The new idea, whatever it was, was evidently not one to be hastily perfected, for the next morning when Celestina went down stairs, she found the jaded inventor seated moodily in a rocking-chair before the kitchen stove, his head in his hands.
"Law, Willie, are you up already?" she asked, as if unconscious of his nocturnal activities.
The reply was a wan smile.
"An' you've got the fire built, too," went on Celestina cheerily. "How nice!"
"Eh?" repeated he, giving her a vague stare. "The fire?"
"Yes. I was sayin' how good it was of you to start it up." The man gazed at her blankly.
"I ain't touched the fire," he answered. "I might have, though, as well as not, Tiny, if I'd thought of it."
"That's all right," Celestina declared, making haste to repair her blunder. "I've plenty of time to lay it myself. 'Twas only that when I saw you settin' up before it I thought mebbe you'd built it 'cause you were cold."
"I was cold," acquiesced Willie, his eyes misty with thought. "But I warn't noticin' there was no heat in the stove when I drew up here."
Celestina bit her lip. How characteristic the confession was!
"Well, there'll be a fire now very soon," said she, bustling out and returning with paper and kindlings. "The kitchen will be warm as toast in no time. An' I'll make you some hot coffee straight away. That will heat you up. This northerly wind blows the cobwebs out of the sky, but it does make it chilly."
Although Willie's eyes automatically followed her brisk motions and watched while she deftly started the blaze, it was easy to see that he was too deep in his own meditations to sense what she was doing. Perhaps had his mood not been such an abstract one he would have realized that he was directly in the main thoroughfare and obstructing the path between the pantry and the oven. As it was he failed to grasp the circumstance, and not wishing to disturb him, Celestina patiently circled before, behind and around him in her successive pilgrimages to the stove. Such situations were exigencies to which she was quite accustomed, her easy-going disposition quickly adapting itself to emergencies of the sort. So skilful was she in effacing her presence that Willie had no knowledge he was an obstacle until suddenly the iron door swung back of its own volition and in passing brushed his knuckles with its hot metal edge.
"Ouch!" cried he, starting up from his chair.
"What's the matter?" called Celestina from the pantry.
"Nothin'. The oven door sprung open, that's all."
"It didn't burn you?"
"N—o, but it made me jump," laughed Willie. "Why didn't you tell me, Tiny, that I was in your way?"
"You warn't in my way."
"But I must 'a' been," the man persisted. "You should 'a' shoved me aside in the beginnin'."
Stretching his arms upward with a comfortable yawn, he rose and sauntered toward the door.
"Now you're not to pull out of here, Willie Spence," Celestina objected in a peremptory tone, "until you've had your breakfast. You had none yesterday, remember, thanks to that pump; an' you had no dinner either, thanks to Zenas Henry's pump. You're goin' to start this day right. You're to have three square meals if I have to tag you all over Wilton with 'em. I don't know what it is you've got on your mind this time, but the world's worried along without it up to now, an' I guess it can manage a little longer."
Willie regarded his mentor good-humoredly.
"I figger it can, Celestina," he returned. "In fact, I reckon it will have to content itself fur quite a spell without the notion I've run a-foul of now."
Celestina offered no interrogation; instead she said, "Well, don't let it harrow you up; that's all I ask. If it's goin' to be a long-drawn-out piece of tinkerin', why there's all the more reason you should eat your three good meals like other Christians. Next you know you'll be gettin' run down, an' I'll be havin' to brew some dandelion bitters for you." She came to an abrupt stop half-way between the oven and the kitchen table, a bowl and spoon poised in her hand. "I ain't sure but it's time to brew you somethin' anyway," she announced. "You ain't had a tonic fur quite a spell an' mebbe 'twould do you good."
A helpless protest trembled on Willie's lips.
"I—I—don't think I need any bitters, Celestina," he at last observed mildly.
"You don't know whether you do or not," Celestina replied with as near an approach to sharpness as she was capable of. "However, there's no call to discuss that now. The chief thing this minute is for you to sit up to the table an' eat your victuals."
Docilely the man obeyed. He was hungry it proved, very hungry indeed. With satisfaction Celestina watched every spoonful of food he put to his lips, inwardly gloating as one muffin after another disappeared; and when at last he could eat no more and took his blackened cob pipe from his pocket, she drew a sigh of satisfaction.
"There now, if you want to go back to your inventin' you can," she remarked, as she began to clear away the dishes. "You've took aboard enough rations to do you quite a while."
Notwithstanding the permission Willie did not immediately avail himself of it but instead lingered uneasily as if something troubled his conscience.
"Say, Tiny," he blurted out at length, "if you happen around by the front door and miss the screen don't be scared an' think it's stole. I had to use it fur somethin' last night."
"The screen door?" gasped Celestina.
"Yes."
"But—but—Willie! The door was new this Spring; there wasn't a brack in it."
"I know it," was the calm answer. "That's why I took it."
"But you could have got nettin' over at the store to-day."
"I couldn't wait."
Celestina did not reply at once; but when she did she had herself well in hand, and every trace of irritation had vanished from her tone.
"Well, we don't often open that door, anyway," she reflected aloud, "so I guess no harm's done. It's a full year since anybody's come to the front door, an' like as not 'twill be another before—"
A jangling sound cut short the sentence.
"What's that?" exclaimed she aghast.
"It's a bell."
"I never heard a bell like that in this house."
"It's a bell I rigged up one day when you were gone to the Junction," exclaimed Willie hurriedly. "I thought I told you about it."
"You didn't."
"Well, no matter now," he went on soothingly.
"I meant to."
"Where is it?" demanded Celestina.
"It's in the hall. It's a new front-door bell, that's what it is," proclaimed the inventor, his voice lost in a second deafening peal.
"My soul! It's enough to wake the dead!" gasped Celestina, with hands on her ears. "I should think it could be heard from here to Nantucket. What set you gettin' a bell that size, Willie? 'Twould scare any caller who dared to come this way out of a year's growth. I'll have to go an' see who's there, if he ain't been struck dumb on the doorsill. Who ever can it be—comin' to the front door?"
With perturbed expectancy she hurried through the passageway, Willie tagging at her heels.
The infrequently patronized portal of the Spence mansion, it proved, was so securely barred and bolted that to unfasten it necessitated no little time and patience; even after locks and fastenings had been withdrawn and the door was at liberty to move, not knowing what to do with its unaccustomed freedom it refused to stir, stubbornly resisting every attempt to wrench its hinges asunder. It was not until the man and woman inside had combined their efforts and struggled with it for quite an interval that it contrived to creak apart far enough to reveal through a four-inch crack the figure of a young man who was standing patiently outside.
