though it makes little odds t' me. I do the best I know how, ma'am,
and if ye don't like the way I do, there is plenty of other ladies
would be glad t' get me."
"But we do like the way you do," said Mrs. Fenelby eagerly. "We are
perfectly satisfied--perfectly!"
"From th' way ye started off," said Bridget, with a shrug of her
shoulders, "I thought ye was goin' t' give me th' bounce. Some does
it that way."
"No, indeed," Mrs. Fenelby assured her. "Especially not as you take
such an interest in dear little Bobberts. You seem to like him as
well as if he was your own little brother. Did I tell you what Mr.
Fenelby had planned for him?"
"Somethin' t' make more worrk for me, is it?" asked Bridget
suspiciously.
"Not at all!" said Mrs. Fenelby. "It is just about his education;
about when he gets old enough to go to college."
"'Twill be a long time from now before then," said Bridget. "I can
see it has nawthin' to do with me."
"But that is just it," said Mrs. Fenelby. "It has something to do
with you--and with all of us. With everyone in this house. You love
little Bobberts so much that you will be glad to help in his
education."
"Will I?" said Bridget in a way that was not too encouraging.
"Yes, I know you will," Mrs. Fenelby chirped cheerfully, "because it
is the cutest plan. I know you will be so interested in it. Mr.
Fenelby thought of it himself, and he told me to tell you about it,
because, really, you know, you are just like one of the family--"
"Barring I have t' be in at ten o'clock and have t' sleep in th'
attic," Bridget interposed. "And don't eat with th' family. And a
few other differences. But go ahead and tell me what is th' extry
worrk."
"Well, it isn't extra work at all," said Mrs. Fenelby reassuringly.
"It is just a way we thought of to raise money to pay for Bobberts'
education. It is like a government and taxes, and everybody in the
family pays part of the taxes--"
"I was wonderin' why I was one of the family so much, all of a
suddent," said Bridget. "I thought something was comin'. I notice
that whenever I get to be one of th' family, ma'am, where ever I
happen t' be workin', something comes. But it never has been taxes
before. It is a new one to me, taxes is."
Mrs. Fenelby explained as clearly as she could the meaning and
method of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff, and its simple schedule of
rates, and Bridget listened attentively. Mrs. Fenelby expected an
explosion, and was prepared for it.
"I'm sure I'm much obliged t' ye, Missus Fenelby," said Bridget,
sarcastically, "an' 'tis a great honor ye are doin' me t' take me
into th' family this way, but 'tis agin me principles t' be one of
th' family on sixteen dollars a month when there is tariffs in th'
same family. I'm thinkin' I'll stay outside th' family, ma'am. An' if
ye will kindly let me past, I'll go up an' be packin' up me trunk."
"But Bridget," Mrs. Fenelby said, quickly, "I am not through yet. I
knew you couldn't afford to pay the--the tariff. I didn't expect you
to, out of your wages. And if you had just waited a minute I was
going to tell you that, seeing that you will be out of pocket by the
tariff, I am going to pay you eighteen dollars a month after this."
"Well, of course," said Bridget with a sweet smile, "I was only
jokin' about me trunk."
So that was all settled, and Mrs. Fenelby felt at ease, but she did
not think it necessary to tell her husband about the extra two
dollars a month. It came out of her housekeeping money, and she
could economize a little on something else.
"Laura," said her husband that evening, "have you spoken to Bridget
about the tariff yet?"
"Yes, dear," she answered, and he said that was right, and that she
must see that Bridget lived up to it. But he did not tell her that
he had interviewed Bridget while Mrs. Fenelby was upstairs a few
minutes before, nor that he had privately agreed with Bridget to pay
her two dollars a month extra out of his own pocket provided she
accepted the Fenelby Domestic Tariff, and abided by it, just as if
she was one of the family. Neither did Bridget think it worth while
to mention it to Mrs. Fenelby. From the time she was informed of the
existence of the tariff up to the arrival of Kitty Bridget paid into
Bobberts' bank twenty cents. This was the duty on a two dollar hat
that even the most critical mind could not have called a luxury, and
there Bridget's payments seemed to stop. She did not seem to feel
the need of making any purchases just then.
"Kitty, dear," said Mrs. Fenelby, gently, the morning of the damp
foot-prints on the porch, after the men had started for the station,
"that is a pretty shirt-waist you have on this morning."
"Do you like it?" asked Kitty, innocently. "Don't you think it is a
little tight across the shoulders?"
"No," said Mrs. Fenelby. "And I like this skirt better than the one
you were wearing yesterday."
