CHAPTER VII
BEFORE Don Juan could even utter a matutinal greeting, Mother Jenks laid finger to lip and silenced him. “Go back to Leber's and return in an hour,” she whispered. “I 'ave my reasons for wantin' that bloomin' cablegram delivered later.”
Don Juan hadn't the least idea what Mother Jenks's reasons might be, but he presumed she was up to some chicanery, and so he winked his bloodshot eye very knowingly and nodded his acquiescence in the program; whereupon Mother Jenks started to close the door. Instantly Don Juan's foot was in the jamb; in a hoarse whisper he said:
“Whilst ye're askin' favours, woman dear, ye might have the kindness to ask me if I have a mouth.”
“Bloomin' well I knows yer 'ave a mouth, for bloomin' well I smell yer blawsted breath,” Mother Jenks retorted. However, the present was no time to raise an issue with Don Juan, and so she slipped behind the bar of her cantina, poured five fingers of aguardiente, the local brand of disturbance, and handed it to Don Juan through the crack in the door.
“Here's all the hair off your head,” Don Juan Cafetéro saluted her amiably. He tossed it off at a gulp, handed Mother Jenks the glass, and departed with a whispered promise to return in an hour.
When he had gone, Mother Jenks went behind the bar and fortified herself with her morning's morning—which rite having been performed, her sleep-benumbed brain livened up immediately.
“Gord's truth!” the lady murmured. “An' me about to turn him adrift for the lawst fortnight! Well for 'im 'e allers hadmired the picture o' my sainted 'Enery, as was the spittin' image of his own fawther. 'Evings! 'Ell's bells! But that was a bit of a tight squeak! Just as I'm fully conwinced 'e's beat it an' I'm left 'oldin' the sack, all along o' my kindness of 'eart, 'e gets the cablegram 'e's been lookin' for this two months past; an' 'e allers claimed as 'ow any time'e got a cablegram it'd be an answer to 'is letter, with money to foller! My word, but that was touch an' go! An' yet Willie's got such a tykin' w'y about him, I might 'ave knowed 'e was a gentleman!”
Still congratulating herself upon her good fortune in intercepting Don Juan Cafetéro, Mother Jenks proceeded upstairs to her chamber, clothed herself, and adjourned to the kitchen, where Carmelita was already engaged in the preparation of the morning meal. After giving orders for an extra special breakfast for two, Mother Jenks returned to her cantina, and formally opened the same for the business of that day and night; while a lank Jamaica negro swept out the room and cleaned the cuspidors, she washed and polished her glassware and set her back bar in order. To her here came presently, via the tiled hallway, the object of her solicitude, a young man on the sunny side of thirty. At the first glance one suspected this individual to be a member of the Caucasian race; at the second glance one verified this suspicion. He was thin for one of his height and breadth of chest; in colour his countenance resembled that of a sick Chinaman. His hair was thick and wavy but lustreless; his dark blue eyes carried a hint of jaundice; and a generous mouth, beneath an equally generous upper lip, gave ample ground for the suspicion that while Mr. William Geary's speech denoted him an American citizen, at least one of his maternal ancestors had been wooed and won by an Irishman. An old panama hat, sad relic of a prosperous past, a pair of soiled buckskin pumps, a suit of unbleached linen equally befouled, and last but not least, the remnants of a smile that much hard luck could never quite obliterate, completed his attire—and to one a stranger in the tropics would appear to constitute a complete inventory of Mr. Geary's possessions. An experienced person, however, would have observed immediately that Mother Jenks's seedy guest had been bitten deeply and often by mosquitoes and was, in consequence, the proprietor of a low malarial fever, with its concomitant chills.
“Dulce corazon mio, I extend a greeting,” he called at the entrance. “I trust you rested well last night, Mother Jenks, and that no evil dreams were born of your midnight repast of frijoles refritos, marmalade, and arf-an'-arf!”
“Chop yer spoofin', Willie,” Mother Jenks simpered. “My heye! So I'm yer sweet'eart, eh? Yer wheedlin' blighter, makin' love to a girl as is old enough to be yer mother!”
“A woman,” Mr. Geary retorted sagely and not a whit abashed, “is at the apex of her feminine charms at thirty-seven.”
He knew his landlady to be not a day under fifty, but such is the ease with which the Irish scatter their blarney, and such the vanity of the gentler sex (for despite Mother Jenks's assault upon Carmelita, we include the lady in that pleasing category), that neither Billy Geary nor Mother Jenks regarded this pretty speech in the light of an observation immaterial, inconsequential and not germane to the matter at issue. For Mother Jenks was the eternal feminine, and it warmed the cockles of her heart to be told she was only thirty-seven, even though reason warned her that the compliment was not garnished with the sauce of sincerity. As for Billy, the sight of Mother Jenks swallowing this specious bait, together with hook, line, and sinker, always amused him and for the nonce took his mind off his own troubles. Nevertheless, there was a deeper reason for his blarney. This morning, watching the tell tale tinge of pleasure underlying the alcohol-begotten hue of the good creature's face, he felt almost ashamed of his own heartlessness—almost, but not quite.
Let us take Billy's view of his own case and view his mendacity with a kindly and tolerant eye. For two months he had existed entirely because of the leniency of Mother Jenks in the matter of credit.
He could not pay her cash, devoutly as he hoped to do some day, and he considered it of the most vital importance that in the interim he should somehow survive. Therefore, in lieu of cash he paid her compliments, which she snapped up greedily.
In the cold gray dawn of the morning after Mother Jenks always detected the bug in Billy's amber and vowed to rout him bag and baggage that very day; but when one is fond of blarney, it is hard indeed to destroy the source of it; and while Mother Jenks's courage had mounted to the point of action many a time, in the language of the sporting extra, Billy had always “beaten her to the punch”; for when instinct warned him that Mother Jenks was about to talk business, he could always rout her by declaring she was pencilling her eyebrows or rouging her cheeks.
An inventive genius was Billy. He never employed the same defensive tactics two days in succession, and when personal flattery threatened to fail him, a large crayon reproduction of the late Henry Jenks, which hung over the back bar, was a never-failing source of inspiration.
This was the “sainted'Enery” previously referred to by Mother Jenks. He had been a sergeant in Her Brittanic Majesty's Royal Horse Artillery, and upon retiring to the Reserve had harkened to a proposition to emigrate to Sobrante and accept a commission as colonel of artillery with the Government forces then in the throes of a revolutionary attack. The rebels had triumphed, and as a result 'Enery had been sainted via the customary expeditious route; whereupon his wife had had recourse to her early profession of barmaid, and El Buen Amigo had resulted.
