The Triumph of Virginia Dale Part 22

"No such luck, Mike. There was only a girl in the car."

"The priceless jewel of the Isle of Swat and you did not kidnap it?"

exclaimed Kelly.

Mr. Jones displayed a superior interest. "Was she beautiful?" he inquired.

"Was she beautiful?" mimicked Kelly. "She must have been. That's why Joe tried to make a hit." He leaned over the motorcyclist. "For once I am proud of you, young man. You used your head."

Mr. Jones displayed extreme animation. "By Jove," he laughed.

"Possibly the lady thought that Mr. Curtis was b.u.t.ting in."

Kelly inspected the stenographer with great intentness. "Good morning, old top. When did you wake up?"

"Your kidding is contagious, Mike. Jonesy has caught it," chuckled Joe.

"No, you don't understand the nature of the brute. It's not me--it's the ladies. Jones awakens at a reference to them and blossoms beneath their smiles," explained Kelly.

A gentle look spread over Joe's face. "The girl I ran into happened to be the right sort. She stuck by me when I was hurt and helped to bring me here--" He paused for a moment and then continued, "Let's not talk about her in this room full of men."

"Sure," boomed Kelly. "You're right as usual, Joe. Never stopped to think myself." He turned and pointed to the stenographer. "My old friend Jones is on the edge of a decline." The bookkeeper disregarded the presence of the private secretary as if he were deaf. "If he starts to slide he hasn't far to go to land in a cemetery."

Mr. Jones displayed no marked pleasure in the conversation. He maintained a dignified aloofness.

"I have decided to train him," Kelly explained. "It's going to be a hard job. He's got no bone. He's got no muscle. He's got no fat.

He's got nothin'."

Again Kelly overlooked the proud and sensitive spirit which protested against this public dissection of physical defects.

The eyes of Kelly and Joe viewed the puny figure of the stenographer in the manner of disgusted farmers examining a runt which resists their efforts to fatten it.

"To get flesh and muscle and bone on him I must give him plenty of exercise and get him out into the air. That will make him eat," Kelly went on.

"His present diet is mostly cigarettes, isn't it?" Joe inquired.

"He eats them by the bale," confessed Kelly.

Apparently Joe deemed himself invited into the case as a consulting specialist. "Make him cut them out," he prescribed. "Take the little fellow out for a run every night and give him a good sweat out. Give him a bath and a rub down and get him in bed by ten o'clock. Watch your distances at first. Jonesy is full of dope. Look at his eyes."

Mr. Jones quailed under this keen scrutiny of experts.

"He'll fall dead if he runs a block," predicted Joe. "He'll be able to cover some ground, though, after a couple of weeks of plugging.

You can speed him up, then." He studied the stenographer with impersonal interest. "Make a feather weight boxer of him, Mike, if he isn't yellow. Get him in shape for the fall meet of the Athletic Club. If he can't box, make him run. He's built like a jack rabbit."

The course of treatment outlined by the consulting specialist filled Mr. Jones with undisguised alarm. His mind and body alike protested against the indignities which threatened him. To him came recognition that immediate resistance was necessary to prevent the advent of a gruelling course of physical training, repugnant to his flesh and revolting to his soul. "S-s-s-say," he stammered in the intenseness of his opposition, "I don't want----"

"Look here," Joe interrupted with fierceness, "you asked Mike to train you, didn't you?"

Mr. Jones's mental anguish did not make for quick thinking. He worked his lips but emitted no sound.

To Joe this silence acquiesced in his a.s.sumption and he went on, "You begged him to train you and he finally consented. You have shown judgment in selecting him--you couldn't find a better man. But, remember this, my friend. Training is hard work. You are in for a rough time of it, Jonesy, and don't you forget it. Remember this--it's not what you want--it's what Mike wants that is going to count. He has undertaken the devil's own job to make a man out of a shrimp like you. Do you get me?"

he concluded ferociously.

Before the sheer brute masculinity of the attack, the gentle courage of Mr. Jones gave way. "Yes, sir," he agreed meekly.

"Now, that's all settled, Mike," Joe indicated with satisfaction.

"Jonesy knows where he gets off. How about the grub?"

"No trouble there," Kelly explained. "We board at the same place. The food is plain enough and I can eat his dessert and make him fill up on solid stuff. I wanted to ask about your motorcycle."

"You are welcome to use it, Mike. It will be fine to chase Jonesy on or to get ahead of him if you want to time him. The machine was badly smashed in my crash. There is a repair bill of seven dollars against it.

If you will pay that, you can use it until I need it again. Put Jones up on it, too, if you like."

There was a rustling of skirts and the sound of soft footsteps. Virginia came towards the young men. Mr. Jones and Kelly instantly recognized their employer's daughter. They came to their feet as kitchen police in the presence of the Commanding General, which is with the speed of the lightning.

Virginia smiled sweetly at the invalid. "I am sorry to intrude," she explained, "but the hospital closes to visitors in ten minutes; so I had to come now or not see Joe today."

"It is fine of you to come even for a minute." Joe smiled happily and then attempted to present Kelly and Mr. Jones to her.

She gave them a friendly smile. "I know you both. I have seen you in my father's office so often that we are really old acquaintances."

Kelly looked her squarely in the eyes and beamed, "Thanks, I like that."

Mr. Jones a.s.sumed a manner containing all that was best from the several books upon social usages he had perused. Often had he longed for an opportunity to show the manufacturer's daughter that at least her father's private secretary was well versed in such matters. His chance had come and he must make the most of it. He bowed profoundly, "I am honored, indeed," he murmured gently. "Permit me to express the extreme pleasure Miss Dale's presence gives me." Apparently, at this point, Mr. Jones expected Virginia to extend her lily white hand to be kissed.

She, being a young thing, a mere chit as it were, was unversed in this procedure. She looked at the low-bowed Mr. Jones and then at Joe and Kelly with a somewhat puzzled expression.

The athletes, being men of vulgar minds, burst into a roar of laughter which shocked Mr. Jones exceedingly. Finding nothing better to do, he was forced to join in amus.e.m.e.nt at his own expense.

"Gee, I'm going to miss my supper," cried Kelly, and, with a breezy "Good bye" to Virginia and Joe, and a hurried "Come on" to Mr. Jones, he rushed away.

Mr. Jones was astounded at this exhibition of haste and ill-breeding, before this lady of position. However, he found himself torn between conflicting desires. He would have gladly spent some hours in the company of Miss Dale engaged in elegant conversation, but, at the moment, for the life of him, he could recall no subject of sufficient gentility for discussion.

"Come on, Jones," came Kelly's voice from the hall.

Virginia had taken Kelly's chair and, leaning over the bed, was engrossed in conversation with the injured man.

The presence of Mr. Jones was being overlooked. He deemed it better to depart with Kelly. Immediate action was essential. He arose and again bowed deeply. "Allow me," he pleaded, in dulcet tones, "to express my delight and joy in meeting Miss Dale and to inform her that circ.u.mstances beyond my individual control require my withdrawal from her company."

"Blow, Jonesy, before your beans get cold," suggested Joe.

At this low remark, Mr. Jones straightened up to his full height very suddenly and stepped backwards with dignity. Unhappily, his heel hooked against the leg of his chair and twisted the piece of furniture beneath him so that, tripping, he lost his balance upon the waxed floor.

Simultaneously, Mr. Jones lost his dignity and waved his arms wildly in a frantic endeavor to recover himself.

"Come on," Kelly urged again.

Mr. Jones obeyed the words of his trainer literally. Coming on over the chair, he landed with a crash between the beds on the other side of the aisle.

"Bring the ambulance up here," suggested a facetious patient.