There was no mistaking the meaning of that. The way Mrs. Fenelby
bowed over the bit of sewing she had taken up was evidence that she
had suspicion in her mind. Kitty clasped her hands behind her back
and laughed.
"You have been looking into my closet!" she declared. "You sit there
and try to look innocent, and you know everything that I have, down
to the last ribbon! Well, I just can't afford to pay your old
tariff. It would simply ruin me. And the men will never know,
anyway. They don't notice such things. I could wear a different
dress every day, and they wouldn't know it."
"But I know it," said Laura, reprovingly. "Do you think it is right,
Kitty, to smuggle things into the house that way? Is it fair to
Bobberty?"
"There!" exclaimed Kitty, dropping a jingling coin into Bobberts'
bank. "There is a quarter for him! That is every cent I can afford."
"That wouldn't pay the duty on one single shirt-waist," said Laura,
quietly.
"It wouldn't," admitted Kitty, frankly, bending over Laura and
taking her face in her hands. She turned the face upward and looked
in its eyes. Then she bent down and whispered in Laura's ear, and
laughed as a blush suffused Laura's face.
"I was short of money," said Laura with dignity, "and I mean to pay
the duty as soon as I get my next week's allowance. I simply had to
have a new purse, and you coaxed me to buy it. It wasn't smuggling
at all."
"Wasn't it?" asked Kitty. "Then why did you ask me to leave it in
my room, instead of showing it to Tom? Smuggler!"
Mrs. Fenelby arose and walked away. She turned to the kitchen and
opened the door. She was just in time to see Bridget lower a bottle
from her lips and hastily conceal it behind her skirts.
"Bridget!" she exclaimed sharply, with horror.
"'Tis th' doctor's orders, ma'am," said Bridget. "'Tis for me cold."
She coughed as well as she could, but it was not a very successful
cough. Mrs. Fenelby hesitated a moment, and then she pointed to the
door.
"You may pack your trunk, Bridget," she said, and Bridget jerked off
her apron and stamped out of the kitchen.
"But perhaps the poor thing was taking it by her doctor's orders,"
suggested Kitty, when Mrs. Fenelby, red eyed, went into the front
rooms again.
"She'll have to go," said Mrs. Fenelby, dolefully. "I can't have a
drinking servant where poor, dear Bobberts is. But that isn't what
makes me feel so badly. It is to think how that girl has deceived
me. I treated her just as I would treat one of the family, and she
pretended to be so fond of Bobberts, and so interested in his
education, and so eager to help his fund, and here she has been
smuggling liquor into the house all the time."
She wiped her eyes and sighed.
"And liquor is a luxury, and pays thirty per cent.," she said sadly.
"I don't know who to trust when I can't trust a girl like Bridget.
She should have paid the duty the minute she brought the stuff into
the house. It just shows that you can't place any reliance on that
class."
Kitty nodded assent.
"You'll have to pay her," she said. "Shall I run up and get your
purse?"
She went, and as she reached the hall, Billy entered. He gazed at
Kitty's garments closely, making mental note of them for future
comparisons, and as he stood aside to let her pass he held one hand
carefully out of sight behind him. It held a package--an oblong
package, sharply rectangular in shape. A close observer would have
said it was a box such as contains fifty cigars when it is full, but
it was not full. Billy had taken one of the cigars out when he made
the purchase at the station cigar store.
VII
THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE
When Billy Fenelby had taken his box of cigars up to his room he
came down again, but he did not go anywhere near Bobberts' bank, as
he should have gone had he intended depositing in it the thirty per
cent. of the value of the cigars, which was the duty due on cigars
under the provisions of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. He walked out
to the veranda and got into the hammock and began to read the
morning paper.
From time to time he let it hang down over the edge of the hammock,
as if it bored him, and he glanced at the door as if he hoped
someone would come out of the house. The paper was not very
interesting that morning, and Billy had other things to think of. He
had volunteered to keep an eye on Kitty, and to find out definitely,
if he could, whether she was smuggling shirt-waists and other
things--or had already smuggled them--into the house, contrary to
the provisions of the tariff. He felt that the more he saw of girls
the less he liked them, and that the more he saw of Kitty,
particularly, the less he fancied her, but if he was going to do
this amateur detective business he wanted to begin it as soon as
possible, and he watched the door closely. He wanted to see whether
Kitty would still wear the pink shirt-waist she had worn at
breakfast, or the white one she had worn the evening before, or
whether she would dare to wear another.
