should be discovered and go to jail! -Imagine my feelings!” - -“Oh, you’re not to worry about me. That’s my professional risk.” - -“Then, as to the place, what objection is there to choosing Senator -Banning’s house? He’s in the cast anyhow. His place, I believe, hasn’t -been occupied for a couple of years. The gates were nailed up the last -time I passed there.” - -She laughed at this suggestion rather more merrily than she had laughed -before. - -“That’s a capital idea! Particularly as we’ve chosen him for his lack -of humor!” - -“If he has any fun in him he’ll have a chance to show it,” said -Farrington, “when he finds his house filled with people he never saw -before.” - -Questions of taste as to this procedure, hanging hazily at the back -of his consciousness, were dispelled by Arabella’s mirthful attitude -toward the plan. He could hardly tell this joyous young person that it -would be transcending the bounds of girlish naughtiness to telegraph a -lot of people she didn’t know to meet at the house of a gentleman who -enjoyed national fame for his lack of humor. Arabella would only laugh -at him. The delight that danced in her eyes was infectious and the -spirit of adventure possessed him. He was impatient for the outcome: -still, would she--dared she--do it? - -She had drawn on a pair of tan gloves and struck her hands together -lightly. - -“This has been the nicest of little parties! I thank you--the first of -my clients! But I must skip!” - -He had been dreading the moment when she might take it into her head to -skip. They had lingered long and the sun had dropped like a golden ball -beyond the woodland. - -“But you will let me help with the tea things?” he cried eagerly. “I -can telephone from the crossroads for my machine.” - -She ignored his offer. A dreamy look came into her eyes. - -“I wonder,” she said with the air of a child proposing a new game, -“whether anyone’s ever written a story about a person--man or girl--who -undertakes to find some one; who seeks and seeks until it’s a puzzling -and endless quest--and then finds that the quarry is himself--or -herself! Do you care for that? Think it over. I throw that in merely as -a sample. We can do a lot better than that.” - -“Oh, you must put it in the bill!” - -“Now,” she said, “please, when you leave, don’t look back; and don’t -try to find me! In this business who seeks shall never find. We -place everything on the knees of the gods. Thursday evening, at Mr. -Banning’s, at eight o’clock. Please be prompt.” - -Then she lifted her arms toward the sky and cried out happily: - -“There, sir, is the silver trumpet of romance! I make you a present of -it.” - -He raised his eyes to the faint outline of the new moon that shone -clearly through the tremulous dusk. - -As he looked she placed her hands on the veranda railing and vaulted -over it so lightly that he did not know she had gone until he heard her -laughing as she sprang away and darted through the shrubbery below. - -From the instant Arabella disappeared Farrington tortured himself -with doubts. One hour he believed in her implicitly; the next he was -confident that she had been playing with him and that he would never -see her again. - -He rose early Wednesday morning and set out in his runabout--a swift -scouring machine--and covered a large part of Western Massachusetts -before nightfall. Somewhere, he hoped, he might see her--this amazing -Arabella, who had handed him the moon and run away! He visited the tea -house; but every vestige of their conference had been removed. He was -even unable to identify the particular table and chairs they had used. -He drove to the Banning place, looked at the padlocked gates and the -heavily shuttered windows, and hurried on, torn again by doubts. He -cruised slowly through villages and past country clubs where girls -adorned the landscape, hoping for a glimpse of her. It was the darkest -day of his life, and when he crawled into bed at midnight he was -seriously questioning his own sanity. - -A storm fell on the hills in the night and the fateful day dawned cold -and wet. He heard the rain on his windows gratefully. If the girl had -merely been making sport of him he wanted the weather to do its worst. -He cared nothing for his reputation now; the writing of novels was a -puerile business, better left to women anyhow. The receipt of three -letters from editors asking for serial rights to his next book enraged -him. Idiots, not to know that he was out of the running forever! - -He dined early, fortified himself against the persistent downpour -by donning a corduroy suit and a heavy mackintosh, and set off for -the Banning place at seven o’clock. Once on his way he was beset by -a fear that he might arrive too early. As he was to be a spectator -of the effects of the gathering, it would be well not to be first on -the scene. As he passed through Corydon his engine changed its tune -ominously and he stopped at a garage to have it tinkered. This required -half an hour, but gave him an excuse for relieving his nervousness by -finishing the run at high speed. - -A big touring car crowded close to him, and in response to fierce -honkings he made way for it. His headlights struck the muddy stern -of the flying car and hope rose in him. This was possibly one of the -adventurers hastening into the hills in response to Arabella’s summons. -A moment later a racing car, running like an express train, shot by -and his lamps played on the back of the driver huddled over his wheel. - -When he neared the Banning grounds Farrington stopped his car, -extinguished the lights and drove it in close to the fence. - -It was nearly eight-thirty and the danger of being first had now -passed. As he tramped along the muddy road he heard, somewhere ahead, -another car, evidently seeking an entrance. Some earlier arrival had -opened the gates, and as he passed in and followed the curving road he -saw that the house was brilliantly lighted. - -As he reached the steps that led up to the broad main entrance he -became panic-stricken at the thought of entering a house the owner of -which he did not know from Adam, on an errand that he felt himself -incapable of explaining satisfactorily. He turned back and was moving -toward the gates when the short, burly figure of a man loomed before -him and heavy hands fell on his shoulders. - -“I beg your pardon!” said Farrington breathlessly. An electric lamp -flashed in his face, mud-splashed from his drive, and his captor -demanded his business. “I was just passing,” he faltered, “and I -thought perhaps----” - -“Well, if you thought perhaps, you can just come up to the house and -let us have a look at you,” said the stranger gruffly. - -With a frantic effort Farrington wrenched himself free; but as he -started to run he was caught by the collar of his raincoat and jerked -back. - -“None of that now! You climb right up to the house with me. You try -bolting again and I’ll plug you.” - -To risk a bullet in the back was not to be considered in any view of -the matter, and Farrington set off with as much dignity as he could -assume, his collar tightly gripped by his captor. - -As they crossed the veranda the front door was thrown open and a man -appeared at the threshold. Behind him hovered two other persons. - -“Well, Gadsby, what have you found?” - -“I think,” said Farrington’s captor with elation, “that we’ve got the -man we’re looking for!” - -Farrington was thrust roughly through the door and into a broad, -brilliantly lighted hall. - - -II - -Senator Banning was one of the most generously photographed of American -statesmen, and the bewildered and chagrined Farrington was relieved to -find his wits equal to identifying him from his newspaper pictures. - -“Place your prisoner by the fireplace, where we can have a good look at -him,” the Senator ordered. “And, if you please, Gadsby, I will question -him myself.” - -Rudely planted on the hearth, Farrington stared about him. Two of the -persons on Arabella’s list had answered the summons at any rate. His -eyes ran over the others. A short, stout woman, wearing mannish clothes -and an air of authority, advanced and scrutinized him closely. - -“A very harmless person, I should say,” she commented; and, having thus -expressed herself sonorously, she sat down in the largest chair in the -room. - -The proceedings were arrested by a loud chugging and honking on the -driveway. - -Farrington forgot his own troubles now in the lively dialogue that -followed the appearance on the scene of a handsome middle-aged woman, -whose face betrayed surprise as she swept the room with a lorgnette for -an instant, and then, beholding Banning, showed the keenest displeasure. - -“I’d like to know,” she demanded, “the precise meaning of this! If it’s -a trick--a scheme to compromise me--I’d have you know, Tracy Banning, -that my opinion of you has not changed since I bade you farewell in -Washington last April.” - -“Before we proceed farther,” retorted Senator Banning testily, “I -should like to ask just how you came to arrive here at this hour!” - -She produced a telegram from her purse. “Do you deny that you sent that -message, addressed to the Gassaway House at Putnam Springs? Do you -suppose,” she demanded as the Senator put on his glasses to read the -message, “that I’d have made this journey just to see you?” - -“Arabella suffering from nervous breakdown; meet me at Corydon house -Thursday evening,” read the Senator. - -“Arabella ill!” exclaimed the indomitable stout lady. “She must have -been seized very suddenly!” - -“I haven’t seen Arabella and I never sent you this telegram,” declared -the Senator. “I was brought here myself by a fraudulent message.” He -drew a telegram from his pocket and read impressively: - - Arabella has eloped. Am in pursuit. Meet me at your house in Corydon - Thursday evening. - SALLIE COLLINGWOOD. - -The stout lady’s vigorous repudiation of this telegram consumed much -time, but did not wholly appease the Senator. He irritably waved her -aside, remarking sarcastically: - -“It seems to me, Sallie Collingwood, that your presence here requires -some explanation. I agreed to give you the custody of Arabella while -Frances and I were settling our difficulties, because I thought you had -wits enough to take care of her. Now you appear to have relinquished -your charge, and without giving me any notice whatever. I had supposed, -even if you are my wife’s sister, that you would let no harm come to my -daughter.” - -“I’ll trouble you, Tracy Banning, to be careful how you speak to me!” -Miss Collingwood replied. “Poor Arabella was crushed by your outrageous -behavior, and if any harm has come to her it’s your fault. She remained -with me on the _Dashing Rover_ for two weeks; and last Saturday, when -I anchored in Boston Harbor to file proceedings against the captain of -a passenger boat who had foully tried to run me down off Cape Ann, she -ran away. Last night a telegram from her reached me at Beverly saying -you were effecting a reconciliation and asking me to be here tonight -to join in a family jollification. Meantime I had wired to the Gadsby -Detective Agency to search for Arabella and asked them to send a man -here.” - -“Reconciliation,” exploded the lady with the lorgnette, “has never been -considered! And if I’ve been brought here merely to be told that you -have allowed Arabella to walk off your silly schooner into the Atlantic -Ocean----” - -“You may as well calm yourself, Frances. There’s no reason for -believing that either Tracy or I had a thing to do with this outrage.” - -“Well, Bishop Giddings is with me; he, too, has been lured here by -some one. We met on the train quite by chance and I shall rely on his -protection.” - -A black-bearded gentleman, who had followed Mrs. Banning into the hall -and quietly peeled off a raincoat, was now disclosed in the garb of a -clergyman--the Bishop of Tuscarora, Farrington assumed. He viewed the -company quizzically, remarking: - -“Well, we all seem to be having a good time!” - -“A great outrage has been perpetrated on us,” trumpeted the Senator. -“I’m amazed to see you here, Bishop. Some lawless person has opened -this house and telegraphed these people to come here. When I found -Gadsby on the premises I sent him out to search the grounds; and I -strongly suspect”--he deliberated and eyed Farrington savagely--“that -the culprit has been apprehended.” - -A young man with fiery red hair, who had been nervously smoking a -cigarette in the background, now made himself audible in a high piping -voice: - -“It’s a sell of some kind, of course. And a jolly good one!” - -This provoked an outburst of wrath from the whole company with the -exception of Farrington, who leaned heavily on the mantel in a state of -helpless bewilderment. These people seemed to be acquainted; not only -were they acquainted but they appeared to be bitterly hostile to one -another. - -Mrs. Banning had wheeled on the red-haired young man, whom Farrington -checked off Arabella’s list as Birdie Coningsby, and was saying -imperiously: - -“Your presence adds nothing to my pleasure. If anything could increase -the shame of my summons here you most adequately supply it.” - -“I’m sorry, Mrs. Banning,” he pleaded; “but it’s really not my fault. -When Senator Banning telegraphed asking me to arrive here tonight for -a weekend I assumed that it meant that Arabella----” - -“Before we go further, Tracy Banning,” interrupted the Senator’s wife, -“I want to be sure that your intimacy with this young scamp has ceased -and that this is not one of your contemptible tricks to persuade me -that he is a suitable man for my child to marry. After all the scandal -we suffered on account of that landgrab you were mixed up in with old -man Coningsby, I should think you’d stop trying to marry his son to my -poor, dear Arabella!” - -The Bishop of Tuscarora planted a chair behind Mrs. Banning just in -time to save her from falling to the floor. - -“Somebody has played a trick on all of us,” said the detective. “My -message was sent to my New York office and said that the Senator wished -to see me here on urgent business. I got that message an hour after -Miss Collingwood’s and I have six men looking for the lost girl.” - -They compared notes with the result that each telegram was found -to have been sent from a different railroad station between Great -Barrington and Pittsfield. While this was in progress Farrington felt -quite out of it and planned flight at the earliest moment. He pricked -up his ears, however, as, with a loud laugh, the Bishop drew out his -message and read it with oratorical effect: - - Adventure waits! Hark to the silver bugle! Meet me at Tracy Banning’s - on Corydon Road via Great Barrington at eight o’clock Thursday - evening. - X Y Z. - -Farrington clung to the mantel for physical and mental support. His -mind was chaos; the Stygian Pit yawned at his feet. Beyond doubt, his -Arabella of the tea table had dispatched messages to all the persons -on her list; and, in the Bishop’s case at least, she had given the -telegram her own individual touch. No wonder they were paying no -attention to him; the perspiration was trailing in visible rivulets -down his mud-caked face and his appearance fully justified their -suspicions. - -“All my life,” the Bishop of Tuscarora was explaining good-humoredly, -“I have hoped that adventure would call me some day. When I got that -telegram I heard the bugles blowing and set off at once. Perhaps if I -hadn’t known Senator Banning for many years, and hadn’t married him -when I was a young minister, I shouldn’t have started for his house so -gayly. Meeting Mrs. Banning on the train and seeing she was in great -distress, I refrained from showing her my summons. How could I? But I’m -in the same boat with the rest of you--I can’t for the life of me guess -why I’m here.” - -Farrington had been slowly backing toward a side door, with every -intention of eliminating himself from the scene, when a heavy motor, -which had entered the grounds with long, hideous honks, bumped into the -entrance with a resounding bang, relieved by the pleasant tinkle of the -smashed glass of its windshield. - -Gadsby, supported by the agile Coningsby, leaped to the door; but -before they could fortify it against attack it was flung open and a -small, light figure landed in the middle of the room, and a young lady, -a very slight, graceful young person in a modish automobile coat, -stared at them a moment and then burst out laughing. - -“Zaliska!” screamed Coningsby. - -“Well,” she cried, “that’s what I call some entrance! Lordy! But I must -be a sight!” - -She calmly opened a violet leather vanity box, withdrew various trifles -and made dexterous use of them, squinting at herself in a mirror the -size of a silver dollar. - -Farrington groaned and shuddered, but delayed his flight to watch the -effect of this last arrival. - -Banning turned on Coningsby and shouted: - -“This is your work! You’ve brought this woman here! I hope you’re -satisfied with it!” - -“My work!” piped Coningsby very earnestly in his queer falsetto. “I -never had a thing to do with it; but if Zaliska is good enough for you -to dine with in New York it isn’t