However, let us return to our sheeps, as Mr. Geary would have expressed it. Seemingly the effect of Billy's compliment was instantly evident, for Mother Jenks set out two glasses and a bottle.
“I know yer a trifler, Willy Geary,” she simpered, “but if I do s'y it as shouldn't, I was accounted as 'andsome a barmaid as you'd find in Bristol town. I've lost my good looks, what with grief an' worritin' since losin' my sainted 'Enery, but I was 'andsome oncet.”
“I can well believe it, Mother—since you are handsome still! For my part,” he continued confidentially, as with shaking hand he filled his brandy-glass, “you'll excuse this drunkard's drink, Mother, but I need it; I had the shakes again last night—for my part, I prefer the full-blown rose to the bud.”
Mother Jenks fluttered like a debutante as she poured her drink. They touched glasses, calloused worldlings that they were.
“'Ow,” said Mother Jenks, toasting the philandering wretch.
“How!” He tossed off his drink. It warmed and strengthened him, after his night of chills and fever, and brazenly he returned to the attack.
“Changing the subject from feminine grace and charm to manly strength and virtue, I've been marking lately the resolute poise of your martyred husband's head on his fine military shoulders. There was a man, if I may judge from his photograph, that would fight a wildcat.”
“Oh, m'ybe 'e wouldn't!” Mother Jenks hastened to declare. “You know, Willie, I was present w'en they shot 'im, a-waitin' to claim 'is body. 'E kisses me good-bye, an' says 'e: 'Brace up, ol' girl. Remember your 'usband's been a sergeant in 'Er Majesty's Royal 'Orse Artillery, an' don't let the bloody blighters see yer cry.' Then 'e walks out front, with 'is fine straight back to the wall, draws a circle on 'is blue tunic with white chalk an' says: 'Shoot at that, yer yeller-bellied bounders, an' be damned to yer!'”
“To be the widow of such a gallant son of Mars,” Billy declared, “is a greater honour than being the wife of a duke.”
For the sake of 'Enery's memory Mother Jenks squeezed out a tear. Billy would have egged her on to a lachrymal flood, for he knew she would enjoy it, but at that moment entered Carmelita, to announce breakfast.
Mother Jenks, recalling her husband's last advice, declined to let even a Sobrantean girl see her weep. She composed herself instantly, filled her glass again, and pushed the bottle to Billy.
“'Ave another peg with Mother, Willie.”
“I'll go you, Mother, although it's really my turn to set 'em up. I would if I had the price. However, I'm expecting action on that concession of mine pretty soon, Mother, and when I get straightened out, they'll date time in the Calle de Concordia from the spending toot I'll inaugurate. Ah, Mother,” he added with a note of genuine gratitude and sincerity, “you've been awfully good to me. I don't know what I'd have done without you.” He laid his hand on her fat arm. “Mother, one of these days I'll get mine, and when I do I'm going to stake you to a nice little pub back in Bristol.”
She smiled at him with motherly tenderness and shook her head. In a concrete niche in the mortuary of the Catedrâl de la Vera Cruz the bones of her sainted 'Enery reposed, and when her hour came she would lie beside him. Moreover, she was a tropical tramp. She had grown to like Sobrante, for all her railing against it, and she knew she would never see the chalk cliffs of Albion again.
“Yer a sweet boy, Willie,” she told him, “an' I'd trust yer for double the score, s'help me. 'Eving knows I 'aven't much, but wot I 'ave I shares freely with them I likes. I 'ave a brace o' duck heggs, 'am an' 'ot cakes, Willie, an' yer 'll breakfuss with Mother. Duck heggs, 'am an' 'ot cakes, Willie. 'Ow's that? Eh, yer precious byby.”
Billy's glistening eyes testified to the profundity of his feelings at the prospect of this Lucullan feast. It had been long since Mother Jenks's larder had yielded him anything more stable than brown beans, tortillas, fried onions, and an occasional dab of marmalade, and the task of filling in the corners of his appetite with free tropical fruit had long since grown irksome.
Mother Jenks preceded him into the shady side of the veranda, where ordinarily she was wont to breakfast in solitary state. Her table was set for two this morning, however, but this extraordinary circumstance was lost sight of by the shameless Billy in the prospect of one more real meal before the chills and fever claimed their own. He flipped an adventurous cockroach off the table and fell to with fine appetite.
He was dallying with a special brew of coffee, with condensed milk in it, when the Jamaica negro entered from the cantina to announce Don Juan Cafe-téro with a cablegram.
“A cablegram!” Mother Jenks cried. “Gord's truth! I'll wager the pub it's for you, Willie.”
“I wonder! Can it be possible it's come at last?” Billy cried incredulously.
“I'd not be surprised,” Mother Jenks replied. “Bob”—turning to the negro, and addressing him in her own private brand of Spanish—“give Don Juan a drink, if 'e 'asn't helped 'imself while yer back is turned, an' bring the cablegram 'ere.”
Within the minute Bob returned with a long yellow envelope, which he handed Mother Jenks. Without so much as a glance at the superscription, she handed it to Billy Geary, who tore it open and read:
Los Angeles, Calif., U. S. A., August 16, 1913.
Henrietta Wilkins,
Calle de Concordia, No. 19,
Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A.
Leaving to-day to visit you. Will cable from New Orleans exact date arrival.
Dolores.
The shadow of deep disappointment settled over Billy's face as he read. Mother Jenks noted it instantly.
“Wot's 'e got to s'y, Willie?” she demanded.
“It isn't a he. It's a she,” Billy replied. “Besides, the cablegram isn't for me at all. It's for one Henrietta Wilkins, Calle de Concordia, Number Nineteen, and who the devil Henrietta Wilkins may be is a mystery to me. Ever have any boarder by that name, Mother?”
Mother Jenks's red face had gone white. “'Enrietta Wilkins was my maiden nyme, Willie,” she confessed soberly, “an' there's only one human as 'ud cable me or write me by that nyme. Gord, Willie, wot's 'appened?”
“I'll read it to you, Mother.”
Billy read the message aloud; and when he had finished, to his amazement, Mother Jenks laid her head on the table and began to weep.
