The Man with Two Left Feet

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Title: The Man with Two Left Feet
and Other Stories
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Posting Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #7471]
Release Date: February, 2005
First Posted: May 6, 2003
Last Updated: October 19, 2004
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET ***
Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
_and Other Stories_
by P. G. WODEHOUSE
1917
CONTENTS
BILL THE BLOODHOUND
EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE
WILTON'S HOLIDAY
THE MIXER--I
THE MIXER--II
CROWNED HEADS
AT GEISENHEIMER'S
THE MAKING OF MAC'S
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE
BLACK FOR LUCK
THE ROMANCE OF AN UGLY POLICEMAN
A SEA OF TROUBLES
THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
BILL THE BLOODHOUND
There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Consider the case of Henry
Pifield Rice, detective.
I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said
he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the
reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of
detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International
Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did
not require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He had
never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about
bloodstains would have filled a library. The sort of job they gave
Henry was to stand outside a restaurant in the rain, and note what time
someone inside left it. In short, it is not 'Pifield Rice,
Investigator. No. 1.--The Adventure of the Maharajah's Ruby' that I
submit to your notice, but the unsensational doings of a quite
commonplace young man, variously known to his comrades at the Bureau as
'Fathead', 'That blighter what's-his-name', and 'Here, you!'
Henry lived in a boarding-house in Guildford Street. One day a new girl
came to the boarding-house, and sat next to Henry at meals. Her name
was Alice Weston. She was small and quiet, and rather pretty. They got
on splendidly. Their conversation, at first confined to the weather and
the moving-pictures, rapidly became more intimate. Henry was surprised
to find that she was on the stage, in the chorus. Previous chorus-girls
at the boarding-house had been of a more pronounced type--good girls,
but noisy, and apt to wear beauty-spots. Alice Weston was different.
'I'm rehearsing at present,' she said. 'I'm going out on tour next
month in "The Girl From Brighton". What do you do, Mr Rice?'
Henry paused for a moment before replying. He knew how sensational he
was going to be.
'I'm a detective.'
Usually, when he told girls his profession, squeaks of amazed
admiration greeted him. Now he was chagrined to perceive in the brown
eyes that met his distinct disapproval.
'What's the matter?' he said, a little anxiously, for even at this
early stage in their acquaintance he was conscious of a strong desire
to win her approval. 'Don't you like detectives?'
'I don't know. Somehow I shouldn't have thought you were one.'
This restored Henry's equanimity somewhat. Naturally a detective does
not want to look like a detective and give the whole thing away right
at the start.
'I think--you won't be offended?'
'Go on.'
'I've always looked on it as rather a _sneaky_ job.'
'Sneaky!' moaned Henry.
'Well, creeping about, spying on people.'
Henry was appalled. She had defined his own trade to a nicety. There
might be detectives whose work was above this reproach, but he was a
confirmed creeper, and he knew it. It wasn't his fault. The boss told
him to creep, and he crept. If he declined to creep, he would be sacked
_instanter_. It was hard, and yet he felt the sting of her words,
and in his bosom the first seeds of dissatisfaction with his occupation
took root.
You might have thought that this frankness on the girl's part would
have kept Henry from falling in love with her. Certainly the dignified
thing would have been to change his seat at table, and take his meals
next to someone who appreciated the romance of detective work a little
more. But no, he remained where he was, and presently Cupid, who never
shoots with a surer aim than through the steam of boarding-house hash,
sniped him where he sat.
He proposed to Alice Weston. She refused him.
'It's not because I'm not fond of you. I think you're the nicest man I
ever met.' A good deal of assiduous attention had enabled Henry to win
this place in her affections. He had worked patiently and well before
actually putting his fortune to the test. 'I'd marry you tomorrow if
things were different. But I'm on the stage, and I mean to stick there.
Most of the girls want to get off it, but not me. And one thing I'll
never do is marry someone who isn't in the profession. My sister
Genevieve did, and look what happened to her. She married a commercial
traveller, and take it from me he travelled. She never saw him for more
than five minutes in the year, except when he was selling gent's
hosiery in the same town where she was doing her refined speciality,
and then he'd just wave his hand and whiz by, and start travelling
again. My husband has got to be close by, where I can see him. I'm
sorry, Henry, but I know I'm right.'
It seemed final, but Henry did not wholly despair. He was a resolute
young man. You have to be to wait outside restaurants in the rain for
any length of time.
He had an inspiration. He sought out a dramatic agent.
'I want to go on the stage, in musical comedy.'
'Let's see you dance.'
'I can't dance.'
'Sing,' said the agent. 'Stop singing,' added the agent, hastily.
'You go away and have a nice cup of hot tea,' said the agent,
soothingly, 'and you'll be as right as anything in the morning.'
Henry went away.
A few days later, at the Bureau, his fellow-detective Simmonds hailed
him.
'Here, you! The boss wants you. Buck up!'
Mr Stafford was talking into the telephone. He replaced the receiver as
Henry entered.
'Oh, Rice, here's a woman wants her husband shadowed while he's on the
road. He's an actor. I'm sending you. Go to this address, and get
photographs and all particulars. You'll have to catch the eleven
o'clock train on Friday.'
'Yes, sir.'
'He's in "The Girl From Brighton" company. They open at Bristol.'
It sometimes seemed to Henry as if Fate did it on purpose. If the
commission had had to do with any other company, it would have been
well enough, for, professionally speaking, it was the most important
with which he had ever been entrusted. If he had never met Alice
Weston, and heard her views upon detective work, he would have been
pleased and flattered. Things being as they were, it was Henry's
considered opinion that Fate had slipped one over on him.
In the first place, what torture to be always near her, unable to
reveal himself; to watch her while she disported herself in the company
of other men. He would be disguised, and she would not recognize him;
but he would recognize her, and his sufferings would be dreadful.
In the second place, to have to do his creeping about and spying
practically in her presence--
Still, business was business.
At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a
false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye.
If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business
man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming
through a haystack.
The platform was crowded. Friends of the company had come to see the
company off. Henry looked on discreetly from behind a stout porter,
whose bulk formed a capital screen. In spite of himself, he was
impressed. The stage at close quarters always thrilled him. He
recognized celebrities. The fat man in the brown suit was Walter
Jelliffe, the comedian and star of the company. He stared keenly at him
through the spectacles. Others of the famous were scattered about. He
saw Alice. She was talking to a man with a face like a hatchet, and
smiling, too, as if she enjoyed it. Behind the matted foliage which he
had inflicted on his face, Henry's teeth came together with a snap.
In the weeks that followed, as he dogged 'The Girl From Brighton'
company from town to town, it would be difficult to say whether Henry
was happy or unhappy. On the one hand, to realize that Alice was so
near and yet so inaccessible was a constant source of misery; yet, on
the other, he could not but admit that he was having the very dickens
of a time, loafing round the country like this.
He was made for this sort of life, he considered. Fate had placed him
in a London office, but what he really enjoyed was this unfettered
travel. Some gipsy strain in him rendered even the obvious discomforts
of theatrical touring agreeable. He liked catching trains; he liked
invading strange hotels; above all, he revelled in the artistic
pleasure of watching unsuspecting fellow-men as if they were so many
ants.
That was really the best part of the whole thing. It was all very well
for Alice to talk about creeping and spying, but, if you considered it
without bias, there was nothing degrading about it at all. It was an
art. It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man a
successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'I
will creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would be
detected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality.
You had to be one man at Bristol and another quite different man at
Hull--especially if, like Henry, you were of a gregarious disposition,
and liked the society of actors.
The stage had always fascinated Henry. To meet even minor members of
the profession off the boards gave him a thrill. There was a resting
juvenile, of fit-up calibre, at his boarding-house who could always get
a shilling out of him simply by talking about how he had jumped in and
saved the show at the hamlets which he had visited in the course of his
wanderings. And on this 'Girl From Brighton' tour he was in constant
touch with men who really amounted to something. Walter Jelliffe had
been a celebrity when Henry was going to school; and Sidney Crane, the
baritone, and others of the lengthy cast, were all players not unknown
in London. Henry courted them assiduously.
It had not been hard to scrape acquaintance with them. The principals
of the company always put up at the best hotel, and--his expenses being
paid by his employer--so did Henry. It was the easiest thing possible
to bridge with a well-timed whisky-and-soda the gulf between
non-acquaintance and warm friendship. Walter Jelliffe, in particular,
was peculiarly accessible. Every time Henry accosted him--as a
different individual, of course--and renewed in a fresh disguise the
friendship which he had enjoyed at the last town, Walter Jelliffe met
him more than half-way.
It was in the sixth week of the tour that the comedian, promoting him
from mere casual acquaintanceship, invited him to come up to his room
and smoke a cigar.
Henry was pleased and flattered. Jelliffe was a personage, always
surrounded by admirers, and the compliment was consequently of a high
order.
He lit his cigar. Among his friends at the Green-Room Club it was
unanimously held that Walter Jelliffe's cigars brought him within the
scope of the law forbidding the carrying of concealed weapons; but
Henry would have smoked the gift of such a man if it had been a
cabbage-leaf. He puffed away contentedly. He was made up as an old
Indian colonel that week, and he complimented his host on the aroma
with a fine old-world courtesy.
Walter Jelliffe seemed gratified.
'Quite comfortable?' he asked.
'Quite, I thank you,' said Henry, fondling his silver moustache.
'That's right. And now tell me, old man, which of us is it you're
trailing?'
Henry nearly swallowed his cigar.
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, come,' protested Jelliffe; 'there's no need to keep it up with me.
I know you're a detective. The question is, Who's the man you're after?
That's what we've all been wondering all this time.'
All! They had all been wondering! It was worse than Henry could have
imagined. Till now he had pictured his position with regard to 'The
Girl From Brighton' company rather as that of some scientist who,
seeing but unseen, keeps a watchful eye on the denizens of a drop of
water under his microscope. And they had all detected him--every one of
them.
It was a stunning blow. If there was one thing on which Henry prided
himself it was the impenetrability of his disguises. He might be slow;
he might be on the stupid side; but he could disguise himself. He had a
variety of disguises, each designed to befog the public more hopelessly
than the last.
Going down the street, you would meet a typical commercial traveller,
dapper and alert. Anon, you encountered a heavily bearded Australian.
Later, maybe, it was a courteous old retired colonel who stopped you
and inquired the way to Trafalgar Square. Still later, a rather flashy
individual of the sporting type asked you for a match for his cigar.
Would you have suspected for one instant that each of these widely
differing personalities was in reality one man?
Certainly you would.
Henry did not know it, but he had achieved in the eyes of the small
servant who answered the front-door bell at his boarding-house a
well-established reputation as a humorist of the more practical kind.
It was his habit to try his disguises on her. He would ring the bell,
inquire for the landlady, and when Bella had gone, leap up the stairs
to his room. Here he would remove the disguise, resume his normal
appearance, and come downstairs again, humming a careless air. Bella,
meanwhile, in the kitchen, would be confiding to her ally the cook that
'Mr Rice had jest come in, lookin' sort o' funny again'.
He sat and gaped at Walter Jelliffe. The comedian regarded him
curiously.
'You look at least a hundred years old,' he said. 'What are you made up
as? A piece of Gorgonzola?'
Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He
must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked
something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had
seen a good deal of trouble.
'If you knew how you were demoralizing the company,' Jelliffe went on,
'you would drop it. As steady and quiet a lot of boys as ever you met
till you came along. Now they do nothing but bet on what disguise
you're going to choose for the next town. I don't see why you need to
change so often. You were all right as the Scotchman at Bristol. We
were all saying how nice you looked. You should have stuck to that. But
what do you do at Hull but roll in in a scrubby moustache and a tweed
suit, looking rotten. However, all that is beside the point. It's a
free country. If you like to spoil your beauty, I suppose there's no
law against it. What I want to know is, who's the man? Whose track are
you sniffing on, Bill? You'll pardon my calling you Bill. You're known
as Bill the Bloodhound in the company. Who's the man?'
'Never mind,' said Henry.
He was aware, as he made it, that it was not a very able retort, but he
was feeling too limp for satisfactory repartee. Criticisms in the
Bureau, dealing with his alleged solidity of skull, he did not resent.
He attributed them to man's natural desire to chaff his fellow-man. But
to be unmasked by the general public in this way was another matter. It
struck at the root of all things.
'But I do mind,' objected Jelliffe. 'It's most important. A lot of
money hangs on it. We've got a sweepstake on in the company, the holder
of the winning name to take the entire receipts. Come on. Who is he?'
Henry rose and made for the door. His feelings were too deep for words.
Even a minor detective has his professional pride; and the knowledge
that his espionage is being made the basis of sweepstakes by his quarry
cuts this to the quick.
'Here, don't go! Where are you going?'
'Back to London,' said Henry, bitterly. 'It's a lot of good my staying
here now, isn't it?'
'I should say it was--to me. Don't be in a hurry. You're thinking that,
now we know all about you, your utility as a sleuth has waned to some
extent. Is that it?'
'Well?'
'Well, why worry? What does it matter to you? You don't get paid by
results, do you? Your boss said "Trail along." Well, do it, then. I
should hate to lose you. I don't suppose you know it, but you've been
the best mascot this tour that I've ever come across. Right from the
start we've been playing to enormous business. I'd rather kill a black
cat than lose you. Drop the disguises, and stay with us. Come behind
all you want, and be sociable.'
A detective is only human. The less of a detective, the more human he
is. Henry was not much of a detective, and his human traits were
consequently highly developed. From a boy, he had never been able to
resist curiosity. If a crowd collected in the street he always added
himself to it, and he would have stopped to gape at a window with
'Watch this window' written on it, if he had been running for his life
from wild bulls. He was, and always had been, intensely desirous of
some day penetrating behind the scenes of a theatre.
And there was another thing. At last, if he accepted this invitation,
he would be able to see and speak to Alice Weston, and interfere with
the manoeuvres of the hatchet-faced man, on whom he had brooded with
suspicion and jealousy since that first morning at the station. To see
Alice! Perhaps, with eloquence, to talk her out of that ridiculous
resolve of hers!
'Why, there's something in that,' he said.
'Rather! Well, that's settled. And now, touching that sweep, who
_is_ it?'
'I can't tell you that. You see, so far as that goes, I'm just where I
was before. I can still watch--whoever it is I'm watching.'
'Dash it, so you can. I didn't think of that,' said Jelliffe, who
possessed a sensitive conscience. 'Purely between ourselves, it isn't
_me_, is it?'
Henry eyed him inscrutably. He could look inscrutable at times.
'Ah!' he said, and left quickly, with the feeling that, however poorly
he had shown up during the actual interview, his exit had been good. He
might have been a failure in the matter of disguise, but nobody could
have put more quiet sinister-ness into that 'Ah!' It did much to soothe
him and ensure a peaceful night's rest.
On the following night, for the first time in his life, Henry found
himself behind the scenes of a theatre, and instantly began to
experience all the complex emotions which come to the layman in that
situation. That is to say, he felt like a cat which has strayed into a
strange hostile back-yard. He was in a new world, inhabited by weird
creatures, who flitted about in an eerie semi-darkness, like brightly
coloured animals in a cavern.
'The Girl From Brighton' was one of those exotic productions specially
designed for the Tired Business Man. It relied for a large measure of
its success on the size and appearance of its chorus, and on their
constant change of costume. Henry, as a consequence, was the centre of
a kaleidoscopic whirl of feminine loveliness, dressed to represent
such varying flora and fauna as rabbits, Parisian students, colleens,
Dutch peasants, and daffodils. Musical comedy is the Irish stew of the
drama. Anything may be put into it, with the certainty that it will
improve the general effect.
He scanned the throng for a sight of Alice. Often as he had seen the
piece in the course of its six weeks' wandering in the wilderness he
had never succeeded in recognizing her from the front of the house.
Quite possibly, he thought, she might be on the stage already, hidden
in a rose-tree or some other shrub, ready at the signal to burst forth
upon the audience in short skirts; for in 'The Girl From Brighton'
almost anything could turn suddenly into a chorus-girl.
Then he saw her, among the daffodils. She was not a particularly
convincing daffodil, but she looked good to Henry. With wabbling knees
he butted his way through the crowd and seized her hand
enthusiastically.
'Why, Henry! Where did you come from?'
'I _am_ glad to see you!'
'How did you get here?'
'I _am_ glad to see you!'
At this point the stage-manager, bellowing from the prompt-box, urged
Henry to desist. It is one of the mysteries of behind-the-scenes
acoustics that a whisper from any minor member of the company can be
heard all over the house, while the stage-manager can burst himself
without annoying the audience.
Henry, awed by authority, relapsed into silence. From the unseen stage
came the sound of someone singing a song about the moon. June was also
mentioned. He recognized the song as one that had always bored him. He
disliked the woman who was singing it--a Miss Clarice Weaver, who
played the heroine of the piece to Sidney Crane's hero.
In his opinion he was not alone. Miss Weaver was not popular in the
company. She had secured the role rather as a testimony of personal
esteem from the management than because of any innate ability. She sang
badly, acted indifferently, and was uncertain what to do with her
hands. All these things might have been forgiven her, but she
supplemented them by the crime known in stage circles as 'throwing her
weight about'. That is to say, she was hard to please, and, when not
pleased, apt to say so in no uncertain voice. To his personal friends
Walter Jelliffe had frequently confided that, though not a rich man, he
was in the market with a substantial reward for anyone who was man
enough to drop a ton of iron on Miss Weaver.
Tonight the song annoyed Henry more than usual, for he knew that very
soon the daffodils were due on the stage to clinch the verisimilitude
of the scene by dancing the tango with the rabbits. He endeavoured to
make the most of the time at his disposal.
'I _am_ glad to see you!' he said.
'Sh-h!' said the stage-manager.
Henry was discouraged. Romeo could not have made love under these
conditions. And then, just when he was pulling himself together to
begin again, she was torn from him by the exigencies of the play.
He wandered moodily off into the dusty semi-darkness. He avoided the
prompt-box, whence he could have caught a glimpse of her, being loath
to meet the stage-manager just at present.
Walter Jelliffe came up to him, as he sat on a box and brooded on life.
'A little less of the double forte, old man,' he said. 'Miss Weaver has
been kicking about the noise on the side. She wanted you thrown out,
but I said you were my mascot, and I would die sooner than part with
you. But I should go easy on the chest-notes, I think, all the same.'
Henry nodded moodily. He was depressed. He had the feeling, which comes
so easily to the intruder behind the scenes, that nobody loved him.
The piece proceeded. From the front of the house roars of laughter
indicated the presence on the stage of Walter Jelliffe, while now and
then a lethargic silence suggested that Miss Clarice Weaver was in
action. From time to time the empty space about him filled with girls
dressed in accordance with the exuberant fancy of the producer of the
piece. When this happened, Henry would leap from his seat and endeavour
to locate Alice; but always, just as he thought he had done so, the
hidden orchestra would burst into melody and the chorus would be called
to the front.
It was not till late in the second act that he found an opportunity for
further speech.
The plot of 'The Girl From Brighton' had by then reached a critical
stage. The situation was as follows: The hero, having been disinherited
by his wealthy and titled father for falling in love with the heroine,
a poor shop-girl, has disguised himself (by wearing a different
coloured necktie) and has come in pursuit of her to a well-known
seaside resort, where, having disguised herself by changing her dress,
she is serving as a waitress in the Rotunda, on the Esplanade. The
family butler, disguised as a Bath-chair man, has followed the hero,
and the wealthy and titled father, disguised as an Italian
opera-singer, has come to the place for a reason which, though
extremely sound, for the moment eludes the memory. Anyhow, he is there,
and they all meet on the Esplanade. Each recognizes the other, but
thinks he himself is unrecognized. _Exeunt_ all, hurriedly,
leaving the heroine alone on the stage.
It is a crisis in the heroine's life. She meets it bravely. She sings a
song entitled 'My Honolulu Queen', with chorus of Japanese girls and
Bulgarian officers.
Alice was one of the Japanese girls.
She was standing a little apart from the other Japanese girls. Henry
was on her with a bound. Now was his time. He felt keyed up, full of
persuasive words. In the interval which had elapsed since their last
conversation yeasty emotions had been playing the dickens with his
self-control. It is practically impossible for a novice, suddenly
introduced behind the scenes of a musical comedy, not to fall in love
with somebody; and, if he is already in love, his fervour is increased
to a dangerous point.
Henry felt that it was now or never. He forgot that it was perfectly
possible--indeed, the reasonable course--to wait till the performance
was over, and renew his appeal to Alice to marry him on the way back to
her hotel. He had the feeling that he had got just about a quarter of a
minute. Quick action! That was Henry's slogan.
He seized her hand.
'Alice!'
'Sh-h!' hissed the stage-manager.
'Listen! I love you. I'm crazy about you. What does it matter whether
I'm on the stage or not? I love you.'
'Stop that row there!'
'Won't you marry me?'
She looked at him. It seemed to him that she hesitated.
'Cut it out!' bellowed the stage-manager, and Henry cut it out.
And at this moment, when his whole fate hung in the balance, there came
from the stage that devastating high note which is the sign that the
solo is over and that the chorus are now about to mobilize. As if drawn
by some magnetic power, she suddenly receded from him, and went on to
the stage.
A man in Henry's position and frame of mind is not responsible for his
actions. He saw nothing but her; he was blind to the fact that
important manoeuvres were in progress. All he understood was that she
was going from him, and that he must stop her and get this thing
settled.
He clutched at her. She was out of range, and getting farther away
every instant.
He sprang forward.
The advice that should be given to every young man starting life is--if
you happen to be behind the scenes at a theatre, never spring forward.
The whole architecture of the place is designed to undo those who so
spring. Hours before, the stage-carpenters have laid their traps, and
in the semi-darkness you cannot but fall into them.
The trap into which Henry fell was a raised board. It was not a very
highly-raised board. It was not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door, but 'twas enough--it served. Stubbing it squarely with his
toe, Henry shot forward, all arms and legs.
It is the instinct of Man, in such a situation, to grab at the nearest
support. Henry grabbed at the Hotel Superba, the pride of the
Esplanade. It was a thin wooden edifice, and it supported him for
perhaps a tenth of a second. Then he staggered with it into the
limelight, tripped over a Bulgarian officer who was inflating himself
for a deep note, and finally fell in a complicated heap as exactly in
the centre of the stage as if he had been a star of years' standing.
It went well; there was no question of that. Previous audiences had
always been rather cold towards this particular song, but this one got
on its feet and yelled for more. From all over the house came rapturous
demands that Henry should go back and do it again.
But Henry was giving no encores. He rose to his feet, a little stunned,
and automatically began to dust his clothes. The orchestra, unnerved by
this unrehearsed infusion of new business, had stopped playing.
Bulgarian officers and Japanese girls alike seemed unequal to the
situation. They stood about, waiting for the next thing to break loose.
From somewhere far away came faintly the voice of the stage-manager
inventing new words, new combinations of words, and new throat noises.
And then Henry, massaging a stricken elbow, was aware of Miss Weaver at
his side. Looking up, he caught Miss Weaver's eye.
A familiar stage-direction of melodrama reads, 'Exit cautious through
gap in hedge'. It was Henry's first appearance on any stage, but he did
it like a veteran.
'My dear fellow,' said Walter Jelliffe. The hour was midnight, and he
was sitting in Henry's bedroom at the hotel. Leaving the theatre, Henry
had gone to bed almost instinctively. Bed seemed the only haven for
him. 'My dear fellow, don't apologize. You have put me under lasting
obligations. In the first place, with your unerring sense of the stage,
you saw just the spot where the piece needed livening up, and you
livened it up. That was good; but far better was it that you also sent
our Miss Weaver into violent hysterics, from which she emerged to hand
in her notice. She leaves us tomorrow.'
Henry was appalled at the extent of the disaster for which he was
responsible.
'What will you do?'
'Do! Why, it's what we have all been praying for--a miracle which
should eject Miss Weaver. It needed a genius like you to come to bring
it off. Sidney Crane's wife can play the part without rehearsal. She
understudied it all last season in London. Crane has just been speaking
to her on the phone, and she is catching the night express.'
Henry sat up in bed.
'What!'
'What's the trouble now?'
'Sidney Crane's wife?'
'What about her?'
A bleakness fell upon Henry's soul.
'She was the woman who was employing me. Now I shall be taken off the
job and have to go back to London.'
'You don't mean that it was really Crane's wife?'
Jelliffe was regarding him with a kind of awe.
'Laddie,' he said, in a hushed voice, 'you almost scare me. There seems
to be no limit to your powers as a mascot. You fill the house every
night, you get rid of the Weaver woman, and now you tell me this. I
drew Crane in the sweep, and I would have taken twopence for my chance
of winning it.'
'I shall get a telegram from my boss tomorrow recalling me.'
'Don't go. Stick with me. Join the troupe.'
Henry stared.
'What do you mean? I can't sing or act.'
Jelliffe's voice thrilled with earnestness.
'My boy, I can go down the Strand and pick up a hundred fellows who can
sing and act. I don't want them. I turn them away. But a seventh son of
a seventh son like you, a human horseshoe like you, a king of mascots
like you--they don't make them nowadays. They've lost the pattern. If
you like to come with me I'll give you a contract for any number of
years you suggest. I need you in my business.' He rose. 'Think it over,
laddie, and let me know tomorrow. Look here upon this picture, and on
that. As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn't detect a bass-drum in a
telephone-booth. You have no future. You are merely among those
present. But as a mascot--my boy, you're the only thing in sight. You
can't help succeeding on the stage. You don't have to know how to act.
Look at the dozens of good actors who are out of jobs. Why? Unlucky. No
other reason. With your luck and a little experience you'll be a star
before you know you've begun. Think it over, and let me know in the
morning.'
Before Henry's eyes there rose a sudden vision of Alice: Alice no
longer unattainable; Alice walking on his arm down the aisle; Alice
mending his socks; Alice with her heavenly hands fingering his salary
envelope.
'Don't go,' he said. 'Don't go. I'll let you know now.'
* * * * *
The scene is the Strand, hard by Bedford Street; the time, that restful
hour of the afternoon when they of the gnarled faces and the bright
clothing gather together in groups to tell each other how good they
are.
Hark! A voice.
'Rather! Courtneidge and the Guv'nor keep on trying to get me, but I
turn them down every time. "No," I said to Malone only yesterday, "not
for me! I'm going with old Wally Jelliffe, the same as usual, and there
isn't the money in the Mint that'll get me away." Malone got all worked
up. He--'
It is the voice of Pifield Rice, actor.
EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE
She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a
complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely
about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed
me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small
hours. It can't have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me
out of the dreamless and broke the news:
'Mrs Gregson to see you, sir.'
I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed
and got into a dressing-gown. I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know
that, if she had come to see me, she was going to see me. That's the
sort of woman she is.
She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space. When I
came in she looked at me in that darn critical way that always makes me
feel as if I had gelatine where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is
one of those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must
have been something like her. She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson,
a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin,
Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie's mother.
And, worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating
fish, and she has got moral suasion down to a fine point.
I dare say there are fellows in the world--men of blood and iron, don't
you know, and all that sort of thing--whom she couldn't intimidate; but
if you're a chappie like me, fond of a quiet life, you simply curl into
a ball when you see her coming, and hope for the best. My experience is
that when Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you
find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a
fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.
'Halloa, Aunt Agatha!' I said
'Bertie,' she said, 'you look a sight. You look perfectly dissipated.'
I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I'm never at my
best in the early morning. I said so.
'Early morning! I had breakfast three hours ago, and have been walking
in the park ever since, trying to compose my thoughts.'
If I ever breakfasted at half past eight I should walk on the
Embankment, trying to end it all in a watery grave.
'I am extremely worried, Bertie. That is why I have come to you.'
And then I saw she was going to start something, and I bleated weakly
to Jeeves to bring me tea. But she had begun before I could get it.
'What are your immediate plans, Bertie?'
'Well, I rather thought of tottering out for a bite of lunch later on,
and then possibly staggering round to the club, and after that, if I
felt strong enough, I might trickle off to Walton Heath for a round of
golf.'
I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings. I mean, have you
any important engagements in the next week or so?'
I scented danger.
'Rather,' I said. 'Heaps! Millions! Booked solid!'
'What are they?'
'I--er--well, I don't quite know.'
'I thought as much. You have no engagements. Very well, then, I want
you to start immediately for America.'
'America!'
Do not lose sight of the fact that all this was taking place on an
empty stomach, shortly after the rising of the lark.
'Yes, America. I suppose even you have heard of America?'
'But why America?'
'Because that is where your Cousin Gussie is. He is in New York, and I
can't get at him.'
'What's Gussie been doing?'
'Gussie is making a perfect idiot of himself.'
To one who knew young Gussie as well as I did, the words opened up a
wide field for speculation.
'In what way?'
'He has lost his head over a creature.'
On past performances this rang true. Ever since he arrived at man's
estate Gussie had been losing his head over creatures. He's that sort
of chap. But, as the creatures never seemed to lose their heads over
him, it had never amounted to much.
'I imagine you know perfectly well why Gussie went to America, Bertie.
You know how wickedly extravagant your Uncle Cuthbert was.'
She alluded to Gussie's governor, the late head of the family, and I am
bound to say she spoke the truth. Nobody was fonder of old Uncle
Cuthbert than I was, but everybody knows that, where money was
concerned, he was the most complete chump in the annals of the nation.
He had an expensive thirst. He never backed a horse that didn't get
housemaid's knee in the middle of the race. He had a system of beating
the bank at Monte Carlo which used to make the administration hang out
the bunting and ring the joy-bells when he was sighted in the offing.
Take him for all in all, dear old Uncle Cuthbert was as willing a
spender as ever called the family lawyer a bloodsucking vampire because
he wouldn't let Uncle Cuthbert cut down the timber to raise another
thousand.
'He left your Aunt Julia very little money for a woman in her
position. Beechwood requires a great deal of keeping up, and
poor dear Spencer, though he does his best to help, has not
unlimited resources. It was clearly understood why Gussie went
to America. He is not clever, but he is very good-looking, and,
though he has no title, the Mannering-Phippses are one of the best
and oldest families in England. He had some excellent letters of
introduction, and when he wrote home to say that he had met the
most charming and beautiful girl in the world I felt quite happy.
He continued to rave about her for several mails, and then this
morning a letter has come from him in which he says, quite casually
as a sort of afterthought, that he knows we are broadminded enough
not to think any the worse of her because she is on the vaudeville
stage.'
'Oh, I say!'
'It was like a thunderbolt. The girl's name, it seems, is Ray Denison,
and according to Gussie she does something which he describes as a
single on the big time. What this degraded performance may be I have
not the least notion. As a further recommendation he states that she
lifted them out of their seats at Mosenstein's last week. Who she may
be, and how or why, and who or what Mr Mosenstein may be, I cannot tell
you.'
'By jove,' I said, 'it's like a sort of thingummybob, isn't it? A sort
of fate, what?'
'I fail to understand you.'
'Well, Aunt Julia, you know, don't you know? Heredity, and so forth.
What's bred in the bone will come out in the wash, and all that kind of
thing, you know.'
'Don't be absurd, Bertie.'
That was all very well, but it was a coincidence for all that. Nobody
ever mentions it, and the family have been trying to forget it for
twenty-five years, but it's a known fact that my Aunt Julia, Gussie's
mother, was a vaudeville artist once, and a very good one, too, I'm
told. She was playing in pantomime at Drury Lane when Uncle Cuthbert
saw her first. It was before my time, of course, and long before I was
old enough to take notice the family had made the best of it, and Aunt
Agatha had pulled up her socks and put in a lot of educative work, and
with a microscope you couldn't tell Aunt Julia from a genuine
dyed-in-the-wool aristocrat. Women adapt themselves so quickly!
I have a pal who married Daisy Trimble of the Gaiety, and when I meet
her now I feel like walking out of her presence backwards. But there
the thing was, and you couldn't get away from it. Gussie had vaudeville
blood in him, and it looked as if he were reverting to type, or
whatever they call it.
'By Jove,' I said, for I am interested in this heredity stuff, 'perhaps
the thing is going to be a regular family tradition, like you read
about in books--a sort of Curse of the Mannering-Phippses, as it were.
Perhaps each head of the family's going to marry into vaudeville for
ever and ever. Unto the what-d'you-call-it generation, don't you know?'
'Please do not be quite idiotic, Bertie. There is one head of the
family who is certainly not going to do it, and that is Gussie. And you
are going to America to stop him.'
'Yes, but why me?'
'Why you? You are too vexing, Bertie. Have you no sort of feeling for
the family? You are too lazy to try to be a credit to yourself, but at
least you can exert yourself to prevent Gussie's disgracing us. You are
going to America because you are Gussie's cousin, because you have
always been his closest friend, because you are the only one of the
family who has absolutely nothing to occupy his time except golf and
night clubs.'
'I play a lot of auction.'
'And as you say, idiotic gambling in low dens. If you require another
reason, you are going because I ask you as a personal favour.'
What she meant was that, if I refused, she would exert the full bent of
her natural genius to make life a Hades for me. She held me with her
glittering eye. I have never met anyone who can give a better imitation
of the Ancient Mariner.
'So you will start at once, won't you, Bertie?'
I didn't hesitate.
'Rather!' I said. 'Of course I will'
Jeeves came in with the tea.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'we start for America on Saturday.'
'Very good, sir,' he said; 'which suit will you wear?'
New York is a large city conveniently situated on the edge of America,
so that you step off the liner right on to it without an effort. You
can't lose your way. You go out of a barn and down some stairs, and
there you are, right in among it. The only possible objection any
reasonable chappie could find to the place is that they loose you into
it from the boat at such an ungodly hour.
I left Jeeves to get my baggage safely past an aggregation of
suspicious-minded pirates who were digging for buried treasures among
my new shirts, and drove to Gussie's hotel, where I requested the squad
of gentlemanly clerks behind the desk to produce him.
That's where I got my first shock. He wasn't there. I pleaded with them
to think again, and they thought again, but it was no good. No Augustus
Mannering-Phipps on the premises.
I admit I was hard hit. There I was alone in a strange city and no
signs of Gussie. What was the next step? I am never one of the master
minds in the early morning; the old bean doesn't somehow seem to get
into its stride till pretty late in the p.m.'s, and I couldn't think
what to do. However, some instinct took me through a door at the back
of the lobby, and I found myself in a large room with an enormous
picture stretching across the whole of one wall, and under the picture
a counter, and behind the counter divers chappies in white, serving
drinks. They have barmen, don't you know, in New York, not barmaids.
Rum idea!
I put myself unreservedly into the hands of one of the white chappies.
He was a friendly soul, and I told him the whole state of affairs. I
asked him what he thought would meet the case.
He said that in a situation of that sort he usually prescribed a
'lightning whizzer', an invention of his own. He said this was what
rabbits trained on when they were matched against grizzly bears, and
there was only one instance on record of the bear having lasted three
rounds. So I tried a couple, and, by Jove! the man was perfectly right.
As I drained the second a great load seemed to fall from my heart, and
I went out in quite a braced way to have a look at the city.
I was surprised to find the streets quite full. People were bustling
along as if it were some reasonable hour and not the grey dawn. In the
tramcars they were absolutely standing on each other's necks. Going to
business or something, I take it. Wonderful johnnies!
The odd part of it was that after the first shock of seeing all this
frightful energy the thing didn't seem so strange. I've spoken to
fellows since who have been to New York, and they tell me they found it
just the same. Apparently there's something in the air, either the
ozone or the phosphates or something, which makes you sit up and take
notice. A kind of zip, as it were. A sort of bally freedom, if you know
what I mean, that gets into your blood and bucks you up, and makes you
feel that--
_God's in His Heaven:
All's right with the world_,
and you don't care if you've got odd socks on. I can't express it
better than by saying that the thought uppermost in my mind, as I
walked about the place they call Times Square, was that there were
three thousand miles of deep water between me and my Aunt Agatha.
It's a funny thing about looking for things. If you hunt for a needle
in a haystack you don't find it. If you don't give a darn whether you
ever see the needle or not it runs into you the first time you lean
against the stack. By the time I had strolled up and down once or
twice, seeing the sights and letting the white chappie's corrective
permeate my system, I was feeling that I wouldn't care if Gussie and I
never met again, and I'm dashed if I didn't suddenly catch sight of the
old lad, as large as life, just turning in at a doorway down the
street.
I called after him, but he didn't hear me, so I legged it in pursuit
and caught him going into an office on the first floor. The name on the
door was Abe Riesbitter, Vaudeville Agent, and from the other side of
the door came the sound of many voices.
He turned and stared at me.
'Bertie! What on earth are you doing? Where have you sprung from? When
did you arrive?'
'Landed this morning. I went round to your hotel, but they said you
weren't there. They had never heard of you.'
'I've changed my name. I call myself George Wilson.'
'Why on earth?'
'Well, you try calling yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps over here,
and see how it strikes you. You feel a perfect ass. I don't know what
it is about America, but the broad fact is that it's not a place where
you can call yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps. And there's another
reason. I'll tell you later. Bertie, I've fallen in love with the
dearest girl in the world.'
The poor old nut looked at me in such a deuced cat-like way, standing
with his mouth open, waiting to be congratulated, that I simply hadn't
the heart to tell him that I knew all about that already, and had come
over to the country for the express purpose of laying him a stymie.
So I congratulated him.
'Thanks awfully, old man,' he said. 'It's a bit premature, but I fancy
it's going to be all right. Come along in here, and I'll tell you about
it.'
'What do you want in this place? It looks a rummy spot.'
'Oh, that's part of the story. I'll tell you the whole thing.'
We opened the door marked 'Waiting Room'. I never saw such a crowded
place in my life. The room was packed till the walls bulged.
Gussie explained.
'Pros,' he said, 'music-hall artistes, you know, waiting to see old Abe
Riesbitter. This is September the first, vaudeville's opening day. The
early fall,' said Gussie, who is a bit of a poet in his way, 'is
vaudeville's springtime. All over the country, as August wanes,
sparkling comediennes burst into bloom, the sap stirs in the veins of
tramp cyclists, and last year's contortionists, waking from their
summer sleep, tie themselves tentatively into knots. What I mean is,
this is the beginning of the new season, and everybody's out hunting
for bookings.'
'But what do you want here?'
'Oh, I've just got to see Abe about something. If you see a fat man
with about fifty-seven chins come out of that door there grab him, for
that'll be Abe. He's one of those fellows who advertise each step up
they take in the world by growing another chin. I'm told that way back
in the nineties he only had two. If you do grab Abe, remember that he
knows me as George Wilson.'
'You said that you were going to explain that George Wilson business to
me, Gussie, old man.'
'Well, it's this way--'
At this juncture dear old Gussie broke off short, rose from his seat,
and sprang with indescribable vim at an extraordinarily stout chappie
who had suddenly appeared. There was the deuce of a rush for him, but
Gussie had got away to a good start, and the rest of the singers,
dancers, jugglers, acrobats, and refined sketch teams seemed to
recognize that he had won the trick, for they ebbed back into their
places again, and Gussie and I went into the inner room.
Mr Riesbitter lit a cigar, and looked at us solemnly over his zareba of
chins.
'Now, let me tell ya something,' he said to Gussie. 'You lizzun t' me.'
Gussie registered respectful attention. Mr Riesbitter mused for a
moment and shelled the cuspidor with indirect fire over the edge of the
desk.
'Lizzun t' me,' he said again. 'I seen you rehearse, as I promised Miss
Denison I would. You ain't bad for an amateur. You gotta lot to learn,
but it's in you. What it comes to is that I can fix you up in the
four-a-day, if you'll take thirty-five per. I can't do better than
that, and I wouldn't have done that if the little lady hadn't of kep'
after me. Take it or leave it. What do you say?'
'I'll take it,' said Gussie, huskily. 'Thank you.'
In the passage outside, Gussie gurgled with joy and slapped me on the
back. 'Bertie, old man, it's all right. I'm the happiest man in New
York.'
'Now what?'
'Well, you see, as I was telling you when Abe came in, Ray's father
used to be in the profession. He was before our time, but I remember
hearing about him--Joe Danby. He used to be well known in London before
he came over to America. Well, he's a fine old boy, but as obstinate as
a mule, and he didn't like the idea of Ray marrying me because I wasn't
in the profession. Wouldn't hear of it. Well, you remember at Oxford I
could always sing a song pretty well; so Ray got hold of old Riesbitter
and made him promise to come and hear me rehearse and get me bookings
if he liked my work. She stands high with him. She coached me for
weeks, the darling. And now, as you heard him say, he's booked me in
the small time at thirty-five dollars a week.'
