Jap Herron Part 28

CHAPTER XXVI

Bill sat doubled over the case, the stick held listlessly in his hand.

Nervously he fingered the copy, not knowing what he was reading. From time to time he slid down from the stool and lounged across the big office to the street door. Vacantly he returned the greetings of his townsmen, as he gazed past them, across the corner of the little park that lay, brown and gold, in the glory of Indian Summer, across the intervening street where Tom Granger's sedate old house looked out on the leaf-strewn lawn. He could see Tom Granger, pacing up and down the walk. He could see j.a.p, sitting under the great elm, his face hidden in his hands.

"Poor old j.a.p," Bill muttered, brus.h.i.+ng aside a tear, as he returned once more to his case, "life has slammed him so many tough licks that he is always cringing, afraid of another lick."

The morning wore on. Bill gave up the effort at type-setting and tried to apply himself to the exchanges, so that he could the better watch the front of that house. He was near the door, trying to read, when, all at once, Tom stopped pacing. j.a.p sprang up and bounded across the lawn and into the front door. A white-capped nurse ran through the wide hall, and in a little while Mabelle put her head out of an upper window and peered over at the office. Bill pushed his chair back and tramped heavily to the pavement. Then he tramped back again.

"Certainly there are enough of them to let somebody come here with news," he growled. "They don't seem to know that there are telephones--or that I would care."

Half an hour dragged. Then, all alone, his face s.h.i.+ning with holy joy, j.a.p hurried to the office. For a moment neither could speak. Hand in hand, heart beating with heart, they stood looking into each other's eyes. Then j.a.p said huskily:

"Do you remember what Ellis said, that day when his greatest joy came?"

Bill flung his arms around j.a.p and hugged him l.u.s.tily.

"Get out all the roosters?" he cried, tears gus.h.i.+ng from his brown eyes.

"And," said j.a.p slowly, "Isabel wants to call him Jasper William."

THE END