“There’s only two kind of kids,” philosophized Conover, “Bad ones and sick ones. But I ain’t afraid of catchin’ anything. I’ll be ’round there in a day or two, tell her.”
“By the way,” remarked Caine, to change the subject he found vaguely distasteful, “Miss Shevlin tells me she has been invited to spend the summer at the Hawardens’ cottage at the Antlers.”
“Yes,” returned Caleb, drily, “Kind of Mrs. Hawarden, wasn’t it? Dey’s as pleased as a small boy with a revolver. She’s been crazy to go to the Adirondacks. I never knew she wanted to till last week, or—”
“And Mrs. Hawarden providentially invited her the next day?” put in Caine, his mouth-corners twitching.
“That’s right,” assented Caleb, “I guess some big-hearted philanthrofist just took such a fancy to Mrs. Hawarden as to pay the whole fam’ly’s board bill there for the season;—on condition she asked Dey. But keep that to yourself; for maybe it’s just a wrong guess. An’ I wouldn’t have Dey know it for a thousand dollars. Now go an’ send that reporter here.”
“I wonder,” mused Caine, as he departed on his queer mission, “what Caleb Conover would be if all the rest of the world were like Desirée Shevlin. It’s more interesting, though,” he added, “to conjecture what he would be like without Desirée Shevlin. Where would he stop, if she were out of his life?”
CHAPTER XVI
DESIRÉE MAKES PLANS
Next morning, the Granite Star made known to the world at large that grievous wrong had been done to the city and to its taxpayers when their two foremost public buildings had been erected. These edifices, hitherto the pride of Granite, were constructed of cheap, inferior material: were ill-put together and were, in short, a disgrace, a byword and a hissing. The city and county had paid for first-class work. They had received fourth-rate value for their money.
And the miscreant on whom the sole and total blame rested was Caleb Conover, President of the revivified C. G & X. railroad. He, hiding behind the honorable name of a man since dead, had robbed the city with one hand and the county with the other. Now, through the cleverness of a Star reporter, his culpability was at last unearthed.
Further, the Star desired, editorially, to avoid needless exploitation of scandal and the bringing to light of misdemeanors for which there now appeared to be no legal penalty. But it owed a duty to its constituents, the thinking class of Granite. Perhaps Mr. Conover, having, since the regrettable transactions, reared upon such fraudulent foundations a fortune which was estimated as verging upon the two million mark, would see his way toward making restitution.