One could not have asked for a franker, merrier face than that which peered at Celestina through the narrow chink of sunshine. To judge at random the visitor had come into his manhood recently, for the brown eyes were alight with youthful humor and the shoulders unbowed by the burdens of the world. He had a mass of wavy, dark hair; a thoughtful brow; ruddy color; a pleasant mouth and fine teeth; and a tall, erect figure which he bore with easy grace.
"Is Miss Morton at home?" he asked, smiling at Celestina through the shaft of golden light.
Celestina hesitated. So seldom was she addressed by this formal pseudonym that for the instant she was compelled to stop and consider whether the individual designated was on the premises or not.
"Y—e—s," she at last admitted feebly.
"I wonder if I might speak with her," the stranger asked.
"Why don't you tell him you're Miss Morton," coached Willie, in a loud whisper.
But the man on the steps had heard.
"You're not Miss Morton, are you?" he essayed, "Miss Celestina Morton?"
"I expect I am," owned Celestina nervously.
"I'm your brother Elnathan's boy, Bob."
Celestina crumpled weakly against the door frame.
"Nate's boy!" she repeated. "Bless my soul! Bless my soul an' body!"
The man outside laughed a delighted laugh so infectious that before Celestina or Willie were conscious of it they had joined in its mellow ripple. After that everything was easy.
"We can't open the door to let you in," explained Willie, peering out through the rift, "'cause this blasted door ain't moved fur so long that its hinges have growed together; but if you'll come round to the back of the house you'll find a warmer welcome."
The guest nodded and disappeared.
"Land alive, Willie!" ejaculated Celestina while they struggled to replace the dislocated bars and bolts. "To think of Nate's boy appearin' here! I can't get over it! Nate's boy! Nate was my favorite brother, you know—the littlest one, that I brought up from babyhood. This lad is so completely the livin' image of him that when I clapped eyes on him it took the gimp clear out of me. It was like havin' Nate himself come back again."
With fluttering eagerness she sped through the hall.
Robert Morton was standing in the kitchen when she arrived, his head towering into the tangle of strings that crossed and recrossed the small interior. Whatever his impression of the extraordinary spectacle he evinced no curiosity but remained as imperturbable amid the network that ensnared him as if such astounding phenomena were everyday happenings. Nevertheless, a close observer might have detected in his hazel eyes a dancing gleam that defied control. Apparently it did not occur either to Willie or to Celestina to explain the mystery which had long since become to them so familiar a sight; therefore amid the barrage of red, green, purple, pink, yellow and white strings they greeted their guest, throwing into their welcome all the homely cordiality they could command.
From the first moment of their meeting it was noticeable that Willie was strongly attracted by Robert Morton's sensitive and intelligent face; and had he not been, for Celestina's sake he would have made an effort to like the newcomer. Fortunately, however, effort was unnecessary, for Bob won his way quite as uncontestedly with the little inventor as with Celestina. There was no question that his aunt was delighted with him. One could read it in her affectionate touch on his arm; in her soft, nervous laughter; in the tremulous inflection of her many questions.
"Your father couldn't have done a kinder thing than to have sent you to Wilton, Robert," she declared at last when quite out of breath with her rejoicings. "My, if you're not the mortal image of him as he used to be at your age! I can scarcely believe it isn't Nate. His forehead was high like yours, an' the hair waved back from it the same way; he had your eyes too—full of fun, an' yet earnest an' thoughtful. I ain't sure but you're a mite taller than he was, though."
"I top Dad by six inches, Aunt Tiny," smiled the young man.
"I guessed likely you did," murmured Celestina, with her eyes still on his face. "Now you must sit right down an' tell me all about yourself an' your folks. I want to know everything—where you come from; when you got here; how long you can stay, an' all."
"The last question is the only really important one," interrupted Willie, approaching the guest and laying a friendly hand on his shoulder. "The doin's of your family will keep; an' where you come from ain't no great matter neither. What counts is how long you can spare to visitin' Wilton an' your aunt. We ain't much on talk here on the Cape, but I just want you should know that there's an empty room upstairs with a good bed in it, that's yours long's you can make out to use it. Your aunt is a prime cook, too, an' though there's no danger of your mixin' up this place with Broadway or Palm Beach, I believe you might manage to keep contented here."
"I'm sure I could," Bob Morton answered, "and you're certainly kind to give me such a cordial invitation. I wasn't expecting to remain for any length of time, however. I came down from Boston, where I happened to be staying yesterday afternoon, and had planned to go back tonight. I've been doing some post-graduate work in naval engineering at Tech and have just finished my course there. So, you see, I'm really on my way home to Indiana. But Dad wrote that before I returned he wanted me to take a run down here and see Aunt Tiny and the old town where he was born, so here I am."
Willie scanned the stranger's face meditatively.
"Then you're clear of work, an' startin' off on your summer vacation."
"That's about it," confessed Bob.
"Anything to take you West right away?"
"N—o—nothing, except that the family have not seen me for some time. I've accepted a business position with a New York firm, but I don't start in there until October."
"You're your own master for four months, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I ain't a-goin' to urge you to put in your time here; but I will say again, in case you've forgotten it, that so long as you're content to remain with us we'd admire to have you. 'Twould give your aunt no end of pleasure, I'll be bound, an' I'd enjoy it as well as she would."
"You're certainly not considerin' goin' back to Boston today!" chimed in Celestina.
"I was," laughed Bob.
"You may as well put that notion right out of your head," said Willie, "for we shan't let you carry out no such crazy scheme."
"But to come launching down on you this way—" began the younger man.
"You ain't come launchin' down," objected his aunt with spirit. "We ain't got nothin' to do but inventin', an' I reckon that can wait."
Glancing playfully at Willie she saw a sudden light of eagerness flash into his countenance. But Bob, not understanding the allusion, looked from one of them to the other in puzzled silence.
"All right, Aunt Tiny," he at last announced, "if you an' Mr. Spence really want me to, I should be delighted to stay with you a few days. The fact is," he added with boyish frankness, "my suit case is down behind the rose bushes this minute. Having sent most of my luggage home, and not knowing what I should do, I brought it along with me."
"You go straight out, young man, an' fetch it in," commanded Willie, giving him a jocose slap on the back.
Nevertheless, in spite of the mandate, Robert Morton lingered.
"Do you know, Aunt Tiny, I'm almost ashamed to accept your hospitality," he observed with winning sincerity. "We've all been so rotten to you—never coming to see you or anything. Dad's terribly cut up that he hasn't made a single trip East since leaving Wilton."
