Part 15

“What’s the matter with Bensaris who runs a candy shop near where I live? He’s the big squeeze among ’em.”

“We’ll go down and see him. Remember, he don’t need to know anything; just do what I tell him. There’s a hundred in this for you, Pete, if you pull it right; expenses extra.”

“The cops might pinch us,” suggested Peterson, warily. “And what you goin’ to do about the Mayor? It says in the papers that the Mayor meets the outfit at the Union Station.”

“If the cops ask the countersign tell ’em you turned out to meet the remains of a deceased brother. And don’t worry about the Mayor. He’s been over the Grand Circuit with me and brought his money home in a trunk.”

He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and set down the following items:

Pete. 2 silk hats; five uni. Band. Bensaris. Mayor. 5 touring cars.

“The honor, it is too much!” pleaded Bensaris when Wrong Number and Peterson told him all it was necessary for him to know, at a little table in the rear of his shop. “But in the day’s paper my daughter read me their excellencies be met at the Union Station; the arrange’ have been change’?”

“The papers are never right,” declared Wrong Number. “And you don’t need to tell ’em anything.”

“A lady, Mees Burgett, she came here to arrange all Illyrians go to Relief office to sing the songs of my country. My daughter, she shall dance and hand flowers to their excellencies!” cried Bensaris beaming.

“The Bensaris family will be featured right through the bill,” said Wrong Number.

“It is too kind,” insisted Bensaris. “It is for the Mayor you make the arrange’?”

“I represent the financial interests of our city,” Wrong Number replied. “You want to go the limit in dressing up the automobiles; make ’em look like Fourth o’ July in your native O’Learyo. Where do we doll ’em up, Pete?”

A garage of a friend in the next block would serve admirably and Peterson promised to co-operate with Bensaris in doing the job properly.

“Tail coat and two-gallon hat for Mr. Bensaris,” said Wrong Number. “Pete, you look after that.” He pressed cash upon Mr. Bensaris and noted the amount in his book. “We’ll call it a heat,” he said, and went uptown to pilot Mr. Webster G. Burgess to a ten round match for points between two local amateurs that was being pulled off behind closed doors in an abandoned skating rink.

III

The Illyrian Commission had just breakfasted when their train reached Farrington on the State line, where the Mayor of the capital city, Mr. Clarence E. Tibbotts, _alias_ Wrong Number, and Mr. Zoloff Bensaris, all in shining hats, boarded the train.

Having studied the portraits of the distinguished Illyrians in a Sunday supplement provided by Mr. Tibbotts, Mr. Bensaris effected the introductions without an error, and having been carefully coached by the same guide he did not handle his two-gallon hat as though it were a tray of chocolate sundaes. The kindness of the mayor and his associates in coming so far to meet the Commission deeply touched the visitors. The Fourth Assistant Secretary of State, who was doing the honors of the American government, heard without emotion of the slight changes in the programme.

“We thought the Commission would be tired of the train,” explained Wrong Number, who was relieved to find that his cutaway was of the same vintage as the Fourth Assistant Secretary’s; “so we get off at the first stop this side of town and motor in.”

“Luncheon at Mr. Gurley’s,” said the Secretary, consulting a sheaf of telegrams.

“Had to change that, too,” said Wrong Number carelessly; “they have scarlet fever at the Gurleys. The Webster G. Burgesses will throw the luncheon.”

The Secretary made a note of the change and thrust his papers into his pocket. Mr. Tibbotts handed round his cigarette case, a silver trinket bearing “Lord Templeton’s” head in enamel relief, a Christmas gift from Mr. Webster G. Burgess, and joined in a discussion of the morning’s news from the Balkans, where the Illyrian troops were acquitting themselves with the highest credit.

When the suburban villas of Ravenswood began to dance along the windows, Mr. Tibbotts marshaled his party and as they stepped from the private car a band struck up the Illyrian national hymn. Several dozen students from the nearby college who chanced to be at the station raised a cheer. As the Illyrians were piloted across the platform to the fleet of waiting automobiles, the spectators were interested in the movements of another party,--a party fully as distinguished in appearance--that emerged from the station and tripped briskly into a sleeper farther along in the train that had discharged the Illyrians. Here, too, were silk hats upon two sober-looking gentlemen who could hardly be other than statesmen, and uniforms of great splendor upon five stalwart forms, with topping plumes waving blithely in the autumn air. And out of the corner of his eye Mr. Clarence E. Tibbotts, just seating himself in a big touring car, between the Fourth Assistant Secretary of State and the Illyrian Minister of Finance, saw Peterson’s work, and knew that it was good.

