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Show ., .., 4-: 'HE GBFT WIFE . . . IPERT HUGHES WNU SERVICE By RUPERT HUGHES CHAPTER XIV 14 igl-rldlculous perplexity of red Itself. He heard a rus-Miruma rus-Miruma came to him as a she had vanished. He ler with effusion: : heaven, you came, for I e to beg that you forgeeve be to rude to you. Jebb as been so kind to me. It m I owe that I am free. y bad. I have net the right ;ry that he" ired you. Say it!" said Jebb but she would not accept t be did not telled me the tave no right to know. Let aids once more yes? Tell orgeeve me for to be Jeal- n't" he was going to say; op being jealous of met' lugbt himself, vas no time to explain or ruma escape. Miss Lud- at Jebb's elbow with the ded and palmed, as if it ight tip. She pretended to rids with him and left the I she released the clasp: you are, Mr. Pier Dr. I can never thank you thank me at all er er lam, tnay I present to you air was tremulous with music from the Viennese and the Magyar bands in the cafes. At the entrance was a circle where stood a naval monument monu-ment on a stone column with bronze prows protruding. It reminded Jebb of the entrance to Central Park via Columbus Circle and its monument. He longed to be there again, and above all he longed to have Miruma there with him. "Jebb Effendi goes to Budapest thees evening to find the little child. Could I not help by to go too?" "You could of course you could, but but I could hardly take you with me." "Why?" "Don't you see? don't you realize? real-ize? it would it would be unfair to you; it would be compromising." "If you do not want me " "Oh!" The sight of her distress unnerved him; bis love was at his very lips. But he could not say anything without saying everything. When they reached the hotel it was so late that he had no more than time to make his train, and she less than time to dress for the Opera, Op-era, which begins at seven in Vienna. Vi-enna. So their good-by was a mere exchange ex-change of hearty promises to meet again, and a short hand-grip in the crowded hotel corridor. Of course, that evening sister Jennie Jen-nie let slip an allusion to the pathetic dough for me. Prooklyn Rapid Tren-sit Tren-sit closed two points oft last night in New Yorick." Checkless repeated more news: "Now the newspapers say the Kink of England comes to Carlsbad next mont'. Now he names de odds on de horse-races dis afternoon." But Jebb was not interested in Hungarian horse-races. Jebb had a curiosity to see this Margaret's Island Is-land where he and Cynthia had been together. Here George Checkless took pleasure in acting as Vergil to his Dante. They crossed a heavy Y-shaped bridge to the huge emerald em-erald set in the tarnished gold of the Danube. He found himself in a rose garden gar-den and here as his nostrils widened wid-ened over the fragrance, his arm was suddenly clutched by a peasant, evidently a gardener, who bombarded bombard-ed him with a shower of gutturals which he supposed to be peasant Hungarian. "What's the matter with the old boy?" Jebb asked Checkless. "Does he think I'm going to carry off his garden?" At length the interpreter interpreted: interpret-ed: "He says how dare you came here." "Isn't it a public garden?" "Yes, but he says that you came here a mont' or so ago and bringed a little girl vit you, and then valk off and leave her to strangers to protect." a sort of delirium. When I came to my senses 1 was in another country, coun-try, and I couldn't remember." Checkless almost swooned at so much history in such essence. "So! Den all yet got to do it is to find the gentlemans and lady vat keeps the child in cold storatch and say: 'Here ve are again. " "We must find them at once. What was their name?" On hearing the question translated, translat-ed, the gardener made them wait while he went to the tool-house and brought from his coat a soiled and wrinkled card bearing this, and this only: NIKOLAI POGODIN Machines-a-ecrire Flaubert VARSOVIE ET PARIS Checkless gleaned from this: "He is a Rossian name, and h sells French typewriters in Poland." "I see that," said Jebb. "But this does not tell where be lives in Budapest; ask him." The gardener turned the card over and put an earthy finger on a penciled pen-ciled address on the back of the card. But it had been blurred till nothing was legible but "Pension ky . . . Ulloiut" "Who is Ulloi-ut?" said Jebb. "He