The general climbed out. "If we had consulted the book--"

"My dear sir," interrupted Bartlett, a bit irritated, "the book could

not possibly have told us that the family had moved since last fall when

I spent two weeks here, hunting."

"Certainly not," laughed Henrietta, who spent a good part of her life

steering with infinite care and constantly growing skill between the

Scylla of her father's wrath and the Charybdis of the hurt feelings of

those whom the general had offended. "This is simply one of the

unforeseen misfortunes of the road."

"Besides," said Bartlett, "we don't know that the Higginses have gone!"

"Don't you see that there aren't any signs of life?" demanded the

Watermelon. He had lived by his wits so long that he noticed

instinctively the little things which mean so much and are generally

overlooked. "If there was any one here some window would be open on a

night like this, wouldn't it?"

*CHAPTER X*

*THE DESERTED HOUSE*

"Wonderful, wonderful!" murmured Henrietta in the tones of the famous

Watson.

Bartlett looked at the house and nodded gloomily. "I guess you are

right. Funny they should have left without writing me about it. I have

known them for years."

"I will get the blue book," said the general, with the calm satisfaction

of one who at last comes into his own. "We can return to the nearest

village--"

"What do we want a blue book to do that for?" sneered Bartlett. "I

should think two motor-cars could do it, provided we followed the road."

"Hold on a shake," said the Watermelon. "I will get in a window and open

the door."

"We had better not," objected Henrietta, "Wouldn't that be

house-breaking?"

The general agreed. "Certainly. It is warm and we can spend the night

outside quite comfortably if you do not want to return to the village."

Billy shuddered and glanced appealingly at the Watermelon. A deserted

house was bad enough, but outside where the owls called dismally from

the woods and where bats flitted by in the dark held possibilities

infinitely worse.

"I have known these people longer than I have Billy," said Bartlett. "I

used to come here when I was a kid. It will be all right to break in.

They are like my own folks."

The Watermelon immediately jumped to the porch, disdaining the few

steps, and disappeared behind the vines which covered one end and

concealed the window.

Bartlett turned reassuringly to the general. "It will be all right,

Charlie. Don't worry about it. Why, I've always called Mrs. Higgins,

Aunt Sally."

Visions of hot sausages, bread and milk die hard when one is hungry and

the general snorted. "That's all right. I am hungry enough to break

into the Bank of England if it resulted in something to eat, but what

can we find in an empty house?"

"Ghosts," said Henrietta.

Billy pinched her. "If you think there are ghosts in there, Henrietta,

I simply won't go in."

"Certainly there are ghosts," said Henrietta. "There always are in empty

houses. Where else do you find them?"

"We will return to the village," declared the general, "and get

something to eat. I will get the book--"

"An empty house is better than the countryside," said Bartlett. "And we

have plenty to eat in that basket Henrietta put up."

"If there is something to eat--" wavered the general.

A light gleamed a moment through the crack of the door and then the door

opened and the Watermelon grinned at them in the light of a small smoky

lamp he held.

"Where did you get the lamp?" asked the general as the Watermelon led

the way in.

"Found it," said the Watermelon. "The place is furnished. The family

is probably only away for a visit." He set the lamp on the table and

from long habit wiped his dusty hand on his trouser leg. "I fell over

everything in the room before I got next to the fact."

He glanced about with some pride and the others stood in a semicircle

and stared around. The room was a typical country kitchen, a huge stove

side by side with a large chintz-covered rocking-chair. A dresser for

the crockery and a haircloth lounge took up one side. There was a

center-table with a red checked cloth, a few chairs and a sewing-machine

near the window. On the walls were a number of cheap prints and several

huge advertising calendars With gay pictures of young women in large

hats and low-cut dresses.

Bartlett glanced around and at every unfamiliar object his heart sank

lower and lower and his first sickening suspicion became a painful fact.

He had never been in that room before. The Higginses had never lived

there. Everything was strange, the furniture, the rugs, the very shape

of the room. Where were they? Whose house had they unceremoniously

broken into? A clammy chill crept down Bartlett's back and his florid

face grew still redder.

None of the others was noticing him. The general was prowling around to

see that the enemy could not come upon them unawares. The Watermelon had

lifted the basket on to the table and the girls were preparing gaily to

set forth the repast, all three rummaging in closets and drawers for

plates and knives and forks.

The general returned to the table. "All serene along the Potomac," said

he, thrusting his hands into his pockets and peering into the basket

with renewed hope. Henrietta smiled gaily. She had pushed aside her

auto veil, her cheeks were flushed with the joy of the adventure and her

eyes bright.

"Father," said she, "in all our lives, we have never had an adventure

before, because you persist in using those blue books."

The general laughed and helped himself to a sandwich.

Billy opened the dresser and peered gingerly in, her small nose wrinkled

for any unforeseen emergency. She had taken off her hat, and her soft

yellow hair, bound back by a black velvet snood, escaped around her

temples in tiny waves. Her eyes, thought the Watermelon, were brighter

than the lamp upon the table and her laughing, kissable mouth redder

than the crimson lips of the fair creatures in the gay calendars on the

wall. Her hand upon the latch of the door was so near his own, that he

was tempted to put his on it, but instead slipped his into his pocket

with a delicacy he did not recognize in himself. She was a girl, young

and sweet and attractive, and because she was attractive, she had been

flung into the maw of the Street, a victim of the age's insane desire

for money and more money. Each dainty curl, each flash and disappearance

of her single dimple had been reckoned as so much in dollars and cents.

So the Watermelon put his hand in his pocket and only watched her with

poorly veiled admiration.

"Do you know what I am looking for?" she asked, glancing at him, her

eyes full of mischief.

"For the family silver," said the Watermelon. "We might as well take

some souvenir of our visit."

"I don't believe the family silver is silver," said she. "I am trying

to find a bucket which you can take to the well and fill for tea. It

will give you an appetite."

"We will let Alphonse go for the water," said the Watermelon, turning

over the articles on the dusty, crowded shelves. "The general sees to

the cars. We will give Alphonse a chance to earn his pay."

"You should do something to earn yours," said she.

"What is mine?" he asked, trying to see into her eyes.

"We must find that bucket," said she, gazing innocently upward at the

higher shelves. "I love to muss around among other people's things.

They are so much more interesting than your own. I wonder why."

"We can't be amused with ourselves and our things," said the Watermelon.

"We are too important. Father used to say nothing else was really

important but ourselves and what affected us."

Henrietta, fussing with the alcohol lamp at the table, laughed. "Why

didn't your father write a book," she asked, "a philosophy? It would

have been a deal more interesting than James or Spencer or Decant."

"He used to say that a man who knew life never wrote about it. It would

be too painful. It wouldn't sell."

There was a heavy step on the porch and Bartlett turned quickly with

sickening fear. It was Alphonse come from putting the cars away in the

shed beside the barn. Bartlett wiped his brow and swallowed heavily.

This was terrible, this being in another man's house unlawfully. The

utterly hopeless inability to explain satisfactorily took all one's

nerves away. He glanced at the other four, merrily unconscious of his

ghastly discovery, their thoughts filled only with the desire to eat.

"Billy," said he sharply, "what are you doing in that closet? Come away

at once."

"I was only trying to find a bucket," stammered Billy.

"Those things don't belong to you. You have no right there." And

Bartlett sternly and promptly shut the door.

Billy drew back hurt. "I don't see why it is so wrong to break into a

man's pantry," said she, "after you have broken into his house. Besides,

Daddy, you have known these people all your life."

"That's the trouble," said Bartlett desperately, with a rush, "I don't

know these people. I have never been here before." He glared defiantly

at the general, daring him to suggest the blue book.

For a moment no one spoke. Alphonse at the door, hat in hand, the

general by the table, another prematurely acquired sandwich in his hand

half way to his mouth, Henrietta, busy with the flame of the tiny

alcohol lamp, Billy before him, the Watermelon on the edge of the

dresser where he had seated himself, all stared in dull surprise. The

Watermelon broke the silence.

"Better to break into another man's house than have him break into

yours," said he. He glanced at Bartlett with just the flicker of

amusement in his mild gray eyes, thinking that Bartlett had got lost

already, deliberately, with the intention of spending the greater part

of the following day finding themselves, and so successfully passing one

day of the seven. Bartlett glanced at the young man and flushed. It

seemed to him for one fleeting moment that the youth with the sleepy

eyes knew a bit more than Bartlett cared to have him know, cared to have

any one know, that he even seemed to suspect him of having got lost on

purpose. Then the sleepy eyes turned again to Billy and the older man

told himself that he was mistaken. He was growing nervous and reading

his own intentions in every one's eyes. He strove to regain the mastery

of his nerves by airy indifference.

"A slight mistake," said he.

"Ah, yes," said Henrietta, "as when you go off with another man's

umbrella."

She turned down the flame, which threatened a conflagration, and put the

cap on, extinguishing the lamp. One did not take tea in another's house

when one had entered by mistake and through the window. One merely got

out again, quietly and with no unavoidable delay.

The general, with rare nerve, took a bite from the sandwich and laid it

on the table. He drew his handkerchief and wiped his hands. "I will

get the blue book," he began busily, his mouth still rather full.

"We don't need the blue book to tell us to get out," said Henrietta, a

bit tartly. She looked at the dainty pile of sandwiches, the cold

chicken, cakes and olives on the table with the wooden plates and gay

paper napkins she had arranged for the coming feast and hesitated. She

wished some one was courageous enough to suggest that they eat before

they leave.

"Certainly not," said the general. "But if we had consulted them before

we left--"

"Sort of in the fashion of an oracle," sneered Henrietta as she began

slowly to gather up the napkins and the wooden plates.

"Tell me," said Bartlett calmly, impersonally, not as one desiring an

argument, but simply as a humble seeker after knowledge, with no prior

views on the subject, "tell me, can you never make a mistake if you have

a blue book?"

"No," said Henrietta, "never. With the blue book one could go directly

to Heaven. It would be impossible not to."

Billy laughed.

"Billy would laugh at her funeral," said Bartlett coldly.

"We haven't anything to cry about," said the Watermelon, frankly

unconcerned. "It's for the man who owns the house to do the crying."

"How did we get here?" demanded the general, as Alphonse went to get the

blue book, for the general could no longer be gainsaid in his desire for

his book. "Is this where the Higgins' home should be?"

"Why, no, father," said Henrietta, "or it would be here."

"I meant, Henrietta, did we come the right way? If we took every turn

and have come far enough and not too far, this should be the Higgins'

house."

"It should be," admitted Bartlett. "But it isn't."

Through the open door came the many noises of the summer night, the

incessant hum of insects, the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill, the

strident chorus of the frogs in the pond back of the bam. A moth,

fluttering around the dingy lamp, fell on the table with scorched wings

and Billy tenderly pushed it on a plate and carried it to the door.

"Why not eat here?" suggested the Watermelon, unimpressed by the aspect

of the affair as it struck the others. "We can hunt for the Higginses

afterward. They ought to be around somewhere unless we're helplessly

lost."

Henrietta smiled and took out the napkins she had laid back in the

basket. "It won't take us long," she agreed. "We don't need to have

any tea."

"No," protested Bartlett, glancing at the door and listening for the

crunch of wheels on the gravel without, "no, we must leave at once. We

aren't lost. The Higginses' is probably the next house."

"Suppose it isn't," said Billy.

"Just so," said the general. "We will return to the village and put up

at the hotel. It isn't late."

"It's half-past eleven," said Henrietta, glancing at her watch.

Alphonse returned, blase, indifferent. "There are no books," said he,

devoid of all interest in the affair.

"No books?" cried the general. "Alphonse, what has become of them? Did

you take them out of the car before we left?"

"No," said Alphonse, and violent, positive protestations could not have

been more convincing.

"But where are they? I left them in the car."

"They probably fell out, father," said Henrietta.

"They have never fallen out before," snorted the general, with base

suspicions against Henrietta.

"We can get another to-morrow," said Henrietta. "We will simply return

to the hotel in the village for the night." And once more she replaced

the napkins in the basket.

"Yes," agreed Bartlett. "There is a good hotel near the railroad

tracks."

"Where are the railroad tracks?" asked the general, who had lost all

faith in Bartlett's knowledge of the country. "We passed no railroad

tracks."

"Just before you come to the village," retorted Bartlett, irritated as a

badgered animal. "You have to cross them as you come up the main

street."

