Romance Island | Page 5

to the woman's kid, and the kid died, and the woman thought she'd said a charm over it."
Chillingworth grinned affectionately.
"Hold up," he commanded, "or you'll recall the very words of the charm."
Bennietod gasped and stared.
"Now, Bennietod?" Amory encouraged him.
"I t'ink," said the lad, "if she's a heiress, dis yere dagger-plunger is her mudder dat's been shut up in a mad-house to a fare-you-well."
Chillingworth nodded approvingly.
"Your imagination is toning down wonderfully," he flattered him. "A month ago you would have guessed that the mulatto lady was an Egyptian princess' messenger sent over here to get the heart from an American heiress as an ingredient for a complexion lotion. You're coming on famously, Todd."
"The German poet Wieland," began Benfy, clearing his throat, "has, in his epic of the Oberon made admirable use of much the same idea, Mr. Chillingworth--"
Yells interrupted him. Mr. Benfy was too "well-read" to be wholly popular with the staff.
"Oh, well, the woman was crazy. That's about all," suggested Harding, and blushed to the line of his hair.
"Yes, I guess so," assented Holt, who lifted and lowered one shoulder as he talked, "or doped."
Chillingworth sighed and looked at them both with pursed lips.
"You two," he commented, "would get out a paper that everybody would know to be full of reliable facts, and that nobody would buy. To be born with a riotous imagination and then hardly ever to let it riot is to be a born newspaper man. Provin?"
The elder giant leaned back, his eyes partly closed.
"Is she engaged to be married?" he asked. "Is Miss Holland engaged?"
Chillingworth shook his head.
"No," he said, "not engaged. We knew that by tea-time the same day, Provin. Well, St. George?"
St. George drew a long breath.
"By Jove, I don't know," he said, "it's a stunning story. It's the best story I ever remember, excepting those two or three that have hung fire for so long. Next to knowing just why old Ennis disinherited his son at his marriage, I would like to ferret out this."
"Now, tut, St. George," Amory put in tolerantly, "next to doing exactly what you will be doing all this week you'd rather ferret out this."
"On my honour, no," St. George protested eagerly, "I mean quite what I say. I might go on fearfully about it. Lord knows I'm going to see the day when I'll do it, too, and cut my troubles for the luck of chasing down a bully thing like this."
If there was anything to forgive, every one forgave him.
"But give up ten minutes on The Aloha," Amory skeptically put it, adjusting his pince-nez, "for anything less than ten minutes on _The Aloha_?"
"I'll do it now--now!" cried St. George. "If Mr. Chillingworth will put me on this story in your place and will give you a week off on The Aloha, you may have her and welcome."
Little Cawthorne pounded on the table.
"Where do I come in?" he wailed. "But no, all I get is another wad o' woe."
"What do you say, Mr. Chillingworth?" St. George asked eagerly.
"I don't know," said Chillingworth, meditatively turning his glass. "St. George is rested and fresh, and he feels the story. And Amory--here, touch glasses with me."
Amory obeyed. His chief's hand was steady, but the two glasses jingled together until, with a smile, Amory dropped his arm.
"I am about all in, I fancy," he admitted apologetically.
"A week's rest on the water," said Chillingworth, "would set you on your feet for the convention. All right, St. George," he nodded.
St. George leaped to his feet.
"Hooray!" he shouted like a boy. "Jove, won't it be good to get back?"
He smiled as he set down his glass, remembering the day at his desk when he had seen the white-and-brass craft slip to the river's mouth.
Rollo, discreet and without wonder, footed softly about the table, keeping the glasses filled and betraying no other sign of life. For more than four hours he was in attendance, until, last of the guests, Little Cawthorne and Bennietod departed together, trying to remember the dates of the English kings. Finally Chillingworth and Amory, having turned outdoors the dramatic critic who had arrived at midnight and was disposed to stay, stood for a moment by the fire and talked it over.
"Remember, St. George," Chillingworth said, "I'll have no monkey-work. You'll report to me at the old hour, you won't be late; and you'll take orders--"
"As usual, sir," St. George rejoined quietly.
"I beg your pardon," Chillingworth said quickly, "but you see this is such a deuced unnatural arrangement."
"I understand," St. George assented, "and I'll do my best not to get thrown down. Amory has told me all he knows about it--by the way, where is the mulatto woman now?"
"Why," said Chillingworth, "some physician got interested in the case, and he's managed to hurry her up to the Bitley Reformatory in Westchester for the