Billy Geary had a bright idea. “Well,” he said, “why not die—temporarily—if you feel that way about it? You could come back from the grave after she's gone.”
But Mother Jenks shook her head. “No,” she declared. “While Dolores is self-supportin' now, still, if anythink 'appened an' she was to need 'elp, 'elp is somethin' no ghost can give. Think again, Willie. Gor', lad, w'ere's yer brains—an' you with your stummick filled to bustin' with a breakfast fit for a knight o' the bawth.”
“Well,” Billy countered thoughtfully, “apparently there's no way of heading her off before she takes the steamer at New Orleans, so we'll take it for granted she'll arrive here in due course. About the time she's due, suppose you run up to San Miguel de Padua for a couple of weeks and leave me to run El Buen Amigo in your absence. I'll play fair with you, Mother, so help me. I'll account for every centavo. I'll borrow some decent clothes from Leber the day the steamer gets in; then I'll go aboard and look over the passenger-list, and if she's aboard, I'll tell her you closed your house and started for California to visit her on the last northbound steamer—that her cablegram arrived just after you had started; that the cable company, knowing I am a friend of yours, showed me the message and that I took it upon myself to call and explain that as a result of your departure for the United States it will be useless for her to land—useless and dangerous, because cholera is raging in Buenaventura, although the port authorities deny it——”
“Willie,” Mother Jenks interrupted impressively, a ghost of her old debonair spirit shining through her tears, “yer don't owe me a bloomin' sixpence! Yer've syved the day, syved my reputation, an' syved a lydy's peace o' mind. Kiss me, yer precious byby.”
So Billy kissed her—gravely and with filial reverence, for he had long suspected Mother Jenks of being a pearl cast before swine, and now he was certain of it.
“I'll send her back to the United States and promise to cable you to await her there,” Billy continued. “Of course, we can't help it if you and the cablegram miss connections, and once the young lady is back in the United States, I dare say she'll have to stay there a couple of years before she can save the price of another sea voyage. And in the meantime she may marry——”
“Or that haneurism or my bally harteries may 'ave turned the trick before that,” Mother Jenks suggested candidly but joyously. “In course she'll be disappointed, but then disappointment never lays 'eavy on a young 'eart, Willie; an' bein' disappointed at not seein' a person you ain't really acquainted with ain't as bad as some disappointments.”
“I guess I know,” Billy Geary replied bitterly. “If that cablegram had only been for me! The only thing worth while I have done in my twenty-six years of life was to accumulate the best friend a man ever had—and lose him again because I was a fool and couldn't understand things without a blueprint! Mother, if my old partner could, by some miracle, manage to marry this Dolores girl, your arteries and your aneurisms might bust and be damned, but the girl would be safe.”
“M'ybe,” Mother Jenks suggested hopefully, “yer might fix it up for her w'en I'm gone. From all haccounts 'e's no-end a gentleman.”
“He's a he-man,” Mr. Geary declared with conviction. He sighed. “John Stuart Webster, wherever you are, please write or cable,” he murmured.