“I thought so,” declared Arthur Chester, suddenly forgetting about his headache in his anxiety to know the explanation of the five cylinders. It was a small suburban town in which they lived, and if something had gone wrong it was a matter of common interest. “Can you tell me about it?” he asked—a little diffidently, for none knew better than he that things could not always be told, and that no lips were locked tighter than Red Pepper's when the secret was not his to tell.
“Engine's on the blink. Got to go out and fix it,” was the unpromising reply. Burns picked up a sparkplug from the office desk as he spoke.
“Had your dinner?”
“Don't want it.”
“Shall I go out with you?”
The answer was an unintelligible grunt. As Chester was about to follow his friend out—for there could be no doubt that Red Pepper Burns was his friend in spite of this somewhat surly, though by no means unusual, treatment—another door opened tentatively, and a head was cautiously inserted.
“Your dinner's ready, Doctor Burns,” said a doubtful voice.
Burns turned. “Leave a pitcher of milk on the table for me, Cynthia,” he said in a gentler voice than Chester had yet heard from him tonight, crisp though it was. “Nothing else.”
Chester, catching a glimpse of a brightly lighted dining-room and a table lavishly spread, undertook to remonstrate. He had seen the housekeeper's disappointed face, also. But Burns cut him short.
“Come along—if you must,” said he, and stalked out into the night.