eagerly took up the cue, keeping the talk upon us and "the Indian," to
my father's deep satisfaction. From this she turned to our childhood and
the life in this old house. Dad pictured it all in such glowing colors I
recognized almost nothing as real. But watching Sue's face as she
listened, she seemed to me trying to feel again as she had felt here
long ago when she had been his only chum. Every few moments she would
break off to throw a quick, restless glance at Joe.

When the time came for us to go, my father assured us warmly that he had
not felt so young in years. He said we had so stirred him up that he
must take a book and read or he wouldn't sleep a wink all night. Joe did
not come away with us. As we stood all together at the door, I saw
Eleanore glance into Dad's study where his heavy leather chair was
waiting, and then into the room across the hall where Sue had drawn up
two chairs to the fire. And I thought of the next hour or two. My father
already had under his arm a book on American shipping, which told about
the old despotic sea world of his day, in which there had been no
strikers but only mutineers.

* * * * *

"There's very little time to lose," said Eleanore on the way home.

"Look here," I suggested. "Why don't you talk this out with Sue, and
tell her just what you think of it all?"

"Because," said Eleanore, "what I think and what you think has nothing
whatever to do with the case. Sue would say it was none of our business.
And she'd be quite right. It isn't."

"Aren't we making it our business?" My wife at times gets me so
confused.

"I'm not _telling_ them anything," she rejoined. "I'm only trying to
_show_ them something and let the poor idiots see for themselves. If
they won't see, it's hopeless."

CHAPTER X

On Friday evening Sue sent word that she would be late and that she
would meet us at Joe's room. So we went down without her.

His room had changed since I'd seen it last, I took in at once his
pathetic attempts to fix it up for our coming. Gone were the dirty
curtains, the dirty collars and shirts, and the bed was concealed by an
old green screen borrowed from his landlady, the German saloon-keeper's
wife below. The same woman had scrubbed the floor and put down a faded
rag carpet in front of the old fireplace, in which now a coal fire was
burning. Poor Joe had turned up all the lights to make things bright and
cheerful, but it only showe