The honest confession instantly quenched the last smouldering embers of Celestina's resentment toward her kin.
"Don't think no more of it!" she returned hurriedly. "Your father's been busy likely, an' so have you; an' anyhow, men ain't much on follerin' up their relations, or writin' to 'em. So don't say another word about it. I'm sure I've hardly given it a thought."
That the final assertion was false Robert Morton read in the woman's brave attempt to control the pitiful little quiver of her lips; nevertheless he blessed her for her deception.
"You're a dear, Aunt Tiny," he exclaimed heartily, stooping to kiss her cheek. "Had I dreamed half how nice you were, wild horses couldn't have kept me away from Wilton."
Celestina blushed with pleasure.
Very pretty she looked standing there in the window, her shoulders encircled by the arm of the big fellow who, towering above her, looked down into her eyes so affectionately. Willie couldn't but think as he saw her what a mother she would have made for some boy. Possibly something of the same regret crossed Celestina's own mind, for a shadow momentarily clouded her brow, and to banish it she repeated with resolute gaiety:
"Do go straight out an' bring in that suit case, Bob, or some straggler may steal it. An' put out of your mind any notion of goin' to Boston for the present. I'll show you which room you're to have so'st you can unpack your things, an' while you're washin' up I'll get you some breakfast. You ain't had none, have you?"
"No; but really, Aunt Tiny, I'm not—"
"Yes, you are. Don't think it's any trouble for it ain't—not a mite."
Willie beamed with good will.
"You've landed just in time to set down with us," he remarked. "We ain't had our breakfast, either."
Celestina wheeled about with astonishment. Willie's hospitality must have burst all bounds if it had lured him, who never deviated from the truth, into uttering a falsehood monstrous as this. One glance, however, at his placid face, his unflinching eye, convinced her that swept away by the interest of the moment the little old man had lost all memory of whether he had breakfasted or not.
She did not enlighten him.
"Mebbe it ain't honest to let him go on thinkin' he's had nothin' to eat," she whispered to herself, "but if all them muffins, an' oatmeal, an' coffee don't do nothin' toward remindin' him he's et once, I ain't goin' to do it. This second meal will make up fur the breakfast he missed yesterday. I ain't deceivin' him; I'm simply squarin' things up."
Before the morning had passed Bob Morton was as much at home in the little cottage that faced the sea as if he had lived there all his days. His property was spread out in the old mahogany bureau upstairs; his hat dangled from a peg in the hall; and he had exchanged his "city clothes" for the less conventional outing shirt and suit of blue serge, both of which transformed him into a figure amazingly slender and boyish. For two hours he and Celestina had rehearsed the family history from beginning to end; and now he had left her to get dinner, and he and Willie had betaken themselves to the workshop where they were deep in confidential conversation.
"You see," the inventor was explaining to his guest, "it's like this: it ain't so much that I want to bother with these notions as that I have to. They get me by the throat, an' there's no shakin' 'em off. Only yesterday, fur example, I got kitched with an idee about a boat—" he broke off, regarding his listener with sudden suspicion.
Bob waited.
Evidently Willie's scrutiny of the frank countenance opposite satisfied him, for dropping his voice he continued in an impressive whisper:
"About a motor-boat, this idee was."
Glancing around as if to assure himself that no one was within hearing, he hitched the barrel on which he was seated nearer his visitor.
"There's a sight of plague with motor-boats among these shoals," he went on eagerly. "What with the eel-grass that grows along the inlets an' the kelp that's washed in by the tide after a storm, the propeller of a motor-boat is snarled up a good bit of the time. Now my scheme," he announced, his last trace of reserve vanishing, "is to box that propeller somehow—if so be as it can be done—an'—," the voice trailed off into meditation.
Robert Morton, too, was silent.
"You would have to see that the wheel was kept free," he mused aloud after an interval.
"I know it."
"And not check the speed of the boat."
"Right you are, mate!" exclaimed Willie with delight.
"And not hamper the swing of the rudder."
"You have it! You have it!" Willie shouted, rubbing his hands together and smiling broadly. "It's all them things I'm up against."
"I believe the trick might be turned, though," replied young Morton, rising from the nail keg on which he was sitting and striding about the narrow room. "It's a pretty problem and one it would be rather good fun to work out."
"I'd need to rig up a model to experiment with, I s'pose," reflected Willie.
"Oh, we could fix that easily enough," Bob cried with rising enthusiasm.
"We?"
"Sure! I'll help you."
The announcement did not altogether reassure the inventor, and Bob laughed at the dubious expression of his face.
"Of course I'm only a dry-land sailor," he went on to explain good-humoredly, "and I do not begin to have had the experience with boats that you have. I did, however, study about them some at Tech and perhaps—"
"Study about 'em!" repeated Willie, unable wholly to conceal his scepticism and scorn.
Again the younger man laughed.
"I realize that is not like getting knowledge first-hand," he continued with modesty, "but it seemed the best I could do. As to this plan of yours, two heads are sometimes better than one, and between us I believe we can evolve an answer to the puzzle."
"That'll be prime!" Willie ejaculated, now quite comfortable in his mind. "An' when we get the answer to the riddle, Jan Eldridge will help us. You ain't met Jan yet, have you? He's the salt of the earth, Janoah Eldridge is. Him an' me are the greatest chums you ever saw. He mebbe has his peculiarities, like the rest of us. Who ain't? You'll likely find him kinder sharp-tongued at first, but he don't mean nothin' by it; and' he's quick, too—goes up like a rocket at a minute's notice. Folks down in town insist in addition that he's jealous as a girl, but I've yet to see signs of it. Fur all his little crochets you'll like Jan Eldridge. You can't help it. We're none of us angels—when it comes to that. Hush!" broke off Willie warningly. "I believe that's him now. Didn't you see a head go past the winder?"
"I thought I did."
"Then that's Jan. Nobody else would be comin' across the dingle. Now not a word of this motor-boat business to him," cautioned Willie, dropping his voice. "I never tell Jan 'bout my idees 'till I get 'em well worked out, for he's no great shakes at inventin'."
There was an instant of guilty silence, and then the two conspirators beheld a freckled face, crowned by a mass of rampant sandy hair, protrude itself through the doorway.
"Hi, Willie!" called the newcomer, unmindful of the presence of a stranger. "Well, how do you find yourself to-day? Ready to tackle another pump?"
With simulated indignation Willie bristled.
"Pump!" he repeated. "Don't you dare so much as to mention pumps in my hearin' fur six months, Janoah Eldridge. I've had my fill of pumps fur one spell."
