His haste was so contagious that Philippa ran into the next room for her sewing-basket, without waiting to take off her hat, and sitting down on the floor beside the window began to sew on buttons as fast as she asked questions. She always had plenty to say to Alec, and now that the time for conversation was limited to a few short hours, she could not talk fast enough.
Presently the click of the gate made her look out. "Here comes Mack," she said. "Your shoes are wrapped in a newspaper, and he's so busy reading something on it that he doesn't know where he is going. Look out, snail!" she called; "you'll bump into the house in a minute if you are not careful!"
The boy came slowly up the stairs still spelling out the paragraph that interested him.
"Alec," he said, pausing in the doorway, "what's a green goods man? This says that a gang of 'em were arrested in New York. The detectives traced them by a letter one of them left here in Ridgeville at the hotel. Think of that! Jonas Clark is the man's real name, alias H-u-m-p-h," he spelled, "Humphrey (I guess it is) Long."
Alec snatched the knotty bundle and glanced at the paragraph so eagerly that Philippa looked at him in surprise. She was still more surprised to see a deep flush spread over his face, as he tore the newspaper off the shoes and glanced at the date. Then he dropped it on the bed and began to fumble for something in the bottom of his trunk, saying, carelessly, "Oh, green goods men are just fellows who rope people in to buy counterfeit money. Here, Mack, you'll not have a chance to run many more errands for me. Trot down to Aunt Eunice with these neckties, please, and ask her to press them for me while she's in the business."
As soon as Mack disappeared, Alec caught up the paper again. "Flip," he said, in an impressive voice, after his second reading, "do you remember the night of the fire I was to meet a man at the hotel and make the final arrangement with him for taking a position he had offered me?"
Philippa nodded.
"Well, that is the man; Humphrey Long. Think of what I have escaped. From what he said about his sure scheme for making money and making it easy, I know now that is what he meant; but I never suspected such a thing then. He was the smoothest talker I ever saw, and was as gentlemanly and well dressed as the minister. And such a way as he had! He could almost make a body believe that black was white. Suppose I had gone off with him. Whillikens! but I would be in hot water now! Everybody would have said, 'Only a chip off the old block. Just what might have been expected with such a father.'"
"But, Alec, you wouldn't have gone after he had told you what his business was!" Philippa exclaimed, in a horrified tone. "You know that you wouldn't."
"No," he answered, slowly, "but I think now that he intended to keep me in the dark till he got me just where he wanted me, in too deep to inform on them. And I was so desperate for a job away from here that I would have accepted his offer with very few questions. Don't you see, my very ignorance of his schemes would have made me a better decoy in some cases than if I had not been such an innocent young duck. Of course, Stumpy Fisher told him all about me," he added, after a moment's thought. "He might have counted on my being enough like my father to take kindly to his crookedness."