"You! YOU! How COULD you? Why did you come?"

"You didn't think I could stay away, did you?"

"But how did you know I was here? I tried so hard to keep it a secret."

"It took me a month, but I worked it out finally. Aren't you glad to see me?"

She burst out crying then, quiet, but as if her heart was broke.

"Oh!" she sobs. "How could you be so cruel! And they've been so kind to me here."

I went away then, thinking harder than ever. At dinner Jonesy done the waiting, but Mabel wa'n't on deck. She had a headache, the cook said, and was lying down. 'Twas the same way at supper, and after supper Peter Brown comes to me, all broke up, and says he:

"There's merry clink to pay," he says. "Mabel's going to leave."

"No?" says I. "She ain't neither!"

"Yes, she is. She says she's going to-morrer. She won't tell me why, and I've argued with her for two hours. She's going to quit, and I'd rather enough sight quit myself. What'll we do?" says he.

I couldn't help him none, and he went away, moping and miserable. All round the place everybody was talking about the "lovely" new waiter, and to hear the girls go on you'd think the Prince of Wales had landed.

Jonadab was the only kicker, and he said 'twas bad enough afore, but now that new dude had shipped, 'twa'n't the place for a decent, self-respecting man.

"How you goin' to order that Grand Panjandrum around?" he says. "Great land of Goshen! I'd as soon think of telling the Pope of Rome to empty a pail of swill as I would him. Why don't he stay to home and be a tailor's sign or something? Not prance around here with his high-toned airs. I'm glad you've got him, Barzilla, and not me."

Well, most of that was plain jealousy, so I didn't contradict. Besides I was too busy thinking. By eight o'clock I'd made up my mind and I went hunting for Jones.

I found him, after a while, standing by the back door and staring up at the chamber winders as if he missed something. I asked him to come along with me. Told him I had a big cargo of talk aboard, and wouldn't be able to cruise on an even keel till I'd unloaded some of it. So he fell into my wake, looking puzzled, and in a jiffy we was planted in the rocking chairs up in my bedroom.

"Look here," says I, "Mr.--Mr.--"

"Jones," says he.

"Oh, yes--Jones. It's a nice name."

"I remember it beautifully," says he, smiling.

"All right, Mr. Jones. Now, to begin with, we'll agree that it ain't none of my darn business, and I'm an old gray-headed nosey, and the like of that. But, being that I AM old--old enough to be your dad, though that's my only recommend for the job--I'm going to preach a little sermon. My text is found in the Old Home Hotel, Wellmouth, first house on the left. It's Miss Seabury," says I.

He was surprised, I guess, but he never turned a hair. "Indeed?" he says. "She is the--the housekeeper, isn't she?"

"She was," says I, "but she leaves to-morrer morning."

THAT hit him between wind and water.

"No?" he sings out, setting up straight and staring at me. "Not really?"

"You bet," I says. "Now down in this part of the chart we've come to think more of that young lady than a cat does of the only kitten left out of the bag in the water bucket. Let me tell you about her."

So I went ahead, telling him how Mabel had come to us, why she come, how well she was liked, how much she liked us, and a whole lot more. I guess he knew the most of it, but he was too polite not to act interested.

"And now, all at once," says I, "she gives up being happy and well and contented, and won't eat, and cries, and says she's going to leave.

There's a reason, as the advertis.e.m.e.nt folks say, and I'm going to make a guess at it. I believe it calls itself Jones."

His under jaw pushed out a little and his eyebrows drew together. But all he said was, "Well?"

"Yes," I says. "And now, Mr. Jones, I'm old, as I said afore, and nosey maybe, but I like that girl. Perhaps I might come to like you, too; you can't tell. Under them circ.u.mstances, and with the understanding that it didn't go no farther, maybe you might give me a glimpse of the lay of the land. Possibly I might have something to say that would help. I'm fairly white underneath, if I be sunburned. What do you think about it?"

