"Don't tell them," said Johnny; "not just for a little while, at all events."
"Nothing to do with me," replied Mrs. Postwhistle.
Twenty minutes later, the real Miss Bulstrode, on a visit to her aunt in Kensington, was surprised at receiving, enclosed in an envelope, the following hastily scrawled note:-"Want to speak to you at once--ALONE. Don't yell when you see me.
It's all right. Can explain in two ticks.--Your loving brother, JOHNNY."
It took longer than two ticks; but at last the Babe came to an end of it.
"When you have done laughing," said the Babe.
"But you look so ridiculous," said his sister.
"THEY didn't think so," retorted the Babe. "I took them in all right. Guess you've never had as much attention, all in one day."
"Are you sure you took them in?" queried his sister.
"If you will come to the Club at eight o'clock this evening," said the Babe, "I'll prove it to you. Perhaps I'll take you on to a theatre afterwards--if you're good."
The Babe himself walked into the Autolycus Club a few minutes before eight and encountered an atmosphere of restraint.
"Thought you were lost," remarked Somerville coldly.
"Called away suddenly--very important business," explained the Babe. "Awfully much obliged to all you fellows for all you have been doing for my sister. She's just been telling me."
"Don't mention it," said two or three.
"Awfully good of you, I'm sure," persisted the Babe. "Don't know what she would have done without you."
A mere nothing, the Club assured him. The blushing modesty of the Autolycus Club at hearing of their own good deeds was touching.
Left to themselves, they would have talked of quite other things.
As a matter of fact, they tried to.
"Never heard her speak so enthusiastically of anyone as she does of you, Jack," said the Babe, turning to Jack Herring.
"Of course, you know, dear boy," explained Jack Herring, "anything I could do for a sister of yours--"
"I know, dear boy," replied the Babe; "I always felt it."
"Say no more about it," urged Jack Herring.
"She couldn't quite make out that letter of yours this morning," continued the Babe, ignoring Jack's request. "She's afraid you think her ungrateful."
"It seemed to me, on reflection," explained Jack Herring, "that on one or two little matters she may have misunderstood me. As I wrote her, there are days when I don't seem altogether to quite know what I'm doing."
"Rather awkward," thought the Babe.
"It is," agreed Jack Herring. "Yesterday was one of them."
"She tells me you were most kind to her," the Babe reassured him.
"She thought at first it was a little uncivil, your refusing to lend her any money. But as I put it to her --"
"It was silly of me," interrupted Jack. "I see that now. I went round this morning meaning to make it all right. But she was gone, and Mrs. Postwhistle seemed to think I had better leave things as they were. I blame myself exceedingly."
"My dear boy, don't blame yourself for anything. You acted nobly," the Babe told him. "She's coming here to call for me this evening on purpose to thank you."
"I'd rather not," said Jack Herring.
"Nonsense," said the Babe.
"You must excuse me," insisted Jack Herring. "I don't mean it rudely, but really I'd rather not see her."
"But here she is," said the Babe, taking at that moment the card from old Goslin's hand. "She will think it so strange."
"I'd really rather not," repeated poor Jack.
"It seems discourteous," suggested Somerville.
"You go," suggested Jack.
"She doesn't want to see me," explained Somerville.
"Yes she does," corrected him the Babe.
"I'd forgotten, she wants to see you both."
"If I go," said Jack, "I shall tell her the plain truth."
"Do you know," said Somerville, "I'm thinking that will be the shortest way."
Miss Bulstrode was seated in the hall. Jack Herring and Somerville both thought her present quieter style of dress suited her much better.
"Here he is," announced the Babe, in triumph. "Here's Jack Herring and here's Somerville. Do you know, I could hardly persuade them to come out and see you. Dear old Jack, he always was so shy."
Miss Bulstrode rose. She said she could never thank them sufficiently for all their goodness to her. Miss Bulstrode seemed quite overcome. Her voice trembled with emotion.
"Before we go further, Miss Bulstrode," said Jack Herring, "it will be best to tell you that all along we thought you were your brother, dressed up as a girl."
"Oh!" said the Babe, "so that's the explanation, is it? If I had only known--" Then the Babe stopped, and wished he hadn't spoken.
Somerville seized him by the shoulders and, with a sudden jerk, stood him beside his sister under the gas-jet.
"You little brute!" said Somerville. "It was you all along." And the Babe, seeing the game was up, and glad that the joke had not been entirely on one side, confessed.
Jack Herring and Somerville the Briefless went that night with Johnny and his sister to the theatre--and on other nights. Miss Bulstrode thought Jack Herring very nice, and told her brother so.
But she thought Somerville the Briefless even nicer, and later, under cross-examination, when Somerville was no longer briefless, told Somerville so himself.
But that has nothing to do with this particular story, the end of which is that Miss Bulstrode kept the appointment made for Monday afternoon between "Miss Montgomery" and Mr. Jowett, and secured thereby the Marble Soap advertisement for the back page of Good Humour for six months, at twenty-five pounds a week.