is a street, one of the longest long-est streets in Pest." The gardener could remember iresent to you miss Ma-r Ma-r heaven's sake, hanim ef-irbat ef-irbat Is your name? She's :3t friend on earth, but I w her name!" Madame Miruma Janghir. ! my father's name." udlam was staring with t this mysterious converge conver-ge was as much interested i as Miruma in her. Each e to the other. Miss Lud-wn Lud-wn and motioned the oth-sit oth-sit lin this ring legend himself Drable, so Jebb rose and you two talk to each other ments, while I go find out trains to Budapest? I ther first one." that Miruma was afraid y troubled either at this t being left with her sup-d, sup-d, Jebb added: erhaps Miss Ludlam will be gtory of the ring." decamped, leaving Miru-rect Miru-rect and disdainful toward am. r When he came back had evidently been told, o women had their heads ther and were on cordial io v.neciuess amazement uiis nei-nous nei-nous accusation seemed to fill Jebb with delight. He embraced the earth-smudged gardener and treated treat-ed him as a long-lost prodigal. CHAPTER XV After much parley, Checkless pieced together the man's fragmentary fragmen-tary story into this narrative: "He says one day in the efter-noon, efter-noon, you are came here vit a nice little gyermek child, and he makes notice of her, she is so pretty, and she loves his flowers so. He cannot understand it vat she say, but he loves her because she is so lovink for his roses. But you did look tired and sick and you sit on a bensh and go like you take a little sleep. "The little girl she plays all the time and talks vit the gardener. He does not know what lengwitch she speaks it, but they make signs and become grand friends. She helps him trim the rosehedge, and gets vit the thorns sticked, but is very brave and does not make a cryink. Instead In-stead she makes such a laughink! "Soon a lady and gentleman is sit on another bensh and watches the little girl, and they call her and she nothing more. The number of the house had been there, but it was rubbed off his memory as well 83 the card. Abruptly Checkless was smitten with an idea. "I got it," he said. "Ve go to the telephone newspaper and tell j them they got to tell everybody in Budapest all about it, and maybe sure somebody telephones to the office of-fice something about it." The vocal advertisement was accepted ac-cepted for its news value without charge and put upon the wires while they waited. The rest of the day Jebb spent in wandering up and down Ulloi street, studying every house and seeing in each one a den where Cynthia was incarcerated. He dined with Checkless at the Hotel Ho-tel Bristol. When they had ordered dinner, Checkless went to telephone to the telephone-paper. He came back beaming: "A man has called up the paper and says he knows somet'ink. They give him this address and he comes here any minute." At last a hotel servant brought a there is a train at 6:46 end the Orient Express. It i Budapest an hour before I (think I'd better take Just time enough for a about Vienna before train jld you care to go?" wai willing enough to go with Jebb, and she asked enough to get a hat and ?hen she was gone, Jennie vho-could see through a with a hole in it, and !& at once that Jebb and ere Infatuated, lingered to perfect dear and such a 1 take care of her for you art in Budapest. Your to me was princely. I d repay it in some way s so rich. When you come scheme which might u Is a physician; though ' you don't practice any perhaps you would lend ivice. This is for charity, ''i ddan impulse, he made n, and told her briefly the i curse, his other person-oss person-oss of the child, and his Checkless pieced together the man's fragmentary story. affliction of poor Dr. Jebb, thinking Miruma knew of it; and of course Miruma extorted the whole story from her before they parted. As she crept into her bed her heart was full of pity for her beloved, be-loved, wrestling like another Jacob with a ghostly enemy, but her heart rejoiced, too, with a radiant happiness, happi-ness, since now her intuition told her that this, and no other cause or person, was the reason for his asperity as-perity with her. Also in Pest there is a Hotel Bristol, Bris-tol, and Jebb woke there the next morning. He had not been long in Budapest before he learned that the Margit-Szigel was, as Miruma had imagined, an island in English, Margaret's Island. But, though