“HE’S ALMOST AS MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER AS I AM.”
“HE’S ALMOST AS MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER AS I AM.”
283
“Oh, yes,” said Barnes, readily, “and if it hadn’t been for me he might have kidnapped her. He’s almost as madly in love with her as I am––you will have to excuse me a moment, I think I see that man Ryan.”
The shackled young man suddenly darted out of the room, followed by Sadie, who seemed irresistibly drawn in his wake.
Mrs. Burton looked after them helplessly. A suspicion suddenly flashed in her brain and she turned back to Gladwin.
“I feel sure that you are deceiving me,” she charged him, “and that that other young man is Travers Gladwin. You can’t tell me that his wrists were not handcuffed, for I just saw them.”
“You are entirely mistaken,” Gladwin returned soberly. “If you will kindly step out into the music room I will show you a modest portrait of myself that was painted three years ago by an eminent American artist. Helen you will pardon us for just a moment,” and he turned with a broad smile that won him a smile in return, for the humor of the situation had gradually beaten down whatever other emotions stirred in the girl’s breast.
Like one reluctantly led in a dream, Mrs. Burton allowed Gladwin to escort her into the music room outside and conduct her to a painting that hung in an obscure corner of the room.
“Do you think it flatters me?” he asked, as she regarded it dumbly.
284
She looked at him curiously and then back at the portrait, then shook her head and muttered:
“There’s a mystery here somewhere. You are all banded together in a conspiracy. I do not know whom to believe. But it has gone far enough. We will go back to Omaha to-morrow. I had no idea New York was such a terrible place. Why are all these policemen running about?”
“Mainly in your interest,” responded Gladwin quickly, “but if you will consent not to send me to jail I will get them out of the house and keep the unhappy termination of my romance out of the newspapers.”
“Of course, it must not get in the newspapers,” cried the horrified Mrs. Burton.
“Then, madam, if you will go back to Helen and promise not to be too hard with her I will attend to it.”
“Was your father’s name Edwin Gladwin?” asked Mrs. Burton, looking at him with a swift change of expression as he led her back to the room he called his den.
“Yes,” said the young man, “but if you will excuse me I will endeavor to get rid of all these policemen.”
He suddenly darted from her and descended the stairs.
285CHAPTER XLI.THE ESCAPE.
While he had not the slightest notion where the picture expert had managed to conceal himself during his own enforced absence from the scene of the chase, Travers Gladwin was confident that the man was capable of outwitting an army of the sort of man-hunters who were swarming within and without the aristocratic premises.
When he caught sight of Whitney Barnes and Sadie in a tender confab that was just about to frond out into the full foliage of a romantic climax, it was on his tongue to bid them carry their hearts upstairs and string them together in a more secluded spot. They beat him to his own suggestion, and were gone before he could utter a syllable.
He had the great drawing room and picture gallery to himself and was scanning every corner of it when a voice punctuated the silence.
“Ah, Mr. Gladwin!”
The young man turned quickly and saw what he at first mistook for a uniformed constable emerge from the portières that screened the window.
286
“Well, if it isn’t”––he began in gaping surprise.
“Murphy, sorr, only a tighter fit.” Wilson stepped through the curtains twirling his club.
“So you are 666 now, eh?” Gladwin blurted. “And Phelan”–––
“The gentleman who belongs in this tight-fitting frock? Oh, he’s still about.”
“And you managed to bribe him?”
“Not exactly that, Mr. Gladwin––say I persuaded him.”
“My hat is off to you again,” exclaimed the young man, “but don’t waste any time. You can get away easily in that uniform––quick, and good luck.”
“I never hurry in these cases,” returned the thief, with an air of calm indifference. “You see, I have an idea that the Captain and Kearney are waiting for me at the front door, for they made a loud declaration that they were going to search the cellar. I have had similar experiences, my young friend.”
“But they won’t leave the front door, and they may burst in here at any moment,” protested Gladwin.
“But they will leave the front door when I want them to,” said the other, softly.
“By jove, you’re a wonderful chap!”
“I’ve got to be to keep out of jail.”
“It’s a shame that you misdirect your energies and genius,” said the young man, earnestly.
“But you must acknowledge that I work hard for what I get.”
287
“Yes, I do.”
“And I really love pictures.”
“For themselves?”
“H’m, yes––for themselves.”
Travers Gladwin stood frowning at the floor for a moment, then looked up quickly.
