"Put an'thing more on the tree?" he asked finally. "That's right! I guess we put on everything there was. Well, g'by! See you to-morrow!" And he hung up the receiver.
He had just resumed his chair after this master-stroke when the telephone rang. This time it was the _real_ Nancy.
Sube's glib flow of language of the moment before seemed to have deserted him entirely. He stuttered and stammered and stalled. He tried to put matters off till the morrow, but Nancy would not hear of such a thing. She wanted to be reassured as to Auntie Emma's condition. She must know at once whether her party was likely to be cheated out of his presence.
"Mamma called up your mother," she informed him, "and she said she hadn't heard a word about it. She thought there must be some mistake."
"Yes, there was," Sube considered it safe to reply.
"You hadn't told her yet! You were keeping it from her to spare her, weren't you, Sube?"
"That's just what I told mamma. And when we both called up and you weren't home yet, I just knew you'd gone down there to help. You had, hadn't you?"
"Why, yes, you can! I want to know all about it! Now tell me!"
"Why, you know--you know--now, what I tole you about one minute, and the next?"
"Oh!--I know why!--She's dead!--Mamma!" Sube heard her call. "She's dead!"
"She is not!" screamed Sube. "She's--she's just the _opposite_!"
"Alive and kickin'! All well! All over it the next minute! See you to-morrow! G'-by!"
Mrs. Cane had just finished a little dissertation on the elements of courtesy and its necessary place in the lexicon of youth, when Sube looked up absently and asked:
"I didn't understand, dear. What's the name?" she asked.
"He's dead, I guess. Nancy's aunt was bawlin' about him to-night."
"He means Clarence Harger," guessed Mr. Cane. "She still sheds tears every time his name is mentioned; and strange to relate, I don't believe her lachrymal glands ever yielded up one drop of moisture until she found that the old tight-wad had left her a quarter of a million that she never dreamed he possessed."
"Was Clarence a tight-wad?" asked Sube with interest. "Where'd he live, anyway? When'd he die?"
"He was a very nice man," Mrs. Cane hastened to explain. "He lived and died in Rochester. And you must be very courteous to Mrs. Hotchkiss-Harger, as she is one of your father's very best clients. Her husband was a splendid man--"