And she went all to pieces and cried all over his necktie.
And then Marks trots up the child, and that young one hollers: “Papa! papa!” and tackles Hank around the legs. And I’m blessed if Montague don’t slap his hand to his forehead, and toss back his curls, and look up at the sky, and sing out: “My wife and babe! Restored to me after all these years! The heavens be thanked!”
Well, ’twas a sacred sort of time. The town folks tiptoed away, the men lookin’ solemn but glad, and the women swabbin’ their deadlights and sayin’ how affectin’ ’twas, and so on. Oh, you could see that show would do bus’ness that night, if it never did afore.
The manager got after Jonadab and me later on, and did his best to pump us, but he didn’t find out much. He told us that Montague b’longed to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company, and that he’d disappeared a fortni’t or so afore, when they were playin’ at Hyannis. Eva was his wife, and the child was their little boy. The bloodhounds knew him, and that’s why they chased him so.
“What was you two yellin’ ‘Stop thief!’ after him for?” says he. “Has he stole anything?”
We says: “No.”
“Then what did you want to get him for?” he says.
“We didn’t,” says Jonadab. “We wanted to git rid of him. We don’t want to see him no more.”
You could tell that the manager was puzzled, but he laffed.
“All right,” says he. “If I know anything about Maggie—that’s Mrs. Schmults—he won’t git loose ag’in.”