Chapter I: WAS not so much conning the specimens in the Zoölogical Garden as (6)

Next morning as I was about to pass Judge Kenton’s house I heard heavy footsteps rapidly overtaking me. Turning I saw Case, not in his habitual gray clothes and broad-brimmed semi-sombrero, but wearing a soft brown felt hat, a blue serge suit, set off by a red necktie and tan shoes. He was conspicuously beltless.

“You might as well come with me, Radford,” he said. “You will probably be best man later anyhow.”

We found Judge Kenton on his porch, and Mary, all in pink, with a pink rose in her hair, seated between her father and her pretty step-mother.

“I sent Jeff with a note,” Case explained as we approached the steps, “to make sure of finding them.”

After the greetings were over Case said:

“Judge, I am a man of few words. I love your daughter and I ask your permission to win her if I can.”

“You have my permission, Suh,” the Judge answered.

Case rose.

“Mary,” he said, “would you walk with me in the garden, say to the grape arbor?”

When they returned Mary wore a big ruby ring set round with diamonds. Her color was no bad match for the ruby. And, beyond a doubt, Case’s cheeks showed a trace of color too.

“Father,” Mary said as she seated herself, “I am going to marry Cousin Cassius.”

“You have my blessing, my dear,” the Judge responded. “I am glad of it.”

“Everybody will be glad, I believe,” said Mary. “Cassius is glad, of course, and he is glad of two other things. One is that he feels free to dine with us to-night, he has just told me so.

“The other” (a roguish light sparkled in her eyes) “he has not confessed. But I just know that, next to marrying me, the one thing in all this world that makes him gladdest is that now at last he feels at liberty to see a horse race and go to the races every chance he gets.”

In fact, when they returned from their six-months’ wedding tour, they were conspicuous at every race meeting. Case’s eyes had lost their restlessness and his cheeks showed as healthy a coloring as I ever saw on any human being.

It might be suggested that there should be an explanation to this tale. But I myself decline to expound my own theory. Mary never told what she knew, and her husband, in whose after life there has been nothing remarkable as far as I know, has never uttered a syllable.

1907

THE HOUSE OF THE NIGHTMARE

THE HOUSE OF THE NIGHTMARE