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1. 1. Getting Started: Compiling, Running, and Debugging
1. 1.0. Introduction
2. 1.1. Compiling and Running Java: JDK
3. 1.2. Compiling, Running, and Testing with an IDE
4. 1.3. Running Java with JShell
5. 1.4. Using CLASSPATH Effectively
6. 1.5. Downloading and Using the Code Examples
7. 1.6. Automating Dependencies, Compilation, Testing,
and Deployment with Apache Maven
8. 1.7. Automating Dependencies, Compilation, Testing,
and Deployment with Gradle
9. 1.8. Dealing with Deprecation Warnings
10. 1.9. Maintaining Program Correctness with
Assertions
11. 1.10. Avoiding the Need for Debuggers with Unit
Testing
12. 1.11. Maintaining Your Code with Continuous
Integration
13. 1.12. Getting Readable Tracebacks
14. 1.13. Finding More Java Source Code: Programs,
Frameworks, Libraries
2. 2. Interacting with the Environment
1. 2.0. Introduction
2. 2.1. Getting Environment Variables
 3. 2.2. Getting Information from System Properties
4. 2.3. Dealing with Java Version and Operating
System–Dependent Variations
5. 2.4. Using Extensions or Other Packaged APIs
6. 2.5. Using the Java Modules System.
3. 3. Strings and Things
1. 3.0. Introduction
2. 3.1. Taking Strings Apart with Substrings or
Tokenizing
3. 3.2. Putting Strings Together with StringBuilder
4. 3.3. Processing a String One Character at a Time
5. 3.4. Aligning Strings
6. 3.5. Converting Between Unicode Characters and
Strings
7. 3.6. Reversing a String by Word or by Character
8. 3.7. Expanding and Compressing Tabs
9. 3.8. Controlling Case
10. 3.9. Indenting Text Documents
11. 3.10. Entering Nonprintable Characters
12. 3.11. Trimming Blanks from the End of a String
13. 3.12. Program: A Simple Text Formatter
14. 3.13. Program: Soundex Name Comparisons
4. 4. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions
1. 4.0. Introduction
2. 4.1. Regular Expression Syntax
 3. 4.2. Using regexes in Java: Test for a Pattern
4. 4.3. Finding the Matching Text
5. 4.4. Replacing the Matched Text
6. 4.5. Printing All Occurrences of a Pattern
7. 4.6. Printing Lines Containing a Pattern
8. 4.7. Controlling Case in Regular Expressions
9. 4.8. Matching “Accented” or Composite Characters
10. 4.9. Matching Newlines in Text
11. 4.10. Program: Apache Logfile Parsing
12. 4.11. Program: Full Grep
 Java Cookbook
FOURTH EDITION

Problems and Solutions for Java Developers

Ian F. Darwin
Java Cookbook

by Ian F. Darwin

Copyright © 2019 O’Reilly Media. All rights reserved.

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Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery

Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest

 April 2020: Fourth Edition

Revision History for the Fourth Edition

2019-10-15: First Early Release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781492072584
for release details.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media,

Inc. Java Cookbook, the cover image, and related trade dress
are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

The views expressed in this work are those of the author(s),

and do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher
and the author(s) have used good faith efforts to ensure that
the information and instructions contained in this work are
accurate, the publisher and the author(s) disclaim all
responsibility for errors or omissions, including without
limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and
instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any
code samples or other technology this work contains or
describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual
property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that
your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.

978-1-492-07258-4

[FILL IN]
Chapter 1. Getting Started:
Compiling, Running, and
Debugging

1.0 Introduction
This chapter covers some entry-level tasks that you need to
know how to do before you can go on—it is said you must
crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can ride a
bicycle. Before you can try out anything in this book, you need
to be able to compile and run your Java code, so I start there,
showing several ways: the JDK way, the Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) way, and the build tools (Ant,
Maven, etc.) way. Another issue people run into is setting
CLASSPATH correctly, so that’s dealt with next. Deprecation
warnings follow after that, because you’re likely to encounter
them in maintaining “old” Java code. The chapter ends with
some general information about conditional compilation, unit
testing, assertions, and debugging.

If you don’t already have Java installed, you’ll need to

download it. Be aware that there are several different
downloads. The JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is a smaller
download for end users. The JDK or Java SDK download is the
full development environment, which you’ll want if you’re going
to be developing Java software.

Standard downloads for the current release of Java are

available at Oracle’s website.

You can sometimes find prerelease builds of the next major

Java version on http://java.net. The entire (almost) JDK is
maintained as an open source project, and the OpenJDK
source tree is used (with changes and additions) to build the
commercial and supported Oracle JDKs.

If you’re already happy with your IDE, you may wish to skip
some or all of this material. It’s here to ensure that everybody
can compile and debug their programs before we move on.

1.1 Compiling and Running Java: JDK

Problem
You need to compile and run your Java program.

Solution
This is one of the few areas where your computer’s operating
system impinges on Java’s portability, so let’s get it out of the
way first.
JDK

Using the command-line Java Development Kit (JDK) may be

the best way to keep up with the very latest improvements in
Java. Assuming you have the standard JDK installed in the
standard location and/or have set its location in your PATH,
you should be able to run the command-line JDK tools. Use the
commands javac to compile and java to run your program
(and, on Windows only, javaw to run a program without a
console window). For example:

C:\javasrc>javac HelloWorld.java

C:\javasrc>java HelloWorld
Hello, World

C:\javasrc>

If the program refers to other classes for which source is

available (in the same directory) and a compiled .class file is
not, javac will automatically compile it for you. Effective with
Java 11, for simple programs that don’t need any such co-
compilation, you can combine the two operations, simply
passing the Java source file to the java command:

java HelloWorld.java
As you can see from the compiler’s (lack of) output, this
compiler works on the Unix “no news is good news”
philosophy: if a program was able to do what you asked it to, it
shouldn’t bother nattering at you to say that it did so. Many
people use this compiler or one of its clones.

There is an optional setting called CLASSPATH, discussed in

Recipe 1.4, that controls where Java looks for classes.
CLASSPATH, if set, is used by both javac and java. In older
versions of Java, you had to set your CLASSPATH to include “.”,
even to run a simple program from the current directory; this is
no longer true on current Java implementations.

Sun/Oracle’s javac compiler is the official reference

implementation. There were several alternative open source
command-line compilers, including Jikes and Kaffe but they
are, for the most part, no longer actively maintained.