"We crossed none," said the general, with the indifference of one who

realizes that there is no more to hope for. The boat is sinking, let it

sink. The last cent gone and the landlord coming for two months' rent.

Let him come.

"No," said Billy gently, "we didn't, father."

"Why, we did, we must have," protested Bartlett. "I always come here on

the railroad train. They have to flag it, but it stops. Why, I know

there are tracks there."

The general did not attempt to argue. "We are lost," said he, and one

knew that the unfortunate event was entirely due to the scorn of others

for the blue book.

"No," said Henrietta kindly, "there were no tracks. I remember saying

to Billy I was glad there was one town not spoiled by the garish

contamination of the world. Didn't I, Billy?"

"Yes, she did," admitted Billy, looking pityingly at her father.

"If we didn't pass through Wayne, we are lost and the Higgins' home is

probably miles from here and there is no use looking for it," said

Bartlett, and smiled--grimly, the general thought; happily, the

Watermelon thought. It would be rare luck to be lost thus early.

They were all gathered around the table, except the Watermelon and

Alphonse. Alphonse still stood by the door, hat in hand. He was merely

a paid hireling. His master's affairs were none of his. The Watermelon

still sat on the dresser and swung his feet. The predicament was only

one of the many he was more or less always involved in and not worth

thinking about. Batchelor and the police did not worry him that night.

It was too early.

"Why not eat something before we go?" he said. "We have been here about

an hour now, and another hour won't make our crime any the worse."

"Yes," agreed Henrietta promptly, surprised at her own depravity.

"Let's," and again she took out the plates and napkins.

"Suppose they come back," softly whispered Billy.

Instinctively they all glanced at the door, and Henrietta paused with

her hands on the edge of the basket.

The Watermelon laughed. "You ain't worrying because you broke into

another's house," said he. "What's fretting you is that you may be

found out."

"It's awful," acknowledged Billy. "I feel funny in my stomach and have

creeps up my back."

"So have I," said Henrietta, and nodded grimly.

"Do what you please," said Bartlett. "But don't get caught."

"They won't come," said the Watermelon. "They have been gone for quite a

time and aren't coming back."

"Ah, my dear Holmes," said Henrietta, "explain your deductions."

"They've been gone long because there is so much dust on everything and

the house smells so close. They won't be back to-night because none of

the neighbors have been in to leave anything for them to eat and there

aren't any chickens in the chicken-house. Alphonse would have stirred

'em up if they had been there."

"Suppose some one passes and sees the light," suggested the general,

tempted to the breaking point by the dainty supper so near at hand and

the thought of the terrible apology of a meal they would get at the

dilapidated hotel they had passed in the village. And above all things,

the general loved his meals.

"We are at the back of the house and it is almost twelve. Every one is

in bed and those who aren't are drunk and wouldn't be believed anyway."

"It's five miles to the village," added Bartlett with no apparent

relevance.

"Aw, be game," encouraged the Watermelon. "Be sports."

"Just being hungry is enough for me," declared Henrietta, taking the

last of the edibles from the basket.

*CHAPTER XI*

*A NIGHT'S LODGING*

The general hesitated. It was not lawful, not right. They had broken

into another man's house and should leave at once. But all his life he

had lived by rules and regulations, followed life's blue book as

persistently and as well as he did the auto blue book. Now he was lost,

the blue book was gone and there was an indefinable pleasure in letting

go the rules and regulations that had governed him so long. In the warm

June night, with the youthful, foolish Billy, and the irresponsible

Watermelon, the general's latent criminal tendency came uppermost, that

tendency in all of us once in a while to do wrong for the sake of the

adventure in it, for the excitement and fascination, rather than for any

material gain. In the experience of being in another man's house unknown

and uninvited by the owner, of listening for the rattle of a wagon

turning in at the gate, for the crunch of a foot on the gravel without,

there was an exhilaration he had not known for years. He felt that a

bold lawlessness which he had never had and had always felt rather

proudly was only kept under by the veneer of civilization, was rising in

him and that he was growing young again. He had always believed that if

the occasion arose, he could out-Raffle Raffles.

"It will not do any harm," he thought with the remains of his old

conscience. "We will go directly after supper."

It was a jovial meal. The conversation waxed merrier and merrier. The

general grew younger with every mouthful and Bartlett more and more

genial. He forgot that he was kidnapping a famous young financier, and

told all his most enjoyable stories with the skill of many repetitions.

When they had finished, no one for a while made any motion to clear up

the table preparatory to leaving. Billy, with her chin on her hand,

thoughtfully gathered up the crumbs still on her plate and transferred

them to her mouth. Henrietta leaned back in her chair, her hands

clasped behind her head, gazing dreamily at the flickering lamp.

Bartlett and the general smoked in contented silence and the Watermelon

rolled a cigarette with his long, thin fingers, his old clay pipe

discarded with his rags. Alphonse was already asleep. A snore from his

corner drew their attention.

The Watermelon licked his cigarette paper and glanced at Billy. "He's

got his nerve," said he, putting the cigarette in his mouth and reaching

for a match.

"I don't think that any of us have been lacking in nerve to-night," said

the general, with no little pride.

"You're dead game sports," admitted the Watermelon. "Let's stay all

night."

"It's morning already," said Henrietta. "We have stayed all night."

"Let's sleep here," said the Watermelon. "We can leave early."

"Er--er--are there any beds?" asked the general.

"Father, father," cried Henrietta, "you are backsliding."

The general protested, immensely flattered.

"Father used to say if you didn't backslide once in a while, goodness

wouldn't be goodness but a habit," said the Watermelon.

The general always looked back on that night and the week that followed

with wonder, thankfulness and pride. When the Watermelon, waiting for

no further consent, picked up the lamp and started to investigate the

bedrooms, the general was the first to follow him.

They found two bedrooms on the ground floor, and though the beds only

had mattresses and pillows on them, even the Watermelon did not suggest

a search for sheets and pillow-cases. The girls took one room, the men

the other. Alphonse was aroused enough to be dragged to the haircloth

sofa in the kitchen, from which he kept falling during the course of the

night with dull thuds that woke no one but himself.

The Watermelon was having the time of his young life. Abstract problems

of right and wrong did not trouble him. He took each event as it came

and never fretted about it when it was over or worried about the next to

come. Last night in the open with the fat Mike and the languid James,

all dirty, all tired, all tramps, he had slept as peacefully and had

fallen asleep as quickly, as he did that night in a comfortable bed with

an austere member of the New York Stock Exchange as bedfellow and a

retired general of the United States army on the couch at the foot. The

whole adventure was diverting, amusing, nothing more. He took each day

as it came and let the morrow take care of itself. Batchelor would

probably try to make trouble, but if Bartlett were as successful as he

hoped to be, and kept on getting lost, there was little danger from that

source. Bartlett, desiring secrecy as much as the Watermelon, had

effectually silenced the enterprising reporter at the hotel.

It was early when Bartlett awoke. The birds were singing riotously in

the vines over the porch and the sun streamed through the cracks in the

shabby window shade. He yawned and stretched, glancing with amusement

at the general, still raising melodious sounds of slumber from the couch

at the foot of the bed. Then suddenly he became aware that the place at

his side was empty, that the Watermelon was gone. He crawled stealthily

out of bed and dressed, filled with misgivings.

Batchelor had consented so readily the day before to come with them that

now, when he had had time to think it over, he might have regretted his

decision and be already on the way to the railroad, somewhere. His had

been the master mind to conceive the check and ruination of the cotton

scheme, and surely he would see the folly in what he had done the day

before, when lured on by the pretty, bewitching Billy. He would realize

now in the clear light of day that he must return to the city or get

word to his brokers somehow. He might even then be in a telegraph

office, sending a despatch of far-reaching importance.

Bartlett dressed with feverish haste and hurried out to the side porch.

The Watermelon was there, sitting in the sun, his feet hanging over the

edge of the porch, talking carelessly with the immobile Alphonse. Both

were smoking and both had apparently been up for some time. Had

Batchelor been to the village and telegraphed already? He would have

had time to go and return if he had used one of the cars.

The Watermelon looked up. "Hello," said he.

"Hello," said Bartlett. "Been up long?"

"Not so long," said the Watermelon.

"Are the cars all right?" asked Bartlett.

"I haven't been to see," returned the Watermelon, rolling another

cigarette.

Bartlett drew a sigh of relief and started after Alphonse for the shed

beside the barn.

The Watermelon had not had time to walk to the village and back, besides

telegraphing. Bartlett paused and glanced over his shoulder.

"Aren't you coming?"

"No," said the Watermelon. "I ain't bugs about the gasolene buggies."

Bartlett walked on, shrewdly guessing that the languid youth was waiting

for Billy. Her charms, it seemed, had not grown any less effective. He

decided that he would not try to get in touch with his broker. He could

trust him to take care of the city end of the business if Batchelor were

to be eliminated until the following Sunday. Batchelor was an ordinary

youth and if Billy's charms were not enough to hold him, finding himself

an equal and on friendly footing with people in what his policeman

father and washerwoman mother reverently called "society," would

probably turn his otherwise level head completely. Bartlett admitted to

himself, as he gazed abstractedly at the shining cars, that the young

man had not appeared visibly impressed either by himself or the general.

But Batchelor was clever and would hide his elation.

The Watermelon's slow drawl at last aroused him.

"Cut it," said the Watermelon. "The cops are coming."

One of New York's leading citizens, bank president and corporation

director, felt a slow, cold, clammy chill creeping up his spinal column.

His first instinctive desire, like that of the small boy caught robbing

an apple orchard, was to hide. Last night was one of those unfortunate

occurrences it were best to pass over in silence. He turned and glanced

at the house. The place looked deserted in the morning sunshine. The

blinds were drawn, the doors shut. The general and the girls apparently

still slept, and no country variety of New York's "finest" with warrant

and shotgun could be seen approaching. Alphonse looked up from the car

and gazed a moment at the house with the scornful indifference for the

law and its minions of the confirmed joy-rider.

"I do not see any one," said Bartlett with calm dignity.

"They are creeping up on us," said the Watermelon cheerfully. "Trust

the rube to do the thing up in style. Three men came along. They

stopped down by the gate and talked, pointing up here, then one ran on

to the village to get help, I suppose, and the other two are waiting

down there."

"I will go and explain that it was a mistake," said Bartlett.

"Now, don't do that," adjured the Watermelon. It was just possible that

the police had already picked up his trail and he preferred the chance

of escaping in a car to stealing away by himself, through the woods, a

tramp again, leaving behind him Billy and a week of fun. "Alphonse can

bring up the cars and we can slip away before the reinforcements come.

See?"

"I will explain that it was a mistake--"

"Mistakes," said the Watermelon coldly, "aren't on the cards in school

and the law. Come up to the house and see the others first, anyway."

"One can afford mistakes as well as any other luxury," said Bartlett.

"Money is all the fellows want."

"Let's talk it over first with the others, anyway," urged the

Watermelon, feeling that it might be that money was not all they wanted.

They found the general and the girls in the kitchen putting it in order.

"Certainly," said the general with the calmness of one immune from the

law. "We will explain."

"What?" asked Henrietta, as she drew shut the basket lid and slipped in

the catch.

"Father used to say that if what you've done makes a fight, explanations

will only make another," said the Watermelon. While he had the time he

realized that he should slip away, but there was a chance that the

police, finding their youthful quarry in the society of a general and a

reputable and wealthy citizen of New York, could be impressed with the

belief that they had made a mistake, and the Watermelon was always ready

to take chances. Still, there was no need of running needless risk, and

if he could persuade them all to escape with him in the cars, he would

do it.

Henrietta nodded. Billy was for an instant flight. "We might as well,"

she explained lucidly, eying her father questioningly.

"Not at all," said Bartlett. "Money is all they want."

"An explanation," said the general, "will be sufficient. We do not want

any tampering with the law." He picked up his hat and started for the

door as he would sally forth and demand the surrender of a beaten foe.

"But, father," Henrietta's clear voice made him pause, "what can we

explain?" She pushed back her auto veil and gazed from one to the other

in gentle deprecation. "How we got in? But they wouldn't want us to

explain that. You see, they can surmise that."

The general came back to the table. A little firmness, tempered with a

lucid explanation in words of one syllable had always been his method in

dealing with the weaker sex. "My dear Henrietta, we can explain why we

are here."

"Why are we?" asked Henrietta meekly.

"Why are we?" demanded the general. "Because we took it for the house

of a very old and dear friend."

