Chapter XVIII
White Hopes
WHEN you is engaged in going to and fro in the world doing good deeds you certainly can cover a surpassing lot of ground in a short time. It's striking ten when I knocks at the lady's door; it ain't eleven yet, by the lacking of a few minutes, when I is home again and has handed over the note to Mr. Dallas and is watching his face whilst he reads it. He's got one of these here open faces, and I can tell, easy enough, exactly what thoughts goes through his mind. Mostly he's full of a great relief—that's plain to see—but mixed in with it is a faint kind of a lurking regretfulness that she should a-broke loose from him so abrupt this-a-way. If folks has got the least crumb of vanity in 'em it shows forth when a love affair is going to pieces on 'em. And Mr. Dallas is not no mite different in this matter from the run of creation. Even so, he's displayed more joysomeness than anything else when it comes to the end of what she's wrote him. He reaches out after my hand for to shake it good and hard and hearty.
"Jeff," he says, "my hat's off to you—you're the outstanding wonder of the century. I judge it's hardly necessary for me to tell you what's in this note?"
"I been able," I says, "to mek my own calculations, suh. I reckins ef I wuz put to it, I could guess."
"How did you ever succeed in doing it?" he says.
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "the main p'int is 'at it's done—ain't 'at so, suh?"
"Agreed," he says; "but there are hints here—hints is a mild word—at things I don't in the least understand. Now, for example——"
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "ast me no questions, please suh, an' I'll tell you no lies. Lyin' don't come natchel to me, ez you knows—I has to strain fur it."
"Very well," he says, "have it your own way; I won't press you. The proof is in my hand that you accomplished what you set out to do; and seeing that I had no part or parcel in it I figure it's up to me to show less curiosity and more gratitude."