At least, he threw eggs at the scullery-maid
and bit a millionaire. It's practically the same thing. At any
rate, there it is. The newspaper men are here, and they seem
to regard this farm as their centre of operations. I had the
greatest difficulty in inducing them to go home to their well-earned
dinners. They wanted to camp out on the place. As it is, there may
still be some of them round, hiding in the grass with notebooks,
and telling one another in whispers that they were the men who
really solved the murder mystery. What shall we do?'
Bill had no suggestions.
'You realize our position? I wonder if we could be arrested for
kidnapping. The monkey is far more human than most of the
millionaire children who get kidnapped. It's an awful fix. Did you
know that Lady Wetherby is going to offer a reward for the
animal?'
'No, really?'
'Five hundred dollars!'
'Surely not!'
'She is. I suppose she feels she can charge it up to necessary
expenses for publicity and still be ahead of the game, taking into
account the advertising she's going to get.'
'She said nothing about that when I saw her.'
'No, because it won't be offered until to-morrow or the day after.
One of the newspaper men told me that. The idea is, of course, to
make the thing exciting just when it would otherwise be dying as a
news item.
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