"But as soon as we entered, father, we knew our mistake."

"Henrietta," said the general, "I can not argue with you."

"No, father," agreed Henrietta. "But when we found out our mistake, why

didn't we leave?"

"I can not argue with you, Henrietta," repeated the general.

"Money," said Bartlett, "is all they want. They always fine all

motorists for breaking speed laws. It becomes a sort of habit with

them."

"This ain't breaking the speed laws," warned the Watermelon. "This is

house-breaking."

"Sir," demanded the general, "do you accuse me, me, of house-breaking?"

"The whole damn family," said the Watermelon bruskly. He wanted to slip

away quietly, whether the men at the gate were waiting for him alone or

for all of them, having a tramp's dislike for anything that smacked of a

possibility of falling into the hands of the law. "This is some

different from speed-breaking," he added gloomily.

"This is preposterous!" cried the general. "That I, _I_, should be

arrested! Why, I refuse to be. No one has a right to arrest me."

"If you break into another person's house, father--" began Henrietta.

"But, Henrietta, I am not a house-breaker. I deny the charge."

"We all are," said Henrietta. "That is all I can see to it."

"Money--" began Bartlett again, the refrain of his life. He felt he

could not be arrested and haled before a magistrate, even such an humble

one as a country justice of the peace. His whole scheme would be ruined.

Batchelor would probably want to return to the city as soon as he could

bail himself out, and not care to have anything more to do with motor

trips run on similar lines.

"No," snapped the general, "we will have no graft."

"Graft," sputtered Bartlett. "Who suggested graft? A wise manipulation

of the financial end of a difficulty will more often save you than not.

There is no graft in paying for a night's lodging."

"Under the present circumstances, paying for a night's lodging is

graft," declared the general.

"It's graft, then, or prison," snapped Bartlett.

"Prison," said the general heroically.

"Prison is foolish," said Billy, "when one has a motor-car and can get

away."

"Besides," said Bartlett, "graft is not dishonest for the man who gives

the bribe."

"It ain't," agreed the Watermelon, "if the man has money enough to give

publicly to some college or institution."

Henrietta drew on her gloves. "I think you are all cynics," said she.

"Graft is dishonest."

"Why?" asked Bartlett, turning to her. "Why, Henrietta?"

"Because," said Henrietta firmly.

"The only dishonor is playing on another man's weakness, using that for

your own ends. If I know a man has a price, am I dishonest to take

advantage of the knowledge? No, certainly not. The dishonor is in him

who has a price, whose dirty little soul cares so much for money that he

lets his manhood go at so much in dollars and cents, like merchandise."

"Ah," cried Henrietta with quick sympathy for the tempted. "Poverty is

so terrible and money such a temptation. It doesn't seem to be fighting

fair to take advantage of it."

"Father used to say that it would take the constitution of an ostrich,

the empty head of a fool and the nerves of a prize-fighter to stand

poverty," said the Watermelon, thinking of those days when there were

eight children and no money.

"I think," said Billy, as one propounding a wholly original suggestion,

"that we should go at once."

"If we have done wrong," said the general, "we should suffer for it. We

should not attempt to evade the consequences of our acts."

There was a heavy step on the porch without. The general turned pale,

Bartlett reached for his pocket-book and Billy leaned weakly against the

knobby end of the haircloth sofa. Only Henrietta and the Watermelon were

quite calm, the latter with the calmness of desperation, the former, of

despair.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE KEY TO THE SITUATION*

The Watermelon accepted the inexorable with the tramp's sang-froid;

Henrietta with a sweet dignity, though slightly flushed. The door had

been shut before the conference began and the person on the porch had

not come in sight of the windows. With a slow wink at Henrietta, the

Watermelon strode to the door. Instinctively the general started to lay

his hand on the young man's arm as he passed, to detain him a moment,

but instead picked up his hat from the table and hoped that no one had

seen that involuntary little gesture. The Watermelon threw open the door

with a bit of a flourish and Alphonse, stolid, unsmiling, entered.

There was an involuntary sigh of relief from all, even the general.

"Well," asked the Watermelon, "what are the sleuths doing?"

"Where are the cars, Alphonse?" asked the general sternly, in the

reaction of the suspense of the moment before.

"I left them at the back door," answered Alphonse, as one who understood

perfectly the whole aspect of the case and realized that sometimes a

quiet exit is more to be desired than great acclaim. "I thought you

would not want them seen from the front."

"I have no objection to my car being seen by everybody," returned the

general with a wave of his hand, which appeared to include the universe.

The back door was locked and the key gone, and the Watermelon had

hurried to the door into the sheds and was struggling with the rusty

lock. "This is the way," said he, "through the woodshed. That door's

locked and there ain't a key; family probably left that way. I noticed

the woodshed route this morning."

"We can shut this door on the side porch and lock it just as we found

it," said Henrietta.

She shut the door and Alphonse as quietly turned the key. She lowered

the window the Watermelon had opened and, finding that he had broken the

lock in doing it, she slipped a dollar from her purse and left it on the

ledge. It seemed to Henrietta to leave more, to pay for their night's

lodging, would simply be adding insult to injury. One can not take

unpardonable liberties with another's possessions and then pay for it in

the gold of the land.

"Come," said she.

The Watermelon had already opened the door and was working on the lock

of the one in the woodshed. Henrietta paused in the house door, the

basket on her arm, and glanced back at the others. "Come on," said she.

"I will explain," began the general, with a firmness that was fast

weakening.

"Father," said Henrietta, "you can not explain. Graft is dishonest. The

only thing we can do is to run."

Billy grabbed up her gloves and obeyed with alacrity. Bartlett and the

general followed in dignified majesty. Alphonse came last and shut each

door as they passed through. With no undue haste, and yet with no

loitering to admire a perfect summer morning, they climbed into the

cars; Alphonse alone in the general's, the other five in Bartlett's,

with Bartlett at the wheel.

"Shall we rush them?" suggested the Watermelon with happy anticipation.

Alphonse, like the voice of reason, calm, unemotional, blase, spoke:

"There is a cow lane back of the barn. It is wide enough for the cars.

It leads into the road farther on. I left the bars down."

"You're a man, Alphonse," said the Watermelon.

They glided without further comment through the barnyard into the rocky,

tree-shaded cow lane. The general glanced behind. No one was in sight.

The lane was narrow and rough, last spring's mud having hardened into

humps and ridges from the passing of many feet. The cars ran slowly of

a necessity, and while the engines throbbed, the noise was not loud, and

the slight hill on which the house stood deadened the sound and

concealed the cars from any one in front.

Henrietta leaned toward the Watermelon, who sat on the small seat just

in front of her and just behind the general. "On such an occasion as

this," she asked, "what did 'father' used to say?"

"Nothing," said the Watermelon. "There were two times when he never

said anything, one was when he was asleep and the other was when he was

escaping from the police."

"Oh," cried Billy, "he was a minister, why should he have had to escape

from the police?"

"He left the ministry," explained the Watermelon.

"What did he say when he left it?" teased Henrietta.

"Good-by," said the Watermelon.

Then the cars turned into the road and two men stepped from the bushes

on either side. They were tall, raw-boned country men, in flapping straw

hats and blue jeans. Each carried a shotgun in the crook of his arm

with a tender pleasure in the feel of it, each chewed a big piece of

tobacco and each was apparently more than enjoying the situation. The

Watermelon, leaning forward, with wary eyes, was pleased to see a look

of surprise flit across their square-jawed, sun-tanned faces as they saw

the second car slowly following the first, and four men instead of one,

as the telegram had said "one man in a big red touring car," the make

and engine number given.

For a moment the general could think of nothing to say. If he had been

permitted to sally forth from the front door, he could have explained

clearly, emphatically, with all his old-time belief that being himself

no one could possibly doubt him or his good intentions. But now, caught

thus, acknowledging his guilt by his surreptitious leave-taking, he did

not know what to say, where to begin. Bartlett reached for his

pocket-book.

"What's the make of your car?" demanded the taller of the two of

Bartlett, laying his hand on the fender.

[Illustration: "What's the make of your car?"]

Surprised, Bartlett told, thankful that he had not been asked for his

name.

"Engine number?" demanded the man.

Bartlett gave it.

"License number?"

"Great Scott!" snapped Bartlett. "What do you want next? My age? My

number is on the back of my car. I have so many cars I have forgotten

it. Go and look, or ask my man. Alphonse, what's the number on the

back?"

"97411," droned Alphonse coldly.

"Be both these cars yours?" asked the man, puzzled and a bit

disappointed.

"That car," said the general pompously, "is mine. Allow me." He drew

his card-case from his pocket, and to the tall man's consternation and

Bartlett's horror, presented him with his card. The two withdrew and

consulted a moment. Clearly the family party before them was not the

young man wanted in Wilton for stealing a motor-car and a suit of

clothes, but for all that, what were they doing in an empty house?

"We can arrest 'em and get a fine anyway," said the taller of the two,

and the other agreed.

The Watermelon leaned forward with languid interest, his hat on the back

of his head. "How d'ye do?" he drawled. "What are you doing with the

popguns?"

"Hunting," grinned the spokesman pleasantly.

"Any luck?" asked the Watermelon.

"Bet cher life!" said the man. "Got what we were after."

"Bear?" asked the Watermelon innocently.

"Autos," said the man.

"Sir," began the general. He felt a pressure on his shoulder so firm,

that, irritated, he turned to remonstrate with Henrietta. One could not

explain the situation with any degree of pride in the first place, still

less so, if some one behind were apparently endeavoring to suppress one.

The Watermelon frowned. "We weren't breaking any speed limit, unless

the snail is the standard you regulate your speed laws by." The men no

longer believed that they had caught the thief, but if they insisted on

taking the party before a magistrate, each would have to give his name.

With the general present, fictitious names would only be so much waste

of breath, and the Watermelon had no desire to give his assumed name to

any one in the employ of the law.

"Naw," sneered the man, spitting with gusto. "There're other things to

break besides speed laws."

"Yes," agreed the Watermelon, "your empty head."

"Now, don't get sassy," warned the man, growing angry. "I'm an officer

of the law and I'm not going to take any of your sass."

"An officer of the law can't arrest a law-abiding citizen," snapped the

Watermelon with righteous indignation.

"Law-abiding?" jeered the man.

"What have we done?"

"Try to guess," suggested the man pleasantly and the other laughed.

"I can't guess," said the Watermelon. "Is it for riding through the cow

lane? We didn't hurt the lane any. I rode through this same lane last

summer and the Browns didn't kick up any row over it. In fact, they

were with me, that is, Dick and Lizzie were."

The man stared and the Watermelon frowned coldly.

"Do you know the Browns?" demanded the fellow.

"Not very well," admitted the Watermelon. "I was through here last

summer and stopped over night at their place. They were fine people,

all right. They told me if I ever came this way again to drop in and I

said I would. It was a sort of joke. They gave me a latch-key." He

drew a key from his pocket and held it out as proof of his integrity.

"Huh," said the man dully, gazing from the key to the Watermelon.

The second man took it. "Which door does it fit?" he asked.

"The front door," said the Watermelon promptly. "Go try it if you want

proof."

"Not so fast," said the second man, who had taken the affair into his

own hands. "If you know the Browns, tell me something about them? No,

you chuffer feller, hold on, back there. Don't try to slip by, for you

can't. You automobilists think that the Lord created Heaven and earth

for your benefit and then rested on the seventh day and has been resting

ever since. That's better. Now, then--" turning again to the

Watermelon--"how many in the family?"

"How many?" queried the Watermelon. "I don't know. I only saw Ma and

Pa and the three kids, Dick and Lizzie and Sarah. Sarah was a young

lady about twenty, if I remember rightly; Lizzie was eight and Dick was

a bit older, ten or twelve--twelve, I think he said. I remember his

birthday came in January, anyway."

"Well, goldarn it," laughed the first man, thoroughly convinced. "Well,

say, ain't we the easy marks?"

"Don't blame yourselves," said the Watermelon gently. "Father used to

say that anything colossal, even stupidity, was worthy of admiration."

"What did Dick look like?" demanded the second man, loath to give up.

The Watermelon straightened up. "See here, my man," said he sternly,

"we are in a hurry. You have detained us long enough. I have told you

as much as I am going to about the Browns. It's a year ago this summer

that I was there and I haven't been dwelling on their beautiful

countenances in rapt and joyful contemplation ever since. I have seen a

few people during the interval. Dick was fairly good looking, but

Lizzie was the cutest. I took them through the cow lane to show them

how they could go for the cows in a motor-car, farming up-to-date, see.

