“It’s true,” said Wilfred.
“Yes—you make us laugh.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something queer,” Wilfred said more seriously. He was making a great hit with the Elks and it pleased him after all that had happened. They seemed proud of him and amused at his whimsical way of talking.
“Go on, tell us,” said little Alfred McCord. “Maybe he got ’rested by a cop.”
“It happened before I was born,” said Wilfred.
“Good night, his bad luck began before he was born,” laughed Connie.
“My father gave my mother an opal,” said Wilfred, “and right away after that my little brother was kidnapped and we never saw him again—I mean they didn’t.”
Something in his voice and manner imposed a silence on the clamorous, admiring group. He did not wait to hear their comments but drew himself aimlessly to his feet and wandered away in that ambling manner which he had acquired.
“Gee, I like to just listen to him, don’t you?” Charlie O’Conner observed.
“We fell in soft all right,” said Vic Norris. “He’s so blamed easy-going, I don’t know, it just kind of makes you feel sure of him, he’s so kind of—you know.”