At the precise moment that we are looking in on the offices of the Artillery Devices, L’t’d, a man whom we have seen before—to wit, Joshua Sawdon, owner of Sawdon’s Circus—shoved his way, and essayed to continue to shove his way, past an office boy, who, however, held up the showman at the rail behind which were the desks of the stenographers and clerks aforesaid.
Mr. Sawdon appeared to be out of temper. Seeing that it was in vain for him to try to get past the boy without sending in his name, he hastily wrote on a bit of paper:
“Young Ingersoll has gotten away. Must see you at once.—Sawdon.”
He folded this and handed it to the boy, telling him to take it in to Mr. Melville and “look slippy.” Then Mr. Sawdon adjusted his diamond, at which the clerks had been gazing in awe, and awaited the great man’s summons. It came quickly.
“De boss ses youse is ter come right in,” said the office boy on his return, with considerably more respect in his tones than he had used before.
Sawdon lost no time in obeying this injunction. As soon as he was inside the private office, Melville motioned him to a chair.
“What the dickens is the meaning of this?” he demanded with a lowering brow, indicating the circus man’s scrawl.
“It’s plain enough, aint it?” rejoined Sawdon. “The kid’s vamoosed, gone, skipped.”
“And I paid you to see that he was kept with the show and in ignorance of everything but the fact that he was a circus slave,” thundered Melville. “How did this thing happen?”
“Well, what are you to do when a bunch of ginks come along in a flying automobile and steal him right out of the air before your eyes?” protested Sawdon, mopping his brow.