The Amazing Inheritance Part 11

Mr. Bill frowned at the royal bodyguard. "Look here, Ka-kee-ta," he said sharply, "didn't I tell you that I would take care of the queen?"

Much Ka-kee-ta cared what Mr. Bill had said. He arranged himself in a graceful loop on the running board, close to Tessie's elbow, and there was every indication that he meant to stay there as long as Tessie remained in the car.

"Oh, dear!" Tessie was almost in tears. What a lot queens did have to endure!

"Here!" Mr. Bill threw open the door of the tonneau. "If you will insist on going where you're not wanted, sit there!" And he waved his hand toward the rear seat.

With a look that measured the distance between the front seat and the back, Ka-kee-ta stepped into the car and settled himself with a grunt.

He held his ax straight before him. He did look so silly that he made Tessie feel silly, too. She wanted to cry.

"Comfy?" Mr. Bill asked tenderly, as he put his finger on the self-starter.

She stopped wanting to cry because she discovered that she wanted to smile. "Awfully comfy! But I do hate to be tagged around by 'that' all the time!" And she frowned as she jerked her head back to indicate the watchful bodyguard.

"We'll forget all about him. And about queens, too, shall we?" As he bent to hear her answer, he all but ran into a car which had raced toward them.

With a snarl Ka-kee-ta was on his feet, his ax suspended over Mr. Bill's head.

"Ka-kee-ta!" Tessie grasped his arm and held it with all of her might.

"What's the matter?" demanded Mr. Bill with a deep breath. "That was a close shave. Looked as if that machine was deliberately trying to run us down. But we're all right, aren't we?" He saw that Tessie was all right. "Sit down, old friend!" he said to Ka-kee-ta, "and watch your ax.

I'd kill myself before I'd let anything happen to your queen. I mean that!" he told Tessie in a husky voice.

"You're awfully kind," murmured Tessie, her heart beating so fast and so loud that she was sure Mr. Bill must hear it.

"I wish you weren't a queen!" Mr. Bill exclaimed impulsively.

"Why?" Tessie's eyes widened.

"Why? Do you like to have Ka-kee-ta trailing you all the time?" He gave her just one reason why she might wish she were not a queen.

"No, but I like to be a queen," she answered truthfully.

"I suppose a girl would," in disgust. "We could have a lot more fun if you were just a--just a--"

"n.o.body!" Tessie finished the sentence for him. "But when I was a n.o.body, Mr. Bill, you never saw me! You never knew I was on earth until I was a queen!"

"That isn't fair!" stammered Mr. Bill, when he was confronted with the truth. "That isn't fair!"

"It's true, isn't it?" demanded Tessie triumphantly. "I should say I am glad I'm a queen!"

"So I would know you are on earth?" asked Mr. Bill softly, and quite forgetting the gulf which is supposed to yawn between queens and floorwalkers.

But Tessie would not admit that that was the reason she was glad to be a queen. No girl would.

"The idea!" she said instead, and sat up straighter and refused to exchange tender glances with him. "Is this a good car?" she asked in a most matter-of-fact voice. "I have to buy a car, and I don't know which is a good one."

"I do!" exclaimed Mr. Bill emphatically. "And I'll help you buy a car.

I'll help you do anything!" And he might have dared to put his hand on the royal fingers, they were so soft and white as they rested on her knee beside him, but a snarl from the rear made him realize that Ka-kee-ta's eyes were watchful. "I wish we could lose him," he grumbled.

"So do I," agreed Tessie heartily.

But Ka-kee-ta snarled louder and jumped to his feet and stared at a car which had come so close to them that it had almost sc.r.a.ped their fender.

He waved his ax wildly.

"The shark!" he shouted. "The shark!"

Mr. Bill stopped his car dead. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "What do you mean?"

"The shark!" squealed Ka-kee-ta with another flourish of his ax.

"That's what the man we found on the porch said!" exclaimed Tessie anxiously. "What do you suppose he means?" And when Mr. Bill could not tell her she turned to Ka-kee-ta. "What do you mean, Ka-kee-ta?"

The car which had all but sc.r.a.ped their fender, turned a corner and was out of sight.

"The shark," mumbled Ka-kee-ta, and dropped back in his place.

"Well, I'll be darned!" muttered Mr. Bill, as he started his engine.

"What did he mean? He couldn't see any shark, could he? What did he mean?"

But Ka-kee-ta refused to tell them why he had jumped up and shouted. He sulked and fiddled with his ax, and at last they left him alone.

"There are so many things I don't understand," sighed Tessie. "I--I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you to help me. Sometimes I wish the police hadn't been so quick about letting that other man go. It must mean something when two black men talk about a shark, mustn't it?"

She turned a troubled face to Mr. Bill.

"They sound and look to me more like a fraternity initiation than anything else," said puzzled Mr. Bill. "Perhaps they don't mean what we mean when we say 'shark.' Perhaps 'shark' is the Suns.h.i.+ne Island word for h.e.l.lo!"

"Oh!" Tessie looked up at him with eyes full of wonder and admiration.

"I do think you are the most wonderful man in the world! No one else would ever have thought of that!"

"Oh, I don't know," Mr. Bill murmured modestly. "But it might be true, you know."

"I'm sure it's true!" exclaimed Tessie eagerly.

X

Tessie really did not think much about Ka-kee-ta and his excited exclamations. She had too much to do to guess conundrums. Never was there a busier queen. The publicity the newspapers gave her brought new duties every day.

"You can't refuse," Norah Lee told her firmly. Norah had been loaned to the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands by the Evergreen and was taking her new work very seriously. "You want to advertise your kingdom, don't you? Make people know about it? I dare say there are thousands in Waloo this minute who have never heard of it, in spite of the corking stories the newspapers are giving you. Every one doesn't read every paper, and if you aren't in all the papers some people will miss knowing about you. It's your duty as a queen to make the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands the most talked about place in the world."

Put that way Tessie could not refuse, and she graciously permitted herself to be photographed and interviewed until every daily newspaper made a story of Queen Teresa and her islands as much a part of its daily routine as the sport page or the stock reports. "Our Queen," the _Gazette_ proudly called her, because she had made her first appearance in the _Gazette_.

She kept her promise to Mr. Kingley, and with Ka-kee-ta--his ax polished to silver brightness--stood in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Evergreen behind the familiar counter stocked high with aluminum. She might be the same little Tessie at heart, but outwardly there was a vast difference. She looked like a princess playing at being a salesgirl for her gown was of black silk crepe instead of cheap sateen, her hair was done in the simple fas.h.i.+on approved by Miss Morley, and at Mr. Kingley's request around her neck hung the Tear of G.o.d in its fiber lace. No one scolded her if she made a mistake. Indeed, Mr. Kingley had craftily minimized her chance to make a mistake by decreeing that she should only take the order and hand the parcel to the purchaser, the other girls could make out the sales-slips. And the bas.e.m.e.nt was mobbed with purchasers.