“I’ll do my best,” he said graciously. “Better than that. I’m sorry I came in late for dinner. In years and years you’ll never see me late again. I won’t bother you at all. You’ll see. It will be just as though I wasn’t in the house.”
When he bade her good night, on his way to bed, he added, as a last thought:
“I’ll warn you of one thing: Ah Sing. He’s the cook. He’s been in our house for years and years—oh, I don’t know, maybe twenty-five or thirty years he’s cooked for father, from long before this house was built or I was born. He’s privileged. He’s so used to having his own way that you’ll have to handle him with gloves. But once he likes you he’ll work his fool head off to please you. He likes me that way. You get him to like you, and you’ll have the time of your life here. And, honest, I won’t give you any trouble at all. It’ll be a regular snap, just as if I wasn’t here at all.”
Chapter V
At nine in the evening, sharp to the second, clad in his oldest clothes, Young Dick met Tim Hagan at the Ferry Building.
“No use headin’ north,” said Tim. “Winter’ll come on up that way and make the sleepin’ crimpy. D’ye want to go East—that means Nevada and the deserts.”
“Any other way?” queried Young Dick. “What’s the matter with south? We can head for Los Angeles, an’ Arizona, an’ New Mexico—oh, an’ Texas.”
“How much money you got?” Tim demanded.
“What for?” Young Dick countered.
“We gotta get out quick, an’ payin’ our way at the start is quickest. Me—I’m all hunkydory; but you ain’t. The folks that’s lookin’ after you’ll raise a roar. They’ll have more detectives out than you can shake at stick at. We gotta dodge ’em, that’s what.”