And, say, that got me! I expect I made some gaspy motions before I managed to get out my next remark. "You--you ain't the one that left me with Mother Leary, are you?" I asks.

Dorsett nods. "I'm a trifle late in explaining that carelessness," says he, "and I can only plead guilty to all your reproaches. But consider the circ.u.mstances. There I was, a free lance of fortune, down to my last dollar, and rich only in the companionship of a bright-eyed, four-year-old youngster who had been trusted to my care. You remember very little of that period, I suppose; but it is all vivid enough to me, even now,--how we tramped up and down Broadway, you chattering away, excited and happy, while I was wondering what I should do when that last dollar was gone.

"Then, just when things seem blackest, arrived opportunity,--the Birmingham boom. I ran across one of the boomers, who was struck with the brilliant idea that he could make use of my peculiar talents in making known the coming glories of the new South. But I must join him at once, that very day. And he waved yellow-backed bills at me. I simply had to drop you and go. Mother Leary promised to take care of you for three months, or until your--well, until someone else claimed you. I sent word to them both, at least I tried to, and rushed gayly down into Dixie. Perhaps you never heard of the bursting of that first Birmingham boom? It was an abrupt but very-complete smash. I came out of it owning two gorgeous suits of clothes, one silk hat, and an opulent-looking pocketbook, bulging with thirty-day options on corner lots. One of the clerks in our office staked me with carfare to Atlanta, where I got a job collecting tenement house rents.

"Since then I've been up and down. Half a dozen times I've almost had my fingers on the tail feathers of fortune: only to stumble into some hidden pit of poverty. And in time--well, time mends all things.

Besides, I hardly relished facing Mother Leary. There was the chance too that you no longer needed rescuing. I'm not trying to excuse my breach of faith: I am merely telling you how it came about. You realize that, I trust?"

Did I? I don't know. I expect I was just sittin' there gazing stary at him. Only one thing was shapin' itself clear in my head, and fin'lly I states it flat.

"Say," says I, "you--you ain't my reg'lar uncle, are you?"

Maybe I wa'n't as enthusiastic as the case called for. He springs that smile of his. "Hardly a flattering way to put it," says he. "Would you be disappointed if I was?"

"Well," says I, eyin' him up and down, "you don't strike me as such a swell uncle, you know."

Don't faze him a bit, either. "Our near relatives are seldom quite satisfactory," says he. "Of course, though, if I fail to suit----" He hunches his shoulders and reaches for his hat.

So he had it on me, you see. Suppose you was as shy on relations as I am, would you turn down the only one that ever showed up?

"Excuse me if I don't get the cues right," says I; "but--but this has been put over a little sudden. Course I'll take Mrs. Leary's word. If she says you're my Uncle Bill, that goes. Anyway, you can give me a line on--on my folks, I suppose?"

Yes, he admits that he can; but he don't. And I will say for him that he states his case smooth enough, smilin' that catchy smile of his, and tappin' me friendly on the knee. But when he's all through it amounts to this: He needs the loan of a couple of hundred cash the worst way, and he wants to be put next to a few plutes that are in the market for new trolley franchises. If I can boost him along that way, it'll relieve his mind so much that he'll be in just the right mood to go into my personal hist'ry as deep as I care to dip.

"Gee!" says I. "But this raisin' a fam'ly tree comes high, don't it?

Besides, I'd have to get Mother Leary's O. K. on you first, you know."

"Naturally," says he. "And any time within the next day or so will answer. Suppose I drop around again, or look you up at your quarters?"

"Better make it at the house," says I. "Here's the street number. Some evenin' after seven-thirty. I--I'll be thinkin' things over."

And as I watches him swing jaunty through the door I remarks under my breath to n.o.body in partic'lar: "Uncle Bill, eh? My Uncle Bill! Well, well!"

You can be sure too that my first move is to sound Mother Leary. She says he's the one, all right, and I gathers that she gave him the tongue-lashin' she'd been savin' up all these years. But I don't stop for details. If I've really had an uncle wished on me, it's up to me to make the best of it, or find out the worst. But somehow I ain't so chesty about havin' dug up a relation. I don't brag about it to Martha when I go home. In fact, Martha has fam'ly troubles of her own about now, you remember. I finds her weepy-eyed and solemn.

"They've been gone more than a week," says she, "Zen.o.bia and that reckless Kyrle Ballard. Pretty soon they will be coming back, and then----"

"Well, what then?" says I.

"I've been packing up to-day," says she, swabbin' off a stray tear from the side of her nose. "I have engaged rooms at the Lady Louise. I suppose you will be leaving too."

"Me?" says I.

It hadn't struck me that Aunt Zen.o.bia's getting married was goin' to throw us all out on the street. But Aunt Martha had it doped diff'rent.

"Stay in the same house with that man?" says she. "Not I! And I am quite sure he will not want either of us around when he comes back here as Zen.o.bia's husband."

"If that's the case," says I, "it won't take me long to clear out; but I guess I'll wait until I get the hint direct. You'd better wait too."

Martha'd made up her mind, though. She says she'd go right then if it wa'n't for leavin' the servants alone in the house; but the very minute Sister Zen.o.bia arrives she means to beat it. And sure enough next day she has her trunk brought down into the front hall and begins wearin'

her bonnet around the house. It's a little weird to see her pokin' about dressed that way, and her wraps and rubbers laid out handy, as if she belonged to a volunteer hose comp'ny.

