At the end of the third week I arranged to fetch Gran'pa home the following Wednesday and, immediately I announced the news, the house was upside down with excitement and anticipation.
Molly, whom I had taken with me twice to see the invalid, was like a little wild thing. Every hour of the day she was bursting out with fresh ideas of how she could best welcome Gran'pa back to the fold.
For myself, I looked forward to his return not only with curiosity but with pleasure. The house had not been the same since he left it. We all felt that. Time and time again Nanny confessed that there was "something missing. . . ."
On the Monday afternoon I was standing at the window, thinking that, within forty-eight hours, we should all be happily united again, when suddenly I heard a shriek from Molly in the garden. A moment later I saw her dash towards the gate and, following the direction of her gaze, an astounding vision greeted me. Gran'pa was coming down the street by himself!
When I say "coming," I say it reservedly. It is a weak and inadequate word with which to describe his method of arrival.
Gran'pa—the horrible truth must out!—was scooting! He was not doing it with one foot standing on a strip of board and the other knocking against the pavement, as is the wont of small children, but with both feet firmly placed on a platform of spacious dimensions and both hands gripping a pair of elaborately-fitted handlebars. He was seated, too! In other words, he had reached that acme of modern locomotion—the motor scooter!
He came down our sedate and peaceful Avenue at a good, steady ten miles an hour, with his long beard parted by the playful breeze and his hat pulled down over his eyes—a mad caricature of an old man of ninety-five, a dream, a nightmare!
I saw some little children come running round the corner of the road, like a pack of hounds after a fox. And I saw startled faces appear at windows and doors, the most startled and shocked of all being Mrs. Tarrant, the wife of the Baptist minister. I even saw the dim, blue outline of a policeman slowly approaching from the opposite direction.
It was a terrible situation for a man like myself—a respectable and trusted Servant of the Public—to know that in a moment or two Gran'pa would pull up at my front door and bring eternal shame and ridicule on the family.
In spite of this, however, I could not refrain from dashing bareheaded into the street and adding myself to that scandalized string of spectators which now dotted both sides of the Avenue.