CHAPTER IX. A HURRIED LUNCH
Fourth Avenue having been reached, Miss Wiggin darted into a cornerdelicatessen store. "What will you have for your lunch?" she turned toask of her companion. "I'm going to get five cents' worth of hot macaroniand a dill pickle."
"Double the order," Bobs said, and then she added to the man who stoodbehind the counter: "I'll also take two ham sandwiches and two chocolateeclairs."
"Oh, Miss Dolittle, isn't that too much for you to spend at noon?" Thisanxiously from pale, starved-looking little Miss Wiggin.
At the Vandergrift table there had always been many courses with a butlerto serve, and in her heedless, thoughtless way, Bobs had supposed thateveryone, everywhere, had enough to eat.
It was a queer little smile that she turned toward her new friend as shereplied: "This being our first lunch together, let's have a spread." Thenshe paid the entire bill, which came to forty cents. "No," she assuredthe protesting Nell Wiggin, "I won't offer to treat every day. After thiswe'll go Dutch, honest we will! Now lead the way."
Again in the thronged street, little Miss Wiggin turned with an apology:"Maybe I oughtn't to've asked you to come to my room. Probably you'reused to something better."
"Don't you believe it!" Bobs replied cheerily. "I live in the shabbiestkind of a dump." She did not add that she had not as yet resided on NewYork's East Side for more than twenty-four hours, at the longest, andthat prior to that her home on Long Island had been palatial. She waseager to know how girls who had never had a chance were forced to live.Miss Wiggin was descending rather rickety steps below the street level."Is your room in the basement?" Bobs asked, trying to keep from her voicethe shock that this revelation brought to her. No wonder there were noroses in the wan cheeks of little Miss Wiggin.
"Yes," was the reply, "the caretakers of the buildings all live in thebasements, you know, and Mrs. O'Malley, the janitor of this one, is awidow with two little boys. She had a room to rent cheap and so I tookit."
Then she led the way through a long, narrow, dark hall. Once Bobs touchedthe wall and she drew back shuddering, for the stones were cold andclammy.
The little room to which Bobs was admitted opened only on an air shaft,but there was sunlight entering its one small window; too, there werewhite curtains and a geranium in bloom on the sill.
"It's always pleasantest at noon, for that's the only time that the sunreaches my window," the little hostess said, as she hurriedly drew asewing table out from behind the small cot bed, unfolded it and placedthe lunch thereon. Bobs' gaze wandered about the room, which was so smallthat its three pieces of furniture seemed to crowd it. In one corner wasa bamboo bookcase which held the real treasure of Miss Wiggin. Row afterrow of books in uniform dark red binding. They were all there--OliverTwist, David Copperfield, Old Curiosity Shop and the rest of them.
"Nights it would be sort of dismal sitting in here alone if 'twasn't forthose books," the little hostess confessed. "That's a real good kerosenelamp I have. It makes a bright light. I curl up on the couch as soon asmy supper's eaten, and then I forget where I really am, for I go whereverthe story takes me. Come, everything is ready," she added, "and sincefifteen minutes of our time is gone already, we'd better eat withouttalking."
This they did, and Gloria would have said that they gulped their food,but what can one do with but half an hour for nooning?
They didn't even stop to put away the table. "I'll leave it ready for mysupper tonight," Miss Wiggin said, as she fairly flew down the dark, dampbasement hall.
Five minutes later they were entering the alley door of the antique shopwhich had so fine an entrance on Fifth Avenue.
"May the Fates save us!" Bobs exclaimed. "I do believe we are one minutelate. Are we in for execution or dismissal?"
But that one minute had evidently escaped the watchful eye of MissPeerwinkle, for, when Nell Wiggin and Roberta entered the shop, they sawthe portly Mr. Queerwitz pacing up and down and in tragic tones he wasexclaiming: "Gone! Gone! I should have locked it up, but I didn't thinkanyone else knew the value of it." Then, wheeling around, he demanded ofBobs: "What good are you, anyway, in the book department? One of therarest books I possess was stolen this morning right beneath your veryeyes, and----"
Little Nell Wiggin, usually so timid, stepped forward and said: "It musthave happened while we were out at lunch. It couldn't have been while wewere here, for nobody at all went down to the books."
Mr. Queerwitz paid no more attention to the words of little Miss Wigginthan he would at that moment to the buzzing of a fly.
"Dolittle, well-named, I should say," he remarked scathingly. How Robertawished that she had chosen a busier sounding name, but the deed was done.One couldn't be changing one's name every few hours, but----
Her revery was interrupted by: "What have you to say for yourself?"
"Nothing," was the honest reply.
"You are discharged," came the ultimatum.
Bobs was almost glad. "Very well, Mr. Queerwitz," she replied, andturning, she walked briskly toward the cloakroom.
When Bobs returned from the cloakroom, having donned her hat and jacket,she was informed that Mr. Queerwitz had just driven away, but that hehadn't said where he was going. Bobs believed that he was going to reporther uselessness as a detective to her employer, James Jewett. Ah, well,let him go. Perhaps after all she had made a mistake in her choice of aprofession. As she was passing she heard the older women talking.
Miss Harriet Dingley was saying, "Now I come to think of it, just afterthe girls went out to lunch, I did see a man come in, but I thought hewas looking at china."
The head lady shot a none too pleasant glance at the other clerk as shesaid coldly, "Well, you aren't giving me any information. Didn't I watchevery move he made like a cat watches a mouse hole? Just tell me that!"
"Oh, yes, Miss Peerwinkle. I'm not criticizing anything you did. But youremember when a boy ran by shouting fire, we did go to the door to seewhere the fire was and a minute later the man went out and----"
"He went empty-handed," the head-woman said self-defendingly.
"I know he did. Now please don't think I'm criticizing you, but when hewent out I noticed that he was a hunch-back, and I'm certain that hedidn't have a hump when he came in."
"We'll not discuss the matter further," was said in a tone of finality asMiss Peerwinkle walked away with an air of offended dignity.
Bobs looked about for Nell, to whom she wished to say good-bye. She wasglad that the youngest clerk was beyond the book shelves as Roberta wascurious to know which book had been taken. A gap on the top shelf toldthe story. It was a rare old book for which one thousand dollars had beenoffered if its mate could be found.
"Whoever has taken the book has the other volume. I'm detective enough toknow that," Roberta declared. Then she turned to find little Miss Wigginstanding at her side looking as sad as though something very precious wasbeing taken away from her.
Impulsively Bobs held out both hands.
"Don't forget, Nell Wiggin, that you and I are to be friends, and what'smore, next Sunday morning at ten o'clock sharp I'm coming down to get youand take you to my home for dinner. How would you like that?"
"Like it?" The dark eyes in the pale, wan face were like stars. "O, MissDolittle, what it will mean to me!"
Miss Harriet Dingley did nod when she heard Bobs singing out "Good-bye,"but Miss Peerwinkle seemed to be as deaf as a statue.
"I could laugh," Bobs said to herself as she joined the throng on FifthAvenue, "if my heart wasn't so full of tears. I don't know as I can standmuch more of seeing how the other half lives without having a good cryover it. Dickens, the only friend and comforter of that frail little miteof humanity!"
Then, as she turned again toward Avenue A, she suddenly remembered thepackage of detective stories for which she had promised to call at theshop where there was a spray of lilacs and a much-loved invalid woman.
"I guess I'll give up
the detective game," she thought, as she hurriedalong, "but I'll enjoy reading the stories just the same."
Half an hour later she had changed her mind and had decided that shereally was a very fine detective indeed.