Now move aside and let us pass, please."

"No, you don't," returned the man sharply. "Let that chuffer feller in

the back car come up to the house with me while I try this key. Tom, you

keep the others here, till I come back."

The Watermelon leaned back wearily indifferent and drew out his

cigarette papers. Alphonse climbed obediently from the car, with his

usual imperturbability. Calmly and willingly he scaled the stone wall

and set off across the field with his captor. Tom thoughtfully examined

his gun, one eye on the motor-cars.

The general's desire to explain was superseded by a still greater desire

to get away. The grim faces of the two men impressed him with the

gravity of the event. If they were to escape, now was the time, when

the forces of the enemy were divided, but there was his car.

He could not leave that behind and the man in the road was a fairly good

reason for him to remain where he was and make no attempt to reach it.

Batchelor had put up a clever bluff, but it had been called, and they

had to sit there until the return of the other man, when they would be

exposed, for of course the key wouldn't fit. That second man was a

stubborn brute. The Lord had made mules. He didn't intend men to be.

The general turned irritably and glanced at the Watermelon, lolling

gracefully in his seat and humming a ridiculous little song between airy

puffs of his cigarette.

Henrietta repressed a wild wish to scream aloud. Never, never again

would she go into another man's house unless expressly asked to do so by

the owner. She glanced behind, up the hill, toward the house. Alphonse

and his captor had just come into sight again and were returning through

the field. Henrietta breathed heavily. This was awful. When the two

reached the stone wall, she hoped she would faint. She knew she

wouldn't, she never fainted. She turned around that she might not see

them. Nothing could be done, apparently, but simply wait for the hand

of the law to fall upon them. The Watermelon had made a good guess as

to the children, it seemed; why hadn't he been content to let it go at

that? Why had he hauled out that useless key? She had ceased to feel,

to think. She looked at Billy. Billy was frozen dumb. This was the

end. Bartlett glanced at the man in the road and tried to figure his

price.

The Watermelon turned carelessly and spoke to Henrietta. "That was a

pretty bird up there. Did you see it?"

"Yes," said Henrietta automatically, though she had seen no bird. She

heard the two men now right behind the car and she sank back limply.

All was over.

"Well?" queried the Watermelon.

"By gum," admitted the man with the key. "It fits."

*CHAPTER XIII*

*ONLY TO BE LOST*

Bartlett grinned and removed his hat to wipe his brow. The general

strove not to show a guilty surprise, Billy giggled and Henrietta began

to live again.

The Watermelon held out his hand. "My key, please. Kindly remove that

piece of artillery from the road and we will go on."

The man, covered with perspiration and embarrassment, handed back the

key. "When the Browns come back, shall we tell them you called?"

"Certainly," said the general pompously, and in the exuberance of the

reaction, he drew a half dollar from his pocket and handed it to the

fellow. "Kindly give that to Dick," said he with the benevolence of a

grandfather.

Billy waved to the crestfallen two and Henrietta gave them a gracious,

forgiving bow.

"Never again," said she, "shall I do wrong. The possibilities of

discovery are too nerve-racking."

"Father used to say--" began the Watermelon.

"I'll bet your mother didn't talk much," laughed Bartlett.

But the general had passed through an unhappy half hour and had no heart

for jesting.

"If you knew the Browns, Mr. Batchelor," said he, "it was your duty to

have told us so."

"Yes," said Henrietta. "I have aged ten years, and at my time of life

that is tragedy."

"And why," asked Billy, "if you had the key, didn't we go in by the

front door last night?"

The Watermelon stared from one accusing face to the other in frank

surprise. Even Mike with his fat wits would have grasped the situation.

"I didn't know them," he protested. "When I can go in by a door, I don't

choose the window."

"But the key," objected Billy.

"Dick and Lizzie," added Henrietta.

"Their very ages," climaxed the general.

"It was only a bluff," said the Watermelon wearily. "I remembered their

names and ages from books I had seen around the room last night and on

the dresser, sort of birthday presents and things, you know. I never

saw one of them."

The general roared and loved the boy. Henrietta leaned forward and

patted him on the shoulder. "Wonderful, wonderful Holmes!" said she.

"Did you take the key on purpose?" asked Billy, all athrill with

admiration.

The Watermelon flushed. He had taken the key if by any chance he should

ever be in that neighborhood again, and the family away, he could spend

the night in a comfortable bed instead of under a hayrick. Besides keys

always came in handy. He didn't look at Billy. Like a sudden flash of

lightning on a dark night, he had seen the difference between them,

between what he had become and what he had been. But it came and was

gone and the old careless indifference rushed back. He laughed and

changed his seat to the one between the two girls.

"When I locked the front door, I slipped the key out without thinking, I

suppose," said he. "Besides, keys are handy. When you are stony broke,

you can rattle them and make the other fellow think maybe they're the

mon."

"Now for breakfast," cried the general gaily, never long forgetful of

his meals.

"Tell me," begged Henrietta, "what would father say?"

"Grace," said the Watermelon.

The general, as he informed Henrietta at the first roadhouse they came

to and at which they stopped for breakfast, was full of the old Nick. He

felt that there might be no limit to his daring, he might go as far as

to rob an apple orchard and make no attempt to repay the owner, that

was, if the apples were ripe. Henrietta's own spirits were rising. One

never realized what liberty was until one threw aside

conventionality--not honor, but conventionality, the silly, foolish laws

of senseless ages. Billy as usual laughed at every remark, while the

general, the tramp and the financier grew fairly brilliant beneath the

spur of two pretty women's laughing eyes.

The Watermelon, in his silk socks, his soft panama and fine linen, was

too much in the habit of taking fate as he found it, without wonder or

protest, to marvel now at his change of fortune or to be disturbed or

embarrassed at the unexpected society in which he found himself.

Between him and Bartlett was only the difference of a few millions, both

lived by their wits, and if one preferred to walk while the other rode,

it was merely a matter of choice--no sign of inferiority between man and

man.

They stopped that evening at a small town in the north of Vermont, as

far from a railway and telegraph office as Bartlett could bring them.

He had watched Batchelor carefully for signs of restlessness, but the

young man appeared entirely absorbed in the present, with no thought for

anything but the moment and Billy and Henrietta.

After supper, they loitered a while on the porch. The night was dark

and warm. Across the road and over the fields, the frogs in a distant

pond were croaking, and the air was thick with fireflies.

"Isn't it dark and still," said Billy, her hands thrust into the pockets

of her linen coat, her feet slightly parted, as a boy would stand, her

small head thrown back.

The Watermelon watched her covertly from the cigarette he was rolling,

the clear oval of her dainty profile, her slender throat and well-shaped

head with its coronet of braids.

"Dark as misery," said Henrietta dreamily.

"In the day, one sees a world," quoted Bartlett, standing beside her

where she leaned, a slender figure, against the post of the porch. "In

the night one sees a universe," and he waved his lighted cigar vaguely

toward the myriads of stars above them.

"What good does that do," asked the Watermelon, "seeing a universe?

It's miles away and can't help you any."

"Ah, but it's beautiful," cried Henrietta, who had never had much

experience with misery. "It teaches one to look up, the night-time

does."

The Watermelon lighted his cigarette in the cup of his hands and tossed

his match away. "If you are trying to walk in the dark," he objected,

"trying to get out of your troubles, say, and not standing still in the

same old place, you can't look up."

"You have no beauty in your soul," declared Henrietta. "I think the

idea is beautiful, seeing a universe."

"When you are down and out, you don't take any pleasure in looking at a

universe," said the Watermelon. "A dollar, or even a quarter, will look

a darned sight more beautiful."

"I wouldn't like to be poor," said Billy. "It must be so terrible to

have no motor-car, for one thing."

"It is," agreed the Watermelon, who would have agreed to anything Billy

said. "It's simply awful."

"What did you mind most," asked Billy, "when you were a newsboy?"

"Let's go look at the universe," suggested the Watermelon hastily. "We

can see it much better down the road a bit."

Billy consented, and they strolled away in the dark. The general, who

thought he was talking politics, was laying down the law to the hotel

clerk, and Henrietta and Bartlett were left alone. They lingered a

moment on the porch and then quietly disappeared up the road in the

opposite direction from that taken by Billy and the Watermelon.

Bartlett's desire was to reach Maine as soon as possible and get lost

over Saturday, but to avoid every city and larger town on the way and to

hurry by the smaller places where there might be telegraph or telephone

connections.

"Out of touch of the world for a week," he was fond of repeating, "no

letters, no papers, no worries and no nerves."

And his desire was the Watermelon's. The more they avoided towns, the

better the youth liked it. Telegraph and telephone stations were

zealously shunned. He would have liked to have seen a paper, so as to

judge what the police thought in the case of the theft of the wealthy

young stock-broker's car, provided Batchelor had allowed the thing to

become public, which he very much doubted, from the little he knew of

the man's character. It was hardly an episode one would care to see in

print if one was dignified and self-made. And the Watermelon chuckled.

It took them longer than Bartlett hoped, sticking to narrow, unused

country roads, and the next night found them still in Vermont. They

spent the night at the village boarding-house, and once again Billy and

the Watermelon went down the road a bit to look at the universe, and

Henrietta and Bartlett went up the road.

The following day, to Bartlett's satisfaction, they got lost. It was

late in the afternoon when they stopped at Milford, a small town in New

Hampshire, and made inquiries about the next town. Was it far and would

the accommodations be good? It wasn't far, the farmer whom they

questioned, assured them, only five miles. He directed them how to go

and they thanked him and pushed on.

They went on and on and nightfall found them in a lonely bit of wooded

road apparently miles from any town or habitation. Bartlett was

pleased. They were lost, and by great good luck they might remain lost

for a considerable length of time. The general, too, was delighted.

They would make a night of it. It was what he had long wanted to do and

now they would have to. The lunch basket had been filled earlier in the

day at a country store, so there would be enough to eat. The seats of

the autos were soft and one could sleep in the cars or on the ground, as

one preferred. It was warm and the rugs and shawls would be covering

enough.

They ran the cars out of the road to a convenient clearing. Henrietta

got out the basket, shawls were spread on the ground in the light of the

two cars and they prepared to make the best of things.

"This is like old times," declared the general genially; "a night on the

march, far out on the prairies, not a thing in sight, not a sound but a

coyote yelping or the cry of a wolf."

"And Indians," said Henrietta, "hiding back of the nearest hillock,

creeping up on you unawares."

Billy glanced behind her at the woods and wished they had chosen a more

open place to dine.

"Yes," agreed the general cheerfully, "or down in some southern swamp,

with the Johnny Rebs stealing through the bushes."

"Oh, please," begged Billy. "What's the use of telling about things

creeping up on you?"

And she glanced again at the bit of wood she could see in the light of

the lamps. Far in the west the moon was sinking and here and there a

star twinkled between the rolling clouds. A thunder-head was now and

then revealed distinctly by flashes of distant lightning, and thunder

rumbled ominously in the sultry night. A whippoorwill called steadily

and once a bat on graceful wing flew by in the eery light.

The general laughed. "That was living in those days, Billy," he said.

"A man was a man and not an office automaton, a dimes saving bank."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*BILLY, BILLY EVERYWHERE*

Bartlett nodded. He had been watching Henrietta through half-lazy,

half-closed lids, leaning against a fallen log. Somehow out there in the

coolness and sweetness of the summer night, in the open country, with

only the drumming of the insects and the shrill clamor of frogs to break

the silence, nothing seemed to matter, to be worth struggling for. He

felt that he hardly cared what was happening in his absence, back there

in the hot, crowded, dirty city. A few more millions added to the

useless many he already owned, what did it matter? What amount could

buy the night, the peace and sweetness and content? He glanced at the

Watermelon and felt no triumph in the thought that this was Wednesday

and so far not a paper had been received, not a letter sent to spoil his

plans. He wondered lazily that he had gone to the bother of planning

the small, petty intrigue of the small, petty city, like dogs snarling

over a worm-eaten bone. How trivial it all was!

"You're right, General," said he, watching the play of Henrietta's thin

white hands in the lamp light, as she and Billy arranged the evening

meal. "A man's not a man in the city--nothing but a dirty,

money-grubbing proposition. Dollars and cents, dollars and cents, the

only reason of his being."

