Part 3 (1/2)

Look yourself, I managed to gasp.

This time, somehow, he could see it.

You planted it! You brought it up and planted it!

I never! Oh, dear me! It pays for going without it for weeks!

_Nothing_ will ever make me believe that that pen was standing there when I looked for it! said Jonathan, with vehement finality.

All right, I sighed happily. You dont have to believe it.

But in his heart perhaps he does believe it. At any rate, since that time he has adopted a new formula: My dear, it may be there, of course, but I dont see it. And this position I regard as una.s.sailable.

One triumph he has had. I wanted something that was stored away in the shut-up town house.

Do you suppose you could find it? I said, as gently as possible.

I can try, he said.

I think it is in a box about this shapesee?a gray box, in the attic closet, the farthest-in corner.

Are you sure its in the house? If its in the house, I think I can find it.

Yes, Im sure of that.

When he returned that night, his face wore a look of satisfaction very imperfectly concealed beneath a mask of nonchalance.

_Good_ for you! Was it where I said?

No.

Was it in a different corner?

No.

Where was it?

It wasnt in a corner at all. It wasnt in that closet.

It wasnt! Where, then?

Downstairs in the hall closet. He paused, then could not forbear adding, And it wasnt in a gray box; it was in a big hat-box with violets all over it.

Why, _Jonathan!_ Arent you grand! How did you ever find it? I couldnt have done better myself.

Under such praise he expanded. The fact is, he said confidentially, I had given it up. And then suddenly I changed my mind. I said to myself, Jonathan, dont be a man! Think what shed do if she were here now. And then I got busy and found it.