The procession swept into town at a lively clip, set by the driver of the first car, that bore the Mayor and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which was driven by a victor of many motor speed trials carefully chosen by Wrong Number for this important service. The piquant flavor of Wrong Number’s language as he pointed out objects of interest amused the American Secretary, much bored in his pilgrimages by the solemnities of reception committees, and it served also to convince the Illyrian Minister of Finance of the inadequacy of his own English.

Lusty cheering greeted the party as it moved slowly through the business district. When the Illyrian Minister and the Fourth Secretary lifted their hats Wrong Number kept time with them; he enjoyed lifting his hat. He enjoyed also a view of half a dozen clerks on the steps of the White River National, who cheered deliriously as they espied their associate and hastened within to spread the news of his latest exploit through the cages.

It is fortunate that Mr. Tibbotts had taken the precaution to plant a motion-picture camera opposite the Burgess home, for otherwise the historical student of the future might be puzzled to find that the first edition of the _Evening Journal_ of that day showed the Illyrian delegation passing through the gates of the Union Station, with a glimpse of Mrs. Arnold D. Gurley handing a large bouquet of roses to a tall gentleman who was not in fact the Illyrian Minister of Foreign Affairs but the proprietor of Peterson’s bath parlors. The _Journal_ suppressed its pictures in later editions, thereby saving its face, and printed without illustrations an excellent account of the reception of the Illyrians at Ravenswood and of the luncheon, from facts furnished by Mr. Tibbotts, who stood guard at the door of the Burgess home while the function was in progress in the dining room.

Who ate Mrs. Gurley’s luncheon is a moot question in the select circles of the capital city. Peterson and his party might have enjoyed the repast had not the proprietor of the bath parlors, after accepting Mrs. Gurley’s bouquet at the station gates, vanished with his accomplices in the general direction of their lodge room of the Order of the Golden Buck.

When foolish reporters tried to learn at the City Hall why the Mayor had changed without warning the plans for the reception, that official referred them to the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, who in turn directed the inquirers to the Governor’s office and the Governor, having been properly admonished by his wife, knew nothing whatever about it.

IV

As the Burgesses were reviewing the incidents of the day at dinner that evening, Mrs. Burgess remarked suddenly,

“Now that it’s all over, Web, do you think it was quite fair, really _right_?”

“You mean,” asked Webster, huskily, “that you’re not satisfied with the way it was handled?”

“Oh, not that! But it was almost _too_ complete; and poor Mrs. Gurley must be horribly humiliated.”

“Crushed, I should say,” remarked Webster cheerfully. “This ought to hold her for a while.”

“But that fake delegation you had at the station to deceive Mrs. Gurley----”

“I beg your pardon,” Webster interrupted, “I assure you I had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, all I _know_ is that just before dinner Mrs. Eastman called me up and said the Governor had just telephoned her that Mrs. Gurley tried to _kiss_ the hand of some man she took for the Illyrian Minister of Foreign Affairs as he went through the station gates. And the man is nothing but a rubber in a Turkish bath. You _wouldn’t_ have done that, Web, would you?”

“No, dear, I would not! For one thing, I wouldn’t have been smart enough to think it up.”

“And you know, Web, I shouldn’t want you to think me mean and envious and jealous. I’m not really that way; you know I’m not! And of course if I’d thought you’d really bring the Illyrians here, I should never have mentioned it at all.”

Webster passed his hand across his brow in bewilderment. At moments when he thought he was meeting the most exacting requirements of the marital relationship it was enormously disturbing to find himself defeated.

“Your luncheon was a great success; the talk at the table was wonderful; and the girls you brought in made a big hit. It’s the best party you ever pulled off,” he declared warmly.

“I’m glad you think so,” she said slowly, giving him her direct gaze across the table, “but there were one or two things I didn’t quite like, Web. It seemed to me your young friend Tibbotts was a little _too_ conspicuous. I’m surprised that you let him come to the house. You couldn’t--you _wouldn’t_ have let him _know_ how the Illyrians came here? He really seemed to assume full charge of the party, and in the drawing room he was flirting outrageously with pretty Lois Hubbard, and kept her giggling when I’d asked her _specially_ to be nice to the Fourth Assistant Secretary, who’s a bachelor, you know. And if Mrs. Hubbard _knew_ we had introduced Lois to a boy from the racetrack----”

“It would be awful,” said Webster with one of the elusive grins that always baffled her.

“What would be awful?” she demanded.

“Oh, nothing! I was thinking of Wrong Number and what a blow it would be if I should lose him. I must remember to raise his salary in the morning.”

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.