The wedding! The drive from the church! The carriage is halted by a street crowd. A stalwart policeman appears. He has just arrested two women, confirmed window-smashers--Grandma, the Demon, and the flapper. The flapper gives him one long look, then bows her head. She sees all the nobility she has missed. Serve her right, too!
Noon came and he was about to leave the office. He was still the changed man of quip and jest. Desperately he jested with old Metzeger, who was regretfully, it seemed, relinquishing his adored ledgers from Saturday noon until Monday morning.
"Say, I want to borrow nineteen thousand eleven hundred and eighty-nine dollars and thirty-seven cents until the sixteenth at seven minutes to eleven."
Old Metzeger repeated the numbers accurately. He looked wistful, but he knew it was a jest.
"Telephone for Boston Bean!" cried an office boy, dryly affecting to be unconscious of his wit.
He rushed nervously for the booth. No one in the great city had ever before found occasion to telephone him. He thought of Professor Balthasar. Balthasar would warn him to fly at once; that all was discovered.
He held the receiver to his ear and managed a husky "Hello!"
At first there were many voices, mostly indignant: "I want the manager!" "Get off the line!" "A hundred and nine and three quarters!" "That you, Howard? Say, this is--" "Get--off--that--line!" "Or I'll know the reason why before to-morrow night!" And then from Bedlam pealed the voice of the flapper, silencing these evil spirits.
"Hello! Hello! This line makes me perfectly furious. To-morrow about three o'clock--you're to give us tea and things, some nice place--Granny and me. Be along in the car. I remember the number. Be there. Good-bye!"
There was the rattle of a receiver being hung up. But he stood there not believing it--tea and car and be there--The receiver rattled again.
"Yes, right away," muttered Bean. Then he brightened. "I knew your voice the moment I heard it." The madness was upon him and he soared. "You're Chubbins!" He waited.
"Cut out the Chubbins stuff, Bill, and get off there!" directed a coarse masculine voice from the unseen wire-world.
He got off there with all possible quickness. His first thought was that she probably had not heard the magnificent piece of daring. It was too bad. Probably he never could do it again. Then he turned and discovered that he had left the door of the telephone booth ajar. Chubbins might not have heard him, but Bulger assuredly had.