"That box of cigars--" he began weakly. "That box of cigars, the box you found in my room, well, that is a box of cigars. You see, Mrs.
Fenelby," he continued, cautiously, "that box of cigars was up there in my room, and--Now, you know I wouldn"t try to smuggle anything in, don"t you? Now, I"ll tell you all about it." But he didn"t. He looked at the box thoughtfully. He saw now that he had been silly to buy a whole box. A man should not buy more than a handful at a time.
"Well?" said Mrs. Fenelby, impatiently.
"Isn"t that the box you bought when you went over to the station with Tom this morning?" asked Kitty, sweetly. "You brought back a box when you returned you know."
Billy turned his head and glared at her. But she only smiled at him.
He did not dare to look Mrs. Fenelby in the eye.
"Tom smokes a great deal, doesn"t he?" Kitty continued lightly. "I wondered when you brought that box of cigars back with you if he hadn"t asked you to bring them over for him. That was what I thought the moment I saw you with them."
"Why, yes, of course," said Billy, with relief. "That was how it was. I--I didn"t like to say it, you know," he a.s.sured Mrs. Fenelby, eagerly, "I--I didn"t know just how Tom would feel about it. Tom will pay the duty. When he comes home this evening. He couldn"t come home from the station--and miss his train--and all that sort of thing--just to pay the duty on a box of cigars, could he? So I brought them home. It is perfectly plain and simple! You see if he doesn"t pay the duty as soon as he gets in the house. Tom wouldn"t want to smuggle them in, Mrs. Fenelby. You shouldn"t think he would do such a thing. I"m--I"m surprised that you should think that of Tom."
Mrs. Fenelby looked at him doubtfully, and then glanced at Kitty"s innocent face. She shook her head. It did not seem just what Tom would have done, but she could not deny that it might be so. She would know all about it when he came home in the evening. She cast a glance at the lawn, and uttered a cry. Billy was pouring oceans of water at full pressure upon her pansy bed, and the poor flowers were dashing madly about and straining at their roots. Some were already lying washed out by the roots. Billy looked, and swung the nozzle sharply around, and the scream that Kitty uttered told him that he had hit another mark. That pink shirt-waist looked disreputable.
Water was dripping from all its laces, and from Kitty"s hair, and her cheeks glistened with pearly drops. She was drenched.
"Goodness!" she exclaimed, shaking her hanging arms and her down-bent head, and then glancing at Billy, who stood idiotically regarding her, she laughed. He was a statue of miserable regret, and the limply held garden hose was pouring its stream unheeded into his low shoes. Wet as she was, and uncomfortable, she could not refrain from laughing, for Billy could not have looked more guilty if she had been sugar and had completely melted before his eyes. Even Mrs.
Fenelby laughed.
"It doesn"t matter a bit!" said Kitty, rea.s.suringly. "Really, I don"t mind it at all. It was nice and cool."
She was very pretty, from Billy"s point of view, as she stood with a wisp or two of wet hair coquettishly straggling over her face. Mrs.
Fenelby would have said she looked mussy, but there is something strangely enticing to a man in a bit of hair wandering astray over a pretty face. Before marriage, that is. It quite finished Billy. He forgave her all just on account of those few wet, wandering locks.
"I"m so sorry!" he said, with enormous contrition. "I"m awfully sorry. I"m--I"m mighty sorry. Really, I"m sorry."
"Now, it doesn"t matter a bit," said Kitty lightly. "Not a bit! I"ll just run up and get on something dry--"
"You had better shut off the water," said Mrs. Fenelby, and went into the house.
Billy laid the hose carefully at his feet.
"I say," he said, hesitatingly, to Kitty, "wear the one you had on last night--the white one. I--I think that one"s pretty."
"Oh, no!" said Kitty. "I can"t wear that one. That one is all mussed up. I can"t wear that one again. I have a lovely blue one."
"No!" said Billy, whispering, and glancing suspiciously at the house. "Not blue! Please don"t! It--it"s dangerous."