CHAPTER VIII
WHEN Billy Geary could reorganize himself, as it were, after the shock incident to his discovery that the cablegram was not for him after all, he turned his attention to Mother Jenks. Without quite realizing why he did so, Billy decided that fear and not grief was at the bottom of the good creature's distress, and in his awkward, masculine way he placed his arm around Mother Jenks's shoulders, shook her gently, and bade her remember that chaos might come and go again, but he, the said William Geary, would remain her true and steadfast friend in any and all emergencies that might occur.
“Gor' bless yer heart, Willie,” Mother Jenks sniffled. “If this was only somethink I could hentrust to a man! But it ain't.”
“Well, suppose you tell me what it is and let me be the judge,” Billy suggested. “I haven't got one centavo to rub against the other, and on present form and past performances I'm the last man in the world to handle an affair between two women, but—I have a head on my shoulders, and nobody ever had reason to suspect that head of being empty. Perhaps, if you care to give me your confidence, I may be of service to you, Mother.”
“Willie,” his landlady wailed, “I dunno wot in 'ell yer ever goin' to think o' me w'en I tell ye wot I've been up to this past fifteen year.”
“Whatever you've been up to, Mother, it was a kind and charitable deed—of that much I am certain,” Billy replied loftily and—to his own surprise—sincerely.
“As Gord is my judge, Willie, it started out that w'y,” moaned Mother Jenks, and she squeezed Billy's hand as if from that yellow, shaking member she would draw aid and comfort. “'Er nyme is Dolores Ruey.”
“Any relation to the Ruey family of Buenaventura?”
“A first cousin, Willie. 'Er father was Don Ricardo Ruey, présidente av this blasted 'ell on earth w'en me an' my sainted 'Enery first come to Buenaventura. 'E was too good for the yeller-bellied beggars; 'e tried to do somethink for them an' run the government on the square, an' they couldn't hunderstand, all along o' 'avin' been kicked an' cuffed by a long line of bloody rotters. It was Don Ricardo as gives my sainted 'Enery 'is commission as colonel in the hartillery.
“That was all very well, you know, Willie, only Don Ricardo didn't go far enough. If 'e'd only 'arkened to 'Enery's advice an' imported a lot o' bloomin' Tommies to serve 'Enery's guns, 'im an' 'Enery never would 'ave faced that firin'-squad. Many's the time 'Enery's said to me: ''Enrietta, me 'art's broke tryin' to myke gunners out o' them blackamoors Don Ricardo gives me to serve the screwguns. They've been born without a sense o' distance!' Gor' bless you, Willie, my sainted 'Enery 'ad no bloomin' use for a range-finder. 'E'd cast 'is eye over the ground an' then try a shot for distance. M'ybe'e'd be a bit short. 'A bit more elevation, amigos,' says 'Enery, an' tries again. This time 'e's a bit over it, m'ybe, but the third or fourth shot 'e 'as the range an' stays right on the target. But then, Willie, as 'Enery used to s'y to me: ''Enrietta, how in blazes can I serve six guns? How can a colonel of hartillery come down off 'is 'orse an do a gunner's work? It ain't dignified.'”
Billy nodded. He had heard that story so often in the past that he knew it by heart; from all he could learn the sainted 'Enery quite resembled a horse, in that he had room in his head for but one thought at a time. As a gunner-sergeant he was doubtless a loss to the British service, but as a colonel of So-brantean artillery he had tried to forget that once he had been a gunner-sergeant!
“You've 'eard me tell,” Mother Jenks continued, “'ow the rebels got 'arf a dozen Hamerican gunners—deserters from the navy—an' blew 'Enery's battery to bits, 'ow the Government forces fell back upon Buenaventura, an' as 'ow w'en the dorgs begun to wonder if they mightn't lose, they quit by the 'undreds an' went over to the rebel side, leavin' Don Ricardo an' 'Enery an' m'ybe fifty o' the gentry in the palace. In course they fought to a finish; 'ristocrats, all of them, they 'ad to die fightin' or facin' a firin'-squad.”
Again Billy nodded. He had heard the tale before, including the recital of the sainted 'Enery's gallant dash from the blazing palace in an effort to save Don Ricardo's only child, a girl of seven, and of his capture and subsequent execution.
“That ended the revolution,” Mother Jenks concluded. “But 'ere's somethink I've never told a livin' soul. Shortly before 'Enery was hexecuted, 'e told me where 'e'd 'id the youngster—in a culvert out on the Malecon; so I 'ired a four-wheeler an' went out an' rescued the pore lamb. She'd been 'idin' there thirty-six hours an' was well-nigh dead, an' as there ain't no tellin' what a mob o' these spiggoties 'll do when they're excited, I 'id 'er until the harrival o' the next fruit steamer, w'en I shipped 'er to New Orleans in care o' the stewardess. Hi 'ad 'er put in the Catholic convent there, for as 'Enery said: ''Enrietta, keep an eye on the little nipper, an' do yer damndest to see she's raised a lydy. 'Er father was a gentleman, an' you never want to forget 'e made you Mrs. Colonel Jenks.' So Hi've made a lydy out o' her, Willie: education, pianner lessons, paintin', singin', an' deportmint. After she graduated from the convent, I 'ad her take a course in the Uniwersity o' California—New Orleans wasn't 'ealthy for'er, an' she needed a chynge o' climate—an' for the last two years she's been teachin' in the 'igh school in Los Angeles.”
“And you haven't seen her in all these years?” Geary demanded.
“Not a look, Willie. She's been after me ever since she graduated from the convent to let her come 'ome an' wisit me, but Hi've told'er to wyte—that I'd be comin' soon to wisit her. An' now, s'help me, she won't wait no longer; she's cornin' to wisit me! Gor', Willie, she's on her w'y!”
“So this cablegram would indicate,” Geary observed. “Nevertheless, Mother, I'm at a loss to know why you should feel so cut up over the impending visit.”
There was real fear in Mother Jenks's tear-dimmed eyes. “I cawn't let'er see me,” she wailed. “I wasn't this w'y w'en my sainted 'Enery hentrusted the lamb to me; it wasn't until awfter they hexecuted 'Enery that I commenced to slip—an' now look at me. Look at me, Willie Geary; look at me, I s'y. Wot do yer see? Aw, don't tell me I'm young an' 'andsome, for I knows wot I am. I'm a frowsy, drunken, disreputable baggage, with no heducation or nothink. I've raised'er a lydy on account of 'er bein' born a lydy an' her father bein' good to me an my 'Enery—an' all along, hever since she learned to write me a letter, I've been 'Enrietta Wilkins to'er, an' Mother Jenks to every beach-combin' beggar in the Caribbean tropics. I've lied to'er, Willie. I've wrote 'er as 'ow 'er fawther, before 'e died, give me enough money to heducate'er like a lydy——”
Again Mother Jenks's grief overcame her. “An' wot lovin' letters my darlin' writes me,” she sobbed. “Calls me 'er lovin' Aunt 'Enrietta, an' me—Gor', Willie, I ain't respectable. She's comin' to see me—an' I cawn't let'er. She mustn't know 'ow I got the money for 'er heducation—sellin' 'ell-fire to a pack of rotten dorgs an' consortin' with the scum of this stinkin' 'ole! Oh, Willie, you've got to 'elp me. I cawn't 'ave'er comin' to El Buen Amigo to see me, an' I cawn't ruin 'er reputation by callin' on 'er in public at the 'Otel Mateo. Oh, Gor', Willie, Mother's come a cropper.”