it split the Danube, it lay so far to the north that he could not see it from his window. He took his breakfast at one of the coffee-houses on the promenade, one of the coffee-houses that have never j closed since they first opened. It cave Jebb untold relief to find Eng- iajn.a ujr uiciii. -ut uic aic uuv tui- derstanding her either. The man is take her on his lap and lets her listen his watch, and they tell the gardener they weesh God had to them a little child gave like that. "Long time the child plays here, and then she makes a looking for you. But you are not there. You had gone out of sight. The little girl is afraid, but she tries not to cry. The lady and gentleman stay a long while to keep her brave, for they say all the time you surely come back. Then the lady and gentlemans gen-tlemans say, 'Ve take her to our house and if you see the man you tell him we got the child.' "The gardener says, 'You better tell the police, too.' And they say. Yes, they tell the police; but all the same they like to keep the baby. "Long times go by and the gardener gar-dener is almost forgetted it all. When today comes you again and he has got such a big mad at you he wants to flght it It is cu-rious; you are looking for a child and you look like a mans vat looses a child." "I am the man," said Jebb; "I was ill, and I wandered away in a man wno naa asKea ior jeDD at me desk. Jebb asked Checkless to ask the man to sit down and feast. The stranger answered rather petulantly petulant-ly for himself: "Ain't I got any English? Ain't I gone to New York many tim.es?" "You are not Mr. Pogodin, then." "Me him? If I was I should yoomp into the Donan. He is one dam' reskel, that fallen My name is Las-zlo Las-zlo Pataky, proprieting the Pension Pataky, rates reasonable, food sublime." sub-lime." Mr. Pataky was a man of great excitability. He was chiefly impressed im-pressed with the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Pogodin had gone away owing him money, and that they had refused re-fused to pay for a vase and a pitcher the child had broken. When Jebb offered to pay for the breakages of Cynthia, Mr. Pataky became almost amiable. The gist of a long three-cornered duel with him was that Mr. and Mrs. Pogodin tried to sell French typewriters in vain competition with the American makes. (TO BE COST1MJED) turkey. And her sympa-l sympa-l a rush of warm thoughts a pressure of his hand, a ompnssion, and a few stand. I had a brother, brother Wentworth was he would have been about low, and he would have t man if if it's about a o him that I want to talk day oh, be glad, that t teast half a life left to b, and don't despair. ' -'Iped so many in dis-ve dis-ve helped me. You can, lp numberless others, s some day" ! sj"God bless you!" but dng now." And he rose ffia. i'e rose, too, and said: " tision, my dear. And '-b is called to Budapest r so, I want you to go "qither and me to the ;!.t" accepted with a bashful md Jebb and she set out broad glory of the Ring-fr Ring-fr the Danube by the -je, and down the Prat-ie Prat-ie horses galloped, "er the turmoil was gay. -4 The long colonnades trees in the Haupt-Allee d with people. And the -f lish the favorite language of the town, the affectation of the Magyar. He had not finished his breakfast when a man at the next table addressed ad-dressed him in a rather thick dialect dia-lect and introduced himself as a fellow-American, though his name was unpronounceable, even when he handed Jebb his card with a legend like a line of pied type: Gyorgy Czeklesz. He asked Jebb to call him "George Checkless" for short and for easy. He explained, without being be-ing asked, that he had been swept into America on one of those tidal waves that nearly depopulated many an Hungarian village; he had become be-come naturalized, had prospered, and returned to his country with Yankee ideas. After some desultory conversation Mr. Checkless rose with a: "Excoose, please. I got to go and hear de newspaper." "Hear the newspaper!" "Sure. Ve got a telephone newspaper. news-paper. Ain't you heard him? Come listen once." He led Jebb to a telephone-like affair on the wall and putting the receiver to Jebb's ear watched while Jebb listened to a clear voice spilling spill-ing consonants lavishly: "You don't understand it? No? Let me listen." He took Jebb's place and a startled star-tled expression came over him. "Dere goes anudder bunch of |