32 Caliber | Page 8

magazines and books, glancing now and then in my
direction, trying to catch my eye, but I buried myself more deeply than
ever in the paper. When he finally stepped back of my chair, human
nature could stand his puttering no longer, so I laid down The Sun, and
turned to him.
"Well, Wicks, what do you want?" I snapped.
Wicks looked at me with the expression of a small boy caught
sticky-handed in the jam-closet.
"Nothing, sir!--that is--er--nothing." He turned and started from the
room.
"Come here, Wicks!" I called. "I know when you hang around a room
unnecessarily, as you have been doing for the last ten minutes, that you
have something on your mind. Now, out with it."
"I was merely going to arsk, sir, hif I 'ad better begin lookin' arfter
another place, sir?"

That was an extraordinary question. Wicks had been with the
Feldersons ever since they were married.
"What put that idea into your head, Wicks?"
He was far more confused than I had ever seen him.
"Meanin' no disrespect, sir, and I don't mean to be hinquisitive about
what doesn't concern me, but I couldn't 'elp 'earin' a bit of what took
place this arfternoon, sir."
Good lord! I'd forgotten there might have been other witnesses to the
scene of the afternoon besides myself.
"Do the other servants know about this, Wicks?"
"Hi think they do, sir, seein' as 'ow Mrs. Felderson 'as been actin' and
talkin' so queer."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
Wicks struggled for composure. The subject was evidently most
distasteful to his conservative and conventional British nature.
"Hit was Annie, Mrs. Felderson's maid, sir, that hupset the servants.
W'en she came down from hup-stairs, she said as 'ow Mrs. Felderson
was a ragin' and a rampagin' around 'er room, sayin' that if Mr.
Felderson didn't give 'er a divorce, she would do violence to 'im, sir."
"Did Annie hear her say that?" I questioned.
"She says so, sir."
The whole thing was so monstrous that I gasped. For this awful
dime-novel muck to be tumbled into the middle of my family was too
sickening. My sister, running away from her husband with another man
and now threatening, in the hearing of the servants, to kill him, unless
he gave her a divorce, disgusted me with its cheap vulgarity. I hid, as
best I could, the tempest that was brewing inside me.

"Wicks, Mrs. Felderson is not well. Tell the servants that she is greatly
depressed over an accident that happened to a friend. At the present
time, she is so upset over that, she really doesn't know what she is
saying. Quiet them in some way, Wicks! And tell Annie to stay with
Mrs. Felderson!"
"Very good, sir." He started to leave.
"And, Wicks--"
"Yes, sir."
"There is no need of your looking for another place."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!"
Wicks departed and I was left to my gloomy thoughts. Helen must be
brought to her senses. Mary and I must work, either to bring her back to
Jim, or, if that prove hopeless, to see that the divorce was hurried as
much as possible. The very thought of having Mary along with me,
with her inexhaustible fund of God-given humor and common sense,
gave me a vast amount of comfort and confidence.
At this point, Jim came in. He had had a bath and a shave and had put
on a dinner-coat, looking a lot more fit to grapple with his troubles than
he had the last time I had seen him. Only in his eyes did he show the
shock he'd received that day.
"Communing with yourself in the dark, Bupps?"--his voice was natural
and easy.
"Yes," I sighed, "I've been trying to see a way out of this mess."
Jim lit a cigarette and threw himself into a chair. For a few moments he
puffed in silence, taking deep inhalations and blowing the smoke
against the lighted tip, so that it showed all the rugged, strength of his
superb head.
"What would you say, Bupps, if I told you everything would come out

all right?"
"And Helen stay with you?" I asked incredulously.
"And Helen stay with me," he repeated calmly.
"Of her own free will?"
"Of her own free will," he answered.
"I should say that the events of the day had addled your brain and that
you are a damned inconsiderate brother-in-law to try to make a fool of
me."
"I mean it, Bupps," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
"That everything will come out all right," he smiled.
"But how, man?" His complacency almost drove me wild.
"Bupps, have you noticed how much money Woods has been spending
around here--his extravagant way of living? Where do you think that
money comes