Willie agreed with her. He patted the sinful gray head of his landlady and waited for her to regain her composure, the while he racked his agile brain for a feasible plan to fit the emergency. He realized it would be quite useless to argue Mother Jenks into the belief that she might pull herself together, so to speak, and run the risk of meeting with her ward; for the old woman had been born in the slums of London and raised a barmaid. She knew her place. She was not a lady and could never hope now to associate with one, even in a menial capacity, so there was an end to it! During the past fifteen years, the lower Mother Jenks had sunk in the social scale, even of free-and-easy old Buenaventura, the higher had she raised the one sweet note in her sordid life; not until the arrival of that cablegram did she realize that during those fifteen years she had been raising a barrier between her and the object of her stifled maternal yearnings—a barrier which, to her class-controlled mind, could never be swept away.
“She's been picturin' me in 'er mind all these years, Willie—picturin' a fraud,” wailed Mother Jenks. “If she sees me now, wot a shock she'll get, pore sweetheart—an' 'er the spittin' himage of a hangel. And oh, Willie, while she don't remember wot I looked like, think o' the shock if she meets me! In 'er lawst letter she said as 'ow I was the only hanchor she had in life. Ho, yes. A sweet-lookin' hanchor I am—an' Hi was 'opin' to die before she found hout. I've got a hanuerism in my 'eart, Willie, so the surgeon on the mail boat tells me, an' w'en I go, I'll go like—that!” Mother Jenks snapped her cigarette-stained fingers. “I 'ad the doctor come ashore the last time La Estrellita was in, on account o' 'im bein' a Hamerican an' up to snuff. An' Hi've got 'ardenin' of the harteries, too. I'm fifty-seven, Willie, an' since my sainted 'Enery passed away, I 'aven't been no bloomin' hangel.” She wrung her hands. “Oh, w'y in 'ell couldn't them harteries 'ave busted in time to save my lamb the 'umiliatin' knowledge that she's be'oldin' to the likes o' me for wot she's got—an' 'ow I got it for'er.”
Billy Geary had a bright idea. “Well,” he said, “why not die—temporarily—if you feel that way about it? You could come back from the grave after she's gone.”
But Mother Jenks shook her head. “No,” she declared. “While Dolores is self-supportin' now, still, if anythink 'appened an' she was to need 'elp, 'elp is somethin' no ghost can give. Think again, Willie. Gor', lad, w'ere's yer brains—an' you with your stummick filled to bustin' with a breakfast fit for a knight o' the bawth.”
“Well,” Billy countered thoughtfully, “apparently there's no way of heading her off before she takes the steamer at New Orleans, so we'll take it for granted she'll arrive here in due course. About the time she's due, suppose you run up to San Miguel de Padua for a couple of weeks and leave me to run El Buen Amigo in your absence. I'll play fair with you, Mother, so help me. I'll account for every centavo. I'll borrow some decent clothes from Leber the day the steamer gets in; then I'll go aboard and look over the passenger-list, and if she's aboard, I'll tell her you closed your house and started for California to visit her on the last northbound steamer—that her cablegram arrived just after you had started; that the cable company, knowing I am a friend of yours, showed me the message and that I took it upon myself to call and explain that as a result of your departure for the United States it will be useless for her to land—useless and dangerous, because cholera is raging in Buenaventura, although the port authorities deny it——”
“Willie,” Mother Jenks interrupted impressively, a ghost of her old debonair spirit shining through her tears, “yer don't owe me a bloomin' sixpence! Yer've syved the day, syved my reputation, an' syved a lydy's peace o' mind. Kiss me, yer precious byby.”
So Billy kissed her—gravely and with filial reverence, for he had long suspected Mother Jenks of being a pearl cast before swine, and now he was certain of it.
“I'll send her back to the United States and promise to cable you to await her there,” Billy continued. “Of course, we can't help it if you and the cablegram miss connections, and once the young lady is back in the United States, I dare say she'll have to stay there a couple of years before she can save the price of another sea voyage. And in the meantime she may marry——”
“Or that haneurism or my bally harteries may 'ave turned the trick before that,” Mother Jenks suggested candidly but joyously. “In course she'll be disappointed, but then disappointment never lays 'eavy on a young 'eart, Willie; an' bein' disappointed at not seein' a person you ain't really acquainted with ain't as bad as some disappointments.”
“I guess I know,” Billy Geary replied bitterly. “If that cablegram had only been for me! The only thing worth while I have done in my twenty-six years of life was to accumulate the best friend a man ever had—and lose him again because I was a fool and couldn't understand things without a blueprint! Mother, if my old partner could, by some miracle, manage to marry this Dolores girl, your arteries and your aneurisms might bust and be damned, but the girl would be safe.”
“M'ybe,” Mother Jenks suggested hopefully, “yer might fix it up for her w'en I'm gone. From all haccounts 'e's no-end a gentleman.”
“He's a he-man,” Mr. Geary declared with conviction. He sighed. “John Stuart Webster, wherever you are, please write or cable,” he murmured.
CHAPTER IX
THE ancient bromide to the effect that man proposes but God disposes was never better exemplified than in the case of John Stuart Webster, who, having formulated certain daring plans for the morrow and surrendered himself to grateful slumber in his stateroom aboard the Gulf States Limited, awoke on that momentous morn to a distinct apprehension that all was not as it should be with him. His mouth reminded him vaguely of a bird-and-animal store, and riot and insurrection had broken out in the geometric centre of his internal economy.
“I believe I'm going to be too ill to eat breakfast,” he told himself.
