There wa'n't; but there was one at six-thirty-eight in the mornin'. We
all caught it, too, both of 'em as chipper as a pair of kids, and me
wonderin' how it was all goin' to turn out.

For three days after that I never went to the 'phone without expectin' to
hear from Bob Cathaway, expressin' his opinion about my qualifications
for the Ananias class. And then here the other afternoon I runs into
Brother DeLancey on the avenue, not seein' him quick enough to beat it up
a side street.

"Ah, McCabe," he sings out, "just a moment! That little affair about my
Brother Robert, you know."

"Sure, I know," says I, bracin' myself. "Where is he now?"

"Why," says DeLancey, with never an eyelash flutterin', "he and his wife
are living at Green Oaks again. Just returned from an extended trip
abroad, you know." Then he winks.

Say, who was it sent out that bulletin about how all men was liars? I
ain't puttin' in any not guilty plea; but I'd like to add that some has
got it down finer than others.

CHAPTER VI

PLAYING HAROLD BOTH WAYS

Anyway, they came bunched, and that was some comfort. Eh? Well, first off
there was the lovers, then there was Harold; and it was only the
combination that saved me from developin' an ingrowin' grouch.

You can guess who it was accumulated the lovers. Why, when Sadie comes
back from Bar Harbor and begins tellin' me about 'em, you'd thought she'd
been left something in a will, she's so pleased.

Seems there was these two young ladies, friends of some friends of hers,
that was bein' just as miserable as they could be up there. One was
visitin' the other, and, as I made out from Sadie's description, they
must have been havin' an awful time, livin' in one of them eighteen-room
cottages built on a point juttin' a mile or so out into the ocean, with
nothin' but yachts and motor boats and saddle horses and tennis courts
and so on to amuse themselves with.

I inspected some of them places when I was up that way not long
ago,--joints where they get their only information about hot waves by
readin' the papers,--and I can just imagine how I could suffer puttin' in
a summer there. Say, some folks don't know when they're well off, do
they?

And what do you suppose the trouble with 'em was? Why, Bobbie and Charlie
was missin'. Honest, that's all the place lacked to make it a suburb of
Paradise. But that was enough for the young ladies; for each of 'em was
sportin' a diamond ring on the proper