"I know," agreed Henrietta, nodding. "I sometimes wonder why it was so

arranged--the world, you know. Why couldn't love, courage, honor have

been made the medium of exchange, the most vital necessity of life?

Every one has to have money, so every one has to struggle for it. Why

couldn't things have been started differently?"

"Potatoes, two kisses a peck," suggested the Watermelon.

"Three," said Bartlett, "if the purchaser is young and pretty. A smile

would be enough, if she were old and wrinkled and unwed."

"A motor-car would probably necessitate a wedding," said the general.

"No, no, no," protested Henrietta. "How silly! You don't understand me

at all."

"I would hate to be a clerk at a bargain sale," said the Watermelon,

pilfering a cracker from the box Billy held.

"Yes," agreed Bartlett, "think of the microbes--"

"Microbes?" asked Billy who had not been following the conversation.

"Where?"

"In kisses, Billy," said the general. "I should think you would have

found it out by this time. Everybody you kiss--"

"I never kiss anybody," protested Billy, blushing delightfully.

"Father used to say--" began the Watermelon.

"Look here," interrupted Bartlett, "that father of yours was a minister,

you say. I vow he could know nothing about this subject."

"He married more people than you have," said the Watermelon.

"Yes," said Henrietta kindly, "he must have known all about it. Do tell

us what he said."

"He used to say that kissing was just the reverse of poker--"

"Poker," cried Bartlett. "No wonder your father left the ministry."

"It says in the papers that your father was a policeman," declared the

general.

"A policeman of souls," said Henrietta softly.

The general waved the sentiment aside as immaterial. "How could he have

been a policeman and a minister?"

"I can't say," answered the Watermelon, and turned to help Billy with a

sardine can as the best way out of a tight place.

"How is kissing the reverse of poker?" asked Henrietta, always amused by

the Reverend Mr. Batchelor's remarks.

"A pair would beat a royal flush," replied the Watermelon.

"Surely," persisted the general, "if your father were a minister--"

The Watermelon looked up from the key of the tin he was laboriously

turning and glanced gently at the general, his woman's eyes amused and

pitying, the expression they always wore for the general.

"Why, you see that is just what I always fancied. He used to preach and

have a church--but if the papers say he was a cop, he probably was."

"It's a wise child that knows his own father," said Henrietta. "Come to

supper everybody."

Bartlett spread the filmy paper napkin on his knees and taking the plate

Henrietta handed him, balanced it on his lap with great nicety. He was

so sure that the Watermelon was William Hargrave Batchelor that it never

occurred to him to doubt it. There were the cards, the monogram on the

automobile and the general to vouch for it. The papers were a bit

wrong.

Supper over, the general conceived the sudden inspiration of tinkering a

while with the cars. Alphonse stood by to assist and the others

wandered off down the road before turning in for the night.

Billy and the Watermelon soon drifted away by themselves up a tiny cow

lane, fragrant with sweetbrier. They wandered up it side by side, like

two children, neither saying a thing, content to be together. At the

end of the lane, they leaned for a while on the pasture bars. The

sultriness of the earlier part of the evening had passed. The thunder

was less ominous and only sheet lightning, low on the horizon, was

visible. A breeze, cool and sweet, whispered by. The fireflies danced

in gay little flashes of light among the shadows.

The two stood side by side, their elbows on the top rail, their hands

before them. They said nothing. There was nothing to say, just the

night and they two, alone, among the sweetbriers and the fireflies.

Now and then Billy sighed, unconsciously and happily. A great silence

had enwrapped Billy for the last two days, a silence in which she was

content to dream and in which words seemed superfluous and uncalled for.

She wondered that Henrietta could talk so much. What was there to say?

Billy had never been in love. She wondered vaguely if the enfolding

content, the longing for solitude and her own thoughts were forerunners

of approaching death. The good die young, and Billy felt that she was

content to go, to drift away into the eternal peace of the after life.

She was not of an analytical disposition and she only knew that she was

happy, causelessly happy, and did not ask the reason. The Watermelon

stood so closely beside her that once when he turned she could smell the

tobacco on his breath. She wanted to rub her head on his shoulder like

a kitten, and wondered if she were growing weak-minded.

Without warning the bushes at her side parted and a cow with great

gentle eyes peered out at them, so near that Billy could feel the

breath, warm and sweet, upon her cheek. With a little cry, she shrank

close to the Watermelon.

He felt her slender body, soft and yielding, nestling against him, smelt

the fragrance of her curly hair, and suddenly a great tide of longing,

of passion, of desire welled up in him and choked him. He wanted to

crush her to him, to cover eyes and hair with kisses, to hold her so

tightly that she would cry for release. All the ungoverned feelings of

the past few years surged over him and threatened to carry both for ever

out of sight of land and decency. But, blindly, not knowing what he

did, he turned from her and picked up a stick to hurl at the cow. She

had turned to him in her fear, and with the honor of his clerical

father, he controlled himself.

Billy laughed and straightened up, as the cow, grieved and surprised,

backed off in the dark. "I'm not afraid of cows, Willie," said she.

"Don't you know it? She just came so suddenly I was startled."

"Yes," agreed the Watermelon dully. "So was I. Why did you call me

Willie?"

"Short for William, and William is your name, goose. Don't you remember

your own name?" crooned Billy, leaning toward him in the dark.

"Yes, surely," said the Watermelon. "But I hate my name. Call me

Jerry. That's what the boys call me."

He did not add that his name was Jeroboam Martin. He being the seventh

young Martin to arrive, his distracted parents had turned to the Bible

for help in names as well as in the more vital necessities.

"Jerry?" laughed Billy questioningly.

"Yes," said Jeroboam gravely, and added abruptly, "Let's go back."

They turned and retraced their steps, Billy all athrill with she knew

not what, singing a foolish little song beneath her breath, the

Watermelon staring angrily before him, denying hotly to himself what

would not be denied, that he loved Billy. He loved her, not as he had

loved other women, not as a careless, lazy tramp, taking what offered,

good, bad or worse, with airy indifference, but as the son of his poor

virtuous, mother and of his gentle, reverend father would love and

cherish the one woman.

But who was he to love like that? The past few years had branded him as

a thing apart from Billy. He tried to think it out, but the blood

pounded in his temples and he could not think, could only know that he

loved her more than he did himself, with a love stronger than the mad

passion and longing for her that throbbed in his pulses like leaping

fire. The knowledge had come so suddenly, he was so unprepared, that he

could not reason it out, could only know that Billy must never dream of

such a thing. A companion of Mike and James, who was he to talk of love

to Billy? God!

His head moved restlessly as though in pain and his hands, unconsciously

jingling the keys in his trousers pockets, clenched tightly. Billy

swayed against him in the dark and straightened up with a laugh and a

smothered yawn.

"Oh, law," said she, "I'm tired."

"So am I," said the Watermelon moodily. "Tired of living."

"Do you know," said Billy, "I was just thinking that death might not be

so awful, just to close your eyes and drift out into space, on and on

and on."

"It would be a darned sight better than living," answered the

Watermelon. "Hell would be preferable. I beg your pardon."

"Aren't you well?" asked Billy anxiously. "As for me, I never really

want to die unless I am feeling perfectly well."

Henrietta and Bartlett strolled up as they approached the cars, where

they found the general pacing up and down the road, filled with

righteous indignation and anger.

It seemed Alphonse had long ago taken his rug and pillow and retired to

the edge of the woods and slumber. Left alone the general had lighted a

cigar and was walking slowly back and forth in front of the cars,

waiting for the others to return, when a buggy, with two men in it,

passed, the horse shying a bit and the general offering his assistance

and advice. To his surprise they had not gone by more than three yards,

when they stopped, tied the horse and came back on foot.

"First," said the general, as the four gathered around him in the light

of the car lamps, "first I thought they were hold-up men. The lamps on

my car had gone out and they did not see it, thought that there was only

one car, so there would not be many to defend it; besides, I was the

only one they had seen, and doubtless they surmised I was alone and they

could have held me up easily."

"Father," cried Henrietta, "what did you do?"

"Before I could do anything they asked me the make of my car. I told

them. They said it didn't look like a Packard, and I saw that they were

looking at Will's car and hadn't seen mine, back near the wall and with

the lights out. I pointed to it and said that was my car. They seemed

surprised to see two cars. I told them my name, gave them my card, and

told them I was motoring to Maine with a party of friends and asked them

what they were going to do about it."

"What did they say?" asked Bartlett, while the Watermelon slowly rolled

a cigarette.

"Oh, they apologized," admitted the general. "But what I want to know,

and what I don't like at all, is why every one is so curious to know the

make of my car, the engine number and the license number. What business

is it of theirs?"

The two girls slept in one car, Bartlett and the general in the other.

The Watermelon lay on the grass on Billy's side of the car and sought to

reason the thing out, to plan what to do. Alone in the dark, he did not

sleep, but stared before him, ears attuned to the many sounds of the

summer night.

In every whir of insects' wings, in every whispering breeze that passed,

he heard Billy's soft sweet voice. He stared up at the stars and

likened them to Billy's eyes, twinkling points of light as far above him

as Billy was, for Billy was Billy, and he was a tramp, a hobo--a Weary

Willie.

*CHAPTER XV*

*LOVE IN IDLENESS*

One not born a vagabond in heart can never understand a vagabond's love

for the open places, for absolute freedom, to go where he wants, see

what he wants, work when he wants. To a vagabond an office is

intolerable, the accumulation of dollars, grinding another man to gain a

petty advance for oneself, utterly uninspiring, conventionality, the

ceaseless humdrum round of existence as a clerk at ten per, revolting.

Following step by step in the well-worn, beaten path, where no man dares

step aside lest he be jeered at, where none dares fall, lest he be

pushed from the road and another take his place, where all think alike,

look alike, act alike, spending one's days in an office, bent over a

littered, dusty, shabby desk, one's nights at some cheap play-house,

seeking to find an outlet for the battered nerves, for the ceaseless

strain of the day by stupefying the senses with some garish parody of

life, is not living to a vagabond. He is willing to work if the work is

a part of himself, a development of that clamorous ego that must find

peace in the open, in the physical side of existence. If he is born

rich, he will become a traveler, a mountain climber, an aviator; if

poor, a tramp, and the Watermelon was born poor.

For the last few years his feet had followed his errant will, now here,

now there. He was impervious to hardship while he could wander as he

wished, indifferent to good clothes when the price was eight hours a day

spent in a stuffy office, bent, round-shouldered, hump-backed, over a

column of figures. Beneath good clothes or shabby, there was nothing

but a human body, all more or less alike. So the Watermelon had gone

his careless, contented way, now resting here, now working there,

unworried by rent days falling due, by collars fraying around the edges,

coats getting shabby and shiny at the seams, and then Billy came along,

Billy, young, sweet, conventional, an honored member of convention's

band, walking around and around the same well-beaten path, in the same

small inclosure. If he had elected to be one of the throng, he would

never have met her. Struggling along at ten per, he would have been so

far down the line, plodding painfully on, that Billy would never have

seen him.

But now he was out and a fence unscalable was between them. If he

climbed the fence again, it would do no good. No vagabond can ever fall

in line and keep step, and there is not room enough in the inclosure for

the man who has dared to climb the fence and drop down the other side.

Bartlett, like Billy, wondered if he were growing simple-minded. A

desire to confide in Henrietta, to tell her what he was up to, had come

upon him and seemed too strong to be resisted. Last night, up the quiet

country road, alone with Henrietta, he had been forced to suppress the

desire sternly, and now in the garish light of day it was still upon

him. He took a seat beside her on the stone wall where she tried to be

comfortable as she fished olives from a nearly empty bottle, the remains

of last night's supper.

"I wonder," said he, hovering on the edge of his foolish desire, "if any

one can become a man with nothing to regret."

"Certainly not," said Henrietta. "There would always be the years."

"I mean something that he had done himself," explained Bartlett soberly,

a sandwich in one hand, a buttered roll in the other.

"Don't tell me your troubles," said Henrietta, thinking miserably of the

years it would soon be so hard to deny. "I have enough of my own.

Confession may be good for the soul, but it's the death-blow to your

reputation."

"Father used to say that if there were public confession instead of

private in the Catholic church, there would be no Catholics," said the

Watermelon, helping Billy to the last of the sardines.

"Let's have a public confession," cried the artless Billy. "Everybody

tell the worst thing that they ever did in their lives."

The Watermelon laughed and leaned toward her, a moth flirting with the

candle flame. "Oh, kid; I'll bet the worst you ever did was to swipe

the jam-pot when ma wasn't looking."