By seven o'clock this apprehension had crystallized into certainty. Webster had spent much of his life far from civilization, and as a result had found it necessary to acquire more than the layman's knowledge of rough-and-tumble surgery and the ordinary ills to which mortal is heir; consequently he was sufficient of a jack-leg doctor to suspect he was developing a splendid little case of ptomaine poisoning. He was aided in reaching this conclusion by memories of the dinner his friends had given him the night before, and at which he had partaken of a mallard duck, killed out of season and therefore greatly to be prized. He recalled the waiter's boast that the said duck had been hung for five days and had reached that state of ripeness and tenderness so greatly desired by those connoisseurs of food whose fool philosophy has been responsible for more deaths than most doctors. .
“That brute of a duck was too far gone,” Mr. Webster soliloquized bitterly. “And to think I'm killed off in the mere shank of my celebration, just because I got so rich and stuck-up I had to tie into some offal to show what a discerning judgment I had in food, not to mention my distinctive appetite. I ought to be knocked on the head with something, and I hope I may be if I ever accept any man's judgment in opposition to my own, on the subject of ripe mallards. This is what comes of breaking the game laws.”
He decided presently to go into executive session with the sleeping-car conductor, who wired ahead for a doctor to meet the train at the next station. And when the sawbones came and pawed Jack Webster over, he gravely announced that if the patient had the slightest ambition to vote at the next Presidential election, he should leave the train at St. Louis and enter a hospital forthwith. To this heart-breaking program Webster entered not the slightest objection, for when a man is seriously ill, he is in much the same position as a politician—to wit: he is in the hands of his friends. A sick man is always very sick—or thinks he is, which amounts to the same thing; and as a rule he thinks of little else save how sick he is. John S. Webster was, in this respect, neither better nor worse than others of his sex, and in his great bodily and mental depression his plans of the night before for getting acquainted with Dolores Ruey occurred to him now as something extremely futile and presumptuous. That young lady was now the subject least in his mind, for she was at most naught but a bright day-dream; whereas his friend Billy Geary was down in Sobrante with a rich wildcat mine waiting to be developed, while the source of development lay on a bed of pain assailed by secret apprehensions that all was over!
“Poor Billy-boy!” the sufferer murmured. “He'll wait and wait, and his old Jack-partner won't come! Damn that duck!”
He had one little stab of pain higher up, and around his heart, as they carried him off the train at St. Louis and stowed him in an ambulance thoughtfully provided for by telegraph. In a nebulous way it occurred to him that Fate had again crossed her fingers when paradise loomed on the horizon; but recalling how very ill he was, he damned the duck. He told himself that even if he should survive (which wasn't possible), there could be no doubt in his mind, after all he had been through, that the good Lord had marked him for a loveless, friendless, childless man; that it was useless to struggle against the inevitable. He felt very, very sorry for himself as the orderlies tucked him into bed and a nurse thrust a thermometer under his tongue.
“A hundred and four and a quarter,” he heard her murmur to the doctor a few minutes later.
“No bird ever flew so high that he didn't come down to roost,” said Mr. Webster aloud.
The doctor and the nurse exchanged knowing glances. They nodded. The patient was already delirious—a bad sign.
“Hey, Doc,” the stricken man called. They bent over him. “Send—cablegram to Billy Geary—tell him—come home—before that thousand—spent—money—my pocket.”
“Yes, I hear you,” the nurse said soothingly. “And the address?”
“Calle de Concordia, Nineteen, Buenaventura, Sobrante.”
“Say it again,” the nurse urged him. “Spell it.” Poor girl! She was a native of St. Louis. If Jack Webster had mentioned Ossawatomie or Canandaigua, he would not have been called upon to go into details and waste his strength. He gasped and wet his lips; she bent to get the message:
“Damn that duck,” he whispered. “She had a green tailor-made suit, and—believe me, girl, I'd rather sell my Death Valley—borax-claims than—work them myself. Free-milling gold—catch it on amalgamating plates—contact between andesite and—Silurian limestone—Billy knows ducks. I taught him myself. Come, Neddy. All together now, you old—pelican. A little close harmony, boys:
“Let go the peak halyards,
Let go the peak halyards,
My finger is caught in the block!
Leggo!”
“Sounds like a drinking man,” the doctor observed. “If that's the case, this attack will go hard with him.”
It did. However, life had the habit of going hard with Webster so frequently that fortunately he was trained to the minute, and after three days of heroic battling the doctor awarded Jack the decision. Thereafter they kept him in the hospital ten days longer, “feeding him up” as the patient expressed it—at the end of which period Webster, some fifteen pounds lighter and not quite so fast on his feet as formerly, resumed his journey toward New Orleans.
In the meantime, however, several things had happened. To begin, Dolores Ruey spent two days wondering what had become of her quondam knight of the whiskers—at the end of which period she arrived in New Orleans with the conviction strong upon her that while her hero might be as courageous as a wounded lion when dealing with men, he was the possessor, when dealing with women, of about two per cent, less courage than a cottontail rabbit. She reproached herself for the wintry glance she had cast upon the poor fellow that night at the Denver railway station; she decided that the amazing Neddy Jerome was an interfering, impudent old fool and that she had done an unmaidenly and brazen deed in replying to his ridiculous telegram, even though she did so under an assumed name. Being a very human young lady, however, she could not help wondering what had become of the ubiquitous Mr. Webster, although the fact that he had mysteriously disappeared from the train en route to New Orleans did not perturb her one half so much as it had the disappearee! She had this advantage over that unfortunate man. Whereas he did not know she was bound for Buenaventura, she knew he was; hence, upon arrival in New Orleans she dismissed him from her thoughts, serene in abiding faith that sooner or later her knight would appear, like little Bo-Peep's lost sheep, dragging his tail behind him, so to speak. The only regret she entertained arose from her disappointment in the knowledge of his real character, and its wide variance from the heroic attributes with which she had endowed him. She had depended upon him to be a daring devil—and he had failed to toe the scratch!
Dolores spent a week in New Orleans renewing schoolgirl friendships from her convent days in the quaint old town. This stop-over, together with the one in Denver, not having been taken into consideration by Mr. William Geary when he and Mother Jenks commenced to speculate upon the approximate date of her arrival in Buenaventura, resulted in the premature flight of Mother Jenks to San Miguel de Padua, a fruitless visit on the part of Billy aboard the Cacique, of the United Fruit Company's line, followed by a hurry call to Mother Jenks to return to Buenaventura until the arrival of the next steamer.
This time Billy's calculations proved correct, for Dolores did arrive on that steamer. It is also worthy of remark here that shortly after boarding the vessel and while La Estrellita was snoring down the Mississippi, Miss Dolores did the missing Webster the signal honour of scanning the purser's passenger list in a vain search for his name.
