T. Tembarom Part 26

He shook hands with both of them furiously, and two footmen stood and looked at the group with image-like calm of feature, but with curiously interested eyes. Hutchinson was aware of them, and endeavored to present to them a back which by its stolid composure should reveal that he knew more about such things than this chap did and wasn't a bit upset by grandeur.

"Hully gee!" cried Tembarom again, "how glad I am! Come on in and sit down and let's talk it over."

Burrill made a stately step forward, properly intent on his duty, and his master waved him back.

"Say," he said hastily, "don't bring in any tea. They don't want it.

They're Americans."

Hutchinson snorted. He could not stand being consigned to ignominy before the footmen.

"Nowt o' th' sort," he broke forth. " We're noan American. Tha'rt losing tha head, lad."

"He's forgetting because he met us first in New York," said Little Ann, smiling still more.

"Shall I take your hat and cane, sir?" inquired Burrill, unmovedly, at Hutchinson's side.

"He wasn't going to say anything about tea," explained Little Ann as they went into the library. "They don't expect to serve tea in the middle of the morning, Mr. Temple Barholm."

"Don't they?" said Tembarom, reckless with relieved delight. "I thought they served it every time the clock struck. When we were in London it seemed like Palford had it when he was hot and when he was cold and when he was glad and when he was sorry and when he was going out and when he was coming in. It's brought up to me, by jinks! as soon as I wake, to brace me up to put on my clothes--and Pearson wants to put those on."

He stopped short when they reached the middle of the room and looked her over.

"O Little Ann!" he breathed tumultuously. "0 Little Ann!"

Mr. Hlutchinson was looking about the library as he had looked about the hall.

"Well, I never thought I'd get inside Temple Barlholm in my day," he exclaimed. "Eh, lad, tha must feel like bull in a china shop."

"I feel like a whole herd of 'em," answered Tembarom. Hutchinson nodded. He understood.

"Well, perhaps tha'll get over it in time," he conceded, "but it'll take thee a good bit." Then he gave him a warmly friendly look. "I'll lay you know what Ann came with me for to-day." The way Little Ann looked at him--the way she looked at him!

"I came to thank you, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said--"to thank you."

And there was an odd, tender sound in her voice.

"Don't you do it, Ann," Tembarom answered. "Don't you do it."

"I don't know much about business, but the way you must have worked, the way you must have had to run after people, and find them, and make then listen, and use all your New York cleverness--because you ARE clever. The way you've forgotten all about yourself and thought of nothing but father and the invention! I do know enough to understand that, and it seems as if I can't think of enough to say. I just wish I could tell you what it means to me." Two round pearls of tears brimmed over and fell down her cheeks. "I promised mother FAITHFUL I'd take care of him and see he never lost hope about it," she added, "and sometimes I didn't know whatever I was going to do."

It was perilous when she looked at one like that, and she was so little and light that one could have s.n.a.t.c.hed her up in his arms and carried her to the big arm-chair and sat down with her and rocked her backward and forward and poured forth the whole thing that was making him feel as though he might explode.

Hutchinson provided salvation.

"Tha pulled me out o' the water just when I was going under, lad. G.o.d bless thee!" he broke out, and shook his hand with rough vigor. "I signed with the North Electric yesterday."

"Good business!" said Tembarom. "Now I'm in on the ground floor with what's going to be the biggest money-maker in sight."

"The way tha talked New York to them chaps took my fancy," chuckled Hutchinson. "None o' them chaps wants to be the first to jump over the hedge."

"We've got 'em started now," exulted Tembarom.

"Tha started 'em," said Hutchinson, "and it's thee I've got to thank."

"Say, Little Ann," said Tembarom, with sudden thought, "who's come into money now? You'll have it to burn."

"We've not got it yet, Mr. Temple Barholm," she replied, shaking her head. "Even when inventions get started, they don't go off like sky- rockets."

"She knows everything, doesn't she?" Tembarom said to Hutchinson.

"Here, come and sit down. I've not seen you for 'steen years."

She took her seat in the big arm-chair and looked at him with softly examining eyes, as though she wanted to understand him sufficiently to be able to find out something she ought to do if he needed help.

He saw it and half laughed, not quite unwaveringly.

"You'll make me cry in a minute," he said. " You don't know what it's like to have some one from home and mother come and be kind to you."

"How is Mr. Strangeways?" she inquired.

"He's well taken care of, at any rate. That's where he's got to thank you. Those rooms you and the housekeeper chose were the very things for him. They're big and comfortable, and 'way off in a place where no one's likely to come near. The fellow that's been hired to valet me valets him instead, and I believe he likes it. It seems to come quite natural to him, any how. I go in and see him every now and then and try to get him to talk. I sort of invent things to see if I can start him thinking straight. He's quieted down some and he looks better.

After a while I'm going to look up some big doctors in London and find out which of 'em's got the most plain horse sense. If a real big one would just get interested and come and see him on the quiet and not get him excited, he might do him good. I'm dead stuck on this stunt I've set myself--getting him right. It's something to work on."

"You'll have plenty to work on soon," said Little Ann. "There's a lot of everyday things you've got to think about. They may seem of no consequence to you, but they ARE, Mr. Temple Barholm."

"If you say they are, I guess they are," he answered. "I'll do anything you say, Ann."

"I came partly to tell you about some of them to-day," she went on, keeping the yearningly thoughtful eyes on him. It was rather hard for her, too, to be firm enough when there was so much she wanted to say and do. And he did not look half as twinkling and light-heartedly grinning as he had looked in New York.

He couldn't help dropping his voice a little coaxingly, though Mr.

Hutchinson was quite sufficiently absorbed in examination of his surroundings.

"Didn't you come to save my life by letting me have a look at you, Little Ann--didn't you?" he pleaded.

She shook her wonderful, red head.

"No, I didn't, Mr. Temple Barholm," she answered with Manchester downrightness. " When I said what I did in New York, I meant it. I didn't intend to hang about here and let you--say things to me. You mustn't say them. Father and me are going back to Manchester in a few days, and very soon we have to go to America again because of the business."

"America!" he said. "Oh, Lord!" he groaned. "Do you want me to drop down dead here with a dull, sickening thud, Ann? "

"You're not going to drop down dead," she replied convincedly. "You're going to stay here and do whatever it's your duty to do, now you've come into Temple Barholm."

"Am I?" he answered. "Well, we'll see what I'm going to do when I've had time to make up my mind. It may be something different from what you'd think, and it mayn't. Just now I'm going to do what you tell me.

Go ahead, Little Ann."

She thought the matter over with her most destructive little air of sensible intentness.

"Well, it may seem like meddling, but it isn't," she began rather concernedly. "It's just that I'm used to looking after people. I wanted to talk to you about your clothes."

"My clothes?" he replied, bewildered a moment; but the next he understood and grinned. "I haven't got any. My valet--think of T. T.

with a valet!--told me so last night."