"Oh, but it is a dream of a waist!" said Kitty. "You wait until you see it."
"No!" pleaded Billy again. "Not a blue one! If you wore a blue one I couldn"t help but notice it was blue. It isn"t safe. Don"t wear a blue one, or a green one, or a brown one. Just a white one.
Not any other color; just white. You see," he said with sudden confidentiality, "I"m a detective. I"m detecting for Tom. I told him I would, and I"ve got to keep my word. He has a notion someone is smuggling things into the house without paying the duty, and he got me to detect at you for him. We"re suspicious about your clothes.
There"s a white waist, and this pink waist, already, and if you go to wearing blue ones and all sorts of colors, I can"t help but notice it. I don"t want to get you into trouble with Tom, you know."
He hesitated a moment and then said, "You helped me out about those cigars."
"All right!" said Kitty, cheerfully, "I"ll wear a white one, but I think you might be color blind if you really want to help me."
VIII
THE FIELD OF DISHONOR
There was a train from the city at 6:02, and Tom was not likely to be home on one earlier. At 5:48 Kitty and Billy and Mrs. Fenelby were sitting on the porch, and Bobberts was lying in a tilted-back rocking chair, behaving himself. It was a calm and peaceful suburban scene--the stillness and the loneliness and the mosquitoes were all present. It was the idle time when no one cares whether time flies or halts. Mrs. Fenelby had the table set and the cold dinner ready; Kitty was primped; and Billy should have had nothing in the world to do, but he had been opening and closing his watch every minute for the last half hour. He was uneasy. At 5:48 he arose and stretched out his arms.
"I guess," he said as lazily as he could; "I guess I"ll walk down and meet Tom. I haven"t been out much to-day."
There was one thing he had to do. He had to see Tom before Mrs.
Fenelby could see him, and explain about that box of cigars. If Tom was to be held responsible for the duty on it Tom should at least know that a box of cigars had been brought into the house. It was absolutely necessary for Billy to see Tom, and explain a few things.
"We have none of us been out enough to-day," said Mrs. Fenelby. "It will do us all good to walk down to the station, and we will take Bobberts."
Billy stood still. The cheerful expression that had rested on his face faded. There would be a pretty lot of trouble if the whole lot of them went in a group, and he wondered that Kitty did not see this, and why she did not say something to dissuade Mrs. Fenelby from leaving the house. He simply had to get a few words with Tom in private before Mrs. Fenelby could ask her husband about the cigars.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "When the 6:02 pulled in"]
"I wouldn"t advise it," said Billy, shaking his head. "No, indeed. I wouldn"t take the chance, Laura." He walked to the end of the porch and peered earnestly at the western sky. It was a singularly clear and cloudless sky. "I"m afraid it will rain," he explained, boldly.
"It wouldn"t do to take Bobberts out and let him get rained on. It looks just like one of those evenings when a rain comes up all of a sudden. I wouldn"t risk it."
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Fenelby, shortly, and she gathered the crowing Bobberts into her arms and started. Kitty also arose, but Billy hung back.
"I guess I won"t go," he declared. "It looks too much like rain."
"Nonsense!" declared Mrs. Fenelby again. "You come right along. I don"t believe it will rain for a week."
There was nothing for him to do but to go, and he went. The three of them were standing on the platform when the 6:02 pulled in, and they looked eagerly for Mr. Fenelby, but they did not see him among the alighting commuters. Mr. Fenelby saw them first. He saw them before the train pulled up to the station, for he had been standing on the car platform with a box under his arm, ready to make a dash for home the moment the train stopped, but now he stepped back and, as the train slowed down, he jumped off on the opposite side of the train.
There was a small row of evergreens on the little lawn of the station, and he stepped behind one of them and waited. Between the thin branches of the tree he could see his family, when the train pulled out, looking eagerly at the straggling line of commuters. The box he held was heavy, and he hoped the family would soon decide that he had missed the train, and would go home, but he saw Mrs.
