When the figure was but a speck in the distance Mortimer Crabb turned away and threw himself wearily in his wicker chair.
“Where to now, sir?” asked Jepson.
“Oh, anywhere you like.”
“Sandy Hook, sir?”
“Oh, yes,” he sighed, “as well go there as anywhere else. New York, Jepson.”
Poor Crabb! In twenty-four hours he was, if anything, more bored than ever. The sight of the joyous faces of Dicky Bowles and his bride had done something to relieve the tedium vitæ, but he knew that their joy was of themselves and not of him, and so he gave them a “God bless you” and his country place on Long Island for a few weeks of honeymooning. He had even had the presumption to offer them the Blue Wing, but Dicky, whose new responsibilities had developed a vein of prudence, refused point blank. Crabb shrugged his shoulders.
“Suit yourselves,” he laughed. “It’s yours if you want it.”
“And have Geltman putting you in jail?”
“Oh, he won’t trouble me.”