square for you to insult her here in -your own house.” - -“I’m not insulting her. When I dined with her it was at your -invitation, you little fool!” foamed the Senator. - -Zaliska danced to him on her toes, planted her tiny figure before him -and folded her arms. - -“Be calm, Tracy; I will protect you!” she lisped sweetly. - -“Tracy! Tracy!” repeated Mrs. Banning. - -Miss Collingwood laughed aloud. She and the Bishop seemed to be the -only persons present who were enjoying themselves. Outside, the machine -that had brought Zaliska had backed noisily off the steps and was now -retreating. - -“Oh, cheer up, everybody!” said Zaliska, helping herself to a chair. -“My machine’s gone back to town; but I only brought a suitcase, so I -can’t stay forever. By the way, you might bring it in, Harold,” she -remarked to Coningsby with a yawn. - -Mrs. Banning alone seemed willing to cope with her. - -“If you are as French as you look, mademoiselle, I suppose----” - -“French, ha! Not to say aha! I sound like a toothpaste all right, but -I was born in good old Urbana, Ohio. Your face registers sorrow and -distress, madam. Kindly smile, if you please!” - -“No impertinence, young woman! It may interest you to know that the -courts haven’t yet freed me of the ties that bind me to Tracy Banning, -and until I get my decree he is still my husband. If that has entered -into your frivolous head kindly tell me who invited you to this house.” - -The girl pouted, opened her vanity box, and slowly drew out a crumpled -bit of yellow paper, which she extended toward her inquisitor with the -tips of her fingers. - -“This message,” Mrs. Banning announced, “was sent from Berkville -Tuesday night.” And then her face paled. “Incredible!” she breathed -heavily. - -Gadsby caught the telegram as it fluttered from her hand. - -“Read it!” commanded Miss Collingwood. - - “MADEMOISELLE HELENE ZALISKA, - New Rochelle, N. Y. - - Everything arranged. Meet me at Senator Banning’s country home, - Corydon, Massachusetts, Thursday evening at eight. - - ALEMBERT GIDDINGS, - _Bishop of Tuscarora._” - -The Bishop snatched the telegram from Gadsby and verified the -detective’s reading with unfeigned astonishment. The reading of this -message evoked another outburst of merriment from Miss Collingwood. - -“Zaliska,” fluted young Coningsby, “how dare you!” - -“Oh, I never take a dare,” said Zaliska. “I guessed it was one of your -jokes; and I always thought it would be real sporty to be married by a -bishop.” - -“Yes,” said Miss Collingwood frigidly, “I suppose you’ve tried -everything else!” - -The Bishop met Mrs. Banning’s demand that he explain himself with all -the gravity his good-natured countenance could assume. - -“It’s too deep for me. I give it up!” he said. He crossed to Zaliska -and took her hand. - -“My dear young woman, I apologize as sincerely as though I were the -guilty man. I never heard of you before in my life; and I wasn’t -anywhere near Berkville day before yesterday. The receipt of my own -telegram in New Hampshire at approximately the same hour proves that -irrefutably.” - -“Oh, that’ll be all right, Bishop,” said Zaliska. “I’m just as pleased -as though you really sent it.” - -Miss Collingwood had lighted her pipe--a performance that drew from -Zaliska an astonished: - -“Well, did you ever! Gwendolin, what have we here?” - -“What I’d like to know,” cried Mrs. Banning, yielding suddenly to -tears, “is what you’ve done with Arabella!” - -The mention of Arabella precipitated a wild fusillade of questions and -replies. She had been kidnapped, Mrs. Banning charged in tragic tones, -and Tracy Banning should be brought to book for it. - -“You knew the courts would give her to me and it was you who lured her -away and hid her. This contemptible little Coningsby was your ideal of -a husband for Arabella, to further your own schemes with his father. -I knew it all the time! And you planned to meet him here, with this -creature, in your own house! And he’s admitted that you’ve been dining -with her. It’s too much! It’s more than I should be asked to suffer, -after all--after all--I’ve--borne!” - -“Look here, Mrs. Lady; creature is a name I won’t stand for!” flamed -Zaliska. - -“If you’ll all stop making a rotten fuss----” wheezed Coningsby. - -“If we can all be reasonable beings for a few minutes----” began the -Bishop. - -Before they could finish their sentences Gadsby leaped to the doorway, -through which Farrington was stealthily creeping, and dragged him back. - -“It seems to me,” said the detective, depositing Farrington, cowed and -frightened, in the center of the group, which closed tightly about -him, “that it’s about time this bird was giving an account of himself. -Everybody in the room was called here by a fake telegram, and I’m -positive this is the scoundrel who sent ’em.” - -“He undoubtedly enticed us here for the purpose of robbery,” said -Senator Banning; “and the sooner we land him in jail the better.” - -“If you’ll let me explain----” began Farrington, whose bedraggled -appearance was little calculated to inspire confidence. - -“We’ve already had too many explanations!” declared Mrs. Banning. “In -all my visits to jails and penitentiaries I’ve rarely seen a man with -a worse face than the prisoner’s. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he -turned out to be a murderer.” - -“Rubbish!” sniffed Miss Collingwood. “He looks like somebody’s -chauffeur who’s been joy-rolling in the mud.” - -The truth would never be believed. Farrington resolved to lie boldly. - -“I was on my way to Lenox and missed the road. I entered these grounds -merely to make inquiries and get some gasoline. This man you call -Gadsby assaulted me and dragged me in here; and, as I have nothing to -do with any of you or your troubles, I protest against being detained -longer.” - -Gadsby’s derisive laugh expressed the general incredulity. - -“You didn’t say anything to me about gasoline! You were prowling round -the house, and when I nabbed you you tried to bolt. I guess we’ll just -hold on to you until we find out who sent all those fake telegrams.” - -“We’ll hold on to him until we find out who’s kidnapped Arabella!” -declared Mrs. Banning. - -“That’s a happy suggestion, Fanny,” affirmed the Senator, for the first -time relaxing his severity toward his wife. - -“What’s this outlaw’s name?” demanded Miss Collingwood in lugubrious -tones. - -Clever criminals never disclosed their identity. Farrington had no -intention of telling his name. He glowered at them as he involuntarily -lifted his hand to his mud-spattered face. Senator Banning jumped back, -stepping heavily on Coningsby’s feet. Coningsby’s howl of pain caused -Zaliska to laugh with delight. - -“If you hold me here you’ll pay dearly for it,” said Farrington -fiercely. - -“Dear, dear; the little boy’s going to cry!” mocked the dancer. “I -think he’d be nice if he had his face washed. By-the-way, who’s giving -this party anyhow? I’m perfectly famished and just a little teeny-teeny -bite of food would go far toward saving your little Zaliska’s life.” - -“That’s another queer thing about all this!” exclaimed the Senator. -“Some one has opened up the house and stocked it with provisions. The -caretaker got a telegram purporting to be from me telling him I’d -be down with a house party. However, the servants are not here. The -scoundrel who arranged all this overlooked that.” - -This for some occult reason drew attention back to Farrington, and -Gadsby shook him severely, presumably in the hope of jarring loose some -information. Farrington resented being shaken. He stood glumly watching -them and awaiting his fate. - -“It looks as though you’d all have to spend the night here,” remarked -the Senator. “There are no trains out of Corydon until ten o’clock -tomorrow. By morning we ought to be able to fix the responsibility for -this dastardly outrage. In the meantime this criminal shall be locked -up!” - -“Shudders, and clank, clank, as the prisoner goes to his doom,” mocked -Zaliska. - -“The sooner he’s out of my sight the better,” Mrs. Banning agreed -heartily. “If he’s hidden my poor dear Arabella away somewhere he’ll -pay the severest penalty of the law for it. I warn him of that.” - -“In some states they hang kidnappers,” Miss Collingwood recalled, as -though the thought of hanging gave her pleasure. - -“We’ll put the prisoner in one of the servants’ rooms on the third -floor,” said the Senator; “and in the morning we’ll drive him to -Pittsfield and turn him over to the authorities. Bring him along, -Gadsby.” - -Gadsby dragged Farrington upstairs and to the back of the house, with -rather more force than was necessary. Banning led the way, bearing a -poker he had snatched up from the fireplace. Pushing him roughly into -the butler’s room, Gadsby told Farrington to hold up his hands. - -“We’ll just have a look at your pockets, young man. No foolishness now!” - -This was the last straw. Farrington fought. For the first time in his -life he struck a fellow man, and enjoyed the sensation. He was angry, -and the instant Gadsby thrust a hand into his coat pocket he landed on -the detective’s nose with all the power he could put into the blow. - -Banning dropped the poker and ran out, slamming the door after him. -Two more sharp punches in the detective’s face caused him to jump -for a corner and draw his gun. As he swung round, Farrington grabbed -the poker and dealt the officer’s wrist a sharp thwack that knocked -the pistol to the floor with a bang. In a second the gun was in -Farrington’s hand and he backed to the door and jerked it open. - -“Come in here, Senator!” he said as Banning’s white face appeared. -“Don’t yell or attempt to make a row. I want you to put the key of that -door on the inside. If you don’t I’m going to shoot your friend here. I -don’t know who or what he is, but if you don’t obey orders I’m going to -kill him. And if you’re not pretty lively with that key I’m going to -shoot you too. Shooting is one of the best things I do--careful there, -Mr. Gadsby! If you try to rush me you’re a dead man!” - -To demonstrate his prowess he played on both of them with the -automatic. Gadsby stood blinking, apparently uncertain what to do. -The key in Banning’s hand beat a lively rat-tat in the lock as the -frightened statesman shifted it to the inside. Farrington was enjoying -himself; it was a sweeter pleasure than he had ever before tasted to -find that he could point pistols and intimidate senators and detectives. - -“That will do; thanks! Now Mr. Gadsby, or whatever your name is, I must -trouble you to remove yourself. In other words, get out of here--quick! -There’s a bed in this room and I’m going to make myself comfortable -until morning. If you or any of you make any effort to annoy me during -the night I’ll shoot you, without the slightest compunction. And when -you go downstairs you may save your faces by telling your friends that -you’ve locked me up and searched me, and given me the third degree--and -anything you please; but don’t you dare come back! Just a moment more, -please! You’d better give yourself first aid for nosebleed before you -go down, Mr. Gadsby; but not here. The sight of blood is displeasing to -me. That is all now. Good night, gentlemen!” - -He turned the key, heard them conferring in low tones for a few -minutes, and then they retreated down the hall. Zaliska had begun to -thump the piano. Her voice rose stridently to the popular air: Any -Time’s A Good Time When Hearts are Light and Merry. - -Farrington sat on the bed and consoled himself with a cigarette. As -a fiction writer he had given much study to human motives; but just -why the delectable Arabella had mixed him up in this fashion with the -company below was beyond him. Perversity was all he could see in it. He -recalled now that she herself had chosen all the names for her list, -with the exception of Banning and Gadsby; and, now that he thought of -it, she had more or less directly suggested them. - -To be sure he had suggested the Senator; but only in a whimsical -spirit, as he might have named any other person whose name was familiar -in contemporaneous history. Arabella had accepted it, he remembered, -with alacrity. He had read in the newspapers about the Bannings’ -marital difficulties, and he recalled that Coningsby, a millionaire in -one of the Western mining states, had been implicated with Banning in a -big irrigation scandal. - -It was no wonder that Mrs. Banning had been outraged by her husband’s -efforts to marry Arabella to the wheezing son of the magnate. In adding -to the dramatis personæ Zaliska, whose name had glittered on Broadway -in the biggest sign that thoroughfare had ever seen, Arabella had -contributed another element to the situation which caused Farrington to -grin broadly. - -He looked at his watch. It was only nine-thirty, though it seemed -that eternity had rolled by since his first encounter with Gadsby. He -had taken a pistol away from a detective of reputation and pointed it -at a United States Senator; and he was no longer the Farrington of -yesterday, but a very different being, willing that literature should -go hang so long as he followed this life of jaunty adventure. - -After a brief rest he opened the door cautiously, crept down the -back stairs to the second floor, and, venturing as close to the main -stairway as he dared, heard lively talk in the hall below. Gadsby, it -seemed, was for leaving the house to bring help and the proposal was -not meeting with favor. - -“I refuse to be left here without police protection,” Mrs. Banning was -saying with determination. “We may all be murdered by that ruffian.” - -“He’s undoubtedly a dangerous crook,” said the officer; “but he’s safe -for the night. And in the morning we will take him to jail and find -means of identifying him.” - -“Then for the love of Mike,” chirruped Zaliska from the piano, “let’s -have something to eat!” - -Farrington chuckled. Gadsby and Banning had not told the truth about -their efforts to lock him up. They were both cowards, he reflected; -and they had no immediate intention, at least, of returning to molest -him. In a room where Banning’s suitcase was spread open he acquired -an electric lamp, which he thrust into his pocket. Sounds of merry -activity from the kitchen indicated that Zaliska had begun her raid on -the jam pots, assisted evidently by all the company. - -One thought was uppermost in his mind--he must leave the house as -quickly as possible and begin the search for Arabella. He wanted to -look into her eyes again; he wanted to hear her laughter as he told of -the result of her plotting. There was more to the plan she had outlined -at the tea house than had appeared, and he meant to fathom the mystery; -but he wanted to see her for her own sake. His pulses tingled as he -thought of her--the incomparable girl with the golden-brown eyes and -the heart of laughter! - -He cautiously raised a window in one of the sleeping rooms and began -flashing his lamp to determine his position. He was at the rear of -the house and the rain purred softly on the flat roof of a one-story -extension of the kitchen, fifteen feet below. The sooner he risked -breaking his neck and began the pursuit of Arabella the better; so he -threw out his rubber coat and let himself out on the sill. - -He dropped and gained the roof in safety. Below, on one side, were the -lights of the dining room, and through the open windows he saw his -late companions gathered about the table. The popping of a cork evoked -cheers, which he attributed to Zaliska and Coningsby. He noted the -Bishop and Miss Collingwood in earnest conversation at one end of the -room, and caught a glimpse of Banning staggering in from the pantry -bearing a stack of plates, while his wife distributed napkins. They -were rallying nobly to the demands upon their unwilling hospitality. - -He crawled to the farther side of the roof, swung over and let go, and -the moment he touched the earth was off with all speed for the road. -It was good to be free again, and he ran as he had not run since his -school-days, stumbling and falling over unseen obstacles in his haste. -In a sunken garden he tumbled over a stone bench with a force that -knocked the wind out of him; but he rubbed his bruised legs and resumed -his flight. - -Suddenly he heard some one running over the gravel path that paralleled -the driveway. He stopped to listen, caught the glimmer of a light--the -merest faint spark, as of some one flashing an electric lamp--and then -heard sounds of rapid retreat toward the road. - -Resolving to learn which member of the party was leaving, he changed -his course and, by keeping the lights of the house at his back, quickly -gained the stone fence at the roadside. - -When he had climbed halfway over he heard some one stirring outside the -wall between him and the gate; then a motor started with a whir and an -electric headlight was flashed on blindingly. As the machine pushed its -way through the tangle of wet weeds into the open road he clambered -over, snapped his lamp at the driver, and cried out in astonishment as -the light struck Arabella full in the face. - -She ducked her head quickly, swung her car into the middle of the road, -and stopped. - -“Who is that?” she demanded sharply. - -“Wait just a minute! I want to speak to you; I have ten thousand things -to say to you!” he shouted above the steady vibrations of the racing -motor. - -She leaned out, flashed her lamp on him, and laughed tauntingly. She -was buttoned up tightly in a leather coat, but wore no hat; and her -hair had tumbled loose and hung wet about her face. Her eyes danced -with merriment. - -“Oh, it’s too soon!” she said, putting up her hand to shield her -eyes from his lamp. “Not a word to say tonight; but tomorrow--at -four o’clock--we shall meet and talk it over. You have done -beautifully--superbly!” she continued. “I was looking through the -window when they dragged you off upstairs. And I heard every word -everybody said! Isn’t it perfectly glorious?