Sube Cane Part 46

"Samuel!" cried Mrs. Cane in a voice she seldom found it necessary to use. And as her husband subsided she turned again to Sube. "Nancy wanted you to call her up as soon as you came in," she said.

"Oh, that's all right," Sube explained. "She's seen me since then."

"They why do you suppose she called again about five minutes before you came?" asked his mother.

"Prob'ly I was on the way home," he suggested. "I stopped to talk to some kids. I'll call her up anyway."

Sube went to the telephone, and removing the receiver with one hand he carefully pressed down the hook with the other to avoid arousing the operator, and called loudly for Guilfords' number. Then he held an illuminating though strictly imaginary conversation with Nancy, in the course of which he twitted her playfully about being so easily fooled.

"Put an'thing more on the tree?" he asked finally. "That's right! I guess we put on everything there was. Well, g'by! See you to-morrow!"

And he hung up the receiver.

He had just resumed his chair after this master-stroke when the telephone rang. This time it was the _real_ Nancy.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE PARTY

Sube's glib flow of language of the moment before seemed to have deserted him entirely. He stuttered and stammered and stalled. He tried to put matters off till the morrow, but Nancy would not hear of such a thing. She wanted to be rea.s.sured as to Auntie Emma's condition. She must know at once whether her party was likely to be cheated out of his presence.

"Mamma called up your mother," she informed him, "and she said she hadn't heard a word about it. She thought there must be some mistake."

"Yes, there was," Sube considered it safe to reply.

"You hadn't told her yet! You were keeping it from her to spare her, weren't you, Sube?"

"Yes, I was."

"That's just what I told mamma. And when we both called up and you weren't home yet, I just knew you'd gone down there to help. You had, hadn't you?"

"Why, yes, course I had."

"And now tell me all about how she is."

"I can't!"

"Why, yes, you can! I want to know all about it! Now tell me!"

"But I tell you I can't!"

"But you must!"

"Why, you know--you know--now, what I tole you about one minute, and the next?"

"No! What did you tell me?"

"Why, you know!"

"No, I don't! Tell me again!"

"I can't now!"

"Why not?"

"'Cause I can't!"

"Oh!--I know why!--She's dead!--Mamma!" Sube heard her call. "She's dead!"

"She is not!" screamed Sube. "She's--she's just the _opposite_!"

"She's what?"

"The opposite to what you said!"

"What's that?"

"Alive and kickin'! All well! All over it the next minute! See you to-morrow! G'-by!"

And again slammed on the receiver.

Mrs. Cane had just finished a little dissertation on the elements of courtesy and its necessary place in the lexicon of youth, when Sube looked up absently and asked:

"Who's pooah deah Clar-r-rence?"

"I didn't understand, dear. What's the name?" she asked.

"He's dead, I guess. Nancy's aunt was bawlin' about him to-night."

"He means Clarence Harger," guessed Mr. Cane. "She still sheds tears every time his name is mentioned; and strange to relate, I don't believe her lachrymal glands ever yielded up one drop of moisture until she found that the old tight-wad had left her a quarter of a million that she never dreamed he possessed."

"Was Clarence a tight-wad?" asked Sube with interest. "Where'd he live, anyway? When'd he die?"

"He was a very nice man," Mrs. Cane hastened to explain. "He lived and died in Rochester. And you must be very courteous to Mrs.

Hotchkiss-Harger, as she is one of your father's very best clients. Her husband was a splendid man--"

"Where was he buried?" asked Sube.

"He was buried here in the family lot beside his father and mother."

"But Clarence was a tight-wad, was he?" Sube repeated.

Mr. Cane squirmed. "Oh, that was just a joking way of speaking," he explained seriously. "He was a fine fellow; a very successful business man; he realized that it was the pennies that made the dollars, and ran his business on the lines of strictest efficiency and economy; and although he was well off, he lived very simply--"

"I see," Sube a.s.sured him. "He _was_ a tight-wad!"