“Quite sure, sir.” Mr. Lee spoke in that quiet,
final way that usually closed matters in his of-
fice. Betty heard his chair pushed back and
knew that he had risen. “Here's your hat,
what's your hurry?” she quoted in a school-girl
fashion to her mother in a low whisper. They
sat quietly till the final good afternoon was said
and her father closed the front screen door.
Then Betty jumped up and ran into the front
room to meet him.

“Oh, Father, you _told_ him! And I know he's
the 'villain!'”

Mr. Lee grinned, much as Dick was accus-
tomed to do, and approached his daughter with
his fists closed and the favorite gestures of
small boys about to engage in a fisticuff. That
made Betty laugh, too, and she caught at his
threatening arms to hold him.

The arms went around her and then he drew
her toward where his wife was now standing,
questioning with her eyes. “As my son would
put it, you think I've spilled the beans, don't
you? Well, I haven't, kiddie.” Mr. Lee dropped
his voice to a stage whisper.

“Ramon Balinsky Sevilla is not _in_ Detroit!”

“Oh, goody! But how do you know. Didn't
you tell the man that you hadn't heard from
him again!”

[[201]]

(previous-page) (table-of-contents) (next-page)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 v?