There have also been some Java runtime clones, including

Apache Harmony, Japhar, the IBM Jikes Runtime (from the
same site as Jikes), and even JNODE, a complete, standalone
operating system written in Java, but since the Sun/Oracle JVM
has been open-sourced (GPL), most of these projects have
become unmaintained. Harmony was retired by Apache in
November 2011.

MAC OS X

The JDK is pure command line. At the other end of the

spectrum in terms of keyboard-versus-visual, we have the
Apple Macintosh. Books have been written about how great the
Mac user interface is, and I won’t step into that debate. Mac
OS X (Release 10.x of Mac OS) is built upon a BSD Unix (and
“Mach”) base. As such, it has a regular command line (the
Terminal application, hidden away under
/Applications/Utilities), as well as both the traditional Unix
command-line tools and the graphical Mac tools. Mac OS X
users can use the command-line JDK tools as above or any of
the modern build tools. Compiled classes can be packaged into
“clickable applications” using the Jar Packager discussed in
[Link to Come]. Mac fans can use one of the many full IDE
tools discussed in Recipe 1.2. Apple provides XCode as their
IDE, but out of the box it isn’t very Java-friendly.

GRAALVM

A new VM implementation called GraalVM has just entered

public release. Graal promises to offer better performance, the
ability to mix-and-match programming languages, and the
ability to pre-compile your Java code into executable form for a
given platform. See The Graal VM web site for more
information on GraalVM.
1.2 Compiling, Running, and Testing with
an IDE

Problem
It is cumbersome to use several tools for the various
development tasks.

Solution
Use an integrated development environment (IDE), which
combines editing, testing, compiling, running, debugging, and
package management.

Discussion
Many programmers find that using a handful of separate tools
—a text editor, a compiler, and a runner program, not to
mention a debugger—is too many. An IDE integrates all of
these into a single toolset with a graphical user interface. Many
IDEs are available, ranging all the way up to fully integrated
tools with their own compilers and virtual machines. Class
browsers and other features of IDEs round out the ease-of-use
feature sets of these tools. It has been argued many times
whether an IDE really makes you more productive or if you
just have more fun doing the same thing. However, today most
developers use an IDE because of the productivity gains.
Although I started as a command-line junkie, I do find that the
following IDE benefits make me more productive:
Code completion

Ian’s Rule here is that I never type more than three

characters of any name that is known to the IDE; let the
computer do the typing!

“Incremental compiling” features

Note and report compilation errors as you type, instead of

waiting until you are finished typing.

Refactoring

The ability to make far-reaching yet behavior-preserving

changes to a code base without having to manually edit
dozens of individual files.

Beyond that, I don’t plan to debate the IDE versus the

command-line process; I use both modes at different times
and on different projects. I’m just going to show a few
examples of using a couple of the Java-based IDEs.

The three most popular Java IDEs, which run on all

mainstream computing platforms and quite a few niche ones,
are Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ IDEA. Eclipse is the most
widely used, but the others each have a special place in the
hearts and minds of some developers. If you develop for
Android, the ADT has traditionally been developed for Eclipse,
but it has now transitioned IntelliJ as the basis for “Android
Studio,” which is the standard IDE for Android, and for Google’s
other mobile platform, Flutter. All three are plug-in based and
offer a wide selection of optional and third-party plugins to
enhance the IDE, such as supporting other programming
languages, frameworks, file types, and so on. While the
following shows creating and running a program with Eclipse,
the IntelliJ IDea and Netbeans IDEs all offer similar
capabilities.

Perhaps the most popular cross-platform, open source IDE for

Java is Eclipse, originally from IBM and now shepherded by the
Eclipse Foundation, the home of many software projects
including Jakarta, the follow-on to the Java Enterprise Edition.
Eclipse is also used as the basis of other tools such as
SpringSource Tool Suite (STS) and IBM’s Rational Application
Developer (RAD). All IDEs do basically the same thing for you
when getting started; see, for example, the Eclipse New Java
Class Wizard shown in Figure 1-1. Eclipse also features a
number of refactoring capabilities, shown in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-1. Eclipse: New Java Class Wizard
Figure 1-2. Eclipse: Refactoring
Mac OS X includes Apple’s Developer Tools. The main IDE is
Xcode. Unfortunately, current versions of Xcode do not really
support Java development, so there is little to recommend it
for our purposes; it is primarily for those building non-portable
(iOS-only or OS X–only) applications in the Swiift or Objective-
C programming languages. So even if you are on OS X, to do
Java development you should use one of the three Java IDEs.

How do you choose an IDE? Given that all three major IDEs
(Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ) can be downloaded free, why not
try them all and see which one best fits the kind of
development you do? Regardless of what platform you use to
develop Java, if you have a Java runtime, you should have
plenty of IDEs from which to choose.
Figure 1-3. IntelliJ program output
See Also
Each IDE’s web site maintains an up-to-date list of resources,
including books. See Table 1-1 for the website for each.

T
a
b
l
e
1
-
1
.
T
h
e
B
i
g
3
J
a
v
a
I
D
E
s

Product name Project URL Note

 Eclipse https://eclipse.org/ Basis of STS, RAD

IntelliJ Idea https://jetbrains.com/idea/ Basis of Android Studio

Netbeans https://netbeans.apache.org Run anywhere JavaSE does

These major IDEs are extensible; see their documentation for

a list of the many, many plug-ins available. Most of them allow
you to find and install plug-ins from within the IDE. For Eclipse,
use the Eclipse Marketplace, near the bottom of the Help
menu. As a last resort, if you need/want to write a plug-in that
extends the functionality of your IDE, you can do that too, and
in Java.

For Eclipse, I have some useful information at

https://darwinsys.com/java including a list of shortcuts to aid
developer productivity.

1.3 Running Java with JShell

Problem
You want to try out Java expressions and APIs quickly, without
having to create a file with public class X { public
static void main(String[] args) { … } every time.
Solution
Use JShell, Java’s new REPL (read-evaluate-print-loop)
interpreter.

Discussion
Starting with Java 11, jshell is included as a standard part of
Java. Jshell allows you to enter Java statements and have
them evaluated without the bother of creating a class and a
main program. You can use it for quick calculations, or to try
out an API to see how it works, or almost any purpose; if you
find an expression you like, you can copy it into a regular Java
class and make it permanent. JShell can also be used as a
scripting language over Java, but the overhead of starting the
JVM means that it won’t be as fast as awk, Perl or Python for
quick scripting.

