Divided Skates

“It’s electric, ain’t it?”

“What? The bell? Yes, certainly.”

“Then I’d send for a ’lectrician. He’d find out the trouble in a jiffy. But, shucks! wouldn’t it be prime!”

“What would be prime?” Yet Miss Lucy sighed in relief, as she added: “What an extremely simple thing; and why didn’t I think of it before?”

“Don’t know, except ’cause you didn’t.”

“Hm’m. Immediately after breakfast I’ll send for a man. Now – my goodness! What’s all this?”

The glances of both flew to the windows which were on a level with the street. There were four of these lace-draped windows, two in front and two upon the side. At each was a small face peering in, and at some there were two faces.

Towsley forgot everything. All the changed conditions of his life, his determination to be very thoughtful of Miss Lucy, the gentlemanly behavior which belonged to a boy who lived in the finest house upon the Avenue. They were faces that he knew, – every one! They, were the faces of Shiner, and Battles, and Toothless, and Whistling Jerry. Behind these, Tom the Bugler, and Larry Lameleg.

His friends were they, his jolly little comrades; who had heard of what had befallen him and had come to condole with him. The mere sight of them brought back the atmosphere so familiar to him: of the alleys and their freedom, of Newspaper Square with its hurry and bustle and eager life! It was too much for Towsley, and with a shout of rapture he rushed to the basement entrance, out upon the street, into the very arms of his mates.

“Say, it was true, then, ain’t it?” demanded Tom the Bugler. “What was in our paper last night, and that our man saw up in the park? You dressed up in another boy’s clothes and lost yourself in the snow, didn’t you? Must been a dumb one to do that. Right here in Baltimore city where you’ve lived all your life. Say, was it bad in hospital? Be you goin’ to stay here? What’s the lady doin’? She looks – she looks kind of funny, don’t she?”

Lionel Towsley glanced back through the window into the room he had deserted, and his heart sank. Miss Lucy had pushed aside from the table and was watching him with a white, disappointed face. It had been such a little while that she had had him, and yet he had become so dear. She had been so ready, so eager to bestow every comfort and benefit upon him, and he had seemed so deserving; yet now, at a glance, he was back in the old ways among his rude companions, and she and her offered love were quite forgotten.

“Say, Tows, you’re a regular swell now, ain’t you? My! see them fine clothes! Look at the pockets of ’em. Money? Money in the pockets, Tows? Give us a nickel all round, you nabob, you. Rides in a sleigh every day, he does, and never thinks no more of Newspaper Square and nights on the old steam holes, he don’t!” gibed Battles fiercely.

But Lionel scarcely heard this taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing his manly, loving, loyal little heart – the claims of his old life and his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy’s generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn’t need her, he thought; but she needed him. She needed him very much. It was his duty to be good to her; and, like many another child under similar circumstances, at that moment Towsley felt that the word “duty” was the most disagreeable one in the language. He took a second real good look at Miss Lucy still sitting, waiting, and this time he saw something in her face that made everything quite easy.

“She understands!” he thought, and then he nodded to her with a happy smile. A second later, with a hurried, “Wait a minute, fellows!” he had darted back into the breakfast-room and, now indifferent to the stares of his comrades, flung his arms about the lady’s neck, crying:

“It’s all right, dear Miss Armacost! I’m not a-going to run away with them. But I’ve just thought of something and I want it, I want it – oh! so much! It’s a little thing! But I want, I do want, before I give up the newspaper business to get just one ‘beat’ on th’ others. May I? May I just go down to the office, and before anybody else gets hold of it, get our ghost story in? It would make a whopper, it would! I’ll carry the boys away with me, and I won’t let on a bit, and I’ll come back surely. Just this once, may I? I never had a chance before?”

It struck even Towsley himself as an odd circumstance that he should ask this permission; he who had never before consulted anybody as to his goings or comings; or that he should wait so eagerly for her reply.

