Nor Mr. Ainnesley, either, I think. So that
puts it up to me pretty squarely, doesn't it? We'll have to win
through--because we have to, now!"
"Quite so!" murmured Caleb again.
He studied a long time over his next words, and it was a very vivid
vision of a rigid little figure in a wrecked black velvet suit--a
vision of a bleak-faced boy with bruised lips who had insisted upon
going back downtown for Miss Sarah's eggs--which eventually overbore
his distaste for anything that might savor of disloyalty to a friend.
"Of course there could arise unforeseen circumstances," he ventured.
"Unforeseen interference which, unless one guarded against it, might
defeat every effort."
The room seemed very, very quiet.
"Of course," came the calm answer at last; and Caleb could not see
Steve's face behind the cupped hands at his pipe bowl, "of
course--unless one more or less guarded against it."
And there, just as calmly, they dropped it. The topic was not
discussed again that night, unless a bit of news which Fat Joe Morgan
himself delivered might be construed as somehow relative. Fat Joe had
been driving for an hour, silent some of the time, but for the most
part devoted to a whole-hearted rendition of "Home, Sweet Home," in his
thin and bell-like tenor, when he broke off in the middle of a stanza
to chuckle.
"Say, Chief," he exclaimed, "I've got news for you that'll just fill
you plumb full of happiness and good cheer.
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