"Huzza! hip, hip, hurrah! it's all right now!" shouted Mr. Curtis, as he flourished round the room in a frantic extempore waltz of most intense delight, and then, in the exuberance of his joy, he seized hold of the astounded Mr. Leonard and fairly hugged him, in his ecstacy:
"Help! help! murder! fire!" yelled Mr. Leonard, struggling frantically in what he supposed to be the grasp of a maniac.
"There! take it easy, old gentleman!" said Mr. Curtis, releasing him, and cutting a pigeon's wing. "Tol-de-rol-de-riddle-lol! Don't raise such an awful row! Ain't there a picture to look at, my hearty? Hurrah! Oh, how happy I feel! And to think that I should have been the means of bringing them together—I, Dick Curtis, that never did anything right before in my life! Good gracious! Tol-de-rol—— Hello? Where are you going so fast, old gent?"
Mr. Leonard, the moment he found himself free, had seized his hat, and was about to decamp, in the full feeling that a lunatic asylum had broken loose somewhere, when Georgia, looking up, espied him, and said:
"Mr. Leonard, don't go. My best friend must stay and share in my joy this happy day. Can you guess who this is?" she said, laying her hand fondly on her brother's shoulder, and looking up in his face, with a smile shining through her tears.
"Guess!" said Mr. Leonard, testily—"I don't need to guess, young lady. I know well enough it's young Randall, and I must say, although he is a namesake of yours, it doesn't look well to see you flying into his arms and hugging him in that manner the moment he comes into the house. No more does it look well for Dick Curtis to take hold of me like a bear, and dislocate every rib I have in the world, as he has done."
"No, I haven't, Mr. Leonard," interrupted Dick; "there's Mrs. Leonard, your chief rib—I haven't dislocated her, have I?"
Mr. Leonard's look of deepest disgust was so irresistible that Dick broke off and burst into a fit of immoderate laughter, snapping his fingers, and throwing his body into all sorts of contortions of delight, and his example proving contagious, both Mr. Randall and Georgia followed it, and all three laughed without being able to stop for nearly five minutes, during which Mr. Leonard stood, hat in hand, looking from one to the other, with a look of solemn dismay unspeakably ridiculous.
"Do not be shocked, Mr. Leonard," said Georgia, as soon as she could speak for laughter, "though really you are not so without cause. Did I not tell you I would surprise you oftener than you thought? Mr. Randall is my own, my only, long-lost brother."
"Her brother! Oh, ginger!" muttered Mr. Leonard, completely bewildered. "I might have known two such geniuses must be related to one another."