CHAPTER XVIII
JOSIE O’GORMAN’S VICTORY
Outside the store even more stirring things were being enacted. When Miss Fauntleroy leaned over with the seeming intention of selecting a pencil from the beggar’s box there had been a quick exchange of glances between the proud beauty and the one-eyed mendicant, an exchange of glances and also the passing of a parcel which was slid from the wide, bell shaped sleeve of the young woman into the open breast of the man’s shabby coat. The movement was so rapid that no one who had not been on the lookout could possibly have seen it. But someone was on the lookout and that one was no other than the flapper of the bobbed black hair and the red, red mouth. She did a very remarkable thing for a flapper.
As quick as a flash she whipped out something from the pocket of her tweed suit, which, when one came to think of it, was of rather sober pattern for one so flapperish and not at all in keeping with the red beads and startling tam. The article she drew from her pocket flashed in the sunlight for a moment and then—snap! snap! and a pair of handcuffs gleamed on the wrists of the one-eyed beggar before the astonished Miss Fauntleroy could straighten up from the selection of a pencil.
“Don’t let him get away!” came in commanding tones from the mysterious flapper. The remark was addressed to none other than Jimmy Blaine, who had been pretending to be a corner masher during such moments as he could spare from the business of shopping for a highly fictitious family.
“Trust me!” was his cheery rejoinder as he laid a heavy hand on the shoulder of the beggar who was now trembling like a leaf.
The girl with the bobbed black hair then caught Miss Fauntleroy by the wrist, at the same moment producing another pair of handcuffs from the capacious pockets of her tweed suit. She endeavored to snap them on the wrists of the struggling girl, but Miss Fauntleroy proved too strong, and jerking free, started to run. Swift as had been the action a crowd had gathered, as crowds will, and closing around the struggling pair cut off all avenues of escape. The black haired girl must have known something about the game of football for she made a flying leap and caught the taller girl in an iron grip. They swayed together and fell.
In the scrimmage that ensued more startling things happened. Two hats came off, and with them two heads of hair. A red tam and a bobbed black wig were torn from the flapper, disclosing the closely coiled sandy hair and well shaped head of none other than Josie O’Gorman. The elaborate coiffure belonging to Miss Fauntleroy also came off with the stylish picture hat.
The combatants staggered to their feet. When Josie caught sight of her antagonist, standing hot, sullen and ashamed, so hemmed in by the crowd there was no escape, a wave of pity came over her. The proud and haughty Miss Fauntleroy was only a poor misguided boy. The marcelled wig with all its puffs and coils had turned a handsome lad into a beautiful young woman.
“Gee!” was all Josie could say. “And I thought you were your own sister all the time. I hate to put handcuffs on you—won’t you come along without them?”