I steadied myself against the wall. The effects of the restoratives
supplied by my pal at the hotel bar were beginning to work off, and I
felt a little weak. Through a sort of mist I seemed to have a vision of
Aunt Agatha hearing that the head of the Mannering-Phippses was about
to appear on the vaudeville stage. Aunt Agatha's worship of the family
name amounts to an obsession. The Mannering-Phippses were an
old-established clan when William the Conqueror was a small boy going
round with bare legs and a catapult. For centuries they have called
kings by their first names and helped dukes with their weekly rent; and
there's practically nothing a Mannering-Phipps can do that doesn't blot
his escutcheon. So what Aunt Agatha would say--beyond saying that it
was all my fault--when she learned the horrid news, it was beyond me to
imagine.
'Come back to the hotel, Gussie,' I said. 'There's a sportsman there
who mixes things he calls "lightning whizzers". Something tells me I
need one now. And excuse me for one minute, Gussie. I want to send a
cable.'
It was clear to me by now that Aunt Agatha had picked the wrong man for
this job of disentangling Gussie from the clutches of the American
vaudeville profession. What I needed was reinforcements. For a moment I
thought of cabling Aunt Agatha to come over, but reason told me that
this would be overdoing it. I wanted assistance, but not so badly as
that. I hit what seemed to me the happy mean. I cabled to Gussie's
mother and made it urgent.
'What were you cabling about?' asked Gussie, later.
'Oh just to say I had arrived safely, and all that sort of tosh,' I
answered.
* * * * *
Gussie opened his vaudeville career on the following Monday at a rummy
sort of place uptown where they had moving pictures some of the time
and, in between, one or two vaudeville acts. It had taken a lot of
careful handling to bring him up to scratch. He seemed to take my
sympathy and assistance for granted, and I couldn't let him down. My
only hope, which grew as I listened to him rehearsing, was that he
would be such a frightful frost at his first appearance that he would
never dare to perform again; and, as that would automatically squash
the marriage, it seemed best to me to let the thing go on.
He wasn't taking any chances. On the Saturday and Sunday we practically
lived in a beastly little music-room at the offices of the publishers
whose songs he proposed to use. A little chappie with a hooked nose
sucked a cigarette and played the piano all day. Nothing could tire
that lad. He seemed to take a personal interest in the thing.
Gussie would cleat his throat and begin:
'There's a great big choo-choo waiting at the deepo.'
THE CHAPPIE (playing chords): 'Is that so? What's it waiting for?'
GUSSIE (rather rattled at the interruption): 'Waiting for me.'
THE CHAPPIE (surprised): For you?'
GUSSIE (sticking to it): 'Waiting for me-e-ee!'
THE CHAPPIE (sceptically): 'You don't say!'
GUSSIE: 'For I'm off to Tennessee.'
THE CHAPPIE (conceding a point): 'Now, I live at Yonkers.'
He did this all through the song. At first poor old Gussie asked him to
stop, but the chappie said, No, it was always done. It helped to get
pep into the thing. He appealed to me whether the thing didn't want a
bit of pep, and I said it wanted all the pep it could get. And the
chappie said to Gussie, 'There you are!' So Gussie had to stand it.
The other song that he intended to sing was one of those moon songs. He
told me in a hushed voice that he was using it because it was one of
the songs that the girl Ray sang when lifting them out of their seats
at Mosenstein's and elsewhere. The fact seemed to give it sacred
associations for him.
You will scarcely believe me, but the management expected Gussie to
show up and start performing at one o'clock in the afternoon. I told
him they couldn't be serious, as they must know that he would be
rolling out for a bit of lunch at that hour, but Gussie said this was
the usual thing in the four-a-day, and he didn't suppose he would ever
get any lunch again until he landed on the big time. I was just
condoling with him, when I found that he was taking it for granted that
I should be there at one o'clock, too. My idea had been that I should
look in at night, when--if he survived--he would be coming up for the
fourth time; but I've never deserted a pal in distress, so I said
good-bye to the little lunch I'd been planning at a rather decent
tavern I'd discovered on Fifth Avenue, and trailed along. They were
showing pictures when I reached my seat. It was one of those Western
films, where the cowboy jumps on his horse and rides across country at
a hundred and fifty miles an hour to escape the sheriff, not knowing,
poor chump! that he might just as well stay where he is, the sheriff
having a horse of his own which can do three hundred miles an hour
without coughing. I was just going to close my eyes and try to forget
till they put Gussie's name up when I discovered that I was sitting
next to a deucedly pretty girl.
No, let me be honest. When I went in I had seen that there was a
deucedly pretty girl sitting in that particular seat, so I had taken
the next one. What happened now was that I began, as it were, to drink
her in. I wished they would turn the lights up so that I could see her
better. She was rather small, with great big eyes and a ripping smile.
It was a shame to let all that run to seed, so to speak, in
semi-darkness.
Suddenly the lights did go up, and the orchestra began to play a tune
which, though I haven't much of an ear for music, seemed somehow
familiar. The next instant out pranced old Gussie from the wings in a
purple frock-coat and a brown top-hat, grinned feebly at the audience,
tripped over his feet, blushed, and began to sing the Tennessee song.
It was rotten. The poor nut had got stage fright so badly that it
practically eliminated his voice. He sounded like some far-off echo of
the past 'yodelling' through a woollen blanket.
For the first time since I had heard that he was about to go into
vaudeville I felt a faint hope creeping over me. I was sorry for the
wretched chap, of course, but there was no denying that the thing had
its bright side. No management on earth would go on paying thirty-five
dollars a week for this sort of performance. This was going to be
Gussie's first and only. He would have to leave the profession. The old
boy would say, 'Unhand my daughter'. And, with decent luck, I saw
myself leading Gussie on to the next England-bound liner and handing
him over intact to Aunt Agatha.
He got through the song somehow and limped off amidst roars of silence
from the audience. There was a brief respite, then out he came again.
He sang this time as if nobody loved him. As a song, it was not a very
pathetic song, being all about coons spooning in June under the moon,
and so on and so forth, but Gussie handled it in such a sad, crushed
way that there was genuine anguish in every line. By the time he
reached the refrain I was nearly in tears. It seemed such a rotten sort
of world with all that kind of thing going on in it.
He started the refrain, and then the most frightful thing happened. The
girl next to me got up in her seat, chucked her head back, and began to
sing too. I say 'too', but it wasn't really too, because her first note
stopped Gussie dead, as if he had been pole-axed.
I never felt so bally conspicuous in my life. I huddled down in my seat
and wished I could turn my collar up. Everybody seemed to be looking at
me.
In the midst of my agony I caught sight of Gussie. A complete change
had taken place in the old lad. He was looking most frightfully bucked.
I must say the girl was singing most awfully well, and it seemed to act
on Gussie like a tonic. When she came to the end of the refrain, he
took it up, and they sang it together, and the end of it was that he
went off the popular hero. The audience yelled for more, and were only
quieted when they turned down the lights and put on a film.
When I had recovered I tottered round to see Gussie. I found him
sitting on a box behind the stage, looking like one who had seen
visions.
'Isn't she a wonder, Bertie?' he said, devoutly. 'I hadn't a notion she
was going to be there. She's playing at the Auditorium this week, and
she can only just have had time to get back to her _matinee_. She
risked being late, just to come and see me through. She's my good
angel, Bertie. She saved me. If she hadn't helped me out I don't know
what would have happened. I was so nervous I didn't know what I was
doing. Now that I've got through the first show I shall be all right.'
I was glad I had sent that cable to his mother. I was going to need
her. The thing had got beyond me.
* * * * *
During the next week I saw a lot of old Gussie, and was introduced to
the girl. I also met her father, a formidable old boy with quick
eyebrows and a sort of determined expression. On the following
Wednesday Aunt Julia arrived. Mrs Mannering-Phipps, my aunt Julia, is,
I think, the most dignified person I know. She lacks Aunt Agatha's
punch, but in a quiet way she has always contrived to make me feel,
from boyhood up, that I was a poor worm. Not that she harries me like
Aunt Agatha. The difference between the two is that Aunt Agatha conveys
the impression that she considers me personally responsible for all the
sin and sorrow in the world, while Aunt Julia's manner seems to suggest
that I am more to be pitied than censured.
If it wasn't that the thing was a matter of historical fact, I should
be inclined to believe that Aunt Julia had never been on the vaudeville
stage. She is like a stage duchess.
She always seems to me to be in a perpetual state of being about to
desire the butler to instruct the head footman to serve lunch in the
blue-room overlooking the west terrace. She exudes dignity. Yet,
twenty-five years ago, so I've been told by old boys who were lads
about town in those days, she was knocking them cold at the Tivoli in a
double act called 'Fun in a Tea-Shop', in which she wore tights and
sang a song with a chorus that began, 'Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay'.
There are some things a chappie's mind absolutely refuses to picture,
and Aunt Julia singing 'Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay' is one of them.
She got straight to the point within five minutes of our meeting.
'What is this about Gussie? Why did you cable for me, Bertie?'
'It's rather a long story,' I said, 'and complicated. If you don't
mind, I'll let you have it in a series of motion pictures. Suppose we
look in at the Auditorium for a few minutes.'
The girl, Ray, had been re-engaged for a second week at the Auditorium,
owing to the big success of her first week. Her act consisted of three
songs. She did herself well in the matter of costume and scenery. She
had a ripping voice. She looked most awfully pretty; and altogether the
act was, broadly speaking, a pippin.
Aunt Julia didn't speak till we were in our seats. Then she gave a sort
of sigh.
'It's twenty-five years since I was in a music-hall!'
She didn't say any more, but sat there with her eyes glued on the
stage.
After about half an hour the johnnies who work the card-index system at
the side of the stage put up the name of Ray Denison, and there was a
good deal of applause.
'Watch this act, Aunt Julia,' I said.
She didn't seem to hear me.
'Twenty-five years! What did you say, Bertie?'
'Watch this act and tell me what you think of it.'
'Who is it? Ray. Oh!'
'Exhibit A,' I said. 'The girl Gussie's engaged to.'
The girl did her act, and the house rose at her. They didn't want to
let her go. She had to come back again and again. When she had finally
disappeared I turned to Aunt Julia.
'Well?' I said.
'I like her work. She's an artist.'
'We will now, if you don't mind, step a goodish way uptown.'
And we took the subway to where Gussie, the human film, was earning his
thirty-five per. As luck would have it, we hadn't been in the place ten
minutes when out he came.
'Exhibit B,' I said. 'Gussie.'
I don't quite know what I had expected her to do, but I certainly
didn't expect her to sit there without a word. She did not move a
muscle, but just stared at Gussie as he drooled on about the moon. I
was sorry for the woman, for it must have been a shock to her to see
her only son in a mauve frockcoat and a brown top-hat, but I thought it
best to let her get a strangle-hold on the intricacies of the situation
as quickly as possible. If I had tried to explain the affair without
the aid of illustrations I should have talked all day and left her
muddled up as to who was going to marry whom, and why.
I was astonished at the improvement in dear old Gussie. He had got back
his voice and was putting the stuff over well. It reminded me of the
night at Oxford when, then but a lad of eighteen, he sang 'Let's All Go
Down the Strand' after a bump supper, standing the while up to his
knees in the college fountain. He was putting just the same zip into
the thing now.
When he had gone off Aunt Julia sat perfectly still for a long time,
and then she turned to me. Her eyes shone queerly.
'What does this mean, Bertie?'
She spoke quite quietly, but her voice shook a bit.
'Gussie went into the business,' I said, 'because the girl's father
wouldn't let him marry her unless he did. If you feel up to it perhaps
you wouldn't mind tottering round to One Hundred and Thirty-third
Street and having a chat with him. He's an old boy with eyebrows, and
he's Exhibit C on my list. When I've put you in touch with him I rather
fancy my share of the business is concluded, and it's up to you.'
The Danbys lived in one of those big apartments uptown which look as if
they cost the earth and really cost about half as much as a hall-room
down in the forties. We were shown into the sitting-room, and presently
old Danby came in.
'Good afternoon, Mr Danby,' I began.
I had got as far as that when there was a kind of gasping cry at my
elbow.
'Joe!' cried Aunt Julia, and staggered against the sofa.
For a moment old Danby stared at her, and then his mouth fell open and
his eyebrows shot up like rockets.
'Julie!'
And then they had got hold of each other's hands and were shaking them
till I wondered their arms didn't come unscrewed.
I'm not equal to this sort of thing at such short notice. The
change in Aunt Julia made me feel quite dizzy. She had shed her
_grande-dame_ manner completely, and was blushing and smiling. I
don't like to say such things of any aunt of mine, or I would go
further and put it on record that she was giggling. And old Danby, who
usually looked like a cross between a Roman emperor and Napoleon
Bonaparte in a bad temper, was behaving like a small boy.
'Joe!'
'Julie!'
'Dear old Joe! Fancy meeting you again!'
'Wherever have you come from, Julie?'
Well, I didn't know what it was all about, but I felt a bit out of it.
I butted in:
'Aunt Julia wants to have a talk with you, Mr Danby.'
'I knew you in a second, Joe!'
'It's twenty-five years since I saw you, kid, and you don't look a day
older.'
'Oh, Joe! I'm an old woman!'
'What are you doing over here? I suppose'--old Danby's cheerfulness
waned a trifle--'I suppose your husband is with you?'
'My husband died a long, long while ago, Joe.'
Old Danby shook his head.
'You never ought to have married out of the profession, Julie. I'm
not saying a word against the late--I can't remember his name; never
could--but you shouldn't have done it, an artist like you. Shall I ever
forget the way you used to knock them with "Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay"?'
'Ah! how wonderful you were in that act, Joe.' Aunt Julia sighed. 'Do
you remember the back-fall you used to do down the steps? I always have
said that you did the best back-fall in the profession.'
'I couldn't do it now!'
'Do you remember how we put it across at the Canterbury, Joe? Think of
it! The Canterbury's a moving-picture house now, and the old Mogul runs
French revues.'
'I'm glad I'm not there to see them.'
'Joe, tell me, why did you leave England?'
'Well, I--I wanted a change. No I'll tell you the truth, kid. I wanted
you, Julie. You went off and married that--whatever that stage-door
johnny's name was--and it broke me all up.'
Aunt Julia was staring at him. She is what they call a well-preserved
woman. It's easy to see that, twenty-five years ago, she must have been
something quite extraordinary to look at. Even now she's almost
beautiful. She has very large brown eyes, a mass of soft grey hair, and
the complexion of a girl of seventeen.
'Joe, you aren't going to tell me you were fond of me yourself!'
'Of course I was fond of you. Why did I let you have all the fat in
"Fun in a Tea-Shop"? Why did I hang about upstage while you sang
"Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay"? Do you remember my giving you a bag of buns
when we were on the road at Bristol?'
'Yes, but--'
'Do you remember my giving you the ham sandwiches at Portsmouth?'
'Joe!'
'Do you remember my giving you a seed-cake at Birmingham? What did you
think all that meant, if not that I loved you? Why, I was working up by
degrees to telling you straight out when you suddenly went off and
married that cane-sucking dude. That's why I wouldn't let my daughter
marry this young chap, Wilson, unless he went into the profession.
She's an artist--'
'She certainly is, Joe.'
'You've seen her? Where?'
'At the Auditorium just now. But, Joe, you mustn't stand in the way of
her marrying the man she's in love with. He's an artist, too.'
'In the small time.'
'You were in the small time once, Joe. You mustn't look down on him
because he's a beginner. I know you feel that your daughter is marrying
beneath her, but--'
'How on earth do you know anything about young Wilson?
'He's my son.'
'Your son?'
'Yes, Joe. And I've just been watching him work. Oh, Joe, you can't
think how proud I was of him! He's got it in him. It's fate. He's my
son and he's in the profession! Joe, you don't know what I've been
through for his sake. They made a lady of me. I never worked so hard in
my life as I did to become a real lady. They kept telling me I had got
to put it across, no matter what it cost, so that he wouldn't be
ashamed of me. The study was something terrible. I had to watch myself
every minute for years, and I never knew when I might fluff my lines or
fall down on some bit of business. But I did it, because I didn't want
him to be ashamed of me, though all the time I was just aching to be
back where I belonged.'
Old Danby made a jump at her, and took her by the shoulders.
'Come back where you belong, Julie!' he cried. 'Your husband's dead,
your son's a pro. Come back! It's twenty-five years ago, but I haven't
changed. I want you still. I've always wanted you. You've got to come
back, kid, where you belong.'
Aunt Julia gave a sort of gulp and looked at him.
'Joe!' she said in a kind of whisper.
'You're here, kid,' said Old Danby, huskily. 'You've come back....
Twenty-five years!... You've come back and you're going to stay!'
She pitched forward into his arms, and he caught her.
'Oh, Joe! Joe! Joe!' she said. 'Hold me. Don't let me go. Take care of
me.'
And I edged for the door and slipped from the room. I felt weak. The
old bean will stand a certain amount, but this was too much. I groped
my way out into the street and wailed for a taxi.
Gussie called on me at the hotel that night. He curveted into the room
as if he had bought it and the rest of the city.
'Bertie,' he said, 'I feel as if I were dreaming.'
'I wish I could feel like that, old top,' I said, and I took another
glance at a cable that had arrived half an hour ago from Aunt Agatha. I
had been looking at it at intervals ever since.
'Ray and I got back to her flat this evening. Who do you think was
there? The mater! She was sitting hand in hand with old Danby.'
'Yes?'
'He was sitting hand in hand with her.'
'Really?'
'They are going to be married.'
'Exactly.'
'Ray and I are going to be married.'
'I suppose so.'
'Bertie, old man, I feel immense. I look round me, and everything seems
to be absolutely corking. The change in the mater is marvellous. She is
twenty-five years younger. She and old Danby are talking of reviving
"Fun in a Tea-Shop", and going out on the road with it.'
I got up.
'Gussie, old top,' I said, 'leave me for a while. I would be alone. I
think I've got brain fever or something.'
'Sorry, old man; perhaps New York doesn't agree with you. When do you
expect to go back to England?'
I looked again at Aunt Agatha's cable.
'With luck,' I said, 'in about ten years.'
When he was gone I took up the cable and read it again.
'What is happening?' it read. 'Shall I come over?'
I sucked a pencil for a while, and then I wrote the reply.
It was not an easy cable to word, but I managed it.
'No,' I wrote, 'stay where you are. Profession overcrowded.'
WILTON'S HOLIDAY
When Jack Wilton first came to Marois Bay, none of us dreamed that he
was a man with a hidden sorrow in his life. There was something about
the man which made the idea absurd, or would have made it absurd if he
himself had not been the authority for the story. He looked so
thoroughly pleased with life and with himself. He was one of those men
whom you instinctively label in your mind as 'strong'. He was so
healthy, so fit, and had such a confident, yet sympathetic, look about
him that you felt directly you saw him that here was the one person you
would have selected as the recipient of that hard-luck story of yours.
You felt that his kindly strength would have been something to lean on.
As a matter of fact, it was by trying to lean on it that Spencer Clay
got hold of the facts of the case; and when young Clay got hold of
anything, Marois Bay at large had it hot and fresh a few hours later;
for Spencer was one of those slack-jawed youths who are
constitutionally incapable of preserving a secret.
Within two hours, then, of Clay's chat with Wilton, everyone in the
place knew that, jolly and hearty as the new-comer might seem, there
was that gnawing at his heart which made his outward cheeriness simply
heroic.
Clay, it seems, who is the worst specimen of self-pitier, had gone to
Wilton, in whom, as a new-comer, he naturally saw a fine fresh
repository for his tales of woe, and had opened with a long yarn of
some misfortune or other. I forget which it was; it might have been any
one of a dozen or so which he had constantly in stock, and it is
immaterial which it was. The point is that, having heard him out very
politely and patiently, Wilton came back at him with a story which
silenced even Clay. Spencer was equal to most things, but even he could
not go on whining about how he had foozled his putting and been snubbed
at the bridge-table, or whatever it was that he was pitying himself
about just then, when a man was telling him the story of a wrecked
life.
'He told me not to let it go any further,' said Clay to everyone he
met, 'but of course it doesn't matter telling you. It is a thing he
doesn't like to have known. He told me because he said there was
something about me that seemed to extract confidences--a kind of
strength, he said. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but his life
is an absolute blank. Absolutely ruined, don't you know. He told me the
whole thing so simply and frankly that it broke me all up. It seems
that he was engaged to be married a few years ago, and on the wedding
morning--absolutely on the wedding morning--the girl was taken suddenly
ill, and--'
'And died?'
'And died. Died in his arms. Absolutely in his arms, old top.'
'What a terrible thing!'
'Absolutely. He's never got over it. You won't let it go any further,
will you old man?'
And off sped Spencer, to tell the tale to someone else.
* * * * *
Everyone was terribly sorry for Wilton. He was such a good fellow, such
a sportsman, and, above all, so young, that one hated the thought that,
laugh as he might, beneath his laughter there lay the pain of that
awful memory. He seemed so happy, too. It was only in moments of
confidence, in those heart-to-heart talks when men reveal their deeper
feelings, that he ever gave a hint that all was not well with him. As,
for example, when Ellerton, who is always in love with someone, backed
him into a corner one evening and began to tell him the story of his
latest affair, he had hardly begun when such a look of pain came over
Wilton's face that he ceased instantly. He said afterwards that the
sudden realization of the horrible break he was making hit him like a
bullet, and the manner in which he turned the conversation practically
without pausing from love to a discussion of the best method of getting
out of the bunker at the seventh hole was, in the circumstances, a
triumph of tact.
Marois Bay is a quiet place even in the summer, and the Wilton tragedy
was naturally the subject of much talk. It is a sobering thing to get a
glimpse of the underlying sadness of life like that, and there was a
disposition at first on the part of the community to behave in his
presence in a manner reminiscent of pall-bearers at a funeral. But
things soon adjusted themselves. He was outwardly so cheerful that it
seemed ridiculous for the rest of us to step softly and speak with
hushed voices. After all, when you came to examine it, the thing was
his affair, and it was for him to dictate the lines on which it should
be treated. If he elected to hide his pain under a bright smile and a
laugh like that of a hyena with a more than usually keen sense of
humour, our line was obviously to follow his lead.
We did so; and by degrees the fact that his life was permanently
blighted became almost a legend. At the back of our minds we were aware
of it, but it did not obtrude itself into the affairs of every day. It
was only when someone, forgetting, as Ellerton had done, tried to
enlist his sympathy for some misfortune of his own that the look of
pain in his eyes and the sudden tightening of his lips reminded us that
he still remembered.
Matters had been at this stage for perhaps two weeks when Mary Campbell
arrived.
Sex attraction is so purely a question of the taste of the individual
that the wise man never argues about it. He accepts its vagaries as
part of the human mystery, and leaves it at that. To me there was no
charm whatever about Mary Campbell. It may have been that, at the
moment, I was in love with Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, and Clarice
Wembley--for at Marois Bay, in the summer, a man who is worth his salt
is more than equal to three love affairs simultaneously--but anyway,
she left me cold. Not one thrill could she awake in me. She was small
and, to my mind, insignificant. Some men said that she had fine eyes.
They seemed to me just ordinary eyes. And her hair was just ordinary
hair. In fact, ordinary was the word that described her.
But from the first it was plain that she seemed wonderful with Wilton,
which was all the more remarkable, seeing that he was the one man of us
all who could have got any girl in Marois Bay that he wanted. When a
man is six foot high, is a combination of Hercules and Apollo, and
plays tennis, golf, and the banjo with almost superhuman vim, his path
with the girls of a summer seaside resort is pretty smooth. But, when
you add to all these things a tragedy like Wilton's, he can only be
described as having a walk-over.
Girls love a tragedy. At least, most girls do. It makes a man
interesting to them. Grace Bates was always going on about how
interesting Wilton was. So was Heloise Miller. So was Clarice Wembley.
But it was not until Mary Campbell came that he displayed any real
enthusiasm at all for the feminine element of Marois Bay. We put it
down to the fact that he could not forget, but the real reason, I now
know, was that he considered that girls were a nuisance on the links
and in the tennis-court. I suppose a plus two golfer and a Wildingesque
tennis-player, such as Wilton was, does feel like that. Personally, I
think that girls add to the fun of the thing. But then, my handicap is
twelve, and, though I have been playing tennis for many years, I doubt
if I have got my first serve--the fast one--over the net more than half
a dozen times.
But Mary Campbell overcame Wilton's prejudices in twenty-four hours. He
seemed to feel lonely on the links without her, and he positively egged
her to be his partner in the doubles. What Mary thought of him we did
not know. She was one of those inscrutable girls.
And so things went on. If it had not been that I knew Wilton's story, I
should have classed the thing as one of those summer love-affairs to
which the Marois Bay air is so peculiarly conducive. The only reason
why anyone comes away from a summer at Marois Bay unbetrothed is
because there are so many girls that he falls in love with that his
holiday is up before he can, so to speak, concentrate.
But in Wilton's case this was out of the question. A man does not get
over the sort of blow he had had, not, at any rate, for many years: and
we had gathered that his tragedy was comparatively recent.
I doubt if I was ever more astonished in my life than the night when he
confided in me. Why he should have chosen me as a confidant I cannot
say. I am inclined to think that I happened to be alone with him at the
psychological moment when a man must confide in somebody or burst; and
Wilton chose the lesser evil.
I was strolling along the shore after dinner, smoking a cigar and
thinking of Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when I
happened upon him. It was a beautiful night, and we sat down and drank
it in for a while. The first intimation I had that all was not well
with him was when he suddenly emitted a hollow groan.
The next moment he had begun to confide.
'I'm in the deuce of a hole,' he said. 'What would you do in my
position?'
'Yes?' I said.
'I proposed to Mary Campbell this evening.'
'Congratulations.'
'Thanks. She refused me.'
'Refused you!'
'Yes--because of Amy.'
It seemed to me that the narrative required footnotes.
'Who is Amy?' I said.
'Amy is the girl--'
'Which girl?'
'The girl who died, you know. Mary had got hold of the whole story. In
fact, it was the tremendous sympathy she showed that encouraged me to
propose. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't have had the nerve.
I'm not fit to black her shoes.'
Odd, the poor opinion a man always has--when he is in love--of his
personal attractions. There were times when I thought of Grace Bates,
Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when I felt like one of the beasts
that perish. But then, I'm nothing to write home about, whereas the
smallest gleam of intelligence should have told Wilton that he was a
kind of Ouida guardsman.
'This evening I managed somehow to do it. She was tremendously nice
about it--said she was very fond of me and all that--but it was quite
out of the question because of Amy.'
'I don't follow this. What did she mean?'
'It's perfectly clear, if you bear in mind that Mary is the most
sensitive, spiritual, highly strung girl that ever drew breath,' said
Wilton, a little coldly. 'Her position is this: she feels that, because
of Amy, she can never have my love completely; between us there would
always be Amy's memory. It would be the same as if she married a
widower.'
'Well, widowers marry.'
'They don't marry girls like Mary.'
I couldn't help feeling that this was a bit of luck for the widowers;
but I didn't say so. One has always got to remember that opinions
differ about girls. One man's peach, so to speak, is another man's
poison. I have met men who didn't like Grace Bates, men who, if Heloise
Miller or Clarice Wembley had given them their photographs, would have
used them to cut the pages of a novel.
'Amy stands between us,' said Wilton.
I breathed a sympathetic snort. I couldn't think of anything noticeably
suitable to say.
'Stands between us,' repeated Wilton. 'And the damn silly part of the
whole thing is that there isn't any Amy. I invented her.'
'You--what!'
'Invented her. Made her up. No, I'm not mad. I had a reason. Let me
see, you come from London, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Then you haven't any friends. It's different with me. I live in a
small country town, and everyone's my friend. I don't know what it is
about me, but for some reason, ever since I can remember, I've been
looked on as the strong man of my town, the man who's _all right_.
Am I making myself clear?'
'Not quite.'
'Well, what I am trying to get at is this. Either because I'm a strong
sort of fellow to look at, and have obviously never been sick in my
life, or because I can't help looking pretty cheerful, the whole of
Bridley-in-the-Wold seems to take it for granted that I can't possibly
have any troubles of my own, and that I am consequently fair game for
anyone who has any sort of worry. I have the sympathetic manner, and
they come to me to be cheered up. If a fellow's in love, he makes a
bee-line for me, and tells me all about it. If anyone has had a
bereavement, I am the rock on which he leans for support. Well, I'm a
patient sort of man, and, as far as Bridley-in-the-Wold is concerned, I
am willing to play the part. But a strong man does need an occasional
holiday, and I made up my mind that I would get it. Directly I got here
I saw that the same old game was going to start. Spencer Clay swooped
down on me at once. I'm as big a draw with the Spencer Clay type of
maudlin idiot as catnip is with a cat. Well, I could stand it at home,
but I was hanged if I was going to have my holiday spoiled. So I
invented Amy. Now do you see?'
'Certainly I see. And I perceive something else which you appear to
have overlooked. If Amy doesn't exist--or, rather, never did exist--she
cannot stand between you and Miss Campbell. Tell her what you have told
me, and all will be well.'
He shook his head.
'You don't know Mary. She would never forgive me. You don't know what
sympathy, what angelic sympathy, she has poured out on me about Amy. I
can't possibly tell her the whole thing was a fraud. It would make her
feel so foolish.'
'You must risk it. At the worst, you lose nothing.'
He brightened a little.
'No, that's true,' he said. 'I've half a mind to do it.'
'Make it a whole mind,' I said, 'and you win out.'
I was wrong. Sometimes I am. The trouble was, apparently, that I didn't
know Mary. I am sure Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, or Clarice Wembley
would not have acted as she did. They might have been a trifle stunned
at first, but they would soon have come round, and all would have been
joy. But with Mary, no. What took place at the interview I do not know;
but it was swiftly perceived by Marois Bay that the Wilton-Campbell
alliance was off. They no longer walked together, golfed together, and
played tennis on the same side of the net. They did not even speak to
each other.
* * * * *
The rest of the story I can speak of only from hearsay. How it became
public property, I do not know. But there was a confiding strain in
Wilton, and I imagine he confided in someone, who confided in someone
else. At any rate, it is recorded in Marois Bay's unwritten archives,
from which I now extract it.
* * * * *
For some days after the breaking-off of diplomatic relations, Wilton
seemed too pulverized to resume the offensive. He mooned about the
links by himself, playing a shocking game, and generally comported
himself like a man who has looked for the escape of gas with a lighted
candle. In affairs of love the strongest men generally behave with the
most spineless lack of resolution. Wilton weighed thirteen stone, and
his muscles were like steel cables; but he could not have shown less
pluck in this crisis in his life if he had been a poached egg. It was
pitiful to see him.
Mary, in these days, simply couldn't see that he was on the earth. She
looked round him, above him, and through him, but never at him; which
was rotten from Wilton's point of view, for he had developed a sort of
wistful expression--I am convinced that he practised it before the
mirror after his bath--which should have worked wonders, if only he
could have got action with it. But she avoided his eye as if he had
been a creditor whom she was trying to slide past on the street.
She irritated me. To let the breach widen in this way was absurd.
Wilton, when I said as much to him, said that it was due to her
wonderful sensitiveness and highly strungness, and that it was just one
more proof to him of the loftiness of her soul and her shrinking horror
of any form of deceit. In fact, he gave me the impression that, though
the affair was rending his vitals, he took a mournful pleasure in
contemplating her perfection.
Now one afternoon Wilton took his misery for a long walk along the
seashore. He tramped over the sand for some considerable time, and
finally pulled up in a little cove, backed by high cliffs and dotted
with rocks. The shore around Marois Bay is full of them.
By this time the afternoon sun had begun to be too warm for comfort,
and it struck Wilton that he could be a great deal more comfortable
nursing his wounded heart with his back against one of the rocks than
tramping any farther over the sand. Most of the Marois Bay scenery is
simply made as a setting for the nursing of a wounded heart. The cliffs
are a sombre indigo, sinister and forbidding; and even on the finest
days the sea has a curious sullen look. You have only to get away from
the crowd near the bathing-machines and reach one of these small coves
and get your book against a rock and your pipe well alight, and you can
simply wallow in misery. I have done it myself. The day when Heloise
Miller went golfing with Teddy Bingley I spent the whole afternoon in
one of these retreats. It is true that, after twenty minutes of
contemplating the breakers, I fell asleep; but that is bound to happen.
It happened to Wilton. For perhaps half an hour he brooded, and then
his pipe fell from his mouth and he dropped off into a peaceful
slumber. And time went by.
It was a touch of cramp that finally woke him. He jumped up with a
yell, and stood there massaging his calf. And he had hardly got rid of
the pain, when a startled exclamation broke the primeval stillness; and
there, on the other side of the rock, was Mary Campbell.
Now, if Wilton had had any inductive reasoning in his composition at
all, he would have been tremendously elated. A girl does not creep out
to a distant cove at Marois Bay unless she is unhappy; and if Mary
Campbell was unhappy she must be unhappy about him; and if she was
unhappy about him all he had to do was to show a bit of determination
and get the whole thing straightened out. But Wilton, whom grief had
reduced to the mental level of an oyster, did not reason this out; and
the sight of her deprived him of practically all his faculties,
including speech. He just stood there and yammered.
'Did you follow me here, Mr Wilton?' said Mary, very coldly.
He shook his head. Eventually he managed to say that he had come there
by chance, and had fallen asleep under the rock. As this was exactly
what Mary had done, she could not reasonably complain. So that
concluded the conversation for the time being. She walked away in the
direction of Marois Bay without another word, and presently he lost
sight of her round a bend in the cliffs.
His position now was exceedingly unpleasant. If she had such a distaste
for his presence, common decency made it imperative that he should give
her a good start on the homeward journey. He could not tramp along a
couple of yards in the rear all the way. So he had to remain where he
was till she had got well off the mark. And as he was wearing a thin
flannel suit, and the sun had gone in, and a chilly breeze had sprung
up, his mental troubles were practically swamped in physical
discomfort.
Just as he had decided that he could now make a move, he was surprised
to see her coming back.
Wilton really was elated at this. The construction he put on it was
that she had relented and was coming back to fling her arms round his
neck. He was just bracing himself for the clash, when he caught her
eye, and it was as cold and unfriendly as the sea.
'I must go round the other way,' she said. 'The water has come up too
far on that side.'
And she walked past him to the other end of the cove.
The prospect of another wait chilled Wilton to the marrow. The wind had
now grown simply freezing, and it came through his thin suit and roamed
about all over him in a manner that caused him exquisite discomfort. He
began to jump to keep himself warm.
He was leaping heavenwards for the hundredth time, when, chancing to
glance to one side, he perceived Mary again returning. By this time his
physical misery had so completely overcome the softer emotions in his
bosom that his only feeling now was one of thorough irritation. It was
not fair, he felt, that she should jockey at the start in this way and
keep him hanging about here catching cold. He looked at her, when she
came within range, quite balefully.
'It is impossible,' she said, 'to get round that way either.'
One grows so accustomed in this world to everything going smoothly,
that the idea of actual danger had not yet come home to her. From where
she stood in the middle of the cove, the sea looked so distant that the
fact that it had closed the only ways of getting out was at the moment
merely annoying. She felt much the same as she would have felt if she
had arrived at a station to catch a train and had been told that the
train was not running.
She therefore seated herself on a rock, and contemplated the ocean.
Wilton walked up and down. Neither showed any disposition to exercise
that gift of speech which places Man in a class of his own, above the
ox, the ass, the common wart-hog, and the rest of the lower animals. It
was only when a wave swished over the base of her rock that Mary broke
the silence.
'The tide is coming _in_' she faltered.
She looked at the sea with such altered feelings that it seemed a
different sea altogether.
There was plenty of it to look at. It filled the entire mouth of the
little bay, swirling up the sand and lashing among the rocks in a
fashion which made one thought stand out above all the others in her
mind--the recollection that she could not swim.
'Mr Wilton!'
Wilton bowed coldly.
'Mr Wilton, the tide. It's coming IN.'
Wilton glanced superciliously at the sea.
'So,' he said, 'I perceive.'
'But what shall we do?'
Wilton shrugged his shoulders. He was feeling at war with Nature and
Humanity combined. The wind had shifted a few points to the east, and
was exploring his anatomy with the skill of a qualified surgeon.
'We shall drown,' cried Miss Campbell. 'We shall drown. We shall drown.
We shall drown.'
All Wilton's resentment left him. Until he heard that pitiful wail his
only thoughts had been for himself.
'Mary!' he said, with a wealth of tenderness in his voice.
She came to him as a little child comes to its mother, and he put his
arm around her.
'Oh, Jack!'
'My darling!'
'I'm frightened!'
'My precious!'
It is in moments of peril, when the chill breath of fear blows upon our
souls, clearing them of pettiness, that we find ourselves.
She looked about her wildly.
'Could we climb the cliffs?'
'I doubt it.'
'If we called for help--'
'We could do that.'
They raised their voices, but the only answer was the crashing of the
waves and the cry of the sea-birds. The water was swirling at their
feet, and they drew back to the shelter of the cliffs. There they stood
in silence, watching.
'Mary,' said Wilton in a low voice, 'tell me one thing.'
'Yes, Jack?'
'Have you forgiven me?'
'Forgiven you! How can you ask at a moment like this? I love you with
all my heart and soul.'
He kissed her, and a strange look of peace came over his face.
'I am happy.'
'I, too.'
A fleck of foam touched her face, and she shivered.
'It was worth it,' he said quietly. 'If all misunderstandings are
cleared away and nothing can come between us again, it is a small price
to pay--unpleasant as it will be when it comes.'
'Perhaps--perhaps it will not be very unpleasant. They say that
drowning is an easy death.'
'I didn't mean drowning, dearest. I meant a cold in the head.'
'A cold in the head!'
He nodded gravely.
'I don't see how it can be avoided. You know how chilly it gets these
late summer nights. It will be a long time before we can get away.'
She laughed a shrill, unnatural laugh.
'You are talking like this to keep my courage up. You know in your
heart that there is no hope for us. Nothing can save us now. The water
will come creeping--creeping--'
'Let it creep! It can't get past that rock there.'
'What do you mean?'
'It can't. The tide doesn't come up any farther. I know, because I was
caught here last week.'
For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she uttered a cry
in which relief, surprise, and indignation were so nicely blended that
it would have been impossible to say which predominated.
He was eyeing the approaching waters with an indulgent smile.
'Why didn't you tell me?' she cried.
'I did tell you.'
'You know what I mean. Why did you let me go on thinking we were in
danger, when--'
'We _were_ in danger. We shall probably get pneumonia.'
'Isch!'
'There! You're sneezing already.'
'I am not sneezing. That was an exclamation of disgust.'
'It sounded like a sneeze. It must have been, for you've every reason
to sneeze, but why you should utter exclamations of disgust I cannot
imagine.'
'I'm disgusted with you--with your meanness. You deliberately tricked
me into saying--'
'Saying--'
She was silent.
'What you said was that you loved me with all your heart and soul. You
can't get away from that, and it's good enough for me.'
'Well, it's not true any longer.'
'Yes, it is,' said Wilton, comfortably; 'bless it.'
'It is not. I'm going right away now, and I shall never speak to you
again.'
She moved away from him, and prepared to sit down.
'There's a jelly-fish just where you're going to sit,' said Wilton.
'I don't care.'
'It will. I speak from experience, as one on whom you have sat so
often.'
'I'm not amused.'
'Have patience. I can be funnier than that.'
'Please don't talk to me.'
'Very well.'
She seated herself with her back to him. Dignity demanded reprisals, so
he seated himself with his back to her; and the futile ocean raged
towards them, and the wind grew chillier every minute.
Time passed. Darkness fell. The little bay became a black cavern,
dotted here and there with white, where the breeze whipped the surface
of the water.
Wilton sighed. It was lonely sitting there all by himself. How much
jollier it would have been if--
A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice spoke--meekly.
'Jack, dear, it--it's awfully cold. Don't you think if we were
to--snuggle up--'
He reached out and folded her in an embrace which would have aroused
the professional enthusiasm of Hackenschmidt and drawn guttural
congratulations from Zbysco. She creaked, but did not crack, beneath
the strain.
'That's much nicer,' she said, softly. 'Jack, I don't think the tide's
started even to think of going down yet.'
'I hope not,' said Wilton.