“See here, then––you’ve worked mighty hard for my pictures and I’m going to give you a few of the best of them. Here!” And Gladwin stepped over to the corner of the room where the trunk had been dropped and picked up a bundle of canvases.
The picture expert wore a broad grin as the young man came toward him. He waved aside the proffered bundle and said:
“Those are not the best of them. Just a minute.”
He reached behind him and pulled down from under his belted coat a similar carefully rolled bundle.
“These are the gems of your collection,” he said grimly, offering the slim roll of canvases. “I can’t keep them now––you’ve been too white about this whole thing. I couldn’t even accept ‘The Blue Boy.’”
Gladwin refused to accept the paintings and the thief laid them down on the table. Stepping closer to the young man, he bent down and said low and earnestly:
“When a man goes wrong, Gladwin, and the going leans against the lines of least resistance, it’s easier to keep on going than to stop and switch off into the hard and narrow path. He is always hoping that288something will take hold of him and set him right, and that hope usually involves a woman.
“I’ve been dreaming lately that I wanted something to set me going in the right direction, but it seems that you have beaten me to that, or are on the fair road to do it. The trouble is that I have forgotten how to go about a clean thing cleanly.”
“I’m mighty sorry, but”–––Gladwin started.
“But you’re also mighty glad.”
“I shall always remember you, Wilson, and here’s my hand on it that I shall always be willing to help you up and out of the––the”–––
“The muck!” supplied the thief, accepting Gladwin’s hand and gripping it.
“However, we are wasting time and keeping the ladies up till an unconscionable hour. If you will get your little Jap down here without making a noise about it, I can use him and bid you good-night.”
Gladwin went warily out into the hallway, reconnoitered the front door and vestibule, then went to the stairway and uttered a short, sharp whistle. Bateato came down as if on winged feet and halted as if turned to stone between the big man in the uniform of Officer 666 and his master.
“Come here,” said Wilson, and plucked the Jap by the arm.
Bateato trembled with apprehension.
“Would you like to catch the thief?” the picture expert asked him.
289
“Ees, sair.”
Bateato looked at his master, who nodded reassuringly.
“Well, the thief is in your master’s room,” said Wilson, impressively. “Go up there and bang on the door––take that poker out of the fireplace and make all the noise you can. Do you understand me?”
“Ees, sair,” and Bateato’s long lost grin returned. “I make bang, bang.”
“Yes, and yell, ‘Police––quick, quick, quick––catch thief.’”
“Ees, sair, big much pleece come and tief run. Bateato run too and pleece find all empty.”
“Good––hurry!” and Wilson gave the Jap an unnecessary push toward the fireplace, for the little Oriental fairly flew on his errand.
A moment later there burst upon the stillness of the mansion a frightful uproar. The noise was distinctly audible in the street, as Wilson had slipped to the door and opened it, then concealed himself behind a curtain.
It was only a matter of seconds before Captain Stone, Kearney and the entire outside patrol rushed in and piled up the stairs.
Travers Gladwin had not stirred from where he stood in the drawing-room when Bateato got his instructions. He was intensely excited and feared that some slip might spoil this inspired plan.
“Good-by,” came a muffled hail from the hallway. Then there was silence both within and without.
290
“Gad, I hope he makes it!” cried the young man and rushed to the window. He had hardly reached there when the stillness was punctured by a crash of shifting gears and the racket of a sixty horsepower engine thrown into sudden, furious action.
“He’s gone!” Gladwin breathed, as he saw a touring car hurl itself athwart his vision. He recognized his former servant, Watkins, at the wheel.
291CHAPTER XLII.MICHAEL PHELAN’S PREDICAMENT.
It was as if a great burden had been removed from his shoulders. Leaving the window and stepping back into the room, Travers Gladwin stretched his arms above his head and exhaled a long breath of satisfaction.
“Now I can sit down and await developments,” he said to himself, slipping into a chair and stretching out his legs, “and it will only remain for Michael Phelan to turn up or to fail to turn up and the mystery of the escape is explained. Poor Phelan, he must be a terrific simpleton, and I suppose I am partly to bla”–––
His gaze had wandered to the great chest, the lid of which was distinctly rising.
Before Gladwin could jump to his feet the lid was thrown back and there sat the subject of his soliloquy in his shirt sleeves, jerking his head about like a jack-in-the-box.
“Where in blazes am I?” he groaned as his eyes made out Travers Gladwin.
“You seem to be in the chest,” replied the young man, covering his mouth with his hand.