At Buenaventura the steamer anchored in the roadstead; the port doctor came aboard, partook of his customary drink with the captain, received a bundle of the latest American newspapers and magazines, nosed around, asked a few perfunctory questions, and gave the vessel pratique. Immediately she was surrounded by lighters manned by clamorous, half-naked Sobranteans, each screaming in a horrible patois of English, Spanish, and good American slang perfervid praises of the excellence of his service compared with that of his neighbour. Dolores was particularly interested in the antics of one fellow who had a sign tacked on a short signal mast in his lighter. “I am a poor man with a large family, and my father was an American,” the legend ran. “Kind-hearted Americans will patronize me to the exclusion of all others.”
Dolores had made up her mind to heed this pathetic appeal, when she observed a gasolene launch shoot up to the landing at the foot of the companion-ladder and discharge a well-dressed, youthful white man. As he came up the companion, the purser recognized him.
“Howdy, Bill,” he called.
“Hello, yourself,” Mr. William Geary replied, and Dolores knew him for an American. “Do you happen to have as a passenger this trip a large, interesting person, by name John Stuart Webster?” added Billy Geary.
“I don't know, Billy. I'll look over the passenger-list.”
“No hope,” Billy replied mournfully. “If Jack Webster was aboard he'd have got acquainted with you. However, take a look-see to make certain.”
“Friend of yours?” the purser queried.
“You bet. Likewise guide and philosopher. He should have been here on the last steamer—cabled me he was coming, and I haven't heard a word from him since. I'm a little worried.”
“I'll get the list,” the purser announced, and together they moved off toward his office. Dolores followed, drawn by the mention of that magic name Webster, and paused in front of the purser's office to lean over the rail, ostensibly to watch the cargadores in their lighters clustering around the great ship, but in reality to learn more of the mysterious Webster.
“Blast the luck,” Billy Geary growled, “the old sinner isn't here. Gosh, that's worse than having a note called on a fellow. By the way, do you happen to have a Miss Dolores Ruey aboard?”
Dolores pricked up her little ears. What possible interest could this stranger have in her goings or comings?
“You picked a winner this time, Bill,” she heard the purser say. “Stateroom Sixteen, boat-deck, starboard side. You'll probably find her there, packing to go ashore.”
“Thanks,” Billy replied and stepped out of the purser's office. Dolores turned and faced him.
“I am Miss Ruey,” she announced. “I heard you asking for me.” Her eyes carried the query she had not put into words: “Who are you, and what do you want?” Billy saw and understood, and on the instant a wave of desolation surged over him.
So this was the vision he had volunteered to meet aboard La Estrellita, and by specious lie and hypo-critic mien, turn her back from the portals of Buenaventura to that dear old United States, which, Billy suddenly recalled with poignant pain, is a sizable country in which a young lady may very readily be lost forever. At the moment it occurred to Mr. Geary that the apotheosis of rapture would be a midnight stroll in the moonlight along the Malecon, with the little waves from the Caribbean lapping and gurgling against the beach, while afar, in some bosky retreat, a harp with a flute obbligato sobbed out “'Nita, Juanita” or some equally heart-throb ballad. Yes, that would be quite a joyous journey—with Dolores Ruey.
Billy, with the quick eye of youth, noted that Dolores was perfectly wonderful in a white flannel skirt and jacket, white buck boots, white panama hat with a gorgeous puggaree, a mannish little linen collar, and a red four-in-hand tie. From under that white hat peeped a profusion of crinkly brown hair with a slightly reddish tinge to it; her eyes were big and brown and wide apart, with golden flecks in them; their glance met Billy's hungry gaze simply, directly, and with 'a curiosity there was no attempt to hide. Her complexion was that peculiar shade of olive, with a warm, healthy, underlying tinge that nobody could possibly hope to describe, but which fits in so beautifully with brown eyes of a certain shade. Her nose was patrician; her beautiful short upper lip revealed the tips of two perfect, milk-white front teeth: she was, Billy Geary told himself, a goddess before whom all low, worthless, ornery fellows like himself should grovel and die happy, if perchance she might be so minded as to walk on their faces! He was aroused from his critical inventory when the houri spoke again:
“You haven't answered my question, sir!”
“No,” said Billy, “I didn't. Stupid of me, too. I was staring, instead—because, you see, it isn't often we poor expatriated devils down here climb out of Hades long enough to view the angels! However, come to think of it, you didn't ask me any question. You looked it. My name is Geary—William H. Geary, by profession a mining engineer and by nature an ignoramus, and I have called to deliver some disappointing news regarding Henrietta Wilkins.”
“Is she——”
“She is very much alive and in excellent health—or rather was, the last time it was my pleasure and privilege to call on the dear lady. But she isn't in Buenaventura now.” Mentally Billy asked God to forgive him his black-hearted treachery to this winsome girl. He loathed the task he had planned and foisted upon himself, and nothing but the memory of Mother Jenks's manifold kindnesses to him in a day, thanks to Jack Webster, now happily behind him, could have induced him to go through to the finish. Mentally clinging to the memory of his obligations to Mother Jenks, Billy ruthlessly smothered his finer instincts and with breaking heart prepared to do or die.
“Why, where is she?” Dolores queried, and Billy could have wept at the fright in those lovely brown eyes.
He waved his hand airily. “Quien sabe?” he said. “She left three weeks ago for New Orleans to visit you. I dare say you passed each other on the road—here, here, Miss Ruey, don't cry. By golly, this is a tough one, I know, but be brave and we'll save something out of the wreck yet.”
He took a recess of three minutes, while Dolores dabbed her eyes and went through sundry other motions of being brave. Then he proceeded with his nefarious recital.
“When your cablegram arrived, Miss Ruey, naturally Mrs. Wilkins was not here to receive it, and as I was the only person who had her address, the cable-agent referred it to me. Under the circumstances, not knowing where I could reach you with a cable informing you that Mrs. Wilkins was headed for California to see you, I had no other alternative but let matters take their course. I decided you might arrive on La Estrellita, so I called to welcome you to our thriving little city, and, as a friend of about two minutes' standing, to warn you away from it.”
Billy's mien, as he voiced this warning, was so singularly mysterious that Dolores's curiosity was aroused instantly and rose superior to her grief. “Why, what's the matter?” she demanded.
