"'Tis he--yon varlet!" I heard a stern voice hiss at my ear. "Beshrew

me, but it shall go hard with him! I'm loading her up with marbles

now!" But I had no more than time to persuade my two lieutenants to

modify this purpose, and partially to disarm themselves, before the

two groups were mingling, with much chattering and laughing and gay

saluting.

Edouard, hat in hand, was on deck before our fenders touched the

wharf, laughing and grasping my hands and looking up at my flag.

"I knew you were coming," said he. "Fact is, all the country's been

looking for you. Davidson just got in a couple of hours ago--and you

know his lady is an old friend of Mrs. Manning's. And----"

He was shaking the hands of Mrs. Daniver and Helena almost before I

could present them. Auntie Lucinda bestowed upon him the gaze of a

solemn and somewhat tear-stained visage (though I saw distinct

approval on her face as she caught sight of the great mansion house

among the giant oaks, and witnessed the sophisticatedness of the group

on the landing, and the easy courtesy of Edouard himself).

"By Jove! old man!" the latter found time to say to me, "I

congratulate you--she's away beyond her pictures." He did not mean

Mrs. Daniver; and he never had seen Helena before. I could only press

his hand and attempt no comment as to the congratulations, for part of

that was a matter which yet rested in a sealed envelope in my pocket;

and at best it must be three or four days.... But then, with a great

flash of arrested intelligence, it was borne in upon me that perhaps,

after all, it was not so much a question of the tardy United States

mails! Because yon varlet, fat and saucy, and well content with life,

already, by some means and for some reason, had outrun the mails. He

was here, and we had met. It need not be four days before I could

learn my fate.... I reached into my pocket and looked at my sealed

orders. No matter what Davidson's letter held, here was Davidson

himself.

"Oh, I say, there, you Harry, confound you!" roared Davidson to me in

his great voice above the heads of everybody. "I say, what did I tell

you?"

Now I had not the slightest idea what Davidson had told me, nor what

he meant by waving a paper over his head. "They've signed Dingleheimer

for next year! Now what do you think of that? World's championship,

and good old Dingleheimer for next year--I guess that's pretty poor

for them little old Giants, what?" And he smiled like one devoid of

all care as well as of all reason.

I myself smiled just a moment later--after I had greeted the Manning

ladies, had seen Helena step up and kiss Sally Byington fervently,

directly on the cheek, whose too keen coloring I once had heard her

decry; had slapped Edouard joyously on the shoulders and pointed to my

pirate flag and gloomy black-visaged crew--I say I also smiled

suddenly when I felt a hand touch me on the shoulder.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024