292
“Howly murther! me uniform is gone again!” exploded Phelan, struggling to his feet and examining his shirt sleeves as if he feared he were the victim of witchcraft.
He climbed out of the chest and turned a vindictive glance upon Gladwin, who composed his features and said:
“Not guilty this time, Officer.”
Phelan stared at him stupidly for a second and then let his arms and shoulders go limp. He was a lugubriously pathetic figure as he turned up his eyes and muttered:
“Now, I remember––they took it off me and drugged me an’ rammed me into the chest. Wurra! Wurra! I’m a goner now for shure.”
Gladwin was about to speak when there was a run of feet on the stairs and in burst Captain Stone and Detective Kearney. At the sight of Phelan, the captain recoiled and his jaw dropped. Kearney likewise regarded him in blank astonishment.
“Where’s your uniform, Phelan?” roared Captain Stone when he could get his breath.
“They took it off me––drugged me an’ half murthered me––eight of ’em,” whined Phelan.
“Eight of ’em!” yelled the captain. “There was only one of them, you numskull.”
“I hope to croak if there wasn’t two of ’em with the stren’th of eight,” rejoined Phelan, wiping his dripping forehead and rolling his eyes. “An’ they293chloroformed me an’ stuffed me into the chest. You can ask Mr. Gladwin.”
“If you let that thief escape in your uniform, Mike Phelan,” stormed the infuriated captain, “I’ll break you to-morrow. And as for you, Mr. Gladwin, if you had a hand in this”–––
“Calm yourself, captain,” returned the young man, “I am unable to claim the honor. I just happened in here as Mr. Phelan was coming out of the chest.”
“Why did that Jap make such a thundering racket upstairs?” broke in Kearney. “The whole thing looks to me like a frame-up.”
Travers Gladwin shrugged his shoulders and said easily:
“Considering the number of policemen on the job, does it not also take on the aspect of a slip-up? It would make rather amusing reading in the newspapers, but if you prefer, gentlemen, we can let the matter drop right here.”
Captain Stone and Kearney looked at each other and found no comfort in each other’s countenances.
“Even though he got away with one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of my paintings, slipping out from under your very noses,” Gladwin pressed his advantage, “I may, for the sake of avoiding notoriety, decide that it is best to keep the thing quiet. Of course, it is in your power to compel publicity.”
“Not against your wishes, sir,” said Captain Stone, meekly.
294
“And you, Mr. Kearney,” smiled the young man, looking up into the frowning visage of the much advertised Central Office man.
“Captain Stone is my superior officer,” said Kearney shortly, through compressed lips.
“Very well, then, Captain,” Gladwin ran on, “we will just drop the incident from our minds. You will oblige me by calling off your men at once.”
Captain Stone bowed and left the room, followed by Kearney.
“Well, Phelan,” said Gladwin, turning to that distressed individual, “the evening’s entertainment seems at an end.”
“’Tis a divvil of an intertainment fer me––I’ll be broke to-morrer.”
“Oh, no, Phelan,” and the young man walked over and patted him on the shoulder, “not broke––you’ll resign.”
“A swell chance I’ve got to resign––with no shield to turn in. It’ll break the heart of me poor ould mother.”
There were tears in Michael Phelan’s voice and his woe-begone expression was pitiable. Young Gladwin hastened to cheer him up.
“I will take it upon myself to see that you are honorably discharged, Phelan. I can almost swear that a little note to Captain Stone with an inclosure of say four figures will put through your resignation.”
“But I’ll be out of a job, won’t I?” flared Phelan.
295
“Not for a minute. I am going to give you a job for life.”
“What?”
“Yes, and at twice the salary you were getting. I’m going to appoint you my private watchman to guard my picture gallery.”
“Sure, an’ this ain’t one o’ your jokes?” Phelan asked, with a dismal effort to summon a grin.
“Indeed, it is not, and here is that five hundred dollar bill you so foolishly surrendered to my friend the picture expert. Now, as all your fellow officers seem to have departed you can begin your duties by going upstairs and telling the ladies that the blockade has been raised.”
By the time Michael Phelan got the crisp saffron bill tucked away in his jeans he was in full and glorious grin and made for the stairway with an agility that was a distinct revelation of hidden resources. A few minutes later Mrs. Burton entered the room, followed by her two nieces.
As her now calmer eye took in the room and the empty picture frames, Mrs. Burton exclaimed:
“Whatever have you been doing here?”