THE MIXER
I. _He Meets a Shy Gentleman_
Looking back, I always consider that my career as a dog proper really
started when I was bought for the sum of half a crown by the Shy Man.
That event marked the end of my puppyhood. The knowledge that I was
worth actual cash to somebody filled me with a sense of new
responsibilities. It sobered me. Besides, it was only after that
half-crown changed hands that I went out into the great world; and,
however interesting life may be in an East End public-house, it is only
when you go out into the world that you really broaden your mind and
begin to see things.
Within its limitations, my life had been singularly full and vivid. I
was born, as I say, in a public-house in the East End, and, however
lacking a public-house may be in refinement and the true culture, it
certainly provides plenty of excitement. Before I was six weeks old I
had upset three policemen by getting between their legs when they came
round to the side-door, thinking they had heard suspicious noises; and
I can still recall the interesting sensation of being chased seventeen
times round the yard with a broom-handle after a well-planned and
completely successful raid on the larder. These and other happenings of
a like nature soothed for the moment but could not cure the
restlessness which has always been so marked a trait in my character. I
have always been restless, unable to settle down in one place and
anxious to get on to the next thing. This may be due to a gipsy strain
in my ancestry--one of my uncles travelled with a circus--or it may be
the Artistic Temperament, acquired from a grandfather who, before dying
of a surfeit of paste in the property-room of the Bristol Coliseum,
which he was visiting in the course of a professional tour, had an
established reputation on the music-hall stage as one of Professor
Pond's Performing Poodles.
I owe the fullness and variety of my life to this restlessness of mine,
for I have repeatedly left comfortable homes in order to follow some
perfect stranger who looked as if he were on his way to somewhere
interesting. Sometimes I think I must have cat blood in me.
The Shy Man came into our yard one afternoon in April, while I was
sleeping with mother in the sun on an old sweater which we had borrowed
from Fred, one of the barmen. I heard mother growl, but I didn't take
any notice. Mother is what they call a good watch-dog, and she growls
at everybody except master. At first, when she used to do it, I would
get up and bark my head off, but not now. Life's too short to bark at
everybody who comes into our yard. It is behind the public-house, and
they keep empty bottles and things there, so people are always coming
and going.
Besides, I was tired. I had had a very busy morning, helping the men
bring in a lot of cases of beer, and running into the saloon to talk to
Fred and generally looking after things. So I was just dozing off
again, when I heard a voice say, 'Well, he's ugly enough!' Then I knew
that they were talking about me.
I have never disguised it from myself, and nobody has ever disguised it
from me, that I am not a handsome dog. Even mother never thought me
beautiful. She was no Gladys Cooper herself, but she never hesitated to
criticize my appearance. In fact, I have yet to meet anyone who did.
The first thing strangers say about me is, 'What an ugly dog!'
I don't know what I am. I have a bulldog kind of a face, but the rest
of me is terrier. I have a long tail which sticks straight up in the
air. My hair is wiry. My eyes are brown. I am jet black, with a white
chest. I once overheard Fred saying that I was a Gorgonzola
cheese-hound, and I have generally found Fred reliable in his
statements.
When I found that I was under discussion, I opened my eyes. Master was
standing there, looking down at me, and by his side the man who had
just said I was ugly enough. The man was a thin man, about the age of a
barman and smaller than a policeman. He had patched brown shoes and
black trousers.
'But he's got a sweet nature,' said master.
This was true, luckily for me. Mother always said, 'A dog without
influence or private means, if he is to make his way in the world, must
have either good looks or amiability.' But, according to her, I overdid
it. 'A dog,' she used to say, 'can have a good heart, without chumming
with every Tom, Dick, and Harry he meets. Your behaviour is sometimes
quite un-doglike.' Mother prided herself on being a one-man dog. She
kept herself to herself, and wouldn't kiss anybody except master--not
even Fred.
Now, I'm a mixer. I can't help it. It's my nature. I like men. I like
the taste of their boots, the smell of their legs, and the sound of
their voices. It may be weak of me, but a man has only to speak to me
and a sort of thrill goes right down my spine and sets my tail wagging.
I wagged it now. The man looked at me rather distantly. He didn't pat
me. I suspected--what I afterwards found to be the case--that he was
shy, so I jumped up at him to put him at his ease. Mother growled
again. I felt that she did not approve.
'Why, he's took quite a fancy to you already,' said master.
The man didn't say a word. He seemed to be brooding on something. He
was one of those silent men. He reminded me of Joe, the old dog down
the street at the grocer's shop, who lies at the door all day, blinking
and not speaking to anybody.
Master began to talk about me. It surprised me, the way he praised me.
I hadn't a suspicion he admired me so much. From what he said you would
have thought I had won prizes and ribbons at the Crystal Palace. But
the man didn't seem to be impressed. He kept on saying nothing.
When master had finished telling him what a wonderful dog I was till I
blushed, the man spoke.
'Less of it,' he said. 'Half a crown is my bid, and if he was an angel
from on high you couldn't get another ha'penny out of me. What about
it?'
A thrill went down my spine and out at my tail, for of course I saw now
what was happening. The man wanted to buy me and take me away. I looked
at master hopefully.
'He's more like a son to me than a dog,' said master, sort of wistful.
'It's his face that makes you feel that way,' said the man,
unsympathetically. 'If you had a son that's just how he would look.
Half a crown is my offer, and I'm in a hurry.'
'All right,' said master, with a sigh, 'though it's giving him away, a
valuable dog like that. Where's your half-crown?'
The man got a bit of rope and tied it round my neck.
I could hear mother barking advice and telling me to be a credit to the
family, but I was too excited to listen.
'Good-bye, mother,' I said. 'Good-bye, master. Good-bye, Fred. Good-bye
everybody. I'm off to see life. The Shy Man has bought me for half a
crown. Wow!'
I kept running round in circles and shouting, till the man gave me a
kick and told me to stop it.
So I did.
I don't know where we went, but it was a long way. I had never been off
our street before in my life and I didn't know the whole world was half
as big as that. We walked on and on, and the man jerked at my rope
whenever I wanted to stop and look at anything. He wouldn't even let me
pass the time of the day with dogs we met.
When we had gone about a hundred miles and were just going to turn in
at a dark doorway, a policeman suddenly stopped the man. I could feel
by the way the man pulled at my rope and tried to hurry on that he
didn't want to speak to the policeman. The more I saw of the man the
more I saw how shy he was.
'Hi!' said the policeman, and we had to stop.
'I've got a message for you, old pal,' said the policeman. 'It's from
the Board of Health. They told me to tell you you needed a change of
air. See?'
'All right!' said the man.
'And take it as soon as you like. Else you'll find you'll get it given
you. See?'
I looked at the man with a good deal of respect. He was evidently
someone very important, if they worried so about his health.
'I'm going down to the country tonight,' said the man.
The policeman seemed pleased.
'That's a bit of luck for the country,' he said. 'Don't go changing
your mind.'
And we walked on, and went in at the dark doorway, and climbed about a
million stairs and went into a room that smelt of rats. The man sat
down and swore a little, and I sat and looked at him.
Presently I couldn't keep it in any longer.
'Do we live here?' I said. 'Is it true we're going to the country?
Wasn't that policeman a good sort? Don't you like policemen? I knew
lots of policemen at the public-house. Are there any other dogs here?
What is there for dinner? What's in that cupboard? When are you going
to take me out for another run? May I go out and see if I can find a
cat?'
'Stop that yelping,' he said.
'When we go to the country, where shall we live? Are you going to be a
caretaker at a house? Fred's father is a caretaker at a big house in
Kent. I've heard Fred talk about it. You didn't meet Fred when you came
to the public-house, did you? You would like Fred. I like Fred. Mother
likes Fred. We all like Fred.'
I was going on to tell him a lot more about Fred, who had always been
one of my warmest friends, when he suddenly got hold of a stick and
walloped me with it.
'You keep quiet when you're told,' he said.
He really was the shyest man I had ever met. It seemed to hurt him to
be spoken to. However, he was the boss, and I had to humour him, so I
didn't say any more.
We went down to the country that night, just as the man had told the
policeman we would. I was all worked up, for I had heard so much about
the country from Fred that I had always wanted to go there. Fred used
to go off on a motor-bicycle sometimes to spend the night with his
father in Kent, and once he brought back a squirrel with him, which I
thought was for me to eat, but mother said no. 'The first thing a dog
has to learn,' mother used often to say, 'is that the whole world
wasn't created for him to eat.'
It was quite dark when we got to the country, but the man seemed to
know where to go. He pulled at my rope, and we began to walk along a
road with no people in it at all. We walked on and on, but it was all
so new to me that I forgot how tired I was. I could feel my mind
broadening with every step I took.
Every now and then we would pass a very big house, which looked as if
it was empty, but I knew that there was a caretaker inside, because of
Fred's father. These big houses belong to very rich people, but they
don't want to live in them till the summer, so they put in caretakers,
and the caretakers have a dog to keep off burglars. I wondered if that
was what I had been brought here for.
'Are you going to be a caretaker?' I asked the man.
'Shut up,' he said.
So I shut up.
After we had been walking a long time, we came to a cottage. A man came
out. My man seemed to know him, for he called him Bill. I was quite
surprised to see the man was not at all shy with Bill. They seemed very
friendly.
'Is that him?' said Bill, looking at me.
'Bought him this afternoon,' said the man.
'Well,' said Bill, 'he's ugly enough. He looks fierce. If you want a
dog, he's the sort of dog you want. But what do you want one for? It
seems to me it's a lot of trouble to take, when there's no need of any
trouble at all. Why not do what I've always wanted to do? What's wrong
with just fixing the dog, same as it's always done, and walking in and
helping yourself?'
'I'll tell you what's wrong,' said the man. 'To start with, you can't
get at the dog to fix him except by day, when they let him out. At
night he's shut up inside the house. And suppose you do fix him during
the day what happens then? Either the bloke gets another before night,
or else he sits up all night with a gun. It isn't like as if these
blokes was ordinary blokes. They're down here to look after the house.
That's their job, and they don't take any chances.'
It was the longest speech I had ever heard the man make, and it seemed
to impress Bill. He was quite humble.
'I didn't think of that,' he said. 'We'd best start in to train this
tyke at once.'
Mother often used to say, when I went on about wanting to go out into
the world and see life, 'You'll be sorry when you do. The world isn't
all bones and liver.' And I hadn't been living with the man and Bill in
their cottage long before I found out how right she was.
It was the man's shyness that made all the trouble. It seemed as if he
hated to be taken notice of.
It started on my very first night at the cottage. I had fallen asleep
in the kitchen, tired out after all the excitement of the day and the
long walks I had had, when something woke me with a start. It was
somebody scratching at the window, trying to get in.
Well, I ask you, I ask any dog, what would you have done in my place?
Ever since I was old enough to listen, mother had told me over and over
again what I must do in a case like this. It is the A B C of a dog's
education. 'If you are in a room and you hear anyone trying to get in,'
mother used to say, 'bark. It may be someone who has business there, or
it may not. Bark first, and inquire afterwards. Dogs were made to be
heard and not seen.'
I lifted my head and yelled. I have a good, deep voice, due to a hound
strain in my pedigree, and at the public-house, when there was a full
moon, I have often had people leaning out of the windows and saying
things all down the street. I took a deep breath and let it go.
'Man!' I shouted. 'Bill! Man! Come quick! Here's a burglar getting in!'
Then somebody struck a light, and it was the man himself. He had come
in through the window.
He picked up a stick, and he walloped me. I couldn't understand it. I
couldn't see where I had done the wrong thing. But he was the boss, so
there was nothing to be said.
If you'll believe me, that same thing happened every night. Every
single night! And sometimes twice or three times before morning. And
every time I would bark my loudest and the man would strike a light and
wallop me. The thing was baffling. I couldn't possibly have mistaken
what mother had said to me. She said it too often for that. Bark! Bark!
Bark! It was the main plank of her whole system of education. And yet,
here I was, getting walloped every night for doing it.
I thought it out till my head ached, and finally I got it right. I
began to see that mother's outlook was narrow. No doubt, living with a
man like master at the public-house, a man without a trace of shyness
in his composition, barking was all right. But circumstances alter
cases. I belonged to a man who was a mass of nerves, who got the jumps
if you spoke to him. What I had to do was to forget the training I had
had from mother, sound as it no doubt was as a general thing, and to
adapt myself to the needs of the particular man who had happened to buy
me. I had tried mother's way, and all it had brought me was walloping,
so now I would think for myself.
So next night, when I heard the window go, I lay there without a word,
though it went against all my better feelings. I didn't even growl.
Someone came in and moved about in the dark, with a lantern, but,
though I smelt that it was the man, I didn't ask him a single question.
And presently the man lit a light and came over to me and gave me a
pat, which was a thing he had never done before.
'Good dog!' he said. 'Now you can have this.'
And he let me lick out the saucepan in which the dinner had been
cooked.
After that, we got on fine. Whenever I heard anyone at the window I
just kept curled up and took no notice, and every time I got a bone or
something good. It was easy, once you had got the hang of things.
It was about a week after that the man took me out one morning, and we
walked a long way till we turned in at some big gates and went along a
very smooth road till we came to a great house, standing all by itself
in the middle of a whole lot of country. There was a big lawn in front
of it, and all round there were fields and trees, and at the back a
great wood.
The man rang a bell, and the door opened, and an old man came out.
'Well?' he said, not very cordially.
'I thought you might want to buy a good watch-dog,' said the man.
'Well, that's queer, your saying that,' said the caretaker. 'It's a
coincidence. That's exactly what I do want to buy. I was just thinking
of going along and trying to get one. My old dog picked up something
this morning that he oughtn't to have, and he's dead, poor feller.'
'Poor feller,' said the man. 'Found an old bone with phosphorus on it,
I guess.'
'What do you want for this one?'
'Five shillings.'
'Is he a good watch-dog?'
'He's a grand watch-dog.'
'He looks fierce enough.'
'Ah!'
So the caretaker gave the man his five shillings, and the man went off
and left me.
At first the newness of everything and the unaccustomed smells and
getting to know the caretaker, who was a nice old man, prevented my
missing the man, but as the day went on and I began to realize that he
had gone and would never come back, I got very depressed. I pattered
all over the house, whining. It was a most interesting house, bigger
than I thought a house could possibly be, but it couldn't cheer me up.
You may think it strange that I should pine for the man, after all the
wallopings he had given me, and it is odd, when you come to think of
it. But dogs are dogs, and they are built like that. By the time it was
evening I was thoroughly miserable. I found a shoe and an old
clothes-brush in one of the rooms, but could eat nothing. I just sat
and moped.
It's a funny thing, but it seems as if it always happened that just
when you are feeling most miserable, something nice happens. As I sat
there, there came from outside the sound of a motor-bicycle, and
somebody shouted.
It was dear old Fred, my old pal Fred, the best old boy that ever
stepped. I recognized his voice in a second, and I was scratching at
the door before the old man had time to get up out of his chair.
Well, well, well! That was a pleasant surprise! I ran five times round
the lawn without stopping, and then I came back and jumped up at him.
'What are you doing down here, Fred?' I said. 'Is this caretaker your
father? Have you seen the rabbits in the wood? How long are you going
to stop? How's mother? I like the country. Have you come all the way
from the public-house? I'm living here now. Your father gave five
shillings for me. That's twice as much as I was worth when I saw you
last.'
'Why, it's young Nigger!' That was what they called me at the saloon.
'What are you doing here? Where did you get this dog, father?'
'A man sold him to me this morning. Poor old Bob got poisoned. This one
ought to be just as good a watch-dog. He barks loud enough.'
'He should be. His mother is the best watch-dog in London. This
cheese-hound used to belong to the boss. Funny him getting down here.'
We went into the house and had supper. And after supper we sat and
talked. Fred was only down for the night, he said, because the boss
wanted him back next day.
'And I'd sooner have my job, than yours, dad,' he said. 'Of all the
lonely places! I wonder you aren't scared of burglars.'
'I've my shot-gun, and there's the dog. I might be scared if it wasn't
for him, but he kind of gives me confidence. Old Bob was the same. Dogs
are a comfort in the country.'
'Get many tramps here?'
'I've only seen one in two months, and that's the feller who sold me
the dog here.'
As they were talking about the man, I asked Fred if he knew him. They
might have met at the public-house, when the man was buying me from the
boss.
'You would like him,' I said. 'I wish you could have met.'
They both looked at me.
'What's he growling at?' asked Fred. 'Think he heard something?'
The old man laughed.
'He wasn't growling. He was talking in his sleep. You're nervous, Fred.
It comes of living in the city.'
'Well, I am. I like this place in the daytime, but it gives me the pip
at night. It's so quiet. How you can stand it here all the time, I
can't understand. Two nights of it would have me seeing things.'
His father laughed.
'If you feel like that, Fred, you had better take the gun to bed with
you. I shall be quite happy without it.'
'I will,' said Fred. 'I'll take six if you've got them.'
And after that they went upstairs. I had a basket in the hall, which
had belonged to Bob, the dog who had got poisoned. It was a comfortable
basket, but I was so excited at having met Fred again that I couldn't
sleep. Besides, there was a smell of mice somewhere, and I had to move
around, trying to place it.
I was just sniffing at a place in the wall, when I heard a scratching
noise. At first I thought it was the mice working in a different place,
but, when I listened, I found that the sound came from the window.
Somebody was doing something to it from outside.
If it had been mother, she would have lifted the roof off right there,
and so should I, if it hadn't been for what the man had taught me. I
didn't think it possible that this could be the man come back, for he
had gone away and said nothing about ever seeing me again. But I didn't
bark. I stopped where I was and listened. And presently the window came
open, and somebody began to climb in.
I gave a good sniff, and I knew it was the man.
I was so delighted that for a moment I nearly forgot myself and shouted
with joy, but I remembered in time how shy he was, and stopped myself.
But I ran to him and jumped up quite quietly, and he told me to lie
down. I was disappointed that he didn't seem more pleased to see me. I
lay down.
It was very dark, but he had brought a lantern with him, and I could
see him moving about the room, picking things up and putting them in a
bag which he had brought with him. Every now and then he would stop and
listen, and then he would start moving round again. He was very quick
about it, but very quiet. It was plain that he didn't want Fred or his
father to come down and find him.
I kept thinking about this peculiarity of his while I watched him. I
suppose, being chummy myself, I find it hard to understand that
everybody else in the world isn't chummy too. Of course, my experience
at the public-house had taught me that men are just as different from
each other as dogs. If I chewed master's shoe, for instance, he used to
kick me; but if I chewed Fred's, Fred would tickle me under the ear.
And, similarly, some men are shy and some men are mixers. I quite
appreciated that, but I couldn't help feeling that the man carried
shyness to a point where it became morbid. And he didn't give himself a
chance to cure himself of it. That was the point. Imagine a man hating
to meet people so much that he never visited their houses till the
middle of the night, when they were in bed and asleep. It was silly.
Shyness has always been something so outside my nature that I suppose I
have never really been able to look at it sympathetically. I have
always held the view that you can get over it if you make an effort.
The trouble with the man was that he wouldn't make an effort. He went
out of his way to avoid meeting people.
I was fond of the man. He was the sort of person you never get to know
very well, but we had been together for quite a while, and I wouldn't
have been a dog if I hadn't got attached to him.
As I sat and watched him creep about the room, it suddenly came to me
that here was a chance of doing him a real good turn in spite of
himself. Fred was upstairs, and Fred, as I knew by experience, was the
easiest man to get along with in the world. Nobody could be shy with
Fred. I felt that if only I could bring him and the man together, they
would get along splendidly, and it would teach the man not to be silly
and avoid people. It would help to give him the confidence which he
needed. I had seen him with Bill, and I knew that he could be perfectly
natural and easy when he liked.
It was true that the man might object at first, but after a while he
would see that I had acted simply for his good, and would be grateful.
The difficulty was, how to get Fred down without scaring the man. I
knew that if I shouted he wouldn't wait, but would be out of the window
and away before Fred could get there. What I had to do was to go to
Fred's room, explain the whole situation quietly to him, and ask him to
come down and make himself pleasant.
The man was far too busy to pay any attention to me. He was kneeling in
a corner with his back to me, putting something in his bag. I seized
the opportunity to steal softly from the room.
Fred's door was shut, and I could hear him snoring. I scratched gently,
and then harder, till I heard the snores stop. He got out of bed and
opened the door.
'Don't make a noise,' I whispered. 'Come on downstairs. I want you to
meet a friend of mine.'
At first he was quite peevish.
'What's the idea,' he said, 'coming and spoiling a man's beauty-sleep?
Get out.'
He actually started to go back into the room.
'No, honestly, Fred,' I said, 'I'm not fooling you. There is a man
downstairs. He got in through the window. I want you to meet him. He's
very shy, and I think it will do him good to have a chat with you.'
'What are you whining about?' Fred began, and then he broke off
suddenly and listened. We could both hear the man's footsteps as he
moved about.
Fred jumped back into the room. He came out, carrying something. He
didn't say any more but started to go downstairs, very quiet, and I
went after him.
There was the man, still putting things in his bag. I was just going to
introduce Fred, when Fred, the silly ass, gave a great yell.
I could have bitten him.
'What did you want to do that for, you chump?' I said 'I told you he
was shy. Now you've scared him.'
He certainly had. The man was out of the window quicker than you would
have believed possible. He just flew out. I called after him that it
was only Fred and me, but at that moment a gun went off with a
tremendous bang, so he couldn't have heard me.
I was pretty sick about it. The whole thing had gone wrong. Fred seemed
to have lost his head entirely. He was behaving like a perfect ass.
Naturally the man had been frightened with him carrying on in that way.
I jumped out of the window to see if I could find the man and explain,
but he was gone. Fred jumped out after me, and nearly squashed me.
It was pitch dark out there. I couldn't see a thing. But I knew the man
could not have gone far, or I should have heard him. I started to sniff
round on the chance of picking up his trail. It wasn't long before I
struck it.
Fred's father had come down now, and they were running about. The old
man had a light. I followed the trail, and it ended at a large
cedar-tree, not far from the house. I stood underneath it and looked
up, but of course I could not see anything.
'Are you up there?' I shouted. 'There's nothing to be scared at. It was
only Fred. He's an old pal of mine. He works at the place where you
bought me. His gun went off by accident. He won't hurt you.'
There wasn't a sound. I began to think I must have made a mistake.
'He's got away,' I heard Fred say to his father, and just as he said it
I caught a faint sound of someone moving in the branches above me.
'No he hasn't!' I shouted. 'He's up this tree.'
'I believe the dog's found him, dad!'
'Yes, he's up here. Come along and meet him.'
Fred came to the foot of the tree.
'You up there,' he said, 'come along down.'
Not a sound from the tree.
'It's all right,' I explained, 'he _is_ up there, but he's very shy. Ask
him again.'
'All right,' said Fred. 'Stay there if you want to. But I'm going to
shoot off this gun into the branches just for fun.'
And then the man started to come down. As soon as he touched the ground
I jumped up at him.
'This is fine!' I said 'Here's my friend Fred. You'll like him.'
But it wasn't any good. They didn't get along together at all. They
hardly spoke. The man went into the house, and Fred went after him,
carrying his gun. And when they got into the house it was just the
same. The man sat in one chair, and Fred sat in another, and after a
long time some men came in a motor-car, and the man went away with
them. He didn't say good-bye to me.
When he had gone, Fred and his father made a great fuss of me. I
couldn't understand it. Men are so odd. The man wasn't a bit pleased
that I had brought him and Fred together, but Fred seemed as if he
couldn't do enough for me for having introduced him to the man.
However, Fred's father produced some cold ham--my favourite dish--and
gave me quite a lot of it, so I stopped worrying over the thing. As
mother used to say, 'Don't bother your head about what doesn't concern
you. The only thing a dog need concern himself with is the
bill-of-fare. Eat your bun, and don't make yourself busy about other
people's affairs.' Mother's was in some ways a narrow outlook, but she
had a great fund of sterling common sense.
II. _He Moves in Society_
It was one of those things which are really nobody's fault. It was not
the chauffeur's fault, and it was not mine. I was having a friendly
turn-up with a pal of mine on the side-walk; he ran across the road; I
ran after him; and the car came round the corner and hit me. It must
have been going pretty slow, or I should have been killed. As it was, I
just had the breath knocked out of me. You know how you feel when the
butcher catches you just as you are edging out of the shop with a bit
of meat. It was like that.
I wasn't taking much interest in things for awhile, but when I did I
found that I was the centre of a group of three--the chauffeur, a small
boy, and the small boy's nurse.
The small boy was very well-dressed, and looked delicate. He was
crying.
'Poor doggie,' he said, 'poor doggie.'
'It wasn't my fault, Master Peter,' said the chauffeur respectfully.
'He run out into the road before I seen him.'
'That's right,' I put in, for I didn't want to get the man into
trouble.
'Oh, he's not dead,' said the small boy. 'He barked.'
'He growled,' said the nurse. 'Come away, Master Peter. He might bite
you.'
Women are trying sometimes. It is almost as if they deliberately
misunderstood.
'I won't come away. I'm going to take him home with me and send for the
doctor to come and see him. He's going to be my dog.'
This sounded all right. Goodness knows I am no snob, and can rough it
when required, but I do like comfort when it comes my way, and it
seemed to me that this was where I got it. And I liked the boy. He was
the right sort.
The nurse, a very unpleasant woman, had to make objections.
'Master Peter! You can't take him home, a great, rough, fierce, common
dog! What would your mother say?'
'I'm going to take him home,' repeated the child, with a determination
which I heartily admired, 'and he's going to be my dog. I shall call
him Fido.'
There's always a catch in these good things. Fido is a name I
particularly detest. All dogs do. There was a dog called that that I
knew once, and he used to get awfully sick when we shouted it out after
him in the street. No doubt there have been respectable dogs called
Fido, but to my mind it is a name like Aubrey or Clarence. You may be
able to live it down, but you start handicapped. However, one must take
the rough with the smooth, and I was prepared to yield the point.
'If you wait, Master Peter, your father will buy you a beautiful,
lovely dog....'
'I don't want a beautiful, lovely dog. I want this dog.'
The slur did not wound me. I have no illusions about my looks. Mine is
an honest, but not a beautiful, face.
'It's no use talking,' said the chauffeur, grinning. 'He means to have
him. Shove him in, and let's be getting back, or they'll be thinking
His Nibs has been kidnapped.'
So I was carried to the car. I could have walked, but I had an idea
that I had better not. I had made my hit as a crippled dog, and a
crippled dog I intended to remain till things got more settled down.
The chauffeur started the car off again. What with the shock I had had
and the luxury of riding in a motor-car, I was a little distrait, and I
could not say how far we went. But it must have been miles and miles,
for it seemed a long time afterwards that we stopped at the biggest
house I have ever seen. There were smooth lawns and flower-beds, and
men in overalls, and fountains and trees, and, away to the right,
kennels with about a million dogs in them, all pushing their noses
through the bars and shouting. They all wanted to know who I was and
what prizes I had won, and then I realized that I was moving in high
society.
I let the small boy pick me up and carry me into the house, though it
was all he could do, poor kid, for I was some weight. He staggered up
the steps and along a great hall, and then let me flop on the carpet of
the most beautiful room you ever saw. The carpet was a yard thick.
There was a woman sitting in a chair, and as soon as she saw me she
gave a shriek.
'I told Master Peter you would not be pleased, m'lady,' said the nurse,
who seemed to have taken a positive dislike to me, 'but he would bring
the nasty brute home.'
'He's not a nasty brute, mother. He's my dog, and his name's Fido. John
ran over him in the car, and I brought him home to live with us. I love
him.'
This seemed to make an impression. Peter's mother looked as if she were
weakening.
'But, Peter, dear, I don't know what your father will say. He's so
particular about dogs. All his dogs are prize-winners, pedigree dogs.
This is such a mongrel.'
'A nasty, rough, ugly, common dog, m'lady,' said the nurse, sticking
her oar in in an absolutely uncalled-for way.
Just then a man came into the room.
'What on earth?' he said, catching sight of me.
'It's a dog Peter has brought home. He says he wants to keep him.'
'I'm going to keep him,' corrected Peter firmly.
I do like a child that knows his own mind. I was getting fonder of
Peter every minute. I reached up and licked his hand.
'See! He knows he's my dog, don't you, Fido? He licked me.'
'But, Peter, he looks so fierce.' This, unfortunately, is true. I do
look fierce. It is rather a misfortune for a perfectly peaceful dog.
'I'm sure it's not safe your having him.'
'He's my dog, and his name's Fido. I am going to tell cook to give him
a bone.'
His mother looked at his father, who gave rather a nasty laugh.
'My dear Helen,' he said, 'ever since Peter was born, ten years ago, he
has not asked for a single thing, to the best of my recollection, which
he has not got. Let us be consistent. I don't approve of this
caricature of a dog, but if Peter wants him, I suppose he must have
him.'
'Very well. But the first sign of viciousness he shows, he shall be
shot. He makes me nervous.'
So they left it at that, and I went off with Peter to get my bone.
After lunch, he took me to the kennels to introduce me to the other
dogs. I had to go, but I knew it would not be pleasant, and it wasn't.
Any dog will tell you what these prize-ribbon dogs are like. Their
heads are so swelled they have to go into their kennels backwards.
It was just as I had expected. There were mastiffs, terriers, poodles,
spaniels, bulldogs, sheepdogs, and every other kind of dog you can
imagine, all prize-winners at a hundred shows, and every single dog in
the place just shoved his head back and laughed himself sick. I never
felt so small in my life, and I was glad when it was over and Peter
took me off to the stables.
I was just feeling that I never wanted to see another dog in my life,
when a terrier ran out, shouting. As soon as he saw me, he came up
inquiringly, walking very stiff-legged, as terriers do when they see a
stranger.
'Well,' I said, 'and what particular sort of a prize-winner are you?
Tell me all about the ribbons they gave you at the Crystal Palace, and
let's get it over.'
He laughed in a way that did me good.
'Guess again!' he said. 'Did you take me for one of the nuts in the
kennels? My name's Jack, and I belong to one of the grooms.'
'What!' I cried. 'You aren't Champion Bowlegs Royal or anything of that
sort! I'm glad to meet you.'
So we rubbed noses as friendly as you please. It was a treat meeting
one of one's own sort. I had had enough of those high-toned dogs who
look at you as if you were something the garbage-man had forgotten to
take away.
'So you've been talking to the swells, have you?' said Jack.
'He would take me,' I said, pointing to Peter.
'Oh, you're his latest, are you? Then you're all right--while it
lasts.'
'How do you mean, while it lasts?'
'Well, I'll tell you what happened to me. Young Peter took a great
fancy to me once. Couldn't do enough for me for a while. Then he got
tired of me, and out I went. You see, the trouble is that while he's a
perfectly good kid, he has always had everything he wanted since he was
born, and he gets tired of things pretty easy. It was a toy railway
that finished me. Directly he got that, I might not have been on the
earth. It was lucky for me that Dick, my present old man, happened to
want a dog to keep down the rats, or goodness knows what might not have
happened to me. They aren't keen on dogs here unless they've pulled
down enough blue ribbons to sink a ship, and mongrels like you and
me--no offence--don't last long. I expect you noticed that the
grown-ups didn't exactly cheer when you arrived?'
'They weren't chummy.'
'Well take it from me, your only chance is to make them chummy. If you
do something to please them, they might let you stay on, even though
Peter was tired of you.'
'What sort of thing?'
'That's for you to think out. I couldn't find one. I might tell you to
save Peter from drowning. You don't need a pedigree to do that. But you
can't drag the kid to the lake and push him in. That's the trouble. A
dog gets so few opportunities. But, take it from me, if you don't do
something within two weeks to make yourself solid with the adults, you
can make your will. In two weeks Peter will have forgotten all about
you. It's not his fault. It's the way he has been brought up. His
father has all the money on earth, and Peter's the only child. You
can't blame him. All I say is, look out for yourself. Well, I'm glad to
have met you. Drop in again when you can. I can give you some good
ratting, and I have a bone or two put away. So long.'
* * * * *
It worried me badly what Jack had said. I couldn't get it out of my
mind. If it hadn't been for that, I should have had a great time, for
Peter certainly made a lot of fuss of me. He treated me as if I were
the only friend he had.
And, in a way, I was. When you are the only son of a man who has all
the money in the world, it seems that you aren't allowed to be like an
ordinary kid. They coop you up, as if you were something precious that
would be contaminated by contact with other children. In all the time
that I was at the house I never met another child. Peter had everything
in the world, except someone of his own age to go round with; and that
made him different from any of the kids I had known.
He liked talking to me. I was the only person round who really
understood him. He would talk by the hour and I would listen with my
tongue hanging out and nod now and then.
It was worth listening to, what he used to tell me. He told me the most
surprising things. I didn't know, for instance, that there were any Red
Indians in England but he said there was a chief named Big Cloud who
lived in the rhododendron bushes by the lake. I never found him, though
I went carefully through them one day. He also said that there were
pirates on the island in the lake. I never saw them either.
What he liked telling me about best was the city of gold and precious
stones which you came to if you walked far enough through the woods at
the back of the stables. He was always meaning to go off there some
day, and, from the way he described it, I didn't blame him. It was
certainly a pretty good city. It was just right for dogs, too, he said,
having bones and liver and sweet cakes there and everything else a dog
could want. It used to make my mouth water to listen to him.
We were never apart. I was with him all day, and I slept on the mat in
his room at night. But all the time I couldn't get out of my mind what
Jack had said. I nearly did once, for it seemed to me that I was so
necessary to Peter that nothing could separate us; but just as I was
feeling safe his father gave him a toy aeroplane, which flew when you
wound it up. The day he got it, I might not have been on the earth. I
trailed along, but he hadn't a word to say to me.
Well, something went wrong with the aeroplane the second day, and it
wouldn't fly, and then I was in solid again; but I had done some hard
thinking and I knew just where I stood. I was the newest toy, that's
what I was, and something newer might come along at any moment, and
then it would be the finish for me. The only thing for me was to do
something to impress the adults, just as Jack had said.
Goodness knows I tried. But everything I did turned out wrong. There
seemed to be a fate about it. One morning, for example, I was trotting
round the house early, and I met a fellow I could have sworn was a
burglar. He wasn't one of the family, and he wasn't one of the
servants, and he was hanging round the house in a most suspicious way.
I chased him up a tree, and it wasn't till the family came down to
breakfast, two hours later, that I found that he was a guest who had
arrived overnight, and had come out early to enjoy the freshness of the
morning and the sun shining on the lake, he being that sort of man.
That didn't help me much.
Next, I got in wrong with the boss, Peter's father. I don't know why. I
met him out in the park with another man, both carrying bundles of
sticks and looking very serious and earnest. Just as I reached him, the
boss lifted one of the sticks and hit a small white ball with it. He
had never seemed to want to play with me before, and I took it as a
great compliment. I raced after the ball, which he had hit quite a long
way, picked it up in my mouth, and brought it back to him. I laid it at
his feet, and smiled up at him.
'Hit it again,' I said.
He wasn't pleased at all. He said all sorts of things and tried to kick
me, and that night, when he thought I was not listening, I heard him
telling his wife that I was a pest and would have to be got rid of.
That made me think.
And then I put the lid on it. With the best intentions in the world I
got myself into such a mess that I thought the end had come.
It happened one afternoon in the drawing-room. There were visitors that
day--women; and women seem fatal to me. I was in the background, trying
not to be seen, for, though I had been brought in by Peter, the family
never liked my coming into the drawing-room. I was hoping for a piece
of cake and not paying much attention to the conversation, which was
all about somebody called Toto, whom I had not met. Peter's mother said
Toto was a sweet little darling, he was; and one of the visitors said
Toto had not been at all himself that day and she was quite worried.
And a good lot more about how all that Toto would ever take for dinner
was a little white meat of chicken, chopped up fine. It was not very
interesting, and I had allowed my attention to wander.
And just then, peeping round the corner of my chair to see if there
were any signs of cake, what should I see but a great beastly brute of
a rat. It was standing right beside the visitor, drinking milk out of a
saucer, if you please!
I may have my faults, but procrastination in the presence of rats is
not one of them. I didn't hesitate for a second. Here was my chance. If
there is one thing women hate, it is a rat. Mother always used to say,
'If you want to succeed in life, please the women. They are the real
bosses. The men don't count.' By eliminating this rodent I should earn
the gratitude and esteem of Peter's mother, and, if I did that, it did
not matter what Peter's father thought of me.
I sprang.
The rat hadn't a chance to get away. I was right on to him. I got hold
of his neck, gave him a couple of shakes, and chucked him across the
room. Then I ran across to finish him off.
Just as I reached him, he sat up and barked at me. I was never so taken
aback in my life. I pulled up short and stared at him.
'I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir,' I said apologetically. 'I thought
you were a rat.'
And then everything broke loose. Somebody got me by the collar,
somebody else hit me on the head with a parasol, and somebody else
kicked me in the ribs. Everybody talked and shouted at the same time.
'Poor darling Toto!' cried the visitor, snatching up the little animal.
'Did the great savage brute try to murder you!'
'So absolutely unprovoked!'
'He just flew at the poor little thing!'
It was no good my trying to explain. Any dog in my place would have
made the same mistake. The creature was a toy-dog of one of those
extraordinary breeds--a prize-winner and champion, and so on, of
course, and worth his weight in gold. I would have done better to bite
the visitor than Toto. That much I gathered from the general run of the
conversation, and then, having discovered that the door was shut, I
edged under the sofa. I was embarrassed.
'That settles it!' said Peter's mother. 'The dog is not safe. He must
be shot.'
Peter gave a yell at this, but for once he didn't swing the voting an
inch.
'Be quiet, Peter,' said his mother. 'It is not safe for you to have
such a dog. He may be mad.'
Women are very unreasonable.
Toto, of course, wouldn't say a word to explain how the mistake arose.
He was sitting on the visitor's lap, shrieking about what he would have
done to me if they hadn't separated us.
Somebody felt cautiously under the sofa. I recognized the shoes of
Weeks, the butler. I suppose they had rung for him to come and take me,
and I could see that he wasn't half liking it. I was sorry for Weeks,
who was a friend of mine, so I licked his hand, and that seemed to
cheer him up a whole lot.
'I have him now, madam,' I heard him say.
'Take him to the stables and tie him up, Weeks, and tell one of the men
to bring his gun and shoot him. He is not safe.'
A few minutes later I was in an empty stall, tied up to the manger.
It was all over. It had been pleasant while it lasted, but I had
reached the end of my tether now. I don't think I was frightened, but a
sense of pathos stole over me. I had meant so well. It seemed as if
good intentions went for nothing in this world. I had tried so hard to
please everybody, and this was the result--tied up in a dark stable,
waiting for the end.
The shadows lengthened in the stable-yard, and still nobody came. I
began to wonder if they had forgotten me, and presently, in spite of
myself, a faint hope began to spring up inside me that this might mean
that I was not to be shot after all. Perhaps Toto at the eleventh hour
had explained everything.
And then footsteps sounded outside, and the hope died away. I shut my
eyes.
Somebody put his arms round my neck, and my nose touched a warm cheek.
I opened my eyes. It was not the man with the gun come to shoot me. It
was Peter. He was breathing very hard, and he had been crying.
'Quiet!' he whispered.
He began to untie the rope.
'You must keep quite quiet, or they will hear us, and then we shall be
stopped. I'm going to take you into the woods, and we'll walk and walk
until we come to the city I told you about that's all gold and
diamonds, and we'll live there for the rest of our lives, and no one
will be able to hurt us. But you must keep very quiet.'
He went to the stable-gate and looked out. Then he gave a little
whistle to me to come after him. And we started out to find the city.
The woods were a long way away, down a hill of long grass and across a
stream; and we went very carefully, keeping in the shadows and running
across the open spaces. And every now and then we would stop and look
back, but there was nobody to be seen. The sun was setting, and
everything was very cool and quiet.
Presently we came to the stream and crossed it by a little wooden
bridge, and then we were in the woods, where nobody could see us.
I had never been in the woods before, and everything was very new and
exciting to me. There were squirrels and rabbits and birds, more than I
had ever seen in my life, and little things that buzzed and flew and
tickled my ears. I wanted to rush about and look at everything, but
Peter called to me, and I came to heel. He knew where we were going,
and I didn't, so I let him lead.
