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What do you mean?" "I mean just what I say," answered McNabb, meeting the girl's startled gaze squarely. "A thirty thousand dollar sable coat is missing from the store, and no one except Oskar and I had access to the fur safe. He made up a cock-an'-bull story about letting you wear it Saturday to show up Mrs. Orcutt. He claims he went to the theatre to enjoy the effect on Mrs.
And at last he crawled up into the high bed that was so much too big for him, and had to crawl out again, because he had forgotten his prayers. When everything was done, and the hour of putting out the light could no longer be delayed, he said goodnight to Oskar, who bowed. There was a great deal of, bowing in Otto's world.
"We're late, Minnie!" Miss Patty said. "Oskar, this is one of my best friends, and you are to be very nice to her." He had one of those single glass things in his eye and he gave me a good stare through it. Seen close he was handsomer than Mr. Pierce, but he looked older than his picture. "Ask her if she won't be nice to me," he said in as good English as mine, and held out his hand.
She paused abruptly, glanced inquiringly at Hedin, nodded coolly, and continued, "Oskar said it needed a little tailoring, and that I was to bring it down this morning, but I didn't think there was any tearing hurry about it." Her father took the garment, smoothed the fur with his hand, and asked casually, "Is this the coat ye wore from the store?" "Why, of course it is."
It was Miss Braithwaite's conviction that this prank, and several other things, such as sauntering about with his hands in his pockets, and referring to his hat as a "lid," were all the result of his meeting that American boy. "He is really not the same child," she finished. "Oskar found him the other day with a rolled-up piece of paper lighted at the end, pretending he was smoking."
It was well enough for me to say that it was only by chance that I wasn't strutting about with a crown on my head and a man blowing a trumpet to let folks know I was coming, and by the same token and the same chance Prince Oskar might have been a red-haired spring-house girl, breaking the steels in her figure stooping over to ladle mineral water out of a hole in the earth.
"Well?" she whispered, looking at me with her pretty eyebrows raised. "He looks all right," I had to confess. "Perhaps you can coax him to shave." She laughed. "Oskar!" she called, "you have passed, but you are conditioned. Minnie objects to the mustache." He turned and looked at me gravely. "It is my greatest attraction," he declared, "but it is also a great care.
Oskar Hedin, head of the fur department of old John McNabb's big store, looked up from his scrutiny of the Russian sable coat spread upon a table before him, and encountered the twinkling eyes of old John himself. "It's a shame to keep this coat here and that natural black fox piece, too.
Five minutes later he was waiting at the theatre for the others, who appeared just before the rise of the curtain on the first act. When Oskar Hedin left the store at the closing hour, he went directly to his hotel, bolted a hasty luncheon, slipped into outdoor togs and a half hour later was silently threading an old log-trail that bit deep into the jack-pines.
Miss Patty came to the fire and stood warming her hands. I saw her sister watching her. "What's wrong with you, Pat?" she asked. "Oskar not behaving?" "Don't be silly," Miss Patty said. "I'm all right." "She's worked to death," Mrs. Sam put in. "Look at all of us. I'll tell you I'm so tired these nights that by nine o'clock I'm asleep on my feet."
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