"Quite so. Buttons, just plain every-day buttons; buttons for buttoning purposes. Now I shall be grateful to you if you will refrain from saying
"'Button, button,
Who's got the button?'"
The fellow was undoubtedly mad. I looked about for a weapon; but he went on gravely.
"What does the name Gillespie mean? Of what is it the sign and symbol wherever man hides his nakedness? Button, button, who'll buy my buttons? It can't be possible that you never heard of the Gillespie buttons? Where have you lived, my dear sir?"
"Will you please stop talking rot and explain what you want here?" I demanded with growing heat.
"That, my dear sir, is exactly what I'm doing. I'm a suitor for the hand of Miss Patricia's niece. Miss Patricia scorns me; she says I'm a mere child of the Philistine rich and declines an alliance without thanks, if you must know the truth. And it's all on account of the fact, shameful enough I admit, that my father died and left me a large and prosperous button factory."
"Why don't you give the infernal thing away—sell it out to a trust—"
"Ah! ah!"—and he raised himself again and pointed a bandaged hand at me. "I see that you are a man of penetration! You have a keen notion of business! You anticipate me! I did sell the infernal thing to a trust, but there was no shaking it! They made me president of the combination, and I control more buttons than any other living man! My dear sir, I dictate the button prices of the world. I can tell you to a nicety how many buttons are swallowed annually by the babies of the universe. But I hope, sir, that I use my power wisely and without oppressing the people."
Gillespie lay on his back, wrapped in my dressing-gown, his knees raised, his bandaged arms folded across his chest. Since bringing him into the house I had studied him carefully and, I must confess, with increasing mystification. He was splendidly put up, the best-muscled man I had ever seen who was not a professional athlete. His forearms and clean-shaven face were brown from prolonged tanning by the sun, but otherwise his skin was the pink and white of a healthy baby. His short light hair was combed smoothly away from a broad forehead; his blue eyes were perfectly steady—they even invited and held scrutiny; when he was not speaking he closed his lips tightly. He appeared in nowise annoyed by his predicament; the house itself seemed to have no interest for him, and he accepted my ministrations in murmurs of well-bred gratitude.
I half believed the fellow to be amusing himself at my expense; but he met my eyes calmly. If I had not caught a lunatic I had certainly captured an odd specimen of humanity. He was the picture of wholesome living and sound health; but he talked like a fool. The idea of a young woman like Helen Holbrook giving two thoughts to a silly youngster like this was preposterous, and my heart hardened against him.