Fanny looked doubtful.
“Can you see me on a duck-farm, Freddy?”
“Can I?” Mullett’s eyes beamed adoration. “You bet I can see you there—standing in a gingham apron on the old brick path between the hollyhocks, watching little Frederick romping under the apple-tree.”
“Little who?”
“Little Frederick.”
“Oh? And did you notice little Fanny clinging to my skirts?”
“So she is. And William John in his cradle on the porch.”
“I think we’d better stop looking for awhile,” said Fanny. “Our family’s growing too fast.”
Mullett sighed ecstatically.
“Doesn’t it sound quiet and peaceful after the stormy lives we’ve led. The quacking of the ducks. … The droning of the bees. … Put back that spoon, dearie. You know it doesn’t belong to you.”
Fanny removed the spoon from the secret places of her dress and eyed it with a certain surprise.
“Now, how did that get there?” she said.
“You snitched it up, sweetness,” said Mullett gently. “Your little fingers just hovered for a moment like little bees over a flower, and the next minute the thing was gone. It was beautiful to watch, dearie, but put it back. You’ve done with all that sort of thing now, you know.”
“I guess I have,” said Fanny wistfully.
“You don’t guess you have, precious,” corrected her husband-to-be. “You know you have. Same as I’ve done.”
“Are you really on the level now, Freddy?”
“I’m as honest as the day is long.”
“Work at nights, eh? Mullett, the human moth. Goes through his master’s clothes like a jealous wife.”
Mullett laughed indulgently.
“The same little Fanny! How you do love to tease. Yes, precious, I’m through with the game for good. I wouldn’t steal a bone collar-stud now, not if my mother came and begged me on her bended knee. All I want is my little wife and my little home in the country.”
Fanny frowned pensively.
“You don’t think it’ll be kind of quiet down on that duck-farm? Kind of slow?”
“Slow?” said Mullett, shocked.
“Well, maybe not. But we’re retiring from business awful young, Freddy.”
A look of concern came into Mullett’s face.
“You don’t mean you still have a hankering for the old game?”
“Well, what if I do?” said Fanny defiantly. “You do, too, if you’d only come clean and admit it.”
The look of concern changed to one of dignity.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Mullett. “I give you my word, Fanny, that there isn’t the job on earth that could tempt me now. And I do wish you would bring yourself to feel the same, honey.”
“Oh, I’m not saying I would bother with anything that wasn’t really big. But, honest to goodness, Freddy, it would be a crime to sidestep anything worthwhile, if it came along. It isn’t as if we had all the money in the world. I’ve picked up some nice little things at the stores and I suppose you’ve kept some of the stuff you got away with, but outside of that we’ve nothing but the bit of cash we’ve managed to save. We’ve got to be practical.”
“But, sweetie, think of the awful chances you’d be taking of getting pinched.”
“I’m not afraid. If they ever do nab me, I’ve got a spiel about my poor old mother. …”
“You haven’t got a mother.”
“Who said I had? … a spiel about my poor old mother that would draw tears from the Woolworth Building. Listen! ‘Don’t turn me over to the police, mister, I only did it for ma’s sake. If you was out of work for weeks and starvin’ and you had to sit and watch your old ma bendin’ over the washtubs. …’ ”
“Don’t, Fanny, please! I can’t bear it even though I know it’s just a game. I. … Hello! Somebody at the front door. Probably only a model wanting to know if Mr. Finch has a job for her. You wait here, honey. I’ll get rid of her and be back in half a minute.”
IV
More than twenty times that period had elapsed, however, before Frederick Mullett returned to the kitchen. He found his bride-to-be in a considerably less amiable mood than that in which he had left her. She was standing with folded arms, and the temperature of the room had gone down a number of degrees.
“Pretty girl?” she inquired frostily, as Mullett crossed the threshold.
“Eh?”
“You said you were going to send that model away in half a minute, and I’ve been waiting here nearer a quarter of an hour,” said Fanny, verifying this statement by a glance at the wristwatch, the absence of which from their stock was still an unsolved mystery to a prosperous firm of jewellers on Fifth Avenue.
Mullett clasped her in his arms. It was a matter of some difficulty, for she was not responsive, but he did it.
“It was not a model, darling. It was a man. A guy with grey hair and a red face.”
“Oh? What did he want?”
Mullett’s already somewhat portly frame seemed to expand, as if with some deep emotion.
“He came to tempt me, Fanny.”
“To tempt you?”
“That’s what he did. Wanted to know if my name was Mullett, and two seconds after I had said it was he offered me three hundred dollars to perpetrate a crime.”
“He did? What crime?”
“I didn’t wait for him to tell me. I spurned his offer and came away. That’ll show you if I’ve reformed or not. A nice, easy, simple job he said it was, that I could do in a couple of minutes.”
“And you spurned him, eh?”
“I certainly spurned him. I spurned him good and plenty.”
“And then