--particularly Zaliska! -What an awful mistake it would have been if we’d left her out! Back, -sir! I’m on my way!” - -Before he could speak, her car shot forward. He ran to his machine -and flung himself into it; but Arabella was driving like a king’s -messenger. Her car, a low-hung gray roadster, moved with incredible -speed. The rear light rose until it became a dim red star on the crest -of a steep hill, and a second later it blinked him good-by as it dipped -down on the farther side. - -He gained the hilltop and let the machine run its maddest. When he -reached the bottom he was sure he was gaining on the flying car, but -suddenly the guiding light vanished. He checked his speed to study -the trail more carefully, found that he had lost it, turned back to a -crossroad where Arabella had plunged more deeply into the hills, and -was off again. - -The road was a strange one and hideously soggy. The tail light of -Arabella’s car brightened and faded with the varying fortunes of the -two machines; but he made no appreciable gain. She was leading him into -an utterly strange neighborhood, and after half a dozen turns he was -lost. - -Then his car landed suddenly on a sound piece of road and he stepped -on the accelerator. The rain had ceased and patches of stars began to -blink through the broken clouds, but as his hopes rose the light he was -following disappeared; and a moment later he was clamping on the brakes. - -The road had landed him at the edge of a watery waste, a fact of which -he became aware only after he had tumbled out of his machine and walked -off a dock. Some one yelled to him from a house at the water’s edge and -threatened to shoot if he didn’t make himself scarce. And it was not -Arabella’s voice! - -He slipped and fell on the wet planks, and his incidental remarks -pertaining to this catastrophe were translated into a hostile -declaration by the owner of the voice. A gun went off with a roar and -Farrington sprinted for his machine. - -“If you’ve finished your target practice,” he called from the car with -an effort at irony, “maybe you’ll tell what this place is!” - -The reply staggered him: - -“This pond’s on Mr. Banning’s place. It’s private grounds and ye can’t -get through here. What ye doin’ down here anyhow?” - -Farrington knew what he was doing. He was looking for Arabella, who -had apparently vanished into thin air; but the tone of the man did not -encourage confidences. He was defeated and chagrined, to say nothing of -being chilled to the bone. - -“You orto turned off a mile back there; this is a private road,” the -man volunteered grudgingly, “and the gate ain’t going to be opened no -more tonight.” - -Farrington got his machine round with difficulty and started slowly -back. His reflections were not pleasant ones. Arabella had been having -sport with him. She had led him in a semicircle to a remote corner of -her father’s estate, merely, it seemed, that he might walk into a pond -or be shot by the guardian of the marine front of the property. - -He had not thought Arabella capable of such malevolence; it was not -like the brown-eyed girl who had fed him tea and sandwiches two days -before to lure him into such a trap. In his bewildered and depressed -state of mind he again doubted Arabella. - -He reached home at one o’clock and took counsel of his pipe until -three, brooding over his adventure. - -Hope returned with the morning. In the bright sunlight he was ashamed -of himself for doubting Arabella; and yet he groped in the dark for -an explanation of her conduct. His reasoning powers failed to find an -explanation of that last trick of hers in leading him over the worst -roads in Christendom, merely to drop him into a lake in her father’s -back yard. She might have got rid of him easier than that! - -The day’s events began early. As he stood in the doorway of his garage, -waiting for the chauffeur to extract his runabout from its shell of -mud, he saw Gadsby and two strange men flit by in a big limousine. As -soon as his car was ready he jumped in and set off, with no purpose but -to keep in motion. He, the Farrington of cloistral habits, had tasted -adventure; and it was possible that by ranging the county he might -catch a glimpse of the bewildering Arabella, who had so disturbed the -even order of his life. - -He drove to Corydon, glanced into all the shops, and stopped at the -post office on an imaginary errand. He bought a book of stamps and as -he turned away from the window ran into the nautical Miss Collingwood. - -“Beg pardon!” he mumbled, and was hurrying on when she took a step -toward him. - -“You needn’t lie to me, young man; you were in that row at Banning’s -last night, and I want to know what you know about Arabella!” - -This lady, who sailed a schooner for recreation, was less formidable -by daylight. It occurred to him that she might impart information if -handled cautiously. They had the office to themselves and she drew him -into a corner of the room and assumed an air of mystery. - -“That fool detective is at the telegraph office wiring all the police -in creation to look out for Arabella. You’d better not let him see you. -Gadsby is a brave man by daylight!” - -“If Arabella didn’t spend last night at her father’s house I know -nothing about her,” said Farrington eagerly. “I have reason to assume -that she did.” - -She eyed him with frank distrust. - -“Don’t try to bluff me! You’re mixed up in this row some way; and if -you’re not careful you’ll spend the rest of your life in a large, -uncomfortable penitentiary. If that man at the telegraph office wasn’t -such a fool----” - -“You’re not in earnest when you say Miss Banning wasn’t at home last -night!” he exclaimed. - -“Decidedly I am! Do you suppose we’d all be chasing over the country -this morning looking for my niece and offering rewards if we knew where -she is? I live on a schooner to keep away from trouble, and this is -what that girl has got me into! What’s your name anyhow?” - -He quickly decided against telling his name. At that moment Gadsby’s -burly frame became visible across Main Street, and Farrington shot out -a side door and sprinted up an alley at his best speed. He struck the -railroad track at a point beyond the station where it curved through -the hills, and followed it for a mile before stopping to breathe. - -As he approached a highway he heard a motor and flung himself down in -the grass at the side of the track. The driver of the car checked its -speed and one of his companions stood up and surveyed the long stretch -of track. The blue glint of gun barrels caught Farrington’s eye. - -There were three men in the machine and he guiltily surmised that they -were deputy sheriffs or constables looking for him. He stuck his nose -into the ground and did not lift his head again until the sounds of the -motor faded away in the distance. Probably no roads were safe, and even -in following the railroad he might walk into an ambush. - -He abandoned the ties for flight over a wooded hill. It was hard going -and the underbrush slapped him savagely in the face. A higher hill -tempted him and a still higher one, and he came presently to the top -of a young mountain. He sat for a time on a fallen tree and considered -matters. In his perturbed state of mind it seemed to him that the faint -clouds of dust he saw rising in the roads below were all evidences of -pursuit. He picked out familiar landmarks and judged that his flight -over the hills had brought him within four miles of his home. - -Thoughts of home, and a tub, and clean clothes, pleased him, and he -resolutely began the descent. The only way he could free himself from -suspicion was by finding Arabella. And how could he find Arabella when -he was likely at any moment to be run down by a country constable with -a shotgun? And as for meeting Arabella at four o’clock, he realized now -that he had stupidly allowed the girl to slip away from him without -designating a meeting place. - -So far as he knew, he was the only person who had seen Arabella since -her escape from Miss Collingwood’s schooner. It might be well for him -to volunteer to the Bannings such information as he had; but the more -he thought of this the less it appealed to him. It would be difficult -to give a plausible account of his meeting with Arabella at the tea -house; and, moreover, he shrank from a betrayal of the light-hearted -follower of the silver trumpet. As a gentleman he could give no version -of the affair that would not place all the blame on himself; and this -involved serious risks. - -He approached his house from the rear, keeping as far as possible from -the road, lingered at the barn, dodged from it to the garage, and crept -furtively into his study by a side door as the clock struck two. - -He had seen none of his employees on the farm and the house was -ominously still. He rang the bell and in a moment the scared face of -Beeching was thrust in. - -“Beg pardon; are you home, sir?” asked the servant with a frightened -gulp. - -“Of course I’m home!” said Farrington with all the dignity his -scratched face and torn clothes would permit. - -“I missed you, sir,” said the man gravely. “I thought maybe you was off -looking for Arabella.” - -The book Farrington had been nervously fingering fell with a bang. - -“What--what the devil do you know about Arabella?” - -“She’s lost, sir. The kennel master and the chauffeur is off looking -for her. It’s a most singular case.” - -“Yes,” Farrington assented; “most remarkable. Have there been -any--er--have any people been looking here for--for her?” - -“Well, sir, the sheriff stopped a while ago to ask whether we’d seen -such a girl; and there was a constable on horseback, and citizens in -machines. Her father has offered a reward of ten thousand dollars. And -there’s a man missing, they say, sir, a dangerous character they caught -on the Banning place last night. There’s a thousand on him; it’s a -kidnapping matter, sir.” - -Farrington’s throat troubled him and he swallowed hard. - -“It’s a shameful case,” he remarked weakly. “I hope they’ll kill the -rascal when they catch him.” - -“I hope so, sir,” said Beeching. “You seem quite worn out, sir. Shall I -serve something?” - -“You may bring the Scotch--quick--and don’t bother about the water. -And, Beeching, if anyone calls I’m out!” - -By the time he had changed his clothes and eaten a belated luncheon -it was three o’clock. From time to time mad honking on the highway -announced the continuance of the search for Arabella. He had screwed -his courage to the point of telephoning Senator Banning that Arabella -had been seen near her father’s place on the previous night. His -spirits sank when the Corydon exchange announced that the Banning phone -was out of order. The chauffeur, seeing Farrington’s roadster on Main -Street, telephoned from Corydon to know what disposition should be made -of it, and Farrington ordered him to bring it home. - -He regained his self-respect as he smoked a cigar. He had met the -issues of the night and day bravely; and if further adventures lay -before him he felt confident that he would acquit himself well. And, in -spite of the tricks she had played on him, Arabella danced brightly in -his thoughts. He must find Arabella! - -He thrust the revolver he had captured from Gadsby into his pocket and -drove resolutely toward the Bannings’. - -A dozen machines blocked the entrance, indicating a considerable -gathering, and he steeled himself for an interview that could hardly -fail to prove a stormy one. The door stood open and a company of twenty -people were crowded about a table. So great was their absorption that -Farrington joined the outer circle without attracting attention. - -“Mister Sheriff,” Senator Banning was saying, “we shall make no -progress in this affair until the man who escaped from custody here -last night has been apprehended. You must impress a hundred--a -thousand deputies into service if necessary, and begin a systematic -search of every house, every hillside in Western Massachusetts. I -suggest that you throw a line from here----” - -They were craning their necks to follow his finger across the map -spread out on the table, when Miss Collingwood’s voice was heard: - -“I tell you again I saw that man in the post office this morning, and -the clerk told me he is Laurance Farrington, the fool who writes such -preposterous novels.” - -“Madam,” said the sheriff irritably, “you’ve said that before; but it’s -impossible! I know Mr. Farrington and he wouldn’t harm a flea. And the -folks at his house told me an hour ago that he was away looking for the -lost girl.” - -“Only a bluff!” squeaked Coningsby. “He looked to me like a bad man.” - -“Oh, I didn’t think he looked so rotten,” said Zaliska; “but if he’s -Farrington I must say his books bore me to death!” - -“Please remember this isn’t a literary club!” shouted Senator Banning. -“What do we care about his books if he’s a kidnapper! What we’re trying -to do is to plan a thorough search of Berkshire County--of the whole -United States, if necessary.” - -“So far as I’m concerned----” began Farrington in a loud voice; but -as twenty other voices were raised at the same moment no one paid the -slightest attention to him. Their indifference enraged him and he -pushed his way roughly to the table and confronted Banning. “While -you’ve wasted your time looking for me I’ve been---- Stand back! Don’t -come a step nearer until I’ve finished or I’ll kill you!” - -It was Gadsby who had caused the interruption, but the whole room was -now in an uproar. With every one talking at once Coningsby’s high voice -alone rose above the tempest. He wished he was armed; he would do -terrible things! - -“Let the man tell his story,” pleaded Mrs. Banning between sobs. - -“I’ve spent the night and day looking for Arabella!” Farrington cried. -“I have no other interest--no other aim in life but to find Arabella. -All I can tell you is that I saw her at the Sorona Tea House Tuesday -afternoon, and that last night she was on these grounds; in fact, she -saw you all gathered here and heard everything that was said in this -room.” - -“Young man, you know too little or too much,” said Banning. “Gadsby, do -your duty!” - -The detective took a step forward, looked into the barrel of his own -automatic, and paused, waving his hand to the sheriff and his deputies -to guard the doors and windows. - -“How do you know she was at the tea house?” asked Mrs. Banning. “It -seems to me that’s the first question.” - -“I met her there,” Farrington blurted. “I met her there by appointment!” - -“Then you admit, you villain,” began Banning, choking with rage, “that -you lured my daughter, an innocent child, to a lonely tea house; that -you saw her last night; and that now--now!