They held a conference in the ante-room, Joe, Mr. Bill, Bert and Norah.
"This Pitts is a real man, is he, Bert?" asked Joe.
"I should say he was! Big as the side of a house and quicker than chain
lightning. He knew all about this Pracht brute and understood at once
why he stole the Gilfooly marriage record. He says the Sons of Sunshine
are only the tools of a syndicate that is trying to get possession of
the islands to sell them to Japan, so that Japan can have an aeroplane
base near the United States. Sounds like an old-fashioned melodrama,
doesn't it? The beautiful heroine and the wicked villain and
everything!"
"Everything but the noble hero," sighed Norah. "He should find the
queen. Poor little girl! I wonder where she is!"
"Poor Queen Teresa!" They all wondered.
"Say," exclaimed Mr. Bill suddenly. "I'm not satisfied! I'm going back
to the aluminum!" And he dashed into a descending elevator.
They were close at his heels, and when they left the cage at the
basement, they met Mr. Larsen waiting to go up. He put out his hand and
caught Mr. Bill's arm.
"Did you find the girl you were looking for?" he asked quickly. "You
were in such a hurry you didn't wait for me to remember that there was
another one. I sent her to the crockery!" He nodded toward the crockery
which was a neighbor of the hardware. "She was an old girl," he
explained, "and that was why----"
But Mr. Bill did not wait to hear "why," he was hurrying to a pile of
blue-and-white mixing bowls which half concealed a little clerk in the
required black sateen. Her back was toward them, but they could see that
her hair was pulled from her forehead into a tight knot at her neck and
that she wore big amber goggles. She looked as if she might be a near
relative to the Mary Smith they had found in the hardware. Joe Cary
shook his head. That girl wasn't Tessie. Here was just another
disappointment for Mr. Bill.
"He's only wasting time," Joe grumbled to Norah Lee, for if that girl
was Tessie of course Joe would recognize her at once, and Joe could not
see that she resembled Tessie in anything but size. Tessie never wore
her hair like that. And Tessie did not have amber goggles.
"I beg your pardon," Mr. Bill said breathlessly, when he reached the
black sateen back, "but would you be kind enough to remove your
glasses?" But before the girl could remove her glasses, before she
could do more than swing around and shrink away and blush and stammer,
he had her hands in his. "Tessie!" he cried. "Tessie Gilfooly! I knew
you were here!" His hands held her fingers tight as he repeated, "I knew
you were here!"
"Tessie!" It was plain that Joe had never really thought that she would
be there.
"Queen Teresa?" Bert peered over Joe's shoulder and wondered if this
odd-looking girl could be pretty Tessie Gilfooly.
"Oh, Tessie Gilfooly!" Norah was as sure as Mr. Bill. "We have been so
worried about you!"
"How did you know I was here?" Tessie tore off the disguising glasses
and let them see her big blue eyes.
"I knew!" Mr. Bill told her quickly. "I had a hunch you would feel safer
in your old job than anywhere else in Waloo. And you disguised yourself
as a salesgirl!" He laughed chokingly. "And came back right next to the
old job? That's a good one on Walker! He never recognized you?"
"You didn't recognize her at first, either, Mr. Bill," reminded the
mortified Mr. Walker, who was hovering near. "And the crockery isn't in
my department."
"I knew she was here!" declared Mr. Bill. "But it did take me a minute
or two to find her. I never thought she would hide herself behind amber
goggles. We hunted for you all night," he told Tessie simply.
Tessie flushed. "I'm sorry," she said just as simply. "I was so scared,
and so mad," she explained. And she told them how she had gone to find
Ka-kee-ta, and had been locked in an upstairs room in the old brick
house. And when she had escaped, owing to Joe's insistence on her
regular attendance at the Y. W. C. A. gymnasium classes, she had gone
back to the old home and fallen asleep. It was morning when she wakened,
and she had changed her clothes, found a nickel in the baking powder
can, and telephoned to Granny that she was all right. Then she had gone
to the Evergreen. "It was awfully good of Mr. Larsen to take me. I guess
he was short-handed. I knew no one would look for me here. And if I
pulled my hair back," she put her hand up and pulled her hair looser
around her face, "and put on these big amber glasses, I knew no one
would recognize me. And no one did!" she finished triumphantly.
