Part 14 (2/2)

”You see, Mees Kenway,” sputtered the swarthy man eagerly, ”I catch the paper, here.” He rapped the _Post_ again with his finger. ”I read the Engleesh--yes. I see the notice you, the honest Kenway, have put in the paper--”

”Let me tell you, sir,” said Agnes, starting up, ”_all_ the Kenways are honest. I am not the only honest person in our family I should hope!”

Agnes was much annoyed. The excitable little foreigner spread abroad his hands again and bowed low before her.

”Please! Excuse!” he said. ”I admire all your family, oh, so very much! But it is to you who put in the paper the words here, about the very ancient silver bracelet.” Again that woodp.e.c.k.e.r rapping on the Lost and Found column in the _Post_. ”No?”

”Yes. I put the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper,” acknowledged Agnes, but wis.h.i.+ng very much that she had not, or that Neale O'Neil was present at this exciting moment to help her handle the situation.

”So! I have come for it,” cried the swarthy man, as though the matter were quite settled.

But Agnes' mind began to function pretty well again. She determined not to be ”rushed.” This strange foreigner might be perfectly honest.

But there was not a thing to prove that the bracelet given to Tess and Dot by the Gypsy women belonged to him.

”How do you know,” she asked, ”that the bracelet we have in our possession is the one you have lost?”

”I? Oh, no, lady! I did not lose the ancient heirloom. Oh, no.”

”But you say--”

”I am only its rightful owner,” he explained. ”Had Queen Alma's bracelet been in my possession it never would have been lost and so found by the so--gracious Kenway. Indeed, no!”

”Then, what have you come here for?” cried Agnes, in some desperation.

”I cannot give the bracelet to anybody but the one who lost it--”

”You say here the owner!” cried the man, beginning again the woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping on the paper.

”But how do I know you own it?” she gasped.

”Show it me. In one moment's time can I tell--at the one glance,” was the answer of a.s.surance. ”Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

These ”yeses” were accompanied by the emphatic tapping on the paper.

Agnes wondered that the _Post_ at that spot was not quite worn through.

Perhaps it was fortunate that at this moment Neale O'Neil came in.

That he came direct from the garage and apparently from a struggle with oily machinery, both his hands and face betrayed.

”Hey!” he exploded. ”If we are going to take Mr. Pinkney out on a cross-country chase after that missing pirate this afternoon, we've got to get a hustle on. You going to be ready, Aggie? Mr. Pinkney gets home at a quarter to one.”

”Oh, Neale!” cried Agnes, turning eagerly to greet the boy. ”Talk to this man--do! I don't know what to say to him.”

The boy's countenance broadened in a smile.

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