He didn't answer right off; seemed to be chewing it over. After a spell he spoke.

"Mr. Wingate," says he, "with the understanding that you mentioned, I don't mind supposing a case. Suppose you was a chap in college. Suppose you met a girl in the vicinity that was--well, was about the best ever.

Suppose you came to find that life wasn't worth a continental without that girl. Then suppose you had a dad with money, lots of money. Suppose the old fo--the gov'nor, I mean--without even seeing her or even knowing her name or a thing about her, said no. Suppose you and the old gentleman had a devil of a row, and broke off for keeps. Then suppose the girl wouldn't listen to you under the circ.u.mstances. Talked rot about 'wasted future' and 'throwing your life away' and so on. Suppose, when you showed her that you didn't care a red for futures, she ran away from you and wouldn't tell where she'd gone. Suppose--well, I guess that's enough supposing. I don't know why I'm telling you these things, anyway."

He stopped and scowled at the floor, acting like he was sorry he spoke.

I pulled at my pipe a minute or so and then says I:

"Hum!" I says, "I presume likely it's fair to suppose that this break with the old gent is for good?"

He didn't answer, but he didn't need to; the look on his face was enough.

"Yes," says I. "Well, it's likewise to be supposed that the idea--the eventual idea--is marriage, straight marriage, hey?"

He jumped out of his chair. "Why, d.a.m.n you!" he says. "I'll--"

"All right. Set down and be nice. I was fairly sure of my soundings, but it don't do no harm to heave the lead. I ask your pardon. Well, what you going to support a wife on--her kind of a wife? A summer waiter's job at twenty a month?"

He set down, but he looked more troubled than ever. I was sorry for him; I couldn't help liking the boy.

"Suppose she keeps her word and goes away," says I. "What then?"

"I'll go after her."

"Suppose she still sticks to her principles and won't have you? Where'll you go, then?"

"To the hereafter," says he, naming the station at the end of the route.

"Oh, well, there's no hurry about that. Most of us are sure of a free one-way pa.s.s to that port some time or other, 'cording to the parson's tell. See here, Jones; let's look at this thing like a couple of men, not children. You don't want to keep chasing that girl from pillar to post, making her more miserable than she is now. And you ain't in no position to marry her. The way to show a young woman like her that you mean business and are going to be wuth cooking meals for is to get the best place you can and start in to earn a living and save money. Now, Mr. Brown's father-in-law is a man by the name of Dillaway, Dillaway of the Consolidated Cash Stores. He'll do things for me if I ask him to, and I happen to know that he's just started a branch up to Providence and is there now. Suppose I give you a note to him, asking him, as a favor to me, to give you the best job he can. He'll do it, I know. After that it's up to you. This is, of course, providing that you start for Providence to-morrer morning. What d'you say?"

He was thinking hard. "Suppose I don't make good?" he says. "I never worked in my life. And suppose she--"

"Oh, suppose your granny's pet hen hatched turkeys," I says, getting impatient, "I'll risk your making good. I wa'n't a first mate, shipping fo'mast hands ten years, for nothing. I can generally tell beet greens from cabbage without waiting to smell 'em cooking. And as for her, it seems to me that a girl who thinks enough of a feller to run away from him so's he won't spile his future, won't like him no less for being willing to work and wait for her. You stay here and think it over. I'm going out for a spell."

When I come back Jonesy was ready for me.

"Mr. Wingate," says he, "it's a deal. I'm going to go you, though I think you're plunging on a hundred-to-one shot. Some day I'll tell you more about myself, maybe. But now I'm going to take your advice and the position. I'll do my best, and I must say you're a brick. Thanks awfully."

"Good enough!" I says. "Now you go and tell her, and I'll write the letter to Dillaway."

So the next forenoon Peter T. Brown was joyful all up one side because Mabel had said she'd stay, and mournful all down the other because his pet college giant had quit almost afore he started. I kept my mouth shut, that being the best play I know of, nine cases out of ten.