The freckled face in the door expanded its smile into a grin that displayed the few scattered teeth adorning its owner's jaws.
"No," went on the inventor, "I ain't attackin' no pumps to-day. I'm sorter takin' a vacation. You see we've got company. Tiny's nephew, Bob Morton from Indiana, has come to stay with us. This is him on the nail keg."
Shuffling further into the room Jan peered inquisitively at the guest.
"So you're Tiny's nephew, eh?" he commented, examining the visitor's countenance with curiosity. "Well, well! To think of some of Tiny's relations turnin' up at last! Not that it ain't high time, I'll say that. Now which of the Mortons do you belong to, young man?"
"Elnathan."
"I might 'a' known first glance, for you're like him as his tintype."
Bob laughed.
"Aunt Tiny thinks I am, too."
"She'd oughter know," was the dry comment. "She had the plague of bringin' him up from the time he could toddle. I'm glad some of you have finally got round to comin' to see her. You've been long enough doin' it. I ain't so sure, though, but if I was in her place I'd—"
"There, there, Jan," interrupted Willie nervously, "why go diggin' up the past? The lad is here now an'—"
"But they have been the devil of a while takin' notice of Tiny," Janoah persisted, not to be coaxed away from his subject. "Why, 'twas only the other day when we was workin' out here that you yourself said the way her folks had neglected her was outrageous."
"And it was, too, Mr. Eldridge," confessed Bob, flushing. "Our whole family have treated Aunt Tiny shamefully. There is no excuse for it."
Before the honest admission of blame, Jan's mounting wrath grudgingly calmed itself.
"Well," he grumbled in a more conciliatory tone, "as Willie says, mebbe it's just as well not to go bringin' to life what's buried already. Like as not there may have been some good reason for your folks never comin' back to Wilton after once they'd left the place. Indiana's the devil of a distance away—'most at the other end of the world, ain't it? You might as well live in China as Indiana. I never could see anyway what took people out of Wilton. There ain't a better spot on earth to live than right here. Yet for all that, every one of the Mortons 'cept Tiny (who showed her good sense, in my opinion) went flockin' out of this town quick as they was growed, like as if they was a lot of swarmin' bees. I doubt myself, too, if they're a whit better off for it. Your father now—what does he make out to do in Indiana?"
"Father is in the grain business," replied Bob with a smile.
"The grain business, is he? An' likely he sets in an office all day long, in out of the fresh air," continued Jan with contempt. "Plumb foolish I call it, when he could be livin' in Wilton an' fishin', an' clammin', an' enjoying himself. That's the way with so many folks. They go kitin' off to the city to make money enough to buy one of them automobiles. You won't ketch me with an automobile—no, nor a motor-boat, neither; nor any other of them durn things that's goin' to set me livin' like as if I was shot out of the cannon's mouth. What's the good of bein' whizzed through life as if the old Nick himself was at your heels—workin' faster, eatin' faster, dyin' faster? I see nothin' to it—nothin' at all."
At the risk of rousing the philosopher's resentment, Bob burst into a peal of laughter.
"But ain't it so now, I ask you? Ain't it just as I say?" insisted Janoah Eldridge. "Argue as you will, what's the gain in it?"
To the speaker's apparent disappointment, the citizen from Indiana did not accept the challenge for argument but instead observed pleasantly:
"I'll wager you will outlive all us city people, Mr. Eldridge."
"Course I will," was the old man's confident retort. "I'll be a-sailin' in my dory when the whole lot of you motor-boat folks are under the sod. You see if I ain't! An' speakin' of motor-boats, Willie—I s'pose you ain't done nothin toward tacklin' Zenas Henry's tribulations with that propeller, have you?"
The question was unexpected, and Willie colored uncomfortably. He was not good at dissembling.
"'Twould mean quite a bit of thinkin' to get Zenas Henry out of his troubles," returned he evasively. "'Tain't so simple as it looks."
Moving abruptly to the work-bench he began to overturn at random the tools lying upon it.
Something in this unusual proceeding arrested Jan's attention, causing him to glance with suspicion from Robert Morton to the inventor, and from the inventor back to Robert Morton again. The elder man was whistling "Tenting To-night," an air that had never been a favorite of his; and the younger, with self-conscious zeal, was shredding into bits a long curl of shavings.
Jan eyed both of them with distrust
"I figger we're goin' to have a spell of fine weather now," remarked Willie with jaunty artificiality.
The offhand assertion was too casual to be real. Cloud and fog were not dealt with in this cursory fashion in Wilton. It clinched Jan's doubts into certainty. Something was being kept from him, something of which this stranger, who had only been in the town a few hours, was cognizant. For the first time in fifty years another had usurped his place as Willie's confidant. It was monstrous! A tremor of jealous rage thrilled through his frame, and he stiffened visibly.
"I reckon I'll be joggin' along home," said he, moving with dignity toward the door.
"But you've only just come, Jan," protested Willie.
"I didn't come fur nothin' but to leave this hammer," Jan answered, placing the implement on the long bench before which his friend was standing.
"Maybe there was something you wanted to see Mr. Spence about," ventured Bob. "If there was I will—"
"No, there warn't," snapped Janoah. "Mister Spence ain't got nothin' confidential to say to me—whatever he may have to say to other folks," and with this parting thrust he shot out of the door.
Bob gave a low whistle.
"What's the matter with the man?" he asked in amazement.
Willie flushed apologetically.
"Nothin'—nothin' in the world!" he answered. "Jan gets like that sometimes. Don't you remember I told you he was kinder quick. It's just possible it may have bothered him to see me talkin' to you. Don't mind him."
"Do you think he suspected anything?"
"Mercy, no! Not he!" responded Willie comfortably. "He's liable to fly off the handle like that a score of times a day. Don't you worry 'bout him. He'll be back before the mornin's over."
Nevertheless, sanguine as this prediction was, the hours wore on, and Janoah Eldridge failed to make his appearance. In the meantime Bob and Willie became so deeply engrossed in their new undertaking that they were oblivious to his absence. They worked feverishly until noon, devoured a hurried meal, and returned to the shop again, there to resume their labors. By supper time they had made quite an encouraging start on the model they required, their combined efforts having accomplished in a single day what it would have taken Willie many an hour to perfect.
The inventor was jubilant.
"Little I dreamed when you came to the front door, Bob, what I was nettin'!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand vigorously on the young man's shoulder. "You're a regular boat-builder, you are. The moon might 'a' pogeed an' perigeed before I'd 'a' got as fur along as we have to-day. How you've learned all you have about boats without ever goin' near the water beats me. Now you ain't a-goin' to think of quittin' Wilton an' leavin' me high an' dry with this propeller idee, are you? 'Twould be a downright shabby trick."
