a funeral, was
down below in his car. King came up another step, glaring and evidently in
a mood for war and extermination.

"How d'y' do, King?" Dad greeted over my shoulder, before I could say a
word. He may not have had his finger-tips together, but he had the
finger-tip tone, all right, and I knew it was a good man who would get the
better of him. "Out looking for strays? Come right up; I've got two brand
new married couples here, and I need some sane person pretty bad to help
me out." There was the faintest possible accent on the _sane_.

Say, it was the finest thing I had ever seen dad do. And it wasn't what he
said, so much as the way he said it. I knew then why he had such, a record
for getting his own way.

King swallowed hard and glared from dad to me, and then at Beryl, who had
come up and laid my arm over her shoulder--where it was perfectly
satisfied to stay. There was a half-minute when I didn't know whether King
would shoot somebody, or have apoplexy.

"You're late, father," said Beryl sweetly, displaying that blessed
certificate rather conspicuously. "If you had only hurried a little, you
might have been in time for the we-wedding."

I squeezed my arm tight in approval, and came near choking her. King
gasped as if somebody had an arm around his neck, too, and was squeezing.

"Oh, well, you're here now, and it's all right," put in dad easily, as
though everything was quite commonplace and had happened dozens of times
to us. "Crom will have dinner ready soon, though as he and Tony weren't
notified that there would be a wedding-party here, I can't promise the
feast I'd like to. Still, there's a bottle or two good enough to drink
even _their_ happiness in, Homer. Just send your chauffeur down to the
town, and come in." (Good one on Weaver, that--and, the best part of it
was, he heard it.)

King hesitated while I could count ten--if I I counted fast enough--and
came in, following us all back through the vestibule. Inside, he looked me
over and drew his hand down over his mouth; I think to hide a smile.

"Young man, yuh seem born to leave a path uh destruction behind yuh," he
said. "There's a lot uh fixing to be done on that gate--and I don't reckon
I ever _will_ find the padlock again."

His eyes met the keen, steady look of dad, stopped there, wavered,
softened to friendliness. Their hands went out half-shyly and met. "Kids
are sure terrors, these days," he remarked, and they laughed a little. "Us