"Jumping June-bugs!" he cried airily. "It's Crosby!"
"No other, Mac," I laughed. "What in the world are you ragging Miss Tabor about?"
Maclean blushed. "See here, Laurie," he stammered, "I'm a newspaper man, you see? What's more, I'm thought by some to be a good one. I've got the goods on this story, and you people ought to come across. It won't hurt you any. Were you the cheese that lugged the murdered scrubess down three flights of stairs?"
Lady looked at me imploringly. But the cat was so far out of the bag by now that I had to use my judgment. "I was," I answered. "What are you going to make out of it?"
"Now you're talkin'. Tell me the story."
"Not for publication," said I, with a glance at Lady, "because there's no story to publish. In the first place, you're barking up the right tree, but it's a mighty little one. In the second place, I've fallen so low as to be an assistant professor with a dignified reputation. Neither Miss Tabor nor I is going to be head-lined to make a journalistic holiday; and if we were, you wouldn't write it."
Maclean gnawed a bony knuckle, and pondered. "Darn you," he said. "Beg your pardon, Miss Tabor—I s'pose I can't, after that. But you'll admit I had the goods. I don't see how I can go back with nothing. They send me out on these things because I generally make good, you see?"
"Your imagination always was your greatest charm. Get to work, and use it. Miss Tabor, this human gimlet is 'Stride' Maclean. Let me give him a decent introduction: he probably slighted the matter. This gentleman, for he was a gentleman before he became a star reporter, had the honor to belong to my class, and he sings a beautiful tenor. Naturally he was popular; he may even have friends yet. We'll tell him all about it, and then perhaps we'll drown him. One crime more or less matters little to people of our dye."
Maclean scowled at me and laughed.
"Well, it all amounts to this. First, nobody has been murdered—as yet!" and I frowned at him. "Secondly, nobody has been kidnapped; lastly, it isn't a story, unless you are on the comic supplement. This Mrs. Carucci used to be Miss Tabor's nurse, and when Antonio beats her up too frequent, she comes up here for a vacation. Well, we were late going for her because the car broke down; so when we got there, he had just smitten her over the brow and retired to a well-earned slumber. Then the neighbors got inquisitive, and we ran away to escape precisely that immediate fame you were planning to give us. That's all. I will only add that branderine revived this wash-lady and we can prove it."