The Haunted Pajamas Part 35

"Um!" he grunted complacently. "Ninety-seven and a quarter--my usual healthy subnormal temperature. Pulse sixty-five--respiration, twenty-four and two-fifths--excellent, excellent! I am myself. Ha!" And he whirled triumphantly.

"Ah!" he said, advancing eagerly and rubbing his hands. "It is you! You have heard, then? Marvelous, isn't it--wholly incredible! But do you know"--here he plucked at my s.h.i.+rt front, took a pinch, as it were, just as he had seen the professor do--"I can not find any transmigration. The materialization appears to be wholly optical."

"Never mind," I said anxiously, for I knew he was talking about the rubies; "_we_ don't care." I smiled brightly. "Let's go down and see the car--_nice_ car!" And I tried to get hold of his fat side, but missed it.

"Car?" Billings looked puzzled. Then his face broke into a smile.

"_Carpe diem_--eh, am I not right? True, true! Whither you say." He looked about on a table. "Um--my notes, now," he muttered; and he caught up a small book and a pencil.

The professor's man protested: "Professor Doozenberry don't like--"

"Oh, dash it, let him have them!" I exclaimed, for Billings was already chuckling happily and writing in the little blank book.

"Come on," I pleaded, catching a fold of the pajamas. "Wouldn't you like to come get some clothes on?"

He drew back in alarm. "No, no--not yet--not until I complete my notes,"

was his crazy answer. "You know: _sublata causa, tollitur effectus_!"

And he looked as though he thought this would finish me.

"But your friend," he exclaimed suddenly, as he allowed me to throw a blanket about his shoulders and we moved out of the door, "the gentleman I met last night--Billings--is not that the name?"

I looked at him miserably as we entered the car to go down.

"Oh, I say, Billings, old chap," I protested earnestly, "don't you know me?" I pointed to the little panel of mirror in the cage. "Don't you know _you_ are Billings? Can't you _see_?"

His fat head pecked at the gla.s.s for an instant. Then he looked at me with eager, batting eyes. He chuckled hoa.r.s.ely, gurglingly, and out came the note-book and pencil from his sleeve.

"Better and better," he muttered. "Now, if we could only go to _him_!"

He caught my arm. "In the interest of this investigation of scientific phenomena, would he consider a call intrusive--could we not seek your friend, Mr. Billings?"

"It's all right, you know," I gently rea.s.sured him. "Yes, we're going to him--going right there. Just a little ride, you know."

By Jove, the way he cackled made my heart ache! I whispered to Jenkins to run ahead and prepare the ladies. But the first thing we saw as the cage hit the bottom was a woman--and, dash it, the frump from China!

She gave a little scream and fell on Billings' neck, almost bearing him to the ground.

"Oh, Jacky, Jacky!" she sobbed.

By Jove, I almost fell myself! So _that_ was the way the wind lay! And I had never even so much as suspected. _That_ was why he had raved so about her beauty! Beauty! Poor old Jack! If I had been sad about him before, it was a devilish sight worse now--

Worse? Why, dash it, she _kissed_ him!

And to see him standing there, kind of batting and rolling his eyes and looking like a girl does when she's trying a strange piece of candy out of the box--oh, it just broke me all up!

No wonder he was crazy! Why, dash it, he would _have_ to be crazy!

He was muttering to himself.

"Remarkable!" I heard. "Singularly sensate and exhilarating! Now, I never would have thought--um!"

And then he very deliberately took her head between his hands and--kissed her. Then he looked upward thoughtfully and did it again--like a chicken drinks water--_you_ know!

And then while we--that is, Jenkins and I--were trying to urge him on, out came the note-book again and he scribbled rapidly, muttering audibly: "l.a.b.i.al osculation--extraordinary stimulation--sensatory ganglia--mucous membrane--"

"Police!" I whispered brutally in the frump's ear. "Better let's get him away!" And, by Jove, that woke her out of her trance! In two minutes she had cajoled him to the car and we had him inside on the cus.h.i.+ons. We bunched blankets and rugs about him to hide the pajamas.

"Jacky, dear," gushed the Chinese freak, "wouldn't you like for me to sit by you and hold your poor hand?"

It looked as if he would.

The frump turned to me. "Can you drive the car, Mr. Lightnut?"

_Could_ I? Well, I would show her! Especially as Frances had changed to the front as she saw us bringing out Billings.

"Take the train--get Billings' things from the club," I called to Jenkins. "Sharp, now! And here, unhook that number there on the back--give it here!"

Jenkins hesitated. "I think there's a heavy fine, sir," he hinted.

I snapped my fingers at him and he jumped to obey.

"Worse things than a jolly fine," I said, looking at poor Billings smiling crazily over the frump. I threw the number plate into the car.

And just in time!

Around the corner whirled a policeman--and, by Jove, no less than that fat Irishman, O'Keefe! With him was the professor's man.

"Don't tell me," panted the officer; "I know my--"

And then he gave a shout and sprang for the car.

"It's that fellow that was prowling around the station house!" he yelled. "Here, stop there!"

But I didn't want to. For one thing, we were a half-block away, and I had badly coasted a towel supply wagon and scattered the wares of a push-cart across three sidewalks.

My cap went flying as we skidded a corner, and I was devilish glad, for the inertia threw Frances' head almost against mine and I felt the tickling brush of a little hair wisp as it swept my nose.

Her eyes were dancing with excitement. She looked back, waving her hand at the figure of O'Keefe trotting from around the corner, and her laughter pealed joyously, deliciously in my ear.

"Oh, I think American men are great--are _wonderful_!" she cried, striking her little hands together. "Especially Harvard men--and especially--" She stopped with the faintest catch.

"By Jove!" I cried. "Do you _mean_ it?"

And for the briefest instant the hands were three; but her scream brought me back to earth just in time to save the lives of a man and a boy. Devilish ungrateful, too, for I could see the man, three blocks behind, and still shaking his fist. The way with these pedestrians!

At Fifty-ninth Street we caromed with a hansom trotting too leisurely across the plaza, and I listened for nearly a block to the remarks of a bicycle cop before he dropped behind. What dashed me not a little was Billings' indifference to the record I was making for his car--didn't seem to care a jolly hang.

The frump was still hanging on him in a way to make you sick, and cooing and going on in a nervous, half-hysterical way I never would have thought her able to chirp up to. And Billings was holding her hand!