A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

"They were my words, sir, not hers," he explained desperately. "I was merely putting two and two together—forming an opinion from her manner not from her words. She is very particular to mention everything you do for her, and thanks me if I call her attention to anything she may have forgotten. She certainly appreciates your kindness to the baby."

"That is extremely gratifying," said I acidly.

He hesitated once more. "Of course, you understand that the divorce itself is absolute. It's only the matter of the child that remains unsettled. The—"

I fairly barked at him. "What the devil do you mean by that, sir? What has the divorce got to do with it?"

"A great deal, I should say," said he, with the rare, almost superhuman patience that has made him so valuable to me.

"Upon my soul!" was all that I could say.

Hawkes rapped on the door luckily at that instant.

"The men from the telephone company are here, sir, and the electricians. Where are they to begin, sir?"

"Tell them to wait," said I. Then I hurried to the top of the east wing to ask if she had the least objection to an extension 'phone being placed in my study. She thought it would be very nice, so I returned with instructions for the men to put in three instruments: one in her room, one in mine, and one in the butler's pantry. It seemed a very jolly arrangement all 'round. As for the electric bell system, it would speak for itself.

Toward the middle of the afternoon when Mr. Poopendyke and I were hard at work on my synopsis we were startled by a dull, mysterious pounding on the wall hard by. We paused to listen. It was quite impossible to locate the sound, which ceased almost immediately. Our first thought was that the telephone men were drilling a hole through the wall into my study. Then came the sharp rat-a-ta-tat once more. Even as we looked about us in bewilderment, the portly facade of Ludwig the Red moved out of alignment with a heart-rending squeak and a long thin streak of black appeared at the inner edge of the frame, growing wider,—and blacker if anything,—before our startled eyes.