Away clattered the sabots up the steep stairs, and away they scurried down the bare corridor to Joplin's room. There Tine knocked. Hearing no response she pushed open the door and looked in. The room was empty!

Then she noticed that the bed had not been slept in, nor had anything on the washstand been used. Stepping in softly for some explanation of the unusual occurrence--no such thing had ever happened in her experience, not unless she had been notified in advance--her eye rested on a letter addressed to Stebbins propped up in full view against a book on Joplin's table. Catching it up as offering the only explanation of his unaccountable disappearance, she raced downstairs and, crossing the cobbles on a run, laid the letter in Stebbins's hand.

"For me, Tine?"

The girl nodded, her eyes on the painter's.

The painter broke the seal and his face grew serious. Then he beckoned to Marny and read the contents aloud, the others crowding close:

Dear Stebbins:

Keep my things until I send for them. I take the night train for Rotterdam. Tell Schonholz I'll join him there and go on with him to Fizzenbad. Sorry to leave this way, but I could not bear to bid you all good-by. Joplin.

III

That night the table was one prolonged uproar. The conspirators had owned up frankly to their share of the villany, and were hard at work concocting plans for its undoing. Marny was the one man in the group that would not be pacified; nothing that either Pudfut, Stebbins or Malone had said or could say changed his mind--and the discussion, which had lasted all day, brought him no peace.

"Drove him out!--that's what you did, you bull-headed Englishman--you and Malone and Stebbins ought to be ashamed of yourselves. If I had known what you fellows were up to I'd have pitched you all over the dike. Cost Joppy a lot of money and break up all his summer work! What did you want to guy him like that for and send him off to be scalded and squirted on in a d.a.m.ned Dutch--"

"But we didn't think he'd take it as hard as that."

"You didn't, didn't you! What DID you think he'd do? Didn't you see how sensitive and nervous he was? The matter with you fellows is that Joppy is a thoroughbred and you never saw one of his kind in your life. Ever since he got here you've done nothing but jump all over him and try to rile him, and he never squawked once--came up smiling every time. He's a thoroughbred--that's what he is!"

The days that followed were burdened with a sadness the coterie could not shake off. Whatever they had laughed at and derided in Joplin they now longed for. The Bostonian may have been a nuisance in one way, but he had kept the ball of conversation rolling--had started it many times--and none of the others could fill his place. Certain of his views became respected. "As dear old Joppy used to say," was a common expression, and "By Jove, he was right!" not an uncommon opinion. In conformity with his teachings, Marny reduced his girth measure an inch and his weight two pounds--not much for Marny, but extraordinary all the same when his appet.i.te was considered.

Pudfut, in contrition of his offence, wrote his English friend Lord Something-or-other, who owned the yacht, and who was at Carlsbad, begging him to run up and see the "best ever" and "one of us"--and Malone never lost an opportunity to say how quick he was in repartee, or how he missed him. Stebbins kept his mouth shut.

He had started the crusade, he knew, and was personally responsible for the result. He had tried to arouse Joplin's obstinacy and had only aroused his fears. All he could do in reparation was to keep in touch with the exile and pave the way for his homecoming. If Joppy was ill, which he doubted, some of the German experts in whom the Bostonian believed would find the cause and the remedy. If he was "sound as a nut," to quote Joplin's own words, certainty of that fact, after an exhaustive examination by men he trusted, would relieve his nervous mind and make him all the happier.

The first letter came from Schonholz. Liberally translated, with the a.s.sistance of Mynheer, who spoke a little German, it conveyed the information that the Bostonian, after being put on a strict diet, had been douched, pounded and rubbed; was then on his second week of treatment; had one more to serve; was at the moment feeling like a fighting-c.o.c.k, and after a fifth week at Stuckbad, in the mountains, where he was to take the after-cure, would be as strong as a three-year-old, and as frisky.

The second letter was from Joplin himself and was addressed to Stebbins. This last was authentic, and greatly relieved the situation.

It read:

Nothing like a thoroughly trained expert, my dear Stebbins. These German savants fill me with wonder. The moment Dr. Stuffen fixed his eyes upon me he read my case like an open book. No nitrogenous food of any kind, was his first verdict; hot douches and complete rest packed in wet compresses, the next. I am losing flesh, of course, but it is only the "deadwood" of the body, so to speak. This Dr. Stuffen expects to replace with new shoots--predicts I will weigh forty pounds more--a charming and, to me, a most sane theory. You will be delighted also to hear that my epigastric nerve hasn't troubled me since I arrived. Love to the boys, whom I expect to see before the month is out. Joppy.

"Forty pounds heavier!" cried Marny from his end of the table. "He'll look like a toy balloon in knee pants. Bully for Joppy! I wouldn't let any Schweizerkase with a hot douche get within a hundred yards of me, but then I'm not a bunch of nerves like Joppy. Anyhow, boys, we'll give the lad a welcome that will raise the roof. Joppy thin was pretty good fun, but Joppy fat will be a roaring farce."

And so it was decided, and at once all sorts and kinds of welcomes were discussed, modified, rearranged and discussed again. Pudfut suggested meeting him in Rotterdam and having a night of it. Malone thought of chartering a steam launch, hiring a band and bringing him past the towns with flags flying. Stebbins and Marny favored some demonstration nearer home, where everybody could join in.