"No," said Billy, "I did an awful thing once."

"Let's hear it."

Billy took the olive bottle from Henrietta, speared an olive and passed

the bottle on before she spoke. "Will you confess, if I do?" she asked,

pausing with the olive half way to her mouth.

"Sure," said the Watermelon. "I robbed an apple orchard once."

"You're fooling," accused Billy. "I'm not. I'm really serious."

"So am I," vowed the Watermelon.

"Billy," said Henrietta, "spare us. I am too young to listen to a tale

of depravity."

But the lure of the confessional held Billy and she passed Henrietta's

remark without notice. She turned to the Watermelon. "If I tell you

the worst thing I ever did, will you tell me the worst you ever did?"

"I haven't done the worst yet," explained the Watermelon.

The general having nearly wrecked the cars and seen the damage repaired

by Alphonse, hurried to the four sitting on the stone wall.

"Come on," said he. "It is time we were going. We have no blue book,

you know."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Henrietta, "if there were not a rare chance

for some one to confess a heinous crime."

She looked at Bartlett as he held out his hand to help her down and her

eyes laughed deep into his.

"In self-defense--" he pleaded in a whisper.

It was very early. The freshness of night still clung to fields and

wood. The air was full of the clamor of birds and from the valley below

came the stentorian crow of a rooster. Little wisps of white clouds

drifted by in the deep blue of the sky and a breeze played gently with

the girls' long auto veils.

So in the freshness of the early morning they dipped down the hill into

the valley, passed farm-houses and corn lands. They stopped about nine

at a farm-house and partook of a breakfast of coffee, bacon and eggs.

Alphonse filled the cars at a village store and they went on. The glory

of the day, the close proximity of Henrietta, who sat beside him,

dainty, merry, feminine, the success so far of his plan, which in his

saner moments he still cherished, raised Bartlett's spirits higher and

higher and they went faster and faster. They swept over the boundary

line into Maine with a rush, taking the hills at high speed and skimming

into the valleys, now entering a stretch of cool dark wood, now tearing

into the sunshine again, past corn-fields, hay-fields, and rocky

pastures. Cows whisked their tails at the cars' approach and dashed

awkwardly away from the fence rails. Chickens squawked and tore madly

to safety with flapping wings. Farmhouses appeared and disappeared in a

cloud of dust. Lakes were seen one moment and gone the next. They

swept around a bend in the road and into a man trap, a pile of wood

across the road and three farmers waiting grimly with loaded guns.

The Watermelon in the tonneau of the general's car, with Billy,

straightened up with a sickening fear of being arrested in her presence.

The fun and excitement of the adventure had disappeared. In their stead

stalked the grim reality of the fear of exposure, of the surprise,

scorn, perhaps anger, maybe pity, he would see in Billy's eyes. When

they parted and the Bartletts returned to the city, they would learn how

they had been deceived, and Billy would be angry, scornful and a bit

amused, for Billy enjoyed a joke even against herself and her ideas of

humor were young and of the same style, more or less, as those of the

Watermelon. But if he could he would drop out of her sight, first, the

good-natured, successful young financier, not slink away, the shiftless,

beaten tramp.

The general for a moment considered it merely another means taken by the

conspiracy to rob him of his car and contemplated stern defiance of the

law's command to stop.

"It's not highway robbery, Charlie," laughed Bartlett. "We've been

going a bit fast and have to pay up, that's all."

Haled before the justice of the peace in the village store, Bartlett

paid his fine with casual indifference, the general with the haughty

disapproval of a judge presiding at the bar of justice, while Henrietta,

with gentle condescension, bought some highly-scented soap, "to help

them out," she explained, meaning the owners of the store, and the

Watermelon, to all outward appearances, frankly bored by the

proceedings, presented Billy with a choice assortment of gaily tinted,

dusty candy.

They put up for the night at a small town in Maine. It consisted of

four or five scattered houses, a school, a store, and a barrel factory.

They found rooms in one of the houses and after supper, Henrietta,

Bartlett and the general sat on the stoop, while the men smoked and the

stars came out one by one, the frogs croaked dismally and the

whippoorwills called and called.

The Watermelon asked Billy to take a walk with him and she consented.

She must never know, thought the Watermelon, with boyish self-loathing,

that he had dared to insult her by thinking of love, but it would not

hurt any one but himself to walk with her. There was only a day or two

more at the most before they parted, she to go to Newport and Bar

Harbor, and he to drift out on the tide again, one with James and Mike.

They walked up the road in the soft beauty of the summer night. Billy

was tired and thoughtful, her girlish eyes catching a far off vision of

womanhood and what it meant. Unconsciously to both, a man's soul had

spoken and her woman's soul had stirred in answer, stirred, but would it

fully waken?

The Watermelon rolled a cigarette and puffed moodily, too busy himself

with thoughts to talk, and the Watermelon did not like to think. He was

not used to it.

"Darn it," he mused, "what did the Lord give us bodies for to want and

want and then add minds to think?"

They came to a New England graveyard, perched on a rise of ground, where

the road cut through a hill, a lonely, neglected place, overgrown with

weeds and tall rank grasses, the gravestones flat or falling. Hardly

aware of what they did, they turned in and picked their way among the

sunken graves.

"God's acre," whispered Billy softly, for youth loves sadness, at

certain times.

The Watermelon tossed away his cigarette and took off his hat.

Somewhere, over there among the Green Mountains, in just such another

place, his tired little mother slept. Was her grave sunken, he

wondered, her tombstone flat or falling limply sidewise?

The moon was sinking slowly in the west, a silver crescent just above

the dark outlines of the woods. The sky was bright with stars, like the

kindled hopes of those who have gone. A wind stole softly by, rustling

the tall grasses and swaying the tree tops. But there among the graves,

it was very dark and still.

Billy sat down on the bank by the driveway, and the Watermelon sat

beside her, not too near. There was at least a foot between them.

"We are all alone," said the Watermelon, thinking aloud half of his

thoughts. "All alone, but for the dead."

Alone, and the seven seas could not have parted them farther.

"And God," added Billy piously.

"If there is one," admitted the Watermelon.

Billy looked at him quickly, earnestly. "Oh, Jerry, of course there is

a God. Don't you know it?"

"No," said the Watermelon. "When a person is happy, they know there is

a God; when they are wretched, they say, every one does, 'There is no

God.' If there is one, why doesn't He let the miserable wretch realize

it instinctively as well as the happy person?"

Billy had never suffered, had never felt the foundations of her world

falling around her in ruins, had never cried aloud in anguish, "How

long, oh Lord, how long?" She answered from her inexperience, from the

faith that had never been tested, "Of course there is a God. Every one

knows it, every one prays. Why, if your father was a minister, I should

think you would know that there is a God."

"That's the trouble. He was a minister and he lost faith, and when he

who should have known, wondered if there was a God, we kids knew there

wasn't. I suppose it's the same if a boy finds that his mother has lost

her virtue. He thinks there is none."

Billy placed her hand on the bank between them and leaned toward him on

her straightened arm. "Poor old Jerry! But if your mother still

believed?"

"A mother always believes in God and her worthless sons. It's a part of

being a mother, I suppose."

*CHAPTER XVI*

*A THIEF IN THE NIGHT*

Billy laughed a low, throaty gurgle, and laid her hand an instant on his

sleeve. "Don't you see, she believed in God and she believed in you.

You didn't go back on her. Would God?"

The Watermelon did not answer. He was busy with a scene of the long

ago. He and the youngest Miss Martin had been engaged in a set-to which

hardly savored of brotherly love, and parental authority had separated

them and passed judgment.

"Sister should not have struck you," the mother said as she stood him

grimly in the corner. "But, Jeroboam, you should not have deceived

sister. If you men would only keep faith with your women, this world

would be too good to leave, even for Heaven," she had added with her

usual tired sigh.

How had he kept faith with Billy? The question stared him in the face

and he felt like the child again, standing in the corner, unable to

answer. For the sake of an amusing week of her society, he had

practically betrayed her father, had branded himself a thief by keeping

the clothes, the watch, the money, which he had taken wrongly, for a few

hours' fun, but which he had intended to return. In the love he felt

for the girl, his long-stifled conscience slowly stirred again.

Billy was talking, crooning her comfort with the maternity latent in all

women for the men they love. "Don't you see, Jerry, there is a God?

Think of what you did for your mother, think of how proud she was of you

when you did so well. By sheer grit you have made yourself what you

are. You are tired and blue to-night, poor old boy."

The Watermelon was not listening. He took a roll of bills from his

pocket and counted them. Billy watched him in perplexity. Was he

worrying over money, she wondered. One hundred and seventy-four dollars

left. He had not had an opportunity to spend more of that roll of bills

which he had betrayed a woman and lowered his manhood to steal. He

crushed the bills back into his pocket and rose.

"We had better go back," said he shortly. "It's late."

They found Henrietta and Bartlett on the front porch, talking in low

voices, oblivious to all else. The general had long since sought the

doubtful comfort of the country bed for city boarders.

Billy held out her hand to the Watermelon, a little ceremony she had

heretofore neglected, wishing in her tender little heart that she

understood his strange mood better and could comfort him.

"Good night," said she gently.

"Good night," said the Watermelon.

Henrietta rose. "I didn't know it was so late. Wait, Billy, I am

coming with you. Good night, all."

Bartlett followed the girls, but at the door he stopped and glanced back

at the Watermelon, standing on the grass by the steps.

"Better come to bed," said he.

The Watermelon nodded abstractedly and Bartlett went in, leaving him out

there alone.

Without thinking of Billy other than as a pretty girl with whom to

flirt, moved by the mischief of the moment, he had placed her father

financially at the mercy of his enemy. And now to right the wrong to

Billy, the only thing he could do would be to tell them who he was, a

tramp, masquerading with decent people in his stolen finery. Petty

thieving, the sharp tricks of the road, had passed quickly from his

conscience, but this was different. A woman had been thrown into the

bargain, the woman he loved, and Henrietta and the general trusted him.

Bartlett deserved all he got, and Batchelor he dismissed with the

comforting conviction that he was doing him a good turn. But Billy,

Henrietta and the general! A wry smile twisted the Watermelon's mouth

as he thought of the horror on the general's face when he learned that

he had spent the week in the company of a nameless hobo. For a while he

contemplated hurling away the watch along with the rest of the

"hardware" and stealing away in the dark, hitting the trail again and

catching up with Mike and James on their annual pilgrimage north. He

drew the bills from his pocket and thought of all Bartlett would lose if

he crept away without explaining, and Bartlett was Billy's father.

He heard a step on the porch and turned to see Billy hesitating in the

doorway. "Jerry," she whispered softly and glanced behind her as though

fearful of seeing her father or Henrietta peering at her over the

banisters.

He went toward her, the bills still in his hand. "Billy," said he,

thrusting the money into his pocket, "what are you doing at this time of

night?" And he looked down at her tenderly in the dark where the hall

lamp could not reveal his face.

Billy hesitated. She had seen the bills again and knew that he was

worried. To worry over money matters was an unknown experience to

Billy. She felt a delicacy in mentioning her errand.

"I--I--I came to see if the moon had set," she faltered.

"It's set," said the Watermelon.

"Well," said Billy, "then I will go back."

"Good night," said the Watermelon.

"Good night," said Billy, and lingered.

Then she laid her hand on his arm and spoke in a rush. "Oh, Jerry,

please don't worry. If you want any money, father has heaps. You can

have all you want."

The Watermelon drew a bit nearer. "Billy, Billy," said he softly.

"I think it must be terrible to worry about money," Billy hurried on.

"It's not worth it."

"I'm not worrying about money, kid," said the Watermelon with a laugh.

"I have a bunch. What made you think I was?"

"Twice to-night you've counted your money."

"Esau's bowl of pottage," sneered the Watermelon, turning unconsciously

to the old familiarity with the Bible. "Say, Billy, if he found he

didn't like his pottage, could he give it back and get his birthright

again?"

Billy blushed. She was not sure who Esau was. In a dim way she

remembered the name and vaguely associated it with the Bible. "Couldn't

he have gotten something else?" she asked judiciously.

"No," said the Watermelon. "He had nothing more to sell."

"What did he sell?"

"His birthright--for a mess of pottage."

"Why'd he do that?"

"He was stony broke, he wanted something to eat, see, and he sold his

all for a mess of pottage. Now, if he found he didn't like his pottage,

could he have given it back and gotten his birthright again?"