Bob smiled into the old man's anxious face.
"I can't promise to see you to the finish for I must be back home before many days, or I'll have my whole family down on me. Besides, I have some business in New York to attend to," he said kindly. "But I will arrange to stick around until the job is so well under way that you won't need me. I am quite as interested in making the scheme a success as you are. All is you mustn't let me wear out my welcome and be a burden to Aunt Tiny."
"Law, Tiny'll admire to have you stay long as you can, if only because you drag me into the house at meal time," chuckled Willie.
"At least I can do that," Bob returned.
"You can do that an' a durn sight more, youngster," the inventor declared with earnestness. "I ain't had the pleasure I've had to-day in all my life put together. To work with somebody as has learned the right way to go ahead—it's wonderful. When me an' Jan tackle a job, we generally begin at the wrong end of it an' blunder along, wastin' time an' string without limit. If we hit it right it's more luck than anything else."
Robert Morton, watching the mobile face, saw a pitiful sadness steal into the blue eyes. A sudden shame surged over him.
"I ought to be able to do far more with my training than I have done," he answered humbly. "Dad has given me every chance."
"Think of it!" murmured Willie, scrutinizing him with hungering gaze. "Think of havin' every chance to learn!"
For an interval he smoked in silence.
"Well," he asserted at length, "you've sure proved to-day that brains with trainin' are better'n brains without. Now if Jan an' me—" he broke off abruptly. "There! I wonder what in tunket's become of Jan," he speculated. "We've been so busy that he went clean out of my mind. It's queer he didn't show up again. He ain't stayed away for a whole day in all history. Mebbe he's took sick. I believe I'll trudge over there an' find out what's got him. I mustn't go to neglectin' Jan, inventin' or no inventin'."
He rose from his chair wearily.
"I reckon a note would do as well, though, as goin' over," he presently remarked as an afterthought. "I could send one in the box an' ask him to drop round an' set a spell before bedtime."
He caught up a piece of brown paper from the workbench, tore a ragged corner from it, and hastily scrawled a message.
Bob watched the process with amusement.
"There!" announced the scribe when the epistle was finished. "I reckon that'll fetch him. We'll put it in the box an' shoot it across to him."
Notwithstanding the dash implied in the term, it took no small length of time for the diminutive receptacle to hitch its way through the fields. The two men watched it jiggle along above the bushes of wild roses, through verdant clumps of fragrant bayberry, and disappear into the woods. Then they sat down to await Jan's appearance.
The twilight was rarely beautiful. In a sky of palest turquoise a crescent moon hung low, its arc of silver poised above the tips of the stunted pines, whose feathery outlines loomed black in the dusk. From out the dimness the note of a vesper sparrow sounded and mingled its sweetness with the faintly breathing ocean.
The men on the doorstep smoked silently, each absorbed in his own reveries.
How peaceful it was there in the stillness, with the hush of evening descending like a benediction on the darkening earth!
Bob sighed with contentment. His year of hard study was over, and now that his well-earned rest had come he was surprised to discover how tired he was. Already the peace of Wilton was stealing over him, its dreamy atmosphere almost too beautiful to be real. From where he sat he could see the trembling lights of the village jewelling the rim of the bay like a circlet of stars. A man might do worse, he reflected, than remain a few days in this sleepy little town. He liked Willie and Celestina, too; indeed, he would have been without a heart not to have appreciated their simple kindliness. Why should he hurry home? Would not his father rejoice should he be content to stay and make his aunt a short visit? There was no need to bind himself for any definite length of time; he would merely drift and when he found himself becoming bored flee. To be sure, about the last thing he had intended when setting forth to the Cape was to linger there. He had come hither with unwilling feet solely to please his parents, and having paid his respects to his unknown relative he meant to depart West as speedily as decency would permit, reasoning that it would be a mutual relief when the visit was over.
But a single day in the cozy little house at the water's edge had served to convince him how erroneous had been his premises. Instead of being tiresome, his Aunt Celestina was proving a delightful acquisition, toward whom he already found himself cherishing a warm regard. And what a cook she was! After months of city food her bread, pies, and cookies were ambrosial.
As for Willie—Bob had never before beheld so gentle, ingenuous and lovable a personality. Undoubtedly the little inventor had genius. What a pity he had been cheated of the opportunity for cultivating it! There was something pathetic in the way he reached out for the knowledge life had denied him; it reminded one of a patient child who asks for water to slake his thirst.
If, for some inscrutable reason, fortune had granted him, Robert Morton, the chance denied this groping soul, was it not almost an obligation that, in so far as he was able, he should place at the other's disposal the fruits of the education that had been his?
Presumably this motor-boat idea would not amount to much, for if such an invention were plausible and of value, doubtless a score of nautical authorities would have seized upon it long before now. But to work at the plan would give the gentle dreamer in the silver-gray cottage happiness, and after all happiness was not to be despised. If together he and Willie could make tangible the notion that existed in the latter's brain, the deed was certainly worth the doing. Moreover the process would be an entertaining one, and after its completion he might go away with a sense of having brightened at least one horizon by his coming.
Thus reasoned Robert Morton as in the peace of that June evening he casually shuffled the cards of fate, little suspecting that already a factor in his destiny stronger than any of his arguments was soon to make its influence felt and transform Wilton into a magnet so powerful that against its spell he would be helpless as a child.
He was aroused from his meditations by the voice of Willie.
"Didn't you hear a little bell?" demanded the inventor. "A sort of tinklin' noise?"
"I thought I did."
"It's the box comin' from Jan's," explained he. "Can you kitch a sight of it?"
"I see it now."
Rising, the old man tugged at the string, urging the reluctant messenger through the tangle of roses.
"By his writin' a note, I figger he ain't comin' over," he remarked, as the object drew nearer. "I wonder what's stuck in his crop! Mebbe Mis' Eldridge won't let him out. She's something of a Tartar—Arabella is. Jan has to walk the plank, I can tell you."
By this time the cigar box swaying on the taut twine was within easy reach. Willie raised its cover and took from its interior a crumpled fragment of paper.
"Humph! He's mighty savin'!" he commented as he turned the missive over. "He's writ on the other side of my letter. Let's see what he has to say:
"'Can't come. Busy.'
"Well, did you ever!" gasped he, blankly. "Busy! Good Lord! Jan's never been known to be busy in all his life. He don't even know the feelin'. If Janoah Eldridge is busy, all I've got to say is, the world's goin' to be swallered up by another deluge."
