"Pardon me, Archie, for giving you a scare! I couldn't resist the impulse to test this makeup!"
"You!" cried Archie, blinking as the Governor switched on the light.
"I went and came in these togs; not for a lark, I assure you, but because I had to go clear down under the crust today. Turn the water on in my tub and I'll be slipping into decent duds in a jiffy. Here's an extra I picked up downtown. The scream of the evening is a kidnaping—most deplorable line of business! Have you ever noticed a certain periodicity in child stealing? About every so often you hear of such a case. Despicable; a foul crime hardly second to murder. Hanging is not too severe a punishment. Clear out now, for if we begin talking I'll never get dressed!"
The account of the kidnaping in the park was little more than a bulletin, but Archie soon had it committed to memory. The police had not yet learned that the two most important witnesses had given fictitious names, for both pseudonyms appeared in the article.
In spite of the Governor's frequently avowed assertion that he wished to know nothing about him, Archie felt strongly impelled to make a clean breast of the Bailey Harbor affair, the two encounters with Isabel and his meeting with Mrs. Congdon. His resolution strengthened when the Governor appeared, dressed with his usual care and exhilarated by his day's adventures. At the table the Governor threw a remark now and then at the butler as to the whereabouts and recent performances of some of that functionary's old pals. Baring received this information soberly with only the most deferential murmurs of pleasure or dismay at the successes or failures of the old comrades. Baring retired after the dinner had been served, and the Governor, in cozy accord with his cigar, remarked suddenly:
"Odd; you might almost say singular! I've crossed old man Congdon's trail again! You recall him—the old boy we left to the tender mercies of Seebrook and Walters?"
"Yes; go on!" exclaimed Archie so impatiently that the Governor eyed him in surprise.
"It's remarkable how my theory that every man is a potential crook finds fresh proof all the time. Now old Congdon is rich and there's no reason on earth why he shouldn't live straight; but, bless you, it's quite otherwise! He's a victim of the same aberration that prompts people apparently as upright as a flagstaff to drop hotel towels into their trunks, collect coffee spoons in popular restaurants, or steal flowers in public gardens when they have expensive conservatories at home. You never can tell, Archie."
Archie, with the Congdons looming large on his horizon, was not interested in the philosophical aspects of petty pilfering.
"Stick to Eliphalet," he suggested.