The evening world. Newspaper, December 24, 1921, Page 15

eer ere Papasan peepee > a x THE EVENING eee EVENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION, SATURDAY, DECENSIR 34, same Reader, and lifted the bandage. Bulg- ing mush, the four dogs lay at rest. “Oh—h,"’ crooned Flame. “How sweet! Now, Mr. Laurello,”’ she sug- gested blithely, “if you'll get the Bibles"—— “Bibles?” stiffened the Lay Reader. “Bibles? Why, really, Miss Flame, I couldn't countenance any sort of mock service. Even just for—for quaintness --even for Christmas. quaintness!” “Bibles? All I want them for is to plump up the chairs. The seats, you see, are too low for the dogs, Oh, I suppose dictionaries would do,” reluc- tantly. “Only dictionaries are always scarcer.” Obediently the Lay Reader built Chemistries on Sermons and Ancient Poems on Cook Books till the desired heights were reached, For a single moment more Flame took another peek at the table. “Set a chair for yourself directly op- posite me!” she ordered. “And when- ever I really feel obliged to look you'll just have to leave the table, that's all! And now’—— Appraisingly her muf- fled eye swept the shining vista. “Per- fect!’ she triumphed. “Perfect!” Then, abruptly, the eager mouth wilted. “Why—why, I've forgotten the carving knife and fork!” she cried out in real distress, “Oh, how stupid of me!” Without avail she searched through all the drawers and cupboards of the Rattle-Pane kitchen, “You'll have to go over to my house and get them—Mr. Laurello! You'll have to climb in through the window—some way,” worried Flame. ‘I've mislaid my key here among all these dishes and boxes. Only please—please— hurry!”" “If I hurry enough,” said the Lay Reader quite impulsively, ‘‘may I have a kiss when I get back?” “A kiss?” hooted Flame. In the curve of her cheek a dimple opened suddenly. “‘Well—maybe,”’ said Flame, The Lay Reader snatched: his hat and sped out into the night. Flame dragged down the bandage from her eyes, dashed to the door and hello’'d to the fast retreating figure. “Oh, Bertrand! Bertrand!” she called. “If you don’t find 'em in the pantry you'd better go up in mother’s room and turn out the silver chest! Hurry!” Rallying back to the bright Christ- mas kitchen, an accusing blush rose to the spot where the dimple had been, “Oh, shucks!” parried Flame “I kissed a bishop before I was five! What's a lay reader?” She rolled up sleeves without further in- trospection, and dragged out from the shadow of the sink the “humpiest”’ box. The clumsy cover slid off, expos- ing once more the gay-colored muslin layer of animal masks Jeering fatu- nusly up at her. “Poor Miss Flora: must be so tired of being so plain,” she thought. “I'll give her the first choice of every- thing! Something really—lovely! It can’t help resting her." She selected for Miss Canary’s face. Softly yellow! Its swelling, tender muslin throat, fairly reeking with the suggestion. of inno- ent song! Nudging Miss Flora cau- tiously from her sonorous nap, Flame beguiled her with half a doughnut to her appointed chair, boosted her still her white Flora a CBUtGnSlY to her pinnacle of books, and ‘slipped the Canary’s beautiful blond countenance over her grizzled mug. Miss Flora sat blinking beadily out through the Canary’s yellow-rimmed eye sockets with frank curiosity toward such proceedings as were about to follow, It was casy to see she was accustomed to. sitting in chairs. For the wolfhound Flame chose a Giraffe’s head. Beautiful- Lovely resigned himself to the inevi- table, and Iolled his fine height Fr inst the mahogany chair back. ro Blunder-Blot, the trim Dalma- tian, Flame assigned the Parrot's head, arrogantly beaked, gorgeously variegated, altogether querulous. For Lopsy, the crafty setter, she se- lected a White Rabbit’s artless, pink- cored visage Yet out of the whole box of masks it had been the Bengal Tiger's fiercely Lewhiskered visage that had fascin- ited Flame the most. Cocking her head toward the woodshed, Flame could not be perfectly sure whether she heard a twinge of cat or a twinge of conscience, “After all,” she reasoned, “it would be easy enough to set another place! And pile a few extra books! I'm al- most sure T saw a black plush bag in the parlor.” In five minutes the deed was accom- jished, The astonished Cat found herself slumping soggily on a great pile of books staring down as best she might through the Bengal Tiger's ear at the weirdest assemblage of animals which any domestic cat had ever been forced to contemplate. Very diplomatically