Still clutching his sleeve, Mrs. Herrington opened a door and ran across the back yard of McMonigal's building in a manner which indicated that that lady had not spent her college years (and similarly spent the years since then propped among embroidered cushions consuming marshmallows and fudge.)
The lot crossed, she hurried through a little grocery and thence into the street. Here they ran into a party that, seeing the riot on Main Street and the drive upon the window from which George had spoken, had rushed up reinforcements from the rear—a party consisting of Penny, E. Eliot, Betty Sheridan and Geneviève. "Geneviève!" cried George, and caught her into his arms.
"Oh, George," she choked. "I—I heard it all—and it—it was simply wonderful!"
"George," cried Betty Sheridan, "I always knew, if you got the right kind of a jolt, you'd be—you'd be what you are!"
E. Eliot gripped his hand in a clasp almost as strong as George's arm. "Mr. Remington, if I were a man, I'd like to have the same sort of stuff in me."
"George, you old roughneck—" began Penny.
"George," interrupted Geneviève, still chokingly, her protective, wifely instinct now at the fore, "I saw you hit, and we're going to take you straight home——"
"Cut it all out," interrupted the cultured Mrs. Herrington. "This isn't Mr. Remington's honeymoon—nor his college reunion—nor the annual convention of his maiden aunts. This is Mr. Remington's campaign, and I'm his new campaign manager. And his campaign manager says he's not going away out to his home on Sheridan Road. His campaign headquarters are going to be in the center of town, at the Commercial Hotel, where he can be reached—for there's quick work ahead of us. Come on."
Five minutes later they were all in the Commercial Hotel's best suite.
"Now, to business, Mr. Remington," briskly began Mrs. Herrington. "Of course, that was a good speech. But why, in heaven's name, didn't you come out with it before?"