--you know nothing of her -whereabouts! This, sir, is----” - -“Oh, it’s really not so bad!” came in cheery tones from above. “It was -I who lured Mr. Farrington to the tea house, and I did it because I -knew he was a gentleman.” - -Farrington had seen her first--the much-sought Arabella--stealing down -the stairway to the landing, where she paused and leaned over the -railing, much at ease, to look at them. - -Her name was spoken in gasps, in whispers, and was thundered aloud only -by Miss Collingwood. - -“This was my idea,” said Arabella quietly as they all turned toward -her. “I’ve been hiding in the old cottage by the pond, right here on -father’s place--with John and Mary, who’ve known me since I was a baby. -This is my house party--a scheme to get you all together. I thought -that maybe, if papa and mama really thought I was lost, and if papa and -Mr. Coningsby and Mademoiselle Zaliska all met under the same roof, -they might understand one another better--and me. - -“I telegraphed for Mr. Gadsby,” she laughed, “just to be sure the rest -of you were kept in order! And I sent for Bishop Giddings because he’s -an old friend, and I thought he might help to straighten things out.” - -She choked and the tears brightened her eyes as she stood gazing down -at them. - -“You needn’t worry about me, Arabella,” said Coningsby; “for Zaliska -and I were married by the Bishop at Corydon this morning.” - -This seemed to interest no one in particular, though Miss Collingwood -sniffed contemptuously. - -Mrs. Banning had started toward Arabella, and at the same moment -Senator Banning reached the stairway. Arabella tripped down three -steps, then paused on tip-toe, with her hands outstretched, -half-inviting, half-repelling them. She was dressed as at the tea -house, but her youthfulness was lost for the moment in a grave -wistfulness that touched Farrington deeply. - -“You can’t have me,” she cried to her father and mother, “unless we’re -all going to be happy together again!” - - * * * * * - -Half an hour later Senator Banning and his wife, and Arabella, wreathed -in smiles, emerged from the library and found the sheriff and his -deputies gone; but the members of the original house party still -lingered. - -“Before I leave,” said Gadsby, “I’d like to know just how Mr. -Farrington got into the game. He refuses to tell how he came to see you -at the tea house. I think we ought to know that.” - -“Oh,” said Arabella, clapping her hands, “that’s another part of the -story. If Mr. Farrington doesn’t mind----” - -“Now that you’re found I don’t care what you tell,” Farrington declared. - -“You may regret that,” said Arabella, coloring deeply. “I sat by Mr. -Baker, of _The Quill_, at a dinner a little while ago, and we were -talking about your books. And he said--he said your greatest weakness -as a novelist was due to your never having--well”--she paused and drew -closer under the protecting arm of her father--“you had never yourself -been, as the saying is--in love--and he thought---- Well, this is -shameful--but he and I--just as a joke--thought we d try to attract -your attention by printing that plot advertisement. He said you were -working too hard and seemed worried, and might bite; and then I thought -it would be good fun to throw you into the lion’s den here to stir -things up, as you did. And I had my car on the road last night ready -to skip if things got too warm. Of course I couldn’t let you catch me; -it would have spoiled all the fun! And it was I who shot off that gun -last night to scare you--when old John was scolding you away from the -place. But it was nasty of me, and not fair; and now, when everything -else is all fixed and I’m so happy, I’m ashamed to look you in the -face, knowing what a lot of trouble I’ve given you. And you’ll always -hate me----” - -“I shall always love you,” said Farrington, stepping forward boldly and -taking her hands. “You’ve made me live for once in my life--you’ve made -me almost human,” he laughed. “And you’ve made me a braver man than I -know how to be! You pulled down the silver trumpet out of heaven and -gave it to me, and made me rich beyond words; and without you I should -be sure to lose it again!” - - - - -THE THIRD MAN - - -I - -When Webster G. Burgess asked ten of his cronies to dine with him -at the University Club on a night in January they assumed that the -president of the White River National had been indulging in another -adventure which he wished to tell them about. - -In spite of their constant predictions that if he didn’t stop hiding -crooks in his house and playing tricks on the Police Department he -would ultimately find himself in jail, Mr. Burgess continued to find -amusement in frequent dallyings with gentlemen of the underworld. In -a town of approximately three hundred thousand people a banker is -expected to go to church on Sundays and otherwise conduct himself as -a decent, orderly, and law-abiding citizen, but the president of the -White River National did not see things in that light. As a member of -the Board of Directors of the Released Prisoners’ Aid Society he was -always ready with the excuse that his heart was deeply moved by the -misfortunes of those who keep to the dark side of the street, and that -sincere philanthropy covered all his sins in their behalf. - -When his friends met at the club and found Governor Eastman one of the -dinner party, they resented the presence of that dignitary as likely -to impose restraints upon Burgess, who, for all his jauntiness, was -not wholly without discretion. But the governor was a good fellow, as -they all knew, and a story-teller of wide reputation. Moreover, he was -taking his job seriously, and, being practical men, they liked this -about him. It was said that no governor since Civil War times had spent -so many hours at his desk or had shown the same zeal and capacity for -gathering information at first hand touching all departments of the -State government. Eastman, as the country knows, is an independent -character, and it was this quality, shown first as a prosecuting -attorney, that had attracted attention and landed him in the seat of -the Hoosier governors. - -“I suppose,” remarked Kemp as they sat down, “that these tablets are -scattered around the table so we can make notes of the clever things -that will be said here tonight. It’s a good idea and gives me a chance -to steal some of your stories, governor.” - -A scratch pad with pencil attached had been placed at each plate, and -the diners spent several minutes in chaffing Burgess as to the purpose -of this unusual table decoration. - -“I guess,” said Goring, “that Web is going to ask us to write limericks -for a prize and that the governor is here to judge the contest. Indoor -winter sports don’t appeal to me; I pass.” - -“I’m going to write notes to the House Committee on mine,” said -Fanning; “the food in this club is not what it used to be, and it’s -about time somebody kicked.” - -“As I’ve frequently told you,” remarked Burgess, smiling upon them from -the head of the table, “you fellows have no imagination. You’d never -guess what those tablets are for, and maybe I’ll never tell you.” - -“Nothing is so innocent as a piece of white paper,” said the governor, -eyeing his tablet. “We’d better be careful not to jot down anything -that might fly up and hit us afterward. For all we know, it may be -a scheme to get our signatures for Burgess to stick on notes without -relief from valuation or appraisement laws. It’s about time for another -Bohemian oats swindle, and our friend Burgess may expect to work us for -the price of the dinner.” - -“Web’s bound to go to jail some day,” remarked Ramsay, the surgeon, -“and he’d better do it while you’re in office, governor. You may not -know that he’s hand in glove with all the criminals in the country: he -quit poker so he could give all his time to playing with crooks.” - -“The warden of the penitentiary has warned me against him,” replied the -governor easily. “Burgess has a man at the gate to meet convicts as -they emerge, and all the really bad ones are sent down here for Burgess -to put up at this club.” - -“I never did that but once,” Burgess protested, “and that was only -because my mother-in-law was visiting me and I was afraid she wouldn’t -stand for a burglar as a fellow guest. My wife’s got used to ’em. But -the joke of putting that chap up here at the club isn’t on me, but on -Ramsay and Colton. They had luncheon with him one day and thanked me -afterward for introducing them to so interesting a man. I told them he -was a manufacturer from St. Louis, and they swallowed it whole. Pettit -was the name, but he has a string of aliases as long as this table, and -there’s not a rogues’ gallery in the country where he isn’t indexed. -You remember, Colton, he talked a good deal of his travels, and he -could do so honestly, as he’d cracked safes all the way from Boston to -Seattle.” - -Ramsay and Colton protested that this could not be so; that the man -they had luncheon with was a shoe manufacturer and had talked of his -business as only an expert could. - -The governor and Burgess exchanged glances, and both laughed. - -“He knew the shoe business all right enough,” said Burgess, “for he -learned it in the penitentiary and proved so efficient that they made -him foreman of the shop!” - -“I suppose,” said Kemp, “that you’ve got another crook coming to take -that vacant chair. You’d better tell us about him so we won’t commit -any social errors.” - -At the governor’s right there was an empty place, and Burgess remarked -carelessly that they were shy a man, but that he would turn up later. - -“I’ve asked Tate, a banker at Lorinsburg, to join us and he’ll be -along after a while. Any of you know Tate? One of our scouts recently -persuaded him to transfer his account to us, and as this is the first -time he’s been in town since the change I thought it only decent to -show him some attention. We’re both directors in a company that’s -trying to develop a tile factory in his town, so you needn’t be afraid -I’m going to put anything over on you. Tate’s attending a meeting -tonight from which I am regrettably absent! He promised to be here -before we got down to the coffee.” - -As the dinner progressed the governor was encouraged to tell stories, -and acceded good-naturedly by recounting some amusing things that had -happened in the course of his official duties. - -“But it isn’t all so funny,” he said gravely after keeping them in -a roar for half an hour. “In a State as big as this a good many -disagreeable things happen, and people come to me every day with -heart-breaking stories. There’s nothing that causes me more anxiety -than the appeals for pardon; if the pardoning power were taken away -from me, I’d be a much happier man. The Board of Pardons winnows out -the cases, but even at that there’s enough to keep me uncomfortable. -It isn’t the pleasantest feeling in the world that as you go to bed at -night somebody may be suffering punishment unjustly, and that it’s up -to you to find it out. When a woman comes in backed by a child or two -and cries all over your office about her husband who’s doing time and -tells you he wasn’t guilty, it doesn’t cheer you much; not by a jugful! -Wives, mothers, and sisters: the wives shed more tears, the sisters put -up the best argument, but the mothers give you more sleepless nights.” - -“If it were up to me,” commented Burgess, “I’m afraid I’d turn ’em all -out!” - -“You would,” chorused the table derisively, “and when you’d emptied the -penitentiaries you’d burn ’em down!” - -“Of course there’s bound to be cases of flagrant injustice,” suggested -Kemp. “And the feelings of a man who is locked up for a crime he never -committed must be horrible. We hear now and then of such cases and it -always shakes my faith in the law.” - -“The law does the best it can,” replied the governor a little -defensively, “but, as you say, mistakes do occur. The old saying that -murder will out is no good; we can all remember cases where the truth -was never known. Mistakes occur constantly, and it’s the fear of not -rectifying them that’s making a nervous wreck of me. I have in my -pocket now a blank pardon that I meant to sign before I left my office, -but I couldn’t quite bring myself to the point. The Pardon Board has -made the recommendation, not on the grounds of injustice--more, I’m -afraid, out of sympathy than anything else--and we have to be careful -of our sympathies in these matters. And here again there’s a wife to -reckon with. She’s been at my office nearly every day for a year, -and she’s gone to my wife repeatedly to enlist her support. And it’s -largely through Mrs. Eastman’s insistence that I’ve spent many weeks -studying the case. It’s a murder: what appeared to be a heartless, -cold-blooded assassination. And some of you may recall it--the Avery -case, seven years ago, in Salem County.” - -Half the men had never heard of it and the others recalled it only -vaguely. - -“It was an interesting case,” Burgess remarked, wishing to draw the -governor out. “George Avery was a man of some importance down there -and stood high in the community. He owned a quarry almost eleven miles -from Torrenceville and maintained a bungalow on the quarry land where -he used to entertain his friends with quail hunting and perhaps now -and then a poker party. He killed a man named Reynolds who was his -guest. As I remember, there seemed to be no great mystery about it, -and Avery’s defense was a mere disavowal and a brilliant flourish of -character witnesses.” - -“For all anybody ever knew, it was a plain case, as Burgess says,” -the governor began. “Avery and Reynolds were business acquaintances -and Avery had invited Reynolds down there to discuss the merging of -their quarry interests. Reynolds was found dead a little way from the -bungalow by some of the quarry laborers. He had been beaten on the -head, with a club in the most barbarous fashion. Reynolds’s overcoat -was torn off and the buttons ripped from his waistcoat, pointing to -a fierce struggle before his assailant got him down and pounded the -life out of him. The purpose was clearly not robbery, as Reynolds had a -considerable sum of money on his person that was left untouched. When -the men who found the body went to rouse Avery he collapsed when told -that Reynolds was dead. In fact, he lay in a stupor for a week, and -they could get nothing out of him. Tracks? No; it was a cold December -night and the ground was frozen. - -“Reynolds had meant to take a midnight train for Chicago, and Avery -had wired for special orders to stop at the quarry station, to save -Reynolds the trouble of driving into Torrenceville. One might have -supposed that Avery would accompany his visitor to the station, -particularly as it was not a regular stop for night trains and the way -across the fields was a little rough. I’ve personally been over all -the ground. There are many difficult and inexplicable things about -the case, the absence of motive being one of them. The State asserted -business jealousy and substantiated it to a certain extent, and the -fact that Avery had taken the initiative in the matter of combining -their quarry interests and might have used undue pressure on Reynolds -to force him to the deal is to be considered.” - -The governor lapsed into silence, seemingly lost in reverie. With his -right hand he was scribbling idly on the tablet that lay by his plate. -The others, having settled themselves comfortably in their chairs, -hoping to hear more of the murder, were disappointed when he ceased -speaking. Burgess’s usual calm, assured air deserted him. He seemed -unwontedly restless, and they saw him glance furtively at his watch. - -“Please, governor, won’t you go on with the story?” pleaded Colton. -“You know that nothing that’s said at one of Web’s parties ever goes -out of the room.” - -“That,” laughed the governor, “is probably unfortunate, as most of his -stories ought to go to the grand jury. But if I may talk here into the -private ear of you gentlemen I will go on a little further. I’ve got -to make up my mind in the next hour or two about this case, and it may -help me to reach a conclusion to think aloud about it.” - -“You needn’t be afraid of us,” said Burgess encouragingly. “We’ve been -meeting here--about the same crowd--once a month for five years, and -nobody has ever blabbed anything.” - -“All right; we’ll go a bit further. Avery’s stubborn silence was a -contributing factor in his prompt conviction. A college graduate, a -high-strung, nervous man, hard-working and tremendously ambitious; -successful, reasonably prosperous, happy in his marriage, and with -every reason for living straight: there you have George Avery as I make -him out to have been when this calamity befell him. There was just one -lapse, one error, in his life, but that didn’t figure in the case, and -I won’t speak of it now. His conduct from the moment of his arrest, a -week following the murder, and only after every other possible clue -had been exhausted by the local authorities, was that of a man mutely -resigned to his fate. I find from the records that he remained at the -bungalow in care of a physician, utterly dazed, it seemed, by the thing -he had done, until a warrant was issued and he was put in jail. He’s -been a prisoner ever since, and his silence has been unbroken to this -day. His wife assures me that he never, not even to her, said one word -about the case more than to declare his innocence. I’ve seen him at the -penitentiary on two occasions, but could get nothing out of him. In -fact, I exhausted any ingenuity I may have in attempting to surprise -him into some admission that would give me ground for pardoning him, -but without learning anything that was not in the State’s case. They’re -using him as a bookkeeper, and he’s made a fine record: a model -convict. The long confinement has told seriously on his health, which -is the burden of his wife’s plea for his release, but he wouldn’t even -discuss that. - -“There was no one else at the bungalow on the night of the murder,” -the governor continued. “It was Avery’s habit to get his meals at the -house of the quarry superintendent, about five hundred yards away, and -the superintendent’s wife cared for the bungalow, but the men I’ve had -at work couldn’t find anything in that to hang a clue on. You see, -gentlemen, after seven years it’s not easy to work up a case, but two -expert detectives that I employed privately to make some investigations -along lines I suggested have been of great assistance. Failing to catch -the scent where the trial started, I set them to work backward from a -point utterly remote from the scene. It was a guess, and ordinarily it -would have failed, but in this case