“Some of my canvases need cleaning,” was the ready response, with a wink at Whitney Barnes, who was hovering about Sadie, “so I took the most valuable ones out of the frames to send them to the cleaners.”
Mrs. Burton swallowed the fib and began a tour of inspection of the room.
296
“Your father collected some of these, didn’t he?” she said after a pause. “Your father and my father were very good friends. I remember not so long ago hearing him tell of that portrait of your ancestor,” indicating the Stuart.
“Now I like this one––a Gainsborough, isn’t it?” She had stopped in front of “The Blue Boy.”
“Do you like that one?” cried the young man.
“It’s charming,” gushed Mrs. Burton.
“It’s yours.”
“Mine! Why, I couldn’t think of it.”
“Please do me the honor of accepting it.”
“After what has occurred to-night? Why, I”–––Mrs. Burton couldn’t take her eyes from the picture, and seemed thrilled with an ecstasy of admiration.
“I will have it packed and shipped to you to-morrow.”
Mrs. Burton wheeled upon him with an expression that fairly took him to her arms.
“You dear, generous boy,” she cried; “if Helen had only confided in me––here is my card; come to me to-morrow and we will have a family conference. I”–––
“Auntie,” interposed Helen in alarm.
“I will take charge of all the wedding arrangements,” ran on Auntie, fairly bubbling over. “Come early in the afternoon, Mr. Gladwin. I must get my girls to bed. Good night––come, girls.”
Mrs. Burton started for the door and Helen lingered behind.
297
“Oh, whatever shall I do?” she whispered to Gladwin.
“Whatever your heart dictates,” he whispered in reply.
“And did he escape?” came the frightened query, as she dropped her eyes and blushed.
“Yes, and they will never get him.”
“Thank you!” She gave him her hand for a moment and was gone.
298CHAPTER XLIII.THE CIRCUMVENTION OF AUNTIE.
Sadie sat up with a start and rubbed her eyes.
“All right, Nanette,” she said sleepily. “I’m awake.”
The trim, rosy-cheeked maid smiled and swiftly left the room.
She had deposited one armful of fluffy things on a chair beside Sadie’s bed and another armful of fluffy things on a chair beside Helen’s bed. She had also performed other mysterious little offices noiselessly before going to the side of Sadie’s bed.
“And sleeping like an innocent babe,” said the comely Nanette to herself with a depth of affection in her tone. Then she bent down and called in Sadie’s ear:
“Ten o’clock, Miss Sadie.”
She had to repeat the whispered call several times before Sadie’s eyelids fluttered and she stirred into life. The maid had vanished by the time the younger of the two sleeping beauties had removed the cobwebs from her eyes.
The twin rosewood beds lay side by side enveloped299by the transparent silken hangings of a single canopy. The room was exquisitely done in pink and everywhere were evidences that the two lucky mortals who slumbered therein were coddled and pampered to the limit of modern luxury.
Sadie’s robe de nuit, as the fashion magazines put it, was a creation of laces and ribbons and mighty becoming. She had admitted this to herself as she surveyed her reflection in the tall oval mirror only five hours before. She admitted it again as she hopped out of bed and confronted herself in the same mirror. Then she turned and ran quickly to the side of Helen’s bed.
She bent down and kissed her cousin.
“Get up, Helen,” Sadie urged, as the blue eyes reluctantly opened. “Get up and dress, dear––we haven’t much time.”
“Much time for what?” asked Helen, sitting up and going through the ceremony of rubbing her eyes.
“Much time before Auntie wakes.”
A roseate blush spread up from the ribbons at Sadie’s throat to the roots of her fair hair.
Helen’s eyes were wide open now and she looked at her cousin in frowning puzzlement.
“And Mr. Hogg is expected,” said Sadie, with swift inspiration.
“Whatever are you driving at?” asked Helen.
“Are you anxious to greet Mr. Hogg?” pouted Sadie.
300
“No,” was the vehement response.
“Then we must be out when he comes––and I have an important engagement at eleven.”
Helen shot two little pink feet out of the covers and planked them down on the velvety rug.
“Whom have you an engagement with, Sadie Burton?” she asked, with breathless eagerness.
“I have an engagement to elope!”
This time Sadie turned her head to hide her blushes.
Helen seemed actually paralyzed. There was an intense pause before Sadie wheeled round, flung her head defiantly and said with more fire than she had ever in her life displayed:
“With Mr. Whitney Barnes––and you are going to assist me––you and Mr. Gladwin.”