It was after the second day of this watchful waitin', and we're sittin'

down to a six-forty-five dinner, when a big racket breaks loose out front. The bell rings four times rapid, Lizzie the maid almost breaks her neck gettin' to the door, and in breezes the runaway pair with all their baggage, chucklin' and chatterin' like a couple of kids. Some stunnin' Aunt Zen.o.bia looks, for all her gray hair; and Mr. Ballard, in his Scotch tweed suit and with his ruddy cheeks, don't look a day over fifty. They're giggling merry over some remark of Lizzie's, and Zen.o.bia calls in through the draperies.

"h.e.l.lo, Martha--Torchy--everybody!" she sings out. "Well, here we are, back from that absurd boardwalk resort, back to--well, for the love of ladies! Martha Hadley, why in the name of nonsense are you eating dinner with your hat on?"

"Because," says Martha, beginnin' to sniffle, "I--I'm going away."

"But where? Why?" demands Zen.o.bia.

And between sobs Martha explains. She includes me in it too.

"Then why aren't you wearing your hat also, Torchy?" asks Zen.o.bia.

"Well," says I, "I ain't so sure about quittin' as she is. I thought I'd stick around until I got the word to move."

"Which you're not at all likely to get, young man," says Zen.o.bia. "And as for you, Martha, you should have better sense. Trapsing off to a hotel, at your time of life! Rubbish! And why, please?"

Aunt Martha nods towards Ballard.

"Well, you're just going to get over that nonsense," says Zen.o.bia.

"Kyrle, you know what you promised when you told me you'd make up with Martha? Now is the appointed time. Do it!"

And Mr. Ballard, chuckin' his hat and overcoat on a chair, sails right in. I expect it was the last thing in the world Martha was lookin' for; for she sits there gazin' at him sort of stupid until he's done the trick. Uh-huh! No halfway business about it, either. He just naturally takes her chubby old face between his two hands, tilts up her chin, and plants a reg'lar final curtain smack where I'll bet it's been forty years since the lips of man had trod before.

First off Martha flops her arms and squeals. Then, when she finds it's all over and ain't goin' to be any continuous performance, she quiets down and stares at the two of 'em, who are chucklin' away merry.

"Please, Sister Martha," says Ballard, "try to overlook that old affair of mine when I tried to cut out the Rev. Preble. I was rather irresponsible then, I'll own; but I have steadied down a lot, although for the last week or so--well, you know how giddy Zen.o.bia is. But you will help us. We can't either of us spare you, you see."

Maybe it was the jollyin' speech, or maybe it was the unexpected smack, but inside of five minutes Martha has shed her bonnet and we're all sittin' around the table as friendly and jolly as you please.

I suppose it was by way of makin' Martha feel comf'table and as if she was really part of the game that they got to reminiscin' about old times and the folks they used to know. I wa'n't followin' it very close until Martha gets to askin' Ballard about some of his people, and he starts in on this story about his nephew.

"Poor d.i.c.k!" says he, pushin' back his demita.s.se and lightin' up a big perfecto. "Now if he'd been my boy, things might have turned out differently. But my respected brother--well, you knew Richard, Martha.

Not at all like me,--eminently respectable, a bit solemn, and tremendously stiff-necked on occasion. The way he took on about that red-headed Irish girl, for instance. Irene, you know. Why, you might have thought, to have heard him storm around, that she was a veritable sorceress, or something of the kind; when, as a matter of fact, she was just a nice, wholesome, keen-witted young woman. Pretty as a picture, she was, and as true as gold too,--a lot too good for young d.i.c.k Ballard, even if she was merely a girl in his father's office. You couldn't blame her for liking d.i.c.k, though. Everyone did--the scatter-brained scamp! And when my brother went through all that melodramatic folly of cutting him off with a thousand a year--well, we had our big row over that. That was when I took my money out of the firm. Lucky I did too. When the panic came I was safe."

"Let's see," says Zen.o.bia, "d.i.c.k and the girl ran off and were married, weren't they?"

"Yes," says Ballard. "It's in the blood, you see. They went to Paris, to carry out one of d.i.c.k's great schemes. He had persuaded some of his friends, big real estate dealers, to make him their foreign agent. His idea was, I believe, to catch Western millionaires abroad and sell 'em Fifth-ave. mansions. Actually did land one or two customers, I think.

But it was his wife's notion that turned out to be really practical,--leasing French and Italian villas to rich Americans.

Something in that, you know, and if d.i.c.k had only stuck to it--but d.i.c.k never could. He got in with some mine promoters, and after that nothing would answer but that he must rush right back to Goldfield and look over some properties that were for sale dirt cheap. As though d.i.c.k would have been any wiser after he'd seen 'em! But his biggest piece of folly was in taking the little boy along with him."

"What! Away from his mother?" says Martha.

"Just like d.i.c.k," says Ballard. "They couldn't both leave the leasing business, and as she knew more about it than he did--well, that's the way they settled it. He persuaded her it would be a fine thing for the youngster. Huh! I came over on the same boat with them, and I want to tell you that little chap simply owned the steamer! Bright? Why, he was the cutest kid you ever saw,--red-headed, like his mother, and with his father's laugh. Spent most of his time on the bridge with the first officer, or down in the engine room with the chief. d.i.c.k never knew where he was half the time.

"He was for taking the boy out into the mining country with him too. I supposed he had until I got this frantic cable from Irene. They'd sent her word about d.i.c.k's sudden end,--he always did have a weak heart, you know,--and something about the high alt.i.tude got him. Went off like that. But Irene was demanding of me to tell her where the boy was. Of course I didn't know. I did my best to find him, hunted high and low. I traced d.i.c.k to Goldfield. No use. The boy was not with him when he went West. Where he had left him was a mystery that----"