it has brought results that are all -but convincing.” - -The tablets and pencils that had been distributed along the table had -not been neglected. The guests, without exception, had been drawing -or scribbling; Colton had amused himself by sketching the governor’s -profile. Burgess seemed not to be giving his undivided attention to the -governor’s review of the case. He continued to fidget, and his eyes -swept the table with veiled amusement. Then he tapped a bell and a -waiter appeared. - -“Pardon me a moment, governor, till the cigars are passed again.” - -In his round with the cigar tray the Jap, evidently by prearrangement, -collected the tablets and laid them in front of Burgess. - -“Changed your mind about the Limerick contest, Web?” asked some one. - -“Not at all,” said Burgess carelessly; “the tablets have fulfilled -their purpose. It was only a silly idea of mine anyhow.” They noticed, -however, that a tablet was left at the still vacant place that awaited -the belated guest, and they wondered at this, surmising that Burgess -had planned the dinner carefully and that the governor’s discussion of -the Avery case was by connivance with their host. With a quickening of -interest they drew their chairs closer to the table. - -“The prosecuting attorney who represented the State in the trial is -now a judge of the Circuit Court,” the governor resumed when the -door closed upon the waiter. “I have had many talks with him about -this case. He confesses that there are things about it that still -puzzle him. The evidence was purely circumstantial, as I have already -indicated; but circumstantial evidence, as Thoreau once remarked, may -be very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk! But when -two men have spent a day together in the house of one of them, and -the other is found dead in a lonely place not far away, and suspicion -attaches to no one but the survivor--not even the tramp who usually -figures in such speculations--a jury of twelve farmers may be pardoned -for taking the State’s view of the matter.” - -“The motive you spoke of, business jealousy, doesn’t seem quite -adequate unless it could be established that they had quarreled and -that there was a clear showing of enmity,” suggested Fullerton, the -lawyer. - -“You are quite right, and the man who prosecuted Avery admits it,” the -governor answered. - -“There may have been a third man in the affair,” suggested Ramsey, “and -I suppose the cynical must have suggested the usual woman in the case.” - -“I dare say those possibilities were thrashed out at the time,” the -governor replied; “but the only woman in this case is Avery’s wife, -and she and Reynolds had never met. I have found nothing to sustain -any suspicion that there was a woman in the case. Avery’s ostensible -purpose in asking Reynolds to visit him at that out-of-the-way place -was merely that they could discuss the combination of their quarry -interests privately, and close to Avery’s plant. It seems that Avery -had undertaken the organization of a big company to take over a -number of quarries whose product was similar, and that he wished to -confer secretly with Reynolds to secure his sanction to a selling -agreement before the others he wanted to get into the combination -heard of it. That, of course, is perfectly plausible; I could make a -good argument justifying that. Reynolds, like many small capitalists -in country towns, had a number of irons in the fire and had done -some promoting on his own hook. All the financial genius and all the -financial crookedness aren’t confined to Wall Street, though I forget -that sometimes when I’m on the stump! I’m disposed to think from what -I’ve learned of both of them that Avery wasn’t likely to put anything -over on Reynolds, who was no child in business matters. And there -was nothing to show that Avery had got him down there for any other -purpose than to effect a merger of quarry interests for their mutual -benefit.” - -“There probably were papers to substantiate that,” suggested Fullerton; -“correspondence and that sort of thing.” - -“Certainly; I have gone into that,” the governor replied. “All the -papers remain in the office of the prosecuting attorney, and I have -examined them carefully. Now, if Avery had been able to throw suspicion -on some one else you’d think he’d have done so. And if there had been a -third person at the bungalow that night you’d imagine that Avery would -have said so; it’s not in human nature for one man to take the blame -for another’s crime, and yet we do hear of such things, and I have read -novels and seen plays built upon that idea. But here is Avery with -fifteen years more to serve, and, if he’s been bearing the burden and -suffering the penalty of another’s sin, I must say that he’s taking it -all in an amazing spirit of self-sacrifice.” - -“Of course,” said Fullerton, “Reynolds may have had an enemy who -followed him there and lay in wait for him. Or Avery may have connived -at the crime without being really the assailant. That is conceivable.” - -“We’ll change the subject for a moment,” said the governor, “and return -to our muttons later.” - -He spoke in a low tone to Burgess, who looked at his watch and answered -audibly: - -“We have half an hour more.” - -The governor nodded and, with a whimsical smile, began turning over the -tablets. - -“These pads were placed before you for a purpose which I will now -explain. I apologize for taking advantage of you, but you will pardon -me, I’m sure, when I tell you my reason. I’ve dipped into psychology -lately with a view to learning something of the mind’s eccentricities. -We all do things constantly without conscious effort, as you know; -we perform acts automatically without the slightest idea that we are -doing them. At meetings of our State boards I’ve noticed that nobody -ever uses the pads that are always provided except to scribble on. Many -people have that habit of scribbling on anything that’s handy. Hotel -keepers knowing this, provide pads of paper ostensibly for memoranda -that guests may want to make while at the telephone, but really to keep -them from defacing the wall. Left alone with pencil and paper, most of -us will scribble something or draw meaningless figures. - -“Sometimes it’s indicative of a deliberate turn of mind; again it’s -sheer nervousness. After I had discussed this with a well-known -psychologist I began watching myself and found that I made a succession -of figure eights looped together in a certain way--I’ve been doing it -here! - -“And now,” he went on with a chuckle, “you gentlemen have been -indulging this same propensity as you listened to me. I find on one -pad the word Napoleon written twenty times with a lot of flourishes; -another has traced a dozen profiles of a man with a bulbous nose: it is -the same gentleman, I find, who honored me by drawing me with a triple -chin--for which I thank him. And here’s what looks like a dog kennel -repeated down the sheet. Still another has sketched the American flag -all over the page. If the patriotic gentleman who drew the flag will -make himself known, I should like to ask him whether he’s conscious of -having done that before?” - -“I’m guilty, governor,” Fullerton responded. “I believe it is a habit -of mine. I’ve caught myself doing it scores of times.” - -“I’m responsible for the man with the fat nose,” confessed Colton; -“I’ve been drawing him for years without ever improving my -draftsmanship.” - -“That will do,” said the governor, glancing at the door. “We won’t take -time to speak of the others, though you may be relieved to know that I -haven’t got any evidence against you. Burgess, please get these works -of art out of the room. We’ll go back to the Avery case. In going over -the papers I found that the prosecuting attorney in his search of the -bungalow the morning after the murder found a number of pieces of paper -that bore an odd, irregular sort of sketch. I’m going to pass one of -them round, but please send it back to me immediately.” - -He produced a sheet of letter paper that bore traces of hasty -crumpling, but it had been smoothed out again, and held it up. It bore -the lithographed name of the Avery Quarry Company. On it was drawn this -device: - -[Illustration] - -“Please note,” said the governor as the paper passed from hand to hand, -“that that same device is traced there five times, sometimes more -irregularly than others, but the general form is the same. Now, in the -fireplace of the bungalow living-room they found this and three other -sheets of the same stationery that bore this same figure. It seems a -fair assumption that some one sitting at a table had amused himself by -sketching these outlines and then, when he had filled the sheet, tore -it off and threw it into the fireplace, wholly unconscious of what he -was doing. The prosecutor attached no importance to these sheets, and -it was only by chance that they were stuck away in the file box with -the other documents in the case.” - -“Then you suspect that there was a third man in the bungalow that -night?” Ramsay asked. - -The governor nodded gravely. - -“Yes; I have some little proof of it, quite a bit of proof, in -fact. I have even had the wastebasket of the suspect examined for a -considerable period. Knowing Burgess’s interest in such matters, I have -been using him to get me certain information I very much wanted. And -our friend is a very successful person! I wanted to see the man I have -in mind and study him a little when he was off-guard, and Burgess has -arranged that for me, though he had to go into the tile business to do -it! As you can readily see, I could hardly drag him to my office, so -this little party was gotten up to give me a chance to look him over at -leisure.” - -“Tate!” exclaimed several of the men. - -“You can see that this is a very delicate matter,” said the governor -slowly. “Burgess thought it better not to have a smaller party, as -Tate, whom I never saw, might think it a frame-up. So you see we are -using you as stool-pigeons, so to speak. Burgess vouches for you as -men of discretion and tact; and it will be your business to keep Tate -amused and his attention away from me while I observe him a little.” - -“And when I give the signal you’re to go into the library and look at -picture books,” Burgess added. - -“That’s not fair!” said Fullerton. “We want to see the end of it!” - -“I’m so nervous,” said Colton, “I’m likely to scream at any minute!” - -“Don’t do it!” Burgess admonished. “The new House Committee is very -touchy about noise in the private dining rooms, and besides I’ve got a -lot of scenery set for the rest of the evening, and I don’t want you -fellows to spoil it.” - -“It begins to look,” remarked the governor, glancing at his watch, “as -though some of our scenery might have got lost.” - -“He’d hardly bolt,” Burgess replied; “he knows of no reason why he -should! I told the doorman to send him right up. When he comes there -will be no more references to the Avery case: you all understand?” - -They murmured their acquiescence, and a solemn hush fell upon them as -they turned involuntarily toward the vacant chair. - -“This will never do!” exclaimed the governor, who seemed to be the one -tranquil person in the room. “We must be telling stories and giving an -imitation of weary business men having a jolly time. But I’m tired of -talking; some of the good story-tellers ought to be stirred up.” - -With a little prodding Fullerton took the lead, but was able to win -only grudging laughter. Colton was trying his hand at diverting them -when they were startled by a knock. Burgess was at the door instantly -and flung it open. - - -II - -“Ah, Tate! Come right in; the party hasn’t started yet!” - -The newcomer was a short, thickset man, clean shaven, with coarse dark -hair streaked with gray. The hand he gave the men in succession as they -gathered about him for Burgess’s introduction was broad and heavy. He -offered it limply, with an air of embarrassment. - -“Governor Eastman, Mr. Tate; that’s your seat by the governor, Tate,” -said Burgess. “We were just listening to some old stories from some of -these fellows, so you haven’t missed anything. I hope they didn’t need -me at that tile meeting; I never attend night meetings: they spoil my -sleep, which my doctor says I’ve got to have.” - -“Night meetings,” said the governor, “always give me a grouch the next -morning. A party like this doesn’t, of course!” - -“Up in the country where I live we still stick to lodge meetings as an -excuse when we want a night off,” Tate remarked. - -They laughed more loudly than was necessary to put him at ease. He -refused Burgess’s offer of food and drink and when some one started a -political discussion they conspired to draw him into it. He was County -Chairman of the party not then in power and complained good-naturedly -to the governor of the big plurality Eastman had rolled up in the last -election. He talked slowly, with a kind of dogged emphasis, and it was -evident that politics was a subject to his taste. His brown eyes, they -were noting, were curiously large and full, with a bilious tinge in the -white. He met a glance steadily, with, indeed, an almost disconcerting -directness. - -Where the governor sat became, by imperceptible degrees, the head of -the table as he began seriously and frankly discussing the points of -difference between the existing parties, accompanied by clean-cut -characterizations of the great leaders. - -There was nothing to indicate that anything lay behind his talk; to all -appearances his auditors were absorbed in what he was saying. Tate had -accepted a cigar, which he did not light but kept twisting slowly in -his thick fingers. - -“We Democrats have had to change our minds about a good many things,” -the governor was saying. “Of course we’re not going back to Jefferson” -(he smiled broadly and waited for them to praise his magnanimity in -approaching so near to an impious admission), “but the world has -spun around a good many times since Jefferson’s day. What I think we -Democrats do and do splendidly is to keep close to the changing current -of public opinion; sometimes it seems likely to wash us down, as in the -free-silver days; but we give, probably without always realizing it, a -chance for the people to express themselves on new questions, and if -we’ve stood for some foolish policies at times the country’s the better -for having passed on them. These great contests clear the air like a -storm, and we all go peacefully about our business afterward.” - -As he continued they were all covertly watching Tate, who dropped his -cigar and began playing with the pencil before him, absently winding -and unwinding it upon the string that held it to the tablet. They were -feigning an absorption in the governor’s recital which their quick, -nervous glances at Tate’s hand belied. Burgess had pushed back his -chair to face the governor more comfortably and was tying knots in his -napkin. - -Now and then Tate nodded solemnly in affirmation of something the -governor said, but without lifting his eyes from the pencil. His -broad shoulders were bent over the table, and the men about him were -reflecting that this was probably an attitude into which his heavy body -often relaxed when he was pondering deeply. - -Wearying of the pencil--a trifle of the dance-card variety--he dropped -it and drew his own from his waistcoat pocket. Then, after looking up -to join in a laugh at some indictment of Republicanism expressed in -droll terms by the governor, he drew the tablet closer and, turning -his head slightly to one side, drew a straight line. Burgess frowned -as several men changed position the better to watch him. The silence -deepened, and the governor’s voice rose with a slight oratorical ring. -Through a half-open window floated the click of billiard balls in the -room below. The governor having come down to the Wilson Administration, -went back to Cleveland, whom he praised as a great leader and a great -president. In normal circumstances there would have been interruptions -and questions and an occasional jibe; and ordinarily the governor, who -was not noted for loquacity, would not have talked twenty minutes at -a stretch without giving an opportunity to his companions to break in -upon him. He was talking, as they all knew, to give Tate time to draw -the odd device which it was his habit to sketch when deeply engrossed. - -The pencil continued to move over the paper; and from time to time Tate -turned the pad and scrutinized his work critically. The men immediately -about him watched his hand, wide-eyed, fascinated. There was something -uncanny and unreal in the situation: it was like watching a wild animal -approaching a trap and wholly unmindful of its danger. The square box -which formed the base of the device was traced clearly; the arcs which -were its familiar embellishment were carefully added. The governor, -having exhausted Cleveland, went back to Jackson, and Tate finished a -second drawing, absorbed in his work and rarely lifting his eyes. - -Seeing that Tate had tired of this pastime, the governor brought his -lecture to an end, exclaiming: - -“Great