Donald halting, looked upward and all about him. Presently, through the
top branches of an intervening tree, he descried Charles Garrott leaning
far out of Mrs. Herman's third-story window. "Well?" called Donald.
"What's the matter? Where're you going?" demanded Charles in a voice
that broke easily through the tree. "I said we'd drive down together!"
He was heard continuing in another tone: "_No!_ Stop, Eustace! Don't go
away--I want you!"
"Much obliged," shouted Donald, "but I'd rather walk."
Charles said something out the window, which Donald failed to catch.
"What say?"
"You come back!" cried Charles, beckoning, while passing pedestrians
craned their necks upward. "Wait for me--just a minute--I'm all ready!
And I've got to speak to you--about several things! About the package!"
But Donald, objecting to the attention they were attracting, shook his
head decisively. "Haven't time now. Forgot something ... back to my
rooms."
"If you haven't time to wait, you certainly haven't time to walk back to
your rooms! You're going to miss your train with all this walking!"
That was pointed enough to cause Donald to pause again, and look at his
watch for the twentieth time. He found that he still had twenty-five
minutes, time enough, of course, but then he might have to hunt for the
sweater, and there was the business of the luggage at the station, too.
Down through the branches boomed the strangely insistent voice of
Charles: "Why, by George! You've only got twenty minutes. Here, take my
car there, quick! You can barely make it, driving fast ..."
And in a lower voice he said: "After him, Eustace! Get him to the
station as fast as you can. Don't fail this time."
Donald was hesitating, struck as Charles meant him to be, with the fear
that his watch might be slow. He now called, with evidences of ill-humor
and disturbance:--
"All right, then! But I can't stop for you."
"Oh, that's all right, old fellow--my matters can wait! I'll look out
for the package! Just you catch your train, that's all!"
Continuing to lean out of the Studio window, Charles watched the dullard
step into the old lady's tightly closed car, and whirl away--safe at
last. As the car shot round the corner, he suddenly laughed aloud: a
triumphant laugh, but charged with irritation, too.
Then Charles, aloft, drew head and torso back into the Studio, banged
shut the window, and found Mrs. Herman just plumping the large white box
of things for Mary down on his writing-table. The spectacle brought
forward the other matter instantly. Of course, he had agreed to receive
the box purely as a means of keeping an eye on Donald.
"Oh, yes--as to the package, Mrs. Herman, perhaps you wouldn't mind
taking it down as you go, and just leaving it on the hall table?
I--ah--shall probably call a messenger to take it--a little later."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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