"The only thing I can suggest is that you stay on with us, if you can arrange to do your writing here," I said, "as a sort of personal guard for Pat. As Henry seems to have grown rather fond of you, I'm sure he can hold no objection. Of course, not a word to Pat about it."
McGinity sat up suddenly in his chair. "That's a great idea," he exclaimed. "My City Editor just ordered me to stick on the job, and I was planning to stay at a hotel in the village."
"If you were to act as personal guard for Pat," I remarked, "there would be nothing sentimental about it, of course."
"Oh, of course, nothing like that," McGinity replied; and he colored and looked at Pat's white cockatoo, on its perch, by the window, the furniture, the ceiling—anywhere but at me.
"I'm sure I can arrange it with Henry to have you stay," I said. "If he insists on keeping this Teddy Bear, as Pat jokingly calls it, in the house, I'm afraid, I'm sadly afraid, there's going to be trouble. Unpleasantness, at any rate."
McGinity looked me square in the eyes. "Pardon me, Mr. Livingston," he said, "but—is there any insanity running in your family?"
Recalling Jane's admonishment, I hesitated a moment before replying. "Isn't there a chance of an abnormal state of mind bobbing up in any family?" I said at last, and let it go at that.
"Anyway, we've got to keep Pat safe," McGinity said. "And as long as this creature is kept in the house, she should be instructed never to wander round alone, upstairs or downstairs. Why, I've got nerves of steel, myself, but I'll confess that if I bumped unexpectedly into a creature like that, in the dark, I'd run like hell."
At this, Henry entered the picture, remaining just long enough to dash down a cup of black coffee, and to invite McGinity and me down to the beach for a more detailed study of the rocket, and to search for the parchment scroll concealed therein, the deciphering of which he felt would help solve the riddle of Mars.
"I'm mighty glad to have your assistance, McGinity," he said, over his hasty cup of coffee, "and I've been wondering if you could arrange with your newspaper to remain with us, and write your stories here."