Scott, Burgess! Why haven’t you stopped me! I’ve said enough -here to ruin me with my party, and you hadn’t the grace to shut me off.” - -“I’m glad for one,” said Tate, pushing back the pad, “that I got in in -time to hear you; I’ve never known before that any Democrat could be so -broad-minded!” - -“The governor loosens up a good deal between campaigns,” said Burgess, -rising. “And now, let’s go into the library where the chairs are -easier.” - -The governor rose with the others, but remained by his chair, talking -to Tate, until the room cleared, and then resumed his seat. - -“This is perfectly comfortable; let’s stay here, Mr. Tate. Burgess, -close the door, will you.” - -Tate hesitated, looked at his watch, and glanced at Burgess, who sat -down as though wishing to humor the governor, and lighted a cigar. - -“Mr. Tate,” said the governor unhurriedly, “if I’m not mistaken, you -are George Avery’s brother-in-law.” - -Tate turned quickly, and his eyes widened in surprise. - -“Yes,” he answered in slow, even tones; “Avery married my sister.” - -“Mr. Tate, I have in my pocket a pardon all ready to sign, giving Avery -his liberty. His case has troubled me a good deal; I don’t want to sign -this pardon unless I’m reasonably sure of Avery’s innocence. If you -were in my place, Mr. Tate, would you sign it?” - -The color went out of the man’s face and his jaw fell; but he recovered -himself quickly. - -“Of course, governor, it would be a relief to me, to my sister, all -of us, if you could see your way to pardoning George. As you know, -I’ve been doing what I could to bring pressure to bear on the Board -of Pardons: everything that seemed proper. Of course,” he went on -ingratiatingly, “we’ve all felt the disgrace of the thing.” - -“Mr. Tate,” the governor interrupted, “I have reason to believe that -there was a third man at Avery’s bungalow the night Reynolds was -killed. I’ve been at some pains to satisfy myself of that. Did that -ever occur to you as a possibility?” - -“I suspected that all along,” Tate answered, drawing his handkerchief -slowly across his face. “I never could believe George Avery guilty; he -wasn’t that kind of man!” - -“I don’t think he was myself,” the governor replied. “Now, Mr. Tate, -on the night of the murder you were not at home, nor on the next day -when your sister called you on the long-distance telephone. You were in -Louisville, were you not?” - -“Yes, certainly; I was in Louisville.” - -“As a matter of fact, Mr. Tate, you were not in Louisville! You were -at Avery’s bungalow that night, and you left the quarry station on a -freight train that was sidetracked on the quarry switch to allow the -Chicago train to pass. You rode to Davos, which you reached at two -o’clock in the morning. There you registered under a false name at the -Gerber House, and went home the next evening pretending to have been -at Louisville. You are a bachelor, and live in rooms over your bank, -and there was no one to keep tab on your absences but your clerks, who -naturally thought nothing of your going to Louisville, where business -often takes you. You were there two days ago, I believe. But that -has nothing to do with this matter. When you heard that Reynolds was -dead and Avery under suspicion you answered your sister’s summons and -hurried to Torrenceville.” - -“I was in Louisville; I was in Louisville, I tell you!” Tate uttered -the words in convulsive gasps. He brushed the perspiration from his -forehead impatiently and half rose. - -“Please sit down, Mr. Tate. You had had trouble a little while before -that with Reynolds about some stock in a creamery concern in your -county that he promoted. You thought he had tricked you, and very -possibly he had. The creamery business had resulted in a bitter -hostility between you: it had gone to such an extent that he had -refused to see you again to discuss the matter. You brooded over that -until you were not quite sane where Reynolds was concerned: I’ll give -you the benefit of that. You asked your brother-in-law to tell you -when Reynolds was going to see him, and he obligingly consented. We -will assume that Avery, a good fellow and anxious to aid you, made a -meeting possible. Reynolds wasn’t to know that you were to be at the -bungalow--he wouldn’t have gone if he had known it--and Avery risked -the success of his own negotiations by introducing you into his house, -out of sheer good will and friendship. You sat at a table in the -bungalow living-room and discussed the matter. Some of these things -only I have guessed at; the rest of it----” - -“It’s a lie; it’s all a damned lie! This was a scheme to get me here: -you and Burgess have set this up on me! I tell you I wasn’t at the -quarry; I never saw Reynolds there that night or any other time. My -God, if I had been there,--if Avery could have put it on me, would he -be doing time for it?” - -“Not necessarily, Mr. Tate. Let us go back a little. It had been in -your power once to do Avery a great favor, a very great favor. That’s -true, isn’t it?” - -Tate stared, clearly surprised, but his quivering lips framed no answer. - -“You had known him from boyhood, and shortly after his marriage to -your sister it had been in your power to do him a great favor; you -had helped him out of a hole and saved the quarry for him. It cost -me considerable money to find that out, Mr. Tate, and not a word of -help have I had from Avery: be sure of that! He had been guilty of -something just a little irregular--in fact, the forging of your name -to a note--and you had dealt generously with him, out of your old-time -friendship, we will say, or to spare your sister humiliation.” - -“George was in a corner,” said Tate weakly but with manifest relief at -the turn of the talk. “He squared it all long ago.” - -“It’s natural, in fact, instinctive, for a man to protect himself, to -exhaust all the possibilities of defense when the law lays it hand -upon him. Avery did not do so, and his meek submission counted heavily -against him. But let us consider that a little. You and Reynolds left -the bungalow together, probably after the interview had added to your -wrath against him, but you wished to renew the talk out of Avery’s -hearing and volunteered to guide Reynolds to the station where the -Chicago train was to stop for him. You didn’t go back, Mr. Tate----” - -“Good God, I tell you I wasn’t there! I can prove that I was in -Louisville; I tell you----” - -“We’re coming back to your alibi in a moment,” said the governor -patiently. “We will assume--merely assume for the moment--that you -said you would take the train with Reynolds and ride as far as Ashton, -where the Midland crosses and you would get an early morning train -home. Avery went to sleep at the bungalow wholly ignorant of what -had happened; he was awakened in the morning with news that Reynolds -had been killed by blows on the head inflicted near the big derrick -where you and Reynolds--I am assuming again--had stopped to argue your -grievances. Avery--shocked, dazed, not comprehending his danger and -lying there in the bungalow prostrated and half-crazed by the horror -of the thing--waited: waited for the prompt help he expected from -the only living person who knew that he had not left the bungalow. -He knew you only as a kind, helpful friend, and I dare say at first -he never suspected you! It was the last thing in the world he would -have attributed to you, and the possibility of it was slow to enter -his anxious, perturbed mind. He had every reason for sitting tight -in those first hideous hours, confident that the third man at that -bungalow gathering would come forward and establish his innocence with -a word. As is the way in such cases, efforts were made to fix guilt -upon others; but Avery, your friend, the man you had saved once, in a -fine spirit of magnanimity, waited for you to say the word that would -clear him. But you never said that word, Mr. Tate. You took advantage -of his silence; a silence due, we will say, to shock and horror at the -catastrophe and to his reluctance to believe you guilty of so monstrous -a crime or capable of allowing him, an innocent man, to suffer the -penalty for it.” - -Tate’s big eyes were bent dully upon the governor. He averted his gaze -slowly and reached for a glass of water, but his hand shook so that -he could not lift it, and he glared at it as though it were a hateful -thing. - -“I wasn’t there! Why----” he began with an effort at bravado; but the -words choked him and he sat swinging his head from side to side and -breathing heavily. - -The governor went on in the same low, even tone he had used from the -beginning: - -“When Avery came to himself and you still were silent, he doubtless -saw that, having arranged for you to meet Reynolds at the -bungalow--Reynolds, who had been avoiding you--he had put himself in -the position of an accessory before the fact and that even if he told -the truth about your being there he would only be drawing you into the -net without wholly freeing himself. At best it was an ugly business, -and being an intelligent man he knew it. I gather that you are a -secretive man by nature; the people who know you well in your own town -say that of you. No one knew that you had gone there and the burden -of the whole thing was upon Avery. And your tracks were so completely -hidden: you had been at such pains to sneak down there to take -advantage of the chance Avery made for you to see Reynolds and have it -out with him about the creamery business, that suspicion never attached -to you. You knew Avery as a good fellow, a little weak, perhaps, as you -learned from that forgery of your name ten years earlier; and it would -have been his word against yours. I’ll say to you, Mr. Tate, that I’ve -lain awake at nights thinking about this case, and I know of nothing -more pitiful, my imagination can conjure nothing more horrible, than -the silent suffering of George Avery as he waited for you to go to his -rescue, knowing that you alone could save him.” - -“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it!” Tate reiterated in a hoarse whisper -that died away with a queer guttural sound in his throat. - -“And now about your alibi, Mr. Tate; the alibi that you were never -even called on to establish,” the governor reached for the tablet -and held it before the man’s eyes, which focused upon it slowly, -uncomprehendingly. “Now,” said the governor, “you can hardly deny that -you drew that sketch, for I saw you do it with my own eyes. I’m going -to ask you, Mr. Tate, whether this drawing isn’t also your work?” - -He drew out the sheet of paper he had shown the others earlier in the -evening and placed it beside the tablet. Tate jumped to his feet, -staring wild-eyed, and a groan escaped him. The governor caught his arm -and pushed him back into his chair. - -“You will see that that is Avery’s letter-head that was used in the -quarry office. As you talked there with Reynolds that night you played -with a pencil as you did here a little while ago and without realizing -it you were creating evidence against yourself that was all I needed -to convince me absolutely of your guilt. I have three other sheets of -Avery’s paper bearing the same figure that you drew that night at the -quarry office; and I have others collected in your own office within -a week! As you may be aware, the power of habit is very strong. For -years, no doubt, your subconsciousness has carried that device, and in -moments of deep abstraction with wholly unrelated things your hand has -traced it. Even the irregularities in the outline are identical, and -the size and shading are precisely the same. I ask you again, Mr. Tate, -shall I sign the pardon I brought here in my pocket and free George -Avery?” - -The sweat dripped from Tate’s forehead and trickled down his cheeks in -little streams that shone in the light. His collar had wilted at the -fold, and he ran his finger round his neck to loosen it. Once, twice, -he lifted his head defiantly, but, meeting the governor’s eyes fixed -upon him relentlessly, his gaze wavered. He thrust his hand under his -coat and drew out his pencil and then, finding it in his fingers, flung -it away, and his shoulders drooped lower. - - -III - -Burgess stood by the window with his back to them. The governor spoke -to him, and he nodded and left the room. In a moment he returned with -two men and closed the door quickly. - -“Hello, warden; sit down a moment, will you?” - -The governor turned to a tall, slender man whose intense pallor was -heightened by the brightness of his oddly staring blue eyes. He -advanced slowly. His manner was that of a blind man moving cautiously -in an unfamiliar room. The governor smiled reassuringly into his white, -impassive face. - -“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Avery,” he said. He rose and took Avery -by the hand. - -At the name Tate’s head went up with a jerk. His chair creaked -discordantly as he turned, looked up into the masklike face behind him, -and then the breath went out of him with a sharp, whistling sound as -when a man dies, and he lunged forward with his arms flung out upon the -table. - -The governor’s grip tightened upon Avery’s hand; there was something of -awe in his tone when he spoke. - -“You needn’t be afraid, Avery,” he said. “My way of doing this is a -little hard, I know, but it seemed the only way. I want you to tell -me,” he went on slowly, “whether Tate was at the bungalow the night -Reynolds was killed. He was there, wasn’t he?” - -Avery wavered, steadied himself with an effort, and slowly shook his -head. The governor repeated his question in a tone so low that Burgess -and the warden, waiting at the window, barely heard. A third time he -asked the question. Avery’s mouth opened, but he only wet his lips -with a quick, nervous movement of the tongue, and his eyes met the -governor’s unseeingly. - -The governor turned from him slowly, and his left hand fell upon Tate’s -shoulder. - -“If you are not guilty, Tate, now is the time for you to speak. I want -you to say so before Avery; that’s what I’ve brought him here for. -I don’t want to make a mistake. If you say you believe Avery to be -guilty, I will not sign his pardon.” - -He waited, watching Tate’s hands as they opened and shut weakly; they -seemed, as they lay inert upon the table, to be utterly dissociated -from him, the hands of an automaton whose mechanism worked imperfectly. -A sob, deep, hoarse, pitiful, shook his burly form. - -The governor sat down, took a bundle of papers from his pocket, slipped -one from under the rubber band which snapped back sharply into place. -He drew out a pen, tested the point carefully, then, steadying it with -his left hand, wrote his name. - -“Warden,” he said, waving the paper to dry the ink; “thank you for your -trouble. You will have to go home alone. Avery is free.” - - -IV - -When Burgess appeared at the bank at ten o’clock the next morning he -found his friends of the night before established in the directors’ -room waiting for him. They greeted him without their usual chaff, and -he merely nodded to all comprehendingly and seated himself on the table. - -“We don’t want to bother you, Web,” said Colton, “but I guess we’d all -feel better if we knew what happened after we left you last night. I -hope you don’t mind.” - -Burgess frowned and shook his head. - -“You ought to thank God you didn’t have to see the rest of it! I’ve got -a reservation on the Limited tonight: going down to the big city in the -hope of getting it out of my mind.” - -“Well, we know only what the papers printed this morning,” said Ramsay; -“a very brief paragraph saying that Avery had been pardoned. The papers -don’t tell the story of his crime as they usually do, and we noticed -that they refrained from saying that the pardon was signed at one of -your dinner parties.” - -“I fixed the newspapers at the governor’s request. He didn’t want any -row made about it, and neither did I, for that matter. Avery is at my -house. His wife was there waiting for him when I took him home.” - -“We rather expected that,” said Colton, “as we were planted at the -library windows when you left the club. But about the other man: that’s -what’s troubling us.” - -“Um,” said Burgess, crossing his legs and clasping his knees. “_That_ -was the particular hell of it.” - -“Tate was guilty; we assume that of course,” suggested Fullerton. “We -all saw him signing his death warrant right there at the table.” - -“Yes,” Burgess replied gravely, “and he virtually admitted it; but if -God lets me live I hope never to see anything like that again!” - -He jumped down and took a turn across the room. - -“And now---- After that, Web?” - -“Well, it won’t take long to tell it. After the governor signed the -pardon I told the warden to take Avery downstairs and get him a drink: -the poor devil was all in. And then Tate came to, blubbering like the -vile coward he is, and began pleading for mercy: on his knees, mind -you; on his _knees_! God! It was horrible--horrible beyond anything I -ever dreamed of--to see him groveling there. I supposed, of course, -the governor would turn him over to the police. I was all primed for -that, and Tate expected it and bawled like a sick calf. But what he -said was--what the governor said was, and he said it the way they say -‘dust to dust’ over a grave--‘You poor fool, for such beasts as you the -commonwealth has no punishment that wouldn’t lighten the load you’ve -got to carry around with you till you die!’ That’s all there was of it! -That’s exactly what he said, and can you beat it? I got a room for Tate -at the club, and told one of the Japs to put him to bed.” - -“But the governor had no right,” began Ramsay eagerly; “he had no -_right_----” - -“The king can do no wrong! And, if you fellows don’t mind, the incident -is closed, and we’ll never speak of it again.” - - - - -WRONG NUMBER - - -I - -They called him Wrong Number in the bank because he happened so often -and was so annoying. His presence in the White River National was -painful to bookkeepers, tellers and other practical persons connected -with this financial Gibraltar because, without having any definite -assignment, he was always busy. He was carried on the rolls as a -messenger, though he performed none of the duties commonly associated -with the vocation, calling or job of a bank messenger. No one assumed -responsibility for Wrong Number, not even the Cashier or the First Vice -President, and such rights, powers and immunities as he enjoyed were -either self-conferred or were derived from the President, Mr. Webster -G. Burgess. - -Wrong Number’s true appellation as disclosed by the payroll was -Clarence E. Tibbotts, and the cynical note-teller averred that the -initial stood for Elmer. A small, compact figure, fair hair, combed to -onion-skin smoothness, a pinkish face and baby blue eyes--there was -nothing in Wrong Number’s appearance to arouse animosity in any but the -stoniest heart. Wrong Number was polite, he was unfailingly cheerful, -and when called upon to assist in one place or another he responded -with alacrity and no one had reason to complain of his efficiency. -He could produce a letter from the files quicker than the regular -archivist, or he could play upon the adding machine as though it were -an instrument of ten strings. No one had ever taught him anything; no -one had the slightest intention of teaching him anything, and yet by -imperceptible degrees, he, as a free lance, passed through a period -of mild tolerance into acceptance as a valued and useful member of -the staff. In the Liberty Loan rushes that well-nigh swamped the -department, Wrong Number knew the answers to all the questions that -were fired through the wickets. Distracted ladies who had lost their -receipts for the first payment and timidly reported this fact found -Wrong Number patient and helpful. An early fear in the cages that the -president had put Wrong Number into the bank as a spy upon the clerical -force was dispelled, when it became known that the young man did on -several occasions, conceal or connive at concealing some of those -slight errors and inadvertencies that happen in the best regulated of -banks. Wrong Number was an enigma, an increasing mystery, nor was he -without his enjoyment of his associates’ mystification. - -Wrong Number’s past, though veiled in mist in the White River National, -may here be fully and truthfully disclosed. To understand Wrong Number -one must also understand Mr. Webster G. Burgess, his discoverer and -patron. In addition to being an astute and successful banker, Mr. -Burgess owned a string of horses and sent them over various circuits -at the usual seasons, and he owned a stock farm of high repute as may -be learned by reference to any of the authoritative stud books. If -his discreet connection with the racetrack encouraged the belief that -Mr. Burgess was what is vulgarly termed a “sport,” his prize-winning -short-horns in conjunction with his generous philanthropies did much to -minimize the sin of the racing stable. - -Mr. Burgess “took care of his customers,” a heavenly attribute in any -banker, and did not harass them unnecessarily. Other bankers in town -who passed the plate every Sunday in church and knew nothing of Horse -might be suspicious and nervous and even disagreeable in a pinch, -but Mr. Burgess’s many admirers believed that he derived from his -association with Horse a breadth of vision and an optimism peculiarly -grateful to that considerable number of merchants and manufacturers -who appreciate a liberal line of credit. Mr. Burgess was sparing of -language and his “Yes” and “No” were equally pointed and final. Some of -his utterances, such as a warning to the hand-shaking Vice president, -“Don’t bring any anemic people into my office,” were widely quoted -in business circles. “This is a bank, not the sheriff’s office,” he -remarked to a customer who was turning a sharp corner. “I’ve told the -boys to renew your notes. Quit sobbing and get back on your job.” - -It was by reason of their devotion to Horse that Burgess and Wrong -Number met and knew instantly that the fates had ordained the meeting. -Wrong Number had grown up in the equine atmosphere of Lexington--the -Lexington of the Blue Grass, and his knowledge of the rest of the world -was gained from his journeys to race meets with specimens of the horse -kind. Actors are not more superstitious than horsemen and from the time -he became a volunteer assistant to the stablemen on the big horse farm -the superstition gained ground among the _cognoscenti_ that the wings -of the Angel of Good Luck had brushed his tow head and that he was a -mascot of superior endowment. As he transferred his allegiance from -one stable to another luck followed him, and when he picked, one year, -as a Derby winner the unlikeliest horse on the card and that horse -galloped home an easy winner, weird and uncanny powers were attributed -to Wrong Number. - -Burgess had found him sitting on an upturned pail in front of the -stable that housed “Lord Templeton” at six o’clock of the morning of -the day the stallion strode away from a brilliant field and won an -enviable prestige for the Burgess stables. Inspired by Wrong Number’s -confidence, Burgess had backed “Lord Templeton” far more heavily than -he had intended and as a result was enabled to credit a small fortune -to his horse account. For four seasons the boy followed the Burgess -string and in winter made himself useful on the Burgess farm somewhere -north of the Ohio. He showed a genius for acquiring information and was -cautious in expressing opinions; he was industrious in an unobtrusive -fashion; and he knew about all there is to know about the care and -training of horses. Being a prophet he saw the beginning of the end -of the Horse Age and sniffed gasoline without resentment, and could -take an automobile to pieces and put it together again. Burgess was -his ideal of a gentleman, a banker, and a horseman, and he carried his -idolatry to the point of imitating his benefactor in manner, dress -and speech. Finding that Wrong Number was going into town for a night -course in a business college, Burgess paid the bill, and seeing that -Wrong Number at twenty-two had outgrown Horse and aspired to a career -in finance, Burgess took him into the bank with an injunction to the -cashier to “turn him loose in the lot.” - -While Mrs. Burgess enjoyed the excitement and flutter of grandstands, -her sense of humor was unequal to a full appreciation of the social -charm of those gentlemen who live in close proximity to Horse. Their -ways and their manners and their dialect did not in fact amuse her, and -she entertained an utterly unwarranted suspicion that they were not -respectable. It was with the gravest doubts and misgivings that she -witnessed the rise of Wrong Number who, after that young gentleman’s -transfer to the bank, turned up in the Burgess town house rather -frequently and had even adorned her table. - -On an occasion Web had wired her from Chicago that he couldn’t get home -for a certain charity concert which she had initiated and suggested -that she commandeer Wrong Number as an escort; and as no other man of -her acquaintance was able or willing to represent the shirking Webster, -she did in fact utilize Wrong Number. She was obliged to confess that -he had been of the greatest assistance to her and that but for his -prompt and vigorous action the programmes, which had not been delivered -at the music hall, would never have been recovered from the theatre to -which an erring messenger had carried them. Wrong Number, arrayed in -evening dress, had handed her in and out of her box and made himself -agreeable to three other wives of tired business men who loathed -concerts and pleaded important business engagements whenever their -peace was menaced by classical music. Mrs. Burgess’s bitterness toward -Webster for his unaccountable interest in Wrong Number was abated -somewhat by these circumstances though she concealed the fact and -berated him for his desertion in an hour of need. - -Webster G. Burgess was enormously entertained by his wife’s social and -philanthropic enterprises and he was proud of her ability to manage -things. Their two children were away at school and at such times as -they dined alone at home the table was the freest confessional for her -activities. She never understood why Webster evinced so much greater -interest and pleasure in her reports of the warring factions than in -affairs that moved smoothly under her supreme direction. - -“You know, Web,” she began on an evening during the progress of the -Great War, after watching her spouse thrust his fork with satisfaction -into a pudding she had always found successful in winning him to an -amiable mood; “you know, Web, that Mrs. Gurley hasn’t the slightest -sense of fitness,--no tact,--no delicacy!” - -“You’ve hinted as much before,” said Webster placidly. “Cleaned you up -in a club election?” - -“Web!” ejaculated Mrs. Burgess disdainfully. “You know perfectly well -she was completely snowed under at the Women’s Civic League election. -Do you think after all I did to start that movement I’d let such a -woman take the presidency away from me? It isn’t that I _cared_ for it; -heaven knows I’ve got enough to do without that!” - -“Right!” affirmed Burgess readily. “But what’s she put over on you now?” - -Mrs. Burgess lifted her head quickly from a scrutiny of the percolator -flame. - -“Put over! Don’t you think I give her any chance to put anything over! -I wouldn’t have her _think_ for a minute that she was in any sense a -_rival_.” - -“No; nothing vulgar and common like that,” agreed Webster. - -“But that woman’s got the idea that she’s going to entertain all the -distinguished people that come here. And the Gurleys have only been -here two years and we’ve lived here all our lives! It’s nothing to me, -of course, but you know there _is_ a certain dignity in being an old -family, even here, and my great grandfather was a pioneer governor, and -yours was the first State treasurer and that ought to count and always -_has_ counted. And the Gurleys made all their money out of tomatoes and -pickles in a few years; and since they came to town they’ve just been -_forcing_ themselves everywhere.” - -“I’d hardly say that,” commented Burgess. “There’s no stone wall around -this town. I was on a committee of the Chamber of Commerce that invited -Gurley to move his canning factory here.” - -“And after that he was brazen enough to take his account to the -Citizen’s!” exclaimed Mrs. Burgess. - -“That wasn’t altogether Gurley’s fault, Gertie,” replied Burgess, -softly. - -“You don’t mean, Web----” - -“I mean that we could have had his account if we’d wanted it.” - -“Well, I’m glad we’re under no obligations to carry them round.” - -“We’re not, if that’s the way you see it. But Mrs. Gurley wears pretty -good clothes,” he suggested, meditatively removing the wrapper from his -cigar. - -“Webster Burgess, you don’t _mean_----” - -“I mean that she’s smartly set up. You’ve got to hand it to her, -particularly for hats.” - -“You never see what I wear! You haven’t paid the slightest attention to -anything I’ve worn for ten years! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! -That woman buys all her clothes in New York, every stitch and feather, -and they cost five times what I spend! With the war going on, I don’t -feel that it’s _right_ for a woman to spread herself on clothes. You -know you said yourself we ought to economize, and I discharged Marie -and cut down the household bills. Marie was worth the fifty dollars a -month I paid her for the cleaner’s bills she saved me.” - -Mrs. Burgess was at all times difficult to tease, and Webster was -conscious that he had erred grievously in broaching the matter of -Mrs. Gurley’s apparel, which had never interested him a particle. -He listened humbly as Mrs. Burgess gave a detailed account of her -expenditures for raiment for several years, and revealed what she had -never meant to tell him, that out of her personal allowance she was -caring for eight French orphans in addition to the dozen she had told -him about. - -“Well, you’re a mighty fine girl, Gertie. You know I think so.” - -The tears in Mrs. Burgess’s eyes made necessary some more tangible -expression of his affection than this, so he walked round and kissed -her, somewhat to the consternation of the butler who at that moment -appeared to clear the table. - -“As to money,” he continued when they had reached the living-room, “I -got rid of some stock I thought was a dead one the other day and I -meant to give you a couple of thousand. You may consider it’s yours for -clothes or orphans or anything you like.” - -She murmured her gratitude as she took up her knitting but he saw that -the wound caused by his ungallant reference to Mrs. Gurley’s wardrobe -had not been healed by a kiss and two thousand dollars. Gertrude -Burgess was a past mistress of the art of extracting from any such -situation its fullest potentialities of compensation. And Webster knew -as he fumbled the evening newspaper that before he departed for the -meeting of the War Chest Committee that demanded his presence downtown -at eight o’clock he must make it easy for her to pour out her latest -grievances against Mrs. Gurley. He is a poor husband who hasn’t learned -the value of the casual approach. To all outward appearances he had -forgotten Mrs. Gurley and for that matter Mrs. Burgess as well when, -without looking up from the Government estimate of the winter wheat -acreage, he remarked with a perfectly-feigned absent air: - -“By-the-way, Gertie, you started to say something about that Gurley -woman. Been breaking into your fences somewhere?” - -“If I thought you would be interested, Web----” - -This on both sides was mere routine, a part of the accepted method, the -established technique of mollification. - -“Of course I want to hear it,” said Webster, throwing the paper down -and planting himself at ease before her with his back to the fire. - -“I don’t want you to think me unkind or unjust, Web, but there are -_some_ things, you know!” - -He admitted encouragingly that there were indeed some things and bade -her go on. - -“Well, what made me very indignant was the way that woman walked off -with the Italian countess who was here last week to speak to our -Red Cross workers. You know I wired Senator Saybrook to extend an -invitation to the Countess to come to our house, and he wrote me that -he had called on her at the Italian Embassy and she had accepted; and -then when the Countess came and I went to the station to meet her, Mrs. -Gurley was there all dressed up and carried her off to her house. For -sheer impudence, Web, that beat anything I ever heard of. Every one -_knows_ our home is always open and it had been in the papers that we -were to entertain the Countess Paretti. It was not only a reflection on -me, Web, but on you as well. And of course the poor Countess wasn’t to -blame, with all the hurry and confusion at the station, and she didn’t -know me from Adam; and Mrs. Gurley simply captured her--it was really -a case of the most shameless kidnapping--and hurried her into her -limousine and took her right off to her house.” - -“Well, after the time you’d spent thinking up Italian dishes for the -lady to consume, I should say that the spaghetti was on us,” said -Burgess, recalling with relief that the Countess’ failure to honor his -home had released him for dinner with a British aviator who had proved -to be a very amusing and interesting person. “I meant to ask you how -the Gurleys got into the sketch. It was a contemptible thing to do, all -right. No wonder you’re bitter about it. I’ll cheerfully punch Gurley’s -head if that’ll do any good.” - -“What I’ve been thinking about, Web, is this,” said Mrs. Burgess, -meditatively. “You know there’s an Illyrian delegation coming to town, -a special envoy of some of the highest civil and military officials of -poor war-swept Illyria. And I heard this afternoon that the Gurleys -mean to carry them all to their house for luncheon when the train -arrives Thursday at noon just before Governor Eastman receives them at -the statehouse, where there’s to be a big public meeting. The Gurleys -have had their old congressman from Taylorville extend the invitation -in Washington