The programme finally agreed upon included a pathway of boughs strewn with wild flowers from the steamboat landing, across the planking, over the cobbles, under the old Gate of William of Orange, and so on to the door of the inn; the appointment of Tine, dressed in a Zeeland costume belonging to her grand-mother, as special envoy, to meet him with a wreath of laurel, and Johann in short clothes--also heirlooms--was to walk by his side as First Groom of the Bed Chamber.

The real Reception Committee, consisting of Mynheer in a burgomaster suit borrowed from a friend, and the four painters--Marny as a Dutch Falstaff, Pudfut as a Spanish Cavalier, Stebbins got up as a Night Watch, and Malone in the costume of a Man-at-Arms--all costumes loaned for the occasion by the antiquary in the next street--were to await Joplin's coming in the privacy of the Gate--almost a tunnel--and so close to the door of the inn that it might have pa.s.sed for a part of the establishment itself.

Meantime the four painters were to collect material for the decoration of the coffee-room--wreaths of greens over the mantel and festoons of ivy hanging down the back of Joplin's chair being prominent features; while Mynheer, Tine and Johann were to concentrate their energies in preparing a dinner the like of which had never been eaten since the sluiceways in the dikes drowned out the Spanish duke. Not a word of all this, of course, had reached the ears of the Bostonian. Half, three-quarters, if not all, the enjoyment of the occasion would be realized when they looked on Joplin's face and read his surprise.

IV

The eventful day at last arrived. Stebbins, as prearranged, had begged the exile to telegraph the exact hour of his departure and mode of travel from Rotterdam, suggesting the boat as being by far the best, and Joplin had answered in return that Fop Smit's packet, due at sundown the following day, would count him among its pa.s.sengers.

The deep tones of the whistle off Papendrecht sent every man to his post, the villagers standing back in amazement at the extraordinary spectacle, especially at Tine and Johann in their queer clothes, who, being instantly recognized, were plied with questions.

The boat slowed down; made fast; out came the gangplank; ash.o.r.e went the little two-wheel carts drawn by the sleepy, tired dogs; then the baskets of onions were rolled off, and the few barrels of freight, and then two or three pa.s.sengers--among them a small, feeble man, in a long coat reaching to his heels--made their way to the dock.

NO JOPPY!!

"That's the last man to come ash.o.r.e here," said Marny. "What's become of the lad?"

"Maybe he's gone aft," cried Stebbins; "maybe--"

Here Tine gave a little scream, dropped her wreath and running toward the small, feeble man, threw her arms around his neck. Marny and the others bounded over the cobbles, tossing the bystanders out of the way as they forged ahead. When they reached Joplin he was still clinging to Tine, his sunken cheeks and hollow deep-set eyes telling only too plainly how great an effort he was making to keep on his legs. The four painters formed a close bodyguard and escorted their long-lost brother to the inn.

Mynheer, in his burgomaster suit, met the party at the door, conducted them inside and silently drew out the chairs at the coffee-room table.

He was too overcome to speak.

Joplin dropped into the one hung with ivy and rested his hands on the table.

"Lord! how good it is to get here!" he said, gazing about him, a tremble in his voice. "You don't know what I've gone through, boys."

"Why, we thought you were getting fat, Joppy," burst out Marny at last.

Up to this time his voice, like that of the others, seemed to have left him, so great was his surprise and anxiety.

Joplin waved his forefinger toward Marny in a deprecatory way, as if the memory of his experience was too serious for discussion, played with his fork a moment, and said slowly:

"Will you lay it up against me, fellows, if I tell you the truth? I'm not as strong as I was and a good deal of the old fight is out of me."

"Lay up nothin'!" cried Malone. "And when it comes to fightin' ye kin count on me every--"

"Dry up!" broke in Marny. "You're way off, Malone. No, Joppy, not a man here will open his head: say the rest."

"Well, then, listen," continued the Bostonian. "I did everything they told me: got up at daylight; walked around the spring seven times; sipped the water; ate what they prescribed; lay in wet sheets two hours every day; was kneaded by a man with a chest as hairy as a satyr's and arms like a blacksmith's; stood up and was squirted at; had everything about me looked into--even stuck needles in my arm for a sample of my blood; and at the end of three weeks was so thin that my trousers had to be lapped over in the back under a leather strap to keep them above my hips, and my coat hung down as if it were ashamed of me. Doctor Stuffen then handed me a certificate and his bill. This done he stood me up and repeated this formula--has it printed--all languages:

"'You have now thrown from your system every particle of foul tissues, Mr.--, ah, yes--Mr. Joblin, I believe.' And he looked at the paper.

'You thought you were reasonably fat, Mr. Joblin. You were not fat, you were merely bloated. Go now to Stuckbad for two weeks. There you will take the after-cure; keep strictly to the diet, a list of which I now hand you. At the expiration of that time you will be a strong man.

Thank you--my secretary will send you a receipt.'

"Well, I went to Stuckbad--crawled really--put up at the hotel and sent for the resident doctor, Professor Ozzenbach, Member of the Board of Pharmacy of Berlin, Specialist on Nutrition, Fellow of the Royal Society of Bacteriologists, President of the Vienna a.s.sociation of Physiological Research--that kind of man. He looked me all over and shook his head. He spoke broken English--badly.

"'Who has dreated you, may I ask, Meester Boblin?'

"'Doctor Stuffen, at Fizzenbad.'

"'Ah, yes, a fery goot man, but a leedle de times behindt. Vat did you eat?'

"I handed him the list.