CHAPTER II
SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS
"Jack! have you your banjo? And Ellen, have you the box of candy Daddygave us?" Jane called over her shoulder to the two who were sitting inthe tonneau as they were driving over to the station to catch thetrain that was to take them to New York.
"You better keep your eyes on the road if you are to keep us in theroad," gently reproved Mr. Pellew from his seat beside his daughter.
"We've got everything we ought to have, but what have you remembered?Nothing for a change?" teased Jack, for Jane was an almost proverbialforgetter.
"Anything important that you have forgotten I can parcel post to youafter I come back from New York," said Aunt Min, who was to go alongto chaperon them at the hotel in New York. The girls had some shoppingto do and were going up a few days prior to their final departure toaccomplish it.
"Aunt Min, you are a perfect peach, and I am so glad you finallyjoined the Camp Fire Girls." Ellen reached over and pattedaffectionately the hand of the woman once disliked by the entire bandof Jane's friends and now the pet of all of them.
As the car, piloted by Jane, whirled up to the station, a rather fatyoung man was seen dashing frantically around, talking first to thestation agent and then to the baggage man, all the time violentlymopping his face with a huge white handkerchief.
"There's Charlie Preston in a stew as usual," giggled Jane, pointingto the distraught young man, who was Mabel's fiance.
Suddenly Charlie stopped his gyrations and his face broke into areally charming smile.
"I was trying to find out from some of these misguided officials ifyou all had made arrangements to go on this train, for if you weren't,I wasn't either, but not one word could I get out of them but a polite'Speak to you after the train leaves,' and, saving your presence, MissMin, how the deuce would that help me?" Charlie exploded to hisfriends. He was a strange mixture of calmness in times of stress andgreat irritability and excitability in times of petty trials.
"All aboa'd!" cried the white-jacketed and very black porter.
"Oh! Daddy, good-bye, good-bye, I am going to miss you all the time,no matter how much fun I am having," and Jane ruffled Mr. Pellew'scollar in the last of a series of bear hugs that had begun the nightbefore.
"Don't make such rash promises but write me occasionally, and Jack,you telegraph me as soon as you get to New York. I hope the rooms Iwired for will be all right. And now I am going because I won't feelso alone if I leave before the train pulls out," he said and drove offwith a great show of bravery.
At last they were settled comfortably for the long trip to New York,Aunt Min with a magazine and the young people planning good times forthe few days they were to be in the city before going aboard theyacht.
"We can go to see Emmeline Cerrito. Jack, you know she is ourbeautiful French friend who is studying for grand opera. She hopes tomake her appearance this fall. Maybe she will sing for us. I don'tthink I've ever heard a lovelier voice; have you, Jane?" Ellen lovedmusic.
"And Sarah Manning is in training at the Presbyterian Hospital; wewill certainly look her up and get her to come to dinner if she canget any time off," suggested Jane.
"I want to get something for the ship's library," said Charlie, "and Ithink Carroll's 'Hunting of the Snark' would be in order. It will helpto comfort me during the first three or four days out. You know I'mnobody's able seaman. My last year at college a bunch of us raced ayacht down to Bermuda and I want to say that, for three days, I wasn'tanything but in the way." And poor Charlie winced at the unhappymemory.
"But that was one of those narrow little racing types," soothed Ellen,"and Mabel says her father's is a regular cruising boat and awfullycomfortable."
"Anyway, my beamish boy, I'll stick by you and play 'Heave-ho, myhearties' on the trusty banjo while you lean o'er the rail," Jackgrinned.
"You boys are rather horrid," said Aunt Min from behind her magazine."And, by the way, I expect to be taken to the theatre every night, sodon't make too many plans."
"Tickled to death to take you to any musical comedy you pick and toany roof garden afterwards," said Jack. "You know, nothing reallygood runs in New York in the summer months."
"And I suspect that you are not at all sorry," teased Aunt Min.
"Speaking of plays, that reminds me that Betty Wyndham is atProvincetown with the Provincetown Players for the summer gettingready for next winter. She got them to take her on this spring. I knowwe will go to Plymouth and if we are that near we just can't helpgoing to see Betty," said Ellen, planning happily.
"So we will really see all of our friends by hook or crook during thesummer." Then Jane yawned and announced that she was going to crawlinto her berth and go to sleep.
When New York was finally reached, it took two taxis to deposit thetravelers at their hotel. There the little party separated, Aunt Mingoing to her room to rest, the boys going out to "see the town," andEllen and Jane going to do their shopping.
"I love the way the New Yorkers hurry along all so intent on wherethey are going and so certain they are going to get there in the end,"said Ellen. "Neither one of us has a really working knowledge of thecity so, no doubt, we will be lost one million times on the way toAbercrombie & Fitch's."
"Then we will just ask some genial Irish cop," said Jane lightly. "Ihave never paid any attention to the ridiculous warnings of people whosay, 'Never talk to somebody you aren't certain of.' I flatter myselfthat I can tell at a glance whether a person is the kind of person totalk to or not."
