"Why," he growled at length, "I had business. I got a cablegram soon
after you left New York. The thing was confoundedly inconvenient, but I
had no choice about it."
"Dunny," I said weakly, but sternly, "you didn't bring me up to tell
whoppers, not bare-faced ones like that, anyhow, that wouldn't deceive
the veriest child. What earthly business could you have over here in
war-time? Own up, now, and take your medicine like a man."
His guilty air was sufficient answer.
"Well, Dev," he acknowledged, "it was your cable. That Gibraltar mess
was a nasty one, and I didn't like its looks. I'm getting old, and
you're all I've got; so I took a passport and caught the _Rochambeau_.
Not, of course, that I doubted your ability to take care of yourself, my
boy--"
"Didn't you? You might have," I admitted with some ruefulness, "if
you had known I was bucking both the Allied governments and the picked
talent of the Central powers. It was too much. I was riding for a fall,
and I got it. But I don't mind saying, Dunny, I'm infernally glad you
came."
He wiped his eyes.
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