“I wouldn’t worry about that room none, if I was you,” said Mrs. Kipley, serenely.
“Did you remember about the cigars and a decanter of whisky?” he asked.
Mrs. Kipley looked at him in a patient exasperation.
“They’s two kinds of cigars, every brand of cigarettes Kipley could lay hands on in Yellow Dog, the biggest decanter full of whisky, the motto ‘Love One Another,’ that my Sunday-school class worked for me last winter; red-white-and-blue soap in the soap dish, and two pincushions with a French motto worked on each of ’em. Hemmy did ’em in black and white pins. She thought’t would make it seem more like Paris to him. One says ‘Vive Napoleon,’ and the other says ‘Veuve Cliquot.’ Kind of twins, you see.”
John Carrington’s mouth twitched. Then he frowned slightly. For would the boy understand? If he were not amused—if he were merely contemptuous!
“Hemmy’s picking some flowers for the house now,” Mrs. Kipley went on, serenely. “And Kipley’s took a saddle horse besides the road wagon, so’s if Mr. Ned wanted to ride over, he could.”
The case of John Carrington’s watch came open once more. If the train was on time, and Ned did choose the saddle horse, another ten minutes—— But would he? The lad was a bit of a dandy. Carrington had smiled indulgently over some of his tailor’s bills. Probably you couldn’t coax him on a horse, even in Yellow Dog, unless he was arrayed in all the proper paraphernalia.
But what was that clatter of horse’s hoofs—fast and furious—faster and more furious than any Yellow Dog had heard since the day three weeks ago when the Carrington team, terrorized by a small boy’s premature bunch of firecrackers, had run away, and John Carrington, thrown from the wreckage of his light buggy, had been brought home with a badly fractured leg?
Mrs. Kipley looked out of the window.
“Merciful sakes!” she ejaculated, startled.