REPL programs are very convenient, and hardly a new idea

(LISP languages from the 1950’s included them). You can think
of command line interpreters (CLIs) such as the Bash or Ksh
shells on UNIX/Linux, or Command.com on Microsoft Windows,
as REPLs for the system as a whole. Many interpreted
languages like Ruby and Python can also be used as REPLs.
Java finally has its own REPL, JShell. Here’s an example of
using it:

$ jshell
| Welcome to JShell -- Version 11.0.2
| For an introduction type: /help intro

jshell> "Hello"
$1 ==> "Hello"

jshell> System.out.println("Hello");
Hello

jshell> System.out.println("Hello")
Hello

jshell> "Hello" + sqrt(57)

| Error:
| cannot find symbol
| symbol: method sqrt(int)
| "Hello" + sqrt(57)
| ^--^

jshell> "Hello" + Math.sqrt(57)

$2 ==> "Hello7.54983443527075"

jshell> String.format("Hello %6.3f",

Math.sqrt(57)
...> )
$3 ==> "Hello 7.550"

jshell> String x = Math.sqrt(22/7) + " " +

Math.PI +
...> " and the end."
x ==> "1.7320508075688772 3.141592653589793 and
the end."

jshell>
You can see some obvious simplifications here, and one that’s
not obvious from the above:

The value of an expression is printed, without needing to

call System.out.println every time, but you can call it if you
like;

The semicolon at the end of a statment is optional (unless

you type more than one statement on a line);

If you make a mistake, you get a helpful message

immediately;

If you do make a mistake, you can use “shell history” (i.e.

up-arrow) to recall the statment so you can repair it;

If you omit a close quote, parenthesis or other punctuation,

JShell will just wait for you, giving a continuation prompt ….

So go ahead and experiment with JShell. Read the built-in

introductory tutorial for more details. When you get something
you like, copy and paste it into a Java program and save it.

1.4 Using CLASSPATH Effectively

Problem
You need to keep your class files in a common directory, or
you’re wrestling with CLASSPATH.
Solution
Set CLASSPATH to the list of directories and/or JAR files that
contain the classes you want.

Discussion
CLASSPATH is one of the more “interesting” aspects of using
Java. You can store your class files in any of a number of
directories, JAR files, or ZIP files. Just like the PATH your
system uses for finding programs, the CLASSPATH is used by
the Java runtime to find classes. Even when you type
something as simple as java HelloWorld, the Java interpreter
looks in each of the places named in your CLASSPATH until it
finds a match. Let’s work through an example.

The CLASSPATH can be set as an environment variable on

systems that support this (Microsoft Windows and Unix,
including Mac OS X). You set it the same way you set other
environment variables, such as your PATH environment
variable.

Alternatively, you can specify the CLASSPATH for a given

command on the command line:

C:\> java -classpath c:\ian\classes MyProg

Suppose your CLASSPATH were set to C:\classes;. on Windows

or ~/classes:. on Unix (on the Mac, you can set the
CLASSPATH with JBindery). Suppose you had just compiled a
file named HelloWorld.java into HelloWorld.class and tried to
run it. On Unix, if you run one of the kernel tracing tools
(trace, strace, truss, ktrace), you would probably see
the Java program open (or stat, or access) the following
files:

Some file(s) in the JDK directory

Then ~/classes/HelloWorld.class, which it probably wouldn’t

find

Finally, ./HelloWorld.class, which it would find, open, and

read into memory

The vague “some file(s) in the JDK directory” is release-

dependent. You should not mess with the JDK files, but if
you’re curious, you can find them in the System Properties
under sun.boot.class.path (see Recipe 2.2 for System
Properties information).

Suppose you had also installed the JAR file containing the
supporting classes for programs from this book, darwinsys-
api.jar (the actual filename if you download it may have a
version number as part of the filename). You might then set
your CLASSPATH to C:\classes;C:\classes\darwinsys-api.jar;. on
Windows or ~/classes:~/classes/darwinsys-api.jar:. on Unix.
Notice that you do need to list the JAR file explicitly. Unlike a
single class file, placing a JAR file into a directory listed in your
CLASSPATH does not suffice to make it available.

Note that certain specialized programs (such as a web server

running a Java EE Servlet container) may not use either
bootpath or CLASSPATH as shown; these application servers
typically provide their own ClassLoader (see [Link to Come]
for information on class loaders). EE Web containers, for
example, set your web app classpath to include the directory
WEB-INF/classes and all the JAR files found under WEB-
INF/lib.

How can you easily generate class files into a directory in your
CLASSPATH? The javac command has a -d dir option, which
specifies where the compiler output should go. For example,
using -d to put the HelloWorld class file into my
$HOME/classes directory, I just type the following (note that
from here on I will be using the package name in addition to
the class name, like a good kid):

javac -d $HOME/classes HelloWorld.java

java -cp $HOME/classes starting.HelloWorld
Hello, world!

As long as this directory remains in my CLASSPATH, I can

access the class file regardless of my current directory. That’s
one of the key benefits of using CLASSPATH.
Managing CLASSPATH can be tricky, particularly when you
alternate among several JVMs of different vintages (as I
sometimes do) or when you have multiple directories in which
to look for JAR files. Some Linux distributions have an
“alternatives” mechanism for managing which version of Java
to use. Otherwise you may want to use some sort of batch file
or shell script to control this. The following is part of the shell
script that I have used—it was written for the standard shell on
Unix (should work on Bash, Ksh, etc.), but similar scripts could
be written in other shells or as a DOS batch file:

# These guys must be present in my classpath...

export CLASSPATH=/home/ian/classes/darwinsys-
api.jar:

# Now a for loop, testing for .jar/.zip or [ -d

... ]
OPT_JARS="$HOME/classes $HOME/classes/*.jar
${JAVAHOME}/jre/lib/ext/*.jar
/usr/local/jars/antlr-3.2.0"

for thing in $OPT_JARS

do
if [ -f $thing ]; then //must be either
a file...
CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH:$thing"
else if [ -d $thing ]; then //or a
directory
CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH:$thing"
fi
 done
CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH:."

This builds a minimum CLASSPATH out of darwinsys-api.jar,

then goes through a list of other files and directories to check
that each is present on this system (I use this script on several
machines on a network), and ends up adding a dot (.) to the
end of the CLASSPATH.