“You––cannot––be––serious, Sadie?” said the older cousin, slowly.
“I am, though!” was the passionate rejoinder. “Nanette and I packed my steamer trunk after you and Auntie went to bed. Hurry now, Helen, dear, for we must be at the Little Church Around the Corner at eleven o’clock. I am going to wear my gray travelling dress and you your brown.”
“Why, you dreadful little minx, you!” cried Helen. “If you are poking fun at me I will never forgive you.”
“I am not poking fun,” retorted Sadie with the same ardor and almost in tears. “It is all planned301and arranged. Whitney promised to have everything ready at the church, including Travers Gladwin. He said he couldn’t wait another minute after eleven o’clock––that the suspense would kill him––and he was so terribly in earnest about it that I believe him.”
“You goose!” exclaimed Helen, but now she was smiling and there was a happy light in her eyes.
“Do you mean to tell me, Sadie Burton,” she added, “that you fell in love with that young man in a few hours––you, the man-hater!”
“Y-y-yes,” admitted Sadie, her cheeks again on fire.
“And a man you don’t know anything about––a perfect stranger!”
This brought the fire into the timid miss’s eyes and she returned warmly:
“I know everything about him, Helen Burton––his whole family history, and he is only obeying orders in rushing the ceremony.”
“Obeying orders?”
“Yes, his father commanded him to marry me at once––and if he doesn’t obey he will be disinherited and have to become a plumber or something to make a living. His father is Joshua Barnes, the mustard king––you must have heard of him. When I told Auntie who he was she almost collapsed and said something about Joshua Barnes buying and selling twenty hogs––I suppose she meant Jabez Hogg.”
“Why, I never heard of such a thing, Sadie. Mr. Barnes could not have been serious. His father never saw you in his life.”
302
“Oh, but he telephoned his father all about it before he proposed to me. He was sure I would say yes. He is a wonderful mind-reader and believes in mysteries and Fate. He said the minute he saw me he knew I was his Fate.”
Once more the modest Sadie was in a state bordering on conflagration. Helen’s eye sobered as she looked at and beyond Sadie.
“That was the very thing Travers Gladwin––I mean the real one––said to me,” she mused.
“He did!”
“Yes, and the way things have turned out it would seem”–––
Helen stopped and covered her face with her hands. Sadie ran to her and put her arms about her.
“You are going to help us, aren’t you, Helen dear?” said Sadie, tremulously. “I would tell Auntie about it only she would want a tremendous wedding and all that. Whitney and I both hate big weddings. I am too timid and he is too nervous––says he might swallow the ring and choke to death. You will now, Helen darling?”
There was a little sob in Sadie’s voice and Helen surrendered.
“You are doing a very rash thing, Sadie,” Helen lectured, striving to draw her brows into an expression of impressive solemnity. “My own terrible experience should have been a lesson to you––a warning––a”–––
303
“But it was Whitney Barnes who saved you, Helen!” cried Sadie, exultantly. “You owe it all to him and that is why I began to love him!”
“Nonsense!” retorted Helen sharply. “Mr. Barnes had nothing whatever to do with it. All he did was to get himself handcuffed and run about absurdly trying to be unlocked.”
“But he was on watch and planned and planned,” Sadie defended her hero.
“Sadie Burton, I say that Whitney Barnes had nothing whatever to do with it. He was merely an instrument. Travers Gladwin did it all. I owe everything to him––everything! He would have gone to jail for me, sacrificed all his wonderful paintings––oh, Sadie, it was wonderful of him!”
It was Sadie who was thunderstruck now by the ardor in her cousin’s voice. Her amazement soon gave way to a beaming smile, and she mumbled as she turned to her dressing table, “I do believe she is in love with him.”
304CHAPTER XLIV.MISS FEATHERINGTON’S SHATTERED DREAM.
Marietta Featherington couldn’t seem to concentrate her mind upon that thirteenth chapter of “Lily the Lovely Laundress.” The handsome rat-catcher had just beaten the aristocratic villain to a pulp and would have finished the job neatly and thoroughly had not Lily raised her lovely fair hand and cried with the imperiousness of an empress:
“Pause, Giovanni! Pause! He may have a mother!”
Ordinarily Miss Featherington would have raced through the pages hungrily, avidly. Not so on this fair November afternoon. Whether it was the mince pie and melted cheese she had partaken of a bare hour before, or whether it was the even-more-so-than-usual grumpy mood of her employer, Joshua Barnes, she could not tell. Perhaps it was neither. She refused to analyze it. Whatever the cause, she felt heavy and wistful and sad.
