"I hated being away from you."
"But you liked the country?"
"I loved it."
McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the
great change did not exist.
"How would you like to go back to England, Molly?"
"To England! When I've just come home?"
"If I went, too?"
Molly twisted around so that she could see his face better.
"There's something the matter with you, father. You're trying to say
something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I'll
make Rastus bite you!"
"It won't take long, dear. I've been lucky in some investments while
you were away, and I'm going to leave the force, and take you over
to England, and find a prince for you to marry--if you think you
would like it."
"Father! It'll be perfectly splendid!"
"We'll start fair in England, Molly. I'll just be John McEachern,
from America, and, if anybody wants to know anything about me, I'm a
man who has made money on Wall Street--and that's no lie--and has
come over to England to spend it."
Molly gave his arm a squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
"Father, dear," she whispered, "I believe you've been doing it all
for me. You've been slaving away for me ever since I was born,
stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good
time later on."
"No, no!"
"It's true," she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. "I
don't believe you've had enough to eat for years. I believe you're
all skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow, I'll take you out and buy
you the best dinner you've ever had, out of my own money. We'll go
to Sherry's, and you shall start at the top of the menu, and go
straight down it till you've had enough."
"That will make up for everything. And, now, don't you think you
ought to be going to bed? You'll be losing all that color you got on
the ship."
"Soon--not just yet. I haven't seen you for such ages!" She pointed
at the bull-terrier. "Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He
can't believe I've really come back. Father, there was a man on the
Lusitania with eyes exactly like Tommy's--all brown and bright--and
he used to stand and stare just like Tommy's doing."
"If I had been there," said her father wrathfully, "I'd have knocked
his head off."
"No, you wouldn't, because I'm sure he was really a very nice young
man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn't
have got at him to knock his head off, because he was traveling
second-class."
"Second-class? Then, you didn't talk with him?"
"We couldn't. You wouldn't expect him to shout at me across the
railing! Only, whenever I walked round the deck, he seemed to be
there."
"Staring!"
"He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking
the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I
don't think you can make much of a romance out of it, father."
"I don't want to, my dear. Princes don't travel in the second-
cabin."
"He may have been a prince in disguise."
"More likely a drummer," grunted Mr. McEachern.
"Drummers are often quite nice, aren't they?"
"Princes are nicer."
"Well, I'll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of.
Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can't you
behave, like Rastus? Still, you don't snore, do you? Aren't you
going to bed soon, father? I believe you've been sitting up late and
getting into all sorts of bad habits while I've been away. I'm sure
you have been smoking too much. When you've finished that cigar,
you're not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!"
"Not one?"
"Not one. I'm not going to have my father getting like the people
you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don't want to
feel sudden shooting pains, do you?"
"No, my dear."
"And have to take some awful medicine?"
"No."
"Then, promise."
"Very well, my dear. I promise."
As the door closed, the captain threw away the stump he was smoking,
and remained for a moment in thought. Then, he drew another cigar
from his case, lighted it, and resumed the study of the little note-
book. It was past three o'clock when he went to his bedroom.
CHAPTER V
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
How long the light had been darting about the room like a very much
enlarged firefly, Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours,
for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and
for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he
fancied that he was dreaming still. Then, sleep left him, and he
realized that the light, which was now moving slowly across the
bookcase, was a real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or
he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be
taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly and
gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light
passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the
left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.
From the position of the ray, Jimmy could see that the burglar was
approaching on his side of the table. Though until that day he had
not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly
stamped on his mind's eye. He knew almost to a foot where his
visitor was standing. Consequently, when, rising swiftly from the
chair, he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no
speculative dive. It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained
by any uncertainty as to whether the road to the burglar's knees was
clear or not.
His shoulder bumped into a human leg. His arms closed
instantaneously on it, and pulled. There was a yelp of dismay, and a
crash. The lantern bounced away across the room, and wrecked itself
on the reef of the steam-heater. Its owner collapsed in a heap on
top of Jimmy.
Jimmy, underneath at the fall, speedily put himself uppermost with a
twist of his body. He had every advantage. The burglar was a small
man, and had been taken very much by surprise, and any fight there
might have been in him in normal circumstances had been shaken out
of him by the fall. He lay still, not attempting to struggle.
Jimmy half-rose, and, pulling his prisoner by inches to the door,
felt up the wall till he found the electric-light button.
The yellow glow that flooded the room disclosed a short, stocky
youth of obviously Bowery extraction. A shock of vivid red hair was
the first thing about him that caught the eye. A poet would have
described it as Titian. Its proprietor's friends and acquaintances
probably called it "carrots." Looking up at Jimmy from under this
wealth of crimson was a not unpleasing face. It was not handsome,
certainly; but there were suggestions of a latent good-humor. The
nose had been broken at one period of its career, and one of the
ears was undeniably of the cauliflower type; but these are little
accidents which may happen to any high-spirited young gentleman. In
costume, the visitor had evidently been guided rather by individual
taste than by the dictates of fashion. His coat was of rusty black,
his trousers of gray, picked out with stains of various colors.
Beneath the coat was a faded red-and-white sweater. A hat of soft
felt lay on the floor by the table.
The cut of the coat was poor, and the fit of it spoiled by a bulge
in one of the pockets. Diagnosing this bulge correctly, Jimmy
inserted his hand, and drew out a dingy revolver.
"Well?" he said, rising.