We went very slowly. The wood got thicker and thicker the farther we
got into it. There were bushes that were difficult to push through, and
long branches, covered with thorns, that reached out at you and tore at
you when you tried to get away. And soon it was quite dark, so dark
that I could see nothing, not even Peter, though he was so close. We
went slower and slower, and the darkness was full of queer noises. From
time to time Peter would stop, and I would run to him and put my nose
in his hand. At first he patted me, but after a while he did not pat me
any more, but just gave me his hand to lick, as if it was too much for
him to lift it. I think he was getting very tired. He was quite a small
boy and not strong, and we had walked a long way.
It seemed to be getting darker and darker. I could hear the sound of
Peter's footsteps, and they seemed to drag as he forced his way through
the bushes. And then, quite suddenly, he sat down without any warning,
and when I ran up I heard him crying.
I suppose there are lots of dogs who would have known exactly the right
thing to do, but I could not think of anything except to put my nose
against his cheek and whine. He put his arm round my neck, and for a
long time we stayed like that, saying nothing. It seemed to comfort
him, for after a time he stopped crying.
I did not bother him by asking about the wonderful city where we were
going, for he was so tired. But I could not help wondering if we were
near it. There was not a sign of any city, nothing but darkness and odd
noises and the wind singing in the trees. Curious little animals, such
as I had never smelt before, came creeping out of the bushes to look at
us. I would have chased them, but Peter's arm was round my neck and I
could not leave him. But when something that smelt like a rabbit came
so near that I could have reached out a paw and touched it, I turned my
head and snapped; and then they all scurried back into the bushes and
there were no more noises.
There was a long silence. Then Peter gave a great gulp.
'I'm not frightened,' he said. 'I'm not!'
I shoved my head closer against his chest. There was another silence
for a long time.
'I'm going to pretend we have been captured by brigands,' said Peter at
last. 'Are you listening? There were three of them, great big men with
beards, and they crept up behind me and snatched me up and took me out
here to their lair. This is their lair. One was called Dick, the
others' names were Ted and Alfred. They took hold of me and brought me
all the way through the wood till we got here, and then they went off,
meaning to come back soon. And while they were away, you missed me and
tracked me through the woods till you found me here. And then the
brigands came back, and they didn't know you were here, and you kept
quite quiet till Dick was quite near, and then you jumped out and bit
him and he ran away. And then you bit Ted and you bit Alfred, and they
ran away too. And so we were left all alone, and I was quite safe
because you were here to look after me. And then--And then--'
His voice died away, and the arm that was round my neck went limp, and
I could hear by his breathing that he was asleep. His head was resting
on my back, but I didn't move. I wriggled a little closer to make him
as comfortable as I could, and then I went to sleep myself.
I didn't sleep very well. I had funny dreams all the time, thinking
these little animals were creeping up close enough out of the bushes
for me to get a snap at them without disturbing Peter.
If I woke once, I woke a dozen times, but there was never anything
there. The wind sang in the trees and the bushes rustled, and far away
in the distance the frogs were calling.
And then I woke once more with the feeling that this time something
really was coming through the bushes. I lifted my head as far as I
could, and listened. For a little while nothing happened, and then,
straight in front of me, I saw lights. And there was a sound of
trampling in the undergrowth.
It was no time to think about not waking Peter. This was something
definite, something that had to be attended to quick. I was up with a
jump, yelling. Peter rolled off my back and woke up, and he sat there
listening, while I stood with my front paws on him and shouted at the
men. I was bristling all over. I didn't know who they were or what they
wanted, but the way I looked at it was that anything could happen in
those woods at that time of night, and, if anybody was coming along to
start something, he had got to reckon with me.
Somebody called, 'Peter! Are you there, Peter?'
There was a crashing in the bushes, the lights came nearer and nearer,
and then somebody said 'Here he is!' and there was a lot of shouting. I
stood where I was, ready to spring if necessary, for I was taking no
chances.
'Who are you?' I shouted. 'What do you want?' A light flashed in my
eyes.
'Why, it's that dog!'
Somebody came into the light, and I saw it was the boss. He was looking
very anxious and scared, and he scooped Peter up off the ground and
hugged him tight.
Peter was only half awake. He looked up at the boss drowsily, and began
to talk about brigands, and Dick and Ted and Alfred, the same as he had
said to me. There wasn't a sound till he had finished. Then the boss
spoke.
'Kidnappers! I thought as much. And the dog drove them away!'
For the first time in our acquaintance he actually patted me.
'Good old man!' he said.
'He's my dog,' said Peter sleepily, 'and he isn't to be shot.'
'He certainly isn't, my boy,' said the boss. 'From now on he's the
honoured guest. He shall wear a gold collar and order what he wants for
dinner. And now let's be getting home. It's time you were in bed.'
* * * * *
Mother used to say, 'If you're a good dog, you will be happy. If you're
not, you won't,' but it seems to me that in this world it is all a
matter of luck. When I did everything I could to please people, they
wanted to shoot me; and when I did nothing except run away, they
brought me back and treated me better than the most valuable
prize-winner in the kennels. It was puzzling at first, but one day I
heard the boss talking to a friend who had come down from the city.
The friend looked at me and said, 'What an ugly mongrel! Why on earth
do you have him about? I thought you were so particular about your
dogs?'
And the boss replied, 'He may be a mongrel, but he can have anything he
wants in this house. Didn't you hear how he saved Peter from being
kidnapped?'
And out it all came about the brigands.
'The kid called them brigands,' said the boss. 'I suppose that's how it
would strike a child of that age. But he kept mentioning the name Dick,
and that put the police on the scent. It seems there's a kidnapper well
known to the police all over the country as Dick the Snatcher. It was
almost certainly that scoundrel and his gang. How they spirited the
child away, goodness knows, but they managed it, and the dog tracked
them and scared them off. We found him and Peter together in the woods.
It was a narrow escape, and we have to thank this animal here for it.'
What could I say? It was no more use trying to put them right than it
had been when I mistook Toto for a rat. Peter had gone to sleep that
night pretending about the brigands to pass the time, and when he awoke
he still believed in them. He was that sort of child. There was nothing
that I could do about it.
Round the corner, as the boss was speaking, I saw the kennel-man coming
with a plate in his hand. It smelt fine, and he was headed straight for
me.
He put the plate down before me. It was liver, which I love.
'Yes,' went on the boss, 'if it hadn't been for him, Peter would have
been kidnapped and scared half to death, and I should be poorer, I
suppose, by whatever the scoundrels had chosen to hold me up for.'
I am an honest dog, and hate to obtain credit under false pretences,
but--liver is liver. I let it go at that.
CROWNED HEADS
Katie had never been more surprised in her life than when the serious
young man with the brown eyes and the Charles Dana Gibson profile
spirited her away from his friend and Genevieve. Till that moment she
had looked on herself as playing a sort of 'villager and retainer' part
to the brown-eyed young man's hero and Genevieve's heroine. She knew
she was not pretty, though somebody (unidentified) had once said that
she had nice eyes; whereas Genevieve was notoriously a beauty,
incessantly pestered, so report had it, by musical comedy managers to
go on the stage.
Genevieve was tall and blonde, a destroyer of masculine peace of mind.
She said 'harf' and 'rahther', and might easily have been taken for an
English duchess instead of a cloak-model at Macey's. You would have
said, in short, that, in the matter of personable young men, Genevieve
would have swept the board. Yet, here was this one deliberately
selecting her, Katie, for his companion. It was almost a miracle.
He had managed it with the utmost dexterity at the merry-go-round. With
winning politeness he had assisted Genevieve on her wooden steed, and
then, as the machinery began to work, had grasped Katie's arm and led
her at a rapid walk out into the sunlight. Katie's last glimpse of
Genevieve had been the sight of her amazed and offended face as it
whizzed round the corner, while the steam melodeon drowned protests
with a spirited plunge into 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'.
Katie felt shy. This young man was a perfect stranger. It was true she
had had a formal introduction to him, but only from Genevieve, who had
scraped acquaintance with him exactly two minutes previously. It had
happened on the ferry-boat on the way to Palisades Park. Genevieve's
bright eye, roving among the throng on the lower deck, had singled out
this young man and his companion as suitable cavaliers for the
expedition. The young man pleased her, and his friend, with the broken
nose and the face like a good-natured bulldog, was obviously suitable
for Katie.
Etiquette is not rigid on New York ferry-boats. Without fuss or delay
she proceeded to make their acquaintance--to Katie's concern, for she
could never get used to Genevieve's short way with strangers. The quiet
life she had led had made her almost prudish, and there were times when
Genevieve's conduct shocked her. Of course, she knew there was no harm
in Genevieve. As the latter herself had once put it, 'The feller that
tries to get gay with me is going to get a call-down that'll make him
holler for his winter overcoat.' But all the same she could not
approve. And the net result of her disapproval was to make her shy and
silent as she walked by this young man's side.
The young man seemed to divine her thoughts.
'Say, I'm on the level,' he observed. 'You want to get that. Right on
the square. See?'
'Oh, yes,' said Katie, relieved but yet embarrassed. It was awkward to
have one's thoughts read like this.
'You ain't like your friend. Don't think I don't see that.'
'Genevieve's a sweet girl,' said Katie, loyally.
'A darned sight too sweet. Somebody ought to tell her mother.'
'Why did you speak to her if you did not like her?'
'Wanted to get to know you,' said the young man simply.
They walked on in silence. Katie's heart was beating with a rapidity
that forbade speech. Nothing like this very direct young man had ever
happened to her before. She had grown so accustomed to regarding
herself as something too insignificant and unattractive for the notice
of the lordly male that she was overwhelmed. She had a vague feeling
that there was a mistake somewhere. It surely could not be she who was
proving so alluring to this fairy prince. The novelty of the situation
frightened her.
'Come here often?' asked her companion.
'I've never been here before.'
'Often go to Coney?'
'I've never been.'
He regarded her with astonishment.
'You've never been to Coney Island! Why, you don't know what this sort
of thing is till you've taken in Coney. This place isn't on the map
with Coney. Do you mean to say you've never seen Luna Park, or
Dreamland, or Steeplechase, or the diving ducks? Haven't you had a look
at the Mardi Gras stunts? Why, Coney during Mardi Gras is the greatest
thing on earth. It's a knockout. Just about a million boys and girls
having the best time that ever was. Say, I guess you don't go out much,
do you?'
'Not much.'
'If it's not a rude question, what do you do? I been trying to place you
all along. Now I reckon your friend works in a store, don't she?'
'Yes. She's a cloak-model. She has a lovely figure, hasn't she?'
'Didn't notice it. I guess so, if she's what you say. It's what they
pay her for, ain't it? Do you work in a store, too?'
'Not exactly. I keep a little shop.'
'All by yourself?'
'I do all the work now. It was my father's shop, but he's dead. It
began by being my grandfather's. He started it. But he's so old now
that, of course, he can't work any longer, so I look after things.'
'Say, you're a wonder! What sort of a shop?'
'It's only a little second-hand bookshop. There really isn't much to
do.'
'Where is it?'
'Sixth Avenue. Near Washington Square.'
'What name?'
'Bennett.'
'That's your name, then?'
'Yes.'
'Anything besides Bennett?'
'My name's Kate.'
The young man nodded.
'I'd make a pretty good district attorney,' he said, disarming possible
resentment at this cross-examination. 'I guess you're wondering if I'm
ever going to stop asking you questions. Well, what would you like to
do?'
'Don't you think we ought to go back and find your friend and
Genevieve? They will be wondering where we are.'
'Let 'em,' said the young man briefly. 'I've had all I want of Jenny.'
'I can't understand why you don't like her.'
'I like you. Shall we have some ice-cream, or would you rather go on
the Scenic Railway?'
Katie decided on the more peaceful pleasure. They resumed their walk,
socially licking two cones. Out of the corner of her eyes Katie cast
swift glances at her friend's face. He was a very grave young man.
There was something important as well as handsome about him. Once, as
they made their way through the crowds, she saw a couple of boys look
almost reverently at him. She wondered who he could be, but was too shy
to inquire. She had got over her nervousness to a great extent, but
there were still limits to what she felt herself equal to saying. It
did not strike her that it was only fair that she should ask a few
questions in return for those which he had put. She had always
repressed herself, and she did so now. She was content to be with him
without finding out his name and history.
He supplied the former just before he finally consented to let her go.
They were standing looking over the river. The sun had spent its force,
and it was cool and pleasant in the breeze which was coming up the
Hudson. Katie was conscious of a vague feeling that was almost
melancholy. It had been a lovely afternoon, and she was sorry that it
was over.
The young man shuffled his feet on the loose stones.
'I'm mighty glad I met you,' he said. 'Say, I'm coming to see you. On
Sixth Avenue. Don't mind, do you?'
He did not wait for a reply.
'Brady's my name. Ted Brady, Glencoe Athletic Club,' he paused. 'I'm on
the level,' he added, and paused again. 'I like you a whole lot. There's
your friend, Genevieve. Better go after her, hadn't you? Good-bye.' And
he was gone, walking swiftly through the crowd about the bandstand.
Katie went back to Genevieve, and Genevieve was simply horrid. Cold and
haughty, a beautiful iceberg of dudgeon, she refused to speak a single
word during the whole long journey back to Sixth Avenue. And Katie,
whose tender heart would at other times have been tortured by this
hostility, leant back in her seat, and was happy. Her mind was far away
from Genevieve's frozen gloom, living over again the wonderful
happenings of the afternoon.
Yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, but trouble was waiting for her
in Sixth Avenue. Trouble was never absent for very long from Katie's
unselfish life. Arriving at the little bookshop, she found Mr Murdoch,
the glazier, preparing for departure. Mr Murdoch came in on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays to play draughts with her grandfather, who was
paralysed from the waist, and unable to leave the house except when
Katie took him for his outing in Washington Square each morning in his
bath-chair.
Mr Murdoch welcomed Katie with joy.
'I was wondering whenever you would come back, Katie. I'm afraid the
old man's a little upset.'
'Not ill?'
'Not ill. Upset. And it was my fault, too. Thinking he'd be interested,
I read him a piece from the paper where I seen about these English
Suffragettes, and he just went up in the air. I guess he'll be all
right now you've come back. I was a fool to read it, I reckon. I kind
of forgot for the moment.'
'Please don't worry yourself about it, Mr Murdoch. He'll be all right
soon. I'll go to him.'
In the inner room the old man was sitting. His face was flushed, and he
gesticulated from time to time.
'I won't have it,' he cried as Katie entered. 'I tell you I won't have
it. If Parliament can't do anything, I'll send Parliament about its
business.'
'Here I am, grandpapa,' said Katie quickly. 'I've had the greatest
time. It was lovely up there. I--'
'I tell you it's got to stop. I've spoken about it before. I won't have
it.'
'I expect they're doing their best. It's your being so far away that
makes it hard for them. But I do think you might write them a very
sharp letter.'
'I will. I will. Get out the paper. Are you ready?' He stopped, and
looked piteously at Katie. 'I don't know what to say. I don't know how
to begin.'
Katie scribbled a few lines.
'How would this do? "His Majesty informs his Government that he is
greatly surprised and indignant that no notice has been taken of his
previous communications. If this goes on, he will be reluctantly
compelled to put the matter in other hands."'
She read it glibly as she had written it. The formula had been a
favourite one of her late father, when roused to fall upon offending
patrons of the bookshop.
The old man beamed. His resentment was gone. He was soothed and happy.
'That'll wake 'em up,' he said. 'I won't have these goings on while I'm
king, and if they don't like it, they know what to do. You're a good
girl, Katie.'
He chuckled.
'I beat Lord Murdoch five games to nothing,' he said.
It was now nearly two years since the morning when old Matthew Bennett
had announced to an audience consisting of Katie and a smoky blue cat,
which had wandered in from Washington Square to take pot-luck, that he
was the King of England.
This was a long time for any one delusion of the old man's to last.
Usually they came and went with a rapidity which made it hard for
Katie, for all her tact, to keep abreast of them. She was not likely to
forget the time when he went to bed President Roosevelt and woke up the
Prophet Elijah. It was the only occasion in all the years they had
passed together when she had felt like giving way and indulging in the
fit of hysterics which most girls of her age would have had as a matter
of course.
She had handled that crisis, and she handled the present one with equal
smoothness. When her grandfather made his announcement, which he did
rather as one stating a generally recognized fact than as if the
information were in any way sensational, she neither screamed nor
swooned, nor did she rush to the neighbours for advice. She merely gave
the old man his breakfast, not forgetting to set aside a suitable
portion for the smoky cat, and then went round to notify Mr Murdoch of
what had happened.
Mr Murdoch, excellent man, received the news without any fuss or
excitement at all, and promised to look in on Schwartz, the stout
saloon-keeper, who was Mr Bennett's companion and antagonist at
draughts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and, as he expressed
it, put him wise.
Life ran comfortably in the new groove. Old Mr Bennett continued to
play draughts and pore over his second-hand classics. Every morning he
took his outing in Washington Square where, from his invalid's chair,
he surveyed somnolent Italians and roller-skating children with his old
air of kindly approval. Katie, whom circumstances had taught to be
thankful for small mercies, was perfectly happy in the shadow of the
throne. She liked her work; she liked looking after her grandfather;
and now that Ted Brady had come into her life, she really began to look
on herself as an exceptionally lucky girl, a spoilt favourite of
Fortune.
For Ted Brady had called, as he said he would, and from the very first
he had made plain in his grave, direct way the objects of his visits.
There was no subtlety about Ted, no finesse. He was as frank as a
music-hall love song.
On his first visit, having handed Katie a large bunch of roses with the
stolidity of a messenger boy handing over a parcel, he had proceeded,
by way of establishing his _bona fides_, to tell her all about
himself. He supplied the facts in no settled order, just as they
happened to occur to him in the long silences with which his speech was
punctuated. Small facts jostled large facts. He spoke of his morals and
his fox-terrier in the same breath.
'I'm on the level. Ask anyone who knows me. They'll tell you that. Say,
I got the cutest little dog you ever seen. Do you like dogs? I've never
been a fellow that's got himself mixed up with girls. I don't like 'em
as a general thing. A fellow's got too much to do keeping himself in
training, if his club expects him to do things. I belong to the Glencoe
Athletic. I ran the hundred yards dash in evens last sports there was.
They expect me to do it at the Glencoe, so I've never got myself mixed
up with girls. Till I seen you that afternoon I reckon I'd hardly
looked at a girl, honest. They didn't seem to kind of make any hit with
me. And then I seen you, and I says to myself, "That's the one." It
sort of came over me in a flash. I fell for you directly I seen you.
And I'm on the level. Don't forget that.'
And more in the same strain, leaning on the counter and looking into
Katie's eyes with a devotion that added emphasis to his measured
speech.
Next day he came again, and kissed her respectfully but firmly, making
a sort of shuffling dive across the counter. Breaking away, he fumbled
in his pocket and produced a ring, which he proceeded to place on her
finger with the serious air which accompanied all his actions.
'That looks pretty good to me,' he said, as he stepped back and eyed
it.
It struck Katie, when he had gone, how differently different men did
things. Genevieve had often related stories of men who had proposed to
her, and according to Genevieve, they always got excited and emotional,
and sometimes cried. Ted Brady had fitted her with the ring more like a
glover's assistant than anything else, and he had hardly spoken a word
from beginning to end. He had seemed to take her acquiescence for
granted. And yet there had been nothing flat or disappointing about the
proceedings. She had been thrilled throughout. It is to be supposed
that Mr Brady had the force of character which does not require the aid
of speech.
It was not till she took the news of her engagement to old Mr Bennett
that it was borne in upon Katie that Fate did not intend to be so
wholly benevolent to her as she supposed.
That her grandfather could offer any opposition had not occurred to her
as a possibility. She took his approval for granted. Never, as long as
she could remember, had he been anything but kind to her. And the only
possible objections to marriage from a grandfather's point of
view--badness of character, insufficient means, or inferiority of
social position--were in this case gloriously absent.
She could not see how anyone, however hypercritical, could find a flaw
in Ted. His character was spotless. He was comfortably off. And so far
from being in any way inferior socially, it was he who condescended.
For Ted, she had discovered from conversation with Mr Murdoch, the
glazier, was no ordinary young man. He was a celebrity. So much so that
for a moment, when told the news of the engagement, Mr Murdoch,
startled out of his usual tact, had exhibited frank surprise that the
great Ted Brady should not have aimed higher.
'You're sure you've got the name right, Katie?' he had said. 'It's
really Ted Brady? No mistake about the first name? Well-built,
good-looking young chap with brown eyes? Well, this beats me. Not,' he
went on hurriedly, 'that any young fellow mightn't think himself lucky
to get a wife like you, Katie, but Ted Brady! Why, there isn't a girl
in this part of the town, or in Harlem or the Bronx, for that matter,
who wouldn't give her eyes to be in your place. Why, Ted Brady is the
big noise. He's the star of the Glencoe.'
'He told me he belonged to the Glencoe Athletic.'
'Don't you believe it. It belongs to him. Why, the way that boy runs
and jumps is the real limit. There's only Billy Burton, of the
Irish-American, that can touch him. You've certainly got the pick of
the bunch, Katie.'
He stared at her admiringly, as if for the first time realizing her
true worth. For Mr Murdoch was a great patron of sport.
With these facts in her possession Katie had approached the interview
with her grandfather with a good deal of confidence.
The old man listened to her recital of Mr Brady's qualities in silence.
Then he shook his head.
'It can't be, Katie. I couldn't have it.'
'Grandpapa!'
'You're forgetting, my dear.'
'Forgetting?'
'Who ever heard of such a thing? The grand-daughter of the King of
England marrying a commoner! It wouldn't do at all.'
Consternation, surprise, and misery kept Katie dumb. She had learned in
a hard school to be prepared for sudden blows from the hand of fate,
but this one was so entirely unforeseen that it found her unprepared,
and she was crushed by it. She knew her grandfather's obstinacy too
well to argue against the decision.
'Oh, no, not at all,' he repeated. 'Oh, no, it wouldn't do.'
Katie said nothing; she was beyond speech. She stood there wide-eyed
and silent among the ruins of her little air-castle. The old man patted
her hand affectionately. He was pleased at her docility. It was the
right attitude, becoming in one of her high rank.
'I am very sorry, my dear, but--oh, no! oh, no! oh, no--' His voice
trailed away into an unintelligible mutter. He was a very old man, and
he was not always able to concentrate his thoughts on a subject for any
length of time.
So little did Ted Brady realize at first the true complexity of the
situation that he was inclined, when he heard of the news, to treat the
crisis in the jaunty, dashing, love-laughs-at-locksmith fashion so
popular with young men of spirit when thwarted in their loves by the
interference of parents and guardians.
It took Katie some time to convince him that, just because he had the
licence in his pocket, he could not snatch her up on his saddle-bow and
carry her off to the nearest clergyman after the manner of young
Lochinvar.
In the first flush of his resentment at restraint he saw no reason why
he should differentiate between old Mr Bennett and the conventional
banns-forbidding father of the novelettes with which he was accustomed
to sweeten his hours of idleness. To him, till Katie explained the
intricacies of the position, Mr Bennett was simply the proud
millionaire who would not hear of his daughter marrying the artist.
'But, Ted, dear, you don't understand,' Katie said. 'We simply couldn't
do that. There's no one but me to look after him, poor old man. How
could I run away like that and get married? What would become of him?'
'You wouldn't be away long,' urged Mr Brady, a man of many parts, but
not a rapid thinker. 'The minister would have us fixed up inside of
half an hour. Then we'd look in at Mouquin's for a steak and fried,
just to make a sort of wedding breakfast. And then back we'd come,
hand-in-hand, and say, "Well, here we are. Now what?"'
'He would never forgive me.'
'That,' said Ted judicially, 'would be up to him.'
'It would kill him. Don't you see, we know that it's all nonsense, this
idea of his; but he really thinks he is the king, and he's so old that
the shock of my disobeying him would be too much. Honest, Ted, dear, I
couldn't.'
Gloom unutterable darkened Ted Brady's always serious countenance. The
difficulties of the situation were beginning to come home to him.
'Maybe if I went and saw him--' he suggested at last.
'You _could_,' said Katie doubtfully.
Ted tightened his belt with an air of determination, and bit resolutely
on the chewing-gum which was his inseparable companion.
'I will,' he said.
'You'll be nice to him, Ted?'
He nodded. He was the man of action, not words.
It was perhaps ten minutes before he came out of the inner room in
which Mr Bennett passed his days. When he did, there was no light of
jubilation on his face. His brow was darker than ever.
Katie looked at him anxiously. He returned the look with a sombre shake
of the head.
'Nothing doing,' he said shortly. He paused. 'Unless,' he added, 'you
count it anything that he's made me an earl.'
In the next two weeks several brains busied themselves with the
situation. Genevieve, reconciled to Katie after a decent interval of
wounded dignity, said she supposed there was a way out, if one could
only think of it, but it certainly got past her. The only approach to a
plan of action was suggested by the broken-nosed individual who had
been Ted's companion that day at Palisades Park, a gentleman of some
eminence in the boxing world, who rejoiced in the name of the Tennessee
Bear-Cat.
What they ought to do, in the Bear-Cat's opinion, was to get the old
man out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would then
sasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by,
would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.
'See what I mean?' pursued the Bear-Cat. 'There's you and me mixing it.
I'll square the cop on the beat to leave us be; he's a friend of mine.
Pretty soon you land me one on the plexus, and I take th' count. Then
there's you hauling me up by th' collar to the old gentleman, and me
saying I quits and apologizing. See what I mean?'
The whole, presumably, to conclude with warm expressions of gratitude
and esteem from Mr Bennett, and an instant withdrawal of the veto.
Ted himself approved of the scheme. He said it was a cracker-jaw, and
he wondered how one so notoriously ivory-skulled as the other could
have had such an idea. The Bear-Cat said modestly that he had 'em
sometimes. And it is probable that all would have been well, had it not
been necessary to tell the plan to Katie, who was horrified at the very
idea, spoke warmly of the danger to her grandfather's nervous system,
and said she did not think the Bear-Cat could be a nice friend for Ted.
And matters relapsed into their old state of hopelessness.
And then, one day, Katie forced herself to tell Ted that she thought it
would be better if they did not see each other for a time. She said
that these meetings were only a source of pain to both of them. It
would really be better if he did not come round for--well, quite some
time.
It had not been easy for her to say it. The decision was the outcome of
many wakeful nights. She had asked herself the question whether it was
fair for her to keep Ted chained to her in this hopeless fashion, when,
left to himself and away from her, he might so easily find some other
girl to make him happy.
So Ted went, reluctantly, and the little shop on Sixth Avenue knew him
no more. And Katie spent her time looking after old Mr Bennett (who had
completely forgotten the affair by now, and sometimes wondered why
Katie was not so cheerful as she had been), and--for, though unselfish,
she was human--hating those unknown girls whom in her mind's eye she
could see clustering round Ted, smiling at him, making much of him, and
driving the bare recollection of her out of his mind.
The summer passed. July came and went, making New York an oven. August
followed, and one wondered why one had complained of July's tepid
advances.
It was on the evening of September the eleventh that Katie, having
closed the little shop, sat in the dusk on the steps, as many thousands
of her fellow-townsmen and townswomen were doing, turning her face to
the first breeze which New York had known for two months. The hot spell
had broken abruptly that afternoon, and the city was drinking in the
coolness as a flower drinks water.
From round the corner, where the yellow cross of the Judson Hotel shone
down on Washington Square, came the shouts of children, and the
strains, mellowed by distance, of the indefatigable barrel-organ which
had played the same tunes in the same place since the spring.
Katie closed her eyes, and listened. It was very peaceful this evening,
so peaceful that for an instant she forgot even to think of Ted. And it
was just during this instant that she heard his voice.
'That you, kid?'
He was standing before her, his hands in his pockets, one foot on the
pavement, the other in the road; and if he was agitated, his voice did
not show it.
'Ted!'
'That's me. Can I see the old man for a minute, Katie?'
This time it did seem to her that she could detect a slight ring of
excitement.
'It's no use, Ted. Honest.'
'No harm in going in and passing the time of day, is there? I've got
something I want to say to him.'
'What?'
'Tell you later, maybe. Is he in his room?'
He stepped past her, and went in. As he went, he caught her arm and
pressed it, but he did not stop. She saw him go into the inner room and
heard through the door as he closed it behind him, the murmur of
voices. And almost immediately, it seemed to her, her name was called.
It was her grandfather's voice which called, high and excited. The door
opened, and Ted appeared.
'Come here a minute, Katie, will you?' he said. 'You're wanted.'
The old man was leaning forward in his chair. He was in a state of
extraordinary excitement. He quivered and jumped. Ted, standing by the
wall, looked as stolid as ever; but his eyes glittered.
'Katie,' cried the old man, 'this is a most remarkable piece of news.
This gentleman has just been telling me--extraordinary. He--'
He broke off, and looked at Ted, as he had looked at Katie when he had
tried to write the letter to the Parliament of England.
Ted's eye, as it met Katie's, was almost defiant.
'I want to marry you,' he said.
'Yes, yes,' broke in Mr Bennett, impatiently, 'but--'
'And I'm a king.'
'Yes, yes, that's it, that's it, Katie. This gentleman is a king.'
Once more Ted's eye met Katie's, and this time there was an imploring
look in it.
'That's right,' he said, slowly. 'I've just been telling your
grandfather I'm the King of Coney Island.'
'That's it. Of Coney Island.'
'So there's no objection now to us getting married, kid--Your Royal
Highness. It's a royal alliance, see?'
'A royal alliance,' echoed Mr Bennett.
Out in the street, Ted held Katie's hand, and grinned a little
sheepishly.
'You're mighty quiet, kid,' he said. 'It looks as if it don't make much
of a hit with you, the notion of being married to me.'
'Oh, Ted! But--'
He squeezed her hand.
'I know what you're thinking. I guess it was raw work pulling a tale
like that on the old man. I hated to do it, but gee! when a fellow's up
against it like I was, he's apt to grab most any chance that comes
along. Why, say, kid, it kind of looked to me as if it was sort of
_meant_. Coming just now, like it did, just when it was wanted,
and just when it didn't seem possible it could happen. Why, a week ago
I was nigh on two hundred votes behind Billy Burton. The Irish-American
put him up, and everybody thought he'd be King at the Mardi Gras. And
then suddenly they came pouring in for me, till at the finish I had
Billy looking like a regular has-been.
'It's funny the way the voting jumps about every year in this Coney
election. It was just Providence, and it didn't seem right to let it go
by. So I went in to the old man, and told him. Say, I tell you I was
just sweating when I got ready to hand it to him. It was an outside
chance he'd remember all about what the Mardi Gras at Coney was, and
just what being a king at it amounted to. Then I remembered you telling
me you'd never been to Coney, so I figured your grandfather wouldn't be
what you'd call well fixed in his information about it, so I took the
chance.
'I tried him out first. I tried him with Brooklyn. Why, say, from the
way he took it, he'd either never heard of the place, or else he'd
forgotten what it was. I guess he don't remember much, poor old fellow.
Then I mentioned Yonkers. He asked me what Yonkers were. Then I
reckoned it was safe to bring on Coney, and he fell for it right away.
I felt mean, but it had to be done.'
He caught her up, and swung her into the air with a perfectly impassive
face. Then, having kissed her, he lowered her gently to the ground
again. The action seemed to have relieved his feelings, for when he
spoke again it was plain that his conscience no longer troubled him.
'And say,' he said, 'come to think of it, I don't see where there's so
much call for me to feel mean. I'm not so far short of being a regular
king. Coney's just as big as some of those kingdoms you read about on
the other side; and, from what you see in the papers about the
goings-on there, it looks to me that, having a whole week on the throne
like I'm going to have, amounts to a pretty steady job as kings go.'
AT GEISENHEIMER'S
As I walked to Geisenheimer's that night I was feeling blue and
restless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything.
Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by.
All the electric lights in the world were blazing down on the Great
White Way. And it all seemed stale and dreary to me.
Geisenheimer's was full as usual. All the tables were occupied, and
there were several couples already on the dancing-floor in the centre.
The band was playing 'Michigan':
_I want to go back, I want to go back
To the place where I was born.
Far away from harm
With a milk-pail on my arm._
I suppose the fellow who wrote that would have called for the police if
anyone had ever really tried to get him on to a farm, but he has
certainly put something into the tune which makes you think he meant
what he said. It's a homesick tune, that.
I was just looking round for an empty table, when a man jumped up and
came towards me, registering joy as if I had been his long-lost sister.
He was from the country. I could see that. It was written all over him,
from his face to his shoes.
He came up with his hand out, beaming.
'Why, Miss Roxborough!'
'Why not?' I said.
'Don't you remember me?'
I didn't.
'My name is Ferris.'
'It's a nice name, but it means nothing in my young life.'
'I was introduced to you last time I came here. We danced together.'
This seemed to bear the stamp of truth. If he was introduced to me, he
probably danced with me. It's what I'm at Geisenheimer's for.
'When was it?'
'A year ago last April.'
You can't beat these rural charmers. They think New York is folded up
and put away in camphor when they leave, and only taken out again when
they pay their next visit. The notion that anything could possibly have
happened since he was last in our midst to blur the memory of that
happy evening had not occurred to Mr Ferris. I suppose he was so
accustomed to dating things from 'when I was in New York' that he
thought everybody else must do the same.
'Why, sure, I remember you,' I said. 'Algernon Clarence, isn't it?'
'Not Algernon Clarence. My name's Charlie.'
'My mistake. And what's the great scheme, Mr Ferris? Do you want to
dance with me again?'
He did. So we started. Mine not to reason why, mine but to do and die,
as the poem says. If an elephant had come into Geisenheimer's and asked
me to dance I'd have had to do it. And I'm not saying that Mr Ferris
wasn't the next thing to it. He was one of those earnest, persevering
dancers--the kind that have taken twelve correspondence lessons.
I guess I was about due that night to meet someone from the country.
There still come days in the spring when the country seems to get a
stranglehold on me and start in pulling. This particular day had been
one of them. I got up in the morning and looked out of the window, and
the breeze just wrapped me round and began whispering about pigs and
chickens. And when I went out on Fifth Avenue there seemed to be
flowers everywhere. I headed for the Park, and there was the grass all
green, and the trees coming out, and a sort of something in the
air--why, say, if there hadn't have been a big policeman keeping an eye
on me, I'd have flung myself down and bitten chunks out of the turf.
And as soon as I got to Geisenheimer's they played that 'Michigan'
thing.
Why, Charlie from Squeedunk's 'entrance' couldn't have been better
worked up if he'd been a star in a Broadway show. The stage was just
waiting for him.
But somebody's always taking the joy out of life. I ought to have
remembered that the most metropolitan thing in the metropolis is a
rustic who's putting in a week there. We weren't thinking on the same
plane, Charlie and me. The way I had been feeling all day, what I
wanted to talk about was last season's crops. The subject he fancied
was this season's chorus-girls. Our souls didn't touch by a mile and a
half.
'This is the life!' he said.
There's always a point when that sort of man says that.
'I suppose you come here quite a lot?' he said.
'Pretty often.'
I didn't tell him that I came there every night, and that I came
because I was paid for it. If you're a professional dancer at
Geisenheimer's, you aren't supposed to advertise the fact. The
management thinks that if you did it might send the public away
thinking too hard when they saw you win the Great Contest for the
Love-r-ly Silver Cup which they offer later in the evening. Say, that
Love-r-ly Cup's a joke. I win it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,
and Mabel Francis wins it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It's
all perfectly fair and square, of course. It's purely a matter of merit
who wins the Love-r-ly Cup. Anybody could win it. Only somehow they
don't. And the coincidence of the fact that Mabel and I always do has
kind of got on the management's nerves, and they don't like us to tell
people we're employed there. They prefer us to blush unseen.
'It's a great place,' said Mr Ferris, 'and New York's a great place.
I'd like to live in New York.'
'The loss is ours. Why don't you?'
'Some city! But dad's dead now, and I've got the drugstore, you know.'
He spoke as if I ought to remember reading about it in the papers.
'And I'm making good with it, what's more. I've got push and ideas.
Say, I got married since I saw you last.'
'You did, did you?' I said. 'Then what are you doing, may I ask,
dancing on Broadway like a gay bachelor? I suppose you have left your
wife at Hicks' Corners, singing "Where is my wandering boy tonight"?'
'Not Hicks' Corners. Ashley, Maine. That's where I live. My wife comes
from Rodney.... Pardon me, I'm afraid I stepped on your foot.'
'My fault,' I said; 'I lost step. Well, I wonder you aren't ashamed
even to think of your wife, when you've left her all alone out there
while you come whooping it up in New York. Haven't you got any
conscience?'
'But I haven't left her. She's here.'
'In New York?'
'In this restaurant. That's her up there.'
I looked up at the balcony. There was a face hanging over the red plush
rail. It looked to me as if it had some hidden sorrow. I'd noticed it
before, when we were dancing around, and I had wondered what the
trouble was. Now I began to see.
'Why aren't you dancing with her and giving her a good time, then?' I
said.
'Oh, she's having a good time.'
'She doesn't look it. She looks as if she would like to be down here,
treading the measure.'
'She doesn't dance much.'
'Don't you have dances at Ashley?'
'It's different at home. She dances well enough for Ashley, but--well,
this isn't Ashley.'
'I see. But you're not like that?'
He gave a kind of smirk.
'Oh, I've been in New York before.'
I could have bitten him, the sawn-off little rube! It made me mad. He
was ashamed to dance in public with his wife--didn't think her good
enough for him. So he had dumped her in a chair, given her a lemonade,
and told her to be good, and then gone off to have a good time. They
could have had me arrested for what I was thinking just then.
The band began to play something else.
'This is the life!' said Mr Ferris. 'Let's do it again.'
'Let somebody else do it,' I said. 'I'm tired. I'll introduce you to
some friends of mine.'
So I took him off, and whisked him on to some girls I knew at one of
the tables.
'Shake hands with my friend Mr Ferris,' I said. 'He wants to show you
the latest steps. He does most of them on your feet.'
I could have betted on Charlie, the Debonair Pride of Ashley. Guess
what he said? He said, 'This is the life!'
And I left him, and went up to the balcony.
She was leaning with her elbows on the red plush, looking down on the
dancing-floor. They had just started another tune, and hubby was moving
around with one of the girls I'd introduced him to. She didn't have to
prove to me that she came from the country. I knew it. She was a little
bit of a thing, old-fashioned looking. She was dressed in grey, with
white muslin collar and cuffs, and her hair done simple. She had a
black hat.
I kind of hovered for awhile. It isn't the best thing I do, being shy;
as a general thing I'm more or less there with the nerve; but somehow I
sort of hesitated to charge in.
Then I braced up, and made for the vacant chair.
'I'll sit here, if you don't mind,' I said.
She turned in a startled way. I could see she was wondering who I was,
and what right I had there, but wasn't certain whether it might not be
city etiquette for strangers to come and dump themselves down and start
chatting. 'I've just been dancing with your husband,' I said, to ease
things along.
'I saw you.'
She fixed me with a pair of big brown eyes. I took one look at them,
and then I had to tell myself that it might be pleasant, and a relief
to my feelings, to take something solid and heavy and drop it over the
rail on to hubby, but the management wouldn't like it. That was how I
felt about him just then. The poor kid was doing everything with those
eyes except crying. She looked like a dog that's been kicked.
She looked away, and fiddled with the string of the electric light.
There was a hatpin lying on the table. She picked it up, and began to
dig at the red plush.
'Ah, come on sis,' I said; 'tell me all about it.'
'I don't know what you mean.'
'You can't fool me. Tell me your troubles.'
'I don't know you.'
'You don't have to know a person to tell her your troubles. I sometimes
tell mine to the cat that camps out on the wall opposite my room. What
did you want to leave the country for, with summer coming on?'
She didn't answer, but I could see it coming, so I sat still and
waited. And presently she seemed to make up her mind that, even if it
was no business of mine, it would be a relief to talk about it.
'We're on our honeymoon. Charlie wanted to come to New York. I didn't
want to, but he was set on it. He's been here before.'
'So he told me.'
'He's wild about New York.'
'But you're not.'
'I hate it.'
'Why?'
She dug away at the red plush with the hatpin, picking out little bits
and dropping them over the edge. I could see she was bracing herself to
put me wise to the whole trouble. There's a time comes when things
aren't going right, and you've had all you can stand, when you have got
to tell somebody about it, no matter who it is.
'I hate New York,' she said getting it out at last with a rush. 'I'm
scared of it. It--it isn't fair Charlie bringing me here. I didn't want
to come. I knew what would happen. I felt it all along.'
