"Good idea!" he returned gravely. And as he halted the equipage at the hotel, he repeated meditatively: "A mighty good idea, Al; we must figure on that a little."
We were tired to silence when we reached our rooms; so much so that nothing seemed to make a defined and sharp impression upon my mind. I kept thinking all the time that I must have been mistaken in my first thought that I had never known the Trescotts.
"Their voices seem familiar to me," said I, "and yet I can't associate them with the old home at all. It's very odd!"
As Alice stood before the mirror shaking down and brushing her hair, she said: "Do you suppose he thought you in earnest about that absurd park?"
"No," I answered, "he understood me well enough; but what puzzles me is the question, was _he_ in earnest?"
In the middle of the night I woke with a perfectly clear idea as to the identity of the Trescotts! Prescott, Trescott! Josie, Josephine the "Empress"! And then the voice and figure!
"Why are you sitting up in bed?" inquired Alice.
"I have made a discovery," said I. "That man at the Stock Yards meant Trescott, not Prescott."
"In a word," said I, "the girl who gave you the flowers is the Empress!"
"I knew we'd meet her," she said at last. "It is fate."
"Here's the cave," said Jim, at the door of his office, next morning. "As prospective joint-proprietor and co-malefactor, I bid you welcome."
The smiles with which the employees resumed their work indicated that the extraordinary character of this welcome was not lost upon them. The office was on the ground-floor of one of the more pretentious buildings of Lattimore's main street. The post-office was on one side of it, and the First National Bank on the other. Over it were the offices of lawyers and physicians. It was quite expensively fitted up; and the plate-glass front glittered with gold-and-black sign-lettering. The chairs and sofas were upholstered in black leather. On the walls hung several decorative advertisements of fire-insurance companies, and maps of the town, county, and state. Rolls of tracing-paper and blueprints lay on the flat-topped tables, reminding one of the office of an architect or civil engineer. A thin young man worked at books, standing at a high desk; and a plump young woman busily clicked off typewritten matter with an up-to-date machine.