"We can ask Norah, too," Granny told him quickly. "She don't often stay for dinner. She's a great help to Tessie, Joe, but Tessie pays her good wages so I suppose Tessie is a help to her, too."

"That's the way it works out. When a fellow helps you you help him, too.

And Norah would be a peach if she wasn't all for business."

"That's just--what was the word we heard so much about during the war?

Camouflage? That's just camouflage, Joe. No girl is all for business on the inside even if she is on the outside. You take my word for it that inside a girl is all for romance. That's the way the good Lord made girls." And she nodded her pepper-and-salt head knowingly.

"I wonder!" Joe said eagerly, and he looked at Granny as if he would like to believe her.

"I know!" declared Granny. "And now I'll go and ask Norah Lee if she wants to eat with us, and then we can talk about these islands of Tessie's some more. I didn't know until to-day that a man could have more than one wife in the Sunshine Islands. The old king, Pete's friend, had three. It makes me wonder about Pete. But there's one thing sure, Joe Cary, Tessie shan't have but one husband. I don't care anything about their old customs!"

XVI

It had never occurred to Ka-kee-ta's frizzled head that Tessie could leave the royal suite without his knowledge, not while he stood beside the door. He did not understand that the suite was a corner one with exits on two corridors, and no one had thought it necessary to tell him.

So when he saw Tessie come in with Mr. Bill, when he thought that she was with Granny in the room, he gave a howl of surprise and stared at her as if she were a ghost instead of a flesh-and-blood girl in a white dinner frock and a rose wrap. Tessie frowned.

"Do be quiet, Ka-kee-ta!" she ordered impatiently. "He always makes me think of a dog," she said to Mr. Bill. "At night, you know, he just curls up here beside the door and goes to sleep. He is always here! It's so tiresome. I do think that queens have to put up with an awful lot of disagreeable things!" And she sighed.

"They get an awful lot, too," reminded Mr. Bill with a grin. "And as our wise young friend, Joseph Cary, so truthfully remarks, you have to pay for everything you get. Having Ka-kee-ta as a doormat isn't much of a price to pay for all the romance and the luxury and the----"

"Oh, isn't it!" interrupted Tessie, her nose in the air. "I'll lend him to you, and you can see what fun it is to have him at your heels all the time."

"He wouldn't be lent!" declared Mr. Bill hastily, for in spite of his words, he did not want Ka-kee-ta at his heels for a minute. It was all right for Tessie to have a bodyguard, but it would be far from all right for the bas.e.m.e.nt floorwalker of the Evergreen to be so attended. "What was your uncle afraid of in his islands that he trained a man to stand beside him with an ax in his hand?" he asked curiously.

"The people!" Tessie told him in a whisper. "That's another reason why I'm not so crazy over this queen business as I was. I never used to be afraid of anything, and now I'm afraid of almost everything!"

Mr. Bill laughed indulgently because he was not afraid of anything, and admiringly because Tessie was so adorable when she was afraid of almost everything. He took her hand and pressed it. Immediately Ka-kee-ta, who stood in the open door watching them with the wide questioning eyes of a child, gave another howl. Mr. Bill hastily jumped away from Tessie.

"The d.i.c.kens!" he exclaimed.

"You see how it is!" Tessie shrugged her shoulders as she clasped the hand Mr. Bill had squeezed. "He is just impossible! Sometimes," she lowered her voice as if she would not for the world let Ka-kee-ta hear what she was going to say, "I have a mind to give the whole thing up!"

Mr. Bill stared at her in horrified astonishment. "Your kingdom?" he gasped.

She nodded.

"You couldn't do it!"

"Why couldn't I?"

Mr. Bill's reason was not a very good one. "Because," he said vaguely.

But when Tessie showed an impatient dissatisfaction with it he found another reason. "It isn't done, you know! Kings and queens have to stay on their thrones as long as the people want them there."

"That's exactly the idea," mourned Tessie. "As long as the people want them on thrones! But suppose the people don't want them?" She shivered as she remembered what Mr. Pracht had said happened when the Sunshine Islanders did not want the king who was on their throne.

Mr. Bill was puzzled. "What is it?" he demanded sharply. "What's happened? I could see all evening that something was the matter. When we played hearts you acted as if your mind was miles away. You let dad give you every heart in the pack. What is it? Has the special representative come? What makes you talk as if your people didn't want you for their queen?" He started to go closer and then remembered the watch-dog and walked to the door and shut it almost on Ka-kee-ta's tattooed nose.

"What is it?" he asked again, and now he was very close to Tessie. He looked anxiously into her troubled face. He wanted to help her. He had never wanted to help a girl as he wanted to help Tessie.

Tessie's voice shook as she answered him. "The special representative is a prisoner in the islands. The Sons of Sunshine--I told you about them?--have captured him and locked him up. They don't want a white ruler--a white queen! And I heard to-day that when the Sunshine Islands people don't like their king, they boil him in oil!" Her lip quivered.