'What do you think will happen, then?'
She must have picked away at least an inch of the red plush before she
answered. It's lucky Jimmy, the balcony waiter, didn't see her; it
would have broken his heart; he's as proud of that red plush as if he
had paid for it himself.
'When I first went to live at Rodney,' she said, 'two years ago--we
moved there from Illinois--there was a man there named Tyson--Jack
Tyson. He lived all alone and didn't seem to want to know anyone. I
couldn't understand it till somebody told me all about him. I can
understand it now. Jack Tyson married a Rodney girl, and they came to
New York for their honeymoon, just like us. And when they got there I
guess she got to comparing him with the fellows she saw, and comparing
the city with Rodney, and when she got home she just couldn't settle
down.'
'Well?'
'After they had been back in Rodney for a little while she ran away.
Back to the city, I guess.'
'I suppose he got a divorce?'
'No, he didn't. He still thinks she may come back to him.'
'He still thinks she will come back?' I said. 'After she has been away
three years!'
'Yes. He keeps her things just the same as she left them when she went
away, everything just the same.'
'But isn't he angry with her for what she did? If I was a man and a
girl treated me that way, I'd be apt to murder her if she tried to show
up again.'
'He wouldn't. Nor would I, if--if anything like that happened to me;
I'd wait and wait, and go on hoping all the time. And I'd go down to
the station to meet the train every afternoon, just like Jack Tyson.'
Something splashed on the tablecloth. It made me jump.
'For goodness' sake,' I said, 'what's your trouble? Brace up. I know
it's a sad story, but it's not your funeral.'
'It is. It is. The same thing's going to happen to me.'
'Take a hold on yourself. Don't cry like that.'
'I can't help it. Oh! I knew it would happen. It's happening right now.
Look--look at him.'
I glanced over the rail, and I saw what she meant. There was her
Charlie, dancing about all over the floor as if he had just discovered
that he hadn't lived till then. I saw him say something to the girl he
was dancing with. I wasn't near enough to hear it, but I bet it was
'This is the life!' If I had been his wife, in the same position as
this kid, I guess I'd have felt as bad as she did, for if ever a man
exhibited all the symptoms of incurable Newyorkitis, it was this
Charlie Ferris.
'I'm not like these New York girls,' she choked. 'I can't be smart. I
don't want to be. I just want to live at home and be happy. I knew it
would happen if we came to the city. He doesn't think me good enough
for him. He looks down on me.'
'Pull yourself together.'
'And I do love him so!'
Goodness knows what I should have said if I could have thought of
anything to say. But just then the music stopped, and somebody on the
floor below began to speak.
'Ladeez 'n' gemmen,' he said, 'there will now take place our great
Numbah Contest. This gen-u-ine sporting contest--'
It was Izzy Baermann making his nightly speech, introducing the
Love-r-ly Cup; and it meant that, for me, duty called. From where I sat
I could see Izzy looking about the room, and I knew he was looking for
me. It's the management's nightmare that one of these evenings Mabel or
I won't show up, and somebody else will get away with the Love-r-ly
Cup.
'Sorry I've got to go,' I said. 'I have to be in this.'
And then suddenly I had the great idea. It came to me like a flash, I
looked at her, crying there, and I looked over the rail at Charlie the
Boy Wonder, and I knew that this was where I got a stranglehold on my
place in the Hall of Fame, along with the great thinkers of the age.
'Come on,' I said. 'Come along. Stop crying and powder your nose and
get a move on. You're going to dance this.'
'But Charlie doesn't want to dance with me.'
'It may have escaped your notice,' I said, 'but your Charlie is not the
only man in New York, or even in this restaurant. I'm going to dance
with Charlie myself, and I'll introduce you to someone who can go
through the movements. Listen!'
'The lady of each couple'--this was Izzy, getting it off his
diaphragm--'will receive a ticket containing a num-bah. The dance will
then proceed, and the num-bahs will be eliminated one by one, those
called out by the judge kindly returning to their seats as their
num-bah is called. The num-bah finally remaining is the winning
num-bah. The contest is a genuine sporting contest, decided purely by
the skill of the holders of the various num-bahs.' (Izzy stopped
blushing at the age of six.) 'Will ladies now kindly step forward and
receive their num-bahs. The winner, the holder of the num-bah left on
the floor when the other num-bahs have been eliminated' (I could see
Izzy getting more and more uneasy, wondering where on earth I'd got
to), 'will receive this Love-r-ly Silver Cup, presented by the
management. Ladies will now kindly step forward and receive their
num-bahs.'
I turned to Mrs Charlie. 'There,' I said, 'don't you want to win a
Love-r-ly Silver Cup?'
'But I couldn't.'
'You never know your luck.'
'But it isn't luck. Didn't you hear him say it's a contest decided
purely by skill?'
'Well, try your skill, then.' I felt as if I could have shaken her.
'For goodness' sake,' I said, 'show a little grit. Aren't you going to
stir a finger to keep your Charlie? Suppose you win, think what it will
mean. He will look up to you for the rest of your life. When he starts
talking about New York, all you will have to say is, "New York? Ah,
yes, that was the town I won that Love-r-ly Silver Cup in, was it not?"
and he'll drop as if you had hit him behind the ear with a sandbag.
Pull yourself together and try.'
I saw those brown eyes of hers flash, and she said, 'I'll try.'
'Good for you,' I said. 'Now you get those tears dried, and fix
yourself up, and I'll go down and get the tickets.'
Izzy was mighty relieved when I bore down on him.
'Gee!' he said, 'I thought you had run away, or was sick or something.
Here's your ticket.'
'I want two, Izzy. One's for a friend of mine. And I say, Izzy, I'd
take it as a personal favour if you would let her stop on the floor as
one of the last two couples. There's a reason. She's a kid from the
country, and she wants to make a hit.'
'Sure, that'll be all right. Here are the tickets. Yours is thirty-six,
hers is ten.' He lowered his voice. 'Don't go mixing them.'
I went back to the balcony. On the way I got hold of Charlie.
'We're dancing this together,' I said.
He grinned all across his face.
I found Mrs Charlie looking as if she had never shed a tear in her
life. She certainly had pluck, that kid.
'Come on,' I said. 'Stick to your ticket like wax and watch your step.'
I guess you've seen these sporting contests at Geisenheimer's. Or, if
you haven't seen them at Geisenheimer's, you've seen them somewhere
else. They're all the same.
When we began, the floor was so crowded that there was hardly
elbow-room. Don't tell me there aren't any optimists nowadays. Everyone
was looking as if they were wondering whether to have the Love-r-ly Cup
in the sitting-room or the bedroom. You never saw such a hopeful gang
in your life.
Presently Izzy gave tongue. The management expects him to be humorous
on these occasions, so he did his best.
'Num-bahs, seven, eleven, and twenty-one will kindly rejoin their
sorrowing friends.'
This gave us a little more elbow-room, and the band started again.
A few minutes later, Izzy once more: 'Num-bahs thirteen, sixteen, and
seventeen--good-bye.'
Off we went again.
'Num-bah twelve, we hate to part with you, but--back to your table!'
A plump girl in a red hat, who had been dancing with a kind smile, as
if she were doing it to amuse the children, left the floor.
'Num-bahs six, fifteen, and twenty, thumbs down!'
And pretty soon the only couples left were Charlie and me, Mrs Charlie
and the fellow I'd introduced her to, and a bald-headed man and a girl
in a white hat. He was one of your stick-at-it performers. He had been
dancing all the evening. I had noticed him from the balcony. He looked
like a hard-boiled egg from up there.
He was a trier all right, that fellow, and had things been otherwise,
so to speak, I'd have been glad to see him win. But it was not to be.
Ah, no!
'Num-bah nineteen, you're getting all flushed. Take a rest.'
So there it was, a straight contest between me and Charlie and Mrs
Charlie and her man. Every nerve in my system was tingling with
suspense and excitement, was it not? It was not.
Charlie, as I've already hinted, was not a dancer who took much of his
attention off his feet while in action. He was there to do his
durnedest, not to inspect objects of interest by the wayside. The
correspondence college he'd attended doesn't guarantee to teach you to
do two things at once. It won't bind itself to teach you to look round
the room while you're dancing. So Charlie hadn't the least suspicion of
the state of the drama. He was breathing heavily down my neck in a
determined sort of way, with his eyes glued to the floor. All he knew
was that the competition had thinned out a bit, and the honour of
Ashley, Maine, was in his hands.
You know how the public begins to sit up and take notice when these
dance-contests have been narrowed down to two couples. There are
evenings when I quite forget myself, when I'm one of the last two left
in, and get all excited. There's a sort of hum in the air, and, as you
go round the room, people at the tables start applauding. Why, if you
didn't know about the inner workings of the thing, you'd be all of a
twitter.
It didn't take my practised ear long to discover that it wasn't me and
Charlie that the great public was cheering for. We would go round the
floor without getting a hand, and every time Mrs Charlie and her guy
got to a corner there was a noise like election night. She sure had
made a hit.
I took a look at her across the floor, and I didn't wonder. She was a
different kid from what she'd been upstairs. I never saw anybody look
so happy and pleased with herself. Her eyes were like lamps, and her
cheeks all pink, and she was going at it like a champion. I knew what
had made a hit with the people. It was the look of her. She made you
think of fresh milk and new-laid eggs and birds singing. To see her was
like getting away to the country in August. It's funny about people who
live in the city. They chuck out their chests, and talk about little
old New York being good enough for them, and there's a street in heaven
they call Broadway, and all the rest of it; but it seems to me that
what they really live for is that three weeks in the summer when they
get away into the country. I knew exactly why they were cheering so
hard for Mrs Charlie. She made them think of their holidays which were
coming along, when they would go and board at the farm and drink out of
the old oaken bucket, and call the cows by their first names.
Gee! I felt just like that myself. All day the country had been tugging
at me, and now it tugged worse than ever.
I could have smelled the new-mown hay if it wasn't that when you're in
Geisenheimer's you have to smell Geisenheimer's, because it leaves no
chance for competition.
'Keep working,' I said to Charlie. 'It looks to me as if we are going
back in the betting.'
'Uh, huh!' he says, too busy to blink.
'Do some of those fancy steps of yours. We need them in our business.'
And the way that boy worked--it was astonishing!
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Izzy Baermann, and he wasn't
looking happy. He was nerving himself for one of those quick referee's
decisions--the sort you make and then duck under the ropes, and run
five miles, to avoid the incensed populace. It was this kind of thing
happening every now and then that prevented his job being perfect.
Mabel Francis told me that one night when Izzy declared her the winner
of the great sporting contest, it was such raw work that she thought
there'd have been a riot. It looked pretty much as if he was afraid the
same thing was going to happen now. There wasn't a doubt which of us
two couples was the one that the customers wanted to see win that
Love-r-ly Silver Cup. It was a walk-over for Mrs Charlie, and Charlie
and I were simply among those present.
But Izzy had his duty to do, and drew a salary for doing it, so he
moistened his lips, looked round to see that his strategic railways
weren't blocked, swallowed twice, and said in a husky voice:
'Num-bah ten, please re-tiah!'
I stopped at once.
'Come along,' said I to Charlie. 'That's our exit cue.'
And we walked off the floor amidst applause.
'Well,' says Charlie, taking out his handkerchief and attending to his
brow, which was like the village blacksmith's, 'we didn't do so bad,
did we? We didn't do so bad, I guess! We--'
And he looked up at the balcony, expecting to see the dear little wife,
draped over the rail, worshipping him; when, just as his eye is moving
up, it gets caught by the sight of her a whole heap lower down than he
had expected--on the floor, in fact.
She wasn't doing much in the worshipping line just at that moment. She
was too busy.
It was a regular triumphal progress for the kid. She and her partner
were doing one or two rounds now for exhibition purposes, like the
winning couple always do at Geisenheimer's, and the room was fairly
rising at them. You'd have thought from the way they were clapping that
they had been betting all their spare cash on her.
Charlie gets her well focused, then he lets his jaw drop, till he
pretty near bumped it against the floor.
'But--but--but--' he begins.
'I know,' I said. 'It begins to look as if she could dance well enough
for the city after all. It begins to look as if she had sort of put one
over on somebody, don't it? It begins to look as if it were a pity you
didn't think of dancing with her yourself.'
'I--I--I--'
'You come along and have a nice cold drink,' I said, 'and you'll soon
pick up.'
He tottered after me to a table, looking as if he had been hit by a
street-car. He had got his.
I was so busy looking after Charlie, flapping the towel and working on
him with the oxygen, that, if you'll believe me, it wasn't for quite a
time that I thought of glancing around to see how the thing had struck
Izzy Baermann.
If you can imagine a fond father whose only son has hit him with a
brick, jumped on his stomach, and then gone off with all his money, you
have a pretty good notion of how poor old Izzy looked. He was staring
at me across the room, and talking to himself and jerking his hands
about. Whether he thought he was talking to me, or whether he was
rehearsing the scene where he broke it to the boss that a mere stranger
had got away with his Love-r-ly Silver Cup, I don't know. Whichever it
was, he was being mighty eloquent.
I gave him a nod, as much as to say that it would all come right in the
future, and then I turned to Charlie again. He was beginning to pick
up.
'She won the cup!' he said in a dazed voice, looking at me as if I
could do something about it.
'You bet she did!'
'But--well, what do you know about that?'
I saw that the moment had come to put it straight to him. 'I'll tell
you what I know about it,' I said. 'If you take my advice, you'll hustle
that kid straight back to Ashley--or wherever it is that you said you
poison the natives by making up the wrong prescriptions--before she
gets New York into her system. When I was talking to her upstairs, she
was telling me about a fellow in her village who got it in the neck
just the same as you're apt to do.'
He started. 'She was telling you about Jack Tyson?'
'That was his name--Jack Tyson. He lost his wife through letting her
have too much New York. Don't you think it's funny she should have
mentioned him if she hadn't had some idea that she might act just the
same as his wife did?'
He turned quite green.
'You don't think she would do that?'
'Well, if you'd heard her--She couldn't talk of anything except this
Tyson, and what his wife did to him. She talked of it sort of sad, kind
of regretful, as if she was sorry, but felt that it had to be. I could
see she had been thinking about it a whole lot.'
Charlie stiffened in his seat, and then began to melt with pure fright.
He took up his empty glass with a shaking hand and drank a long drink
out of it. It didn't take much observation to see that he had had the
jolt he wanted, and was going to be a whole heap less jaunty and
metropolitan from now on. In fact, the way he looked, I should say he
had finished with metropolitan jauntiness for the rest of his life.
'I'll take her home tomorrow,' he said. 'But--will she come?'
'That's up to you. If you can persuade her--Here she is now. I should
start at once.'
Mrs Charlie, carrying the cup, came to the table. I was wondering what
would be the first thing she would say. If it had been Charlie, of
course he'd have said, 'This is the life!' but I looked for something
snappier from her. If I had been in her place there were at least ten
things I could have thought of to say, each nastier than the other.
She sat down and put the cup on the table. Then she gave the cup a long
look. Then she drew a deep breath. Then she looked at Charlie.
'Oh, Charlie, dear,' she said, 'I do wish I'd been dancing with you!'
Well, I'm not sure that that wasn't just as good as anything I would
have said. Charlie got right off the mark. After what I had told him,
he wasn't wasting any time.
'Darling,' he said, humbly, 'you're a wonder! What will they say about
this at home?' He did pause here for a moment, for it took nerve to say
it; but then he went right on. 'Mary, how would it be if we went home
right away--first train tomorrow, and showed it to them?'
'Oh, Charlie!' she said.
His face lit up as if somebody had pulled a switch.
'You will? You don't want to stop on? You aren't wild about New York?'
'If there was a train,' she said, 'I'd start tonight. But I thought you
loved the city so, Charlie?'
He gave a kind of shiver. 'I never want to see it again in my life!' he
said.
'You'll excuse me,' I said, getting up, 'I think there's a friend of
mine wants to speak to me.'
And I crossed over to where Izzy had been standing for the last five
minutes, making signals to me with his eyebrows.
You couldn't have called Izzy coherent at first. He certainly had
trouble with his vocal chords, poor fellow. There was one of those
African explorer men used to come to Geisenheimer's a lot when he was
home from roaming the trackless desert, and he used to tell me about
tribes he had met who didn't use real words at all, but talked to one
another in clicks and gurgles. He imitated some of their chatter one
night to amuse me, and, believe me, Izzy Baermann started talking the
same language now. Only he didn't do it to amuse me.
He was like one of those gramophone records when it's getting into its
stride.
'Be calm, Isadore,' I said. 'Something is troubling you. Tell me all
about it.'
He clicked some more, and then he got it out.
'Say, are you crazy? What did you do it for? Didn't I tell you as plain
as I could; didn't I say it twenty times, when you came for the
tickets, that yours was thirty-six?'
'Didn't you say my friend's was thirty-six?'
'Are you deaf? I said hers was ten.'
'Then,' I said handsomely, 'say no more. The mistake was mine. It
begins to look as if I must have got them mixed.'
He did a few Swedish exercises.
'Say no more? That's good! That's great! You've got nerve. I'll say
that.'
'It was a lucky mistake, Izzy. It saved your life. The people would
have lynched you if you had given me the cup. They were solid for her.'
'What's the boss going to say when I tell him?'
'Never mind what the boss will say. Haven't you any romance in your
system, Izzy? Look at those two sitting there with their heads
together. Isn't it worth a silver cup to have made them happy for life?
They are on their honeymoon, Isadore. Tell the boss exactly how it
happened, and say that I thought it was up to Geisenheimer's to give
them a wedding-present.'
He clicked for a spell.
'Ah!' he said. 'Ah! now you've done it! Now you've given yourself away!
You did it on purpose. You mixed those tickets on purpose. I thought as
much. Say, who do you think you are, doing this sort of thing? Don't
you know that professional dancers are three for ten cents? I could go
out right now and whistle, and get a dozen girls for your job. The
boss'll sack you just one minute after I tell him.'
'No, he won't, Izzy, because I'm going to resign.'
'You'd better!'
'That's what I think. I'm sick of this place, Izzy. I'm sick of
dancing. I'm sick of New York. I'm sick of everything. I'm going back
to the country. I thought I had got the pigs and chickens clear out of
my system, but I hadn't. I've suspected it for a long, long time, and
tonight I know it. Tell the boss, with my love, that I'm sorry, but it
had to be done. And if he wants to talk back, he must do it by letter:
Mrs John Tyson, Rodney, Maine, is the address.'
THE MAKING OF MAC'S
Mac's Restaurant--nobody calls it MacFarland's--is a mystery. It is off
the beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It provides
nothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with all
these things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circles
especially it holds a position which might turn the white lights of
many a supper-palace green with envy.
This is mysterious. You do not expect Soho to compete with and even
eclipse Piccadilly in this way. And when Soho does so compete, there is
generally romance of some kind somewhere in the background.
Somebody happened to mention to me casually that Henry, the old waiter,
had been at Mac's since its foundation.
'Me?' said Henry, questioned during a slack spell in the afternoon.
'Rather!'
'Then can you tell me what it was that first gave the place the impetus
which started it on its upward course? What causes should you say were
responsible for its phenomenal prosperity? What--'
'What gave it a leg-up? Is that what you're trying to get at?'
'Exactly. What gave it a leg-up? Can you tell me?'
'Me?' said Henry. 'Rather!'
And he told me this chapter from the unwritten history of the London
whose day begins when Nature's finishes.
* * * * *
Old Mr MacFarland (_said Henry_) started the place fifteen years
ago. He was a widower with one son and what you might call half a
daughter. That's to say, he had adopted her. Katie was her name, and
she was the child of a dead friend of his. The son's name was Andy. A
little freckled nipper he was when I first knew him--one of those
silent kids that don't say much and have as much obstinacy in them as
if they were mules. Many's the time, in them days, I've clumped him on
the head and told him to do something; and he didn't run yelling to his
pa, same as most kids would have done, but just said nothing and went
on not doing whatever it was I had told him to do. That was the sort of
disposition Andy had, and it grew on him. Why, when he came back from
Oxford College the time the old man sent for him--what I'm going to
tell you about soon--he had a jaw on him like the ram of a battleship.
Katie was the kid for my money. I liked Katie. We all liked Katie.
Old MacFarland started out with two big advantages. One was Jules, and
the other was me. Jules came from Paris, and he was the greatest cook
you ever seen. And me--well, I was just come from ten years as waiter
at the Guelph, and I won't conceal it from you that I gave the place a
tone. I gave Soho something to think about over its chop, believe me.
It was a come-down in the world for me, maybe, after the Guelph, but
what I said to myself was that, when you get a tip in Soho, it may be
only tuppence, but you keep it; whereas at the Guelph about ninety-nine
hundredths of it goes to helping to maintain some blooming head waiter
in the style to which he has been accustomed. It was through my kind of
harping on that fact that me and the Guelph parted company. The head
waiter complained to the management the day I called him a fat-headed
vampire.
Well, what with me and what with Jules, MacFarland's--it wasn't Mac's
in them days--began to get a move on. Old MacFarland, who knew a good
man when he saw one and always treated me more like a brother than
anything else, used to say to me, 'Henry, if this keeps up, I'll be
able to send the boy to Oxford College'; until one day he changed it
to, 'Henry, I'm going to send the boy to Oxford College'; and next
year, sure enough, off he went.
Katie was sixteen then, and she had just been given the cashier job, as
a treat. She wanted to do something to help the old man, so he put her
on a high chair behind a wire cage with a hole in it, and she gave the
customers their change. And let me tell you, mister, that a man that
wasn't satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Jules
and then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have groused
at Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier every
day. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation in
the girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were.
And he told me to hop it. So I hopped it.
Katie was wild about dancing. Nobody knew it till later, but all this
while, it turned out, she was attending regular one of them schools.
That was where she went to in the afternoons, when we all thought she
was visiting girl friends. It all come out after, but she fooled us
then. Girls are like monkeys when it comes to artfulness. She called me
Uncle Bill, because she said the name Henry always reminded her of cold
mutton. If it had been young Andy that had said it I'd have clumped him
one; but he never said anything like that. Come to think of it, he
never said anything much at all. He just thought a heap without opening
his face.
So young Andy went off to college, and I said to him, 'Now then, you
young devil, you be a credit to us, or I'll fetch you a clip when you
come home.' And Katie said, 'Oh, Andy, I _shall_ miss you.' And
Andy didn't say nothing to me, and he didn't say nothing to Katie, but
he gave her a look, and later in the day I found her crying, and she
said she'd got toothache, and I went round the corner to the chemist's
and brought her something for it.
It was in the middle of Andy's second year at college that the old man
had the stroke which put him out of business. He went down under it as
if he'd been hit with an axe, and the doctor tells him he'll never be
able to leave his bed again.
So they sent for Andy, and he quit his college, and come back to London
to look after the restaurant.
I was sorry for the kid. I told him so in a fatherly kind of way. And
he just looked at me and says, 'Thanks very much, Henry.'
'What must be must be,' I says. 'Maybe, it's all for the best. Maybe
it's better you're here than in among all those young devils in your
Oxford school what might be leading you astray.'
'If you would think less of me and more of your work, Henry,' he says,
'perhaps that gentleman over there wouldn't have to shout sixteen times
for the waiter.'
Which, on looking into it, I found to be the case, and he went away
without giving me no tip, which shows what you lose in a hard world by
being sympathetic.
I'm bound to say that young Andy showed us all jolly quick that he
hadn't come home just to be an ornament about the place. There was
exactly one boss in the restaurant, and it was him. It come a little
hard at first to have to be respectful to a kid whose head you had
spent many a happy hour clumping for his own good in the past; but he
pretty soon showed me I could do it if I tried, and I done it. As for
Jules and the two young fellers that had been taken on to help me owing
to increase of business, they would jump through hoops and roll over if
he just looked at them. He was a boy who liked his own way, was Andy,
and, believe me, at MacFarland's Restaurant he got it.
And then, when things had settled down into a steady jog, Katie took
the bit in her teeth.
She done it quite quiet and unexpected one afternoon when there was
only me and her and Andy in the place. And I don't think either of them
knew I was there, for I was taking an easy on a chair at the back,
reading an evening paper.
She said, kind of quiet, 'Oh, Andy.'
'Yes, darling,' he said.
And that was the first I knew that there was anything between them.
'Andy, I've something to tell you.'
'What is it?'
She kind of hesitated.
'Andy, dear, I shan't be able to help any more in the restaurant.'
He looked at her, sort of surprised.
'What do you mean?'
'I'm--I'm going on the stage.'
I put down my paper. What do you mean? Did I listen? Of course I
listened. What do you take me for?
From where I sat I could see young Andy's face, and I didn't need any
more to tell me there was going to be trouble. That jaw of his was
right out. I forgot to tell you that the old man had died, poor old
feller, maybe six months before, so that now Andy was the real boss
instead of just acting boss; and what's more, in the nature of things,
he was, in a manner of speaking, Katie's guardian, with power to tell
her what she could do and what she couldn't. And I felt that Katie
wasn't going to have any smooth passage with this stage business which
she was giving him. Andy didn't hold with the stage--not with any girl
he was fond of being on it anyway. And when Andy didn't like a thing he
said so.
He said so now.
'You aren't going to do anything of the sort.'
'Don't be horrid about it, Andy dear. I've got a big chance. Why should
you be horrid about it?'
'I'm not going to argue about it. You don't go.'
'But it's such a big chance. And I've been working for it for years.'
'How do you mean working for it?'
And then it came out about this dancing-school she'd been attending
regular.
When she'd finished telling him about it, he just shoved out his jaw
another inch.
'You aren't going on the stage.'
'But it's such a chance. I saw Mr Mandelbaum yesterday, and he saw me
dance, and he was very pleased, and said he would give me a solo dance
to do in this new piece he's putting on.'
'You aren't going on the stage.'
What I always say is, you can't beat tact. If you're smooth and tactful
you can get folks to do anything you want; but if you just shove your
jaw out at them, and order them about, why, then they get their backs
up and sauce you. I knew Katie well enough to know that she would do
anything for Andy, if he asked her properly; but she wasn't going to
stand this sort of thing. But you couldn't drive that into the head of
a feller like young Andy with a steam-hammer.
She flared up, quick, as if she couldn't hold herself in no longer.
'I certainly am,' she said.
'You know what it means?'
'What does it mean?'
'The end of--everything.'
She kind of blinked as if he'd hit her, then she chucks her chin up.
'Very well,' she says. 'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye,' says Andy, the pig-headed young mule; and she walks out one
way and he walks out another.
* * * * *
I don't follow the drama much as a general rule, but seeing that it was
now, so to speak, in the family, I did keep an eye open for the
newspaper notices of 'The Rose Girl', which was the name of the piece
which Mr Mandelbaum was letting Katie do a solo dance in; and while
some of them cussed the play considerable, they all gave Katie a nice
word. One feller said that she was like cold water on the morning
after, which is high praise coming from a newspaper man.
There wasn't a doubt about it. She was a success. You see, she was
something new, and London always sits up and takes notice when you give
it that.
There were pictures of her in the papers, and one evening paper had a
piece about 'How I Preserve My Youth' signed by her. I cut it out and
showed it to Andy.
He gave it a look. Then he gave me a look, and I didn't like his eye.
'Well?' he says.
'Pardon,' I says.
'What about it?' he says.
'I don't know,' I says.
'Get back to your work,' he says.
So I got back.
It was that same night that the queer thing happened.
We didn't do much in the supper line at MacFarland's as a rule in them
days, but we kept open, of course, in case Soho should take it into its
head to treat itself to a welsh rabbit before going to bed; so all
hands was on deck, ready for the call if it should come, at half past
eleven that night; but we weren't what you might term sanguine.
Well, just on the half-hour, up drives a taxicab, and in comes a party
of four. There was a nut, another nut, a girl, and another girl. And
the second girl was Katie.
'Hallo, Uncle Bill!' she says.
'Good evening, madam,' I says dignified, being on duty.
'Oh, stop it, Uncle Bill,' she says. 'Say "Hallo!" to a pal, and smile
prettily, or I'll tell them about the time you went to the White City.'
Well, there's some bygones that are best left bygones, and the night at
the White City what she was alluding to was one of them. I still
maintain, as I always shall maintain, that the constable had no right
to--but, there, it's a story that wouldn't interest you. And, anyway,
I was glad to see Katie again, so I give her a smile.
'Not so much of it,' I says. 'Not so much of it. I'm glad to see you,
Katie.'
'Three cheers! Jimmy, I want to introduce you to my friend, Uncle Bill.
Ted, this is Uncle Bill. Violet, this is Uncle Bill.'
It wasn't my place to fetch her one on the side of the head, but I'd of
liked to have; for she was acting like she'd never used to act when I
knew her--all tough and bold. Then it come to me that she was nervous.
And natural, too, seeing young Andy might pop out any moment.
And sure enough out he popped from the back room at that very instant.
Katie looked at him, and he looked at Katie, and I seen his face get
kind of hard; but he didn't say a word. And presently he went out
again.
I heard Katie breathe sort of deep.
'He's looking well, Uncle Bill, ain't he?' she says to me, very soft.
'Pretty fair,' I says. 'Well, kid, I been reading the pieces in the
papers. You've knocked 'em.'
'Ah, don't Bill,' she says, as if I'd hurt her. And me meaning only to
say the civil thing. Girls are rum.
When the party had paid their bill and give me a tip which made me
think I was back at the Guelph again--only there weren't any Dick
Turpin of a head waiter standing by for his share--they hopped it. But
Katie hung back and had a word with me.
'He _was_ looking well, wasn't he, Uncle Bill?'
'Rather!'
'Does--does he ever speak of me?'
'I ain't heard him.'
'I suppose he's still pretty angry with me, isn't he, Uncle Bill?
You're sure you've never heard him speak of me?'
So, to cheer her up, I tells her about the piece in the paper I showed
him; but it didn't seem to cheer her up any. And she goes out.
The very next night in she come again for supper, but with different
nuts and different girls. There was six of them this time, counting
her. And they'd hardly sat down at their table, when in come the
fellers she had called Jimmy and Ted with two girls. And they sat
eating of their suppers and chaffing one another across the floor, all
as pleasant and sociable as you please.
'I say, Katie,' I heard one of the nuts say, 'you were right. He's
worth the price of admission.'
I don't know who they meant, but they all laughed. And every now and
again I'd hear them praising the food, which I don't wonder at, for
Jules had certainly done himself proud. All artistic temperament, these
Frenchmen are. The moment I told him we had company, so to speak, he
blossomed like a flower does when you put it in water.
'Ah, see, at last!' he says, trying to grab me and kiss me. 'Our fame
has gone abroad in the world which amuses himself, ain't it? For a good
supper connexion I have always prayed, and he has arrived.'
Well, it did begin to look as if he was right. Ten high-class
supper-folk in an evening was pretty hot stuff for MacFarland's. I'm
bound to say I got excited myself. I can't deny that I missed the
Guelph at times.
On the fifth night, when the place was fairly packed and looked for all
the world like Oddy's or Romano's, and me and the two young fellers
helping me was working double tides, I suddenly understood, and I went
up to Katie and, bending over her very respectful with a bottle, I
whispers, 'Hot stuff, kid. This is a jolly fine boom you're working for
the old place.' And by the way she smiled back at me, I seen I had
guessed right.
Andy was hanging round, keeping an eye on things, as he always done,
and I says to him, when I was passing, 'She's doing us proud, bucking
up the old place, ain't she?' And he says, 'Get on with your work.' And
I got on.
Katie hung back at the door, when she was on her way out, and had a
word with me.
'Has he said anything about me, Uncle Bill?'
'Not a word,' I says.
And she goes out.
You've probably noticed about London, mister, that a flock of sheep
isn't in it with the nuts, the way they all troop on each other's heels
to supper-places. One month they're all going to one place, next month
to another. Someone in the push starts the cry that he's found a new
place, and off they all go to try it. The trouble with most of the
places is that once they've got the custom they think it's going to
keep on coming and all they've got to do is to lean back and watch it
come. Popularity comes in at the door, and good food and good service
flies out at the window. We wasn't going to have any of that at
MacFarland's. Even if it hadn't been that Andy would have come down
like half a ton of bricks on the first sign of slackness, Jules and me
both of us had our professional reputations to keep up. I didn't give
myself no airs when I seen things coming our way. I worked all the
harder, and I seen to it that the four young fellers under me--there
was four now--didn't lose no time fetching of the orders.
The consequence was that the difference between us and most popular
restaurants was that we kept our popularity. We fed them well, and we
served them well; and once the thing had started rolling it didn't
stop. Soho isn't so very far away from the centre of things, when you
come to look at it, and they didn't mind the extra step, seeing that
there was something good at the end of it. So we got our popularity,
and we kept our popularity; and we've got it to this day. That's how
MacFarland's came to be what it is, mister.
* * * * *
With the air of one who has told a well-rounded tale, Henry ceased, and
observed that it was wonderful the way Mr Woodward, of Chelsea,
preserved his skill in spite of his advanced years.
I stared at him.
'But, heavens, man!' I cried, 'you surely don't think you've finished?
What about Katie and Andy? What happened to them? Did they ever come
together again?'
'Oh, ah,' said Henry, 'I was forgetting!'
And he resumed.
* * * * *
As time went on, I begin to get pretty fed up with young Andy. He was
making a fortune as fast as any feller could out of the sudden boom in
the supper-custom, and he knowing perfectly well that if it hadn't of
been for Katie there wouldn't of been any supper-custom at all; and
you'd of thought that anyone claiming to be a human being would have
had the gratitood to forgive and forget and go over and say a civil
word to Katie when she come in. But no, he just hung round looking
black at all of them; and one night he goes and fairly does it.
The place was full that night, and Katie was there, and the piano
going, and everybody enjoying themselves, when the young feller at the
piano struck up the tune what Katie danced to in the show. Catchy tune
it was. 'Lum-tum-tum, tiddle-iddle-um.' Something like that it went.
Well, the young feller struck up with it, and everybody begin clapping
and hammering on the tables and hollering to Katie to get up and dance;
which she done, in an open space in the middle, and she hadn't hardly
started when along come young Andy.
He goes up to her, all jaw, and I seen something that wanted dusting on
the table next to 'em, so I went up and began dusting it, so by good
luck I happened to hear the whole thing.
He says to her, very quiet, 'You can't do that here. What do you think
this place is?'
And she says to him, 'Oh, Andy!'
'I'm very much obliged to you,' he says, 'for all the trouble you
seem to be taking, but it isn't necessary. MacFarland's got on very
well before your well-meant efforts to turn it into a bear-garden.'
And him coining the money from the supper-custom! Sometimes I
think gratitood's a thing of the past and this world not fit for
a self-respecting rattlesnake to live in.
'Andy!' she says.
'That's all. We needn't argue about it. If you want to come here and
have supper, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to have the place
turned into a night-club.'
I don't know when I've heard anything like it. If it hadn't of been
that I hadn't of got the nerve, I'd have give him a look.
Katie didn't say another word, but just went back to her table.
But the episode, as they say, wasn't conclooded. As soon as the party
she was with seen that she was through dancing, they begin to kick up a
row; and one young nut with about an inch and a quarter of forehead and
the same amount of chin kicked it up especial.
'No, I say! I say, you know!' he hollered. 'That's too bad, you know.
Encore! Don't stop. Encore!'
Andy goes up to him.
'I must ask you, please, not to make so much noise,' he says, quite
respectful. 'You are disturbing people.'
'Disturbing be damned! Why shouldn't she--'
'One moment. You can make all the noise you please out in the street,
but as long as you stay in here you'll be quiet. Do you understand?'
Up jumps the nut. He'd had quite enough to drink. I know, because I'd
been serving him.
'Who the devil are you?' he says.
'Sit down,' says Andy.
And the young feller took a smack at him. And the next moment Andy had
him by the collar and was chucking him out in a way that would have
done credit to a real professional down Whitechapel way. He dumped him
on the pavement as neat as you please.
That broke up the party.
You can never tell with restaurants. What kills one makes another. I've
no doubt that if we had chucked out a good customer from the Guelph
that would have been the end of the place. But it only seemed to do
MacFarland's good. I guess it gave just that touch to the place which
made the nuts think that this was real Bohemia. Come to think of it, it
does give a kind of charm to a place, if you feel that at any moment
the feller at the next table to you may be gathered up by the slack of
his trousers and slung into the street.
Anyhow, that's the way our supper-custom seemed to look at it; and
after that you had to book a table in advance if you wanted to eat with
us. They fairly flocked to the place.
But Katie didn't. She didn't flock. She stayed away. And no wonder,
after Andy behaving so bad. I'd of spoke to him about it, only he
wasn't the kind of feller you do speak to about things.
One day I says to him to cheer him up, 'What price this restaurant now,
Mr Andy?'
'Curse the restaurant,' he says.
And him with all that supper-custom! It's a rum world!
Mister, have you ever had a real shock--something that came out of
nowhere and just knocked you flat? I have, and I'm going to tell you
about it.
When a man gets to be my age, and has a job of work which keeps him
busy till it's time for him to go to bed, he gets into the habit of not
doing much worrying about anything that ain't shoved right under his
nose. That's why, about now, Katie had kind of slipped my mind. It
wasn't that I wasn't fond of the kid, but I'd got so much to think
about, what with having four young fellers under me and things being in
such a rush at the restaurant that, if I thought of her at all, I just
took it for granted that she was getting along all right, and didn't
bother. To be sure we hadn't seen nothing of her at MacFarland's since
the night when Andy bounced her pal with the small size in foreheads,
but that didn't worry me. If I'd been her, I'd have stopped away the
same as she done, seeing that young Andy still had his hump. I took it
for granted, as I'm telling you, that she was all right, and that the
reason we didn't see nothing of her was that she was taking her
patronage elsewhere.
And then, one evening, which happened to be my evening off, I got a
letter, and for ten minutes after I read it I was knocked flat.
You get to believe in fate when you get to be my age, and fate certainly
had taken a hand in this game. If it hadn't of been my evening off,
don't you see, I wouldn't have got home till one o'clock or past that
in the morning, being on duty. Whereas, seeing it was my evening off,
I was back at half past eight.
I was living at the same boarding-house in Bloomsbury what I'd lived at
for the past ten years, and when I got there I find her letter shoved
half under my door.
I can tell you every word of it. This is how it went:
_Darling Uncle Bill,_
_Don't be too sorry when you read this. It is nobody's fault,
but I am just tired of everything, and I want to end it all. You
have been such a dear to me always that I want you to be good to
me now. I should not like Andy to know the truth, so I want you
to make it seem as if it had happened naturally. You will do this
for me, won't you? It will be quite easy. By the time you get this,
it will be one, and it will all be over, and you can just come up
and open the window and let the gas out and then everyone will
think I just died naturally. It will be quite easy. I am leaving
the door unlocked so that you can get in. I am in the room just
above yours. I took it yesterday, so as to be near you. Good-bye,
Uncle Bill. You will do it for me, won't you? I don't want Andy to
know what it really was._
KATIE
That was it, mister, and I tell you it floored me. And then it come to
me, kind of as a new idea, that I'd best do something pretty soon, and
up the stairs I went quick.
There she was, on the bed, with her eyes closed, and the gas just
beginning to get bad.
As I come in, she jumped up, and stood staring at me. I went to the
tap, and turned the flow off, and then I gives her a look.
'Now then,' I says.
'How did you get here?'
'Never mind how I got here. What have you got to say for yourself?'
She just began to cry, same as she used to when she was a kid and
someone had hurt her.
'Here,' I says, 'let's get along out of here, and go where there's some
air to breathe. Don't you take on so. You come along out and tell me
all about it.'
She started to walk to where I was, and suddenly I seen she was
limping. So I gave her a hand down to my room, and set her on a chair.
'Now then,' I says again.
'Don't be angry with me, Uncle Bill,' she says.
And she looks at me so pitiful that I goes up to her and puts my arm
round her and pats her on the back.
'Don't you worry, dearie,' I says, 'nobody ain't going to be angry with
you. But, for goodness' sake,' I says, 'tell a man why in the name of
goodness you ever took and acted so foolish.'
'I wanted to end it all.'
'But why?'
She burst out a-crying again, like a kid.
'Didn't you read about it in the paper, Uncle Bill?'
'Read about what in the paper?'
'My accident. I broke my ankle at rehearsal ever so long ago, practising
my new dance. The doctors say it will never be right again. I shall
never be able to dance any more. I shall always limp. I shan't even be
able to walk properly. And when I thought of that ... and Andy ... and
everything ... I....'
