“It is mine, Mr. Lockhart. It is not for sale.”
“It is wonderful,” said the elder man, with reverence.
Black rolled the canvas, and crossing the room put it out of sight. When he came back a little crowd surrounded the Belgian baby, in Jane’s arms.
The assemblage took its leave with apparent reluctance. In the suburban town there had been nothing just like this evening in the memory of the oldest present. Those who carried posters with them held them rather ostentatiously; those who had none were explaining, some of them, that they had not been able to secure the ones they wanted, but that they had been happy to contribute something to so worthy a fund.
“Quite unique, and certainly very delightfully managed,” one stout matron said to Jane as she extended a cordial hand. “You had courage, my dear, to attempt this here. You must have raised more than you could have expected.”
“I haven’t counted it,” Jane answered. “It’s been a happy thing to try to do it—I’m very grateful to you all.”
When the last had gone, except the five who had been her helpers, she sat down with the Sheffield bowl in her lap, and Red took his place beside her, to help her count. Tom, having run home with the baby, was back again, eagerly hanging over Red’s shoulder as he put bills of the same denomination together, and sorted silver. The other three looked on, eagerly awaiting the result.
Red announced the sum total—it was a goodly sum, running well into the hundreds. He looked up at Black.
“Three fourths of that came in after you brought up that blamed little beggar,” he said. “And the things you didn’t say were what turned the trick! By George, you taught me a lesson to-night. Speech may be silver, but a silence like that of yours sure was golden. I didn’t know any man of your profession understood it so well. Hanged if I don’t keep my tongue between my teeth, after this!”
A burst of appreciatively skeptical laughter from those who knew him answered this. But Black, though he smiled too, answered soberly: “There’s a time for everything. You plowed—and the baby harrowed, that was all. The Belgian fund reaps. I know we’re all mighty happy about it.”