Walker of the Secret Service
run his fingers over them. It was old-fashioned love-touchin'.
"'Oh!' his voice flickered up, 'beyond question.'
"'Done!' I says. 'Keep it until I come back with your money—an' get me the cash before noon to-morrow.'
"'Don't you want a memorandum?' he says.
"I waved my hand, careless, like it was nothin'.
"'That’s all right,' I says; 'I don't want any promises about that, but there is a thing that I do want a promise about.'
"I threw my cigar in the fireplace and set down.
"'I want you to promise me that you won't ever say anything to Carrots about this, nor to anybody; it's between us—she's a high-strung youngster,' I added; 'this thing’s got to be buried with us, no matter what happens. Is it a trade?'
"We shook hands on it and I got out.
"Before twelve the next day he sent me a draft on New York for the money—an' I'd won a lap.”
The afternoon sun lay on the terrace of the gray stone house, where the big creature, dead to the middle, talked from his chair, clearing the mystery that had covered his disappearance from the world. It was an extraordinary story, and I wished to get it, in detail, precisely clear.
"It was fiction," I asked, "this explanation to Westridge?"
222
