"I'm afraid I must be going, sir," he said, rising regretfully. "I promised my father not to stay longer than eleven, but I was surprised when I counted the cuckoo notes, for I thought it was only ten o'clock!"
"Thank you, Elmer," said the other, as though greatly pleased. "That was as delicate and yet positive a compliment for my powers of entertainment as I have ever received. I will not try to detain you, because I appreciate the confidence your father puts in you. Give him my best regards. I expect to have him over next week with a couple of other friends, for a hand of whist, and they will then see what you have helped me unpack to-night."
True to his resolve, Elmer had not mentioned the fact that his tire being flat, he would either have to push his wheel all the way home or leave it there and come on Monday, when in daylight he could render it serviceable again. For he knew the genial colonel would insist on getting the colored driver out, have him hitch up the horses, and take his guest home; something Elmer did not care to have happen.
Having shaken hands with the old gentleman again, Elmer made his way to the front door and passed out. By this time he knew more or less about the arrangements of both house and grounds, and when the idea came to stow his wheel away until he chose to return for it, he remembered that there was an outhouse where some garden tools were kept, just around the main building.
"I guess I'll see if it's unfastened, and if so I'll leave my old wheel there. It'll be safe in case of rain, too. Wonder if Bruno will act half crazy when he hears me moving around."
While thinking after this strain, Elmer was softly trundling his wheel around to that side of the mansion where he remembered seeing the tool house he spoke of. Not wishing to make any noise that might excite the chained hound, or be heard in the house, he kept to the turf as he walked.
"Now that's queer," he said to himself, as he stopped to listen. "Just when I expected to hear Bruno carry on wild, he's as still as a clam. And yet a while ago he was barking fiercely, too. Must have tired himself out and gone to sleep; or else he's broken loose again, and is taking a run over the country, as the colonel says he always does when he slips his collar."
However, he was not at all sorry for this silence. Had the hound, hearing his suspicious and stealthy movements, started to baying and yelping, he might have drawn the attention of some servant, who would be apt to give him trouble.
And so Elmer presently discovered some dark object looming up alongside him; which on closer inspection proved to be the very tool house of which he was in search.
And better still, the door turned out to be unfastened by any lock, a staple and a wooden pin doing the holding act.