and of course the Illyrians wouldn’t _know_, Web.” - -“They would not,” said Webster. “The fame of our domestic cuisine -probably hasn’t reached Illyria and the delegation would be sure to -form a low opinion of Western victualing if they feed at the Gurleys. -The Gurleys probably think it a chance to open up a new market for -their well-known Eureka brand of catsup in Illyria after the war.” - -“Don’t be absurd!” admonished Mrs. Burgess. - -“I’m not absurd; I’m indignant,” Webster averred. “Put your cards on -the table and let’s have a look. What you want to do, Gertie, is to -hand the Gurleys one of their own sour pickles. I sympathize fully with -your ambition to retaliate. I’ll go further than that,” he added with a -covert glance at the clock; “I’ll see what I can do to turn the trick!” - -“I don’t see _how_ it can be done without doing something we can’t -stoop to do,” replied Mrs. Burgess with a hopeful quaver in her voice. - -“We must do no stooping,” Webster agreed heartily. “It would be far -from us to resort to the coarse kidnapping tactics of the Gurleys. And -of course you can’t go to the mat with Mrs. Gurley in the trainshed. -A rough and tumble scrap right there before the Illyrians would be -undignified and give ’em a quaint notion of the social habits of the -corn belt. But gently and firmly to guide the Illyrian commissioners -to our humble home, throw them a luncheon, show ’em the family album -and after the show at the statehouse give ’em a whirl to the art -institute, and walk ’em through the Illyrian relief rooms, where a -pretty little Illyrian girl dressed in her native costume would hand -’em flowers--that’s the ticket.” - -“Oh, Web, you are always so helpful when you want to be! That’s the -most beautiful idea about the flowers. And perhaps a _group_ of -Illyrian children would do some folk dances! I’m sure the visitors -would be deeply touched by that.” - -“It would certainly make a hit,” said Webster, feeling that he was -once more rehabilitated in his wife’s affections and confidence. “You -say the Gurleys’ publicity agent has already gazetted their hospitable -designs? Excellent! The more advance work they do on the job the -better. We’ll give a jar to the pickles--that’s the game! Did you get -that, Gertie? Pickles, a jar of pickles; a jar to the pickle industry?” - -“I was thinking,” said Mrs. Burgess, with a far-away look in her eyes, -“how charming the folk dances would be and I must see the settlement -house superintendent about choosing just the _right_ children. But, -Web, is it _possible_ to do this so _no one_ will know?” - -“Don’t worry about that,” he assured her. “Arrange your luncheon and -do it right. I’ve heard somewhere that a great delicacy in Illyria is -broiled grasshoppers, or maybe it’s centipedes. Better look that up to -be sure not to poison our faithful ally. You’d better whisper to Mrs. -Eastman that you’ll want the Governor, but tell her it’s to meet a -prison reformer or a Congo missionary; Eastman is keen on those lines. -And ask a few pretty girls and look up the Illyrian religion and get a -bishop to suit.” - -“But you haven’t told me how you _mean_ to do it, Web. Of course we -must be careful----” - -“Careful!” repeated Burgess shaking himself into his top coat in the -hall door. “My name is discretion. You needn’t worry about that part of -it! The whole business will be taken care of; dead or alive you shall -have the Illyrians.” - - -II - -Wrong Number, locked up in the directors’ room of the White River -National, studied timetables and maps and newspaper clippings bearing -upon the Western pilgrimage of the Illyrian Commission. In fifty words -Webster G. Burgess had transferred to his shoulders full responsibility -for producing the Illyrians in the Burgess home, warning him it must be -done with all dignity and circumspection. - -“That’s for expenses,” said Burgess, handing him a roll of bills. “This -job isn’t a bank transaction--you get me? It’s strictly a social event.” - -Wrong Number betrayed no perturbation as the president stated the case. -Matters of delicacy had been confided to him before by his patron--the -study of certain horses he thought of buying and wished an honest -report on, the cautious sherlocking of a country-town customer who -was flying higher than his credit; the disposal of the stock of an -automobile dealer whose business had jumped ahead of his capital;--such -tasks as these Wrong Number had performed to the entire satisfaction of -his employer. - -In a new fall suit built by Burgess’s tailor, with a green stripe -instead of a blue to differentiate it from the president’s latest, and -with a white carnation in his lapel (Mrs. Burgess provided a pink one -for Web every morning), Wrong Number brooded over this new problem for -two days before he became a man of action. - -His broad democracy made him a familiar visitor to cigar stands, -billiard parlors, gun stores, soft drink bars and cheap hotels where -one encounters horsemen, expert trap shooters, pugilists, book-makers, -and other agreeable characters never met in fashionable clubs. After -much thought he chose as his co-conspirator, Peterson, a big Swede, to -whom he had advanced money with which to open a Turkish bath. As the -bath was flourishing the Swede welcomed an opportunity to express his -gratitude to one he so greatly admired; and besides he still owed Wrong -Number two hundred dollars. - -“I want a coupla guys that will look right in tall hats,” said Wrong -Number. “You’ll do for one; you’ll make up fine for the Illyrian -Minister of Foreign Affairs,--he’s a tall chap, you’ll see from that -picture of the bunch being received at the New York city hall. Then -you want a little weazened cuss who won’t look like an undertaker in a -frock coat to stand for the Minister of Finance. We need four more to -complete the string and they gotta have uniforms. Comic opera hats with -feathers--you can’t make ’em too fancy.” - -The Swede nodded. The Uniform Rank of the Order of the Golden Buck of -which he was a prominent member could provide the very thing. - -“And I gotta have one real Illyrian to spout the language to the -delegation.” - -“What’s the matter with Bensaris who runs a candy shop near where I -live? He’s the big squeeze among ’em.” - -“We’ll go down and see him. Remember, he don’t need to know anything; -just do what I tell him. There’s a hundred in this for you, Pete, if -you pull it right; expenses extra.” - -“The cops might pinch us,” suggested Peterson, warily. “And what you -goin’ to do about the Mayor? It says in the papers that the Mayor meets -the outfit at the Union Station.” - -“If the cops ask the countersign tell ’em you turned out to meet the -remains of a deceased brother. And don’t worry about the Mayor. He’s -been over the Grand Circuit with me and brought his money home in a -trunk.” - -He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and set down the following -items: - - Pete. 2 silk hats; five uni. - Band. - Bensaris. - Mayor. - 5 touring cars. - -“The honor, it is too much!” pleaded Bensaris when Wrong Number and -Peterson told him all it was necessary for him to know, at a little -table in the rear of his shop. “But in the day’s paper my daughter read -me their excellencies be met at the Union Station; the arrange’ have -been change’?” - -“The papers are never right,” declared Wrong Number. “And you don’t -need to tell ’em anything.” - -“A lady, Mees Burgett, she came here to arrange all Illyrians go to -Relief office to sing the songs of my country. My daughter, she shall -dance and hand flowers to their excellencies!” cried Bensaris beaming. - -“The Bensaris family will be featured right through the bill,” said -Wrong Number. - -“It is too kind,” insisted Bensaris. “It is for the Mayor you make the -arrange’?” - -“I represent the financial interests of our city,” Wrong Number -replied. “You want to go the limit in dressing up the automobiles; make -’em look like Fourth o’ July in your native O’Learyo. Where do we doll -’em up, Pete?” - -A garage of a friend in the next block would serve admirably and -Peterson promised to co-operate with Bensaris in doing the job properly. - -“Tail coat and two-gallon hat for Mr. Bensaris,” said Wrong Number. -“Pete, you look after that.” He pressed cash upon Mr. Bensaris and -noted the amount in his book. “We’ll call it a heat,” he said, and went -uptown to pilot Mr. Webster G. Burgess to a ten round match for points -between two local amateurs that was being pulled off behind closed -doors in an abandoned skating rink. - - -III - -The Illyrian Commission had just breakfasted when their train reached -Farrington on the State line, where the Mayor of the capital city, Mr. -Clarence E. Tibbotts, _alias_ Wrong Number, and Mr. Zoloff Bensaris, -all in shining hats, boarded the train. - -Having studied the portraits of the distinguished Illyrians in a -Sunday supplement provided by Mr. Tibbotts, Mr. Bensaris effected the -introductions without an error, and having been carefully coached by -the same guide he did not handle his two-gallon hat as though it were a -tray of chocolate sundaes. The kindness of the mayor and his associates -in coming so far to meet the Commission deeply touched the visitors. -The Fourth Assistant Secretary of State, who was doing the honors of -the American government, heard without emotion of the slight changes in -the programme. - -“We thought the Commission would be tired of the train,” explained -Wrong Number, who was relieved to find that his cutaway was of the same -vintage as the Fourth Assistant Secretary’s; “so we get off at the -first stop this side of town and motor in.” - -“Luncheon at Mr. Gurley’s,” said the Secretary, consulting a sheaf of -telegrams. - -“Had to change that, too,” said Wrong Number carelessly; “they have -scarlet fever at the Gurleys. The Webster G. Burgesses will throw the -luncheon.” - -The Secretary made a note of the change and thrust his papers into his -pocket. Mr. Tibbotts handed round his cigarette case, a silver trinket -bearing “Lord Templeton’s” head in enamel relief, a Christmas gift from -Mr. Webster G. Burgess, and joined in a discussion of the morning’s -news from the Balkans, where the Illyrian troops were acquitting -themselves with the highest credit. - -When the suburban villas of Ravenswood began to dance along the -windows, Mr. Tibbotts marshaled his party and as they stepped from -the private car a band struck up the Illyrian national hymn. Several -dozen students from the nearby college who chanced to be at the station -raised a cheer. As the Illyrians were piloted across the platform to -the fleet of waiting automobiles, the spectators were interested in -the movements of another party,--a party fully as distinguished in -appearance--that emerged from the station and tripped briskly into a -sleeper farther along in the train that had discharged the Illyrians. -Here, too, were silk hats upon two sober-looking gentlemen who could -hardly be other than statesmen, and uniforms of great splendor upon -five stalwart forms, with topping plumes waving blithely in the autumn -air. And out of the corner of his eye Mr. Clarence E. Tibbotts, just -seating himself in a big touring car, between the Fourth Assistant -Secretary of State and the Illyrian Minister of Finance, saw Peterson’s -work, and knew that it was good. - -The procession swept into town at a lively clip, set by the driver of -the first car, that bore the Mayor and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, -which was driven by a victor of many motor speed trials carefully -chosen by Wrong Number for this important service. The piquant flavor -of Wrong Number’s language as he pointed out objects of interest -amused the American Secretary, much bored in his pilgrimages by the -solemnities of reception committees, and it served also to convince the -Illyrian Minister of Finance of the inadequacy of his own English. - -Lusty cheering greeted the party as it moved slowly through the -business district. When the Illyrian Minister and the Fourth Secretary -lifted their hats Wrong Number kept time with them; he enjoyed lifting -his hat. He enjoyed also a view of half a dozen clerks on the steps of -the White River National, who cheered deliriously as they espied their -associate and hastened within to spread the news of his latest exploit -through the cages. - -It is fortunate that Mr. Tibbotts had taken the precaution to plant -a motion-picture camera opposite the Burgess home, for otherwise the -historical student of the future might be puzzled to find that the -first edition of the _Evening Journal_ of that day showed the Illyrian -delegation passing through the gates of the Union Station, with a -glimpse of Mrs. Arnold D. Gurley handing a large bouquet of roses to -a tall gentleman who was not in fact the Illyrian Minister of Foreign -Affairs but the proprietor of Peterson’s bath parlors. The _Journal_ -suppressed its pictures in later editions, thereby saving its face, and -printed without illustrations an excellent account of the reception of -the Illyrians at Ravenswood and of the luncheon, from facts furnished -by Mr. Tibbotts, who stood guard at the door of the Burgess home while -the function was in progress in the dining room. - -Who ate Mrs. Gurley’s luncheon is a moot question in the select circles -of the capital city. Peterson and his party might have enjoyed the -repast had not the proprietor of the bath parlors, after accepting Mrs. -Gurley’s bouquet at the station gates, vanished with his accomplices in -the general direction of their lodge room of the Order of the Golden -Buck. - -When foolish reporters tried to learn at the City Hall why the Mayor -had changed without warning the plans for the reception, that official -referred them to the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, who in turn -directed the inquirers to the Governor’s office and the Governor, -having been properly admonished by his wife, knew nothing whatever -about it. - - -IV - -As the Burgesses were reviewing the incidents of the day at dinner that -evening, Mrs. Burgess remarked suddenly, - -“Now that it’s all over, Web, do you think it was quite fair, really -_right_?” - -“You mean,” asked Webster, huskily, “that you’re not satisfied with the -way it was handled?” - -“Oh, not that! But it was almost _too_ complete; and poor Mrs. Gurley -must be horribly humiliated.” - -“Crushed, I should say,” remarked Webster cheerfully. “This ought to -hold her for a while.” - -“But that fake delegation you had at the station to deceive Mrs. -Gurley----” - -“I beg your pardon,” Webster interrupted, “I assure you I had nothing -to do with it.” - -“Well, all I _know_ is that just before dinner Mrs. Eastman called me -up and said the Governor had just telephoned her that Mrs. Gurley tried -to _kiss_ the hand of some man she took for the Illyrian Minister of -Foreign Affairs as he went through the station gates. And the man is -nothing but a rubber in a Turkish bath. You _wouldn’t_ have done that, -Web, would you?” - -“No, dear, I would not! For one thing, I wouldn’t have been smart -enough to think it up.” - -“And you know, Web, I shouldn’t want you to think me mean and envious -and jealous. I’m not really that way; you know I’m not! And of course -if I’d thought you’d really bring the Illyrians here, I should never -have mentioned it at all.” - -Webster passed his hand across his brow in bewilderment. At moments -when he thought he was meeting the most exacting requirements of the -marital relationship it was enormously disturbing to find himself -defeated. - -“Your luncheon was a great success; the talk at the table was -wonderful; and the girls you brought in made a big hit. It’s the best -party you ever pulled off,” he declared warmly. - -“I’m glad you think so,” she said slowly, giving him her direct gaze -across the table, “but there were one or two things I didn’t quite -like, Web. It seemed to me your young friend Tibbotts was a little -_too_ conspicuous. I’m surprised that you let him come to the house. -You couldn’t--you _wouldn’t_ have let him _know_ how the Illyrians came -here? He really seemed to assume full charge of the party, and in the -drawing room he was flirting outrageously with pretty Lois Hubbard, -and kept her giggling when I’d asked her _specially_ to be nice to the -Fourth Assistant Secretary, who’s a bachelor, you know. And if Mrs. -Hubbard _knew_ we had introduced Lois to a boy from the racetrack----” - -“It would be awful,” said Webster with one of the elusive grins that -always baffled her. - -“What would be awful?” she demanded. - -“Oh, nothing! I was thinking of Wrong Number and what a blow it would -be if I should lose him. I must remember to raise his salary in the -morning.” - - -THE END. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - -Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - -Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - -Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - -Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEST LAID SCHEMES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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