The sudden departure of Bridget had upset the domestic affairs
somewhat, and Kitty and Mrs. Fenelby were busy in the kitchen, but
after the dishes were washed, and the rooms set to rights, and the
beds made, and Bobberts given his bath, Kitty came out. It had been
a long and tedious morning for Billy. There is nothing so helpless
as a detective who can't work at his business of detecting, and when
the job is to detect a pretty girl, and she won't show up, the
waiting is rather tiresome. At one time Billy was almost tempted to
go in and ask her to come out, and he would probably have gone in
and snooped around a bit, if she had not appeared just then.
Kitty came out with all the brazen effrontery of a hardened
criminal. That is to say she came out singing, and with her hair
perfectly in order, and looking in every way fresh and charming.
Billy recognized this immediately as the wile of a malefactor trying
to throw an officer of the law off the scent, but he was not to be
discouraged by it, and he jumped out of the hammock and went up to
her. She still wore the pink shirt-waist, and it was very becoming.
She looked just as well in it as if she had paid the lawful ten per
cent. duty on it. It is not the duty that makes that kind of a
shirt-waist pretty; it is the way it is made, and the trimming. The
girl that is in it helps some, too. It is a fact that a shirt-waist
looks entirely different on different girls. You have to consider
the girl and her shirt-waist together, as a whole or unit, if you
are going to be able to recognize it when you see it again, and
Billy was ready to consider it that way. If he ever saw that pink
confection with that saucy chin and merry face above it again he
meant to be able to recognize the combination. That is one of the
duties of a detective.
"Let's go out under the tree," he said, "and sit down, and--and talk
it over. I have something I want to talk about."
"Talk it over," said Kitty, lifting her eyebrows. "Talk what over?"
You couldn't nonplus Billy that way, when he was in pursuit of his
duty.
"Well," he said, "we--that is, I didn't thank you for bringing me up
that collar this morning. I want to thank you for it."
"Yes?" said Kitty. "Well, here I am. Thank me. You did thank me
once, but I don't care. Do it again."
"Thank you," said Billy.
"You're welcome," Kitty said, and then they both laughed.
"What do you think of this Domestic Tariff business?" asked Billy,
seeking to lead her into some admission of which he could make use
as proof of her smuggling.
"I think it is a simply splendid idea!" Kitty declared. "I am sure
no one but Tom could have thought of it, and the very minute I heard
of it I went into it body and soul. It was so clever of him to
conceive such an idea, and such a simple way to build up an
education fund for dear, sweet, little Bobberts! And isn't it nice
of Tom and Laura to let us be in it and pay our share of the duty.
It makes us feel so much more as if we were really part of the
family."
"Doesn't it?" said Billy. "It makes us feel as if we had a right to
be here--when we pay duty and all that. I feel like bringing in a
lot of stuff just so that I can pay duty on it. I was thinking
about it this morning, and about that little joke of mine about not
bringing in that collar last night, and I felt what I had missed by
leaving it out on the porch, so I got up and went down for it. That
was how you happened to meet me in the hall--I wanted to get it and
bring it in so I could pay the duty, and be in the fun myself. You
don't think I was going to smuggle it in, do you?"
"Oh, no!" said Kitty, with a long-drawn o. "Nobody would be so mean
as to smuggle anything into the house, when the duty all goes to
dear little Bobberts. It is such fun to pay duty, just as if the
house was a real nation. It is like being part of the nation, and
you know we women are not that. We can't vote, nor anything, and a
chance like this is so rare that we enjoy it immensely. You didn't
think it was queer that I should go down so early in the morning to
get your collar and bring it in, did you?"
"Well, of course," said Billy, doubtfully, "it wasn't your collar,
you know. It was my collar."
"I know it was," Kitty admitted frankly, "but you know how little we
women can bring into the house. Hardly anything. We shop and shop,
but we hardly ever really buy anything, and all the time I am just
crazy to be paying duty, and to know whether it is ten per cent. or
thirty per cent., and all that, as if I was a man, and so, when I
happened to think of that collar that you had left down here on the
porch railing, I saw it was my chance, and I decided to come down
and get it and bring it into the house, so I could have the fun of
paying the duty on it. So I came down and got it. And just as I
reached the landing on my way up I met you, and I was so surprised
that I just handed the collar to you."
"Of course," said Billy. "That was just the way it was, except that
_I_ had just reached the landing on _my_ way up, when you handed me
the collar. _You_ couldn't have just reached the landing, because if
you had we would have been going up the stairs together, side by
side, and we were not doing that. _I_ was going up the stairs, and
just as I reached the landing you came from somewhere and handed me
the collar."
