“How is it now, Danny?”
“Oh, it ’aint nearly as thick in any one place; it’s mostly all over your face now.” Then Danny laughed irreverently again. “Sure, an’ you certainly do look like the real thing now.”
Maxwell was raking gravel when the guests for the afternoon tea were passing; and though he did not look up, he fully realized that they had recognized him, from the buzz of talk and the turning of heads.
Danny returned from his safer distance when he saw the coast was clear. Maxwell had a shrewd suspicion that the boy had taken himself off believing it might embarrass Maxwell less if any of the ladies should speak to him.
“Did none of ’em know you, then?” he asked.
“Not one of them spoke; I guess my disguise is pretty complete.”
“Thank hiven!” Danny exclaimed. “Then the crisis is passed for to-day at least, and your reputation is saved; but if you don’t get out of this they’ll be comin’ out again, and then nobody knows what’ll 252 happen. Better smear some more oil over the other cheek to cover the last bit of dacency left in you.”
At the end of the day’s work, Maxwell threw his shovel into Dolan’s wagon and jumped up on the seat with him and drove back to town.
“Well,” said Maxwell’s friend, delightedly, “you done a mighty good day’s work for a tenderfoot; but you done more with that old Bascom than in all the rest of the day put together. My! but I thought I’d split my sides to see you puttin’ him where he belonged, and you lookin’ like a coal heaver. But it’s a howlin’ shame you didn’t speak to them women, goin’ all rigged up for the party. That would’ve been the finishin’ touch.”
He swayed about on his seat, laughing heartily, until they drew up before the rectory, where Mrs. Betty was waiting to greet Maxwell.