WARNING
Note that, on Unix, a shell script executed normally can change
environment variables like CLASSPATH only for itself; the
“parent” shell (the one running commands in your terminal or
window) is not affected. Changes that are meant to be
permanent need to be stored in your startup files (.profile,
.bashrc, or whatever you normally use).

Note that Java 9 and later also have a MODULEPATH, which

will be covered in XXX.

1.5 Downloading and Using the Code

Examples

Problem
You want to try out my example code and/or use my utility
classes.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
something about it himself. It’s a splendid letter; you would think that
even a coward like Governor Osborne would do something after
getting such a letter.”
“Didn’t he answer the letter?”
“Answer it? He never got it! Papa didn’t send it; that’s the reason!
Papa’s the kindest man in the world, and he must have been afraid
of hurting Governor Osborne’s feelings. He wrote the letter,
expecting to send it, but when he went off to New Orleans he told Mr.
Bassford to hold it till he got back. He had even signed it—you can
read it if you like.”
It was undoubtedly a vigorous epistle, and Ardmore felt the thrill of its
rhetorical sentences as he read. The official letter paper on which it
was typewritten, and the signature of William Dangerfield, governor
of North Carolina, affixed in a bold hand, were sobering in
themselves. The dignity and authority of one of the sovereign
American states was represented here, and he handed the paper
back to Miss Dangerfield as tenderly as though it had been the
original draft of Magna Charta.
“It’s a corker, all right.”
“I don’t much like the way it ends. It says, right here”—and she bent
forward and pointed to the place under criticism—“it says, ‘Trusting
to your sense of equity, and relying upon a continuance of the
traditional friendship between your state and mine, I am, sir, awaiting
your reply, very respectfully, your obedient servant.’ Now, I wouldn’t
trust to his sense of anything, and that traditional friendship business
is just fluffy nonsense, and I wouldn’t be anybody’s obedient servant.
I decided when I wasn’t more than fifteen years old, with a lot of
other girls in our school, that when we got married we’d never say
obey, and we never have, though only three of our class are married
yet, but we’re all engaged.”
“Engaged?”
“Of course; we’re engaged. I’m engaged to Rutherford Gillingwater,
the adjutant-general of this state. You couldn’t be my private
secretary if I wasn’t engaged; it wouldn’t be proper.”
The earth was only a flying cinder on which he strove for a foothold.
She had announced her engagement to be married with a cool
finality that took his breath away; and not realizing the chaos into
which she had flung him, she returned demurely to the matter of the
letter.
“We can’t change that letter, because it’s signed close to the
‘obedient servant,’ and there’s no room. But I’m going to put it into
the typewriter and add a postscript.”
She sat down before the machine and inexpertly rolled the sheet into
place; then, with Ardmore helping her to find the keys, she wrote:
I demand an imediate reply.
“Demand and immediate are both business words. Are you sure
there’s only one m in immediate? All right, if you know. I reckon a
postscript like that doesn’t need to be signed. I’ll just put ‘W. D.’ there
with papa’s stub pen, so it will look really fierce. Now, you’re the
secretary; you copy it in the copying press and I’ll address the
envelope.”
“Don’t you have to put the state seal on it?” asked Ardmore.
“Of course not. You have to get that from the secretary of state, and I
don’t like him; he has such funny whiskers, and calls me little girl.
Besides, you never put the seal on a letter; it’s only necessary for
official documents.”
She bade him give the letter plenty of time to copy, and talked
cheerfully while he waited. She spoke of her friends, as Southern
people have a way of doing, as though every one must of course
know them—a habit that is illuminative of that delightful Southern
neighbourliness that knits the elect of a commonwealth into a single
family, that neither time and tide nor sword and brand can destroy.
Ardmore’s humility increased as the names of the great and good of
North Carolina fell from her lips; for they were as strange to him as
an Abyssinian dynasty. It was perfectly clear that he was not of her
world, and that his own was insignificant and undistinguished
compared with hers. His spirit was stayed somewhat by the
knowledge that he, and not the execrable Gillingwater, had been
chosen as her coadjutor in the present crisis. His very ignorance of
the royal families of North Carolina, which she recited so glibly, and
the fact that he was unknown at the capital, had won him official
recognition, and it was for him now to prove his worth. The political
plot into which he had been most willingly drawn pleased him
greatly; it was superior to his fondest dream of adventure, and now,
moreover, he had what he never had before, a definite purpose in
life, which was to be equal to the task to which this intrepid girl
assigned him.
“Well, that’s done,” said Miss Jerry, when the letter, still damp from
the copy-press, had been carefully sealed and stamped. “Governor
Osborne will get it in the morning. I think maybe we’d better
telegraph him that it’s coming.”
“I don’t see much use in that, when he’ll get the letter first thing to-
morrow,” Ardmore suggested. “It costs money to telegraph, and you
must have an economical administration.”
“The good of it would be to keep him worried and make him very
angry. And if he told Barbara Osborne about it, it would make her
angry, too, and maybe she wouldn’t sleep any all night, the haughty
thing! Hand me one of those telegraph blanks.”
The message, slowly thumped out on the typewriter, and several
times altered and copied, finally read:
Raleigh, N. C.
The Honourable Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina,
Columbia, S. C.:
Have written by to-night’s mail in Appleweight matter. Your
vacillating course not understood.
William Dangerfield,
Governor of North Carolina.
“I reckon that will make him take notice,” and Miss Jerry viewed her
work with approval. “And now, Mr. Ardmore, here’s a telegram from
