Capn Warrens Wards | Page 8

a spell longer."
She went away, closing the door after her. The bewildered, wet and shivering New Yorker stared about the room, which, to his surprise, was warm and cozy. The warmth was furnished, so he presently discovered, by a steam radiator in the corner. Radiators and a bathroom! These were modern luxuries he would have taken for granted, had Elisha Warren been the sort of man he expected to find, the country magnate, the leading citizen, fitting brother to the late A. Rodgers Warren, of Fifth Avenue and Wall Street.
But the Captain Warren who had driven him to South Denboro in the rain was not that kind of man at all. His manner and his language were as far removed from those of the late A. Rodgers as the latter's brown stone residence was from this big rambling house, with its deep stairs and narrow halls, its antiquated pictures and hideous, old-fashioned wall paper; as far removed as Miss Baker, whom the captain had hurriedly introduced as "my second cousin keepin' house for me," was from the dignified butler at the mansion on Fifth Avenue. Patchwork comforters and feather beds were not, in the lawyer's scheme of things, fit associates for radiators and up-to-date bathrooms. And certainly this particular Warren was not fitted to be elder brother to the New York broker who had been Sylvester, Kuhn and Graves' client.
It could not be, it COULD not. There must be some mistake. In country towns there were likely to be several of the same name. There must be another Elisha Warren. Comforted by this thought, Mr. Graves opened his valise, extracted therefrom other and drier articles of wearing apparel, and proceeded to change his clothes.
Meanwhile, Miss Abigail had descended the stairs to the sitting room. Before a driftwood fire in a big brick fireplace sat Captain Warren in his shirt-sleeves, a pair of mammoth carpet slippers on his feet, and the said feet stretched luxuriously out toward the blaze.
"Abbie," observed the captain, "this is solid comfort. Every time I go away from home I get into trouble, don't I? Last trip I took to Boston, I lost thirty dollars, and--"
"Lost it!" interrupted Miss Baker, tartly. "Gave it away, you mean."
"I didn't GIVE it away. I lent it. Abbie, you ought to know the difference between a gift and a loan."
"I do--when there is any difference. But if lendin' Tim Foster ain't givin' it away, then I miss my guess."
"Well," with another chuckle, "Tim don't feel that way. He swore right up and down that he wouldn't take a cent--as a gift. I offered to make him a present of ten dollars, but he looked so shocked that I apologized afore he could say no."
"Yes, and then LENT him that thirty. Shocked! The only thing that would shock that good-for-nothin' is bein' set to work. What possessed you to be such a soft-head, I don't know. When you get back a copper of that money I'll believe the millennium's struck, that's all."
"Hum! Well, I'll help you believe it--that is, if I have time afore I drop dead of heart disease. Abbie, you'd make a good lawyer; you can get up an argument out of a perfect agreement. I said the thirty dollars was lost, to begin with. But I knew Tim Foster's mother when she used to think that boy of hers was the eighth wonder of the world. And I promised her I'd do what I could for him long's I lived . . . But it seems to me we've drifted some off the course, ain't we? What I started to say was that every time I go away from home I get into trouble. Up to Boston 'twas Tim and his 'loan.' To-night it's about as healthy a sou'-wester as I've ever been out in. Dan fetched in the team, has he?"
"Yes. It's in the stable. He says the buggy dash is pretty well scratched up, and that it's a wonder you and that Graves man wa'n't killed. Who is he, anyhow?"
"Land knows, I don't."
"You don't know! Then what's he doin' here?"
"Changin' his duds, I guess. That's what I'd do if I looked as much like a drowned rat as he did."
"'Lisha Warren! if you ain't the most PROVOKIN' thing! Don't be so unlikely. You know what I mean. What's he come here, to this house, for?
"Don't know, Abbie. I didn't know he WAS comin' here till just as we got down yonder by Emery's corner. I asked him who he was lookin' for, he said 'Elisha Warren,' and then the tree caved in on us."
"'Lisha, you--you don't s'pose 'twas a--SIGN, do you?"
"Sign?"
"Yes, a sign, a prophecy-like, a warnin' that somethin' is goin' to happen."
The captain put back his head and laughed.
"Sign somethin' HAD happened, I should think," he