Deep in an argument in which Ellen favored getting gray flannel sportshirts and Jane khaki ones, the two girls got on the subway.
"We have been on here ten minutes, surely we will be there soon," saidEllen glancing at her watch.
"So we would," giggled the irrepressible Jane, "if we were going theright way. I noticed just now that we were on a car marked Bronx whenwe ought to be on a downtown express. I was going to give you to thenext stop to notice it; after that of course I would have told you."
"Next time we better not talk so much," observed Ellen wisely as thegirls rose to leave the car.
"Whew! I would like to come up for air. It's so stuffy down here Ican't think which way we ought to go. If we just had some workinghypothesis of where we are, then we might dope out some route totake," lamented Jane.
Both girls looked round them with rather amused expressions. Finally,Ellen squealed and punched Jane. "There's your genial Irish cop; goover and ask him how we must get to Abercrombie & Fitch's."
Jane marched over to the big fat policeman, plainly from Erin. Hegrinned invitingly at the world in general and, as she stopped infront of him, at her in particular.
"Yes, Mum," he said.
"We took that horrid old Bronx subway and we didn't mean to," beganJane by way of lucid explanation.
"And not the first are ye, young lady, to do the same. Indade, itlooks to me like folks only get to the Bronx by tryin' to go someother place," the big man announced.
Then Jane told him where they did want to go.
"I'm off duty now and it's goin' that way I am myself, so if itpleases ye I'll just take ye," said Sergeant Murphy.
Ellen had come up to them and was very profuse in her thanks, but theSergeant brushed them aside with a hearty "'Tis nothin'."
The two girls seated on either side of the big Irishman kept himgrinning with their amusing chatter about nothing. The three of themwere entirely oblivious of the utter unconventionality of thesituation and would have been much surprised if they had heard the oldwomen across the aisle whispering to one another.
It is certain that Ellen would have been very indignant if she hadknown that the young Russian on her left had kept his hand in hispocket all the way, so firm was the belief in his mind that she was apickpocket.
Surprise showed through even the suave manner of the young salesman atAbercrombie & Fitch's, but Ellen thought that it was brought forth bythe fact that two girls wanted such a surprising number of men'sshirts.
r />
As twilight came and with it no Ellen and Jane, Aunt Min began to getworried and called the boys in consultation. They decided to waituntil time to go down for dinner and, if the girls hadn't come inthen, to notify the authorities so they might organize a search forthem.
Aunt Min stood wringing her hands and moaning: "Such terrible thingscould happen to them. Charlie, don't you remember that awful Chinamanthat killed a girl in New York and put her in a trunk where theydidn't find her for ages and ages afterwards?"
"Ellen is so little. Oh! why didn't I go with them?" and Jack cursedhimself roundly for not taking care of the girl with whom he was inlove.
Charlie was seated in a lounging chair taking the whole affair quitecalmly. "Jack, please behave as though you had some sense. Those girlsare about twenty years old, both of them with the average amount ofintelligence, plenty of money in their pockets, and both on theoutside of a good lunch. So they won't starve to death and, if theyare lost, they can grab a taxi and come to the hotel. I'm willing tobet on Plain Jane's ingenuity to get 'em home even if they are bothdead and in some Chinaman's laundry bag. Probably what really happenedis that they met someone they know and went some place for tea," andCharlie went on peacefully eating chocolate creams.
"Oh! it is all very well for you to talk, but just suppose it wasMabel Wing who was lost and not Ellen. How about it then?" Jack asked.
"Mabel is too big to lose, so that is one thing I don't have to worryabout," answered Charlie.
"Anyway, let's go down in the lobby and wait," said Aunt Min and ledthe way.
Once there they took seats facing the entrance and glued their eyes tothe door. Consequently, when the girls came in flanking a bigpoliceman, Aunt Min, Jack, and Charlie rose simultaneously andadvanced upon them.
Aunt Min cried: "Thank heavens, Charlie Preston knows law! JanePellew, what have you done now?"
Jack beside himself was squeezing Ellen's hand and saying: "Ellen, Iam so glad they didn't take you to jail first. I just know Charlie andI can fix it up with the cop."
Charlie looked at them in a ruminating manner and murmured: "Toohappy-looking for anything to be really the matter. Wish they'd comeon and go in to dinner."
"You are perfectly ridiculous, all of you. Aren't they, SergeantMurphy?" and Jane received an understanding wink from that son of theEmerald Isle.
"It was this way," began Ellen and told of how the big policeman hadtaken them from shop to shop, and piloted them around all afternoon.
"So when we finished shopping," broke in Jane, "I suggested that allof us go to a movie."
"And a fine picture it was, Mum," said Sergeant Murphy to Aunt Min,"with that Fairbanks lad abusting things wide open with every foot ofreel."
Jane turned to Sergeant Murphy and shaking his hand said: "Ellen and Iwant to thank you for your kindness and also for giving us such alovely afternoon."
"'Tis nothin'," said Sergeant Murphy. "'Twas myself that had all thefun."