Part 11 (1/2)
”My clerk says he is the boy who saved Pendleton from immediate arrest.”
”_Saved_ him?” quoted Ruth. ”Don't you mean that he balked the intention of the firm to arrest the suspect and have the matter cleared up at once?”
”You split hairs like any lawyer,” laughed Mr. Howbridge. Yet he stared at the girl thoughtfully for a long minute. Then: ”I see your point. I am going to wireless my office a message. Perhaps a closer examination into the life and works of Israel Stumpf might prove important.”
The little folks were, of course, immensely interested in the sending of that message, although they did not know its purport. Tess and Dot wandered about the decks of the steams.h.i.+p in their furs, Dot with the Alice-doll hugged close to her breast, and stared at everything they saw new; and, in Dot's case at least, asked innumerable questions.
When the _Horridole_ got out into the Gulf Stream where the air and sea were both warmer-much warmer than at Boston-the two little girls began to enjoy themselves enormously. They did not have to bundle up so much and the sea-air was delightful.
Its effect upon Ruth and Agnes was equally efficacious. They soon stopped the ”Hark, from the tomb a mournful sound!” as Neale had called their separate coughs. Ruth was soon able to walk about. Already Agnes, leaning on Neale's arm at first, paced the upper deck, around and around, ”to get an appet.i.te,” she said.
”Don't do it, Aggie,” begged Neale O'Neil, after watching her at dinner the second day. ”Remember what devastation you are causing. This is a rich steams.h.i.+p line; but profits won't stand many such pa.s.sengers as you are proving to be.”
”I know it!” cried his friend delightedly. ”One would never think I had been eating at home, but would believe I had been saving up for this occasion. Do ask the steward for some more tongue, Neale. I'm ashamed to.”
”'Every part strengthens a part,'” said Neale, quoting Mrs. MacCall. ”I don't know about that tongue, Aggie. You weren't behind the door when they were giving tongues out.”
”Is that so!” and she tossed her head.
”But, still,” he added, his eyes twinkling, ”this is the tongue that never gossiped, so perhaps it won't hurt you to have a little more,” and he summoned the waiter.
”I like your impudence!” Agnes exclaimed. ”Do you think I am in training to occupy Miss t.i.tus' exalted position when I get to be her age?”
”Don't know. Can't tell. You are getting kind of dried up and ancient, Aggie. I'm worried about you,” teased the boy.
”I'm not worried about you,” said she, tossing her head again. ”I know just how you are going to turn out, Neale O'Neil.”
”How?” he inquired curiously.
”Bad.”
”I'm bound to be a bad man, am I?”
”You are. You are a tease, and you're careless, and you don't care what happens when you are out for fun, and you are reckless with your money, and-and--”
”So far,” interposed Ruth who had heard this, and she said it rather soberly, ”you have related your own shortcomings to a nicety, Agnes.
There is little use in the pot calling the kettle black.”
”Well! I declare! Isn't it the result of my a.s.sociation with this boy that my own character is so bad?” Agnes demanded.
”You are both incorrigible,” declared Ruth, and thereafter paid no attention to them.
Agnes was feeling so much better by this time that she was ready for any gayety and almost any stroke of mischief. She was about with Neale O'Neil all the time; and usually the little ones were in their company.
So that Mr. Howbridge had not to fret himself in the least regarding Tess and Dot.
Ruth and Luke were together most of the time, for aboard s.h.i.+p Professor Keeps did not need his young a.s.sistant. Ruth thought the bald-headed professor with the very p.r.o.nounced near-sighted squint, rather an interesting man. He was still in the thirties; but he was so dry of speech and look that it was difficult not to think of him as much older.
He was interesting to talk with-or, rather, to listen to. Luke said what Professor Keeps did not know about botany, the flowers of the field themselves had forgotten!