Drawn by Henry Raleigh
“‘A TALL, THIN FELLOW, WITH SANDY SIDEBURNS. PROBABLY A FLOOR-WALKER IN SOME SHOP, WITH A PERPETUAL SMILE’”
“But I ought to go home,” insisted Mr. Wellaway.
“But you can’t go home,” laughed his host. “Come right along. Sarah will be delighted. She’s—she’s fond of company. Perhaps our ’phone will be working. You can telephone your wife from our house. Really, Sarah will be glad—she’ll be delighted, I tell you.”
So Mr. Wellaway accompanied his host. The house to which he was led was an average suburban dwelling, a frame house of ample size, with wide verandas, a goodly lawn, and the usual clumps of shrubbery. At the screen door the host paused.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll let you wait here while I step inside and tell Sarah we are coming. Sarah is the most hospitable of women, and that’s the reason I want to tell her. She’ll welcome you with open arms, but—you know how these hospitable women are, don’t you? They like a minute or two to get into a more than casual mood. It will be all right. Only a minute.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Wellaway, feeling rather uncomfortable, and his host opened the door with a latch-key and entered. If Mr. Wellaway could have heard what passed inside that door, he would have turned and run.
“Darling!” exclaimed his host’s wife when she saw him. “How wet you are! Go right up-stairs and get into a hot bath this minute! You’ll die of cold!”
“In a minute, Sarah,” said her husband; “but, first, I’ve got a man out there. He’s going to stay for dinner and sleep here.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sarah, letting her mind jump to her larder. “But we didn’t expect any one. Really I don’t know. Perhaps I can make what I have do. Is—is it any one important?”