"Maybe, as you suggested, Mrs. Eldridge—"
"Oh, if it had been Mis' Eldridge, he wouldn't 'a' took the trouble to send no such message as that," broke in Willie. "He'd simply 'a' writArabella; there wouldn't 'a' been need fur more. No, sir! Somethin's stepped on Jan's shadder, an' to-morrow I'll have to go straight over there an' find out what it is."
The next morning, after loitering uneasily about the workshop a sufficiently long time for Janoah Eldridge to make his appearance and finding that his crony did not make his appearance, Willie reluctantly took his worn visor cap down from the peg and drew it over his brows, with the remark:
"Looks like Jan ain't headed this way to-day, either." He cast a troubled glance through the dusty, multi-paned window of the shed. "Much as I'm longin' to go ahead with this model, Bob, before I go farther I've simply got to step over to the Eldridges an' straighten him out. There's no help fur it."
"All right. Go ahead, Sir," reassuringly returned Bob. "I'll work while you're gone. Things won't be at a complete standstill."
"I know that," Willie replied with a pleasant smile. "'Tain't that that's frettin' me. It's just that I don't relish the notion of shovin' my job onto your shoulders. 'Tain't as if you'd come to Wilton to spend your time workin'. Celestina hinted last evenin' she was afraid you bid fair to get but mighty little rest out of your vacation. 'Twas unlucky, she thought, that you hove into port just when I happened to be kitched with a bigger idee than common."
"Nonsense!" Bob protested heartily. "Don't you and Aunt Tiny give yourselves any uneasiness about me. I'm happy. I enjoy fussing round the shop with you, Mr. Spence. I'd far rather you took me into what you're doing than left me out. Besides, I don't intend to work every minute while I'm here. Some fine day I mean to steal off by myself and explore Wilton. I may even take a day's fishing."
"That's right, youngster, that's right!" ejaculated Willie. "That's the proper spirit. If you'll just feel free to pull out when you please it will take a load off my mind, an' I shall turn to tinkerin' with a clear conscience."
"I will, I promise you."
"Then that's settled," sighed the inventor with relief. "I must say you're about the best feller ever was to come a-visitin', Bob. You ain't a mite of trouble to anybody."
With eyes still fastened on the bench with its chaos of tools, the old man moved unwillingly toward the door; but on the threshold he paused.
"I'll be back quick's I can," he called. "Likely I'll bring Jan in tow. I'd full as lief not tell him what we're doin' 'til next week if I had my choice; still, things bein' as they are, mebbe it's as well not to shut him out any longer. He gets miffed easy an' I wouldn't have his feelin's hurt fur a pot of lobsters."
With a gentle smile he waved his hand and was gone.
Left alone in the long, low-studded room, Bob rolled up his sleeves and to a brisk whistle began to plane down some pieces of thin board.
The bench at which he worked stood opposite a broad window from which, framed in a wreath of grapevine, he could see the bay and the shelving dunes beyond it. A catboat, with sails close-hauled, was making her way out of the channel, a wake of snowy foam churning behind her in the blue water. Through the door of the shed swept a breeze that rustled the shavings on the floor and blended the fragrance of newly cut wood with the warm perfume of sweet fern from the adjoining meadow.
For all its untidiness and confusion, its litter of boards, tools and battered paint pots, the shop was unquestionably one of the most homey corners of the Spence cottage. Its rough, unsheathed walls, mellowed to a dull buff tone, were here and there adorned with prints culled by Willie from magazines and newspapers. Likenesses of Lincoln and Roosevelt flanked the windows with an American flag above them, and a series of battleships and army scenes beneath. The inventor's taste, however, had not run entirely to patriotic subjects, for scattered along the walls, where shelves sagged with their burden of oilcans, putty, nails and fishing tackle, were a variety of nautical reproductions in color—a prize yacht heeling in the wind; a reach of rough sea whose giant combers swirled about a wreck; glimpses of marsh and dune typical of the land of the Cape dweller.
An air-tight stove, the solitary defence against cold and storm, stood in the corner, and before its rusty hearth a rickety chair and an overturned soap box were suggestively placed. But perhaps what told an observer more about Willie Spence than did anything else was a bunch of rarely beautiful sabbatia blooming in a pickle bottle and a wee black kitten who disported herself unmolested among the tools cluttering the deeply scarred workbench.
She was a mischievous kitten, a spoiled kitten; one who vented her caprice on everything that had motion. Did a curl of shavings drop to the ground, instantly Jezebel was at hand to catch it up in her diminutive paws; toss it from her; steal up and fall upon it again; and dragging it between her feet, roll over and over with it in a mad orgy of delight. A shadow, a string, a flicker of metal was the signal for a frolic. Let one's mood be austere as a monk's, with a single twist of her absurdly tiny body this small creature shattered its gravity to atoms. There was no such thing as dignity in Jezebel's presence. Already three times Bob Morton had lifted the mite off the table and three times back she had come, leaping in the path of his gleaming plane as if its metallic whir and glimmering reflections were designed solely for her amusement. In spite of his annoyance the man had laughed and now, stooping, he caught up the tormentor and held her aloft.
"You minx!" he cried, shaking the sprite gently. "What do you think I am here for—to play with you?"
The kitten blinked at him out of her round blue eyes.
"You'll be getting your fur mittens cut off the next thing you know," went on Bob severely. "Scamper out of here!"
He set the little creature on the floor, aimed her toward the doorway and gave her a stimulating push.
With a coquettish leap headlong into the sunshine darted Jezebel, only to come suddenly into collision with a stranger who had crossed the grass and was at that instant about to enter the workshop.
The newcomer was a girl, tall and slender, with lustrous masses of dark hair that swept her cheek in wind-tossed ringlets. She had a complexion vivid with health, an undignified little nose and a mouth whose short upper lip lent to her face a half childish, half pouting expression. But it was in her eyes that one forgot all else,—eyes large, brown, and softly deep, with a quality that held the glance compellingly. Her gown of thin pink material dampened by the sea air clung to her figure in folds that accentuated her lithe youthfulness, and as she stumbled over the kitten in full flight she broke into a delicious laugh that showed two rows of pretty, white teeth and lured from hiding an alluring dimple.
"You ridiculous little thing!" she exclaimed, snatching up the fleeing culprit before she could make her escape and placing her in the warm curve of her neck. "Do you know you almost tripped me up? Where are your manners?"
Jezebel merely stared. So did Robert Morton.
