Mansfield mirror. (Mansfield, Wright County, Mo.) 1908-1957, 1919-06-19

call. She needed him and he would
not fail her. And it was with diff
Guilty that he contrived to hide the
the pleasure he is missing tonight"
De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss
Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd
proposed a toast.
"TO the rascals who went cunning
for the other rascals. But for them
We should be short at least one men,
Der of this agreeable company"
1t IA rather startling. Barnes
glass stopped half way to his lips. An
instant later he drained it. He ac-
cepted the toast as n compliment from
the whilom Irishman, and not as a
tribute to the prOwess of those mys-
ferrous marksmen.
The table in the spacious dining
room was M of those long, narrow
Italian boards, Enthusiastically antique
and equally rare. Sixteen or eighteen
people could have been seated with
out crOwding, and when the seven took
their places wide intervals separated
them. No effort had been made by the
hostess to bring her guests close to-
gether, as might have been done by
using one end or the center of the
table. The serving plates were of sill
yer. Especially beautiful were the
lOng-stemmed water gOblets and the
graceful champagne glasses. They
were blue and white and of a design
and quality no longer Obtainable ex.
cept at great cost. The esthetic
Barnes was not slow to appreciate the
rarity of the glassware and the chaste
beauty of the serving plates.
The man Nicholas vas evidently the
butler, despite his Seventh avenue
manner. He was assisted in serving
by two stalwart and amazingly clumsy
fOotmen, Of similar ilk and nationality.
On seeing these additional men serv-
ants Barnes began figuratively to
count on his fingers the retainers he
had so far encountered on the place.
Already he had seen six. all of them
powerful, rugged fellows. 1t struck
him as extraordinary, and in a way
significant, that there should be SO
many men at Green Fancy.
Much to his disappointment he was
not placed near Miss Cameron at
table. Indeed she was seated as far
away from him as possible. There was
a place set between him and De Soto,
for symmetr "'s sake, Barnes con-
cluded. In this he was mistaken;
they had barely seated themselves
when Mrs. Collier remarked:
"Mr. Curtis secretary usually joins
us here for coffee. He has his dinner
with my brother, and then, poor man.
comes in for n brief period of relaxa-
ton. When my brother Is In one Of
his bad spells poor Mr.. Loeb doesn't
much time to himself"
Loeb, the private secretary, came in
for coffee. He was a tall, spare man
Of thirty, pallidIy handsome, with
dark, studiOus eyes and features of an
Enthusiastically Hebraic cast, as his
name might have fOretOld. His teeth
were marvelOusly white and his slow
smile attractive. More than once dur
Ing the hour that Loeb spent with
them Barnes formed and dismissed q
stubborn ever-recurrlng opinion that
the nan was not a Jew. Certainly he
was not an American Jew. His voice, |
his manner of speech, his every action
stamped him as one born and bred in
4 land far from Broadway and its
rOunterparts. If a Jew he vas of the
east as 1t Is measured from Rome
the Jew Of the carnal Orient.
And as the evening wore on there
to Barnes the singular fancy
hat this man was the master and not
he servant Of the housed He could
put the ridiculous Idea out Of his
mind.
(To BE Continued.)
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