The Little Red Chimney | Page 9

he had witnessed, all went to prove his point.
Yet on the occasion of a fashionable noon wedding at the stone church near the Y.M.C.A. corner, all this impressive evidence was brought to naught. In the crush of machines and carriages the Candy Wagon was all but engulfed in high life. When the crowd surged out after the bridal party, the congestion for a few minutes baffled the efforts of the corps of police.
The Candy Man, looking on with much amusement at the well-dressed throng, presently received a thrill at the sound of a clear young voice exclaiming, "Here is the car, Aunt Eleanor--over here."
The haughtiest of limousines had taken up its station just beyond the Candy Wagon, and toward this the owner of the voice was piloting a majestic and breathless personage. If the Candy Man could have doubted his ears, he could not doubt his eyes. Here was the grace, the sparkle, the everything that made her his Miss Bentley, the Girl of All Others--except the grey suit. Now she wore velvet, and wonderful white plumes framed her face and touched her bright hair. No, there was no mistaking her. Reviewing the evidence he found it baffling. That absurd exclamation about lighthouses alone might be taken as indicating an unfamiliarity with the humbler walks of life.
The Reporter was at this time in daily attendance upon a convention in progress in a neighbouring hall, and he rarely failed to stop at the carriage block and pass the time of day on his way to and fro.
"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, on one of these occasions, after perusing in silence the first edition of the Evening Record; "I see my Cousin Augustus, on his return from New York, is to give a dinner dance in honour of Mrs. Gerrard Pennington's niece."
"I appreciate your innocent pride in Cousin Augustus, but may I inquire if by chance he possesses another name?" The Candy Man spoke with uncalled-for asperity.
"Sure," responded the Reporter, with a quizzical glance at his questioner; "several of 'em. Augustus Vincent McAllister is what he calls himself every day."
CHAPTER FOUR
In which the Candy Man again sees the Grey Suit, and Virginia continues the story of the Little Red Chimney.
It was Saturday afternoon, possibly the very next Saturday, or at most the Saturday after that, and the Candy Wagon was making money. The day of the week was unmistakable, for the working classes were getting home early; fathers of families with something extra for Sunday in paper bags under their arms. And the hat boxes! They passed the Candy Man's corner by the hundreds. Every feminine person in the big apartment houses must be intending to wear a new hat to-morrow.
There was something special going on at the Country Club--the Candy Man had taken to reading the social column--and the people of leisure and semi-leisure were to be well represented there, to judge by the machines speeding up the avenue; among them quite probably Miss Bentley and Mr. Augustus McAllister.
This not altogether pleasing reflection had scarcely taken shape in his mind, when, in the act of handing change to a customer, he beheld Miss Bentley coming toward him; without a doubt his Miss Bentley this time, for she wore the grey suit and the felt hat, jammed down any way on her bright hair and pinned with the pinkish quill. She was not alone. By her side walked a rather shabby, elderly man, with a rosy face, whose pockets bulged with newspapers, and who carried a large parcel. She was looking at him and he was looking at her, and they were both laughing. Comradeship of the most delightful kind was indicated.
Without a glance in the direction of the Candy Wagon they passed. Well, at any rate she wasn't at the Country Club. But how queer!
Earlier in the afternoon Virginia had gone by in dancing-school array, accompanied by an absurdly youthful mother. "I've got something to tell you," she called, and the Candy Man could see her being reproved for this unseemly familiarity.
His curiosity was but mildly stirred; indeed, having other things to think of, he had quite forgotten the incident, when on Monday she presented herself swinging her school bag.
"Say," she began, "I have found out about her Ladyship and the Little Red Chimney."
"Oh, have you?" he answered vaguely.
Virginia, resting her bag on the carriage block, looked disappointed. "I have been crazy to tell you, and now you don't care a bit."
"Indeed I do," the Candy Man protested. "I'm a trifle absent-minded, that's all."
Thus reassured she began: "Don't you know I told you I could see that chimney from our dining-room, and that I was going to watch it? Well, the other day at lunch I happened to look toward the window, and I jumped right out of my chair and clapped