Fenelby seat herself on the waiting-bench. He saw Kitty take a seat beside her, and he saw Billy, after evident hesitation, take the seat next to Kitty. The evergreen tree was small, and the next tree to it was ten feet distant. He was marooned behind that tree.
Mr. Fenelby instantly saw that he had done a foolish thing. He had that overwhelming sense of foolishness that comes to a man at times, when he thinks he has never done a sane and sound act in his whole silly life. Mr. Fenelby realized that he had been foolish when he had bought, on the subscription plan, a complete set of Eugene Field"s works, bound in three-quarters levant morocco, twelve volumes for thirty-six dollars. He realized that although he had had to pay but five dollars down, to the agent, he would have to pay thirty per cent. of the value of the whole set, in duty, the moment he took the books into the house. He realized that he had been silly to bring the whole heavy set home at one time. He realized that he had been positively childish when he thought of hiding himself behind this miserable little tree, with this heavy box in his arms and six suburban stores staring him full in the face. He wondered what the proprietors of the six stores would think of him if they happened to see him hiding there behind the tree, while his whole family awaited him on the station platform. And then, as he happened to remember that one of the stores was a drug-store with a soda-fountain, he shuddered. Given three suburbanites on a station platform, and a train not due for thirty minutes for which they must wait, and a soda-fountain across the way, and the answer is that the three suburbanites will soon be in the place where the soda-fountain is.
When Mrs. Fenelby arose Mr. Fenelby shifted the box of books into a more secure angle of his arm, and as the trio, and Bobberts, started across the track and lawn Mr. Fenelby edged cautiously around the tree to keep it between him and them. The trade of smuggler has ever been one of wild adventure and excitement.
He peered at them until they entered the drug-store, and then he backed cautiously away, step by step, with the tree as a screen. As he reached the corner of the station he turned and ran, and as he turned he saw Billy hurry out of the drug-store and run, and Mrs.
Fenelby and Kitty hurry out after Billy. Mr. Fenelby did not wait to see if they also ran. He ran all the way home, and hurried into the house, and up the stairs to the attic. He felt better about the set of Field now. He had always wanted it, and he deserved it, for he had waited for it long. He could hide it in the attic and bring it into the realm of the tariff duty one volume at a time. He felt his way into the fartherest corner and pushed the box under the rafters. It would not quite go back where he wanted it to go, for something was in the way of it. He pulled the other thing out. It was also a box. It was another box of Eugene Field in twelve volumes, three-quarter levant, and it was addressed to "Mrs. Thomas Fenelby." There had never been any duty paid on books since the Commonwealth of Bobberts had been established. For a moment Mr.
Fenelby frowned angrily; then he smiled. He hid his set of Field in the other corner of the attic, and hurried down stairs.
He expected to find Billy there, for he had seen him start to run when he left the drug-store, but there was no Billy in sight, and Mr. Fenelby seated himself in the hammock and waited. He was ready to receive his returning family with an easy conscience. His box was well hidden. When they appeared in the distance he saw that they were all together, Billy and the two girls and Bobberts, and Mr.
Fenelby arose and waved his hand to them. He was ready to be merry and jovial, and to tease them cheerfully because they had not seen him when he got off the train. But Mrs. Fenelby climbed the porch steps with an air of anger.
"Good evening," she said, coldly. "I see you are home."
She laid Bobberts in the chair and faced Mr. Fenelby.
"Now, I want to know what all this means!" she declared. "I think there is something peculiar going on in this family. Why did Billy run all the way down to the next station so that he could be the first to meet you as you came home this evening? Why did you avoid us at the station and hurry home this way? You may think I am simple, Thomas Fenelby, but I believe somebody is smuggling things into the house without paying the tariff duty on them! I believe you and Billy are conspiring to rob poor, dear little Bobberts, and I want to know the truth about it! I believe Kitty is in it too!"