I got on to my feet.
'Well, well, well,' I says. 'Well, well, well! I don't know as I blame
you. But don't you do it. It's a mug's game. Look here, if I leave you
alone for half an hour, you won't go trying it on again? Promise.'
'Very well, Uncle Bill. Where are you going?'
'Oh, just out. I'll be back soon. You sit there and rest yourself.'
It didn't take me ten minutes to get to the restaurant in a cab. I
found Andy in the back room.
'What's the matter, Henry?' he says.
'Take a look at this,' I says.
There's always this risk, mister, in being the Andy type of feller what
must have his own way and goes straight ahead and has it; and that is
that when trouble does come to him, it comes with a rush. It sometimes
seems to me that in this life we've all got to have trouble sooner or
later, and some of us gets it bit by bit, spread out thin, so to speak,
and a few of us gets it in a lump--_biff_! And that was what
happened to Andy, and what I knew was going to happen when I showed him
that letter. I nearly says to him, 'Brace up, young feller, because
this is where you get it.'
I don't often go to the theatre, but when I do I like one of those
plays with some ginger in them which the papers generally cuss. The
papers say that real human beings don't carry on in that way. Take it
from me, mister, they do. I seen a feller on the stage read a letter
once which didn't just suit him; and he gasped and rolled his eyes and
tried to say something and couldn't, and had to get a hold on a chair
to keep him from falling. There was a piece in the paper saying that
this was all wrong, and that he wouldn't of done them things in real
life. Believe me, the paper was wrong. There wasn't a thing that feller
did that Andy didn't do when he read that letter.
'God!' he says. 'Is she ... She isn't.... Were you in time?' he says.
And he looks at me, and I seen that he had got it in the neck, right
enough.
'If you mean is she dead,' I says, 'no, she ain't dead.'
'Thank God!'
'Not yet,' I says.
And the next moment we was out of that room and in the cab and moving
quick.
He was never much of a talker, wasn't Andy, and he didn't chat in that
cab. He didn't say a word till we was going up the stairs.
'Where?' he says.
'Here,' I says.
And I opens the door.
Katie was standing looking out of the window. She turned as the door
opened, and then she saw Andy. Her lips parted, as if she was going to
say something, but she didn't say nothing. And Andy, he didn't say
nothing, neither. He just looked, and she just looked.
And then he sort of stumbles across the room, and goes down on his
knees, and gets his arms around her.
'Oh, my kid' he says.
* * * * *
And I seen I wasn't wanted, so I shut the door, and I hopped it. I went
and saw the last half of a music-hall. But, I don't know, it didn't
kind of have no fascination for me. You've got to give your mind to it
to appreciate good music-hall turns.
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE
The feelings of Mr J. Wilmot Birdsey, as he stood wedged in the crowd
that moved inch by inch towards the gates of the Chelsea Football
Ground, rather resembled those of a starving man who has just been
given a meal but realizes that he is not likely to get another for many
days. He was full and happy. He bubbled over with the joy of living and
a warm affection for his fellow-man. At the back of his mind there
lurked the black shadow of future privations, but for the moment he did
not allow it to disturb him. On this maddest, merriest day of all the
glad New Year he was content to revel in the present and allow the
future to take care of itself.
Mr Birdsey had been doing something which he had not done since he left
New York five years ago. He had been watching a game of baseball.
New York lost a great baseball fan when Hugo Percy de Wynter
Framlinghame, sixth Earl of Carricksteed, married Mae Elinor, only
daughter of Mr and Mrs J. Wilmot Birdsey of East Seventy-Third Street;
for scarcely had that internationally important event taken place when
Mrs Birdsey, announcing that for the future the home would be in
England as near as possible to dear Mae and dear Hugo, scooped J.
Wilmot out of his comfortable morris chair as if he had been a clam,
corked him up in a swift taxicab, and decanted him into a Deck B
stateroom on the _Olympic_. And there he was, an exile.
Mr Birdsey submitted to the worst bit of kidnapping since the days of
the old press gang with that delightful amiability which made him so
popular among his fellows and such a cypher in his home. At an early
date in his married life his position had been clearly defined beyond
possibility of mistake. It was his business to make money, and, when
called upon, to jump through hoops and sham dead at the bidding of his
wife and daughter Mae. These duties he had been performing
conscientiously for a matter of twenty years.
It was only occasionally that his humble role jarred upon him, for he
loved his wife and idolized his daughter. The international alliance
had been one of these occasions. He had no objection to Hugo Percy,
sixth Earl of Carricksteed. The crushing blow had been the sentence of
exile. He loved baseball with a love passing the love of women, and the
prospect of never seeing a game again in his life appalled him.
And then, one morning, like a voice from another world, had come the
news that the White Sox and the Giants were to give an exhibition in
London at the Chelsea Football Ground. He had counted the days like a
child before Christmas.
There had been obstacles to overcome before he could attend the game,
but he had overcome them, and had been seated in the front row when the
two teams lined up before King George.
And now he was moving slowly from the ground with the rest of the
spectators. Fate had been very good to him. It had given him a great
game, even unto two home-runs. But its crowning benevolence had been to
allot the seats on either side of him to two men of his own mettle, two
god-like beings who knew every move on the board, and howled like
wolves when they did not see eye to eye with the umpire. Long before
the ninth innings he was feeling towards them the affection of a
shipwrecked mariner who meets a couple of boyhood's chums on a desert
island.
As he shouldered his way towards the gate he was aware of these two
men, one on either side of him. He looked at them fondly, trying to
make up his mind which of them he liked best. It was sad to think that
they must soon go out of his life again for ever.
He came to a sudden resolution. He would postpone the parting. He would
ask them to dinner. Over the best that the Savoy Hotel could provide
they would fight the afternoon's battle over again. He did not know who
they were or anything about them, but what did that matter? They were
brother-fans. That was enough for him.
The man on his right was young, clean-shaven, and of a somewhat
vulturine cast of countenance. His face was cold and impassive now,
almost forbiddingly so; but only half an hour before it had been a
battle-field of conflicting emotions, and his hat still showed the dent
where he had banged it against the edge of his seat on the occasion of
Mr Daly's home-run. A worthy guest!
The man on Mr Birdsey's left belonged to another species of fan. Though
there had been times during the game when he had howled, for the most
part he had watched in silence so hungrily tense that a less
experienced observer than Mr Birdsey might have attributed his
immobility to boredom. But one glance at his set jaw and gleaming eyes
told him that here also was a man and a brother.
This man's eyes were still gleaming, and under their curiously deep tan
his bearded cheeks were pale. He was staring straight in front of him
with an unseeing gaze.
Mr Birdsey tapped the young man on the shoulder.
'Some game!' he said.
The young man looked at him and smiled.
'You bet,' he said.
'I haven't seen a ball-game in five years.'
'The last one I saw was two years ago next June.'
'Come and have some dinner at my hotel and talk it over,' said Mr
Birdsey impulsively.
'Sure!' said the young man.
Mr Birdsey turned and tapped the shoulder of the man on his left.
The result was a little unexpected. The man gave a start that was
almost a leap, and the pallor of his face became a sickly white. His
eyes, as he swung round, met Mr Birdsey's for an instant before they
dropped, and there was panic fear in them. His breath whistled softly
through clenched teeth.
Mr Birdsey was taken aback. The cordiality of the clean-shaven young
man had not prepared him for the possibility of such a reception. He
felt chilled. He was on the point of apologizing with some murmur about
a mistake, when the man reassured him by smiling. It was rather a
painful smile, but it was enough for Mr Birdsey. This man might be of a
nervous temperament, but his heart was in the right place.
He, too, smiled. He was a small, stout, red-faced little man, and he
possessed a smile that rarely failed to set strangers at their ease.
Many strenuous years on the New York Stock Exchange had not destroyed a
certain childlike amiability in Mr Birdsey, and it shone out when he
smiled at you.
'I'm afraid I startled you,' he said soothingly. 'I wanted to ask you
if you would let a perfect stranger, who also happens to be an exile,
offer you dinner tonight.'
The man winced. 'Exile?'
'An exiled fan. Don't you feel that the Polo Grounds are a good long
way away? This gentleman is joining me. I have a suite at the Savoy
Hotel, and I thought we might all have a quiet little dinner there and
talk about the game. I haven't seen a ball-game in five years.'
'Nor have I.'
'Then you must come. You really must. We fans ought to stick to one
another in a strange land. Do come.'
'Thank you,' said the bearded man; 'I will.'
When three men, all strangers, sit down to dinner together,
conversation, even if they happen to have a mutual passion for
baseball, is apt to be for a while a little difficult. The first fine
frenzy in which Mr Birdsey had issued his invitations had begun to ebb
by the time the soup was served, and he was conscious of a feeling of
embarrassment.
There was some subtle hitch in the orderly progress of affairs. He
sensed it in the air. Both of his guests were disposed to silence, and
the clean-shaven young man had developed a trick of staring at the man
with the beard, which was obviously distressing that sensitive person.
'Wine,' murmured Mr Birdsey to the waiter. 'Wine, wine!'
He spoke with the earnestness of a general calling up his reserves for
the grand attack. The success of this little dinner mattered enormously
to him. There were circumstances which were going to make it an oasis
in his life. He wanted it to be an occasion to which, in grey days to
come, he could look back and be consoled. He could not let it be a
failure.
He was about to speak when the young man anticipated him. Leaning
forward, he addressed the bearded man, who was crumbling bread with an
absent look in his eyes.
'Surely we have met before?' he said. 'I'm sure I remember your face.'
The effect of these words on the other was as curious as the effect of
Mr Birdsey's tap on the shoulder had been. He looked up like a hunted
animal.
He shook his head without speaking.
'Curious,' said the young man. 'I could have sworn to it, and I am
positive that it was somewhere in New York. Do you come from New York?'
'Yes.'
'It seems to me,' said Mr Birdsey, 'that we ought to introduce
ourselves. Funny it didn't strike any of us before. My name is Birdsey,
J. Wilmot Birdsey. I come from New York.'
'My name is Waterall,' said the young man. 'I come from New York.'
The bearded man hesitated.
'My name is Johnson. I--used to live in New York.'
'Where do you live now, Mr Johnson?' asked Waterall.
The bearded man hesitated again. 'Algiers,' he said.
Mr Birdsey was inspired to help matters along with small-talk.
'Algiers,' he said. 'I have never been there, but I understand that it
is quite a place. Are you in business there, Mr Johnson?'
'I live there for my health.'
'Have you been there some time?' inquired Waterall.
'Five years.'
'Then it must have been in New York that I saw you, for I have never
been to Algiers, and I'm certain I have seen you somewhere. I'm afraid
you will think me a bore for sticking to the point like this, but the
fact is, the one thing I pride myself on is my memory for faces. It's a
hobby of mine. If I think I remember a face, and can't place it, I
worry myself into insomnia. It's partly sheer vanity, and partly
because in my job a good memory for faces is a mighty fine asset. It
has helped me a hundred times.'
Mr Birdsey was an intelligent man, and he could see that Waterall's
table-talk was for some reason getting upon Johnson's nerves. Like a
good host, he endeavoured to cut in and make things smooth.
'I've heard great accounts of Algiers,' he said helpfully. 'A friend of
mine was there in his yacht last year. It must be a delightful spot.'
'It's a hell on earth,' snapped Johnson, and slew the conversation on
the spot.
Through a grim silence an angel in human form fluttered in--a waiter
bearing a bottle. The pop of the cork was more than music to Mr
Birdsey's ears. It was the booming of the guns of the relieving army.
The first glass, as first glasses will, thawed the bearded man, to the
extent of inducing him to try and pick up the fragments of the
conversation which he had shattered.
'I am afraid you will have thought me abrupt, Mr Birdsey,' he said
awkwardly; 'but then you haven't lived in Algiers for five years, and I
have.'
Mr Birdsey chirruped sympathetically.
'I liked it at first. It looked mighty good to me. But five years of it,
and nothing else to look forward to till you die....'
He stopped, and emptied his glass. Mr Birdsey was still perturbed.
True, conversation was proceeding in a sort of way, but it had taken a
distinctly gloomy turn. Slightly flushed with the excellent champagne
which he had selected for this important dinner, he endeavoured to
lighten it.
'I wonder,' he said, 'which of us three fans had the greatest
difficulty in getting to the bleachers today. I guess none of us found
it too easy.'
The young man shook his head.
'Don't count on me to contribute a romantic story to this Arabian
Night's Entertainment. My difficulty would have been to stop away. My
name's Waterall, and I'm the London correspondent of the _New York
Chronicle_. I had to be there this afternoon in the way of
business.'
Mr Birdsey giggled self-consciously, but not without a certain impish
pride.
'The laugh will be on me when you hear my confession. My daughter
married an English earl, and my wife brought me over here to mix with
his crowd. There was a big dinner-party tonight, at which the whole
gang were to be present, and it was as much as my life was worth to
side-step it. But when you get the Giants and the White Sox playing
ball within fifty miles of you--Well, I packed a grip and sneaked out
the back way, and got to the station and caught the fast train to
London. And what is going on back there at this moment I don't like to
think. About now,' said Mr Birdsey, looking at his watch, 'I guess
they'll be pronging the _hors d'oeuvres_ and gazing at the empty
chair. It was a shame to do it, but, for the love of Mike, what else
could I have done?'
He looked at the bearded man.
'Did you have any adventures, Mr Johnson?'
'No. I--I just came.'
The young man Waterall leaned forward. His manner was quiet, but his
eyes were glittering.
'Wasn't that enough of an adventure for you?' he said.
Their eyes met across the table. Seated between them, Mr Birdsey looked
from one to the other, vaguely disturbed. Something was happening, a
drama was going on, and he had not the key to it.
Johnson's face was pale, and the tablecloth crumpled into a crooked
ridge under his fingers, but his voice was steady as he replied:
'I don't understand.'
'Will you understand if I give you your right name, Mr Benyon?'
'What's all this?' said Mr Birdsey feebly.
Waterall turned to him, the vulturine cast of his face more noticeable
than ever. Mr Birdsey was conscious of a sudden distaste for this young
man.
'It's quite simple, Mr Birdsey. If you have not been entertaining
angels unawares, you have at least been giving a dinner to a celebrity.
I told you I was sure I had seen this gentleman before. I have just
remembered where, and when. This is Mr John Benyon, and I last saw him
five years ago when I was a reporter in New York, and covered his
trial.'
'His trial?'
'He robbed the New Asiatic Bank of a hundred thousand dollars, jumped
his bail, and was never heard of again.'
'For the love of Mike!'
Mr Birdsey stared at his guest with eyes that grew momently wider. He
was amazed to find that deep down in him there was an unmistakable
feeling of elation. He had made up his mind, when he left home that
morning, that this was to be a day of days. Well, nobody could call
this an anti-climax.
'So that's why you have been living in Algiers?'
Benyon did not reply. Outside, the Strand traffic sent a faint murmur
into the warm, comfortable room.
Waterall spoke. 'What on earth induced you, Benyon, to run the risk of
coming to London, where every second man you meet is a New Yorker, I
can't understand. The chances were two to one that you would be
recognized. You made a pretty big splash with that little affair of
yours five years ago.'
Benyon raised his head. His hands were trembling.
'I'll tell you,' he said with a kind of savage force, which hurt kindly
little Mr Birdsey like a blow. 'It was because I was a dead man, and
saw a chance of coming to life for a day; because I was sick of the
damned tomb I've been living in for five centuries; because I've been
aching for New York ever since I've left it--and here was a chance of
being back there for a few hours. I knew there was a risk. I took a
chance on it. Well?'
Mr Birdsey's heart was almost too full for words. He had found him at
last, the Super-Fan, the man who would go through fire and water for a
sight of a game of baseball. Till that moment he had been regarding
himself as the nearest approach to that dizzy eminence. He had braved
great perils to see this game. Even in this moment his mind would not
wholly detach itself from speculation as to what his wife would say to
him when he slunk back into the fold. But what had he risked compared
with this man Benyon? Mr Birdsey glowed. He could not restrain his
sympathy and admiration. True, the man was a criminal. He had robbed a
bank of a hundred thousand dollars. But, after all, what was that? They
would probably have wasted the money in foolishness. And, anyway, a
bank which couldn't take care of its money deserved to lose it.
Mr Birdsey felt almost a righteous glow of indignation against the New
Asiatic Bank.
He broke the silence which had followed Benyon's words with a
peculiarly immoral remark:
'Well, it's lucky it's only us that's recognized you,' he said.
Waterall stared. 'Are you proposing that we should hush this thing up,
Mr Birdsey?' he said coldly.
'Oh, well--'
Waterall rose and went to the telephone.
'What are you going to do?'
'Call up Scotland Yard, of course. What did you think?'
Undoubtedly the young man was doing his duty as a citizen, yet it is to
be recorded that Mr Birdsey eyed him with unmixed horror.
'You can't! You mustn't!' he cried.
'I certainly shall.'
'But--but--this fellow came all that way to see the ball-game.'
It seemed incredible to Mr Birdsey that this aspect of the affair
should not be the one to strike everybody to the exclusion of all other
aspects.
'You can't give him up. It's too raw.'
'He's a convicted criminal.'
'He's a fan. Why, say, he's _the_ fan.'
Waterall shrugged his shoulders, and walked to the telephone. Benyon
spoke.
'One moment.'
Waterall turned, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a small
pistol. He laughed.
'I expected that. Wave it about all you want.'
Benyon rested his shaking hand on the edge of the table.
'I'll shoot if you move.'
'You won't. You haven't the nerve. There's nothing to you. You're just
a cheap crook, and that's all. You wouldn't find the nerve to pull that
trigger in a million years.'
He took off the receiver.
'Give me Scotland Yard,' he said.
He had turned his back to Benyon. Benyon sat motionless. Then, with a
thud, the pistol fell to the ground. The next moment Benyon had broken
down. His face was buried in his arms, and he was a wreck of a man,
sobbing like a hurt child.
Mr Birdsey was profoundly distressed. He sat tingling and helpless.
This was a nightmare.
Waterall's level voice spoke at the telephone.
'Is this Scotland Yard? I am Waterall, of the _New York
Chronicle_. Is Inspector Jarvis there? Ask him to come to the
phone.... Is that you, Jarvis? This is Waterall. I'm speaking from the
Savoy, Mr Birdsey's rooms. Birdsey. Listen, Jarvis. There's a man here
that's wanted by the American police. Send someone here and get him.
Benyon. Robbed the New Asiatic Bank in New York. Yes, you've a warrant
out for him, five years old.... All right.'
He hung up the receiver. Benyon sprang to his feet. He stood, shaking,
a pitiable sight. Mr Birdsey had risen with him. They stood looking at
Waterall.
'You--skunk!' said Mr Birdsey.
'I'm an American citizen,' said Waterall, 'and I happen to have some
idea of a citizen's duties. What is more, I'm a newspaper man, and I
have some idea of my duty to my paper. Call me what you like, you won't
alter that.'
Mr Birdsey snorted.
'You're suffering from ingrowing sentimentality, Mr Birdsey. That's
what's the matter with you. Just because this man has escaped justice
for five years, you think he ought to be considered quit of the whole
thing.'
'But--but--'
'I don't.'
He took out his cigarette case. He was feeling a great deal more
strung-up and nervous than he would have had the others suspect. He had
had a moment of very swift thinking before he had decided to treat that
ugly little pistol in a spirit of contempt. Its production had given
him a decided shock, and now he was suffering from reaction. As a
consequence, because his nerves were strained, he lit his cigarette
very languidly, very carefully, and with an offensive superiority which
was to Mr Birdsey the last straw.
These things are matters of an instant. Only an infinitesimal fraction
of time elapsed between the spectacle of Mr Birdsey, indignant but
inactive, and Mr Birdsey berserk, seeing red, frankly and undisguisedly
running amok. The transformation took place in the space of time
required for the lighting of a match.
Even as the match gave out its flame, Mr Birdsey sprang.
Aeons before, when the young blood ran swiftly in his veins and life
was all before him, Mr Birdsey had played football. Once a footballer,
always a potential footballer, even to the grave. Time had removed the
flying tackle as a factor in Mr Birdsey's life. Wrath brought it back.
He dived at young Mr Waterall's neatly trousered legs as he had dived
at other legs, less neatly trousered, thirty years ago. They crashed to
the floor together; and with the crash came Mr Birdsey's shout:
'Run! Run, you fool! Run!'
And, even as he clung to his man, breathless, bruised, feeling as if
all the world had dissolved in one vast explosion of dynamite, the door
opened, banged to, and feet fled down the passage.
Mr Birdsey disentangled himself, and rose painfully. The shock had
brought him to himself. He was no longer berserk. He was a middle-aged
gentleman of high respectability who had been behaving in a very
peculiar way.
Waterall, flushed and dishevelled, glared at him speechlessly. He
gulped. 'Are you crazy?'
Mr Birdsey tested gingerly the mechanism of a leg which lay under
suspicion of being broken. Relieved, he put his foot to the ground
again. He shook his head at Waterall. He was slightly crumpled, but he
achieved a manner of dignified reproof.
'You shouldn't have done it, young man. It was raw work. Oh, yes, I
know all about that duty-of-a-citizen stuff. It doesn't go. There are
exceptions to every rule, and this was one of them. When a man risks
his liberty to come and root at a ball-game, you've got to hand it to
him. He isn't a crook. He's a fan. And we exiled fans have got to stick
together.'
Waterall was quivering with fury, disappointment, and the peculiar
unpleasantness of being treated by an elderly gentleman like a sack of
coals. He stammered with rage.
'You damned old fool, do you realize what you've done? The police will
be here in another minute.'
'Let them come.'
'But what am I to say to them? What explanation can I give? What story
can I tell them? Can't you see what a hole you've put me in?'
Something seemed to click inside Mr Birdsey's soul. It was the berserk
mood vanishing and reason leaping back on to her throne. He was able
now to think calmly, and what he thought about filled him with a sudden
gloom.
'Young man,' he said, 'don't worry yourself. You've got a cinch. You've
only got to hand a story to the police. Any old tale will do for them.
I'm the man with the really difficult job--I've got to square myself
with my wife!'
BLACK FOR LUCK
He was black, but comely. Obviously in reduced circumstances, he had
nevertheless contrived to retain a certain smartness, a certain
air--what the French call the _tournure_. Nor had poverty killed
in him the aristocrat's instinct of personal cleanliness; for even as
Elizabeth caught sight of him he began to wash himself.
At the sound of her step he looked up. He did not move, but there was
suspicion in his attitude. The muscles of his back contracted, his eyes
glowed like yellow lamps against black velvet, his tail switched a
little, warningly.
Elizabeth looked at him. He looked at Elizabeth. There was a pause,
while he summed her up. Then he stalked towards her, and, suddenly
lowering his head, drove it vigorously against her dress. He permitted
her to pick him up and carry him into the hall-way, where Francis, the
janitor, stood.
'Francis,' said Elizabeth, 'does this cat belong to anyone here?'
'No, miss. That cat's a stray, that cat is. I been trying to locate
that cat's owner for days.'
Francis spent his time trying to locate things. It was the one
recreation of his eventless life. Sometimes it was a noise, sometimes a
lost letter, sometimes a piece of ice which had gone astray in the
dumb-waiter--whatever it was, Francis tried to locate it.
'Has he been round here long, then?'
'I seen him snooping about a considerable time.'
'I shall keep him.'
'Black cats bring luck,' said Francis sententiously.
'I certainly shan't object to that,' said Elizabeth. She was feeling
that morning that a little luck would be a pleasing novelty. Things had
not been going very well with her of late. It was not so much that the
usual proportion of her manuscripts had come back with editorial
compliments from the magazine to which they had been sent--she accepted
that as part of the game; what she did consider scurvy treatment at the
hands of fate was the fact that her own pet magazine, the one to which
she had been accustomed to fly for refuge, almost sure of a
welcome--when coldly treated by all the others--had suddenly expired
with a low gurgle for want of public support. It was like losing a kind
and open-handed relative, and it made the addition of a black cat to
the household almost a necessity.
In her flat, the door closed, she watched her new ally with some
anxiety. He had behaved admirably on the journey upstairs, but she
would not have been surprised, though it would have pained her, if he
had now proceeded to try to escape through the ceiling. Cats were so
emotional. However, he remained calm, and, after padding silently about
the room for awhile, raised his head and uttered a crooning cry.
'That's right,' said Elizabeth, cordially. 'If you don't see what you
want, ask for it. The place is yours.'
She went to the ice-box, and produced milk and sardines. There was
nothing finicky or affected about her guest. He was a good trencherman,
and he did not care who knew it. He concentrated himself on the
restoration of his tissues with the purposeful air of one whose last
meal is a dim memory. Elizabeth, brooding over him like a Providence,
wrinkled her forehead in thought.
'Joseph,' she said at last, brightening; 'that's your name. Now settle
down, and start being a mascot.'
Joseph settled down amazingly. By the end of the second day he was
conveying the impression that he was the real owner of the apartment,
and that it was due to his good nature that Elizabeth was allowed the
run of the place. Like most of his species, he was an autocrat. He
waited a day to ascertain which was Elizabeth's favourite chair, then
appropriated it for his own. If Elizabeth closed a door while he was in
a room, he wanted it opened so that he might go out; if she closed it
while he was outside, he wanted it opened so that he might come in; if
she left it open, he fussed about the draught. But the best of us have
our faults, and Elizabeth adored him in spite of his.
It was astonishing what a difference he made in her life. She was a
friendly soul, and until Joseph's arrival she had had to depend for
company mainly on the footsteps of the man in the flat across the way.
Moreover, the building was an old one, and it creaked at night. There
was a loose board in the passage which made burglar noises in the dark
behind you when you stepped on it on the way to bed; and there were
funny scratching sounds which made you jump and hold your breath.
Joseph soon put a stop to all that. With Joseph around, a loose board
became a loose board, nothing more, and a scratching noise just a plain
scratching noise.
And then one afternoon he disappeared.
Having searched the flat without finding him, Elizabeth went to the
window, with the intention of making a bird's-eye survey of the street.
She was not hopeful, for she had just come from the street, and there
had been no sign of him then.
Outside the window was a broad ledge, running the width of the
building. It terminated on the left, in a shallow balcony belonging to
the flat whose front door faced hers--the flat of the young man whose
footsteps she sometimes heard. She knew he was a young man, because
Francis had told her so. His name, James Renshaw Boyd, she had learned
from the same source.
On this shallow balcony, licking his fur with the tip of a crimson
tongue and generally behaving as if he were in his own backyard, sat
Joseph.
'Jo-seph!' cried Elizabeth--surprise, joy, and reproach combining to
give her voice an almost melodramatic quiver.
He looked at her coldly. Worse, he looked at her as if she had been an
utter stranger. Bulging with her meat and drink, he cut her dead; and,
having done so, turned and walked into the next flat.
Elizabeth was a girl of spirit. Joseph might look at her as if she were
a saucerful of tainted milk, but he was her cat, and she meant to get
him back. She went out and rang the bell of Mr James Renshaw Boyd's
flat.
The door was opened by a shirt-sleeved young man. He was by no means an
unsightly young man. Indeed, of his type--the rough-haired,
clean-shaven, square-jawed type--he was a distinctly good-looking young
man. Even though she was regarding him at the moment purely in the
light of a machine for returning strayed cats, Elizabeth noticed that.
She smiled upon him. It was not the fault of this nice-looking young
man that his sitting-room window was open; or that Joseph was an
ungrateful little beast who should have no fish that night.
'Would you mind letting me have my cat, please?' she said pleasantly.
'He has gone into your sitting-room through the window.'
He looked faintly surprised.
'Your cat?'
'My black cat, Joseph. He is in your sitting-room.'
'I'm afraid you have come to the wrong place. I've just left my
sitting-room, and the only cat there is my black cat, Reginald.'
'But I saw Joseph go in only a minute ago.'
'That was Reginald.'
For the first time, as one who examining a fair shrub abruptly
discovers that it is a stinging-nettle, Elizabeth realized the truth.
This was no innocent young man who stood before her, but the blackest
criminal known to criminologists--a stealer of other people's cats. Her
manner shot down to zero.
'May I ask how long you have had your Reginald?'
'Since four o'clock this afternoon.'
'Did he come in through the window?'
'Why, yes. Now you mention it, he did.'
'I must ask you to be good enough to give me back my cat,' said
Elizabeth, icily.
He regarded her defensively.
'Assuming,' he said, 'purely for the purposes of academic argument,
that your Joseph is my Reginald, couldn't we come to an agreement of
some sort? Let me buy you another cat. A dozen cats.'
'I don't want a dozen cats. I want Joseph.'
'Fine, fat, soft cats,' he went on persuasively. 'Lovely, affectionate
Persians and Angoras, and--'
'Of course, if you intend to steal Joseph--'
'These are harsh words. Any lawyer will tell you that there are special
statutes regarding cats. To retain a stray cat is not a tort or a
misdemeanour. In the celebrated test-case of Wiggins _v_. Bluebody
it was established--'
'Will you please give me back my cat?'
She stood facing him, her chin in the air and her eyes shining, and the
young man suddenly fell a victim to conscience.
'Look here,' he said, 'I'll throw myself on your mercy. I admit the cat
is your cat, and that I have no right to it, and that I am just a
common sneak-thief. But consider. I had just come back from the first
rehearsal of my first play; and as I walked in at the door that cat
walked in at the window. I'm as superstitious as a coon, and I felt
that to give him up would be equivalent to killing the play before ever
it was produced. I know it will sound absurd to you. _You_ have no
idiotic superstitions. You are sane and practical. But, in the
circumstances, if you _could_ see your way to waiving your
rights--'
Before the wistfulness of his eye Elizabeth capitulated. She felt quite
overcome by the revulsion of feeling which swept through her. How she
had misjudged him! She had taken him for an ordinary soulless purloiner
of cats, a snapper-up of cats at random and without reason; and all the
time he had been reluctantly compelled to the act by this deep and
praiseworthy motive. All the unselfishness and love of sacrifice innate
in good women stirred within her.
'Why, of _course_ you mustn't let him go! It would mean awful bad
luck.'
'But how about you--'
'Never mind about me. Think of all the people who are dependent on your
play being a success.'
The young man blinked.
'This is overwhelming,' he said.
'I had no notion why you wanted him. He was nothing to me--at least,
nothing much--that is to say--well, I suppose I was rather fond of
him--but he was not--not--'
'Vital?'
'That's just the word I wanted. He was just company, you know.'
'Haven't you many friends?'
'I haven't any friends.'
'You haven't any friends! That settles it. You must take him back.'
'I couldn't think of it.'
'Of course you must take him back at once.'
'I really couldn't.'
'You must.'
'I won't.'
'But, good gracious, how do you suppose I should feel, knowing that you
were all alone and that I had sneaked your--your ewe lamb, as it were?'
'And how do you suppose I should feel if your play failed simply for
lack of a black cat?'
He started, and ran his fingers through his rough hair in an
overwrought manner.
'Solomon couldn't have solved this problem,' he said. 'How would it
be--it seems the only possible way out--if you were to retain a sort of
managerial right in him? Couldn't you sometimes step across and chat
with him--and me, incidentally--over here? I'm very nearly as lonesome
as you are. Chicago is my home. I hardly know a soul in New York.'
Her solitary life in the big city had forced upon Elizabeth the ability
to form instantaneous judgements on the men she met. She flashed a
glance at the young man and decided in his favour.
'It's very kind of you,' she said. 'I should love to. I want to hear
all about your play. I write myself, you know, in a very small way, so
a successful playwright is Someone to me.'
'I wish I were a successful playwright.'
'Well, you are having the first play you have ever written produced on
Broadway. That's pretty wonderful.'
''M--yes,' said the young man. It seemed to Elizabeth that he spoke
doubtfully, and this modesty consolidated the favourable impression she
had formed.
* * * * *
The gods are just. For every ill which they inflict they also supply a
compensation. It seems good to them that individuals in big cities
shall be lonely, but they have so arranged that, if one of these
individuals does at last contrive to seek out and form a friendship
with another, that friendship shall grow more swiftly than the tepid
acquaintanceships of those on whom the icy touch of loneliness has
never fallen. Within a week Elizabeth was feeling that she had known
this James Renshaw Boyd all her life.
And yet there was a tantalizing incompleteness about his personal
reminiscences. Elizabeth was one of those persons who like to begin a
friendship with a full statement of their position, their previous
life, and the causes which led up to their being in this particular
spot at this particular time. At their next meeting, before he had had
time to say much on his own account, she had told him of her life in
the small Canadian town where she had passed the early part of her
life; of the rich and unexpected aunt who had sent her to college for
no particular reason that anyone could ascertain except that she
enjoyed being unexpected; of the legacy from this same aunt, far
smaller than might have been hoped for, but sufficient to send a
grateful Elizabeth to New York, to try her luck there; of editors,
magazines, manuscripts refused or accepted, plots for stories; of life
in general, as lived down where the Arch spans Fifth Avenue and the
lighted cross of the Judson shines by night on Washington Square.
Ceasing eventually, she waited for him to begin; and he did not
begin--not, that is to say, in the sense the word conveyed to
Elizabeth. He spoke briefly of college, still more briefly of
Chicago--which city he appeared to regard with a distaste that made
Lot's attitude towards the Cities of the Plain almost kindly by
comparison. Then, as if he had fulfilled the demands of the most
exacting inquisitor in the matter of personal reminiscence, he began to
speak of the play.
The only facts concerning him to which Elizabeth could really have
sworn with a clear conscience at the end of the second week of their
acquaintance were that he was very poor, and that this play meant
everything to him.
The statement that it meant everything to him insinuated itself so
frequently into his conversation that it weighed on Elizabeth's mind
like a burden, and by degrees she found herself giving the play place
of honour in her thoughts over and above her own little ventures. With
this stupendous thing hanging in the balance, it seemed almost wicked
of her to devote a moment to wondering whether the editor of an evening
paper, who had half promised to give her the entrancing post of Adviser
to the Lovelorn on his journal, would fulfil that half-promise.
At an early stage in their friendship the young man had told her the
plot of the piece; and if he had not unfortunately forgotten several
important episodes and had to leap back to them across a gulf of one or
two acts, and if he had referred to his characters by name instead of
by such descriptions as 'the fellow who's in love with the girl--not
what's-his-name but the other chap'--she would no doubt have got that
mental half-Nelson on it which is such a help towards the proper
understanding of a four-act comedy. As it was, his precis had left her
a little vague; but she said it was perfectly splendid, and he said did
she really think so. And she said yes, she did, and they were both
happy.
Rehearsals seemed to prey on his spirits a good deal. He attended them
with the pathetic regularity of the young dramatist, but they appeared
to bring him little balm. Elizabeth generally found him steeped in
gloom, and then she would postpone the recital, to which she had been
looking forward, of whatever little triumph she might have happened to
win, and devote herself to the task of cheering him up. If women were
wonderful in no other way, they would be wonderful for their genius for
listening to shop instead of talking it.
Elizabeth was feeling more than a little proud of the way in which her
judgement of this young man was being justified. Life in Bohemian New
York had left her decidedly wary of strange young men, not formally
introduced; her faith in human nature had had to undergo much
straining. Wolves in sheep's clothing were common objects of the
wayside in her unprotected life; and perhaps her chief reason for
appreciating this friendship was the feeling of safety which it gave
her.
Their relations, she told herself, were so splendidly unsentimental.
There was no need for that silent defensiveness which had come to seem
almost an inevitable accompaniment to dealings with the opposite sex.
James Boyd, she felt, she could trust; and it was wonderful how
soothing the reflexion was.
And that was why, when the thing happened, it so shocked and frightened
her.
It had been one of their quiet evenings. Of late they had fallen into
the habit of sitting for long periods together without speaking. But it
had differed from other quiet evenings through the fact that
Elizabeth's silence hid a slight but well-defined feeling of injury.
Usually she sat happy with her thoughts, but tonight she was ruffled.
She had a grievance.
That afternoon the editor of the evening paper, whose angelic status
not even a bald head and an absence of wings and harp could conceal,
had definitely informed her that the man who had conducted the column
hitherto having resigned, the post of Heloise Milton, official adviser
to readers troubled with affairs of the heart, was hers; and he looked
to her to justify the daring experiment of letting a woman handle so
responsible a job. Imagine how Napoleon felt after Austerlitz, picture
Colonel Goethale contemplating the last spadeful of dirt from the
Panama Canal, try to visualize a suburban householder who sees a flower
emerging from the soil in which he has inserted a packet of guaranteed
seeds, and you will have some faint conception how Elizabeth felt as
those golden words proceeded from that editor's lips. For the moment
Ambition was sated. The years, rolling by, might perchance open out
other vistas; but for the moment she was content.
Into James Boyd's apartment she had walked, stepping on fleecy clouds
of rapture, to tell him the great news.
She told him the great news.
He said, 'Ah!'
There are many ways of saying 'Ah!' You can put joy, amazement, rapture
into it; you can also make it sound as if it were a reply to a remark
on the weather. James Boyd made it sound just like that. His hair was
rumpled, his brow contracted, and his manner absent. The impression he
gave Elizabeth was that he had barely heard her. The next moment he was
deep in a recital of the misdemeanours of the actors now rehearsing for
his four-act comedy. The star had done this, the leading woman that,
the juvenile something else. For the first time Elizabeth listened
unsympathetically.
The time came when speech failed James Boyd, and he sat back in his
chair, brooding. Elizabeth, cross and wounded, sat in hers, nursing
Joseph. And so, in a dim light, time flowed by.
Just how it happened she never knew. One moment, peace; the next chaos.
One moment stillness; the next, Joseph hurtling through the air, all
claws and expletives, and herself caught in a clasp which shook the
breath from her.
One can dimly reconstruct James's train of thought. He is in despair;
things are going badly at the theatre, and life has lost its savour.
His eye, as he sits, is caught by Elizabeth's profile. It is a
pretty--above all, a soothing--profile. An almost painful
sentimentality sweeps over James Boyd. There she sits, his only friend
in this cruel city. If you argue that there is no necessity to spring
at your only friend and nearly choke her, you argue soundly; the point
is well taken. But James Boyd was beyond the reach of sound argument.
Much rehearsing had frayed his nerves to ribbons. One may say that he
was not responsible for his actions.
That is the case for James. Elizabeth, naturally, was not in a position
to take a wide and understanding view of it. All she knew was that James
had played her false, abused her trust in him. For a moment, such was
the shock of the surprise, she was not conscious of indignation--or,
indeed, of any sensation except the purely physical one of
semi-strangulation. Then, flushed, and more bitterly angry than she
could ever have imagined herself capable of being, she began to
struggle. She tore herself away from him. Coming on top of her
grievance, this thing filled her with a sudden, very vivid hatred of
James. At the back of her anger, feeding it, was the humiliating
thought that it was all her own fault, that by her presence there she
had invited this.
She groped her way to the door. Something was writhing and struggling
inside her, blinding her eyes, and robbing her of speech. She was only
conscious of a desire to be alone, to be back and safe in her own home.
She was aware that he was speaking, but the words did not reach her.
She found the door, and pulled it open. She felt a hand on her arm, but
she shook it off. And then she was back behind her own door, alone and
at liberty to contemplate at leisure the ruins of that little temple of
friendship which she had built up so carefully and in which she had
been so happy.
The broad fact that she would never forgive him was for a while her
only coherent thought. To this succeeded the determination that she
would never forgive herself. And having thus placed beyond the pale the
only two friends she had in New York, she was free to devote herself
without hindrance to the task of feeling thoroughly lonely and
wretched.
The shadows deepened. Across the street a sort of bubbling explosion,
followed by a jerky glare that shot athwart the room, announced the
lighting of the big arc-lamp on the opposite side-walk. She resented
it, being in the mood for undiluted gloom; but she had not the energy
to pull down the shade and shut it out. She sat where she was, thinking
thoughts that hurt.
The door of the apartment opposite opened. There was a single ring at
her bell. She did not answer it. There came another. She sat where she
was, motionless. The door closed again.
* * * * *
The days dragged by. Elizabeth lost count of time. Each day had its
duties, which ended when you went to bed; that was all she knew--except
that life had become very grey and very lonely, far lonelier even than
in the time when James Boyd was nothing to her but an occasional sound
of footsteps.
Of James she saw nothing. It is not difficult to avoid anyone in New
York, even when you live just across the way.
