“Oh, lawsy!” said a voice. Bossy had come in through the swinging door, and was standing there, his eyes getting larger and whiter all the time. “Dummy kin talk! There’s quare goin’s on around heah. Dummy kin talk!”
No one paid any attention to Bossy.
“I was afraid of being arrested,” Dummy went on, “and I beat it, as the saying goes. These ten years, I have been wandering, scared as a rabbit. I began to act hard of hearing to escape what I thought might be embarrassing questions, and gradually I pretended to be a Dummy.” He smiled around at the Journal staff when he said the nickname they had given him. “That was easier and safest of all, just to be a deaf-mute.”
“I got to hankering for little old Plainfield,” he continued. “And so I came back. Not a soul knew me or remembered and if it hadn’t been for that column here, Ten Years Ago To-Day, I’d probably still be thinking I was guilty of a mistake that never happened. One day last week the column told of a bookkeeper named Richard Marat, who had discovered a deficit in his books, and fearing arrest, had fled—no one knew where. Then to-day, the paper has the story that experts had gone over my books, had found no deficiency and reported that I had simply made a mistake. But I never knew all this until to-day. My panic cost me ten years of weary wandering....”
A piercing, feminine scream sounded from the front office.
“Just like a nice murder story to break after we’ve gone to press!” said Mack.
Every one rushed to the front office. There was Amy, in her pale orchid sweater, standing in front of the rear counter, her face frozen with horror, her mouth open for another scream. Her hands were held, fingers extended stiffly, out in front of her, as though paralyzed.
“What’s all the rumpus?” asked Mr. Nixon from the doorway.
Joan caught a glimpse of Chub’s grinning face. Then she saw that Amy’s hands were held over the counter, where Chub had been inking the hand-roller for the advertising stuff. The wide sheet of inky paper was spread there. Amy’s palms were blacker than Em’s fur.
“He told me to hold my hands over it, and feel how the heat rushed out from it,” sobbed Amy. “And I did. Then he slapped ’em right down on to all that fresh ink. I’ll never speak to him again—”