Flame broke inother dou ener | in two and drew all he dogs’ attention to herself HIUS it was that the Master of the House, pectedly, returning unex- stumbled upon a scene that might have shaken a less sober Startled by the the reason of young man. unwont ilaeiee - the ranger sat WORLD'S FICTION tion from his kitchen windows and by the unprecedented groma of fir bal- sam that greeted him at his new front door, he groped through the dingy hall, and beheld the gallowslike struc- ture reared in the kitchen doorway. “My God!" he ejaculated, “Barret ts getting ready to hang himself! Gone mad, probably—or something!" He forced himself to the object to note with increasing bewilderment the cheerful phrasing. ‘ ‘Christmas Cross- ing?” he repeated blankly. ‘ ‘Look Out for Surprises?’—— ‘Shop! Cook! Glis- ten!’ Throwing all caution aside, he passed the buffet and plunged into the kitchen. “Oh, do hurry!” cried an eager young voice, “I thought my hair would be white before you came!" SECTION, SATURDAY, and fro in uncontrollable, choking mirth—"ribald mirth’ was what Flame called it. It was not until the Black Plush Bag at bay had ripped a rod streak down Miss Flora’s avid nose that he rose to interfere. Very defi- nitely then, with quick deeds, incisive words, he separated the immediate combatants and ordered the other dogs into submission. “Here you, Demon Direful,” he ad- dressed the white Wolfhound. ‘'Drop that, Orion!" he shouted to the Irish setter, “Cut it out, John!" he thun- dered at the coach dog. “Their names are Beautiful-Lovely!” cried Flame, Blot!” The stranger stared with frank as- tonishment, “Their names are what?” he said, “and Lopsy and Blunder- HE SAW A MARAUDER CRAWLING THROUGH THE RECTORY WIN DOW, He stopped short in his tracks to stare at the scene before him! The bright table! The absolutely formal food! A perfectly strange blindfolded girl—with her dark hair forty years this side of white—begsing him to hurry! A Black Velvet Bag surmount- ed by a Tiger’s Head stirring strangely in a chair piled high with books! A Canary as big as a Turkey gobbler! A Giraffe stepping suddenly forward with—with dog paws thrust into his soup plate! A White Rabbit rousing eautiously from his cushions! A Par- rot with a twitching black-and-white short-haired tail! An empty chair fac- ing the Girl! An empty chair facing the girl! In another instant he had slipped into the vacant seat. “So sorry to have kept you walt- ing,” he murmured. Flame yanked the handkerchief from her eyes, took one blank glance at the stranger, and burst forth into a blood- curdling stream, As though waiting only for that one signal to break the spell of their en- chantment, the Canary leaped upward and grabbed the Bengal Tiger by his muslin nose; the White Rabbit sprang to “point” on the cooling turkey, and the Red-and-Green Parrot fell to the floor in a desperate effort to settle once and for all with the black spot that itched so impulsively on his left shoul- der! Tost to all sense of honor or table manners, the benign-faced Giraffe burst through his own neck with a most curious anatomical effect, locked his teeth in the Parrot's gray throat, and rolled with him under the table in mortal combat. From her terrorized perch on the back of her chair, Flame watched the fracas with dilated eyes erry in the hug ¢? his own arms vecxing himself to In an instant Flame had jumped from her retreat to the floor. “Who are you, anyway?” she de- manded. “Hlow dare you come here like this?” Butting into my party! And—and spoiling my discipline with the dogs! Who are you, I say?” “Who am I?" he said. ‘‘Why, no one special at all except just—the Master of the House!" “What?” gasped Flame. “Earle Delcote,’’ bowed the stranger, “Why—why, but Mr. Delcote is an old man,” she gasped. “I’m almost sure he’s an old man.” The smile on the stranger's mouth spread suddenly to his eyes “Not yet—thank God!" he bowed. Flame sank limply down in her seat again and gestured toward the empty place opposite her, ra “Have a—have a chair,” she stam- mered. “Oh, I—I know I oughtn’t to be here,” she struggled. “It’s the—tho cheeklest thing that any girl in the world ever did! But your butler said——! And he did so want to go away and—— And I did so love your dogs! And I did so want to make one Christmas in the world just—exactly the way I wanted it!” The Master of the Tlouse slipped back into his chair, i “Have a heart!" he said Flame did not accept this sugges- tion. With Wowncast staring at the table. cheerless table eyes she gat