"Isn't that what I said?" asked Kitty sweetly. "It amounts to the
same thing, anyway, doesn't it? I had the collar, and you got it. I
suppose you paid the duty on it?"
"Me?" said Billy. "Not much! I didn't bring it into the house; you
brought it in. You have to pay the duty."
"I pay the duty on your collar?" laughed Kitty. "Well, I should
think I would not! I went down and got it for you, and that was
nothing but an act of kindness that anybody would do for anybody
else. You can pay your own duties."
"Oh, I sha'n't pay a duty on it!" scoffed Billy. "I didn't want the
collar. I didn't need it, and I refused to bring it into the house
on principle. I don't believe in tariff duties. I'm a free trader. I
wouldn't smuggle, and I wouldn't pay duty, and so I left it outside.
You should have left it there. You didn't leave it there, and so it
is your duty to pay the duty."
"Never!" declared Kitty.
For a few minutes they were silent, and Billy looked glumly at the
street. Then he cheered up suddenly. He looked at Kitty and smiled.
"I'll tell you what let's do!" he exclaimed. "Let's go out under the
tree and talk it over. We'll go out under the tree and talk it all
over. That is the only way we can settle it."
"It is settled now," said Kitty. "I don't think it needs any more
settling."
Billy beamed upon her cheerfully.
"Well," he said, "let's go out under the tree and--and unsettle it."
For a moment Kitty seemed to hesitate, but that was only for Billy's
good, lest he think she yielded to his whims too readily. Then she
went, and draped herself gracefully upon the sweet, dry grass, and
Billy sat himself cross-legged near her.
"Now, what do you think of this Domestic Tariff business, anyway?"
he asked.
"I think it is the silliest thing I ever heard of," said Kitty
frankly. "I never heard of a man with real sense conceiving such a
thing. As if such a lot of nonsense is needed to save a few dollars
for an education that isn't to come about for sixteen years or so!
And the idea of making his guests pay the duty too! It is the most
unhospitable thing I ever heard of!"
"Isn't it?" agreed Billy, promptly. "It makes us feel as if we had
no right to be here. A man can't afford to bring even the things he
needs, when he has to pay that exorbitant duty on everything. And it
is so much worse on you. Now I can get along with very little. A man
can, you know. But how is a girl going to do without all the things
she is accustomed to? I believe," he said, confidentially lowering
his voice and glancing at the house, "I believe, if I were a girl,
I would be tempted to smuggle in the things I really needed."
"Would you?" asked Kitty, sweetly. "But then you men have different
ideas of such things, don't you? You don't think a girl would do
such a thing, do you? Would you advise it? I don't know whether--how
would you go about smuggling, if you wanted to? But I don't believe
it would be honest, would it?"
She turned up to him two such innocent eyes that Billy almost
blushed. There is no satisfaction in knowing a person is guilty, the
satisfaction is in making the person look guilty, and Kitty looked
like an innocent child questioning the face of a tempter and seeing
guilt there. He longed to ask her outright how she happened to have
a pink shirt-waist, but he did not dare to, lest he put her at once
on her guard. He felt a great desire to take her by the shoulders
and shake her out of her calm superiority. It was very trying to
him. No girl had a right to act as if she thought herself the
superior of any man. Just to show her how inferior she was he
dropped the subject of the tariff entirely and began a conversation
on Ibsen. He did not know much about Ibsen but he knew a little and
he could lead her beyond her depths and make her feel her
inferiority that way. Kitty listened to him with an amused smile,
and then told him a few things about Ibsen, quoted a few
enlightening pages from Hauptmann, routed him, slaughtered him
gently as he fled from position to position, and ended by asking him
if he had ever read anything of Ibsen's. It was very trying to
Billy. This girl evidently had no respect for the superior brain of
man whatever.
"I think the lawn needs sprinkling," he said, coldly.
"Do you know how it should be done?" she asked, and that was the
final insult. Nice girls never asked such questions in such a way.
Nice girls looked up with wonder in their eyes and said, "Oh! You
men know how to do everything!" That settled Billy's opinion of
Kitty! She was evidently one of these over-educated, forward,
scheming, coquetting girls. She had not even said, "Oh! don't
sprinkle the lawn now; stay here and talk with me." He squared his
shoulders and marched over to the sprinkling apparatus, while she
sat with her back against the tree and watched him. He turned on the
water and adjusted the nozzle to a good strong flow. He wet the
lawn at the rear of the house first, and was pulling the hose after
him into the front lawn when Mrs. Fenelby suddenly appeared on the
porch. She had a box of cigars in her hand, and when he saw them
Billy jumped guiltily.
