Part 24 (2/2)
”There, by thunder! He's rung off in a rage.”
”There's the ungrateful parent for you!” he muttered as he made his way back to Gladwin's drawing room. ”Here I've gone and broken my neck to fall in love for him and that's all the thanks I get for it. Well, I'll marry her in spite of him, if he doesn't leave me a dollar. I could starve in a garret with her, and if I got too dreadfully hungry I could eat her. Hi, ho! but, say, Mr. Whitney Barnes, you had better switch off some of these lights. This house isn't supposed to be occupied.”
He left just one heavily shaded bronze lamp abeam. Then he carefully drew all the curtains across the windows and tiptoed about the room with the air of a sinister conspirator. He stopped in front of the great, mysterious-looking chest to one side of the entrance to the hallway, lifted the heavy lid and looked in.
”Here's where we will put our dead,” he said, with a lugubrious grin, let down the lid softly and crossed abruptly to the roomiest and coziest chair beside the curtained window. After another sweeping glance about the room he stretched his arms and yawned.
”Reckon I better sleep off that jag the pater presented me over the wire,” he chuckled, and down he slid into the soft upholstery, raising his long legs upon another chair and sighing with deep contentment.
His eyes roved about the room for a moment, when he smiled suddenly and quoted:
Why, let the stricken deer go weep; The hart ungalled play, For some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.
And upon the suggestion of the immortal bard he chose the sleeper's end of it and pa.s.sed away.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AUNTIE TAKES THE TRAIL.
”Mix a tablespoonful of corn starch with a quarter of a cupful of water. Stir this into a cupful of boiling water, and boil for two minutes; then add the juice and rind of a lemon and a cupful of sugar, and cook three minutes longer. Beat an egg very light, and pour the boiling mixture over it. Return to the fire and cook a minute longer, stirring all the while--a most tasty lemon sauce”----
”T' 'ell wit' these limon sauces!” exploded Michael Phelan, hurling the book across the room and bounding from his chair. ”Sure 'n I'll niver be able to look a limon in the face agin. Limon, limon, limon--these blame books are filled wit' 'em. 'Tis a limon I am mesilf an' all fer a limon colored bill. But I'll not stand it a minute longer, shut down into this tomb wit' nothin' but mice fer comp'ny.
Wurra! Wurra! Rose O'Neil, but your blue eyes an' your black hair an'
your divilish smiles have spelled me finish.”
Phelan wrung his hands and took a turn around the room. Now and again he stopped and shook his fist at the ceiling, and at last, beside himself, he made a rush for the door that led to the stairway. Opening a crack, he listened. Nothing but heavy silence beat down on him from above and he s.h.i.+vered. He looked back into the kitchen and his eye fell on the pile of cookbooks. With a muttered oath he flung himself through the doorway and crept upstairs.
He had to feel his way through the narrow slit of a corridor above, and it was with an immense sigh of relief that he opened the door and stepped into the great drawing room he had left. In the dim light of the one glowing lamp he made out Whitney Barnes deep in the embrace of a great chair and sonorously asleep.
”So that's the way he's kapin' watch!” hissed Phelan through his teeth, as he fairly pounced across the room. First he seized the young man's feet and threw them from their resting place to the floor, exclaiming as he did so:
”Here you--wake up!”
”Yes, dear,” mumbled the young man in his sleep, ”I could abide with you always.”
”Don't yez be afther dearin' me,” snarled Phelan. ”Wake up!”
Barnes opened his eyes and asked thickly:
”Wa.s.sa ma.s.ser.”
”What are yez doin' there?” cried Phelan.
”What am I doing here,” rejoined Barnes, now wide-awake and getting on his feet. ”Why, I'm keeping watch at the window--on guard as it were.”
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