Humorous stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Private secretaries -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction
"We're just gettin' to that," says I. "Where would he? Now if this was a
movie play we was dopin' out it would be simple. He'd be taken off on a
yacht. But Whitey couldn't get the use of a yacht. He don't travel in
that class, and Shuman wouldn't stand for the charter price in an
expense bill. A lonesome farm would be a good spot. But Penrhyn could
borrow a rube outfit and escape from a farm. A lighthouse would be a
swell place to stow away a leading librettist dressed up in a fool's
costume, wouldn't it? Or an island? Say, I'll bet I've got it!"
"Eh?" says Mr. Robert.
"He's on an island," says I. "High Bar Island. It's a place where
Whitey goes duck shootin' every fall. He belongs to a club that owns it.
Anyway, he did. Used to feed me an earful about what a great gunner he
was, and what thrillin' times he had at the old shack. Down somewhere in
Barnegat Bay, back of the lighthouse. Yep! He's there, if he's
anywhere."
"Sounds rather unlikely," says Mr. Robert. "Still, you seem to have an
uncanny instinct for being right in such matters. Perhaps we ought to go
down and see. Come."
"What, now?" says I. "Right away?"
"There is his mother, almost in hysterics," says Mr. Robert, "and his
sweetheart. Think of the suspense, the mental strain they must be under.
If we can find Penrhyn we must do so as quickly as possible. Let's go
back to the office and look up train connections."
Well, if we'd started half an hour earlier we'd been all right. As it
was we could hang up all night at some dinky junction or wait over until
next morning. Neither suited Mr. Robert. He 'phones for his tourin' car
and decides to motor down into Jersey. Also he has a kit bag packed for
two of us and collects from Nimms a full outfit of daylight clothes for
Penryhn.
We got away about five o'clock and as Mr. Robert figures by the Blue
Book that we have only a hundred and some odd miles to run he thinks we
ought to make some place near Barnegat Light by nine o'clock. Maybe we
would have, too, if we'd caught the Staten Island ferries right at both
ends, and hadn't had two blow-outs and strayed off the road once. As it
is we finally lands at little joint that shows on the map as Forked
River about 1 a.m. There wasn't a light in the whole place and it took
us half an hour to pry the landlord of the hotel out of the feathers.
No, he couldn't tell us where we could get a boat to take us out to High
Bar at that time of night. It wasn't being done. Folks didn't go there
often anyway, and when they did they started after breakfast.
"It'll be there in the morning, you know," says he.
"That's so," says Mr. Robert. "Have a motor boat ready at nine o'clock.
Not much use getting there before 10:30. Penrhyn wouldn't be up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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