"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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