A moment before, I had thought that so far as the mere matter of jolly misery was concerned, I had sounded the what-you-call-'ems; but now my dashed brain was reeling before this new horror! To think that she was—but oh, it couldn't be! And yet I recalled ominously that most of the time I had known her, I had only seen her sitting!
Mr. O'Keefe exerted another vain pull at his cigar and poised it critically between his fingers. "I don't seem to make this piece of rope go," he remarked superfluously, and I thought his eye cut me with a mild reproach. There was nothing to do but take the hint and produce my case—just refilled in my room with Paloma perfectos. Oh, I was glad to do it, by Jove!—glad to be able to do it—devilish glad to find I wasn't paralyzed, I mean!
"Why, thanks!" His fingers only removed three cigars, but I just made him take them all! Oh, yes, for the case would have to be refilled now, anyhow, dash it!
"By-y-y the way, sir!" He closed one eye at me as he carved from the brown beauty a half inch of its waxy bud, using for the maltreatment a perfectly brutal knife. "That was a neat try-on you made to copper the thief yourself—a leetle irregular, you know," he shook his head at me, "but, as the captain said, we ain't making no point about that with a gent like you—sure not!"—another imperishable line of beauty upon the receptive stone, and he puffed inhalations of joy. "But I knew you never could get him to the station—I could have told you."
"Oh!" I remarked, puzzled. By Jove, I had a dashed awful thought for a moment that I must be losing my intelligence! I looked at Jenkins again, but he had not yet come back to the ground.
"Oh, I'm on, sir!" Another one of those awful winks as his club scratched his helmet sideways. "You know I saw everything—I was right there at the Kahoka, you know!"
"Oh, that!" I said, understanding. For I knew then that he was talking about Foxy Grandpa in my rooms. I had almost forgotten the jolly old vagabond, but it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to show some interest as they must have recaptured him along with the pajamas. "I say!" I chirped up, "did you have much trouble about it—getting him again, you know?"
"Trouble?" O'Keefe's lip doubled contemptuously. "It was easy as butter!" His hand spread, palm downward, in an expressive gesture. "Why, he doubled right back to the Kahoka!"
"By Jove, you know!" I exclaimed, startled.
"Surest thing you know! I collared him right in front and with the goods!" Mr. O'Keefe expectorated eloquently. "My, but he did put up an awful holler—said the pajamas were his own and he had just had 'em made. And bluff—well!"—he fanned the air for a moment in the effort to find an appropriate gesture—"I'm used to these swell con men, but that gun was the limit—pulled out a card case, mind you, and letters, and wanted me to go with him to his club—his club—" the big fellow doubled over in a spasm of mirth that all but choked him. "I told him I'd give him the club if he didn't go quietly—for you see I recognized him in a minute; you can't lose them freak kind! Besides, he give himself away: told me he'd overlook my conduct on this occasion and the other, if I would release him. Well, that was enough! I beckoned Jimmy Dwyer across and we run him down the line to the station. Oh, we got him there, but it wasn't easy—for him! And there he'll stay a while!"