Billy looked around, as if fearful of being overheard. He lowered his voice. “We're going to have one grand little first-class revolution,” he replied. “It's due to bust almost any night now, and when it does, the streets of San Buenaventura will run red with blood. I shudder to think of the fate that might befall you, alone and unprotected in the city, in such event.”
Dolores blanched. “Oh, dearie me,” she quavered. “Do they still have revolutions here? You know, Mr. Geary, my poor father was killed in one.”
“Yes, and the same old political gang that shot him is still on deck,” Billy warned her. “It would be highly dangerous for a Ruey, man or woman, to show his or her nose around Buenaventura about now. Besides, Miss Ruey, that isn't the worst,” he continued, for a whole-hearted lad was Billy, who never did anything by halves. While he was opposed to lies and liars on broad, general principles, nevertheless whenever the exigencies of circumstance compelled him to backslide, his Hibernian impulsiveness bade him spin a yarn worth while. “The city is reeking with cholera,” he declared.
“Cholera!” Dolores's big brown eyes grew Digger with wonder and concern. “Are there any other fatal diseases prevalent, Mr. Geary?”
“Well, we're not advertising it, Miss Ruey, but if I had an enemy to whom I wanted to slip a plain or fancy case of bubonic plague, I'd invite him to visit me at Buenaventura.”
“How strange the port authorities didn't warn us at New Orleans!” Dolores suggested.
“Tish! Tush! Fiddlesticks and then some. The fruit company censors everything, Miss Ruey, and the news doesn't get out. The port authorities here would never admit the truth of such reports, because it would be bad for business——”
“But the port doctor just said the passengers could go ashore.”
“What's a human life to a doctor? Besides, he's on the slush-fund pay-roll and does whatever the higher-ups tell him. You be guided by what I tell you, Miss Ruey, and do not set foot on Sobrantean soil. Even if you had a guarantee that you could escape alive, there isn't a hotel in the city you could afford to sleep in; Miss Wilkins's house is closed up, and Miss Wilkins's servants dismissed, and—er—well, if you stay aboard La Estrellita, you'll have your nice clean stateroom, your well-cooked meals, your bath, and the attentions of the stewardess. The steamer will be loaded in two days; then you go back to New Orleans, and by the time you arrive there I'll have been in communication by cable with Mother Jenks—I mean——”
“Mother who?” Dolores demanded.
“A mere slip of the tongue, Miss Ruey. I was thinking of my landlady. I meant Mrs. Wilkins——”
“You mean Miss Wilkins,” Dolores corrected him smilingly.
“So I do. Of course, Miss Wilkins. Well, I'll cable her you're on your way back, and if you'll leave me your New Orleans address, I'll have her get in touch with you, and then you can have your nice little visit far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife and the death-dealing sting of the yellow-fever mosquito.”
“I'm so awfully obliged to you, Mr. Geary. You're so kind, I'm sure I'd be a most ungrateful girl not to be guided by you accordingly. You wouldn't risk any friend of yours in this terrible place, would you, Mr. Geary?”
“Indeed, I would not. By permitting anybody I thought anything of to come to this city, I should feel guilty of murder.”
“I'm sure you would, Mr. Geary. Nevertheless, there is one point that is not quite clear in my mind, and I wish you'd explain——”
“Command me, Miss Ruey.”
“If this is such a frightful place, why are you so anxious, if I may employ such language, to hornsgoggle your dearest friend, Mr. John S. Webster, into coming down here? Do you want to kill him and get his money—or what?”
Billy's face flamed at thought of the embarrassing trap his glib tongue had led him into. He cursed himself for a star-spangled jackass, and while he was engaged in this interesting pastime Dolores spoke again.
“And by the way, which is it? Miss Wilkins or Mrs.? You've called her both, and when I reminded you she was a Miss, you agreed with me, whereas she is nothing of the sort. She's a Mrs. Then you blurted out something about a Mother Jenks, and finally, Mr. Geary, it occurs to me that for a complete stranger you are unduly interested in my welfare. I'm not such a goose as to assimilate your weird tales of death from disease. I might have accepted the revolution, because I know it's the national outdoor sport down here, and I might have accepted the cholera, because it wouldn't surprise me; but when you so artlessly throw in bubonic plague and yellow fever for good measure, Mr. Geary, you tax my credulity. It occurs to me that if your friend John S. Webster can risk Buenaventura, I can also.”
“You—you know that old tarantula?” Billy gasped. “Why I—I came out to warn him off the grass, too.”
Dolores walked a step closer to Billy and eyed him disapprovingly. “I'm so sorry I can't believe that statement,” she replied. “With the exception of your tendency toward fiction, you're rather a presentable young man, too. It's really too bad, but it happens that I was standing by the companion-ladder when you came aboard and spoke to the purser; when you asked him if Mr. Webster was aboard, your face was alight with eagerness and anticipation, but when you had reason to believe he was not aboard, you looked so terribly disappointed I felt sorry for you.”
“Well, of course I would have been delighted to meet the old boy,” Billy began, but she interrupted him.
“Mr. Geary, you're about as reliable as a Los Angeles thermometer—and if you've ever lived in a town the main asset of which is climate, you know just how reliable you are. Now, let us understand each other, Mr. Geary: If you think I'm the kind of simple, trusting little country maid who would come within half a mile of the land of her birth and then run back home because somebody said 'Boo!' you are not nearly so intelligent as you look. I'm going ashore, if it's the last act of my life, and when I get there I'm going to interview the cable agent; then I'm going to call at the steamship office and scan the passenger list of the last three north-bound steamers, and if I do not find Henrietta Wilkins's name on one of those passenger lists I'm going up to Calle de Concordia Number Nineteen——”
“I surrender unconditionally,” groaned Billy. “I'm a liar from beginning to end. I overlooked my hand. I forgot that while you were born in this country and bred from several generations of Sobranteans, you were raised in the U. S. A. I beg of you to believe me, however, when I tell you that I only told you those whoppers because I was in honour bound to tell them. Personally, I don't want you to go away—at least, not until I'm ready to go away, too! Miss Ruey, my nose is in the dust. On my lying head there is a ton of ashes and a thousand running yards of sackcloth. There is a fever in my brain and a misery in my heart——”
“And contrition in your face,” she interrupted him laughingly. “You're forgiven, Mr. Geary—on one condition.”
“Name it,” he answered.
“Tell me everything from beginning to end.”
