"My God!" he ejaculated, "Barrett is getting ready to hang himself! Gone mad probably-or something!"
Curdled with horror he forced himself to the object, only to note with convulsive relief but increasing bewilderment the cheerful phrasing and ultimate intent of the structure itself. "'Christmas Crossing'?" he repeated blankly. "'Look out for Surprises'?-'Shop, Cook, and Glisten'?" With his hand across his eyes he reeled back slightly against the wall. "It is I that have gone mad!" he gasped.
A little uncertain whether he was afraid of What-He-Was-About-to-See, or whether What-He-Was-About-to-See ought to be afraid of him, he craned his neck as best he could round the corner of the huge buffet that blocked the kitchen vista. A fresh bewilderment met his eyes. Where he had once seen cobwebs flapping grayly across the chimney-breast loomed now the gay worsted recommendation that dogs specially, should be considered in the Christmas Season. Throwing all caution aside he passed the buffet and plunged into the kitchen.
"Oh, do hurry!" cried an eager young voice. "I thought my hair would be white before you came!"
Like a man paralyzed he stopped short in his tracks to stare at the scene before him! The long, bright table! The absolutely formal food! A blindfolded girl! A perfectly strange blindfolded girl ... with her dark hair forty years this side of white-begging him to hurry!... A Black Velvet Bag surmounted by a Tiger's head stirring strangely in a chair piled high with books!... Seated next to the Black Velvet Bag a Canary as big as a Turkey Gobbler!... A Giraffe stepping suddenly forward with-with dog-paws thrust into his soup plate!... A White Rabbit heavily wreathed in holly rousing cautiously from his cushions!... A Parrot with a twitching black and white short-haired tail!... An empty chair facing the Girl! An empty chair facing the Girl.
"If this is madness," thought Delcote quite precipitously, "I am at least the Master of the Asylum!"
In another instant, with a prodigious stride he had slipped into the vacant seat.
"... So sorry to have kept you waiting," he murmured.
At the first sound of that unfamiliar voice, Flame yanked the handkerchief from her eyes, took one blank glance at the Stranger, and burst forth into a muffled, but altogether blood-curdling scream.
"Oh ... Oh ... Owwwwwwww!" said the scream.
As though waiting only for that one signal to break the spell of their enchantment, the Canary leaped upward and grabbed the Bengal Tiger by his muslin nose,-the White Rabbit sprang to "point" on the cooling turkey, and the Red and Green Parrot fell to the floor in a desperate effort to settle once and for all with the black spot that itched so impulsively on his left shoulder!
For a moment only, in comparative quiet, the Concerned struggled with the Concerned. Then true to all Dog Psychology,-absolutely indisputable, absolutely unalterable, the Non-Concerned leaped in upon the Non-Concerned! Half on his guard, but wholely on his itch, the jostled Parrot shot like a catapult across the floor! Lost to all sense of honor or table-manners the benign-faced Giraffe with his benign face still towering blandly in the air, burst through his own neck with a most curious anatomical effect,-locked his teeth in the Parrot's gay throat and rolled with him under the table in mortal combat!
Round and round the room spun the Yellow Canary and the Black Plush Bag!
Retreating as best she could from her muslin nose,-the Bengal Tiger or rather that which was within the Bengal Tiger, waged her war for Freedom! Ripping like a chicken through its shell she succeeded at last in hatching one front paw and one hind paw into action. Wallowing,-stumbling,-rolling,-yowling,-she humped from mantle-piece to chair-top, and from box to table.
Loyally the rabbit-eared Setter took up the chase. Mauled in the scuffle he ran with his meek face upside down! Lost to all reason, defiant of all morale, he proceeded to flush the game!
Dish-pans clattered, stools tipped over, pictures banged on the walls!
From her terrorized perch on the back of her chair Flame watched the fracas with dilated eyes.
Hunched in the hug of his own arms the Stranger sat rocking himself to and fro in uncontrollable, choking mirth,-"ribald mirth" was what Flame called it.
"Stop!" she begged. "Stop it! Somebody stop it!"
It was not until the Black Plush Bag at bay had ripped a red streak down Miss Flora's avid nose that the Stranger rose to interfere.
Very definitely then, with quick deeds, incisive words, he separated the immediate combatants, and ordered the other dogs into submission.
"Here you, Demon Direful!" he addressed the white Wolf Hound. "Drop that, Orion!" he shouted to the Irish Setter. "Cut it out, John!" he thundered at the Coach Dog.
"Their names are 'Beautiful-Lovely'!" cried Flame. "And 'Lopsy!' and 'Blunder-Blot!'"
With his hand on the Wolf Hound's collar, the Stranger stopped and stared up with frank astonishment, not to say resentment, at the girl's interference.
"Their names are what?" he said.
Something in the special intonation of the question infuriated Flame.... Maybe she thought his mouth scornful,-his narrowing eyes...? Goodness knows what she thought of his suddenly narrowing eyes!
In an instant she had jumped from her retreat to the floor.
"Who are you, anyway?" she demanded. "How dare you come here like this? Butting into my party!... And-and spoiling my discipline with the dogs! Who are you, I say?"
With Demon Direful, alias Beautiful-Lovely tugging wildly at his restraint, the Stranger's scornful mouth turned precipitously up, instead of down.
"Who am I?" he said. "Why, no one special at all except just-the Master of the House!"
"What?" gasped Flame.
"Earle Delcote," bowed the Stranger.
With a little hand that trembled perfectly palpably Flame reached back to the arm of the big carved chair for support.
"Why-why, but Mr. Delcote is an old man," she gasped. "I'm almost sure he's an old man."
The smile on Delcote's mouth spread suddenly to his eyes.
"Not yet,-Thank God!" he bowed.
With a panic-stricken glance at doors, windows, cracks, the chimney pipe itself, Flame sank limply down in her seat again and gestured towards the empty place opposite her.
"Have a-have a chair," she stammered. Great tears welled suddenly to her eyes. "Oh, I-I know I oughtn't to be here," she struggled. "It's perfectly ... awful! I haven't the slightest right! Not the slightest! It's the-the cheekiest thing that any girl in the world ever did!... But your Butler said...! And he did so want to go away and-And I did so love your dogs! And I did so want to make one Christmas in the world just-exactly the way I wanted it! And-and-Mother and Father will be crazy!... And-and-"
Without a single glance at anything except herself, the Master of the House slipped back into his chair.
"Have a heart!" he said.
Flame did not accept this suggestion. With a very severe frown and downcast eyes she sat staring at the table. It seemed a very cheerless table suddenly, with all the dogs in various stages of disheveled finery grouped blatantly around their Master's chair.
"I can at least have my cat," she thought, "my-faithful cat!" In another instant she had slipped from the table, extracted poor Puss from a clutter of pans in the back of a cupboard, stripped the last shred of masquerade from her outraged form, and brought her back growling and bristling to perch on one arm of the high-backed chair. "Th-ere!" said Flame.
Glancing up from this innocent triumph, she encountered the eyes of the Master of the House fixed speculatively on the big turkey.