"Drive me to Sam Cook's," said Aronson. All the nocturnal interest of the countryside had vanished from him now, and it was with no kindly feeling toward Hillsborough that he stretched his limbs in the old boniface's spare bed, laying the subpoena under his pillow and muttering a petition to Jehovah that he might not oversleep himself and lose the 6:15 a. m. But the real danger proved to be that he would get no sleep at all. For at midnight he was still tossing.
A cow-bell, furiously jingled, awoke him at sunrise, and he was in the city at 7:15, on schedule time.
"To Woodlawn," a sign on one of the tracks read. But the hands of the mock clock pointed to 7:45 and there was another half-hour of waiting. All the world was out of bed, for the steeple bell had just tolled 8 when he arrived in Woodlawn and inquired his way to the Arnolds'.
"Just moved back!" thought Aronson. "I should say so."
Mats were hanging out of windows, servants were mopping panes, a hostler was hosing a muddy carriage in the stable; everything showed that a general scrubbing process had begun. To his surprise and pleasure, he recognized the housemaid who answered his ring as Bertha Lund. She was dressed in her smartest pink, for this was the day of her testimony.
"I want to see Mrs. Arnold," said Aronson, blurting out his message like a schoolboy.
"Mrs. Arnold? Well, you've come too late," answered Bertha.
"Isn't she here?"
"Here! She's on her way to Europe by this time."
"To Europe!"