“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Get my teeth, you scoundrel,” bellowed the colonel, hopping from one gouty foot to the other in his rage.
Larry ducked back into his room and opened the drawer in which he had imprisoned the two puppets. He lifted them out paying no attention to their shrill accusing squawks.
“Okay,” he said, when they had exhausted their repertoire of abuse, “we’re through playing games. Where are they?”
“Where are what?” Mike asked surlily.
“Don’t play dumb,” Larry said sharply, “I want the colonel’s teeth. Give!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat mumbled.
“Oh, yes you do,” Larry said grimly. “And you’re going to tell me where they are.”
“Supposing we don’t?” Mike said sullenly.
Larry picked up his cigarette lighter from the top of the dresser. He flicked on the light and watched the blue-hot flame lick greedily into the air.
The two puppets watched the flame also, and there was a sudden anxiety in their button-like eyes.
“I am not a monster,” Larry said calmly, “but I would have no scruples about giving each of you fellows a hotfoot, if necessary, to find out what I want to know. A hot-foot in your case would probably be fatal, but I can’t help that.”
Mike twisted uneasily in his hand. Pat did likewise.
“Who wants any old false teeth?” Mike said suddenly.
“I don’t,” Pat said promptly.
“Start talking,” Larry said.
“They’re in the top drawer,” Mike said. “Please put out that lighter. It’s giving me heart burn.”
Larry put out the lighter and tossed the puppets back into the drawer beside his shirts. He closed the drawer and locked it. Then he opened the top drawer and the first sight that met his eyes was the colonel’s very large, very white and very false set of teeth.
With them in his hand he returned to the excited group clustered about the colonel’s drawer.
Gloria saw him first. Her eyes lighted when she saw the teeth in his hand.
“Oh, you’re wonderful!” she cried.
The colonel stamped out of his room and when he saw his teeth in Larry’s hand he grabbed them like a wolf snatching meat from a trap.
He fitted them into his mouth and then he swung on Larry. His mouth opened and closed. His face purpled with his efforts at speech.
Finally he gave up.
He pointed toward the door.
“Go!” he hissed. The word seemed to seep up from the soles of his feet and it had collected plenty of venom by the time if passed through the colonel’s body and cracked out in the air about Larry’s ears.
“You said it more effectively last night,” Larry said dryly.
With an indignant wheeze the colonel padded back into his room. Larry was about to do likewise, sans the indignant wheeze when Gloria put her hand on his shoulder.
“Please don’t go yet,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure I can talk Father out of his bad mood. We need you for the show tonight. I’ll be in a terrible mess if you don’t stay. Please, just for me?”
What could Larry do?
He shrugged. “Okay. But I’ll be packing just in case.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in the main hallway in a half hour,” Gloria said. “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry.”
“I stopped worrying hours ago,” Larry said ironically. “It’s up to Fate now.”
Gloria smiled comfortingly at him and then went into her father’s room and closed the door. Larry shrugged and went back to his own room to begin packing. There was only one thing he was worried about.
The colonel might shoot Gloria.
The fact that she was his daughter would probably be only an extra inducement to the fire-belching, hard-headed, stiff-necked old goat!
Chapter VI
Larry was waiting in the hallway when Gloria came down the wide curving steps, smiling triumphantly.
“Everything’s all set,” she said. “I explained to Father that we simply couldn’t do without you tonight, and since the proceeds of the party are for Army relief, he couldn’t very well say no.
She had changed into a simple tweed suit, but he had never seen her looking quite so fresh and lovely.
“You look sweet enough to ration,” he grinned.
She looked at him quickly, slightly startled. Then she smiled. “Isn’t it a little early in the morning for pretty speeches?”
“In your case,” he said, “I don’t imagine it’s ever too early. The average girl doesn’t look quite up to par in the morning, but you look as if you’d spent the night sleeping in the bell of a flower.”
“If I had,” she laughed, “I’d be wrinkled and messy and have dew in my hair.”
She glanced out the window.
“It’s raining a little, but it’s still a nice morning. Would you like to take a walk before breakfast? You haven’t seen any of the grounds yet.”
“Sounds like a wonderful idea,” Larry said. He felt his spirits not only rising, but soaring. That was what a few seconds of this lovely girl’s company did to him, he thought with a slight touch of wonder.
In spite of all the things that happened and were still scheduled to happen he felt illogically and gloriously happy. When Buggy Rafferty and the puppets got through with him this evening, he would probably be slated for free room and board at Atlanta for the next few years, but he didn’t give a damn. Right now he was going for a walk with the most beautiful girl in the world and it had been her suggestion.
Maybe he did have a chance. The thought that this glorious creature could ever return his affection was crazy and unthinkable but Larry, being human, felt hope kindling in his heart.
She got him an umbrella and they went outside. The air was bracingly keen and the misting rain transformed the grounds into a dewy fairyland. On the eastern horizon the sun was crawling sleepily from a blanket of soft clouds and the first long lances of light created a million diamond-bright sparklings in the wet trees and grass.
Larry breathed deeply.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” the girl said.
“Absolutely tops.” He grinned down at her. “Let’s take a look at the gardens. Maybe I can find that flower you slept in last night.”
“I hope you don’t,” she said. “I forgot to make the bed.”
They walked hand in hand across the smooth, landscaped lawn until they came to the riotously colorful gardens. Under the shelter of a lane of trees, they paused. She stood close enough to him so that when he leaned forward a soft strand of hair blew across his face.
She turned slightly and looked up at him, her eyes dark and serious.
“I was wondering,” she said softly, “why this has been so much fun. Is it just the garden and the rain, or is there some other reason?”
“I think there’s another reason,” Larry said. He knew that this was his moment of opportunity and it might never come again. He put his hands on her slim shoulders and smiled down into her eyes.
“What reason is that?” she asked, and her voice caught breathlessly on the words.
Larry started to say the things that had been in his heart forever, but before he could open his mouth he felt a sharp dig in his left ankle.
He winced involuntarily; but the girl didn’t notice. Her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted.
Larry glanced down and saw Tim standing on the ground between his feet, carrying a postcard which was bigger than he was. A sharp flash of panic stabbed him. This was no time for Gloria to find out about his animated puppets.
He shoved Tim away with his foot, but the little puppet returned doggedly and began pulling at his trouser leg.