Janice drew the bewildered Hopewell out of the door, and Frank quickly followed. Few in the room had noted the incident at all.
The three stood a minute on the porch, the mist drifting in from the lake and wetting them. The engineer finally took the umbrella from Janice and raised it to shelter her.
"They—they broke two of the strings," muttered Hopewell, with thought for nothing but his precious violin.
"You'd better cover it up, or it will be wet; and that won't do any fiddle any good," growled Frank, rather disgusted with the storekeeper.
But there was something queer about Hopewell's condition that both puzzled Janice and made her pity him.
"He is not intoxicated—not as other men are," she whispered to the engineer.
"I don't know that he is," said Frank. "But he's made us trouble enough. Come on; let's get him home."
Drugg was trying to shelter the precious violin under his coat.
"He has no hat and the fiddle bag is gone," said Janice.
"I'm not going back in there," said the civil engineer decidedly. And then he chuckled, adding: