"Let's see," says Zenobia, "Dick and the girl ran off and were married, weren't they?"
"Yes," says Ballard. "It's in the blood, you see. They went to Paris, to carry out one of Dick's great schemes. He had persuaded some of his friends, big real estate dealers, to make him their foreign agent. His idea was, I believe, to catch Western millionaires abroad and sell 'em Fifth-ave. mansions. Actually did land one or two customers, I think. But it was his wife's notion that turned out to be really practical,—leasing French and Italian villas to rich Americans. Something in that, you know, and if Dick had only stuck to it—but Dick never could. He got in with some mine promoters, and after that nothing would answer but that he must rush right back to Goldfield and look over some properties that were for sale dirt cheap. As though Dick would have been any wiser after he'd seen 'em! But his biggest piece of folly was in taking the little boy along with him."
"What! Away from his mother?" says Martha.
"Just like Dick," says Ballard. "They couldn't both leave the leasing business, and as she knew more about it than he did—well, that's the way they settled it. He persuaded her it would be a fine thing for the youngster. Huh! I came over on the same boat with them, and I want to tell you that little chap simply owned the steamer! Bright? Why, he was the cutest kid you ever saw,—red-headed, like his mother, and with his father's laugh. Spent most of his time on the bridge with the first officer, or down in the engine room with the chief. Dick never knew where he was half the time.
"He was for taking the boy out into the mining country with him too. I supposed he had until I got this frantic cable from Irene. They'd sent her word about Dick's sudden end,—he always did have a weak heart, you know,—and something about the high altitude got him. Went off like that. But Irene was demanding of me to tell her where the boy was. Of course I didn't know. I did my best to find him, hunted high and low. I traced Dick to Goldfield. No use. The boy was not with him when he went West. Where he had left him was a mystery that——"
Buz-z-z-z! goes the front doorbell, right in the middle of Mr. Ballard's story, and in comes Lizzie sayin' it's someone to see me. For a second I couldn't think who'd be huntin' me up here at this time of the evenin'. And then I remembered,—Dorsett.
"It—it's an uncle of mine," says I to Zenobia, "a reg'lar uncle."
"Why," says she, "I didn't know you had one."
"Me either," says I, "until the other day. He just turned up. Could I take him into the libr'y?"
"Of course," says Zenobia.