The girl and the kitten were too disconcerting a spectacle. By herself Jezebel was tantalizing enough; but in combination with the creature who stood laughing on the threshold, the sight was so bewildering that it not only overwhelmed but intoxicated.
It was evident the visitor was unconscious of his presence, for instead of addressing him, she continued to toy with the wisp of animation snuggled against her cheek.
"I do believe, Willie," she observed, without glancing up, "that Jezebel grows more fascinating every time I see her."
Bob did not answer. He was in no mood to discuss Jezebel. If he thought of her at all it was to contrast her inky fur with the white throat against which she nestled and speculate as to whether she sensed what a thrice-blessed kitten she was. It did flash through his mind as he stood there that the two possessed a bewitching, irresistible something in common, a something he was at a loss to characterize. It did not matter, however, for he could not have defined even the simplest thing at the moment, and this attribute of the kitten's and the girl's was very complex.
Perhaps it was the silence that at last caused the visitor to raise her eyes and look at him inquiringly. Then he saw a tremor of surprise sweep over her, and a wave of crimson surge into her face.
"I beg your pardon," she gasped. "I thought Willie was here."
"Mr. Spence has stepped over to the Eldredges'. I'm expecting him back every instant," Bob returned.
The girl's lashes fell. They were long and very beautiful as they lay in a fringe against her cheek, yet exquisite as they were he longed to see her eyes again.
"I'm Miss Morton's nephew from Indiana," the young man managed to stammer, feeling some explanation might bridge the gulf of embarrassment. "I am visiting here."
"Oh!"
Persistently she studied the toe of her shoe. If Bob had thought her appealing before, now, demure against the background of budding apple trees, with a shaft of sunlight on her hair, and the kitten cuddled against her breast, she put to rout the few intelligent ideas remaining to the young man.
Wonderingly, helplessly, he watched while she continued to caress the minute creature in her arms.
"Are you staying here long?" she asked at length, gaining courage to look up.
"I—eh—yes; that is—I hope so," Bob answered with sudden fervor.
"You like Wilton then."
"Tremendously!"
"Most strangers think the place has great beauty," observed his guest innocently.
"There's more beauty here in Wilton than I ever saw before in all my life," burst out Bob, then stopped suddenly and blushed.
His listener dimpled.
"Really?" she remarked, raising her delicately arched brows. "You are enthusiastic about the Cape, aren't you!"
"Some parts of it."
"Where else have you been?"
The question came with disturbing directness.
"Oh—why—Middleboro, Tremont, Buzzard's Bay and Harwich," answered the man hurriedly. As he named the list he was conscious that it smacked rather too suggestively of a brakeman's, and he saw she thought so too, for she turned aside to hide a smile.
"You might sit down; won't you?" he suggested, eager that she should not depart.
Flecking the dust from the soap box with his handkerchief, he dragged it forward and placed it near the workbench.
As she bent her head to accept the crude throne with a queen's graciousness, Jezebel, roused into playful humor, thrust forth her claws and, encountering Bob as he rose from his stooping posture, fixed them with random firmness in his necktie.
Now it chanced that the tie was a four-in-hand of raw silk, very choice in color but of a fatally loose oriental weave; and once entangled in its meshes the task of extricating its delicate threads from the clutch that gripped them seemed hopeless. It apparently failed to dawn on either of the young persons brought into such embarrassingly close contact by the dilemma that the kitten could be handed over to Bob; or that the tie might be removed. Instead they drew together, trying vainly to liberate the struggling Jezebel from her imprisonment. It was not a simple undertaking and to add to its difficulties the ungrateful beast, irritated by their endeavors, began to protest violently.
"She'll tear your tie all to pieces," cried the stranger.
"No matter. I don't mind, if she doesn't scratch you."
"Oh, I am not afraid of her. If you can hold her a second longer, I think I can free the last claw."
As the girl toiled at her precarious mission, Bob could feel her warm breath fan his cheek and could catch the fragrant perfume of her hair. So far as he was concerned, Jezebel might retain her hold on his necktie forever. But, alas, the slim, white fingers were too deft and he heard at last a triumphant:
"There!"
At the same instant the offending kitten was placed on the floor.
"You little monkey!" cried the man, smiling down at the furry object at his feet.
"Isn't she!" echoed the visitor sympathetically. "There she goes, the imp! What is left of your tie? Let me look at it."
"It's all right, thank you."
"There is just one thread ruffed up. I could fix it if I had a pin."
From her gown she produced one, but as she did so a spray of wild roses slipped to the ground.
"You've dropped your flowers," said Bob, picking them up.
"Have I? Thank you. They are withered, anyway, I'm afraid."
Tossing the rosebuds on the bench, she began to draw into smoothness the silken loop that defaced the tie.
"There!" she exclaimed, glancing up into his eyes and tilting her head critically to one side. "That is ever so much better. You would hardly notice it. Now I really must go. I have bothered you quite enough."
"You have not bothered me at all," contradicted Bob emphatically.
"But I know I must have," she protested. "I've certainly delayed you. Besides, it doesn't look as if Willie was coming back."
"Isn't there something I can do for you?"
"No, thank you. It was nothing important. In fact, it doesn't matter at all. I just came to see if he could fix the clasp of my belt buckle. It is broken, and he is so clever at mending things that I thought perhaps he could mend this."
"Let me see it."
"Oh, I couldn't think of troubling you."
"But I should be glad to fix it if I could. If not, I could at least hand it over to Willie's superior skill."
She laughed.
"I'm not certain whether Willie's skill is superior," was her arch retort.
"Why not make a test case and find out?"
Still she hesitated.
"You're afraid to trust your property to me," Bob said, piqued by her indecision.
"No, I'm not," was the quick response. "See? Here is the belt."
She drew from her pocket a narrow strip of white leather to which a handsome silver buckle was attached and placed it in his hand.
He took it, inspected its fastening and looked with beating pulse at the girdle's slender span.
"Do you think it can be mended?" she inquired anxiously.
"Of course it can."
"Oh, I'm so glad!"
"Give me a few days and you shall have it back as good as new."
"That will be splendid!" Her eyes shone with starry brightness. "You see," she went on, "it was given me on my birthday by my—my—by some one I care a great deal for—by my—" she stopped, embarrassed.
Robert Morton was too well mannered to put into words the interrogation that trembled on his lips, but he might as well have done so, so transparent was the questioning glance that traveled to her left hand in search of the telltale solitaire. Even though his search was not rewarded, he felt certain that the hand concealed in the folds of her dress wore the fatal ring. Of course, mused he, with a shrug, he might have guessed it. No such beauty as this was wandering unclaimed about the world. Well, her fiancé, whoever he might be, was a lucky devil! Without doubt, confound his impudence, his arm had traveled the pathway of that band of leather scores of times.
