"No, Mr. Pratt has invited us to a launch party."
Daniel burst out:
"Pratt! Pratt! It's always that blamed fool!"
"See here, Daniel Carey, you nor no other man can take that tone with me, I'll have you know. You can stay away now until you get over that silly jealousy."
"But, Jennie"——He heard a click, and knew for a certainty that she had hung up the receiver on him. Twice he hurriedly called her name, and, getting no reply, angrily jammed his own receiver on its hook and rose to leave the booth.
As he turned he got the biggest shock of his young life.
For, mind you, there was Jennie Poppleton coming out of another booth.
There was no mistaking her. She had on the well-remembered light-blue princess gown in which he had told her she looked so pretty, and the long white kid gloves he had bought her for a philopena debt. And as she walked quickly out of the telephone room and disappeared down the corridor without looking back, her carriage was that graceful one that had always pleased him.
Daniel fell back into the booth seat in sheer desperation. Great Caesar! what a close shave he had had! Suppose he had run into Jennie just then, after telling her he was down the river! Whew!
Presently it occurred to him that Jennie was practising as much deception as he. She had left word for him to call up "Mount Vernon one thousand." Where in the deuce was "Mount Vernon one thousand"? He looked at the number card in the booth and got another shock. It read as plain as day: