Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/156

144 four-poster Bud would have put me in, if those foolish old dreams of his had worked out, and having stolen about half the crown jewels of Western Europe, he'd retired from the gentle profession of ice-gathering and lived sedately somewhere on the outskirts of Morristown or along the upper fringe of Brookline.

I came to, just in time to hear the droning voice of that yellow-faced old lawyer saying:

… "In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed my seal, this fifteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixteen."

From the far end of the room I could catch the sound of half-whispering voices, as angry and resentful as the hum from an overturned beehive. The red-faced woman in the chair was even snorting audibly and repeatedly. And the dandified young man in yellow shoes was pacing back and forth on an imported and priceless prayer-rug which he doubtless felt ought to have been his.

I looked up and craned my neck a little, to see how the enemy was accepting those demonstrations of hostility. Old Ezra Tweedie Bartlett, I noticed, stood blandly blinking into space, as placid and austere-eyed as an undertaker. That other old win-