Mr. Billings which I don’t understand. See if you know what it
means.”
Ardmore chuckled delightedly as he read:
Cannot understand your outrageous conduct in bond
matter. If payment is not made June first your state’s credit
is ruined. Where is Foster? Answer to Atlanta.
George P. Billings.
“I don’t see what’s so funny about that! Mr. Bassford was walking the
floor with that message when I came to the office. He said papa and
the state were both going to be ruined. There’s a quarter of a million
dollars to be paid on bonds that are coming due June first, and there
isn’t any money to pay them with. That’s what he said. And Mr.
Foster is the state treasurer, and he’s gone fishing.”
“Fishing?”
“He left word he had gone fishing. Mr. Foster and papa don’t get
along together, and Mr. Bassford says he’s run off just to let those
bonds default and bring disgrace on papa and the state.”
Ardmore’s grin broadened. The Appleweight case was insignificant
compared with this new business with which he was confronted. He
was vaguely conscious that bonds have a way of coming due, and
that there is such a thing as credit in the world, and that it is
something that must not be trifled with; but these considerations did
not weigh heavily with him. For the first time in his uneventful life
vengeance unsheathed her sword in his tranquil soul. Billings had
always treated him with contempt, as a negligible factor in the
Ardmore millions, and here at last was an opportunity to balance
accounts.
“I will show you how to fix Billings. Just let me have one of those
blanks.”
And after much labour, and with occasional suggestions from Miss
Jerry, the following message was presently ready for the wires:
Your famous imputation upon my honour and that of the
state shall meet with the treatment it deserves. I defy you
 to do your worst. If you come into North Carolina or bring
legal proceedings for the collection of your bonds I will fill
you so full of buckshot that forty men will not be strong
enough to carry you to your grave.
“Isn’t that perfectly grand!” murmured Jerry admiringly. “But I thought
your family and the Bronx Loan and Trust Company were the same
thing. That’s what Rutherford Gillingwater told me once.”
“You are quite right. Billings works for us. Before I came of age he
used to make me ask his permission when I wanted to buy a new
necktie, and when I was in college he was always fussing over my
bills, and humiliating me when he could.”
“But you mustn’t make him so mad that he will cause papa trouble
and bring disgrace on our administration.”
“Don’t you worry about Billings. He is used to having people get
down on their knees to him, and the change will do him good. When
he gets over his first stroke of apoplexy he will lock himself in a dark
room and begin to think hard about what to do. He usually does all
the bluffing, and I don’t suppose anybody ever talked to him like this
telegram in all his life. Where is this man Foster?”
“Just fishing; that’s what Mr. Bassford said, but he didn’t know
where. Father was going to call a special session of the legislature to
investigate him, and he was so angry that he ran off so that papa
would have to look after those bonds himself. Then this Appleweight
case came up, and that worried papa a great deal. Here’s his call for
the special session. He told Mr. Bassford to hold that, too, until he
came back from New Orleans.”
Ardmore read Governor Dangerfield’s summons to the legislature
with profound interest. It was signed, but the space for the date on
which the law-makers were to assemble had been left blank.
“It looks to me as though you had the whole state in your hands,
Miss Dangerfield. But I don’t believe we ought to call the special
session just yet. It would be sure to injure the state’s credit, and it will
be a lot more fun to catch Foster. I wonder if he took all the state
money with him.”
“Mr. Bassford said he didn’t know and couldn’t find out, for the clerks
in the treasurer’s office wouldn’t tell him a single thing.”
“One should never deal with subordinates,” remarked Ardmore
sagely. “Deal with the principals—I heard a banker say that once,
and he was a man who knew everything. Besides, it will be more fun
to attend to the bonds ourselves.”
He seemed lost in reverie for several minutes, and she asked with
some impatience what he was studying about.
“I was trying to think of a word they use when the government has
war or any kind of trouble. It’s something about a corpse, but I can’t
remember it.”
“A corpse? How perfectly horrid! Can it be possible, Mr. Ardmore,
that you mean the writ of habeas corpus?” The twinkle in his eye left
her unable to determine whether his ignorance was real, or assumed
for his own amusement.
“That’s it,” beamed Ardmore. “We’ve got to suspend it if worst comes
to worst. Then you can put anybody you like into a dungeon, and
nobody can get him out—not for a million years.”
“I wonder where they keep it?” asked Jerry. “It must be here
somewhere. Perhaps it’s in the safe.”
“I don’t think it’s a thing, like a lemon, or a photograph, or a bottle of
ink; it’s a document, like a Thanksgiving proclamation, and you order
out the militia, and the soldiers have to leave their work and
assemble at their armouries, and it’s all very serious, and somebody
is likely to get shot.”
“I don’t think it would be nice to shoot people,” said Jerry. “That
would do the administration a terrible lot of harm.”
“Of course we won’t resort to extreme measures unless we are
forced to it. And then, after we have exhausted all the means at our
command, we can call on the president to send United States
troops.”
He was proud of his knowledge, which had lingered in his
subconsciousness from a review of the military power of the states
which he had heard once from Griswold, who knew about such
matters; but he was brought to earth promptly enough.
“Mr. Ardmore, how dare you suggest that we call United States
troops into North Carolina! Don’t you know that would be an insult to
every loyal son of this state? I should have you know that the state of
North Carolina is big enough to take care of herself, and if any
president of the United States sends any troops down here while I’m
running this office, he’ll find that, while our people will gladly die, they