So Billy told her, for there are some women in this world to whom a man with a poker face, the imagination of a Verne, and the histrionic art of an Irving cannot—nay, dare not—tell a lie. “I would much rather have been visited with a plague of boils, like our old friend, the late Job, than have to tell you this, Miss Ruey,” Bill concluded his recital. “Man proposes, but God disposes, and you're here and bound to learn the truth sooner or later. Mother isn't a lady and she knows it, but take it from me, Miss Ruey, she's a grand old piece of work. She's a scout—a ring-tailed sport—a regular individual and game as a gander.”
“In other words,” Dolores replied smilingly, “she has a heart of gold.”
“Twenty-four carat, all wool and a yard wide,” Billy declared, mixed-metaphorically.
“And I mustn't call at El Buen Amigo, Mr. Geary?”
“Perish the thought! Mother must call on you. El Buen Amigo is what you might term a hotel for tropical tramps of the masculine sex. Nearly all of Mother's guests have a past, you know. They're the submerged white tenth of Sobrante.”
“Then my benefactor must call to see me here?” Billy nodded. “When will you bring her here?”
Billy reflected that Mother Jenks had been up rather late the night before and that trade in the cantina of El Buen Amigo had been unusually brisk; so since he desired to exhibit the old lady at her best, he concluded it might be well to spar for wind.
“To-morrow at ten,” he declared. Dolores inclined her head. Something told her she had better leave all future details to the amiable William.
“I take it you are a guest at El Buen Amigo, Mr. Geary,” she continued.
“Oh, yes. I've been a guest for about two weeks now; before that I was an encumbrance. Now I'm paying my way—thanks to an old side-kicker of mine, Jack Webster.”
“But surely you're not a tropical tramp, Mr. Geary?”
“I was, but Jack Webster reformed me,” Billy answered quizzically. “You know—power of wealth and all that.”
“I remember you inquired for your friend Mr. Webster when you came aboard the steamer.”
“I remember it, too,” Billy countered ruefully. “I can't imagine what's become of him. I suppose I'll have a cable from him any day, though, telling me he'll be along on the next steamer. Miss Ruey, did you ever go to meet the only human being in the world and discover that for some mysterious reason he had failed to keep the appointment? If you ever have, you'll know just how cheerful I felt when I didn't find Jack's name on the passenger list. Miss Ruey, you'll have to meet old John Stuart the minute he lights in Buenaventura. He's some boy.”
“Old John Stuart?” she queried. “How old?”
“Oh, thirty-nine or forty on actual count, but one of the kind that will live to be a thousand and then have to be killed with an axe. He's coming to Sobrante to help me put over a mining deal.”
“How interesting, Mr. Geary! No wonder you were disappointed.”
The last sentence was a shaft deliberately launched; to Dolores's delight it made a keyhole in Billy Geary's heart.
“Don't get me wrong, Miss Ruey,” he hastened to assure her. “I have a good mine, but I'd trade it for a hand-shake from Jack! The good Lord only published one edition of Jack, and limited the edition to one volume; then the plates were melted for the junk we call the human race.”
“Oh, do tell me all about him,” Dolores pleaded. Billy, always interested in his favourite topic, beamed with boyish pleasure. “No,” he said, “I'll not tell you about him, Miss Ruey. I'll just let him speak for himself. We used to be as close to each other as peas in a pod, back in Colorado, and then I made a monkey of myself and shook old Jack without even saying good-bye. Miss Ruey, my action didn't even dent his friendship for me. Two weeks ago, when I was sick and penniless and despairing, the possessor of a concession on a fortune but without a centavo in my pockets to buy a banana, when I was a veritable beach-comber and existing on the charity of Mother Jenks, I managed finally to communicate with old Jack and told him where I was and what I had. There's his answer, Miss Ruey, and I'm not ashamed to say that when I got it I cried like a kid.” And Billy handed her John Stuart Webster's remarkable cablegram, the receipt of which had, for Billy Geary, transformed night into day, purgatory into paradise. Dolores read it.
“No wonder you love him,” she declared, and added artlessly: “His wife must simply adore him.”
“'He has no wife to bother his fife, so he paddles his own canoe,'” Billy recited. “I don't believe the old sour-dough has ever been in love with anything more charming than the goddess of fortune. He's womanproof.”
“About Mrs. Jenks,” Dolores continued, abruptly changing the subject. “How nice to reflect that after she had trusted you and believed in you when you were penniless, you were enabled to justify her faith.”
“You bet!” Billy declared. “I feel that I can never possibly hope to catch even with the old Samaritan, although I did try to show her how much I appreciated her.”
“I dare say you went right out and bought her an impossible hat,” Dolores challenged roguishly.
“No, I didn't—for a very sufficient reason. Down here the ladies do not wear hats. But I'll tell you what I did buy her, Miss Ruey—and oh, by George. I'm glad now I did it. She'll wear them to-morrow when I bring her to see you. I bought her a new black silk dress and an old lace collar, and a gold breast-pin and a tortoise-shell hair comb and hired an open carriage and took her for an evening ride on the Malecon to listen to the band concert.”
“Did she like that?”
“She ate it up,” Billy declared with conviction. “I think it was her first adventure in democracy.” Billy's pulse was still far from normal when he reached El Buen Amigo, for he was infused with a strange, new-found warmth that burned like malarial fever but wasn't. He wasted no preliminaries on Mother Jenks, but bluntly acquainted her with the facts in the case.
Mother Jenks eyed him a moment wildly. “Gord's truth!” she gasped; she reached for her favourite elixir, but Billy got the bottle first.
“Nothing doing,” he warned this strange publican. “Mother, you're funking it—and what would your sainted 'Enery say to that? Do you want that angel to kiss you and get a whiff of this brandy?” Mother Jenks's eyes actually popped. “Gor', Willie,” she gasped, “'aven't Hi told yer she's a lydy! Me kiss the lamb! Hi trusts, Mr. Geary, as ow I knows my plyce an' can keep it.”
“Yes, I know,” Billy soothed the frightened old woman, “but the trouble is Miss Dolores doesn't know hers—and something tells me if she does, she'll forget it. She'll take you in her arms and kiss you, sure as death and taxes.”
And she did! “My lamb, my lamb,” sobbed Mother Jenks the next morning, and rested her old cheek, with its rum-begotten hue, close to the rose-tinted ivory cheek of her ward. “Me—wot I am—an' to think———”
“You're a sweet old dear,” Dolores whispered, patting the gray head; “and I'm going to call you Mother.”
“Mr. William H. Geary,” the girl remarked that night, “I know now why your friend Mr. Webster sent that cablegram. I think you're a scout, too.”