"Billy!" she exclaimed, "Are these your cigars?"
"Why, say!" he said, after one glance at her face on which suspicion
was but too plainly imprinted. "Those are cigars, aren't they?
That's a whole box of cigars, isn't it?"
"It is," said Mrs. Fenelby, severely, "and I found it in your room.
I don't remember having received any duty on a box of cigars,
Billy. I hope you were not trying to smuggle them in. I hope you
were not trying to rob poor, dear little Bobberts, Billy."
Billy held the nozzle limply in one hand and let the stream pour
wastefully at his feet.
"That box of cigars--" he began weakly. "That box of cigars, the box
you found in my room, well, that is a box of cigars. You see, Mrs.
Fenelby," he continued, cautiously, "that box of cigars was up there
in my room, and--Now, you know I wouldn't try to smuggle anything
in, don't you? Now, I'll tell you all about it." But he didn't. He
looked at the box thoughtfully. He saw now that he had been silly to
buy a whole box. A man should not buy more than a handful at a time.
"Well?" said Mrs. Fenelby, impatiently.
"Isn't that the box you bought when you went over to the station
with Tom this morning?" asked Kitty, sweetly. "You brought back a
box when you returned you know."
Billy turned his head and glared at her. But she only smiled at him.
He did not dare to look Mrs. Fenelby in the eye.
"Tom smokes a great deal, doesn't he?" Kitty continued lightly. "I
wondered when you brought that box of cigars back with you if he
hadn't asked you to bring them over for him. That was what I thought
the moment I saw you with them."
"Why, yes, of course," said Billy, with relief. "That was how it
was. I--I didn't like to say it, you know," he assured Mrs. Fenelby,
eagerly, "I--I didn't know just how Tom would feel about it. Tom
will pay the duty. When he comes home this evening. He couldn't come
home from the station--and miss his train--and all that sort of
thing--just to pay the duty on a box of cigars, could he? So I
brought them home. It is perfectly plain and simple! You see if he
doesn't pay the duty as soon as he gets in the house. Tom wouldn't
want to smuggle them in, Mrs. Fenelby. You shouldn't think he would
do such a thing. I'm--I'm surprised that you should think that of
Tom."
Mrs. Fenelby looked at him doubtfully, and then glanced at Kitty's
innocent face. She shook her head. It did not seem just what Tom
would have done, but she could not deny that it might be so. She
would know all about it when he came home in the evening. She cast a
glance at the lawn, and uttered a cry. Billy was pouring oceans of
water at full pressure upon her pansy bed, and the poor flowers were
dashing madly about and straining at their roots. Some were already
lying washed out by the roots. Billy looked, and swung the nozzle
sharply around, and the scream that Kitty uttered told him that he
had hit another mark. That pink shirt-waist looked disreputable.
Water was dripping from all its laces, and from Kitty's hair, and
her cheeks glistened with pearly drops. She was drenched.
"Goodness!" she exclaimed, shaking her hanging arms and her
down-bent head, and then glancing at Billy, who stood idiotically
regarding her, she laughed. He was a statue of miserable regret, and
the limply held garden hose was pouring its stream unheeded into his
low shoes. Wet as she was, and uncomfortable, she could not refrain
from laughing, for Billy could not have looked more guilty if she
had been sugar and had completely melted before his eyes. Even Mrs.
Fenelby laughed.
"It doesn't matter a bit!" said Kitty, reassuringly. "Really, I
don't mind it at all. It was nice and cool."
She was very pretty, from Billy's point of view, as she stood with a
wisp or two of wet hair coquettishly straggling over her face. Mrs.
Fenelby would have said she looked mussy, but there is something
strangely enticing to a man in a bit of hair wandering astray over a
pretty face. Before marriage, that is. It quite finished Billy. He
forgave her all just on account of those few wet, wandering locks.
"I'm so sorry!" he said, with enormous contrition. "I'm awfully
sorry. I'm--I'm mighty sorry. Really, I'm sorry."
"Now, it doesn't matter a bit," said Kitty lightly. "Not a bit! I'll
just run up and get on something dry--"
"You had better shut off the water," said Mrs. Fenelby, and went
into the house.
Billy laid the hose carefully at his feet.
"I say," he said, hesitatingly, to Kitty, "wear the one you had on
last night--the white one. I--I think that one's pretty."
"Oh, no!" said Kitty. "I can't wear that one. That one is all mussed
up. I can't wear that one again. I have a lovely blue one."