After much delay, Wink Lee crept down the front steps and opened the door just a tiny crack.
“Uncle Eben, this is I! Don’t you know me?”
“I’m not Luncle Leben.”
“Oh, then they have a new butler. Well, let me in whoever you are.”
The would-be intruder was a tall young man, shabby and travel-stained, but with an air of breeding and a poise about him that would have impressed any ordinary butler. But Wink Lee was not an ordinary butler and was not at all impressed. He merely slammed the door in the young man’s face.
“Well, you chink, do you think for an instant that I am going to leave? I’ll ring here all night before I’ll give up.” He accordingly pressed the electric bell with a determined finger.
The inmates stood this noise for about five minutes and then, from a second story window, came an indignant voice, “Leave this instant, sir, or I shall call up the police.”
“Excuse me, madam,—I—I—used to live here and am hunting my—wife—my wife—Mary Louise—Mrs. Dexter.”
There was an involuntary exclamation from the person above and then silence.
“Madame! Whoever you are—can’t you tell me where my wife is?” he entreated.