Officer 666 Part 2

CHAPTER III.

WHITNEY BARNES UNDER FIRE.

Joshua Barnes, sometimes referred to in the daily press as Old Grim Barnes, the mustard millionaire, turned suddenly upon his son and pinioned him:

"Why don't you get married?"

"That's just it, pater--why don't I?" replied the young man, blandly.

"Well, why don't you, then?" stormed Joshua Barnes, banging his fist down upon the mahogany table. "It's time you did."

Another bang lifted the red-headed office boy in the next room clear out of Deep Blood Gulch just as Derringer d.i.c.k was rescuing the beautiful damsel from the Apaches. Even Miss Featherington dropped "The Mystery of the Purple Room" on the floor and made a wild onslaught on the keys of her typewriter.

Whitney Barnes smiled benevolently upon his parent and nonchalantly lighted a cigarette.

"As I've said before," he parried easily between the puffing of smoke rings, "I haven't found the girl."

"Dod rot the girl," started Joshua Barnes, then stopped.

"Now, you know, my dear father, that I couldn't treat my wife like that. The trouble with you, pater, is that you reason from false premises."

"Nothing of the sort," choked out Barnes senior. "You know well enough what I mean, young man. You have any number of--of--well, eligible young ladies, to choose from. You go everywhere and meet everybody.

And you spend my money like water."

"Somebody has got to spend it," spoke up the sole heir to the mustard millions, cheerfully. "I'll tell you what I'll do, pater--you stop making it and I'll stop spending it. That's a bargain. It'll be a great lark for us both. It keeps me awake nights figuring out how I'm going to spend it and it keeps you awake nights puzzling over how you can make it--or, that is, make more of it."

"_Stop_!" thundered Joshua Barnes. "For once in my life, Whitney Barnes, I am going to have a serious talk with you. If your poor mother had only lived all this wouldn't have been necessary. She'd have had you married off and there'd be a houseful of grand-children by this time, and"----

"Just a moment, pater--did triplets or that sort of thing ever run in our family?"

"Certainly not! What are you driving at?"

"Nothing; nothing, my father. Only I was just wondering. We have a pretty big house, you know."

For a moment Joshua Barnes seemed on the verge of apoplexy, but he came around quickly, and moreover with a twinkle in his eye. Even a life devoted to mustard has its brighter side and Old Grim Barnes was not entirely devoid of a sense of humor. He was his grim old self again, however, when he resumed:

"Again I insist that you be serious. I intend that you shall be married within a year. Otherwise I will put you to work on a salary of ten dollars a week and compel you to live on it. If you persist in refusing to interest yourself in my business, the business that my grandfather founded and that my father and I built up, you can at least settle down and lead a respectable married life.

"To be candid with you, Whitney," and Joshua Barnes's big voice suddenly softened, "I want to see some little grand-children round me before I die. I have some pride of blood, my boy, and I want to see our name perpetuated. You have frivolled enough, Whitney. You are twenty-four. I can honestly thank G.o.d that you've been nothing more than a fool. You are not vicious."

"Thanks, awfully, pater. Being nothing more than a fool I suppose it is up to me to get married. Very well, then, I will. Give me your hand, dad; it's a bargain."

Whitney Barnes tossed away his cigarette and grasped his father's hand in both of his. He had become intensely serious. There was a depth of affection in that handclasp that neither father nor son permitted to show above the surface. Yet both felt it keenly within. Picking up his hat and stick, the tall, slim, graceful young man said:

"You have no further commands on the subject, dad? Do you want to pick the girl, or will you leave it to the taste and sometimes good judgment of a fool?"

"Haven't you any one in mind, son?" asked Joshua Barnes, anxiously.

"Absolutely not one, pater. You see, the trouble is that I can't ever seem to get real chummy with a girl but what her mother has to come and camp on my trail and scare me into fits. You haven't the least idea what a catch your son is, Joshua Barnes. Why, a mother-in-law looks to me like something in petticoats that comes creeping up with a catlike tread, carrying in one hand a net and in the other a bale-hook. I can't sit out two dances with a debutante before this nightmare is looking over my shoulder, grinning like a gargoyle and counting up the number of millions you are going to leave me."

"Oh, bos.h.!.+" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Joshua Barnes. "It's all in your fool imagination. Grow up and be a man, Whitney. You have given me your word and I expect you to make good. And by the way, son, there is my old friend Charley Calker's girl, just out of college. I hear she's a stunner."

"Mary Calker is a stunner, dad, and then a trifle. But I regret to say that she is too fresh from the cloistered halls of learning. You see I have been out of college three years and have managed to forget such a jolly lot that I really couldn't talk to her. She'd want me to make love in Latin and correspond in Greek. Worse than that, she understands Browning. No, poor Mary will have to marry a prescription clerk, or a florist or something else out of the cla.s.sics. But, don't lose heart, pater, I may be engaged before night. By-by."

It was a vastly more solemn Whitney Barnes who strolled out of the office of the mustard magnate and dragged his feet through the anteroom where sat Marietta Featherington and Teddie O'Toole. The comely Miss Featherington could scarcely believe what she saw from under her jutting puffs.

This good looking, dandified young man, with his perpetual smile and sparkling gray eyes had long been her conception of all that was n.o.ble and cultured and aristocratic. He was her Viscount Reginald Vere de Vere, speaking to her as from between yellow paper covers. He was her prince incognito who fell in love with Lily, the Lovely Laundress. He had threaded the mazes of more than one of her palpitating dreams, and in her innermost heart of hearts she had cherished the fond belief that one day their orbs would meet and their souls would rush together in such a head-on collision as is sometimes referred to as love at first sight. But in Miss Featherington's hero wors.h.i.+p gloom had no part. Her ideals never ceased to smile, whether they slew or caressed, and perpetually they carried themselves with a jaunty swing or a das.h.i.+ng stride.

The fact that there had been storm mutterings within the awful cave of Old Grim Barnes had never before had a depressing effect upon her hero. He had always sallied forth with airy tread, humming a tune or laughing with his eyes. What could have happened at this fateful meeting? Perhaps he had been disinherited. Rapture of raptures, he had confessed his love for some howling beauty of humble station, had been cut off with the inevitable s.h.i.+lling and was now going forth to earn his bread.

Marietta Featherington's heart came up and throbbed in her throat as Whitney Barnes suddenly wheeled and confronted her. Leaning back upon his cane, he looked at her--very, very solemnly.

"Miss Featherington," he p.r.o.nounced slowly, "I wish to ask you a question. May I?"

Marietta was sure that her puffs were on fire, so fierce was the heat that blazed under her fair skin. She concentrated all her mental forces in an effort to summon an elegant reply. But all she could get out was a stifled:

"Sure thing."

"Thank you, Miss Featherington," said the young man. "My question is this: Do you believe in soul mates? That is, do you, judging from what you have observed and any experience you may have had, believe that true love is controlled by the hand of Fate or that you yourself can take hold and guide your own footsteps in affairs of the heart?"

Teddie O'Toole had crammed "Deep Blood Gulch" into his hip pocket and was grinning from ear to ear.

Miss Featherington was positive that her puffs were all ablaze. She could almost smell them burning. She looked down and she looked up and she drew a long, desperate sigh.

"I believe in Fate!" she said with emotion that would have done honor to Sarah Bernhardt.

"Thank you, Miss Featherington," said Whitney Barnes, with profound respect, then turned on his heel and went out into the corridor of the great office building.

Unconsciously he had dealt a ruthless blow and there is not a scintilla of doubt but that he was responsible for the box on the ears that made Teddie O'Toole's head ring for the remainder of the day and thereby took all the flavor from the thrills he had found in "Deep Blood Gulch."

CHAPTER IV.

SMILES AND TEARS.

"Now there is no use in your arguing, Sadie--I love him and I have given him my promise."

The two cousins were alone again speeding up Fifth avenue in an automobile, a long-bodied foreign car that had been put at the disposal of Mrs. Burton by the New York agent of Mr. Hogg. The Omaha suitor for the hand of the fair Helen had also thrown in a red-headed French chauffeur, which is travelling a bit in the matter of chauffeurs. But as he understood only automobile English it was a delightful arrangement for Helen and Sadie, and permitted them absolute freedom of speech while riding behind him.

"If I had only known him longer, or had been introduced to him differently," sighed Sadie.

"But haven't I known all about him for years?" protested Helen Burton.