CHAPTER VIII

TO ST. LOUIS

By eleven o'clock the next morning I had wound up my affairs, having
arranged with a young lawyer of my acquaintance to take over such cases
as I had, and I was busy in my room packing my saddle-bags for the
journey. The warm scents of spring were wafted through the open door and
window, smells of the damp earth giving forth the green things, and
tender shades greeted my eyes when I paused and raised my head to think.
Purple buds littered the black ground before my door-step, and against
the living green of the grass I saw the red stain of a robin's breast as
he hopped spasmodically hither and thither, now pausing immovable with
his head raised, now tossing triumphantly a wriggling worm from the sod.
Suddenly he flew away, and I heard a voice from the street side that
brought me stark upright.

"Hold there, neighbor; can you direct me to the mansion of that
celebrated barrister, Mr. Ritchie?"

There was no mistaking that voice--it was Nicholas Temple's. I heard a
laugh and an answer, the gate slammed, and Mr. Temple himself in a long
gray riding-coat, booted and spurred, stood before me.

"Davy," he cried, "come out here and hug me. Why, you look as if I were
your grandmother's ghost."