“Oh, very well.” Madeline accepted the bundle nonchalantly.
“Hallo, Madeline. What have you done him out of now?” Dick Blake was standing in front of them, his face wreathed in smiles. “I thought you’d be here to-day,” he went on. “I had a ‘leading,’ as we used to say in Paris when we wanted to do a silly thing, that if I came up here I should lose all the Americans but you. How do you like marketing with Madeline, Miss Wales?”
“Oh, Dick, it’s jolly fun seeing you. But what on earth are you doing here?”
“Pursuing you,” explained Dick cheerfully. “Didn’t I just say so? When I’m not pursuing you, I’m pursuing a magnate. He’s more elusive,—or at least I don’t know his habits so well, and up to date I haven’t found him. But I take my success with you to be a good omen. I’m sure I shall spot my magnate before long.”
“Please talk sense, Dick.”
“I am,” he assured her solemnly. “You see it’s this way. New York was hot and stupid, with everybody gone who could manage to get away, and I wanted to go, too. But ‘The Quiver’ hasn’t been exactly booming lately, and I couldn’t afford a nice trip.”
“Meaning a trip to Europe,” interposed Madeline.
“Exactly,” Dick took her up. “So I was feeling awfully blue, and then a week ago to-night my old chief down in Newspaper Row ’phoned and said, ‘Dickie, you’re the best hunter we ever had. Go to Europe and find an elusive magnate, whose mysterious absence is upsetting Wall Street prices,’ and I said, ‘Done,’ and made up ‘The Quiver’ for two months ahead, and here I am. I got to Liverpool last night and to London this morning, and so far I’ve ascertained that the Elusive Magnate aforesaid isn’t staying at any of the likely hotels.”
“Dick, you are too absurd,” laughed Madeline. “What’s your magnate’s name?”
“Morton—Jasper Jones Morton. Haven’t seen him, have you?”