But Miss Lucy scarcely heard him. She was thinking of something else. The clasp of those young arms about her neck thrilled her with a joy unspeakable. With such an expression as it now wore, Towsley’s face seemed, indeed, that of the lost, innocent Lionel restored to life. She was ready and anxious to give him all he desired, even to the half of her kingdom; and she comprehended less of what he was just then saying, than what he had so greatly desired on the previous evening.

“Yes, my dear. You may. We will certainly hire the great stage, and give a ride to as many as it will hold. You shall tell me just what you want, and I will gratify you if it is possible.”

“Thank you – oh! thank you!” he cried, and dashed a kiss at her. At that moment, however, he was more loyal to his paper than generous to his friends, and he ran out hastily.

His mates beheld and construed this action after their own way.

“Pshaw! She’s give him the go-by. He ain’t no swell. Anybody could work the ’doption racket for just one night, he could. Let’s chase him. If she’s give him money, he must treat!” cried Battles contemptuously.

So, in a twinkling, the place was deserted, and Miss Lucy sat alone trying to understand just what had happened.

The silence about her was complete, and continued for a long time.

“What did he mean? Evidently not what I did, or had in mind,” pondered the perplexed mistress of the house on the Avenue; and, as if in answer to her unspoken question, again there fell upon the stillness that startling, inexplicable ringing of a bell.

“Oh oh! There is that uncanny sound again! What can cause it? I don’t wonder the servants are frightened. I am, myself; though I know, of course, there are no such things as ghosts. And yet – ”

As if in derision of her doubt, once more the bell pealed; this time both for long and violently.

CHAPTER VII.

THE END OF IT ALL

Breathless with haste and excitement, Towsley rushed into the editorial rooms of the Express office and sank into the nearest chair to recover himself.

For a moment the group of men in the place regarded him without recognition; then one reporter exclaimed:

“Why, it’s Tows! Little Towsley of ours!” and gayly extended his hand in greeting.

“Congratulations, young man!” cried another. “The hero of a snow-bank, an adoption, a rescue! The staff is proud to welcome you back!”

A third whipped out pencil and pad and demanded:

“The facts. Straight. First-hand notes keep the right color. Make another item for to-night.”

But the boy had regained his speech and held up a protesting hand.

“Don’t bother with that old stuff. The fellows said it had been in. Has it?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody else ’round – that don’t belong to us?” asked the newsboy cautiously, looking about the room for lurking strangers.

“Not a soul. What’s up?”

“Got a good one. A regular ghosty one. Up to the house where I’m livin’ now.”

“What’s that? Don’t swell so with pride, aristocrat!”

“Who’s a-swelling? If you don’t want it, never mind. I ain’t suffering to give it away. Don’t know as Miss Lucy’d like it, any way.”

It was rather late in the affair to think about that, however, and Towsley put the possibility out of mind; or, with the true spirit of newspaper enterprise, decided that private considerations should give precedence to the public good. Yet what possible good the mysterious ringing of an electric bell was to do the “public” it would be difficult to say.

“Come, you rising young journalist! Give it out. Wouldn’t go back on your own paper, would you?”

Whereupon, Towsley related his modern ghost story, with such embellishments as a very lively fancy could furnish; and the active reporter took it down verbatim. After which he tossed his “copy” to an office boy and put on his hat and top-coat.

“Come on, Tows. I’ll go up with you and see the thing for myself.”

“It’s just as I said,” remarked the lad, proudly.

“I’m not denying it. But if I can make two paragraphs go where one would do, you’re not the boy to hinder me, I suppose,” answered the other.

The cars had resumed their regular running, and the pair boarded one; but when they left it at the corner of the Avenue where Miss Lucy lived, the reporter looked about him and whistled.

“Well, I declare, boy! You’re in clover. I wouldn’t mind being adopted myself. See that you introduce me properly to the lady. Mention her name first, then present me. We want to do credit to our office, you see.”