Piccadilly Jim | Page 5

"It would do him good, wouldn't it?"
Silence fell upon the room, broken only by the tapping of the
typewriter. Mr. Pett, having finished the comic supplement, turned to
the sporting section, for he was a baseball fan of no lukewarm order.
The claims of business did not permit him to see as many games as he
could wish, but he followed the national pastime closely on the printed
page and had an admiration for the Napoleonic gifts of Mr. McGraw
which would have gratified that gentleman had he known of it.

"Uncle Peter," said Ann, turning round again.
"Eh?"
"It's funny you should have been talking about Ogden getting
kidnapped. This story of aunt Nesta's is all about an angel-child--I
suppose it's meant to be Ogden--being stolen and hidden and all that.
It's odd that she should write stories like this. You wouldn't expect it of
her."
"Your aunt," said Mr. Pett, "lets her mind run on that sort of thing a
good deal. She tells me there was a time, not so long ago, when half the
kidnappers in America were after him. She sent him to school in
England--or, rather, her husband did. They were separated then--and, as
far as I can follow the story, they all took the next boat and besieged
the place."
"It's a pity somebody doesn't smuggle him away now and keep him till
he's a better boy."
"Ah!" said Mr. Pett wistfully.
Ann looked at him fixedly, but his eyes were once more on his paper.
She gave a little sigh, and turned to her work again.
"It's quite demoralising, typing aunt Nesta's stories," she said. "They
put ideas into one's head."
Mr. Pett said nothing. He was reading an article of medical interest in
the magazine section, for he was a man who ploughed steadily through
his Sunday paper, omitting nothing. The typewriter began tapping
again.
"Great Godfrey!"
Ann swung round, and gazed at her uncle in concern. He was staring
blankly at the paper.
"What's the matter?"

The page on which Mr. Pett's attention was concentrated was decorated
with a fanciful picture in bold lines of a young man in evening dress
pursuing a young woman similarly clad along what appeared to be a
restaurant supper-table. An enjoyable time was apparently being had by
both. Across the page this legend ran:
PICCADILLY JIM ONCE MORE
The Recent Adventures of Young Mr. Crocker
of New York and London
It was not upon the title, however, nor upon the illustration that Mr.
Pett's fascinated eye rested. What he was looking at was a small
reproduction of a photograph which had been inserted in the body of
the article. It was the photograph of a woman in the early forties, rather
formidably handsome, beneath which were printed the words:
Mrs. Nesta Ford Pett
Well-Known Society Leader and Authoress
Ann had risen and was peering over his shoulder. She frowned as she
caught sight of the heading of the page. Then her eye fell upon the
photograph.
"Good gracious! Why have they got aunt Nesta's picture there?"
Mr. Pett breathed a deep and gloomy breath.
"They've found out she's his aunt. I was afraid they would. I don't know
what she will say when she sees this."
"Don't let her see it."
"She has the paper downstairs. She's probably reading it now."
Ann was glancing through the article.

"It seems to be much the same sort of thing that they have published
before. I can't understand why the Chronicle takes such an interest in
Jimmy Crocker."
"Well, you see he used to be a newspaper man, and the Chronicle was
the paper he worked for."
Ann flushed.
"I know," she said shortly.
Something in her tone arrested Mr. Pett's attention.
"Yes, yes, of course," he said hastily. "I was forgetting."
There was an awkward silence. Mr. Pett coughed. The matter of young
Mr. Crocker's erstwhile connection with the New York Chronicle was
one which they had tacitly decided to refrain from mentioning.
"I didn't know he was your nephew, uncle Peter."
"Nephew by marriage," corrected Mr. Pett a little hurriedly. "Nesta's
sister Eugenia married his father."
"I suppose that makes me a sort of cousin."
"A distant cousin."
"It can't be too distant for me."
There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door. Mrs. Pett
entered, holding a paper in her hand. She waved it before Mr. Pett's
sympathetic face.
"I know, my dear," he said backing. "Ann and I were just talking about
it."
The little photograph had not done Mrs. Pett justice. Seen life-size, she
was both handsomer and more formidable than she appeared in

reproduction. She was a large woman, with a fine figure and bold and
compelling eyes, and her personality crashed disturbingly into the quiet
atmosphere of the room. She was