Her eyes were big and frightened as she looked at Mr. Bill.

"I don't believe it!" declared Mr. Bill quickly. "I don't believe a word of it! Such things aren't done now! Maybe in the Dark Ages, but not now!

Take it from me! It sounds like a rank movie!" he insisted.

Tessie smiled wanly. It was cheering to hear Mr. Bill declare with so much warm emphasis that he did not believe the Sunshine Islanders kept up their ancient customs. "It made me want to sell the islands right away," she faltered.

"Sell the islands!" He was shocked. "You can't do that!" he exclaimed.

"Dad wouldn't let you!"

Tessie looked at him quickly, almost suspiciously. "What do you mean?

What has your father and the Evergreen to do with my islands?"

Mr. Bill flushed and stammered. "Nothing of course," he said. "Only he is awfully interested! He's tried to help you in every way, given you unlimited credit and advice and everything. And he wouldn't like you to do anything without his per--I mean without talking to him. I wouldn't want you to sell your islands, either. I like to think of you as a queen! You are such a peach! You should be a queen!" And his hand shot out again, and it would have found her fingers if she had not moved away from him.

"I think," she said with a quick catch of her breath, "you had better go. It must be Ka-kee-ta's bedtime!" she insisted, when he showed no sign of going.

"Darn Ka-kee-ta!" he exclaimed somewhat rudely.

But he had to go away, and when he had reluctantly said good night and disappeared down the corridor, Tessie turned impatiently to her bodyguard, who was yawning beside the door.

"You see, Ka-kee-ta," she said slowly and distinctly so that he would be sure to understand her, "nothing happened to me when I went away without you. I think I shall leave you at home often."

Ka-kee-ta shook his frizzled head and waved his ax. "The Tear of G.o.d!"

he rumbled. "The king's jewel!"

Tessie looked at him, and her eyes widened. "If I leave the Tear of G.o.d with you will it be all right?" she guessed. "You aren't looking after me, are you, Ka-kee-ta? It's the king's jewel you are taking care of."

And when he said never a word, but just stood and gaped at her, she plucked courage to ask him in a frightened whisper; "Ka-kee-ta, did you ever see any one boiled in oil?"

The words were scarcely across her lips before she discovered that she did not want to hear what Ka-kee-ta had seen. She did not want to know how savage her people could be. She shut the door and went to her own room, the most puzzled little queen in the world.

There were many questions to puzzle her, questions concerning the islands and Joe Cary, who was so anxious for her to abandon the islands, and Mr. Bill, and old Mr. Kingley, who was so eager for her to keep her inheritance. What difference did it make to old Mr. Kingley whether she was a queen or not? She could understand why Joe Cary wanted her to abdicate. Joe didn't believe in queens nor in kings. But Mr. Kingley-- What business was it of his? And Mr. Bill! He had said he didn't believe the Sunshine Islanders were savage or cannibal. She would believe Mr.

Bill, she decided with a fluttering heart. Of course he knew. And he was right! So long as she remained in Waloo the Sunshine Islanders--even the revolutionary Sons of Sunshine--could not harm her. But she couldn't remain in Waloo forever and be the queen of the Sunshine Islands, too!

That wouldn't be fair. Joe Cary said it wouldn't be fair. She would ask Mr. Bill the very first thing in the morning. Mr. Bill really knew more about kings and queens than Joe Cary anyway. He had seen some of them.

Mr. Bill's own mother had told her that he had seen Queen Mary of England. Oh, dear! Wouldn't she ever go to sleep?

It was a long time before her busy little brain would let her go to sleep, and it seemed no time at all after she was asleep before she was wakened by Granny, who handed her a letter. The sun was streaming through the open window with a dash and a vigor which made Tessie's sleepy eyes blink. So she had slept after all, for it was black night when she had closed her eyes and now it was bright day. She looked at the letter.

"What is it?" she asked sleepily.

"It was just sent up from the office. And it's marked important." Granny sounded important as she showed Tessie the word scrawled on the envelope. "I thought perhaps it might be something about that special representative. Maybe he has escaped from those rebels!" suggested Granny, eager to know what was inside the letter which was so important on the outside. "Really, Tessie, when I think of those Sons of Sunshine I wish Johnny was here instead of at that Boy Scout camp. I've got more confidence in a good strong American boy than I have in all the frizzle-headed, tattooed natives in the world! Even if they do carry axes in their hand."

Tessie scarcely heard Granny. She had opened the letter, but something in the black writing made her face turn white.

"What is it, Tessie?" Granny caught her shoulder. "Tell Granny what it is? Drat that Pete!" she murmured under her breath. "I wish he had run away with a circus, instead of to sea to be washed up on that island and make trouble for us all."