Red Pepper Burns Part 7

"You're happy now, aren't you?" he asked in tone of a.s.surance. "Then, confound it, I must own I'm paid for letting my wise bachelor notions go hang, just for this time!"

"Thank you," she answered very gently. "And I'm paid for trying to be reasonable."

He laughed, suddenly content. Between them, the little lad who had never owned a toy in his life, stowing the red train carefully away between has feet, gave himself wholly to the rocking-horse.

"Well, Ellen," was Martha Macauley's greeting to her sister, "did you have as interesting a time dressing the child as you expected?"

"I had a charming time," replied Mrs. Lessing. She shook the dust out of her long gray veils smiling at her memory of the morning.

"Did R. P. prove docile?"

"'Docile' doesn't seem to me just the word."

"I used it in an attempt at fine irony," explained! Mrs. Macauley.

"Well, was he tractable, then?"

"He was very polite and kind and jolly--until the real business of shopping began. Then he became suspicious--and a trifle autocratic." She recalled his look as he told her that he would trust her, but that he meant to keep an eye upon her.

"Didn't you get your own way about anything?" demanded her sister, with eager curiosity.

Ellen looked at her. Martha noted that the soft black eyes were glowing, and that she had not seen Ellen appear more alive and interested since the days before trouble came to her. "Do you imagine we fought a battle over our shopping?" she asked, her lips curving with merriment.

"But you don't tell me. I'm anxious to know whether we shall see the boy dressed according to Red's ideas or yours."

"We agreed beautifully on nearly all points of his dressing. Where we differed, we--compromised."

"Red never compromises with anybody, so I suppose it was done by your giving in?"

"He never compromises? You do him injustice. He can compromise royally--by the same method of 'giving in.'"

"I simply can't believe it," murmured Martha, shaking her head.

CHAPTER V. IN WHICH HE IS ROUGH ON A FRIEND

"RED."

"Yes?"

"Are you through with that rabble? Can you 'tend to a friend?"

Redfield Pepper Burns wheeled around in his revolving chair and glanced sharply at Arthur Chester. What he saw made him follow the moment's inspection with a direct question.

"Sit down. What have you been doing?"

Chester sat down. His face was white. He held up one shaking hand. "Red, what's the matter with me?"

Burns continued to study the man before him. He made no move to examine into his condition, just looked steadily into the other's face with a gaze before which his patient presently s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

"Well, of all the ways to treat a fellow!" He tried to laugh. "Is that the way you do with the rest of the bunch that come to you every day? Or are you trying to hypnotize me?"

"Look me in the eye, Ches. What have you been doing?"

"Working like a fiend in that infernal office. If there's any hotter place--"

"There'll be a hotter one for you right on this earth, if you keep on the way you're going."

He rose suddenly, and approaching Chester closely, looked intently into the uplifted eyes. He sat down again. "Own up!" he commanded bluntly.

"Red," begged Chester, "quit this sort of thing. Go at me in the usual way. I--I think I'm a bit nervous tonight. I can't stand your gun-fire."

"All right. When did you begin?"

"Five weeks ago when you were away. I didn't mean to get into it, Red, on my word I didn't, after all you've warned me. But it was so beastly hot--and there was a lot of extra work at the office. My head got to going it night and day. I--say"--he leaned suddenly forward, has head on his hands--"I can tell you better if you give me some kind of a bracer--I feel--so--deadly."

Burns got up and prepared something in a gla.s.s something not particularly palatable, but when it had taken action, which it promptly did, Chester's white face had acquired a tinge of colour and he could go on.

"I stopped in Gardner's office one day when my head was worse than usual. Had to meet a man in ten minutes--important deal on for the house--had to be at my best. Told Gardner so. He fixed me."

"He did--blame him--fixed you for a dope-fiend. I've told you a hundred times you had precisely the kind of temperament that must avoid that sort of thing like the gallows." Burns. .h.i.t the desk with his fist as he spoke, with a thump of impatience.

"It seems to set me up for a while--I can do anything. Then afterward--"

"You're getting the afterward all right. How much do you take?"

Chester mentioned the amount of the drug, stating reluctantly that for the last two days he had been obliged slightly to increase it in order to get the full effect.

"Of course you have--that's the insidiousness of the devil's stuff. How soon does it get into action?"

"Oh, right away--almost instantly."

"What! Is your imagination strong enough to--See here, Ches"--Burns leaned forward "you're taking the stuff by mouth, of course?"

Chester's eyes went down. "Why--I tried it that way--but it was so slow."

Burns e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed something under his breath; the quick colour, always ready to flare under his clear skin, leaped out.

"Gardner gave you a hypo, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"So you went and bought a syringe and taught yourself the trick. Suppose you give me a look at it."