"Ask Jeff to call me early in the morning, Pete," said David. "Good night."
"Good night, Marse David."
The boy went out, gently closing the door behind him. Almost instantly it was reopened.
"What now, Pete?" demanded David, who, with his back to the door, was advancing to the mahogany bureau across the room. He came in line with the tall mirror that surmounted the chest of drawers. His fingers stopped suddenly in the light task of removing a pin from his scarf.
Just inside the door stood Artful Dick Cronk, a genial smile reflecting itself in the mirror which confronted the other. David stared unbelievingly for a few seconds and then whirled to face the—but it was not an apparition.
The lean, cunning visage of the pickpocket was illumined by the never-to-be-forgotten smile of guilelessness that so ably stood him in hand in moments of peril. The humor of it gradually succumbed to the satirical leer that always came to translate his strange sophistry into something more expressive than mere words. He was plainly enjoying the effect of his magic invasion. To make the puzzle all the more startling, Mr. Cronk was attired in one of David's loose dressing-gowns. He wore a pair of comfortable slippers and he smoked David's picturesque Algerian pipe. A picture of domestic contentment was he. You might have taken him to be the owner of the house, and not the sly intruder.
"What are you doing in my room?" Dick demanded, assuming an air of severity.
David's astonishment gave way to a hearty laugh. He advanced with his hand extended.
"Well, you do beat the world," he exclaimed. "In the name of heaven, where did you come from?"
They shook hands. Dick's sprightly face presented a myriad of joyous wrinkles.