From time to time the emotional Miss Featherington allowed Whitney Barnes to flit through the corridors of her imagination. He had walked heavily305through her dreams the night before. His strange words of yesterday had strangely moved her. Desperately she had striven to solve the mystery. Were they words of love? If so, how would Old Grim Barnes accept the declaration from his son’s lips that he loved the humble though, yes, though beautiful stenographer lady of the Barnes Mustard Company, Limited?
Miss Featherington had half expected to walk into Joshua Barnes’s presence that morning and meet with a torrent of abuse. She had rehearsed a cold and haughty retort. But her employer had greeted her with a gruff, “Good-morning,” and an expression that was equivalent to a smile.
Alas! the prince had not spoken.
Marietta pounded out forty-two letters containing references to as many different kinds of assorted and selected mustard before she succeeded in dismissing the heir to the mustard millions from her romantic thoughts and creating a new hero in his stead. The new hero some way fell down and she picked up “Lily the Lovely Laundress.” But even the “Lovely Lily” failed to thrill and she laid the book aside.
A long sigh was escaping from the depressed maiden’s bosom when the door of the anteroom opened and who should enter but Whitney Barnes. Marietta swallowed her sigh and clasped her hand over her palpitating heart.
The young man was not alone, however, and he306did not deign Miss Featherington a glance as he held the door open and cried:
“Come in, children!”
The children were none other than Helen and Sadie and Travers Gladwin. Nor did they deign Miss Featherington a glance as they assembled in a little group, talking in hushed tones and punctuating their talk with suppressed laughter.
By the time Whitney Barnes did turn to Marietta that young lady’s nose was elevated to an excruciating angle––so much so that she was unable to fulfill her desire to sniff. There was cold hauteur in her stare as she met the smile of Whitney Barnes and replied to his query:
“Yes, Mr. Barnes, your father is in and alone.”
“Thank you, Miss Featherington,” cried the young man, gaily, and an instant later the little party of four had vanished behind a mahogany portal.
Joshua Barnes was bent over his desk writing, as the door opened noiselessly and the four young people entered. When he looked up his son, Travers Gladwin and Helen were lined up beside his chair, the two young men smiling sheepishly and the girls blushing crimson and looking down at the floor.
“Hello, Pater,” opened Whitney Barnes, “you remember Travers Gladwin. This is Mrs. Gladwin, a bride of sixty-seven minutes!”
Old Grim Barnes was on his feet in an instant with a gallant bow to Helen and a hearty handshake for the bridegroom.
307
For a second or two he failed to descry Sadie, who, as per rehearsal, was hidden behind the two young men. As, with a look of surprise, he spied her, Helen drew Sadie to her and managed to stammer:
“And this is my cousin Sadie, Mr. Barnes.”
Sadie dropped a timid courtesy, her face on fire.
“How do you do, Miss––er”–––
Joshua Barnes was feasting his eyes on Sadie’s shy beauty and smiling benignly.
“I didn’t catch the name,” he added, turning to Helen.
“B-b-b,” she began, when Whitney Barnes came to her rescue.
“Barnes, pater––Mrs. Sadie; that is, Mrs. Whitney Barnes––a bride of seventy-seven minutes.”
Whitney Barnes beamed upon his father and put his arm about the old gentleman’s shoulders to support him.
“How do you like my choice, dad?––isn’t she a darling? Why don’t you ask to kiss the bride?”
Joshua Barnes breathed with difficulty for a moment and his eyes blinked. Slowly he looked for confirmation in the faces of the newlywed Gladwins, and when they both nodded and smiled, he returned his glance to Sadie, who had turned very pale and was beginning to tremble.
The mustard king shook off his son’s arm and gathered Sadie to him with a bear hug.
He kissed her ten times in succession and then let308her down in his chair and patted her shoulder. Joshua Barnes was so happy that tears glistened in his eyes. He continued to look at Sadie for a long moment before he turned to his son and gulped:
“Whitney Barnes, you scoundrel––have you been keeping this from me?”
“Why no, dad,” came the laughing answer. “I telephoned you about it last night, and you called me”–––
“For the first time in my life I made a mistake, Whitney Barnes,” his father checked him, “and you both have my blessing a thousandfold––provided you will take me in as a boarder.”
“Done!” exclaimed Whitney Barnes.
THE END
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