“No,” groaned Thaxton. “I suppose not. You’re right. I can’t. I’ve got to stay and see it out. If I valued Vailholme any less than I value my right arm, though, I’d let Uncle Oz’s fool conditions go to blazes. Say! Let’s go for a walk. It’s hot as Tophet and I’m tired. But it’ll be better than meeting Vogel till I have to. Let me put that off as long as I can. Something tells me he is going to be nasty. And that means he’ll probably organize a strike. Come along, Macduff!” he bade the collie. “Stop nosing at that obese German dog in the car and come here!” “Why can’t real-life butlers be like the dear old stage butlers?” sighed Chase, sympathetically, as he and Vail slunk, with guilty haste, down the veranda steps and across the lawn. “Now if only Vogel were on the stage, he’d come to you, with an antique ruffled shirt and with his knees wabbling, and he’d say: ‘Master, I’ve saved up a little out of my wages, this past ninety years that I’ve served your house. I know you’re in trouble. Here’s my savings, Master! Maybe they’ll help. And I’ll keep on working my poor hands to the bone for you, without any wages, God bless your bonny face!’ That’s what he’d say. And he’d snivel a bit as he said it. So would the audience.” “Faster!” urged Vail, with a covert look over his shoulder. “He’s standing on the steps, looking after us. Hit the pace!” CHAPTER V ROBBER’S ROOST, UNINCORPORATED From a roadhouse two miles away Thaxton called up Mrs. Horoson, his housekeeper. Without giving her a chance to protest he told her there would be six, besides himself, for dinner that night and that a Mr. and Mrs. Mosely were occupying the violet room. He bade her break the news to Miss Gregg, on the latter’s imminent return from Stormcrest, and to Miss Lane. Then he hung up, precipitately, and rejoined Chase in the road. “Let’s hustle!” he adjured. “She may find where we are from Central and follow us. I can count on Horoson not to decamp even if the servants do. But every now and then I feel toward her as I used to when I was a kid and she caught me stealing Uncle Oz’s cigarettes. Hurry!” It was within a half hour of dinner time when Vail and Chase, by devious back ways, returned to Vailholme and let themselves in at a rear door, preparatory to creeping upstairs to their rooms to dress for the seven-o’clock meal. The dinner ordeal was one of unrelieved hideousness. But for gallant old Miss Gregg, the situation must have fallen asunder much sooner than it did. Thaxton Vail, at the table’s head, writhed in misery. He had absolutely no idea how to handle the unhandleable situation. It was Miss Gregg who, unasked, took control of everything. Being wholly fearless, she had no normal terror of the austere Horoson or of the ever-sourer-visaged Vogel.