"Yes, indeed," chirped Billy. "I don't see why not. But why didn't he

get something better than a mess of pottage?"

"Don't ask me, kid. But, I guess you're right. No one can keep your

birthright unless you're willing they should."

"I usually know more about the Bible," stammered Billy, fearful of the

impression her ignorance must have made. "I know about Moses and Ruth."

The Watermelon nodded. "You see, I was raised on the Bible," he said

kindly.

"Yes," agreed Billy, "and I was raised on Mellen's food."

A step was heard on the floor above and she started hastily. "I guess I

had better be going," she whispered. "Good night, Jerry."

"Good night, Billy."

She slipped away and the Watermelon was again alone.

"She's right. If you don't like your pottage, you can get your

birthright back. I can leave a note," he thought and laughed bitterly.

"Haven't a thing, name, clothes, honor. Sneak away like a whipped cur.

Gosh, I'll be hanged if I can't do something respectable. I will tell

them in the morning and they can do and say what they please. If you've

sold your birthright to the Old Man, you have to go after it in person

to get it back. Why the deuce did I fall in love with Billy? I had fun

in the beginning--but now!"

When the Watermelon awoke next morning he lay for a time, stretching and

yawning in the comfortable bed and the pea-green silk pajamas he had

found in the suit-case in Batchelor's car. He glanced at the general

slumbering beside him, his mouth open and his round fat face as pink as

the pink cotton pajamas he wore.

"Here's me in silk and him in cotton," thought the Watermelon. "He

couldn't tell a lie to save his soul, and I-- Stick to your pink

cotton, general," he whispered and slipped quietly out of bed. He

crossed the room to the bureau where he had left the watch the night

before to see the time. The watch was not there and he turned to look

in his trousers pockets, thinking he might have left it in them. But his

pockets were empty, save for a few old keys, his knife and "the

makings." Money, watch, cigarette case, all were gone. He turned to

the bureau. Cuff links and stick pin were also gone. Gingerly he felt

in the general's pockets. They, too, were empty. He stood a moment in

the middle of the room in his pea-green silk pajamas and gently stroked

his back hair, then he chuckled softly and glanced at the bed.

The general was awake, looking at him with half-shut, sleepy eyes.

"Robbed, General," said the Watermelon.

"Robbed?" repeated the general, sitting up.

"Everything gone," said the Watermelon, "or I'll eat my hat."

The general rose and they made a systematic search through empty pockets

and rifled bureau.

Bartlett came in gloomily. Without a cent among them they could not

continue the trip. They would have to make for the nearest telegraph

station and wire for help, and Batchelor, his whereabouts known to his

brokers, would probably receive an urgent call to return at once.

"Robbed?" asked the general.

"They left me my name," said Bartlett grimly. "Who steals your purse

steals trash, I suppose. We have that comfort."

"Not my purse," said the Watermelon. "Mine had money in it."

"My watch," said the general, "was a family heirloom. My great

grandfather carried it."

"I wonder if the girls lost anything," said Bartlett.

"We will have to go to the nearest telegraph station and telegraph for

money," declared the general.

"I suppose so," growled Bartlett, and trailed from the room to finish

dressing.

They found the girls in the dining-room, unaware of what had befallen

them. They had slept late and the clock on the mantel registered

half-past nine as the three men filed into the room. The general was

calm, pompous, austere, but Henrietta had not lived with him for five

and thirty years without having acquired the ability to read his every

mood.

"Father," she asked, "what's the matter? Have your sins found you out?"

The general waited for the slatternly maid-servant to give them their

breakfast and leave the room before he spoke.

"We have been robbed," he said calmly, casually, as one would mention

the weather. His tones implied that he was perfectly willing to listen

to reason, but that he knew who the thief was and anything stated to the

contrary was not reason.

"I spend my whole life, father," said Henrietta, "finding the articles

you have been robbed of. Your system is all right. You have a place

for everything, but you never remember the place."

The Watermelon pulled out the linings of his empty pockets and held out

his wrists that they might see the cuffs tied together by a bit of

string.

Henrietta and Billy stared.

"I have never had a thief in my room," cried Billy. "I would like to

see how it feels."

"I'm not robbed," said Henrietta, making a hurried examination of the

small-sized trunk she carried as a hand-bag.

"It's the stable-boy," said the general. "I noticed him carefully last

night. He would not look any one in the face."

"He goes home every night," objected Henrietta. "Mrs. Parker told me

so."

"That's no reason he couldn't come back," said the general.

"No," said Henrietta. "But because a boy won't look at you is no reason

to say that he is a thief."

"He does look at you, anyway," said Billy innocently. "He looked at

me."

"It was clever in him to take our checkbooks," said Bartlett.

"He will forge our names," declared the general. "I made a check out to

pay for the board here, signed it, too, I remember, and then I found

some cash and thought I would use that and went to bed and forgot to

destroy the check. I know it was the stable-boy for my room has a

balcony in front, over the porch, and last night it was so warm I left

the door open."

"Maybe it was," agreed Henrietta. "I hate to suspect him, though."

*CHAPTER XVII*

*ALPHONSE RIDES AWAY*

"The stable-boy would have access to the back of the house, too," said

the general, who felt that if he had not become a general and had

escaped being a master mechanic, he would have been a famous detective.

"Yes," agreed the Watermelon. "But I don't think it is the boy. I was

out until after eleven, and just before I came in I saw him drive up

with the girl. They had been out to some dance and he left her and

drove on."

The girl appeared in the doorway wiping a plate, slip-shod and awkward.

Henrietta blushed, the general was painfully confused and the other

three turned their attention hastily to their food.

"Want anything?" asked the girl.

"No, thank you," replied Henrietta gently, feeling that in judging the

stable-boy she had somehow injured the girl.

The girl lingered a moment, glanced significantly at the clock, and went

out.

"Who could it be?" asked Billy, pleasantly excited.

"Why, this is terrible," said Henrietta. "If the boy didn't do it,

there is no one else who could have, but the family."

"It looks that way," admitted the Watermelon.

"What shall we do?" gasped Billy. "What shall we pay them with?"

The slatternly girl again appeared in the doorway much to the general's

nervousness.

"Want anything?" she asked, and glanced again at the clock.

"No," said Henrietta. "No, thank you."

"I will speak to Parker," declared the general as the girl left.

"I wish you didn't have to," sighed Henrietta. "It's horrid to lose your

money, but it must be so much worse to need money so that you would

steal it."

"But that's the test of honesty," declared the general. "To need money

and not steal."

"I know," admitted Henrietta, pushing aside her coffee cup. "I do

admire strong people who can resist, but I'm so much sorrier for the

weak who can't. It's pitiful, that's what it is."

"Yes," cried Billy, as usual carried away by her feelings. "Let's not

say a thing."

The door opened for the third time, but instead of the ineffective

maid-servant, the farmer's wife, fat, red-cheeked, good-natured,

entered.

She approached the table and smiled jovially from one to the other.

"I hope you liked everything," she said with a gentle hint in her tones

that they had lingered around the breakfast table long enough. "Have

you had plenty, General? Can't I get you some more coffee, Miss

Crossman?"

"No, thank you," said the general, confused and unhappy.

Mrs. Parker smiled still. "I am glad you liked everything. Your man

should be back soon. He hasn't had any breakfast yet."

"Where'd he go?" asked the general, feeling that that was safe enough

ground.

"My husband thinks that he went out in one of the automobiles very

early, for he found one of them gone."

"Did your husband see him go?" asked Bartlett.

"Oh, no, but he thinks he must have gone because there is only one

automobile--"

"Oh, yes," said Henrietta, and stared at the others, fearful of reading

her own crushing suspicion in their eyes.

Alphonse, the quiet, blase, peerless Alphonse? Could it be he? That

Alphonse had gone for an early morning spin lured by the dew on the

clover fields, by the sweet chorus of awakening birds, borne by the

unsuppressible desire to see the shy, sweet advent of a new day creeping

up the flushed and rosy sky, was wholly out of the question. Alphonse's

soul, in the early morning hours, was filled only with the beauty and

glory of bed. The general had always been forced to arouse his

serving-man and the process had often been painful, calling for

sternness and suppressed wrath on the general's part. Alphonse a thief

was more believable than Alphonse getting out of bed uncalled.

Billy was the first to speak.

"The car," she whispered.

"Oh, yes," said the landlady hastily, not quite sure what had happened

or was to happen by the expression on the faces before her. "Oh, yes,"

reassuringly, "he took the car. My husband wasn't up when he went--"

The general rose, his face red with anger. "If he has taken my car," he

thundered, "I shall have him prosecuted whether Henrietta likes it or

not."

"It's an outrage," sympathized Bartlett. "We can telegraph the police."

"Oh," moaned Henrietta, "I did love that car."

The landlady sought to reassure them in a calm, placid manner that

savored of a big, gentle-eyed cow. "Why, he has only gone for a ride.

He went--"

The general paused in the doorway. "He went last night, madam," said he

coldly, and slightly dramatically, for the general never believed in

spoiling a good story by a mild delivery. "And he took not only the

car, but all our money."

Led by the general and followed by the landlady, they made for the barn.

There, in the middle of the floor where last night two cars had stood

side by side, a red and a blue, was now only one, a big, blue Packard.

A few hens stepped daintily here and there, around and under it, while

the cat cleaned her paws contentedly from her seat on the running-board.

The general stopped in the doorway and stared. His car? And such a

wave of thanksgiving rushed over him that it was not his car that was

missing that he felt he owed Alphonse a debt of gratitude and forgave

him immediately.

"My car," said he, and chuckled with relief.

"Where's mine?" demanded Bartlett, growing red and angry.

"Where's Alphonse?" suggested the Watermelon significantly.

Henrietta laughed with positive gratitude to her erstwhile serving-man.

"Why," she cried, "he left us ours."

"Alphonse was very fond of me," said the general with some little pride,

as he patted his car tenderly.

"Yes," agreed Bartlett, "I can see that. He demonstrated it fully. I

am glad he didn't love you or he might have killed Billy and me."

The landlord, followed by the slatternly maid-servant and the

shifty-eyed stable-boy, trailed into the barn.

"Man gone off with your car?" asked the landlord. "I locked up last

night about twelve. He must have left before then."

"The general's man did," said Bartlett, who felt that the general was in

some way to blame.

"He has taken all our money," added Henrietta.

"A thief, eh?" said the landlord.

"Can't we follow the car by the tracks?" asked Henrietta. She went to

the door and peered eagerly at the many wheel tracks in the dust of the

drive.

The general waved the suggestion scornfully aside. "You can't tell

whether the tracks are coming or going," said he.

"All detectives do," said Billy, following Henrietta to the door.

"I'm sorry," whispered the Watermelon in Billy's ear.

Billy laughed. "We have more cars at home," said she. "It doesn't

bother me at all. That's the trouble of being rich, you can't be robbed

and feel badly about it."

"Batchelor, you say that you were up until after eleven," said the

general, feeling that the occasion called for intelligence. "Did you

see Alphonse go out?"

"No," said the Watermelon.

"The landlord says, however, that he must have gone before twelve," went

on the general. "Then don't you see how Alphonse could not have stolen

the money? Those thefts were not committed until after twelve."

"I don't see how you work that out," said Henrietta, puzzling over it

with knit brows.

"Don't you see, Henrietta, that if Alphonse stole our money after

twelve, he could not have gone out in the car before eleven, so if he

went out in the car before twelve, he did not steal the money. He

either stole the money or the car."

"Maybe he didn't take the money," said Henrietta, feeling vaguely and

disappointedly that she was not a person with detective-like instincts.

"You see," said the general, "if Alphonse took the car, he did not take

the money; if he took the money, he did not take the car."

"He certainly did take the money," snapped the farmer.

"And my car," added Bartlett angrily.

"He could not have taken both," declared the general.

"You were robbed last night, weren't you?" demanded the farmer. "Well,

then?"

"And my car is gone, isn't it?" demanded Bartlett.

"Yes, yes," acknowledged the general, feeling that every word he said

only made the other two angrier, but still clinging to his deductions as

to his life's principles. "Yes, of course; but Alphonse could not have

done both. He went off with the car before eleven, so he could not have

robbed us after twelve--"

"Sir," interrupted the farmer with a quiet dignity that was impressive,

"do you accuse any of us of stealing?"

