"All right. First carriage—Mission House—empty, please note! Half a dollar, if you please. I never smoke less than fifty cent cigars on a wager."
"Well, you can just get me a pound of caramels any way," pouted the girl, "for the Island House has just one lone man."
"Oh, come! that's a hundred per cent, more than your house has."
The one lone man was the object of their most interested scrutiny as the carriage drew up. From their seats they could see without themselves being observed.
"Why—y!" said Harcourt in surprise. "Isn't that queer! I've seen that man—in Washington."
"Who is he?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker, abruptly.
"His name is Smeltzer. He is on the detective force there, or he was when I knew him."
"I doubt if he would remember me. Still, you can't tell. It is a part of a detective's stock in trade to remember faces.... Why, he did some work for a friend of mine once, and I used to see him sometimes."
Margaret De Jarnette leaned over the piazza rail and spoke quietly to the child playing below.