FullReads

“Mister Snooks?” inquired Anderson quickly. “Well, that solves one of the mysteries that’s been botherin’ me. An’–an’ you say she’s the big actress whose picture we see in the papers every now an’ again?”

“The same, Mr. Crow. She has done me the honour to accept a play that I have been guilty of writing. She came up here to go over it with me before putting it into rehearsal, and incidentally to enjoy a month’s vacation after a long and prosperous season in New York.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve knowed all along who she was?” demanded Anderson. “Been comin’ up here to see her every night or so, I suppose.”

“More or less.”

“That settles it!” said the Marshal sternly. “You are under arrest, sir. Have you got anybody to bail you out, er are you goin’ to spend the night in the lock-up?”

“What’s the charge, Mr. Hawkshaw?” inquired Harry, amiably.

“Practisin’ without a dicense.”

“Practising what?” asked Harry.

“Jokes!” roared Anderson gleefully, and slapped him on the back.

* * * * *

Again the Marshal slapped the culprit’s back. “Yes, sir, the joke’s on me. I admit it. I’ll set up the seegars for everybody here. Sim, send a box of them ‘Uncle Tom’ specials round to my office first thing in the mornin’. Yes, sir, Harry, my boy, you certainly caught me nappin’ good and plenty. Tain’t often I git–“

“If you don’t mind, Anderson,” interrupted Elmer K. Pratt, “I’ll take a nickel’s worth of chewin’-tobacco. My wife don’t like me to smoke around the house.”

“Gentlemen,” said Harry Squires, “there are a few bottles of beer in the icebox, and the cook will make all the cheese and ham sandwiches we can eat. I am sure Miss Hildebrand will be happy to have you partake of her–“

“Hold on a minute, Harry,” broke in the Marshal hastily. His face was a study. The painfully created joviality came to a swift and uncomfortable end, and in its place flashed a look of embarrassment. He simply couldn’t face the smiling Miss Hildebrand.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he went on, lowering his voice and glancing furtively over his shoulder at the departing members of his posse, “I guess I’ll go out the back way.” Seeing the surprised look-on Harry’s face, he floundered badly for a moment or two, and then concluded with the perfectly good excuse that it was his duty to lead Alf Reesling, the one-time town drunkard, away from temptation. In support of this resolve, he called out to Alf: “Come here, Alf. None o’ that, now! You come along with me.”

“I ain’t goin’ to touch anything but a ham sandwich,” protested Alf with considerable asperity.

“Never mind! You do what I tell you, or I’ll run you in. Remember, you got a wife an’ daughter, an’–“

“Inasmuch as Alf has been on the water-wagon for twenty-seven years, Mr. Marshal, I think you can trust him–” began Harry, but Anderson checked him with a resolute gesture.

“Can’t take any chances with him. He’s got to come with me.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Harry.

“An’ besides,” said Anderson, “a man in my position can’t afford to be seen associatin’ with actresses–an’ you know it, Harry Squires. Come on, Alf!”