never surrender.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that by what I said,” pleaded
Ardmore, frightened almost to tears. “Of course, we’ve got our own
troops, and we’ll get through all our business without calling for help.
I shouldn’t any more call on the president than I’d call on the Czar of
Russia.”
She seemed satisfied with this disclaimer, and produced a diary in
which Governor Dangerfield had noted his appointments far into the
future.
“We’ll have to break a lot of engagements for papa. Here’s a speech
he promised to make at Wilmington at the laying of the corner-stone
of the new orphan asylum. That’s to-morrow, and papa can’t be
there, so we’ll send a telegram of congratulation to be read instead.
Then he was to preside at a convention of the Old Fiddlers’
Association at Goldsboro the next day, and he can’t do that. I guess
we’d better telegraph and say how sorry he is to be delayed by
important official business. And here’s—why, I had forgotten about
the National Guard encampment, that’s beginning now.”
“Do you mean the state militia?” Ardmore inquired.
“Why, of course. They’re having their annual encampment over in
Azbell County at Camp Dangerfield—they always name the camp for
the governor—and father was to visit the camp next Saturday for his
annual inspection. That’s near your county, where your farm is; didn’t
you know that?”
Ardmore was humble, as he always was when his ignorance was
exposed, but his face brightened joyfully.
“You mustn’t break that engagement. Those troops ought to be
inspected. Inspecting his troops is one of the most important things a
governor has to do. It’s just like a king or an emperor. I’ve seen
Emperor William and King Humbert inspect their soldiers, and they
go galloping by like mad, with all the soldiers saluting, and it’s
perfectly bully. And then there have to be manœuvres, to see
whether the troops know how to fight or not, and forced marches and
sham battles.”
“Papa always speaks to the men,” suggested Jerry, a little abashed
by the breadth and splendour of Ardmore’s knowledge. His
comparison of the North Carolina militia with the armies of Europe
pleased her.
“I think the ladies of the royal family inspect the troops too,
sometimes,” he continued. “The queens are always honorary
colonels of regiments, and present them with flags, which is a
graceful thing to do.”
“Colonel Gillingwater never told me that, and he’s the adjutant-
general of the state and ought to know.”
“What’s he colonel of?” asked Ardmore gloomily.
“He was colonel in the Spanish war, or was going to be, but he got
typhoid fever, and so he couldn’t go to Cuba, and papa appointed
him adjutant-general as a reward for his services; but everybody
calls him Colonel just the same.”
“It looks like a pretty easy way of getting a title,” murmured Ardmore.
“I had typhoid fever once, and nearly died, and all my hair came out.”
“You oughtn’t to speak that way of my fiancé. It’s quite impertinent in
a mere private secretary to talk so.”
“I beg your pardon. I forgot that you were engaged. You’ll have to go
to Camp Dangerfield and inspect the troops yourself, and they would
a lot rather have you inspect them than have your father do it.”
“You mustn’t say things like that! I thought I told you your
appointment carried no social recognition. You mustn’t talk to me as
though I was a girl you really know——”
“But there’s no use of making-believe such things when I do know
you!”
“Not the least little tiny bit, you don’t! Do you suppose, if you were a
gentleman I knew and had been introduced to, I would be talking to
you here in papa’s office?”
“But I pretend to be a gentleman; you certainly wouldn’t be talking to
me if you thought me anything else.”
“I can’t even discuss the matter, Mr. Ardmore. A gentleman wouldn’t
lie to a lady.”
“But if you know I’m a liar, why are you telling me these secrets and
asking me to help you play being governor?” and Ardmore,
floundering hopelessly, marvelled at her more and more.
“That’s exactly the reason—because you came poking up to my
house and told me that scandalous fib about meeting papa in New
Orleans. Mr. Bassford is a beautiful liar; that’s why he’s papa’s
secretary; but you are a much more imaginative sort of liar than Mr.
Bassford. He can only lie to callers about papa being engaged, or
write encouraging letters to people who want appointments which
papa never expects to make; but you lie because you can’t help it.
Now, if you’re satisfied, you can take those telegrams down to the
telegraph office; and you’d better mail that letter to Governor
Osborne yourself, for fear the man who’s running the lawn-mower
will forget to come for it.”
The roll of drums and the cry of a bugle broke in upon the peace of
the late afternoon. Miss Jerry rose with an exclamation and ran out
into the broad portico of the state house. Several battalions of a tide-
water regiment, passing through town on their way to Camp
Dangerfield, had taken advantage of a wait in Raleigh to disembark
and show themselves at the capital. They were already halted and at
parade rest at the side of the street, and a mounted officer in khaki,
galloping madly into view, seemed to focus the eyes of the gathering
crowd. He was a gallant figure of a man; his mount was an animal
that realized Job’s ideal of a battle-horse; the soldiers presented
arms as the horseman rode the line. Miss Dangerfield waved her
handkerchief, standing eagerly on tiptoe to make her salutation carry
as far as possible.
“Who is that?” asked Ardmore, with sinking spirit.
“Why, Rutherford Gillingwater, of course.”
“Fours right!” rang the command a moment later, and the militiamen
tramped off to the station.
It was then that Ardmore, watching the crowd disperse at the edge of
the park, saw his caller of the morning striding rapidly across the
street. Ardmore started forward, then checked himself so suddenly
that Miss Jerry Dangerfield turned to him inquiringly.
“What’s the matter?” she demanded.
“Nothing. I have been robbed, as I hoped to be. Over there, on the
sidewalk, beyond the girl in the pink sunbonnet, goes my little brown
jug. That lank individual with the shabby hat has lifted it out of my
room at the hotel, just as I thought he would.”
 CHAPTER VI.
MR. GRISWOLD FORSAKES THE ACADEMIC
LIFE.

