Part 38 (1/2)

”Once I went hunting, last summer”--he began. John glanced at his watch.

Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he brought his voluble rival along?--”hunting for bear,” continued the narrator. ”Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms--”

”Palms don't grow out West,” John interrupted savagely.

”Yes, they do.”

”Geogerfy says they don't.”

”This was a part the geogerfies don't know anything about,” serenely.

”Ever been out there?”

”No,” reluctantly.

”Then keep quiet. _I have._ Well, there were the palms and--”

Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.

”Oh,” exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties and threw the paper on the floor.

”Have some?” he asked as he lifted the cover.

The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Silencing his adversary._]

Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish mechanic, who s.h.i.+fted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed collar sc.r.a.ped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit; the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring advertis.e.m.e.nts, ”Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker,” ”Trade at the corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices,”

”Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera supplies,” and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp ”rap-rap-rap,” which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main floor.

”Gallery,” explained John. ”Fellow knocks on the back of one of the benches to make the boys behave.” His jaws resumed the burden of reducing that persistent caramel to a swallowable state.

The orchestra of five filed solemnly in through the little door beneath the stage and took their accustomed places. A dart, propelled by an urchin of the upper regions who evidently had no fear of the monitor's stick, sailed serenely downward and found a resting place in a blonde lock of the salesgirl's hair. The footlights flashed on, and the musicians struck up a lilting, popular air, as Sid cleared his throat.

”Then the cowboy--” he began.

”Have another?” interrupted John, extending the box of tenacious goodies.

”Sh-h,” whispered Louise. ”There goes the curtain.”

Why Martha had selected the hapless vocation of milliner's apprentice, John could not understand. For it was in Madame's little millinery shop in New York that Mordaunt Merrilac, gentleman by appearance, and leader of a desperate band of counterfeiters, met and became infatuated with the heroine. This he revealed in a soliloquy punctuated by frequent tugging at his black mustache, and strode majestically to the rear of the long, gloomy bas.e.m.e.nt in which the first act was laid. There he joined three overalled mechanics in s.h.i.+rtsleeves, who puttered gingerly about a table on which were mysterious vats and a brightly glowing electric crucible.

”Is all in readiness?” growled Mordaunt.

”Aye, master.”

”Into the acid vat with the plate, then.” He drew out a jewelled watch and studied the dial with knitted brows. ”Ten long minutes before we know of our success.”

A m.u.f.fled scream, long-drawn and filled with terror, broke in upon the silence which followed. Louise, Sid, and John leaned anxiously forward on the very edges of their seats.

”What's that?” gasped the tallest of the workmen.