“As a matter of fact, they’re shorter in Rumley than they are in London. I’ve seen more knees since I got back to Rumley than I saw all the time I was in London. And that, my dear Mrs. Grimes, despite the fact that London has more knees than any other city in the world. My daughter has provided me with a hundred surprises since—I don’t mean that she has a hundred knees, of course—what I mean to say is that Jane merely yawns when I begin in a hushed voice to tell her of the very latest crazes and vices of London. She yawns, I say, and proceeds to inform me that they are all old in Rumley—_old_, mind you. It really seems that just about the time poor old London is struggling to learn a new dance, Rumley is completely fed up with it. I go about in a sort of daze. I wish—I devoutly wish—I could remember all the things I’ve learned since I got back to Rumley. Poor Herbert maintains that—” At this juncture Sammy Parr, who had been observing Oliver very closely, got up from his chair and marched across the room, his hand extended. “Congratulations, old man!” he shouted joyously. And little old Mrs. Grimes, from her place on the sofa, remarked as she leaned back with a sigh of content: “Well, goodness knows it’s about time.” Proving that since the entrance of the lovers the great Josephine had failed signally to hold her audience spellbound. CHAPTER XXII THE CORPUS DELICTI The ensuing three weeks were busy ones for Oliver. He was off “electioneering” by day and out speechmaking by night in district schoolhouses, in town-halls, and at mass meetings held at the county seat. The opposition press, stirred to action by the harassed Mr. Gooch, printed frequent reports of the progress made by the authorities in their search for old Oliver Baxter. They made sensation out of two or three minor discoveries—such as the finding of an old straw hat in one of the pools; the unearthing of a stout spade handle at the edge of the swamp not far from where the old man and his son parted company; the turning up among the weeds at the roadside of a small notebook which, despite months of exposure to rain, snow and sun, was identified as the property of the missing man. It was Oliver October who unhesitatingly identified this notebook. He recalled that his father had made notations in it before they left the house on that all-important night. The weather had rendered these and other notes illegible.