The Fortune Hunter Part 20

"And--and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.

"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as yet."

"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.

He thanked her humbly.

"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie a.s.sured him. "We just thought we'd like some soda."

"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked himself, utterly bewildered.

"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we----"

"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud, "Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased to step this way?"

Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that pa.s.sed between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears, if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"

he demanded genially. "Er--that is--I mean, would you prefer vanilla or--ah--soda?"

A chant antiphonal answered him:

"I hate vanilla."

"And so do I."

"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's--ah-- vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but when you get a really fine vintage--ah--imported vanilla, it's quite another matter--ah--particularly at his season of the year----"

His confusion was becoming painful.

"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.

"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now, you know--ah--after the bock season--ah--I mean, when the weather is-- is--in a way--you might put it--vanilla weather."

"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly for the moment.

"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."

He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the gla.s.sware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however; there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey gla.s.s and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.

A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.

"You--ah--wanted vanilla, did you not?"

"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.

"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the gla.s.s.

Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup in the gla.s.s, you know, and then the soda."

"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba--ah--a long drink of it. Ah, yes!" He procured a gla.s.s of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."

"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.

"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-gla.s.s and the jar and began to pour.

"If you'll just say when."

"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."

"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he promised himself, holding the gla.s.s beneath the faucet and fiddling nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with the valves.

As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the gla.s.s, found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.

"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay where you are, I'll try again."

Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under control."

Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their experience of men.

He had filled one gla.s.s and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a noon-day sun.

"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.

"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."

The second gla.s.s (for he was determined that Angie should not escape) took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he inquired out of this deep preoccupation.

"What?"

"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.

"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the gla.s.s he offered her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"

He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would pa.s.s unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."

"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up her gla.s.s.

"Choir?"

"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to, awfully."

"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.

"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"

"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."

"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.

"Why, what do you mean by that?"

Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they eyed him in a peculiar fas.h.i.+on. "It's--I mean--a little trouble with my throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I may, first."