"Hello—who? Hicks? He—what? Where is he now? Got away! Well, you get him! Get him, or I'll get you! If he ain't back in jail to-day, off comes your buttons to-morrow—do you get that?" Old John banged the receiver onto the hook, and launched what would undoubtedly have been a classic of denunciatory profanity, had it not been interrupted in its inception by Jean, who had slipped into the office unnoticed at the beginning of the telephone conversation.
"Why, Dad!" exclaimed the girl laughing, as the red-faced man whirled upon her in surprise. "What a beastly temper you are in this morning! Who got away, and why are you so anxious to have him caught?"
"Oskar got away," he growled, apparently somewhat mollified by his daughter's tone. "Hicks started for jail with him an' Oskar knocked him down in the alley an' got away."
"Oskar! Jail! What do you mean?"
"I mean just what I say," answered McNabb, meeting the girl's startled gaze squarely. "A thirty thousand dollar sable coat is missing from the store, and no one except Oskar and I had access to the fur safe. He made up a cock-an'-bull story about letting you wear it Saturday to show up Mrs. Orcutt. He claims he went to the theatre to enjoy the effect on Mrs. Orcutt, when he discovered that you were wearing, not the Russian sable that you had worn from the store, but a baum marten coat. He hurried to the store to find that both the sable and the marten coats were gone——"
Old John noticed that as he talked the color receded slowly from the girl's face, leaving it almost chalk white, and then suddenly the color returned with a rush that flamed red to her hair roots. But he was totally unprepared for the sudden fury with which she faced him.
"And you had him arrested! Oskar arrested like a common thief! Are you crazy? You know as well as I do that he never stole a pin——"
"No, he never stole a pin, but there's some little difference in value between a pin and a thirty thousand dollar coat. They say every man's got his price."
"It's a lie!" cried the girl, stamping her foot. "But even if it were true, his price would be so big that there isn't money enough in this world to even tempt him! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Think what people will say!"
"I don't care what they say. He's got that coat, an' I'm right here to see that he gets just what's comin' to him."