"Well, I've no time to talk nonsense. This is the Y. W. C. A. speaking, and there's a young lady here, who says she—er—belongs to you. She——"
"What? Say that again, please."
"A young lady that appears to be related to you—says you are her guardian or manager or something of the sort. She was delivered to the Y. by the Reverend Miss Miriam Richardson, in whose care she was placed by the Mission Society of—er—Naggysack, Japan. One minute, I'll get her name again."
A photograph of Jerry at this stage would have revealed a young man sitting at a telephone desk, registering a conflict of feelings and emotions indicative of consternation, guilt, tenderness, fear, terror, compunction, meanness and idiocy. When that official voice came over the wire a second time, Jerry all but collapsed against the table, holding the receiver uncertainly in the direction of that ear that still heard the incredible news and confirmed his fears:
"Name—Miss Sindicutt."
Silence, during which the other end apparently heard not that exclamation of desperation: "Ye gods and little fishes!" for it resumed complacently:
"Shall we send her up to you?"
"No, no, for heaven's sake don't. That is, wait a bit, will you? Give me a chance to get over the——" Jerry was about to say "shock," but stopped himself in time and with as much composure as he could muster he told the Y. W. C. A. that he was busy just now, but would call later, and advise them what to do in the—under his breath he said "appalling"—circumstances.
Slowly Jerry put the receiver back on the hook. He remained in the chair like one who has received a galvanic shock. That Japanese girl, of a preposterous dream, had actually followed him to America! She was here—right in New York City. It was fantastic, impossible! Ha, ha! it would be funny, if it were not so danged impossible. In the United States, of all places! She, who ought to be right among her heathens, making good converts. What in the name of common sense had she come to the States for? Why couldn't she let Jerry alone, when he was up to his neck in plans that he fairly knew were going to create an upheaval in the architectural world? Just because he had befriended her in his infernal youth, he could not be expected to be responsible for her for the rest of her days. Besides, he, Jerry, was not the only one in that comic opera Syndicate. The thought of his partners in crime, as they now seemed to him, brought him up again before that telephone, seizing upon it this time as a last straw.
He was fortunate to get in touch with all three of the members of the former Sunny Syndicate Limited. While Monty and Bobs rushed over immediately, Jinx escaped from the Appawamis Golf Club where for weeks he had been vainly trying to get rid of some of his superfluous flesh by chasing little red balls over the still snow bound course, flung himself into his powerful Rolls Royce, and went speeding along the Boston Post Road at a rate that caused an alarm to be sent out for him from point to point. Not swift enough, however, to keep up with the fat man in the massive car that "made the grade" to New York inside of an hour, and rushed like a juggernaut over the slick roads and the asphalt pavements of Manhattan.