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We all got in and said good-by to the hotel where we'd been living so long. The chauffore touches his hat again, shuts the door and climbs back in his seat. He turned that long car round in one motion in the street. The next minute we was out on the avenue, away from the hotel, and right in the middle of that row of lights several miles long, where the bullyvard is at, along the lake there.
I'm lazy enough for anybody, like any cowpuncher I don't believe in working only in spots; but sometimes I'd get so tired of doing nothing at the house that I'd get the chauffore to take me down to Old Man Wright's office, where I felt more at home. Nobody never come in to see us once not in three months. We didn't have no neighbors, and we begun to see that that was the truth.
Any girl likes to hear about a young man coming around, of course. Far as any of us could tell, Tom Kimberly might be all right. Bonnie Bell now, all at once, she taken to wanting to go on the lake with her boat, and she insists our chauffore and her and me must go down and fix up the boat.
So she sends for Jimmie I mean James, our chauffore he's got almost sober lately, it being three months or so since Christmas, and him knowing a lot about dogs. So she buys a new dog for them a large one that you can see easy, a collie dog; and Jimmie says he paid one-fifty for it."
The chauffore was looking kind of pale and shaky. He seemed to have something on his mind. "I hope you'll excuse me, sir," says he, touching his hat to Old Man Wright. "I didn't mean to be late; but, you see, it was Christmas Eve " "Why, that's all right," says Old Man Wright to him. "Don't mention it Christmas is due to come once a year anyhow."
"I'll not let it occur again," says the chauffore, touching his hat again. "What? Christmas?" says he. "You can't help it." The man looked at him kind of funny. I knew then he'd been celebrating the night before, and I was right glad he hadn't begun to celebrate until he'd drove us home, for he was jerky yet. Christmas is a time when folks ought to be happy. We wasn't happy none that day.
We stood for just a minute near the big door, and before we got it shut she looked out once more into the night, with the lights shining all through the snow, and the trees looking white and thin in the drift. "Call the chauffore in and have him get a drink," says Old Man Wright. "That was a cold ride."
"A dollar and a half is more than any dog is worth," says I, "especial a dog that has anything to do with someone like that Wisner woman." "A dollar and a half!" says he. "A hundred and fifty is what it cost; this was a swell dog a young collie about a year old. Well, Bonnie Bell, she sends it round by James, our chauffore, with her compliments. Their butler takes it in.
I turns round; and there was Bonnie Bell pulling her coat up round her neck and fixing her hands in her muff, and her pa was buttoning up his coat. Just then, too, I seen the chauffore jump down offen the front seat. He comes round to the door, right where the walk was that led up to this new big house, and he opens the door and touches his hat, and stands there, waiting.
He puts his hand in his waistcoat pocket and hauls out a ten-dollar gold piece, and puts it into the hand of this new chauffore of ours. "Here you go, son," says he. "Merry Christmas! And I hope you'll take good care of my daughter." The new chauffore, standing there in the snow he was tall and a right good-looking chap too he touches his cap. "Thank you, sir," says he.
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