Miss Osborne had asked Griswold to await the outcome of the day,
and, finding himself thus possessed of a vacation, he indulged his
antiquarian instincts by exploring Columbia. The late afternoon found
him in the lovely cathedral churchyard, where an aged negro,
tending the graves of an illustrious family, leaned upon his spade
and recited the achievements and virtues of the dead. Men who had
been law-makers, others who had led valiantly to battle, and
ministers of the Prince of Peace, mingled their dust together; and
across the crisp hedges a robin sang above Timrod’s grave.
As the shadows lengthened, Griswold walked back to the hotel,
where he ate supper, then, calling for a horse, he rode through the
streets in a mood of more complete alienation than he had ever
experienced in a foreign country; yet the very scents of the summer
night, stealing out from old gardens, the voices that reached him
from open doorways, spoke of home.
As he reached the outskirts of town and rode on toward the
governor’s mansion, his mood changed, and he laughed softly, for
he remembered Ardmore, and Ardmore was beyond question the
most amusing person he knew. It was unfortunate, he generously
reflected, that Ardmore, rather than himself, had not been plunged
into this present undertaking, which was much more in Ardmore’s
line than his own. There would, however, be a great satisfaction in
telling Ardmore of his unexpected visit to Columbia, in exchange for
his friend’s report of his pursuit of the winking eye. He only regretted
that in the nature of things Columbia is a modern city, a seat of
commerce as well as of government, a place where bank clearings
are seriously computed, and where the jaunty adventurer with sword
and ruffles is quite likely to run afoul of the police. Yet his own
imagination was far more fertile than Ardmore’s, and he would have
hailed a troop of mail-clad men as joyfully as his friend had he met
them clanking in the highway. Thus modern as we think ourselves,
the least venturesome among us dreams that some day some turn of
a street corner will bring him face to face with what we please to call
our fate; and this is the manifestation of our last drop of mediæval
blood. The grimmest seeker after reality looks out of the corner of his
eye for the flutter of a white handkerchief from the ivied tower he
affects to ignore; and, in spite of himself, he is buoyed by the hope
that some day a horn will sound for him over the nearest hill.
Miss Osborne met him at the veranda steps. Indoors a mandolin and
piano struck up the merry chords of The Eutaw Girl.
“My young sisters have company. We’ll sit here, if you don’t mind.”
She led the way to a quiet corner, and after they were seated she
was silent a moment, while the light from the windows showed
clearly that her perplexity of the morning was not yet at an end. The
music tinkled softly, and a breeze swept in upon them with faint
odours of the garden.
“I hope you won’t mind, Mr. Griswold, if I appear to be ashamed of
you. It’s not a bit hospitable to keep you outside our threshold; but—
you understand—I don’t have to tell you!”
“I understand perfectly, Miss Osborne!”
“It seems best not to let the others know just why you are here. I told
my sisters that you were an old friend—of father’s—who wished to
leave a message for him.”
“That will do first-rate!” he laughed. “My status is fixed. I know your
father, but as for ourselves, we are not acquainted.”
He felt that she was seriously anxious and troubled, and he wished
to hearten her if he could. The soft dusk of the faintly-lighted corner
folded her in. Behind her the vines of the verandah moved slightly in
the breeze. A thin, wayward shaft of light touched her hair, as though
searching out the gold. When we say that people have atmosphere,
we really mean that they possess indefinite qualities that awaken
new moods in us, as by that magic through which an ignorant hand
thrumming a harp’s strings may evoke some harmony denied to
conscious skill. He heard whispered in his heart a man’s first word of
the woman he is destined to love, in which he sets her apart—above
and beyond all other womenkind; she is different; she is not like
other women!
“It is nearly nine,” she said, her voice thrilling through him. “My father
should have been here an hour ago. We have heard nothing from
him. The newspapers have telephoned repeatedly to know his
whereabouts. I have put them off by intimating that he is away on
important public business, and that his purpose might be defeated if
his exact whereabouts were known. I tried to intimate, without saying
as much, that he was busy with the Appleweight case. One of the
papers that has very bitterly antagonized father ever since his
election has threatened to expose what the editor calls father’s
relations with Appleweight. I cannot believe that there is anything
wrong about that; of course there is not!”
She was controlling herself with an effort, and she broke off her
declaration of confidence in her absent father sharply but with a sob
in her voice.
“I have no doubt in the world that the explanation you gave the
newspapers is the truth of the matter. Your father must be absent a
great deal—it is part of a governor’s business to keep in motion. But
we may as well face the fact that his absence just now is most
embarrassing. This Appleweight matter has reached a crisis, and a
failure to handle it properly may injure your father’s future as a public
man. If you will pardon me, I would suggest that there must be some
one whom you can take into your confidence—some friend, some
one in your father’s administration that you can rely on?”
“Yes; father has many friends; but I cannot consider acknowledging
to any one that father has disappeared when such a matter as this
Appleweight case is an issue through the state. No; I have thought of
every one this afternoon. It would be a painful thing for his best
friends to know what is—what seems to be the truth.” Her voice
wavered a little, but she was brave, and he was aware that she
straightened herself in her chair, and, when wayward gleams of light
fell upon her face, that her lips were set resolutely.
“You saw the attorney-general this morning,” she went on. “As you
suggested, he would naturally be the one to whom I should turn, but
I cannot do it. I—there is a reason”—and she faltered a moment
—“there are reasons why I cannot appeal to Mr. Bosworth at this
time.”
She shrugged her shoulders as though throwing off a disagreeable
topic, and he saw that there was nothing more to be said on this
point. His heart-beats quickened as he realized that she was
appealing to him; that, though he was only the most casual
acquaintance, she trusted him. It was a dictum of his, learned in his
study and practice of the law, that issues must be met as they offer—
not as the practitioner would prefer to have them, but as they occur;
and here was a condition of affairs that must be met promptly if the
unaccountable absence of the governor was to be robbed of its
embarrassing significance.
As he pondered for a moment, a messenger rode into the grounds,
and Miss Osborne slipped away and met the boy at the steps. She
came back and opened a telegram, reading the message at one of
the windows. An indignant exclamation escaped her, and she
crumpled the paper in her hand.
“The impudence of it!” she exclaimed. He had risen, and she now
turned to him with anger and scorn deepening her beautiful colour.
Her breath came quickly; her head was lifted imperiously; her lips
quivered slightly as she spoke.
“This is from Governor Dangerfield. Can you imagine a man of any
character or decency sending such a message to the governor of
another state?”
She watched him as he read:
Raleigh, N. C.
The Honourable Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina,
Columbia, S. C.:
 Have written by to-night’s mail in Appleweight matter. Your
vacillating course not understood.
William Dangerfield,
Governor of North Carolina.
“What do you think of that?” she demanded.
“I think it’s impertinent, to say the least,” he replied guardedly.
“Impertinent! It’s the most contemptible, outrageous thing I ever
heard of in my life! Governor Dangerfield has dilly-dallied with that
case for two years. His administration has been marked from the
beginning by the worst kind of incompetence. Why, this man
Appleweight and his gang of outlaws only come into South Carolina
now and then to hide and steal, but they commit most of their crimes
in North Carolina, and they always have. Talk about a vacillating
course! Father has never taken steps to arrest those men, out of
sheer regard for Governor Dangerfield; he thought North Carolina
had some pride, and that her governor would prefer to take care of
his own criminals. What do you suppose Appleweight is indicted for
in this state? For stealing one ham—one single ham from a farmer in
Mingo County, and he’s killed half a dozen men in North Carolina.”
She paced the corner of the veranda angrily, while Griswold groped
for a solution of the problem. The telegram from Raleigh was
certainly lacking in diplomatic suavity. It was patent that if the
governor of North Carolina was not tremendously aroused, he was
