32 Caliber Part 28

"Helen," I said, "will you please go into the other room?"

"Helen, stay here!" Mary ordered.

"I shall do neither the one nor the other. I shall go up-stairs." She turned to leave.

"If you go, Helen, I'll go with you," Mary announced.

Another ancestral spook with dwarfed, hairy body and gorilla arms, climbed to my left shoulder, sat down on his hunkers and whispered in my ear: "Treat 'em rough!"

"You're going to stay right here!" I commanded, grabbing her by the hand.

"Let go of my hand!" Mary demanded. "I am _not_ going to stay here."

The sight of her sweet indignant face made my heart jump to my throat.

Helen laughed and went up-stairs.

"Mary--" I began, my voice softening.

My ancient forebears made wry faces at each other and hopped down from my shoulders.

"He's a fool!" announced the cave man.

"I'll say he is," answered the pirate.

"I'm not going to stay here a minute longer. Will you please get out of my way?" Mary said coldly.

"No, I won't!" I yelled. "I've had about enough of this, Mary. You think you can dangle me on the end of a string, like a d.a.m.ned jumping- jack, until you see fit to let me have a little rest."

My guiding ancestors hopped back on my shoulders.

"That's the stuff to give 'em!" yelled Hunkers.

"Treat 'em rough!" shouted Captain Kidd.

"You know I was right when I objected to your going with Frank Woods.

It wasn't a friendly thing to do, after the way he messed up things in my family."

"Well, if you hadn't been so dictatorial--"

"Why shouldn't I be dictatorial?" I shouted, while my ancestors held their sides with laughter, "and this being my house I'm going to talk as loud as I please. If the girl I love, as no man ever loved a girl before, tries to go out with a man I think is wholly unworthy of her, why shouldn't I object? I'll do it again. I want you and I'm to have you, if I've got to fight for you. Even if I have to fight _you_ for you."

Suddenly Mary buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.

"Don't cry, Mary! I know I've--"

"I'm not crying, I--I'm laughing," she gurgled, dropping into a chair.

"Bupps, you do look so funny when you get excited."

I went over to her and made her make room for me on her chair, and then I put my arms around her.

"Mary, lover-darling, why did you go out with Frank Woods that day?"

"Why, Bupps, I was hunting the same proof that you were. I felt all along that Frank was guilty."

"I'm a brute!"

"You're a foolish boy," she said, twisting one of my few locks of hair.

She snuggled closer.

"Dearest of dearests, when are you going to stop teasing me?" I asked.

"Never, Buppkins!" she replied. "I just discovered that it brings out your strong points."

"Do you remember what you said when I tried to ask you to marry me?" I whispered. She shook her head.

"You told me to wait until Helen was well."

"You know, Bupps--the first thing I said to Helen this--this afternoon was--"

"What?"

"'How--how well you're looking.'"

With her face so close to mine and those lovely lips smiling at me so invitingly, there was only one thing to do, so I did it.

"The kid's got the stuff in him after all," said Hunkers.

"I'll say he has," agreed Captain Kidd.

THE END