"I should think so!" snorted Granny, who had nothing but contempt for a court which would not believe a grandmother.
They drove through the pretty streets of Mifflin to the home of Mr. Townshend, which was almost hidden by shrubbery and vines, and the Boy Scout rang the bell loudly. But Mr. Townshend was in Waloo visiting his sister, and the young granddaughter, who answered the bell, had never heard of the Gilfoolys.
"Never mind!" exclaimed Granny cheerfully, for Tessie looked as if she did mind. "We know where to go now for what we want, and that's everything, no matter what you're looking for. You say Reverend Townshend's sister lives on Tenth Avenue South?" she asked the young granddaughter. "Mr. Douglas will just drive us there and hear with his own ears what Reverend Townshend has to say."
"Sure I'll drive you!" Bert said. "That's my job!" And he looked as if he liked his job enormously.
But black luck preceded them, for when they returned to Waloo and drove to Tenth Avenue South, they learned that the Reverend Townshend had been knocked down by an automobile as he was crossing a street that afternoon, and was lying in the hospital with concussion of the brain. And they found, on driving to Olive street, that the Hortons had gone to Vermont for the summer.
"I don't believe I ever was born!" Tessie was almost in tears. Her lips quivered. So did her voice.
"Tut, tut!" rebuked her grandmother. "There were fifty-six folks, as I remember, at that wedding, and it will be funny if I can't find some of them. You don't want to get discouraged at the beginning of anything, Tessie, not if you ever want to see the end of it."
"Why don't you drop it, Tess?" advised Joe Cary, when he heard about the blond man with a big nose, the stolen marriage record, and about the Reverend Townshend who was in the hospital with concussion of the brain. "The Fates seem to be against you! So are some people, I should judge. There is evidently some one who doesn't want you to be the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. Look at last night! Look at to-day! Why do you want to be a queen, anyway?" He asked the question as he would have asked why she wanted to be a salesgirl, or why she did not want to be a stenographer.
Tessie stared at him. The idea of asking such a question! Joe Cary was crazy! And she told him so. "You talk as if being a queen was like selling aluminum in the Evergreen!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"It isn't as decent!" cried Joe, and then Tessie knew, beyond a doubt, that he was crazy.