* * * * *
It was Elizabeth's first act each morning, immediately on awaking, to
open her front door and gather in whatever lay outside it. Sometimes
there would be mail; and always, unless Francis, as he sometimes did,
got mixed and absent-minded, the morning milk and the morning paper.
One morning, some two weeks after that evening of which she tried not
to think, Elizabeth, opening the door, found immediately outside it a
folded scrap of paper. She unfolded it.
_I am just off to the theatre. Won't you wish me luck? I feel sure
it is going to be a hit. Joseph is purring like a dynamo._--J.R.B.
In the early morning the brain works sluggishly. For an instant
Elizabeth stood looking at the words uncomprehendingly; then, with a
leaping of the heart, their meaning came home to her. He must have left
this at her door on the previous night. The play had been produced! And
somewhere in the folded interior of the morning paper at her feet must
be the opinion of 'One in Authority' concerning it!
Dramatic criticisms have this peculiarity, that if you are looking for
them, they burrow and hide like rabbits. They dodge behind murders;
they duck behind baseball scores; they lie up snugly behind the Wall
Street news. It was a full minute before Elizabeth found what she
sought, and the first words she read smote her like a blow.
In that vein of delightful facetiousness which so endears him to all
followers and perpetrators of the drama, the 'One in Authority' rent
and tore James Boyd's play. He knocked James Boyd's play down, and
kicked it; he jumped on it with large feet; he poured cold water on it,
and chopped it into little bits. He merrily disembowelled James Boyd's
play.
Elizabeth quivered from head to foot. She caught at the door-post to
steady herself. In a flash all her resentment had gone, wiped away and
annihilated like a mist before the sun. She loved him, and she knew now
that she had always loved him.
It took her two seconds to realize that the 'One in Authority' was a
miserable incompetent, incapable of recognizing merit when it was
displayed before him. It took her five minutes to dress. It took her a
minute to run downstairs and out to the news-stand on the corner of the
street. Here, with a lavishness which charmed and exhilarated the
proprietor, she bought all the other papers which he could supply.
Moments of tragedy are best described briefly. Each of the papers
noticed the play, and each of them damned it with uncompromising
heartiness. The criticisms varied only in tone. One cursed with relish
and gusto; another with a certain pity; a third with a kind of wounded
superiority, as of one compelled against his will to speak of something
unspeakable; but the meaning of all was the same. James Boyd's play was
a hideous failure.
Back to the house sped Elizabeth, leaving the organs of a free people
to be gathered up, smoothed, and replaced on the stand by the now more
than ever charmed proprietor. Up the stairs she sped, and arriving
breathlessly at James's door rang the bell.
Heavy footsteps came down the passage; crushed, disheartened footsteps;
footsteps that sent a chill to Elizabeth's heart. The door opened.
James Boyd stood before her, heavy-eyed and haggard. In his eyes was
despair, and on his chin the blue growth of beard of the man from whom
the mailed fist of Fate has smitten the energy to perform his morning
shave.
Behind him, littering the floor, were the morning papers; and at the
sight of them Elizabeth broke down.
'Oh, Jimmy, darling!' she cried; and the next moment she was in his
arms, and for a space time stood still.
How long afterwards it was she never knew; but eventually James Boyd
spoke.
'If you'll marry me,' he said hoarsely, 'I don't care a hang.'
'Jimmy, darling!' said Elizabeth, 'of course I will.'
Past them, as they stood there, a black streak shot silently, and
disappeared out of the door. Joseph was leaving the sinking ship.
'Let him go, the fraud,' said Elizabeth bitterly. 'I shall never
believe in black cats again.'
But James was not of this opinion.
'Joseph has brought me all the luck I need.'
'But the play meant everything to you.'
'It did then.'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'Jimmy, dear, it's all right, you know. I know you will make a fortune
out of your next play, and I've heaps for us both to live on till you
make good. We can manage splendidly on my salary from the _Evening
Chronicle_.'
'What! Have you got a job on a New York paper?'
'Yes, I told you about it. I am doing Heloise Milton. Why, what's the
matter?'
He groaned hollowly.
'And I was thinking that you would come back to Chicago with me!'
'But I will. Of course I will. What did you think I meant to do?'
'What! Give up a real job in New York!' He blinked. 'This isn't really
happening. I'm dreaming.'
'But, Jimmy, are you sure you can get work in Chicago? Wouldn't it be
better to stay on here, where all the managers are, and--'
He shook his head.
'I think it's time I told you about myself,' he said. 'Am I sure I can
get work in Chicago? I am, worse luck. Darling, have you in your more
material moments ever toyed with a Boyd's Premier Breakfast-Sausage or
kept body and soul together with a slice off a Boyd's Excelsior
Home-Cured Ham? My father makes them, and the tragedy of my life is
that he wants me to help him at it. This was my position. I loathed the
family business as much as dad loved it. I had a notion--a fool notion,
as it has turned out--that I could make good in the literary line. I've
scribbled in a sort of way ever since I was in college. When the time
came for me to join the firm, I put it to dad straight. I said, "Give
me a chance, one good, square chance, to see if the divine fire is
really there, or if somebody has just turned on the alarm as a
practical joke." And we made a bargain. I had written this play, and we
made it a test-case. We fixed it up that dad should put up the money to
give it a Broadway production. If it succeeded, all right; I'm the
young Gus Thomas, and may go ahead in the literary game. If it's a
fizzle, off goes my coat, and I abandon pipe-dreams of literary
triumphs and start in as the guy who put the Co. in Boyd & Co. Well,
events have proved that I _am_ the guy, and now I'm going to keep
my part of the bargain just as squarely as dad kept his. I know quite
well that if I refused to play fair and chose to stick on here in New
York and try again, dad would go on staking me. That's the sort of man
he is. But I wouldn't do it for a million Broadway successes. I've had
my chance, and I've foozled; and now I'm going back to make him happy
by being a real live member of the firm. And the queer thing about it
is that last night I hated the idea, and this morning, now that I've
got you, I almost look forward to it.'
He gave a little shiver.
'And yet--I don't know. There's something rather gruesome still to my
near-artist soul in living in luxury on murdered piggies. Have you ever
seen them persuading a pig to play the stellar role in a Boyd Premier
Breakfast-Sausage? It's pretty ghastly. They string them up by their
hind legs, and--b-r-r-r-r!'
'Never mind,' said Elizabeth soothingly. 'Perhaps they don't mind it
really.'
'Well, I don't know,' said James Boyd, doubtfully. 'I've watched them
at it, and I'm bound to say they didn't seem any too well pleased.'
'Try not to think of it.'
'Very well,' said James dutifully.
There came a sudden shout from the floor above, and on the heels of it
a shock-haired youth in pyjamas burst into the apartment.
'Now what?' said James. 'By the way, Miss Herrold, my fiancee; Mr
Briggs--Paul Axworthy Briggs, sometimes known as the Boy Novelist.
What's troubling you, Paul?'
Mr Briggs was stammering with excitement.
'Jimmy,' cried the Boy Novelist, 'what do you think has happened! A
black cat has just come into my apartment. I heard him mewing outside
the door, and opened it, and he streaked in. And I started my new novel
last night! Say, you _do_ believe this thing of black cats
bringing luck, don't you?'
'Luck! My lad, grapple that cat to your soul with hoops of steel. He's
the greatest little luck-bringer in New York. He was boarding with me
till this morning.'
'Then--by Jove! I nearly forgot to ask--your play was a hit? I haven't
seen the papers yet'
'Well, when you see them, don't read the notices. It was the worst
frost Broadway has seen since Columbus's time.'
'But--I don't understand.'
'Don't worry. You don't have to. Go back and fill that cat with fish,
or she'll be leaving you. I suppose you left the door open?'
'My God!' said the Boy Novelist, paling, and dashed for the door.
'Do you think Joseph _will_ bring him luck?' said Elizabeth,
thoughtfully.
'It depends what sort of luck you mean. Joseph seems to work in devious
ways. If I know Joseph's methods, Briggs's new novel will be rejected
by every publisher in the city; and then, when he is sitting in his
apartment, wondering which of his razors to end himself with, there
will be a ring at the bell, and in will come the most beautiful girl in
the world, and then--well, then, take it from me, he will be all
right.'
'He won't mind about the novel?'
'Not in the least.'
'Not even if it means that he will have to go away and kill pigs and
things.'
'About the pig business, dear. I've noticed a slight tendency in you to
let yourself get rather morbid about it. I know they string them up by
the hind-legs, and all that sort of thing; but you must remember that a
pig looks at these things from a different standpoint. My belief is
that the pigs like it. Try not to think of it.'
'Very well,' said Elizabeth, dutifully.
THE ROMANCE OF AN UGLY POLICEMAN
Crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, the wanderer through London
finds himself in pleasant Battersea. Rounding the Park, where the
female of the species wanders with its young by the ornamental water
where the wild-fowl are, he comes upon a vast road. One side of this is
given up to Nature, the other to Intellect. On the right, green trees
stretch into the middle distance; on the left, endless blocks of
residential flats. It is Battersea Park Road, the home of the
cliff-dwellers.
Police-constable Plimmer's beat embraced the first quarter of a mile of
the cliffs. It was his duty to pace in the measured fashion of the
London policeman along the front of them, turn to the right, turn to
the left, and come back along the road which ran behind them. In this
way he was enabled to keep the king's peace over no fewer than four
blocks of mansions.
It did not require a deal of keeping. Battersea may have its tough
citizens, but they do not live in Battersea Park Road. Battersea Park
Road's speciality is Brain, not Crime. Authors, musicians, newspaper
men, actors, and artists are the inhabitants of these mansions. A child
could control them. They assault and batter nothing but pianos; they
steal nothing but ideas; they murder nobody except Chopin and
Beethoven. Not through these shall an ambitious young constable achieve
promotion.
At this conclusion Edward Plimmer arrived within forty-eight hours of
his installation. He recognized the flats for what they were--just so
many layers of big-brained blamelessness. And there was not even the
chance of a burglary. No burglar wastes his time burgling authors.
Constable Plimmer reconciled his mind to the fact that his term in
Battersea must be looked on as something in the nature of a vacation.
He was not altogether sorry. At first, indeed, he found the new
atmosphere soothing. His last beat had been in the heart of tempestuous
Whitechapel, where his arms had ached from the incessant hauling of
wiry inebriates to the station, and his shins had revolted at the kicks
showered upon them by haughty spirits impatient of restraint. Also, one
Saturday night, three friends of a gentleman whom he was trying to
induce not to murder his wife had so wrought upon him that, when he
came out of hospital, his already homely appearance was further marred
by a nose which resembled the gnarled root of a tree. All these things
had taken from the charm of Whitechapel, and the cloistral peace of
Battersea Park Road was grateful and comforting.
And just when the unbroken calm had begun to lose its attraction and
dreams of action were once more troubling him, a new interest entered
his life; and with its coming he ceased to wish to be removed from
Battersea. He fell in love.
It happened at the back of York Mansions. Anything that ever happened,
happened there; for it is at the back of these blocks of flats that the
real life is. At the front you never see anything, except an occasional
tousle-headed young man smoking a pipe; but at the back, where the
cooks come out to parley with the tradesmen, there is at certain hours
of the day quite a respectable activity. Pointed dialogues about
yesterday's eggs and the toughness of Saturday's meat are conducted
_fortissimo_ between cheerful youths in the road and satirical
young women in print dresses, who come out of their kitchen doors on to
little balconies. The whole thing has a pleasing Romeo and Juliet
touch. Romeo rattles up in his cart. 'Sixty-four!' he cries.
'Sixty-fower, sixty-fower, sixty-fow--' The kitchen door opens, and
Juliet emerges. She eyes Romeo without any great show of affection.
'Are you Perkins and Blissett?' she inquires coldly. Romeo admits it.
'Two of them yesterday's eggs was bad.' Romeo protests. He defends his
eggs. They were fresh from the hen; he stood over her while she laid
them. Juliet listens frigidly. 'I _don't_ think,' she says. 'Well,
half of sugar, one marmalade, and two of breakfast bacon,' she adds,
and ends the argument. There is a rattling as of a steamer weighing
anchor; the goods go up in the tradesman's lift; Juliet collects them,
and exits, banging the door. The little drama is over.
Such is life at the back of York Mansions--a busy, throbbing thing.
The peace of afternoon had fallen upon the world one day towards the
end of Constable Plimmer's second week of the simple life, when his
attention was attracted by a whistle. It was followed by a musical
'Hi!'
Constable Plimmer looked up. On the kitchen balcony of a second-floor
flat a girl was standing. As he took her in with a slow and exhaustive
gaze, he was aware of strange thrills. There was something about this
girl which excited Constable Plimmer. I do not say that she was a
beauty; I do not claim that you or I would have raved about her; I
merely say that Constable Plimmer thought she was All Right.
'Miss?' he said.
'Got the time about you?' said the girl. 'All the clocks have stopped.'
'The time,' said Constable Plimmer, consulting his watch, 'wants
exactly ten minutes to four.'
'Thanks.'
'Not at all, miss.'
The girl was inclined for conversation. It was that gracious hour of
the day when you have cleared lunch and haven't got to think of dinner
yet, and have a bit of time to draw a breath or two. She leaned over
the balcony and smiled pleasantly.
'If you want to know the time, ask a pleeceman,' she said. 'You been on
this beat long?'
'Just short of two weeks, miss.'
'I been here three days.'
'I hope you like it, miss.'
'So-so. The milkman's a nice boy.'
Constable Plimmer did not reply. He was busy silently hating the
milkman. He knew him--one of those good-looking blighters; one of those
oiled and curled perishers; one of those blooming fascinators who go
about the world making things hard for ugly, honest men with loving
hearts. Oh, yes, he knew the milkman.
'He's a rare one with his jokes,' said the girl.
Constable Plimmer went on not replying. He was perfectly aware that the
milkman was a rare one with his jokes. He had heard him. The way girls
fell for anyone with the gift of the gab--that was what embittered
Constable Plimmer.
'He--' she giggled. 'He calls me Little Pansy-Face.'
'If you'll excuse me, miss,' said Constable Plimmer coldly, 'I'll have
to be getting along on my beat.'
Little Pansy-Face! And you couldn't arrest him for it! What a world!
Constable Plimmer paced upon his way, a blue-clad volcano.
It is a terrible thing to be obsessed by a milkman. To Constable
Plimmer's disordered imagination it seemed that, dating from this
interview, the world became one solid milkman. Wherever he went, he
seemed to run into this milkman. If he was in the front road, this
milkman--Alf Brooks, it appeared, was his loathsome name--came rattling
past with his jingling cans as if he were Apollo driving his chariot.
If he was round at the back, there was Alf, his damned tenor doing
duets with the balconies. And all this in defiance of the known law of
natural history that milkmen do not come out after five in the morning.
This irritated Constable Plimmer. You talk of a man 'going home with
the milk' when you mean that he sneaks in in the small hours of the
morning. If all milkmen were like Alf Brooks the phrase was
meaningless.
He brooded. The unfairness of Fate was souring him. A man expects
trouble in his affairs of the heart from soldiers and sailors, and to
be cut out by even a postman is to fall before a worthy foe; but
milkmen--no! Only grocers' assistants and telegraph-boys were intended
by Providence to fear milkmen.
Yet here was Alf Brooks, contrary to all rules, the established pet of
the mansions. Bright eyes shone from balconies when his 'Milk--oo--oo'
sounded. Golden voices giggled delightedly at his bellowed chaff. And
Ellen Brown, whom he called Little Pansy-Face, was definitely in love
with him.
They were keeping company. They were walking out. This crushing truth
Edward Plimmer learned from Ellen herself.
She had slipped out to mail a letter at the pillar-box on the corner,
and she reached it just as the policeman arrived there in the course of
his patrol.
Nervousness impelled Constable Plimmer to be arch.
''Ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo,' he said. 'Posting love-letters?'
'What, me? This is to the Police Commissioner, telling him you're no
good.'
'I'll give it to him. Him and me are taking supper tonight.'
Nature had never intended Constable Plimmer to be playful. He was at
his worst when he rollicked. He snatched at the letter with what was
meant to be a debonair gaiety, and only succeeded in looking like an
angry gorilla. The girl uttered a startled squeak.
The letter was addressed to Mr A. Brooks.
Playfulness, after this, was at a discount. The girl was frightened and
angry, and he was scowling with mingled jealousy and dismay.
'Ho!' he said. 'Ho! Mr A. Brooks!'
Ellen Brown was a nice girl, but she had a temper, and there were
moments when her manners lacked rather noticeably the repose which
stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
'Well, what about it?' she cried. 'Can't one write to the young
gentleman one's keeping company with, without having to get permission
from every--' She paused to marshal her forces from the assault.
'Without having to get permission from every great, ugly, red-faced
copper with big feet and a broken nose in London?'
Constable Plimmer's wrath faded into a dull unhappiness. Yes, she was
right. That was the correct description. That was how an impartial
Scotland Yard would be compelled to describe him, if ever he got lost.
'Missing. A great, ugly, red-faced copper with big feet and a broken
nose.' They would never find him otherwise.
'Perhaps you object to my walking out with Alf? Perhaps you've got
something against him? I suppose you're jealous!'
She threw in the last suggestion entirely in a sporting spirit. She
loved battle, and she had a feeling that this one was going to finish
far too quickly. To prolong it, she gave him this opening. There were a
dozen ways in which he might answer, each more insulting than the last;
and then, when he had finished, she could begin again. These little
encounters, she held, sharpened the wits, stimulated the circulation,
and kept one out in the open air.
'Yes,' said Constable Plimmer.
It was the one reply she was not expecting. For direct abuse, for
sarcasm, for dignity, for almost any speech beginning, 'What! Jealous
of you. Why--' she was prepared. But this was incredible. It disabled
her, as the wild thrust of an unskilled fencer will disable a master of
the rapier. She searched in her mind and found that she had nothing to
say.
There was a tense moment in which she found him, looking her in the
eyes, strangely less ugly than she had supposed, and then he was gone,
rolling along on his beat with that air which all policemen must
achieve, of having no feelings at all, and--as long as it behaves
itself--no interest in the human race.
Ellen posted her letter. She dropped it into the box thoughtfully, and
thoughtfully returned to the flat. She looked over her shoulder, but
Constable Plimmer was out of sight.
Peaceful Battersea began to vex Constable Plimmer. To a man crossed in
love, action is the one anodyne; and Battersea gave no scope for
action. He dreamed now of the old Whitechapel days as a man dreams of
the joys of his childhood. He reflected bitterly that a fellow never
knows when he is well off in this world. Any one of those myriad drunk
and disorderlies would have been as balm to him now. He was like a man
who has run through a fortune and in poverty eats the bread of regret.
Amazedly he recollected that in those happy days he had grumbled at his
lot. He remembered confiding to a friend in the station-house, as he
rubbed with liniment the spot on his right shin where the well-shod
foot of a joyous costermonger had got home, that this sort of
thing--meaning militant costermongers--was 'a bit too thick'. A bit too
thick! Why, he would pay one to kick him now. And as for the three
loyal friends of the would-be wife-murderer who had broken his nose, if
he saw them coming round the corner he would welcome them as brothers.
And Battersea Park Road dozed on--calm, intellectual, law-abiding.
A friend of his told him that there had once been a murder in one of
these flats. He did not believe it. If any of these white-corpuscled
clams ever swatted a fly, it was much as they could do. The thing was
ridiculous on the face of it. If they were capable of murder, they
would have murdered Alf Brooks.
He stood in the road, and looked up at the placid buildings
resentfully.
'Grr-rr-rr!' he growled, and kicked the side-walk.
And, even as he spoke, on the balcony of a second-floor flat there
appeared a woman, an elderly, sharp-faced woman, who waved her arms and
screamed, 'Policeman! Officer! Come up here! Come up here at once!'
Up the stone stairs went Constable Plimmer at the run. His mind was
alert and questioning. Murder? Hardly murder, perhaps. If it had been
that, the woman would have said so. She did not look the sort of woman
who would be reticent about a thing like that. Well, anyway, it was
something; and Edward Plimmer had been long enough in Battersea to be
thankful for small favours. An intoxicated husband would be better than
nothing. At least he would be something that a fellow could get his
hands on to and throw about a bit.
The sharp-faced woman was waiting for him at the door. He followed her
into the flat.
'What is it, ma'am?'
'Theft! Our cook has been stealing!'
She seemed sufficiently excited about it, but Constable Plimmer felt
only depression and disappointment. A stout admirer of the sex, he
hated arresting women. Moreover, to a man in the mood to tackle
anarchists with bombs, to be confronted with petty theft is galling.
But duty was duty. He produced his notebook.
'She is in her room. I locked her in. I know she has taken my brooch.
We have missed money. You must search her.'
'Can't do that, ma'am. Female searcher at the station.'
'Well, you can search her box.'
A little, bald, nervous man in spectacles appeared as if out of a trap.
As a matter of fact, he had been there all the time, standing by the
bookcase; but he was one of those men you do not notice till they move
and speak.
'Er--Jane.'
'Well, Henry?'
The little man seemed to swallow something.
'I--I think that you may possibly be wronging Ellen. It is just
possible, as regards the money--' He smiled in a ghastly manner and
turned to the policeman. 'Er--officer, I ought to tell you that my
wife--ah--holds the purse-strings of our little home; and it is just
possible that in an absent-minded moment _I_ may have--'
'Do you mean to tell me, Henry, that _you_ have been taking my
money?'
'My dear, it is just possible that in the abs--'
'How often?'
He wavered perceptibly. Conscience was beginning to lose its grip.
'Oh, not often.'
'How often? More than once?'
Conscience had shot its bolt. The little man gave up the Struggle.
'No, no, not more than once. Certainly not more than once.'
'You ought not to have done it at all. We will talk about that later.
It doesn't alter the fact that Ellen is a thief. I have missed money
half a dozen times. Besides that, there's the brooch. Step this way,
officer.'
Constable Plimmer stepped that way--his face a mask. He knew who was
waiting for them behind the locked door at the end of the passage. But
it was his duty to look as if he were stuffed, and he did so.
* * * * *
She was sitting on her bed, dressed for the street. It was her
afternoon out, the sharp-faced woman had informed Constable Plimmer,
attributing the fact that she had discovered the loss of the brooch in
time to stop her a direct interposition of Providence. She was pale,
and there was a hunted look in her eyes.
'You wicked girl, where is my brooch?'
She held it out without a word. She had been holding it in her hand.
'You see, officer!'
'I wasn't stealing of it. I 'adn't but borrowed it. I was going to put
it back.'
'Stuff and nonsense! Borrow it, indeed! What for?'
'I--I wanted to look nice.'
The woman gave a short laugh. Constable Plimmer's face was a mere block
of wood, expressionless.
'And what about the money I've been missing? I suppose you'll say you
only borrowed that?'
'I never took no money.'
'Well, it's gone, and money doesn't go by itself. Take her to the
police-station, officer.'
Constable Plimmer raised heavy eyes.
'You make a charge, ma'am?'
'Bless the man! Of course I make a charge. What did you think I asked
you to step in for?'
'Will you come along, miss?' said Constable Plimmer.
* * * * *
Out in the street the sun shone gaily down on peaceful Battersea. It
was the hour when children walk abroad with their nurses; and from the
green depths of the Park came the sound of happy voices. A cat
stretched itself in the sunshine and eyed the two as they passed with
lazy content.
They walked in silence. Constable Plimmer was a man with a rigid sense
of what was and what was not fitting behaviour in a policeman on duty:
he aimed always at a machine-like impersonality. There were times when
it came hard, but he did his best. He strode on, his chin up and his
eyes averted. And beside him--
Well, she was not crying. That was something.
Round the corner, beautiful in light flannel, gay at both ends with a
new straw hat and the yellowest shoes in South-West London, scented,
curled, a prince among young men, stood Alf Brooks. He was feeling
piqued. When he said three o'clock, he meant three o'clock. It was now
three-fifteen, and she had not appeared. Alf Brooks swore an impatient
oath, and the thought crossed his mind, as it had sometimes crossed it
before, that Ellen Brown was not the only girl in the world.
'Give her another five min--'
Ellen Brown, with escort, at that moment turned the corner.
Rage was the first emotion which the spectacle aroused in Alf Brooks.
Girls who kept a fellow waiting about while they fooled around with
policemen were no girls for him. They could understand once and for all
that he was a man who could pick and choose.
And then an electric shock set the world dancing mistily before his
eyes. This policeman was wearing his belt; he was on duty. And Ellen's
face was not the face of a girl strolling with the Force for pleasure.
His heart stopped, and then began to race. His cheeks flushed a dusky
crimson. His jaw fell, and a prickly warmth glowed in the parts about
his spine.
'Goo'!'
His fingers sought his collar.
'Crumbs!'
He was hot all over.
'Goo' Lor'! She's been pinched!'
He tugged at his collar. It was choking him.
Alf Brooks did not show up well in the first real crisis which life had
forced upon him. That must be admitted. Later, when it was over, and he
had leisure for self-examination, he admitted it to himself. But even
then he excused himself by asking Space in a blustering manner what
else he could ha' done. And if the question did not bring much balm to
his soul at the first time of asking, it proved wonderfully soothing on
constant repetition. He repeated it at intervals for the next two days,
and by the end of that time his cure was complete. On the third morning
his 'Milk--oo--oo' had regained its customary carefree ring, and he was
feeling that he had acted in difficult circumstances in the only
possible manner.
Consider. He was Alf Brooks, well known and respected in the
neighbourhood; a singer in the choir on Sundays; owner of a milk-walk
in the most fashionable part of Battersea; to all practical purposes a
public man. Was he to recognize, in broad daylight and in open street,
a girl who walked with a policeman because she had to, a malefactor, a
girl who had been pinched?
Ellen, Constable Plimmer woodenly at her side, came towards him. She
was ten yards off--seven--five--three--Alf Brooks tilted his hat over
his eyes and walked past her, unseeing, a stranger.
He hurried on. He was conscious of a curious feeling that somebody was
just going to kick him, but he dared not look round.
* * * * *
Constable Plimmer eyed the middle distance with an earnest gaze. His
face was redder than ever. Beneath his blue tunic strange emotions were
at work. Something seemed to be filling his throat. He tried to swallow
it.
He stopped in his stride. The girl glanced up at him in a kind of dull,
questioning way. Their eyes met for the first time that afternoon, and
it seemed to Constable Plimmer that whatever it was that was
interfering with the inside of his throat had grown larger, and more
unmanageable.
There was the misery of the stricken animal in her gaze. He had seen
women look like that in Whitechapel. The woman to whom, indirectly, he
owed his broken nose had looked like that. As his hand had fallen on
the collar of the man who was kicking her to death, he had seen her
eyes. They were Ellen's eyes, as she stood there now--tortured,
crushed, yet uncomplaining.
Constable Plimmer looked at Ellen, and Ellen looked at Constable
Plimmer. Down the street some children were playing with a dog. In one
of the flats a woman began to sing.
'Hop it,' said Constable Plimmer.
He spoke gruffly. He found speech difficult.
The girl started.
'What say?'
'Hop it. Get along. Run away.'
'What do you mean?'
Constable Plimmer scowled. His face was scarlet. His jaw protruded like
a granite break-water.
'Go on,' he growled. 'Hop it. Tell him it was all a joke. I'll explain
at the station.'
Understanding seemed to come to her slowly.
'Do you mean I'm to go?'
'Yes.'
'What do you mean? You aren't going to take me to the station?'
'No.'
She stared at him. Then, suddenly, she broke down,
'He wouldn't look at me. He was ashamed of me. He pretended not to see
me.'
She leaned against the wall, her back shaking.
'Well, run after him, and tell him it was all--'
'No, no, no.'
Constable Plimmer looked morosely at the side-walk. He kicked it.
She turned. Her eyes were red, but she was no longer crying. Her chin
had a brave tilt.
'I couldn't--not after what he did. Let's go along. I--I don't care.'
She looked at him curiously.
'Were you really going to have let me go?'
Constable Plimmer nodded. He was aware of her eyes searching his face,
but he did not meet them.
'Why?'
He did not answer.
'What would have happened to you, if you had have done?'
Constable Plimmer's scowl was of the stuff of which nightmares are
made. He kicked the unoffending side-walk with an increased
viciousness.
'Dismissed the Force,' he said curtly.
'And sent to prison, too, I shouldn't wonder.'
'Maybe.'
He heard her draw a deep breath, and silence fell upon them again. The
dog down the road had stopped barking. The woman in the flat had
stopped singing. They were curiously alone.
'Would you have done all that for me?' she said.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because I don't think you ever did it. Stole that money, I mean. Nor
the brooch, neither.'
'Was that all?'
'What do you mean--all?'
'Was that the only reason?'
He swung round on her, almost threateningly.
'No,' he said hoarsely. 'No, it wasn't, and you know it wasn't. Well,
if you want it, you can have it. It was because I love you. There! Now
I've said it, and now you can go on and laugh at me as much as you
want.'
'I'm not laughing,' she said soberly.
'You think I'm a fool!'
'No, I don't.'
'I'm nothing to you. _He's_ the fellow you're stuck on.'
She gave a little shudder.
'No.'
'What do you mean?'
'I've changed.' She paused. 'I think I shall have changed more by the
time I come out.'
'Come out?'
'Come out of prison.'
'You're not going to prison.'
'Yes, I am.'
'I won't take you.'
'Yes, you will. Think I'm going to let you get yourself in trouble like
that, to get me out of a fix? Not much.'
'You hop it, like a good girl.'
'Not me.'
He stood looking at her like a puzzled bear.
'They can't eat me.'
'They'll cut off all of your hair.'
'D'you like my hair?'
'Yes.'
'Well, it'll grow again.'
'Don't stand talking. Hop it.'
'I won't. Where's the station?'
'Next street.'
'Well, come along, then.'
* * * * *
The blue glass lamp of the police-station came into sight, and for an
instant she stopped. Then she was walking on again, her chin tilted.
But her voice shook a little as she spoke.
'Nearly there. Next stop, Battersea. All change! I say, mister--I don't
know your name.'
'Plimmer's my name, miss. Edward Plimmer.'
'I wonder if--I mean it'll be pretty lonely where I'm going--I wonder
if--What I mean is, it would be rather a lark, when I come out, if I
was to find a pal waiting for me to say "Hallo".'
Constable Plimmer braced his ample feet against the stones, and turned
purple.
'Miss,' he said, 'I'll be there, if I have to sit up all night. The
first thing you'll see when they open the doors is a great, ugly,
red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose. And if you'll say
"Hallo" to him when he says "Hallo" to you, he'll be as pleased as
Punch and as proud as a duke. And, miss'--he clenched his hands till
the nails hurt the leathern flesh--'and, miss, there's just one thing
more I'd like to say. You'll be having a good deal of time to yourself
for awhile; you'll be able to do a good bit of thinking without anyone
to disturb you; and what I'd like you to give your mind to, if you
don't object, is just to think whether you can't forget that
narrow-chested, God-forsaken blighter who treated you so mean, and get
half-way fond of someone who knows jolly well you're the only girl
there is.'
She looked past him at the lamp which hung, blue and forbidding, over
the station door.
'How long'll I get?' she said. 'What will they give me? Thirty days?'
He nodded.
'It won't take me as long as that,' she said. 'I say, what do people
call you?--people who are fond of you, I mean?--Eddie or Ted?'
A SEA OF TROUBLES
Mr Meggs's mind was made up. He was going to commit suicide.
There had been moments, in the interval which had elapsed between the
first inception of the idea and his present state of fixed
determination, when he had wavered. In these moments he had debated,
with Hamlet, the question whether it was nobler in the mind to suffer,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. But
all that was over now. He was resolved.
Mr Meggs's point, the main plank, as it were, in his suicidal platform,
was that with him it was beside the question whether or not it was
nobler to suffer in the mind. The mind hardly entered into it at all.
What he had to decide was whether it was worth while putting up any
longer with the perfectly infernal pain in his stomach. For Mr Meggs
was a martyr to indigestion. As he was also devoted to the pleasures of
the table, life had become for him one long battle, in which, whatever
happened, he always got the worst of it.
He was sick of it. He looked back down the vista of the years, and
found therein no hope for the future. One after the other all the
patent medicines in creation had failed him. Smith's Supreme Digestive
Pellets--he had given them a more than fair trial. Blenkinsop's Liquid
Life-Giver--he had drunk enough of it to float a ship. Perkins's
Premier Pain-Preventer, strongly recommended by the sword-swallowing
lady at Barnum and Bailey's--he had wallowed in it. And so on down the
list. His interior organism had simply sneered at the lot of them.
'Death, where is thy sting?' thought Mr Meggs, and forthwith began to
make his preparations.
Those who have studied the matter say that the tendency to commit
suicide is greatest among those who have passed their fifty-fifth year,
and that the rate is twice as great for unoccupied males as for
occupied males. Unhappy Mr Meggs, accordingly, got it, so to speak,
with both barrels. He was fifty-six, and he was perhaps the most
unoccupied adult to be found in the length and breadth of the United
Kingdom. He toiled not, neither did he spin. Twenty years before, an
unexpected legacy had placed him in a position to indulge a natural
taste for idleness to the utmost. He was at that time, as regards his
professional life, a clerk in a rather obscure shipping firm. Out of
office hours he had a mild fondness for letters, which took the form of
meaning to read right through the hundred best books one day, but
actually contenting himself with the daily paper and an occasional
magazine.
Such was Mr Meggs at thirty-six. The necessity for working for a living
and a salary too small to permit of self-indulgence among the more
expensive and deleterious dishes on the bill of fare had up to that
time kept his digestion within reasonable bounds. Sometimes he had
twinges; more often he had none.
Then came the legacy, and with it Mr Meggs let himself go. He left
London and retired to his native village, where, with a French cook and
a series of secretaries to whom he dictated at long intervals
occasional paragraphs of a book on British Butterflies on which he
imagined himself to be at work, he passed the next twenty years. He
could afford to do himself well, and he did himself extremely well.
Nobody urged him to take exercise, so he took no exercise. Nobody
warned him of the perils of lobster and welsh rabbits to a man of
sedentary habits, for it was nobody's business to warn him. On the
contrary, people rather encouraged the lobster side of his character,
for he was a hospitable soul and liked to have his friends dine with
him. The result was that Nature, as is her wont, laid for him, and got
him. It seemed to Mr Meggs that he woke one morning to find himself a
chronic dyspeptic. That was one of the hardships of his position, to
his mind. The thing seemed to hit him suddenly out of a blue sky. One
moment, all appeared to be peace and joy; the next, a lively and
irritable wild-cat with red-hot claws seemed somehow to have introduced
itself into his interior.
So Mr Meggs decided to end it.
In this crisis of his life the old methodical habits of his youth
returned to him. A man cannot be a clerk in even an obscure firm of
shippers for a great length of time without acquiring system, and Mr
Meggs made his preparations calmly and with a forethought worthy of a
better cause.
And so we find him, one glorious June morning, seated at his desk,
ready for the end.
Outside, the sun beat down upon the orderly streets of the village.
Dogs dozed in the warm dust. Men who had to work went about their toil
moistly, their minds far away in shady public-houses.
But Mr Meggs, in his study, was cool both in mind and body.
Before him, on the desk, lay six little slips of paper. They were
bank-notes, and they represented, with the exception of a few pounds,
his entire worldly wealth. Beside them were six letters, six envelopes,
and six postage stamps. Mr Meggs surveyed them calmly.
He would not have admitted it, but he had had a lot of fun writing
those letters. The deliberation as to who should be his heirs had
occupied him pleasantly for several days, and, indeed, had taken his
mind off his internal pains at times so thoroughly that he had
frequently surprised himself in an almost cheerful mood. Yes, he would
have denied it, but it had been great sport sitting in his arm-chair,
thinking whom he should pick out from England's teeming millions to
make happy with his money. All sorts of schemes had passed through his
mind. He had a sense of power which the mere possession of the money
had never given him. He began to understand why millionaires make freak
wills. At one time he had toyed with the idea of selecting someone at
random from the London Directory and bestowing on him all he had to
bequeath. He had only abandoned the scheme when it occurred to him that
he himself would not be in a position to witness the recipient's
stunned delight. And what was the good of starting a thing like that,
if you were not to be in at the finish?
Sentiment succeeded whimsicality. His old friends of the office--those
were the men to benefit. What good fellows they had been! Some were
dead, but he still kept intermittently in touch with half a dozen of
them. And--an important point--he knew their present addresses.
This point was important, because Mr Meggs had decided not to leave a
will, but to send the money direct to the beneficiaries. He knew what
wills were. Even in quite straightforward circumstances they often made
trouble. There had been some slight complication about his own legacy
twenty years ago. Somebody had contested the will, and before the thing
was satisfactorily settled the lawyers had got away with about twenty
per cent of the whole. No, no wills. If he made one, and then killed
himself, it might be upset on a plea of insanity. He knew of no
relative who might consider himself entitled to the money, but there
was the chance that some remote cousin existed; and then the comrades
of his youth might fail to collect after all.
He declined to run the risk. Quietly and by degrees he had sold out the
stocks and shares in which his fortune was invested, and deposited the
money in his London bank. Six piles of large notes, dividing the total
into six equal parts; six letters couched in a strain of reminiscent
pathos and manly resignation; six envelopes, legibly addressed; six
postage-stamps; and that part of his preparations was complete. He
licked the stamps and placed them on the envelopes; took the notes and
inserted them in the letters; folded the letters and thrust them into
the envelopes; sealed the envelopes; and unlocking the drawer of his
desk produced a small, black, ugly-looking bottle.
He opened the bottle and poured the contents into a medicine-glass.
It had not been without considerable thought that Mr Meggs had decided
upon the method of his suicide. The knife, the pistol, the rope--they
had all presented their charms to him. He had further examined the
merits of drowning and of leaping to destruction from a height.
There were flaws in each. Either they were painful, or else they were
messy. Mr Meggs had a tidy soul, and he revolted from the thought of
spoiling his figure, as he would most certainly do if he drowned
himself; or the carpet, as he would if he used the pistol; or the
pavement--and possibly some innocent pedestrian, as must infallibly
occur should he leap off the Monument. The knife was out of the
question. Instinct told him that it would hurt like the very dickens.
No; poison was the thing. Easy to take, quick to work, and on the whole
rather agreeable than otherwise.
Mr Meggs hid the glass behind the inkpot and rang the bell.
'Has Miss Pillenger arrived?' he inquired of the servant.
'She has just come, sir.'
'Tell her that I am waiting for her here.'
Jane Pillenger was an institution. Her official position was that of
private secretary and typist to Mr Meggs. That is to say, on the rare
occasions when Mr Meggs's conscience overcame his indolence to the
extent of forcing him to resume work on his British Butterflies, it was
to Miss Pillenger that he addressed the few rambling and incoherent
remarks which constituted his idea of a regular hard, slogging spell of
literary composition. When he sank back in his chair, speechless and
exhausted like a Marathon runner who has started his sprint a mile or
two too soon, it was Miss Pillenger's task to unscramble her shorthand
notes, type them neatly, and place them in their special drawer in the
desk.
Miss Pillenger was a wary spinster of austere views, uncertain age, and
a deep-rooted suspicion of men--a suspicion which, to do an abused sex
justice, they had done nothing to foster. Men had always been almost
coldly correct in their dealings with Miss Pillenger. In her twenty
years of experience as a typist and secretary she had never had to
refuse with scorn and indignation so much as a box of chocolates from
any of her employers. Nevertheless, she continued to be icily on her
guard. The clenched fist of her dignity was always drawn back, ready to
swing on the first male who dared to step beyond the bounds of
professional civility.
Such was Miss Pillenger. She was the last of a long line of unprotected
English girlhood which had been compelled by straitened circumstances
to listen for hire to the appallingly dreary nonsense which Mr Meggs
had to impart on the subject of British Butterflies. Girls had come,
and girls had gone, blondes, ex-blondes, brunettes, ex-brunettes,
near-blondes, near-brunettes; they had come buoyant, full of hope and
life, tempted by the lavish salary which Mr Meggs had found himself
after a while compelled to pay; and they had dropped off, one after
another, like exhausted bivalves, unable to endure the crushing boredom
of life in the village which had given Mr Meggs to the world. For Mr
Meggs's home-town was no City of Pleasure. Remove the Vicar's
magic-lantern and the try-your-weight machine opposite the post office,
and you practically eliminated the temptations to tread the primrose
path. The only young men in the place were silent, gaping youths, at
whom lunacy commissioners looked sharply and suspiciously when they
met. The tango was unknown, and the one-step. The only form of dance
extant--and that only at the rarest intervals--was a sort of polka not
unlike the movements of a slightly inebriated boxing kangaroo. Mr
Meggs's secretaries and typists gave the town one startled, horrified
glance, and stampeded for London like frightened ponies.