It seemed a very suddenly, with all the dogs grouped blatantly around their masters chair “IT can at least have my Cat,” sh thought, “my—faithful Cat!" In an other instant she had extracted pr Puss from a clutter of pans in the back of a cupboard, and brought he back growling and brjstling to perch om one arm of the } s-backed ,chair “Th--ere!" gaid F\: The eyes of the stranger fixed specu- DECEMBU:R 24 “Mim! He saw the 1921. latively on the big turkey. “I'm afraid everything is very cold,” she confided with formal regret. “Not for anything,” laughed the stranger quite suddenly, “woud I have kept you waiting—if I had only known.” Two spots of color glowed girl's cheeks. “St was not for you I wag waiting,” she sald coldly. “N—o?” teased the stranger, “For whom, then? Some !recredible wight who, worse than late—isn’t going to show up at all? Heaven-sent, I con- sider myself. How else could so little a girl have managed so big a turkey?” “There—isn’'t any—carving knife." “What? No carving Knife?” he roared imperiously, “And the house guaranteed ‘furnished’?” Very furi- ously he began to hunt all around the kitchen, “Oh, it’s furnished all right,’ quiv- ered Flame, “It’s just chockful of dead things. Pressed flowers! And old plush bags! And pressed flowers! in the And—and pressed flowers!" “Great Heavens!” groaned the stranger. “And I came here to forget ‘dead things’!"” “Your—your butler said vou'd had misfortunes,” murmured Flame, “Misfortunes,” rallied the stranger. “T should think I*had! In a single year I've lost health, money—most every- thing I own in the world except my man ang my dogs!" “They’ re—good Flame. “And the doctor's sent me here for six months,” persisted the stranger, “before he'll even hear of my plunging into things again!” “Six months is a—a good long time,” said Flame, “If you'd turm the hems, we could make yellow curtains for the parlor in no time at all!” “W—we?" stammered the stranger. “M—mother,” said Flame, “—It’s a long time since any dogs Nved in the Rattle-Pane House.” -Rattle-Brain House?” dogs,” testified bridled the stranger. “Rattke-Pane house,” corrected Flame, HE stranger returned to his seat, “I shall have to rend the turkey instead of carving It,” he said, “Rend it," acquiesced Flame, “In the midst of the rending a frown appeared between the stranger's eyes. “Trese—these guests that you were expecting——?” he questioned. “Oh, stop!” cried Flame. “Dreadful as Iam TI never—never would have dreamed of inviting ‘guests'!’’ “This ‘guest,’ then,” frowned the stranger, “Was he——?” “Oh, you mean—Bertrand?” flushed Flame, “Oh, truly, I didn’t invite him, He just butted in—same as you!” “Same as—I?" stammered the stran- ger. “Well——” floundered Flame, ‘Well ~you know what I mean——” The Master of the House fixed his eyes on the knotted white landker- chief which Flame had thrown acrosg: the corner of her chalr, “And is this ‘Bertrand’ person so-—so dozzling,” he questioned, “that human eye may not look safely upon his coun tenance?” “Bertrand — dazzling?” protested Flame, “Oh, no! He's really quite dull, It was only,” she explained with sudden friendliness—‘It was only that I had promised mother not to ‘see’ him. So, of course, when he butted in I°— “O—h,” relaxed the Master of the House, “And some people talk about a country village being dull in the wintertime!” he Dogs’ chuckled, Masquerade and a “With a robbery at the Rectory all happenindg the same evening!" Grabbing her Cat in her = arms, Flame jerked her chair back from the table, “A—a robbery gasped. “Why I must go home “Oh, shuck at the rectory?” she why, I'm the rectory? at once!" shrugged the Master of the House, “It’s all over now, The Constable and his prisoner are already on their way to the county seat—wher- ever that may be, The regular Coy- stable was off Christmasing some- where, it seems, so he put a substitute on his job, a stranger from somewhere Some substitute that! No mulling over hot toddies on. Christmas night for marauder crawling in through the Rectory window! He saw him fumbling now to the left, now 1o the right, all through the front hall! He followed him up the stairs to a closet where the silver was evidently kept! Me caught the man red-handed, is it were! It seems there was a solid silver, very claborate carving set which the parish had just recently presented The wretch was just un rolling it, then, when he was caught.” “That was Lertrand!"” said Flame “my father’s Lay Reader It was the man's turn now to jump to his feet Order Your Evening World in Advance