t care for their motions none at
all, I didn't. So I jes' had to tap 'em a little."

[Illustration: "Now see hea-uh, Mistuh Vonstable," says he, "I wouldn't
go for to do anything like that."]

"Tappin' is good!" says I. "And how about you, Robin? How do you come to
be mixin' it up so conspicuous?"

"I'm sorry," says he. "I suppose I made an awful ass of myself. But even
if she is a public dancer, that snipe shouldn't have insulted her. Of
course I'd found out long before that Miss Toots was no longer anything
to me; but----"

"Then that was the famous Maggie, was it?" I breaks in. "The one that
lured you up from Dixie?"

"Not exactly a lure," says he. "She didn't think I'd be chump enough to
come. But that's all off now."

"I ain't curious," says I, "but the fam'ly has sort of delegated me to
keep track of your moves. What's next, if you know?"

Robin shrugs his shoulders sort of listless. "I don't know," says he.
Then he turns to Uncle Noah. "Uncle," says he, "how will those
scuppernongs be about now on the big arbor in front of Uncle Phil's?"

"Bless you, Mistuh Robin," says old Noah, "they'll be dead ripe by now,
and there's jes' doodlins of 'em. Miss Peggy Culpepper, she'll be mighty
lonesome, a pickin' of 'em all by herself."

"Humph!" says Robin, tintin' up. "Think so, do you?"

"I don't have to think, Mistuh Robin," says Uncle Noah. "Miss Peggy told
me that herself the mornin' I come away."

Young Mr. Hollister gazes earnest into them gentle old blue eyes for a
second, then he takes a turn or two up and down the lib'ry, and fin'lly
claps Uncle Noah on the shoulder. "I've been waiting all summer for a
taste of those grapes," says he. "Come, we can just catch the midnight.
I've had enough of Broadway to last me for a long time."

And my partin' glimpse of 'em was at eleven-fifty-six, when they pushed
through the gate bound for Goober, Georgia.

"After all," thinks I, "it may not be so bad as it sounds."

CHAPTER V

THE CASE OF A FEMALE PARTY

You know how free this J. Bayard Steele has been in callin' on me for
help in puttin' over his little deeds of kindness, at so much per deed?
Well, here the other day he shows up at the studio with sealed envelope
No. 3 in his pocket, and after springin' his usual guff about the door
of fate he opens it.

"Well, who's the party of the second part this time?" says I.

But he just gazes at the slip of paper he's taken out and smiles mushy.

"All r