playing a great game of bluff; and on either hypothesis a prompt
response must be made to his telegram.
“I must answer this at once. He must not think we are so stupid in
Columbia that we don’t know when we’re insulted. We can go
through the side door to father’s study and write the message there,”
and she led the way.
“It might be best to wait and see what his letter is like,” suggested
Griswold, with a vague wish to prolong this discussion, that he might
enjoy the soft glow of the student lamp on her cheek.
“I don’t care what his letter says; it can’t be worse than his telegram.
We’ll answer them both at once.”
She found a blank and wrote rapidly, without asking suggestions,
with this result:
The Honourable William Dangerfield,
Raleigh, N. C.:
Your extremely diverting telegram in Appleweight case
received and filed.
Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina.
She met Griswold’s obvious disappointment with prompt explanation.
“You see, the governor of South Carolina cannot stoop to an
exchange of billingsgate with an underbred person like that—a big,
solemn, conceited creature in a long frock-coat and a shoestring
necktie, who boasts of belonging to the common ‘peo-pull.’ He
doesn’t have to tell anybody that, when it’s plain as daylight. The
way to answer him is not to answer at all.”
“The way to answer him is to make North Carolina put Appleweight
in jail, for crimes committed in that state, and then, if need be, we
can satisfy the cry for vengeance in South Carolina by flashing our
requisition. There is a rule in such cases that the state having the
heaviest indictments shall have precedence; and you say that in this
state it’s only a matter of a ham. I am not acquainted with the South
Carolina ham,” he went on, smiling, “but in Virginia the right kind of a
ham is sacred property, and to steal one is a capital offence.”
“I should like to steal one such as I had last winter in Richmond,” and
Miss Osborne forgot her anger; her eyes narrowed dreamily at an
agreeable memory.
“Was it at Judge Randolph Wilson’s?” asked Griswold instantly.
“Why, yes, it was at Judge Wilson’s, Mr. Griswold. How did you
know?”
“I didn’t know—I guessed; for I have sat at that table myself. The
judge says grace twice when there’s to be ham—once before soup,
then again before ham.”
“Then thanksgiving after the ham would be perfectly proper!”
Miss Osborne was studying Griswold carefully, then she laughed,
and her attitude toward him, that had been tempered by a certain
official reserve, became at once cordial.
“Are you the Professor Griswold who is so crazy about pirates? I’ve
heard the Wilsons speak of you, but you don’t look like that.”
“Don’t I look like a pirate? Thank you! I had an appointment at Judge
Wilson’s office this morning to talk over a case in which I’m
interested.”
“I remember now what he said about you. He said you really were a
fine lawyer, but that you liked to read about pirates.”
“That may have been what he said to you; but he has told me that
the association of piracy and law was most unfortunate, as it would
suggest unpleasant comments to those who don’t admire the legal
profession.”
“And you are one of those tide-water Griswolds, then, if you know
the Randolph Wilsons. They are very strong for the tide-water
families; to hear them talk you’d think the people back in the Virginia
hills weren’t really respectable.”
“It’s undeniably the right view of the matter,” laughed Griswold, “but
now that I live in Charlottesville I don’t insist on it. It wouldn’t be
decent in me. And I have lots of cousins in Lexington and through
the Valley. The broad view is that every inch of the Old Dominion is
holy ground.”
“It is an interesting commonwealth, Mr. Griswold; but I do not
consider it holy ground. South Carolina has a monopoly of that;” and
then the smile left her face and she returned to the telegram. “Our
immediate business, however, is not with Virginia, or with South
Carolina, but with the miserable commonwealth that lies between.”
“And that commonwealth,” said Griswold, wishing to prolong the
respite from official cares, “that state known in law and history as
North Carolina, I have heard called, by a delightful North Carolina
lady I met once at Charlottesville, a valley of humility between two
mountains of conceit. That seems to hit both of us!”
“North Carolina isn’t a state at all,” Miss Osborne declared spitefully;
“it’s only a strip of land where uninteresting people live. And now,
what do you say to this telegram?”
“Excellent. It’s bound to irritate, and it leaves him in the dark as to
our—I mean Governor Osborne’s—intentions. And those intentions
——”
During this by-play he had reached a decision as to what should be
done, and he was prepared to answer when she asked, with an
employment of the pronoun that pleasantly emphasized their
relationship,—
“What are our intentions?”
“We are going to catch Appleweight, that’s the first thing—and until
we get him we’re going to keep our own counsel. Let me have a
telegraph blank, and I will try my hand at being governor.” He sat
down in the governor’s chair, asked the name of the county seat of
Mingo, and wrote without erasure or hesitation this message:
To the Sheriff of Mingo County,
Turner Court House, S. C.:
Make every possible effort to capture Appleweight and any
of his gang who are abroad in your county. Swear in all the
deputies you need, and if friendliness of citizens to
outlaws makes this impossible wire me immediately, and I
will send militia. Any delay on your part will be visited with
severest penalties. Answer immediately by telegraph.
Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina.
“That’s quite within the law,” said Griswold, handing Barbara the
message; “and we might as well put the thing through at a gallop. I’ll
get the telegraph company to hold open the line to Turner Court
House until the sheriff answers.”
As Barbara read the message he saw her pleasure in the quick
compression of her lips, the glow in her cheeks, and then the bright
glint of her bronze-brown eyes as she finished.
“That’s exactly right. I didn’t know just how to manage such a thing,
but I see that that is the proper method.”
“Yes; the sheriff must have his full opportunity to act.”
“And what, then, if the sheriff refuses to do anything?”
“Then—then”—and Griswold’s jaw set firmly, and he straightened
himself slightly before he added in a quiet tone—“then I’m going
down there to take charge of the thing myself.”
“Oh, that is too much! I didn’t ask that; and I must refuse to let you
take any such responsibility on yourself, to say nothing of the
personal danger. I merely wanted your advice—as a lawyer, for the
reason that I dared not risk father’s name even among his best
friends here. And your coming to the office this morning seemed so
—so providential——”
He sought at once to minimize the value of his services, for he was
not a man to place a woman under obligations, and, moreover, an
opportunity like this, to uphold the dignity, and perhaps to exercise
the power, of a state laid strong hold upon him. He knew little
enough about the Appleweight case, but he felt from his slight
knowledge that he was well within his rights in putting spurs to the
sheriff of Mingo County. If the sheriff failed to respond in proper spirit
and it became necessary to use the militia, he was conscious that
serious complications might arise. He had not only a respect for law,
but an ideal of civic courage and integrity, and the governor’s
inexplicable absence aroused his honest wrath. The idea that a mere
girl should be forced to sustain the official honour and dignity of a
cowardly father further angered him. And then he looked into her
eyes and saw how grave they were, and how earnest and with what
courage she met the situation; and the charm of her slender figure,
that glint of gold in her hair, her slim, supple hands folded on the
table—these things wrought in him a happiness that he had never
known before, so that he laughed as he took the telegram from her.
“There must be no mistake, no failure,” she said quietly.
“We are not going to fail; we are going to carry this through! Within
three days we’ll have Appleweight in a North Carolina jail or a flying
fugitive in Governor Dangerfield’s territory. And now these telegrams
must be sent. It might be better for you to go to the telegraph office
with me. You must remember that I am a pilgrim and a stranger, and
they might question my filing official messages.”
“That is perfectly true. I will go into town with you.”
“And if there’s an official coach that everybody knows as yours, it
would allay suspicions to have it,” and while he was still speaking
she vanished to order the carriage.
In five minutes it was at the side door, and Griswold and Barbara,
fortified by the presence of Phœbe, left the governor’s study.
“If they don’t know me, everybody in South Carolina knows Phœbe,”
said Barbara.
“A capital idea. I can see by her eye that she’s built for conspiracy.”
Griswold’s horse was to be returned to town by a boy; and when this
had been arranged the three entered the carriage.
“The telegraph office, Tom; and hurry.”
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