"No, no," protested the general, now hopelessly rattled. "But if

Alphonse stole the money--"

"Alphonse swiped both," said the Watermelon, and that settled it as far

as the general was concerned, for the general had boundless faith in the

young man's deductive abilities. "I went in about eleven. He took the

car out, ran it down the road a bit and then came back and sneaked our

things."

"Certainly," said Bartlett, who could not help feeling irritated with

the general for the fault of his man.

Billy laughed. "All this bother about nothing," said she. "Dad, what's

one car, more or less?"

"A car is a car, Billy," said Bartlett coldly, refusing to be comforted

for the ruin of his plan to keep Batchelor away from the city over

Saturday.

"Yes," agreed Henrietta sympathetically, "any one hates to lose a car."

"But when you have seven," objected Billy.

"We haven't got them here, have we?" asked Bartlett.

"No, but we have one, and that's enough for five," declared Billy,

finding the usual difficulty in persuading people to count their

blessings. "We didn't need two, anyway."

"Yes, we did," said the Watermelon, thinking of the tonneau with only

Billy and him, the general in front completely absorbed with the car.

"Why?" asked Billy.

"Why," stammered the Watermelon, who no longer cared to flirt with Billy

and who had spoken without thinking, "why, so the general and your

father could each run a car," he explained weakly.

"Oh, yes," chirped Billy. "What will they do now?"

The Watermelon turned and glanced out of the wide doors, down the

tree-shaded road, and thought pityingly of the unfortunate Alphonse,

gone off at the wrong time, with the whole country-side on the watch for

a lone youth in a big red touring car. That the car was of a different

make from the one they were hunting for would not impress the sheriffs

so forcibly as the fact that the youth also carried a time-piece as big

as a clock, along with a cigarette case, cuff links and stick pin, all

marked plainly and beyond question, with the damning initials, W.H.B.

The Watermelon laughed softly, and glancing at Billy, laughed again.

With Bartlett going directly back to the city, he would not have to

confess to make things right. He could leave them at the telegraph

office and drift away on some pretext or another, leaving Billy gaily,

head up, as became a successful financier, not slink away like a whipped

dog, with only the scorn and loathing in her eyes to remember, to

obliterate all the other memories of that one nearly perfect week.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*OH, FOR A HORSE*

The farmer forgave the general with lofty dignity and turned to Bartlett

with suggestions and offers of help. There was a telephone in the

village store. They could telephone Boston or Portland, or they could

telephone Harrison and Harrison could telegraph the larger cities. With

the police notified promptly, Alphonse would not be able to get far.

Bartlett meditatively chewed a straw and pondered the suggestion,

leaning against the nearest stall and frowning thoughtfully at the

general's car, while the others stood around him in a semicircle.

They were ten miles from the nearest railroad, and the train service,

when they did strike a road, was decidedly poor in that out-of-the-way

locality. Still, by good luck, quick work and prompt connections,

Batchelor would be able to reach Boston late that afternoon or evening

and New York before ten A.M., Saturday morning, and at ten A.M. Saturday

the last fight was to be fought, the last stand made. Without their

brilliant young leader, the opponents to the cotton ring would be

outnumbered and outclassed, hopelessly beaten. Bartlett's fighting blood

was up at the thought. Was he to have his week spoiled by the worthless

Alphonse's deviltry? Batchelor should not run the slightest chance of

reaching Boston that day, if he could help it. Henrietta had a little

money in her bag that would tide them over. Better avoid anything to do

with telegraph and telephones as long as possible. They could make an

attempt to reach Harrison and get lost. But getting lost wasn't as easy

as it appeared, when the general was along, thoroughly determined not to

get lost. Bartlett's thoughts were broken in on by the Watermelon in a

way that caused him quick alarm. The young man had at last awakened to

the gravity of the situation, as Bartlett had been expecting him to do

ever since the trip began.

"We had better telephone," said the Watermelon, "as Parker says. We can

telephone for money and have it sent to Harrison, and we can ride to

Harrison and probably get there the same time as the money does and get

the train for Boston. It's time we were back in New York, anyway."

The trip was ended and the sooner he left Billy the better. He could

give them the slip at Harrison and once more hit the road.

"Telephoning from here won't help matters at all," objected Bartlett,

fighting for that opportunity to get lost again, just for one more

day--twelve hours would be enough. "We can drive to Harrison and

telegraph from there. It is only a ten-mile drive. We can make it in

fifteen minutes."

"No joy-riding," warned Henrietta, "when we haven't any money to pay the

fines. I don't want to do my time in the workhouse."

"We will do it in twenty minutes, then," laughed Bartlett, who saw

another way to create a delay that might be used with advantage. The

Parkers scorned to accept the few dollars Henrietta still had in the

dark recesses of her bag.

"You can send it to us," said they, and the farmer added, heaping coals

of fire on the general's unfortunate head, "We trust you perfectly."

The Watermelon looked sharply at Bartlett and wondered if he were up to

any tricks. The Watermelon had only ten more miles of Billy and he

didn't want to shorten the precious time by a confession if there were

no need for one.

"Let's hurry," said he. There was no need of prolonging the misery in

the thought of the parting.

"Worrying over his affairs," thought Bartlett. "He has come to at last."

The general insisted upon driving, and as it was his car, Bartlett

perforce had to be content. He protested, however, that he knew the road

thoroughly, and could direct the general with no instructions at all

from the farmer, waving them all good-naturedly aside.

They were all quiet as they started down the road. Henrietta was

depressed thinking about Alphonse. She had always stood in awe of his

superlative virtues, and the fact that he lacked several was a bit of a

shock. The general also was grieved. He had trusted Alphonse and

Alphonse had failed him. Billy was silent, for she wanted to think, and

all her thoughts were of the youth beside her, tall, slim, good-looking,

with his merry eyes and devil-may-care indifference.

They could all go to New York together, she planned, and later, when her

father and herself went to their summer place on the coast of Maine,

they would get him to visit them there in their own home. And in the

winter--and Billy's thoughts lost themselves in the hazy rosy glow of

the future, with its possibilities and pleasures.

It was after three. The day was intensely warm, even in the shady

wooded road on which they found themselves. They had been running

through the woods for nearly an hour, and apparently had not reached the

end of it. The last abandoned farm-house, gray, weather-beaten, forlorn,

had long ago been passed. The birds chattered shrilly in the leafy

profusion overhead; somewhere out of sight in the underbrush a brook

gurgled refreshingly over its stony bed, and once, far away and very

faintly, they heard the wild loon's dismal cry.

The general stopped the car and turned sidewise to face those on the

back seat. "We are lost," said he. "Look at the odometer. We have

come twenty miles since we left Stoneham and we are no nearer Harrison

than when we started."

"Lost again," wailed Henrietta. "How very stupid we are!"

"It's my fault," admitted Bartlett truthfully, but with contrition. "I

said to take this turn back there near that barrel factory."

"We can go back," suggested Billy.

"Parker told me last night," said the general gloomily, "that there was

no settlement north of here for forty miles. We have probably come

north."

"If we have come twenty miles, we can go twenty more without dying,"

said Bartlett.

"I don't know," laughed Henrietta. "I am famished now."

"So am I," wailed Billy. "Henrietta, haven't we a thing to eat?"

"Not a thing," said Henrietta.

"Hit her up," cried Bartlett jovially. "We will break some more speed

laws, by George. I want something to eat."

"We have heard nothing from father," teased Henrietta, her laughing eyes

on the Watermelon's face, full of tender amusement. He was so young and

looked so serious and almost unhappy that she was unhappy herself.

The Watermelon was unhappy. By this time they should have been in

Harrison, with the parting over, and he wanted it over. The thought

that they would probably be together a day longer did not please him.

The sooner he took to the road again and became a bum and a hobo, the

better. Billy did not care for him. He was the only one who would

suffer, and every moment he was with her only made the suffering worse.

He turned to Henrietta with relief from the thoughts that were

insistently bothering him and would not let him alone.

"Father was never in a motor-car," said he. "He used to say that his

funeral would be just another irony of fate. The only chance he had to

ride, he wouldn't be able to appreciate it."

"I know that it is terrible to be poor," said Henrietta, "but I think

people ought to enjoy other things than just those that money can give."

"What things?"

"Why, the woods and fields, a beautiful day--"

"Rent day, probably, and no rent money. Father used to say when you're

poor, every day is rent day."

"We're nearing the end of the woods," cried Bartlett. "And I think I

see a house."

And then the car stopped.

"Gid ap," chirped Bartlett.

Henrietta leaned forward. The general was hastily trying all the

brakes, slipping one lever then the other, fussing here and fussing

there, and Henrietta knew the symptoms of approaching trouble.

"Father, is there anything the matter?"

"Oh, no," pleaded Billy. "Not here?"

The Watermelon leaned forward and opened the door. "Every one get out,"

he ordered. "We can walk to the house. We mustn't monkey with the car

unless we want a pile of junk on our hands."

He stepped out and turned to help the girls.

"Not at all," declared the general. "I know all about a car. I can fix

it directly." He alighted and started to raise the bonnet. The

Watermelon intervened.

"Look in the gasolene tank first," he begged.

The general was already deep in the mechanism, oblivious to all else.

"It's the carburetor--"

"Carburetor nothing," pleaded the Watermelon. "It's the gasolene."

"Yes," agreed Henrietta indiscreetly, "maybe it is."

"That won't help us any," snapped the general angrily. "Where can we

get more? Much better to have something else wrong--"

"Not for the car," said the Watermelon. "None of us would be able to fix

it."

"My dear sir," said the general warmly, "I have owned this car for a

year--"

"I know," murmured the Watermelon. "I think it marvelous."

"I am perfectly capable--"

"Will you bet with me," interrupted the Watermelon, "that it's the

gasolene? Alphonse may have filled the other car at the expense of this

one."

It was the gasolene, or rather the lack of gasolene, that had stopped

the car.

"That's where a horse beats a car," lamented Henrietta. "You don't have

to keep bothering with their works."

She sat down on the car step and clasped her hands in her lap. "We

could spend the night here, but in the morning we wouldn't be any nearer

gasolene than we are now."

"I'm not fretting about gasolene," said Bartlett. "I want something to

eat. Let's all go to that house--"

"We can't leave the car," objected the general.

"No one could go off with the car," argued Henrietta.

"And we can get them to send a horse," added Bartlett. "I am starving."

"I feel like the car," said Billy. "I have no gasolene."

"I can not leave the car," reiterated the general, and Henrietta

realized that that settled it as far as the general was concerned, and

that it would take her greatest tact to unsettle it.

"I will go and get a farmer and a horse," said the Watermelon,

unexpectedly siding with the general. "We would have to be here anyway,

to see that they towed it in right."

"A horse would do," said Billy gravely. "We don't need the farmer."

"I have hopes of Billy sometimes," said Bartlett, regarding his daughter

quizzically. "I sometimes even think that she may grasp the difference

between sunshine and rain and realize it's best to keep out of the

latter."

Billy looked hurt. "Father doesn't like me any more," said she, adding

shrewdly, "He thinks I'm getting rather too old for him, anyway."

Bartlett blushed, Henrietta laughed and the general roared.

"You grown-up daughters are so hard to explain," said he. "Not once do

you offer to be a sister to us."

"I wouldn't be a sister to father for anything," protested Billy. "He

must be fifty, at least."

Bartlett flushed angrily. He dared not glance at Henrietta. "I am

forty-five," said he coldly, which was at least two years and a half as

near the truth as Billy's rash statement.

"Yes," sneered Billy. "And I'm only eighteen."

Henrietta changed the subject. When one is eighteen one can announce

the fact loudly and cheerfully. When one is thirty-five, one prefers to

talk of other things.

"Why not all go for the horse? The car will be all right, father; and I

am so hungry," she added pathetically.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*A BROKER PRINCE*

"I am going," said Billy with determination.

"We can't leave the general alone," objected Bartlett.

"I don't see how I would be able to help the general any," returned

Billy in injured accents.

"I thought you could push him in the car," explained Bartlett with

gentle sarcasm.

"You all wait here," said the Watermelon. "I will go and get you

something to eat and see about having the car towed, also about rooms

for the night."

"Why not all go?" pleaded Henrietta. "Why wait here starving--"

"I can go faster alone," answered the Watermelon.

"Certainly, certainly," seconded the general. "We would have to help you

girls over every wooden fence and under every barb wire one we came to.

You would probably even then get stuck on one or under the other."

"I never get stuck on anything," contradicted Billy perversely.