"Maybe they did," said I, "but I want to know it myself."
"Listen to her," he said, looking round the table as if a crowd was collected, "calmly brushing aside the police, the detectives, the might of the law and the strong arm of the press."
"And anything else that stands round trying to discourage me."
"Far be it from me to discourage you in any eccentricity that may develop. But there's no need in following up Cokesbury, for we know that he was marooned in Cokesbury Lodge."
"I don't care what we know. The only things I believe are the things I see myself."
"Thomas!" he said, laughing, and I didn't see any sense in his calling me that, but he often said things I wasn't on to. "Do you intend to camp on his trail all night?"
"I do," I answered. "As soon as you get through lapping up that red ink I'm going to go to the nearest pay station and ring up Edward L., residence."
"I'll toddle along," he said. "Anything goes with me that adds to the entertainment of Mary McKenna Morganthau."
He held up his glass as if he was drinking a toast, and something about the look of him—I don't know what—made me get all embarrassed. It never happened before and it took me so by surprise I blushed and was glad I'd dropped my gloves on the floor so I could bend down and hide how red my face was.
I tried Edward L., residence, at a drug store on Broadway and again I drew that butler gink, who was sort of sassy and hung up quick. Then we walked along and I could see that Babbitts was getting interested.