"I did!" contradicted Mr. Bill proudly. "I recognized you!"
"I'm glad you did!" Tessie told him softly. "I'm glad you found me!" She
felt so safe with Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill would never let any one harm her.
She became aware that Mr. Bill was holding tight to her hand, and that
the people in the department, customers and clerks were staring at her.
She tried to release her fingers, but Mr. Bill would not let them go.
"What's this? What's this?" Mr. Kingley himself was coming toward them.
Customers and clerks fell back to make a gangway. "So Queen Teresa has
been found in the Evergreen basement a second time!" He smiled until he
saw Joe Cary, when he stopped smiling and looked as foolish and as
self-conscious as a fat, bald-headed, elderly man could look.
"A strange coincidence," Joe murmured impudently.
"Your special representative is here, Miss Gilfooly," exclaimed Bert,
eager for a portion of the Queen's attention. "Mr. Marvin sent me to
tell you. You can learn all about your kingdom now."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Tessie. "I've almost decided I don't want a
kingdom! I don't know as I even want to be a queen! It's a lot safer to
be a salesgirl!" And she drew a long breath.
"That's the stuff, Tess!" indorsed Joe. "There isn't any place in the
world to-day for a queen!"
"Miss Gilfooly has no choice," broke in Mr. Kingley, turning his broad
back to Joe. "Her good fortune, as such things always are, is just an
accident of birth. And one cannot escape the duties to which one is
born. That is true of my son and it is true of Miss Gilfooly. Neither of
them can shirk the obligations which Providence has given them. I
should suggest," he added hastily, as he became aware of an increasing
audience, "that Mr. Douglas take Queen Teresa to see Mr. Pitts, so that
our business may be resumed. All of these good people," he smiled
benevolently on the good people, who were staring at him open-eyed and
open-mouthed, "wish to buy something."
"I'll take her!" Mr. Bill exclaimed jealously, and he still clung to
Tessie's little hand.
"We'll all go," suggested Joe. "You come too, Mr. Kingley?" he added
with unusual courtesy.
"I can't go like this," objected Tessie, looking scornfully at her black
frock and touching her hair with her free hand. "I'm a fright!"
"You're an angel!" contradicted Mr. Bill.
Norah slipped behind Tessie, and with magic fingers touched the little
knot at the back of Tessie's head. A miracle seemed to be performed
before their eyes, for the old Tessie came back to them with the
loosening of her yellow hair.
"Bless me!" murmured Mr. Kingley, as interested as he was surprised.
"It's easy for a girl to disguise herself with colored glasses and a new
way of doing her hair," laughed Tessie. Her cheeks were as pink as they
had been pale. "But shouldn't I go and put on some of my queen clothes?"
she asked anxiously. She wished to appear at her best before her special
representative.
"You look like an angel as you are!" declared Mr. Bill again, and his
voice shook. "Come along!"
A way opened through the crowd, and as Mr. Bill led the Queen away,
there was a cheer. Another voice, actually Mr. Walker's voice, took up
the shout, until the air was filled with, "Hurrah for Queen Teresa!
Hurrah for the Queen!" The sound was music to Mr. Kingley. It was as if
the Metropolitan Grand Opera company were there singing in his basement.
He turned to Joe. He could afford to be magnanimous.
"Queens may be out of place in the world, Joe," he said complacently,
"but the people still seem to like them!"
"Yes," remarked Joe with a grin, "people will always like a show." And
he added, as if he were reading Mr. Kingley's inner thoughts, "This is
another great day for the Evergreen, isn't it? You're coming with us,
Mr. Kingley? Tessie will want everything cleared up now."
"Of course I'm coming!" Mr. Kingley was a bit testy. "I just want to
speak to----"
"Mr. Gray?" suggested Joe with another grin.
"To send a message to Miss Gilfooly's grandmother," Mr. Kingley
corrected with great dignity. "I think she should know that the queen
has been found."