The Watermelon had not had time to walk to the village and back, besides telegraphing. Bartlett paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"Aren't you coming?"
"No," said the Watermelon. "I ain't bugs about the gasolene buggies."
Bartlett walked on, shrewdly guessing that the languid youth was waiting for Billy. Her charms, it seemed, had not grown any less effective. He decided that he would not try to get in touch with his broker. He could trust him to take care of the city end of the business if Batchelor were to be eliminated until the following Sunday. Batchelor was an ordinary youth and if Billy's charms were not enough to hold him, finding himself an equal and on friendly footing with people in what his policeman father and washerwoman mother reverently called "society," would probably turn his otherwise level head completely. Bartlett admitted to himself, as he gazed abstractedly at the shining cars, that the young man had not appeared visibly impressed either by himself or the general. But Batchelor was clever and would hide his elation.
The Watermelon's slow drawl at last aroused him.
"Cut it," said the Watermelon. "The cops are coming."
One of New York's leading citizens, bank president and corporation director, felt a slow, cold, clammy chill creeping up his spinal column. His first instinctive desire, like that of the small boy caught robbing an apple orchard, was to hide. Last night was one of those unfortunate occurrences it were best to pass over in silence. He turned and glanced at the house. The place looked deserted in the morning sunshine. The blinds were drawn, the doors shut. The general and the girls apparently still slept, and no country variety of New York's "finest" with warrant and shotgun could be seen approaching. Alphonse looked up from the car and gazed a moment at the house with the scornful indifference for the law and its minions of the confirmed joy-rider.
"I do not see any one," said Bartlett with calm dignity.
"They are creeping up on us," said the Watermelon cheerfully. "Trust the rube to do the thing up in style. Three men came along. They stopped down by the gate and talked, pointing up here, then one ran on to the village to get help, I suppose, and the other two are waiting down there."
"I will go and explain that it was a mistake," said Bartlett.