One couldn't blame the dog! For want of a better vent for his irritation, Bob took up the belt and again examined it. He had been quite safe in boasting that the bauble should be returned to its owner as good as new, for although he did not confess it, on its silver clasp he had discovered the manufacturer's name. If the buckle could not be repaired, another of similar pattern should replace it. Unquestionably he was a fool to go to this trouble and expense for nothing. Yet was it quite for nothing? Was it not worth while to win even a smile from this creature whose approval gave one the sense of being knighted? True, titles meant but little in these days of democracy but when bestowed by such royalty— She broke in on his reverie by extending her hand. "Good-by," she said. "You have been very kind, Mr.—"
"My name is Morton—Bob Morton."
"Why! Then you must be the son of Aunt Tiny's brother?"
"Aunt Tiny!"
As she laughed he saw again the ravishing dimple and her even, white teeth.
"Oh, she isn't my real aunt," she explained. "I just call her that because I am so fond of her. I adore both her and Willie."
"Who is takin' my name in vain?" called a cheery voice, as the little inventor rounded the corner of the shed and entered the room. "Delight—as I live! I might 'a' known it was you. Well, well, dear child, if I'm not glad to see you."
He placed his hands on her shoulders and beamed into her blushing face while she bent and spread the loops of his soft tie out beneath his chin.
"How nice of you, Willie dear, to come back before I had gone!" she said, arranging the bow with exaggerated care.
"Bless your heart, I'd 'a' come back sooner had I known you were here," declared he affectionately. "What brings you, little lady?"
She pointed to the trinket dangling from Robert Morton's grasp.
"I snapped the clasp of my belt buckle, Willie—that lovely silver buckle Zenas Henry gave me," she confessed with contrition. "How do you suppose I could have been so careless? I have been heart-broken ever since."
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" cried the old man, patting her hand. "Don't go grievin' over a little thing like that. 'Tain't worth it. Break all the buckles ever was made, but not your precious heart, my dear. Like as not the thing can be mended."
"Mr. Morton says it can."
"If Bob says so, it's as good as done already," replied Willie reassuringly. "He's a great one with tools. Why, if he was to stay in Wilton, he'd be cuttin' me all out. So you an' he have been gettin' acquainted, eh, while I was gone? That's right. I want he should know what nice folks we've got in Wilton 'cause it's his first visit to the Cape, an' if he don't like us mebbe he'll never come again."
"I thought Mr. Morton had visited other places on Cape Cod," observed Delight, darting a mischievous glance at the abashed young man opposite.
"No, indeed!" blundered Willie. "He ain't been nowheres. Somebody's got to show him all the sights. Mebbe if you get time you'll take a hand in helpin' educate him."
"I should be glad to!"
Notwithstanding the prim response and her unsmiling lips, the young man had a discomfited presentiment that she was laughing at him, and even the farewell she flashed to him over her shoulder had a hectoring quality in it that did not altogether restore his self-esteem.
"Who is she?" he gasped, when he had watched her out of sight.
"That girl? Do you mean to say you don't know—an' you a-talkin' to her half the mornin'?" demanded the old man with amazement. "Why, it never dawned on me to introduce you to her. I thought of course you knew already who she was. Everybody in town knows Delight Hathaway, an' loves her, too," he added softly. "She's Zenas Henry's daughter, the one he brought ashore from theMichleenan' adopted."
"Oh!"
A light began to break in on Bob's understanding.
"It's Zenas Henry's motor-boat we're tinkerin' with now," went on Willie.
"I see!"
He waited eagerly for further information, but evidently his host considered he had furnished all the data necessary, for instead of enlarging on the subject he approached the bench and began to inspect the model.
"I s'pose, with her bein' here, you didn't get ahead much while I was gone," he ventured, an inflection of disappointment in his tone.
"No, I didn't."
"I didn't accomplish nothin', either," the little old man went on. "Jan warn't to home; he'd gone fishin'."
His companion did not reply at once.
"I don't quite get my soundin's on Jan," he at length ruminated aloud. "Somethin's wrong with him. I feel it in my bones."
"Perhaps not."
"There is, I tell you. I know Janoah Eldridge from crown to heel, an' it ain't like him to go off fishin' by himself."
"I shouldn't fret about it if I were you," Bob said in an attempt to comfort the disquieted inventor. "I'm sure he'll turn up all right."
Had the conversation been of a three-master in a gale; of buried treasure; or of the ultimate salvation of the damned, the speaker would at that moment have been equally optimistic.
The universe had suddenly become too radiant a place to harbor calamity. Wilton was a paradise like the first Eden—a garden of smiles, of dimples, of blushing cheeks—and of silver buckles.
He began to whistle softly to himself; then, sensing that Willie was still unconvinced by his sanguine prediction, he added:
"And even if Mr. Eldridge shouldn't come back, I guess you and I could manage without him."
"That's all very well up to a certain point, youngster," was the retort. "But who's goin' to see me through this job after you've taken wing?"
He pointed tragically to the beginnings of the model.
"Maybe I shan't take wing," announced Bob, looking absently at the cluster of withered roses in his hand. "You—you see," he went on, endeavoring to speak in off-hand fashion, "I've been thinking things over and—and—I've about come to the conclusion—"
"Yes," interrupted Willie eagerly.
"That it is perhaps better for me to stay here until we get the invention completed."
"You don't mean until the thing's done!"
"If it doesn't take too long, yes."
"Hurray!" shouted his host. "That's prime!" he rubbed his hands together. "Under those conditions we'll pitch right in an' scurry the work along fast as ever we can."
Robert Morton looked chagrined.
"I don't know that we need break our necks to rush the thing through at a pace like that," he said, fumbling awkwardly with the flowers. "A few weeks more or less wouldn't make any great difference."
"But I thought you said it was absolutely necessary for you to go home—that you had important business in New York—that—" the old man broke off dumbfounded.
Bob shook his head. "Oh, no, I think my affairs can be arranged," was the sanguine response. "A piece of work like this would give me lots of valuable experience, and I'm not sure but it is my duty to—"
The little old inventor scanned the speaker's flushed cheeks, his averted eye and the drooping blossoms in his hand; then his brow cleared and he smiled broadly:
"Duty ain't to be shunned," announced he with solemnity. "An' as for experience, take it by an' large, I ain't sure but what you'll get a heap of it by lingerin' on here—more, mebbe, than you realize."