"I do," interrupted the dowager, crumpling the lawyer's unread note in her hand. "You will find your friend's quarters in the Louisville jail, and a policeman at the door to escort you to him."
Payne rose hastily and left the room without ceremony.
"Oh, aunty!" said little Sue, who had listened to the roar of great guns in awe and terror, "it will make you sick."
"Sick!" said the dowager, looking almost real in her affected youth with congenial excitement: "it is life, child. But let us see what Winnett says."
Before reading the lawyer's note let us follow Payne. The reader will understand that Mason was now in the condition of Ivanhoe after his wager with the Templar of the precious reliquary, and before he was relieved by the gratitude of Isaac of York. He lacked the means to get to his Ashby de la Zouche. But at Payne's rueful face in telling of his interview with the dowager the graceless scamp threw his fat figure on the bed, cracking his sides with laughter.
"I don't see the fun," said Payne sulkily. "I wish I was well out of it. The dowager talked devilish strong."
"If my aunt won't help us," said Mason, "my uncle will. You must just take my stop-watch to the three balls.
Farewell to my golden repeater!
We've come to my uncle's old shop!"
Payne was just leaving when a voice in the next room stopped him. "It's that infernal pawnbroker," said he in a rage.
The man came in, smooth, civil, obsequious. "I thought you'd like to have this thing off your mind," said he, presenting a note of Mason's.