“Well, if we didn't know it then, we learned it right away. Nothin' that me or Simeon could say would make him change the course a point. So Phinney went up to the Golconda House and got our bags, and at half-past four that afternoon the three of us was in a hired hack bound uptown.
“On the way Sam was full of fun as ever. He laughed and joked, and asked questions about East Harniss till you couldn't rest. All of a sudden he slaps his knee and sings out:
“'There! I knew I'd forgotten somethin'. Our butler left yesterday, and I was to call at the intelligence office on my way home and see if they'd scared up a new one.'
“I looked at Simeon, and he at me.
“'Hum!' says I, thinkin' about that 'modest' housekeepin'. 'Do you keep a butler?'
“'Not long,' says he, dry as a salt codfish. And that's all we could get out of him.
“I s'pose there's different kinds of modesty. We hadn't more'n got inside the gold-plated front door of that house when I decided that the Holden brand of housekeepin' wa'n't bashful enough to blush. If I'D been runnin' that kind of a place, the only time I'd felt shy and retirin' was when the landlord came for the rent.
“One of the fo'mast hands—hired girls, I mean—went aloft to fetch Mrs. Holden, and when Grace came down she was just as nice and folksy and glad to see us as a body could be. But she looked sort of troubled, just the same.
“'I'm ever so glad you're here,' says she to me and Simeon. 'But, oh, Sam! it's a shame the way things happen. Cousin Harriet and Archie came this afternoon to stay until to-morrow. They're on their way South. And I have promised that you and I shall take Harriet to see Marlowe to-night. Of course we won't do it now, under any consideration, but you know what she is.'
“Sam seemed to know. He muttered somethin' that sounded like a Scripture text. Simeon spoke up prompt.