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Updated: May 4, 2025
He looked first at the money, then at the Flopper and a tinge of red dyed his cheek. He coughed before he spoke. "Y'ain't going to stall on me, Flopper, are you?" he demanded, in an ominous monotone. "Stall!" the word came away in a roar too genuine to leave any doubt of the Flopper's sincerity, or the turbulent state of the Flopper's soul.
Doc Madison reached into his vest pocket, took out a penknife whose handle was gold-chased, opened it, and very carefully cut the article he had read from the paper. "Flopper," said he, "you've heard of gold bonds, haven't you?" The Flopper's eyes gleamed an eloquent response. "Only you've never had any, eh?" supplied Doc Madison. "Where'd I get 'em?" inquired the Flopper, with some bitterness.
"The Flopper's got an idea the corpse-preserver's business is dull, and he's going to help 'em out with two orders and pay for the flowers himself." Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly. "Forget it, Flopper!" he said crisply. "I've something better for you to do. You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute.
In the front of the cottage, the Shrine-room, as he christened it, and the Patriarch's sleeping room were both dark. Madison passed around to the beach side here, Helena's room was dark too, but in the Flopper's window, the end room next to the kitchen and woodshed, there was a light. The night was warm, and, though the shade was drawn, the window was open.
Still once again the Flopper's eyes swept the line of men and women and children, fast reaching toward a common ungovernable hysteria and then he turned with an unbalanced, impotent, broken movement, flung out his good arm toward the Patriarch in piteous supplication, and, jerking himself forward, went on.
The Flopper scooped the money into a pile in his hat, began to tuck it away in some recess of his shirt when a hand was thrust suddenly under his nose. "Come on, now, divvy!" snapped a voice in his ear. It was the driver of the car, who had dropped from his seat to the ground. A gleam of hate replaced the tears in the Flopper's eyes.
Men raised their eyes, stole frightened, questioning glances at their neighbors and fixed their eyes on the Flopper again on the Flopper and that majestic figure in the center of the lawn, so calm of mien, of attitude and pose. Once again the Flopper's eyes swept the scene. A few feet in advance of the crowd, as though drawn irresistibly forward, young Holmes hung upon his crutch.
"Lines for the next act," said Madison; "but the Flopper's got it all, and he'll put you on." He stepped toward Helena and slipped his arm around her waist. "Come on, it's early yet, let's go for a little walk. The Flopper'll excuse us, and I " "I thought you said," Helena interrupted, disengaging herself quietly, "that we had to play the game to the limit and take no chances."
With regret still poignantly affecting him, the Flopper passed on into the private car, and the porter ushered him into a sort of combination observation and sitting-room compartment. The Flopper's eyes lifted and made a quick, comprehensive tour of his surroundings.
He hadn't managed to get a dozen words with her since that night on the station platform, without taking chances and gaining admission to the cottage through the Flopper's window after dark and then she had held him at arm's length. "The matter with me?" she had said. "There isn't anything the matter with me is there? I'm I'm playing the game." It certainly couldn't be grief over Mrs.
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