“I warn you, madame, that there is fraud here some place,” persisted the dramatic editor, “downright fraud and deception. These gentlemen have a depraved talent for that sort of thing.”
“Nonsense,” broke in the pie editor beckoning to an office boy whose job it was to open such entries as were encased in substantial packages. As the youngster assailed the box she chirruped on. “I’m using another picture of the clear lady in tomorrow’s paper, Mr. Martin, and I’ll announce the arrival of her contribution in the opening paragraph. I’m just crazy to see it. Quite a large box, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” murmured Jimmy. “She certainly seems to have done the thing up brown.”
He was the picture of serene self-satisfaction as he watched the lid coming off the box. The prospect of triumphing over E. Cartwright a second time filled him with an almost ecstatic joy.
When the lid was removed Mr. Jenkins darted toward the box and pulled out the tufts of crumpled newspapers. He carefully unfolded one and looked at it. Jimmy caught Tom Wilson’s eye at this juncture and winked his off eye prodigiously. E. Cartwright, upon observing the heading and the date line in the paper, threw it down impatiently and began nervously to chew the ends of his moustache.
“We’ve got old George B. Grouch’s goat all right,” confided Jimmy behind his hand.
Miss Slosson untied the string and lifted out the pie which was tightly swathed in a piece of old linen. She undid the wrapping slowly while the interested spectators gathered close around her. The careful young woman in the bake shop had placed a piece of cardboard over the top of the deep china dish, and when this was removed Miss Slosson positively bubbled with delight as she caught sight of the golden brown crust of the wonderful pie.
“It looks perfectly heavenly,” she remarked. “Perfectly heavenly.”
“A masterpiece,” broken in the hitherto silent Mr. Wilson.
“I told you she’d bake one that would win in a walk,” was Jimmy’s contribution to the glad chorus of acclaim.
E. Cartwright didn’t have a word to say. He stood with his hands on his hips watching the two press agents with a look that still betrayed cynical distrust.
“Won’t you please put it over there on that little table all by itself, Mr. Jenkins,” said Miss Slosson. “It certainly deserves a place of honor.”