Not so Miss Pillenger. She remained. She was a business woman, and it
was enough for her that she received a good salary. For five pounds a
week she would have undertaken a post as secretary and typist to a
Polar Expedition. For six years she had been with Mr Meggs, and
doubtless she looked forward to being with him at least six years more.
Perhaps it was the pathos of this thought which touched Mr Meggs, as
she sailed, notebook in hand, through the doorway of the study. Here,
he told himself, was a confiding girl, all unconscious of impending
doom, relying on him as a daughter relies on her father. He was glad
that he had not forgotten Miss Pillenger when he was making his
preparations.
He had certainly not forgotten Miss Pillenger. On his desk beside the
letters lay a little pile of notes, amounting in all to five hundred
pounds--her legacy.
Miss Pillenger was always business-like. She sat down in her chair,
opened her notebook, moistened her pencil, and waited expectantly for
Mr Meggs to clear his throat and begin work on the butterflies. She was
surprised when, instead of frowning, as was his invariable practice
when bracing himself for composition, he bestowed upon her a sweet,
slow smile.
All that was maidenly and defensive in Miss Pillenger leaped to arms
under that smile. It ran in and out among her nerve-centres. It had
been long in arriving, this moment of crisis, but here it undoubtedly
was at last. After twenty years an employer was going to court disaster
by trying to flirt with her.
Mr Meggs went on smiling. You cannot classify smiles. Nothing lends
itself so much to a variety of interpretations as a smile. Mr Meggs
thought he was smiling the sad, tender smile of a man who, knowing
himself to be on the brink of the tomb, bids farewell to a faithful
employee. Miss Pillenger's view was that he was smiling like an
abandoned old rip who ought to have been ashamed of himself.
'No, Miss Pillenger,' said Mr Meggs, 'I shall not work this morning. I
shall want you, if you will be so good, to post these six letters for
me.'
Miss Pillenger took the letters. Mr Meggs surveyed her tenderly.
'Miss Pillenger, you have been with me a long time now. Six years, is
it not? Six years. Well, well. I don't think I have ever made you a
little present, have I?'
'You give me a good salary.'
'Yes, but I want to give you something more. Six years is a long time.
I have come to regard you with a different feeling from that which the
ordinary employer feels for his secretary. You and I have worked
together for six long years. Surely I may be permitted to give you some
token of my appreciation of your fidelity.' He took the pile of notes.
'These are for you, Miss Pillenger.'
He rose and handed them to her. He eyed her for a moment with all the
sentimentality of a man whose digestion has been out of order for over
two decades. The pathos of the situation swept him away. He bent over
Miss Pillenger, and kissed her on the forehead.
Smiles excepted, there is nothing so hard to classify as a kiss. Mr
Meggs's notion was that he kissed Miss Pillenger much as some great
general, wounded unto death, might have kissed his mother, his sister,
or some particularly sympathetic aunt; Miss Pillenger's view, differing
substantially from this, may be outlined in her own words.
'Ah!' she cried, as, dealing Mr Meggs's conveniently placed jaw a blow
which, had it landed an inch lower down, might have knocked him out,
she sprang to her feet. 'How dare you! I've been waiting for this Mr
Meggs. I have seen it in your eye. I have expected it. Let me tell you
that I am not at all the sort of girl with whom it is safe to behave
like that. I can protect myself. I am only a working-girl--'
Mr Meggs, who had fallen back against the desk as a stricken pugilist
falls on the ropes, pulled himself together to protest.
'Miss Pillenger,' he cried, aghast, 'you misunderstand me. I had no
intention--'
'Misunderstand you? Bah! I am only a working-girl--'
'Nothing was farther from my mind--'
'Indeed! Nothing was farther from your mind! You give me money, you
shower your vile kisses on me, but nothing was farther from your mind
than the obvious interpretation of such behaviour!' Before coming to Mr
Meggs, Miss Pillenger had been secretary to an Indiana novelist. She
had learned style from the master. 'Now that you have gone too far, you
are frightened at what you have done. You well may be, Mr Meggs. I am
only a working-girl--'
'Miss Pillenger, I implore you--'
'Silence! I am only a working-girl--'
A wave of mad fury swept over Mr Meggs. The shock of the blow and still
more of the frightful ingratitude of this horrible woman nearly made
him foam at the mouth.
'Don't keep on saying you're only a working-girl,' he bellowed. 'You'll
drive me mad. Go. Go away from me. Get out. Go anywhere, but leave me
alone!'
Miss Pillenger was not entirely sorry to obey the request. Mr Meggs's
sudden fury had startled and frightened her. So long as she could end
the scene victorious, she was anxious to withdraw.
'Yes, I will go,' she said, with dignity, as she opened the door. 'Now
that you have revealed yourself in your true colours, Mr Meggs, this
house is no fit place for a wor--'
She caught her employer's eye, and vanished hastily.
Mr Meggs paced the room in a ferment. He had been shaken to his core by
the scene. He boiled with indignation. That his kind thoughts should
have been so misinterpreted--it was too much. Of all ungrateful worlds,
this world was the most--
He stopped suddenly in his stride, partly because his shin had struck a
chair, partly because an idea had struck his mind.
Hopping madly, he added one more parallel between himself and Hamlet by
soliloquizing aloud.
'I'll be hanged if I commit suicide,' he yelled.
And as he spoke the words a curious peace fell on him, as on a man who
has awakened from a nightmare. He sat down at the desk. What an idiot
he had been ever to contemplate self-destruction. What could have
induced him to do it? By his own hand to remove himself, merely in
order that a pack of ungrateful brutes might wallow in his money--it
was the scheme of a perfect fool.
He wouldn't commit suicide. Not if he knew it. He would stick on and
laugh at them. And if he did have an occasional pain inside, what of
that? Napoleon had them, and look at him. He would be blowed if he
committed suicide.
With the fire of a new resolve lighting up his eyes, he turned to seize
the six letters and rifle them of their contents.
They were gone.
It took Mr Meggs perhaps thirty seconds to recollect where they had
gone to, and then it all came back to him. He had given them to the
demon Pillenger, and, if he did not overtake her and get them back, she
would mail them.
Of all the mixed thoughts which seethed in Mr Meggs's mind at that
moment, easily the most prominent was the reflection that from his
front door to the post office was a walk of less than five minutes.
* * * * *
Miss Pillenger walked down the sleepy street in the June sunshine,
boiling, as Mr Meggs had done, with indignation. She, too, had been
shaken to the core. It was her intention to fulfil her duty by posting
the letters which had been entrusted to her, and then to quit for ever
the service of one who, for six years a model employer, had at last
forgotten himself and showed his true nature.
Her meditations were interrupted by a hoarse shout in her rear; and,
turning, she perceived the model employer running rapidly towards her.
His face was scarlet, his eyes wild, and he wore no hat.
Miss Pillenger's mind worked swiftly. She took in the situation in a
flash. Unrequited, guilty love had sapped Mr Meggs's reason, and she
was to be the victim of his fury. She had read of scores of similar
cases in the newspapers. How little she had ever imagined that she
would be the heroine of one of these dramas of passion.
She looked for one brief instant up and down the street. Nobody was in
sight. With a loud cry she began to run.
'Stop!'
It was the fierce voice of her pursuer. Miss Pillenger increased to
third speed. As she did so, she had a vision of headlines.
'Stop!' roared Mr Meggs.
'UNREQUITED PASSION MADE THIS MAN MURDERER,' thought Miss Pillenger.
'Stop!'
'CRAZED WITH LOVE HE SLAYS BEAUTIFUL BLONDE,' flashed out in letters of
crimson on the back of Miss Pillenger's mind.
'Stop!'
'SPURNED, HE STABS HER THRICE.'
To touch the ground at intervals of twenty yards or so--that was the
ideal she strove after. She addressed herself to it with all the
strength of her powerful mind.
In London, New York, Paris, and other cities where life is brisk, the
spectacle of a hatless gentleman with a purple face pursuing his
secretary through the streets at a rapid gallop would, of course, have
excited little, if any, remark. But in Mr Meggs's home-town events were
of rarer occurrence. The last milestone in the history of his native
place had been the visit, two years before, of Bingley's Stupendous
Circus, which had paraded along the main street on its way to the next
town, while zealous members of its staff visited the back premises of
the houses and removed all the washing from the lines. Since then deep
peace had reigned.
Gradually, therefore, as the chase warmed up, citizens of all shapes
and sizes began to assemble. Miss Pillenger's screams and the general
appearance of Mr Meggs gave food for thought. Having brooded over the
situation, they decided at length to take a hand, with the result that
as Mr Meggs's grasp fell upon Miss Pillenger the grasp of several of
his fellow-townsmen fell upon him.
'Save me!' said Miss Pillenger.
Mr Meggs pointed speechlessly to the letters, which she still grasped
in her right hand. He had taken practically no exercise for twenty
years, and the pace had told upon him.
Constable Gooch, guardian of the town's welfare, tightened his hold on
Mr Meggs's arm, and desired explanations.
'He--he was going to murder me,' said Miss Pillenger.
'Kill him,' advised an austere bystander.
'What do you mean you were going to murder the lady?' inquired
Constable Gooch.
Mr Meggs found speech.
'I--I--I--I only wanted those letters.'
'What for?'
'They're mine.'
'You charge her with stealing 'em?'
'He gave them me to post with his own hands,' cried Miss Pillenger.
'I know I did, but I want them back.'
By this time the constable, though age had to some extent dimmed his
sight, had recognized beneath the perspiration, features which, though
they were distorted, were nevertheless those of one whom he respected
as a leading citizen.
'Why, Mr Meggs!' he said.
This identification by one in authority calmed, if it a little
disappointed, the crowd. What it was they did not know, but, it was
apparently not a murder, and they began to drift off.
'Why don't you give Mr Meggs his letters when he asks you, ma'am?' said
the constable.
Miss Pillenger drew herself up haughtily.
'Here are your letters, Mr Meggs, I hope we shall never meet again.'
Mr Meggs nodded. That was his view, too.
All things work together for good. The following morning Mr Meggs awoke
from a dreamless sleep with a feeling that some curious change had
taken place in him. He was abominably stiff, and to move his limbs was
pain, but down in the centre of his being there was a novel sensation
of lightness. He could have declared that he was happy.
Wincing, he dragged himself out of bed and limped to the window. He
threw it open. It was a perfect morning. A cool breeze smote his face,
bringing with it pleasant scents and the soothing sound of God's
creatures beginning a new day.
An astounding thought struck him.
'Why, I feel well!'
Then another.
'It must be the exercise I took yesterday. By George, I'll do it
regularly.'
He drank in the air luxuriously. Inside him, the wild-cat gave him a
sudden claw, but it was a half-hearted effort, the effort of one who
knows that he is beaten. Mr Meggs was so absorbed in his thoughts that
he did not even notice it.
'London,' he was saying to himself. 'One of these physical culture
places.... Comparatively young man.... Put myself in their hands....
Mild, regular exercise....'
He limped to the bathroom.
THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
Students of the folk-lore of the United States of America are no doubt
familiar with the quaint old story of Clarence MacFadden. Clarence
MacFadden, it seems, was 'wishful to dance, but his feet wasn't gaited
that way. So he sought a professor and asked him his price, and said he
was willing to pay. The professor' (the legend goes on) 'looked down
with alarm at his feet and marked their enormous expanse; and he tacked
on a five to his regular price for teaching MacFadden to dance.'
I have often been struck by the close similarity between the case of
Clarence and that of Henry Wallace Mills. One difference alone presents
itself. It would seem to have been mere vanity and ambition that
stimulated the former; whereas the motive force which drove Henry Mills
to defy Nature and attempt dancing was the purer one of love. He did it
to please his wife. Had he never gone to Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm,
that popular holiday resort, and there met Minnie Hill, he would
doubtless have continued to spend in peaceful reading the hours not
given over to work at the New York bank at which he was employed as
paying-cashier. For Henry was a voracious reader. His idea of a
pleasant evening was to get back to his little flat, take off his coat,
put on his slippers, light a pipe, and go on from the point where he
had left off the night before in his perusal of the BIS-CAL volume of
the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_--making notes as he read in a stout
notebook. He read the BIS-CAL volume because, after many days, he had
finished the A-AND, AND-AUS, and the AUS-BIS. There was something
admirable--and yet a little horrible--about Henry's method of study. He
went after Learning with the cold and dispassionate relentlessness of a
stoat pursuing a rabbit. The ordinary man who is paying instalments on
the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is apt to get over-excited and to
skip impatiently to Volume XXVIII (VET-ZYM) to see how it all comes out
in the end. Not so Henry. His was not a frivolous mind. He intended to
read the _Encyclopaedia_ through, and he was not going to spoil
his pleasure by peeping ahead.
It would seem to be an inexorable law of Nature that no man shall shine
at both ends. If he has a high forehead and a thirst for wisdom, his
fox-trotting (if any) shall be as the staggerings of the drunken;
while, if he is a good dancer, he is nearly always petrified from the
ears upward. No better examples of this law could have been found than
Henry Mills and his fellow-cashier, Sidney Mercer. In New York banks
paying-cashiers, like bears, tigers, lions, and other fauna, are always
shut up in a cage in pairs, and are consequently dependent on each
other for entertainment and social intercourse when business is slack.
Henry Mills and Sidney simply could not find a subject in common.
Sidney knew absolutely nothing of even such elementary things as Abana,
Aberration, Abraham, or Acrogenae; while Henry, on his side, was
scarcely aware that there had been any developments in the dance since
the polka. It was a relief to Henry when Sidney threw up his job to
join the chorus of a musical comedy, and was succeeded by a man who,
though full of limitations, could at least converse intelligently on
Bowls.
Such, then, was Henry Wallace Mills. He was in the middle thirties,
temperate, studious, a moderate smoker, and--one would have said--a
bachelor of the bachelors, armour-plated against Cupid's well-meant but
obsolete artillery. Sometimes Sidney Mercer's successor in the teller's
cage, a sentimental young man, would broach the topic of Woman and
Marriage. He would ask Henry if he ever intended to get married. On
such occasions Henry would look at him in a manner which was a blend of
scorn, amusement, and indignation; and would reply with a single word:
'Me!'
It was the way he said it that impressed you.
But Henry had yet to experience the unmanning atmosphere of a lonely
summer resort. He had only just reached the position in the bank where
he was permitted to take his annual vacation in the summer. Hitherto he
had always been released from his cage during the winter months, and
had spent his ten days of freedom at his flat, with a book in his hand
and his feet on the radiator. But the summer after Sidney Mercer's
departure they unleashed him in August.
It was meltingly warm in the city. Something in Henry cried out for the
country. For a month before the beginning of his vacation he devoted
much of the time that should have been given to the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ in reading summer-resort literature. He decided at
length upon Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm because the advertisements spoke
so well of it.
Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm was a rather battered frame building many
miles from anywhere. Its attractions included a Lovers' Leap, a Grotto,
golf-links--a five-hole course where the enthusiast found unusual
hazards in the shape of a number of goats tethered at intervals between
the holes--and a silvery lake, only portions of which were used as a
dumping-ground for tin cans and wooden boxes. It was all new and
strange to Henry and caused him an odd exhilaration. Something of
gaiety and reckless abandon began to creep into his veins. He had a
curious feeling that in these romantic surroundings some adventure
ought to happen to him.
At this juncture Minnie Hill arrived. She was a small, slim girl,
thinner and paler than she should have been, with large eyes that
seemed to Henry pathetic and stirred his chivalry. He began to think a
good deal about Minnie Hill.
And then one evening he met her on the shores of the silvery lake. He
was standing there, slapping at things that looked like mosquitoes, but
could not have been, for the advertisements expressly stated that none
were ever found in the neighbourhood of Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm, when
along she came. She walked slowly, as if she were tired. A strange
thrill, half of pity, half of something else, ran through Henry. He
looked at her. She looked at him.
'Good evening,' he said.
They were the first words he had spoken to her. She never contributed
to the dialogue of the dining-room, and he had been too shy to seek her
out in the open.
She said 'Good evening,' too, tying the score. And there was silence
for a moment.
Commiseration overcame Henry's shyness.
'You're looking tired,' he said.
'I feel tired.' She paused. 'I overdid it in the city.'
'It?'
'Dancing.'
'Oh, dancing. Did you dance much?'
'Yes; a great deal.'
'Ah!'
A promising, even a dashing start. But how to continue? For the first
time Henry regretted the steady determination of his methods with the
_Encyclopaedia_. How pleasant if he could have been in a position
to talk easily of Dancing. Then memory reminded him that, though he had
not yet got up to Dancing, it was only a few weeks before that he had
been reading of the Ballet.
'I don't dance myself,' he said, 'but I am fond of reading about it.
Did you know that the word "ballet" incorporated three distinct modern
words, "ballet", "ball", and "ballad", and that ballet-dancing was
originally accompanied by singing?'
It hit her. It had her weak. She looked at him with awe in her eyes.
One might almost say that she gaped at Henry.
'I hardly know anything,' she said.
'The first descriptive ballet seen in London, England,' said Henry,
quietly, 'was "The Tavern Bilkers", which was played at Drury Lane
in--in seventeen--something.'
'Was it?'
'And the earliest modern ballet on record was that given by--by someone
to celebrate the marriage of the Duke of Milan in 1489.'
There was no doubt or hesitation about the date this time. It was
grappled to his memory by hoops of steel owing to the singular
coincidence of it being also his telephone number. He gave it out with
a roll, and the girl's eyes widened.
'What an awful lot you know!'
'Oh, no,' said Henry, modestly. 'I read a great deal.'
'It must be splendid to know a lot,' she said, wistfully. 'I've never
had time for reading. I've always wanted to. I think you're wonderful!'
Henry's soul was expanding like a flower and purring like a
well-tickled cat. Never in his life had he been admired by a woman. The
sensation was intoxicating.
Silence fell upon them. They started to walk back to the farm, warned
by the distant ringing of a bell that supper was about to materialize.
It was not a musical bell, but distance and the magic of this unusual
moment lent it charm. The sun was setting. It threw a crimson carpet
across the silvery lake. The air was very still. The creatures,
unclassified by science, who might have been mistaken for mosquitoes
had their presence been possible at Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm, were
biting harder than ever. But Henry heeded them not. He did not even
slap at them. They drank their fill of his blood and went away to put
their friends on to this good thing; but for Henry they did not exist.
Strange things were happening to him. And, lying awake that night in
bed, he recognized the truth. He was in love.
After that, for the remainder of his stay, they were always together.
They walked in the woods, they sat by the silvery lake. He poured out
the treasures of his learning for her, and she looked at him with
reverent eyes, uttering from time to time a soft 'Yes' or a musical
'Gee!'
In due season Henry went back to New York.
'You're dead wrong about love, Mills,' said his sentimental
fellow-cashier, shortly after his return. 'You ought to get married.'
'I'm going to,' replied Henry, briskly. 'Week tomorrow.'
Which stunned the other so thoroughly that he gave a customer who
entered at that moment fifteen dollars for a ten-dollar cheque, and had
to do some excited telephoning after the bank had closed.
Henry's first year as a married man was the happiest of his life. He
had always heard this period described as the most perilous of
matrimony. He had braced himself for clashings of tastes, painful
adjustments of character, sudden and unavoidable quarrels. Nothing of
the kind happened. From the very beginning they settled down in perfect
harmony. She merged with his life as smoothly as one river joins
another. He did not even have to alter his habits. Every morning he had
his breakfast at eight, smoked a cigarette, and walked to the
Underground. At five he left the bank, and at six he arrived home, for
it was his practice to walk the first two miles of the way, breathing
deeply and regularly. Then dinner. Then the quiet evening. Sometimes
the moving-pictures, but generally the quiet evening, he reading the
_Encyclopaedia_--aloud now--Minnie darning his socks, but never
ceasing to listen.
Each day brought the same sense of grateful amazement that he should be
so wonderfully happy, so extraordinarily peaceful. Everything was as
perfect as it could be. Minnie was looking a different girl. She had
lost her drawn look. She was filling out.
Sometimes he would suspend his reading for a moment, and look across at
her. At first he would see only her soft hair, as she bent over her
sewing. Then, wondering at the silence, she would look up, and he would
meet her big eyes. And then Henry would gurgle with happiness, and
demand of himself, silently:
'Can you beat it!'
It was the anniversary of their wedding. They celebrated it in fitting
style. They dined at a crowded and exhilarating Italian restaurant on a
street off Seventh Avenue, where red wine was included in the bill, and
excitable people, probably extremely clever, sat round at small tables
and talked all together at the top of their voices. After dinner they
saw a musical comedy. And then--the great event of the night--they
went on to supper at a glittering restaurant near Times Square.
There was something about supper at an expensive restaurant which had
always appealed to Henry's imagination. Earnest devourer as he was of
the solids of literature, he had tasted from time to time its lighter
face--those novels which begin with the hero supping in the midst of
the glittering throng and having his attention attracted to a
distinguished-looking elderly man with a grey imperial who is entering
with a girl so strikingly beautiful that the revellers turn, as she
passes, to look after her. And then, as he sits and smokes, a waiter
comes up to the hero and, with a soft '_Pardon, m'sieu!_' hands
him a note.
The atmosphere of Geisenheimer's suggested all that sort of thing to
Henry. They had finished supper, and he was smoking a cigar--his second
that day. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed the scene. He felt
braced up, adventurous. He had that feeling, which comes to all quiet
men who like to sit at home and read, that this was the sort of
atmosphere in which he really belonged. The brightness of it all--the
dazzling lights, the music, the hubbub, in which the deep-throated
gurgle of the wine-agent surprised while drinking soup blended with the
shriller note of the chorus-girl calling to her mate--these things got
Henry. He was thirty-six next birthday, but he felt a youngish
twenty-one.
A voice spoke at his side. Henry looked up, to perceive Sidney Mercer.
The passage of a year, which had turned Henry into a married man, had
turned Sidney Mercer into something so magnificent that the spectacle
for a moment deprived Henry of speech. Faultless evening dress clung
with loving closeness to Sidney's lissom form. Gleaming shoes of
perfect patent leather covered his feet. His light hair was brushed
back into a smooth sleekness on which the electric lights shone like
stars on some beautiful pool. His practically chinless face beamed
amiably over a spotless collar.
Henry wore blue serge.
'What are you doing here, Henry, old top?' said the vision. 'I didn't
know you ever came among the bright lights.'
His eyes wandered off to Minnie. There was admiration in them, for
Minnie was looking her prettiest.
'Wife,' said Henry, recovering speech. And to Minnie: 'Mr Mercer. Old
friend.'
'So you're married? Wish you luck. How's the bank?'
Henry said the bank was doing as well as could be expected.
'You still on the stage?'
Mr Mercer shook his head importantly.
'Got better job. Professional dancer at this show. Rolling in money.
Why aren't you dancing?'
The words struck a jarring note. The lights and the music until that
moment had had a subtle psychological effect on Henry, enabling him to
hypnotize himself into a feeling that it was not inability to dance
that kept him in his seat, but that he had had so much of that sort of
thing that he really preferred to sit quietly and look on for a change.
Sidney's question changed all that. It made him face the truth.
'I don't dance.'
'For the love of Mike! I bet Mrs Mills does. Would you care for a turn,
Mrs Mills?'
'No, thank you, really.'
But remorse was now at work on Henry. He perceived that he had been
standing in the way of Minnie's pleasure. Of course she wanted to
dance. All women did. She was only refusing for his sake.
'Nonsense, Min. Go to it.'
Minnie looked doubtful.
'Of course you must dance, Min. I shall be all right. I'll sit here and
smoke.'
The next moment Minnie and Sidney were treading the complicated
measure; and simultaneously Henry ceased to be a youngish twenty-one
and was even conscious of a fleeting doubt as to whether he was really
only thirty-five.
Boil the whole question of old age down, and what it amounts to is that
a man is young as long as he can dance without getting lumbago, and, if
he cannot dance, he is never young at all. This was the truth that
forced itself upon Henry Wallace Mills, as he sat watching his wife
moving over the floor in the arms of Sidney Mercer. Even he could see
that Minnie danced well. He thrilled at the sight of her gracefulness;
and for the first time since his marriage he became introspective. It
had never struck him before how much younger Minnie was than himself.
When she had signed the paper at the City Hall on the occasion of the
purchase of the marriage licence, she had given her age, he remembered
now, as twenty-six. It had made no impression on him at the time. Now,
however, he perceived clearly that between twenty-six and thirty-five
there was a gap of nine years; and a chill sensation came upon him of
being old and stodgy. How dull it must be for poor little Minnie to be
cooped up night after night with such an old fogy? Other men took their
wives out and gave them a good time, dancing half the night with them.
All he could do was to sit at home and read Minnie dull stuff from the
_Encyclopaedia_. What a life for the poor child! Suddenly, he felt
acutely jealous of the rubber-jointed Sidney Mercer, a man whom
hitherto he had always heartily despised.
The music stopped. They came back to the table, Minnie with a pink glow
on her face that made her younger than ever; Sidney, the insufferable
ass, grinning and smirking and pretending to be eighteen. They looked
like a couple of children--Henry, catching sight of himself in a
mirror, was surprised to find that his hair was not white.
Half an hour later, in the cab going home, Minnie, half asleep, was
aroused by a sudden stiffening of the arm that encircled her waist and
a sudden snort close to her ear.
It was Henry Wallace Mills resolving that he would learn to dance.
Being of a literary turn of mind and also economical, Henry's first
step towards his new ambition was to buy a fifty-cent book entitled
_The ABC of Modern Dancing_, by 'Tango'. It would, he felt--not
without reason--be simpler and less expensive if he should learn the
steps by the aid of this treatise than by the more customary method of
taking lessons. But quite early in the proceedings he was faced by
complications. In the first place, it was his intention to keep what he
was doing a secret from Minnie, in order to be able to give her a
pleasant surprise on her birthday, which would be coming round in a few
weeks. In the second place, _The ABC of Modern Dancing_ proved on
investigation far more complex than its title suggested.
These two facts were the ruin of the literary method, for, while it was
possible to study the text and the plates at the bank, the home was the
only place in which he could attempt to put the instructions into
practice. You cannot move the right foot along dotted line A B and
bring the left foot round curve C D in a paying-cashier's cage in a
bank, nor, if you are at all sensitive to public opinion, on the
pavement going home. And while he was trying to do it in the parlour of
the flat one night when he imagined that Minnie was in the kitchen
cooking supper, she came in unexpectedly to ask how he wanted the steak
cooked. He explained that he had had a sudden touch of cramp, but the
incident shook his nerve.
After this he decided that he must have lessons.
Complications did not cease with this resolve. Indeed, they became more
acute. It was not that there was any difficulty about finding an
instructor. The papers were full of their advertisements. He selected a
Mme Gavarni because she lived in a convenient spot. Her house was in a
side street, with a station within easy reach. The real problem was
when to find time for the lessons. His life was run on such a regular
schedule that he could hardly alter so important a moment in it as the
hour of his arrival home without exciting comment. Only deceit could
provide a solution.
'Min, dear,' he said at breakfast.
'Yes, Henry?'
Henry turned mauve. He had never lied to her before.
'I'm not getting enough exercise.'
'Why you look so well.'
'I get a kind of heavy feeling sometimes. I think I'll put on another
mile or so to my walk on my way home. So--so I'll be back a little
later in future.'
'Very well, dear.'
It made him feel like a particularly low type of criminal, but, by
abandoning his walk, he was now in a position to devote an hour a day
to the lessons; and Mme Gavarni had said that that would be ample.
'Sure, Bill,' she had said. She was a breezy old lady with a military
moustache and an unconventional manner with her clientele. 'You come to
me an hour a day, and, if you haven't two left feet, we'll make you the
pet of society in a month.'
'Is that so?'
'It sure is. I never had a failure yet with a pupe, except one. And
that wasn't my fault.'
'Had he two left feet?'
'Hadn't any feet at all. Fell off of a roof after the second lesson,
and had to have 'em cut off him. At that, I could have learned him to
tango with wooden legs, only he got kind of discouraged. Well, see you
Monday, Bill. Be good.'
And the kindly old soul, retrieving her chewing gum from the panel of
the door where she had placed it to facilitate conversation, dismissed
him.
And now began what, in later years, Henry unhesitatingly considered the
most miserable period of his existence. There may be times when a man
who is past his first youth feels more unhappy and ridiculous than when
he is taking a course of lessons in the modern dance, but it is not
easy to think of them. Physically, his new experience caused Henry
acute pain. Muscles whose existence he had never suspected came into
being for--apparently--the sole purpose of aching. Mentally he suffered
even more.
This was partly due to the peculiar method of instruction in vogue at
Mme Gavarni's, and partly to the fact that, when it came to the actual
lessons, a sudden niece was produced from a back room to give them. She
was a blonde young lady with laughing blue eyes, and Henry never
clasped her trim waist without feeling a black-hearted traitor to his
absent Minnie. Conscience racked him. Add to this the sensation of
being a strange, jointless creature with abnormally large hands and
feet, and the fact that it was Mme Gavarni's custom to stand in a
corner of the room during the hour of tuition, chewing gum and making
comments, and it is not surprising that Henry became wan and thin.
Mme Gavarni had the trying habit of endeavouring to stimulate Henry by
frequently comparing his performance and progress with that of a
cripple whom she claimed to have taught at some previous time.
She and the niece would have spirited arguments in his presence as to
whether or not the cripple had one-stepped better after his third
lesson than Henry after his fifth. The niece said no. As well, perhaps,
but not better. Mme Gavarni said that the niece was forgetting the way
the cripple had slid his feet. The niece said yes, that was so, maybe
she was. Henry said nothing. He merely perspired.
He made progress slowly. This could not be blamed upon his
instructress, however. She did all that one woman could to speed him
up. Sometimes she would even pursue him into the street in order to
show him on the side-walk a means of doing away with some of his
numerous errors of _technique_, the elimination of which would
help to make him definitely the cripple's superior. The misery of
embracing her indoors was as nothing to the misery of embracing her on
the sidewalk.
Nevertheless, having paid for his course of lessons in advance, and
being a determined man, he did make progress. One day, to his surprise,
he found his feet going through the motions without any definite
exercise of will-power on his part--almost as if they were endowed with
an intelligence of their own. It was the turning-point. It filled him
with a singular pride such as he had not felt since his first rise of
salary at the bank.
Mme Gavarni was moved to dignified praise.
'Some speed, kid!' she observed. 'Some speed!'
Henry blushed modestly. It was the accolade.
Every day, as his skill at the dance became more manifest, Henry found
occasion to bless the moment when he had decided to take lessons. He
shuddered sometimes at the narrowness of his escape from disaster.
Every day now it became more apparent to him, as he watched Minnie,
that she was chafing at the monotony of her life. That fatal supper had
wrecked the peace of their little home. Or perhaps it had merely
precipitated the wreck. Sooner or later, he told himself, she was bound
to have wearied of the dullness of her lot. At any rate, dating from
shortly after that disturbing night, a lack of ease and spontaneity
seemed to creep into their relations. A blight settled on the home.
Little by little Minnie and he were growing almost formal towards each
other. She had lost her taste for being read to in the evenings and had
developed a habit of pleading a headache and going early to bed.
Sometimes, catching her eye when she was not expecting it, he surprised
an enigmatic look in it. It was a look, however, which he was able to
read. It meant that she was bored.
It might have been expected that this state of affairs would have
distressed Henry. It gave him, on the contrary, a pleasurable thrill.
It made him feel that it had been worth it, going through the torments
of learning to dance. The more bored she was now the greater her
delight when he revealed himself dramatically. If she had been
contented with the life which he could offer her as a non-dancer, what
was the sense of losing weight and money in order to learn the steps?
He enjoyed the silent, uneasy evenings which had supplanted those
cheery ones of the first year of their marriage. The more uncomfortable
they were now, the more they would appreciate their happiness later on.
Henry belonged to the large circle of human beings who consider that
there is acuter pleasure in being suddenly cured of toothache than in
never having toothache at all.
He merely chuckled inwardly, therefore, when, on the morning of her
birthday, having presented her with a purse which he knew she had long
coveted, he found himself thanked in a perfunctory and mechanical way.
'I'm glad you like it,' he said.
Minnie looked at the purse without enthusiasm.
'It's just what I wanted,' she said, listlessly.
'Well, I must be going. I'll get the tickets for the theatre while I'm
in town.'
Minnie hesitated for a moment.
'I don't believe I want to go to the theatre much tonight, Henry.'
'Nonsense. We must have a party on your birthday. We'll go to the
theatre and then we'll have supper at Geisenheimer's again. I may be
working after hours at the bank today, so I guess I won't come home.
I'll meet you at that Italian place at six.'
'Very well. You'll miss your walk, then?'
'Yes. It doesn't matter for once.'
'No. You're still going on with your walks, then?'
'Oh, yes, yes.'
'Three miles every day?'
'Never miss it. It keeps me well.'
'Yes.'
'Good-bye, darling.'
'Good-bye.'
Yes, there was a distinct chill in the atmosphere. Thank goodness,
thought Henry, as he walked to the station, it would be different
tomorrow morning. He had rather the feeling of a young knight who has
done perilous deeds in secret for his lady, and is about at last to
receive credit for them.
Geisenheimer's was as brilliant and noisy as it had been before when
Henry reached it that night, escorting a reluctant Minnie. After a
silent dinner and a theatrical performance during which neither had
exchanged more than a word between the acts, she had wished to abandon
the idea of supper and go home. But a squad of police could not have
kept Henry from Geisenheimer's. His hour had come. He had thought of
this moment for weeks, and he visualized every detail of his big scene.
At first they would sit at their table in silent discomfort. Then
Sidney Mercer would come up, as before, to ask Minnie to dance. And
then--then--Henry would rise and, abandoning all concealment, exclaim
grandly: 'No! I am going to dance with my wife!' Stunned amazement of
Minnie, followed by wild joy. Utter rout and discomfiture of that
pin-head, Mercer. And then, when they returned to their table, he
breathing easily and regularly as a trained dancer in perfect condition
should, she tottering a little with the sudden rapture of it all, they
would sit with their heads close together and start a new life. That
was the scenario which Henry had drafted.
It worked out--up to a certain point--as smoothly as ever it had done
in his dreams. The only hitch which he had feared--to wit, the
non-appearance of Sidney Mercer, did not occur. It would spoil the
scene a little, he had felt, if Sidney Mercer did not present himself
to play the role of foil; but he need have had no fears on this point.
Sidney had the gift, not uncommon in the chinless, smooth-baked type of
man, of being able to see a pretty girl come into the restaurant even
when his back was towards the door. They had hardly seated themselves
when he was beside their table bleating greetings.
'Why, Henry! Always here!'
'Wife's birthday.'
'Many happy returns of the day, Mrs Mills. We've just time for one turn
before the waiter comes with your order. Come along.'
The band was staggering into a fresh tune, a tune that Henry knew well.
Many a time had Mme Gavarni hammered it out of an aged and unwilling
piano in order that he might dance with her blue-eyed niece. He rose.
'No!' he exclaimed grandly. 'I am going to dance with my wife!'
He had not under-estimated the sensation which he had looked forward to
causing. Minnie looked at him with round eyes. Sidney Mercer was
obviously startled.
'I thought you couldn't dance.'
'You never can tell,' said Henry, lightly. 'It looks easy enough.
Anyway, I'll try.'
'Henry!' cried Minnie, as he clasped her.
He had supposed that she would say something like that, but hardly in
that kind of voice. There is a way of saying 'Henry!' which conveys
surprised admiration and remorseful devotion; but she had not said it
in that way. There had been a note of horror in her voice. Henry's was
a simple mind, and the obvious solution, that Minnie thought that he
had drunk too much red wine at the Italian restaurant, did not occur to
him.
He was, indeed, at the moment too busy to analyse vocal inflections.
They were on the floor now, and it was beginning to creep upon him like
a chill wind that the scenario which he had mapped out was subject to
unforeseen alterations.
At first all had been well. They had been almost alone on the floor,
and he had begun moving his feet along dotted line A B with the smooth
vim which had characterized the last few of his course of lessons. And
then, as if by magic, he was in the midst of a crowd--a mad, jigging
crowd that seemed to have no sense of direction, no ability whatever to
keep out of his way. For a moment the tuition of weeks stood by him.
Then, a shock, a stifled cry from Minnie, and the first collision had
occurred. And with that all the knowledge which he had so painfully
acquired passed from Henry's mind, leaving it an agitated blank. This
was a situation for which his slidings round an empty room had not
prepared him. Stage-fright at its worst came upon him. Somebody charged
him in the back and asked querulously where he thought he was going. As
he turned with a half-formed notion of apologizing, somebody else
rammed him from the other side. He had a momentary feeling as if he
were going down the Niagara Rapids in a barrel, and then he was lying
on the floor with Minnie on top of him. Somebody tripped over his head.
He sat up. Somebody helped him to his feet. He was aware of Sidney
Mercer at his side.
'Do it again,' said Sidney, all grin and sleek immaculateness. 'It went
down big, but lots of them didn't see it.'
The place was full of demon laughter.
* * * * *
'Min!' said Henry.
They were in the parlour of their little flat. Her back was towards
him, and he could not see her face. She did not answer. She preserved
the silence which she had maintained since they had left the
restaurant. Not once during the journey home had she spoken.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked on. Outside an Elevated train
rumbled by. Voices came from the street.
'Min, I'm sorry.'
Silence.
'I thought I could do it. Oh, Lord!' Misery was in every note of
Henry's voice. 'I've been taking lessons every day since that night we
went to that place first. It's no good--I guess it's like the old woman
said. I've got two left feet, and it's no use my ever trying to do it.
I kept it secret from you, what I was doing. I wanted it to be a
wonderful surprise for you on your birthday. I knew how sick and tired
you were getting of being married to a man who never took you out,
because he couldn't dance. I thought it was up to me to learn, and give
you a good time, like other men's wives. I--'
'Henry!'
She had turned, and with a dull amazement he saw that her whole face
had altered. Her eyes were shining with a radiant happiness.
'Henry! Was _that_ why you went to that house--to take dancing
lessons?'
He stared at her without speaking. She came to him, laughing.
'So that was why you pretended you were still doing your walks?'
'You knew!'
'I saw you come out of that house. I was just going to the station at
the end of the street, and I saw you. There was a girl with you, a girl
with yellow hair. You hugged her!'
Henry licked his dry lips.
'Min,' he said huskily. 'You won't believe it, but she was trying to
teach me the Jelly Roll.'
She held him by the lapels of his coat.
'Of course I believe it. I understand it all now. I thought at the time
that you were just saying good-bye to her! Oh, Henry, why ever didn't
you tell me what you were doing? Oh, yes, I know you wanted it to be a
surprise for me on my birthday, but you must have seen there was
something wrong. You must have seen that I thought something. Surely
you noticed how I've been these last weeks?'
'I thought it was just that you were finding it dull.'
'Dull! Here, with you!'
'It was after you danced that night with Sidney Mercer. I thought the
whole thing out. You're so much younger than I, Min. It didn't seem
right for you to have to spend your life being read to by a fellow like
me.'
'But I loved it!'
'You had to dance. Every girl has to. Women can't do without it.'
'This one can. Henry, listen! You remember how ill and worn out I was
when you met me first at that farm? Do you know why it was? It was
because I had been slaving away for years at one of those places where
you go in and pay five cents to dance with the lady instructresses. I
was a lady instructress. Henry! Just think what I went through! Every
day having to drag a million heavy men with large feet round a big
room. I tell you, you are a professional compared with some of them!
They trod on my feet and leaned their two hundred pounds on me and
nearly killed me. Now perhaps you can understand why I'm not crazy
about dancing! Believe me, Henry, the kindest thing you can do to me is
to tell me I must never dance again.'
'You--you--' he gulped. 'Do you really mean that you can--can stand the
sort of life we're living here? You really don't find it dull?'
'Dull!'
She ran to the bookshelf, and came back with a large volume.
'Read to me, Henry, dear. Read me something now. It seems ages and ages
since you used to. Read me something out of the _Encyclopaedia_!'
Henry was looking at the book in his hand. In the midst of a joy that
almost overwhelmed him, his orderly mind was conscious of something
wrong.
'But this is the MED-MUM volume, darling.'
'Is it? Well, that'll be all right. Read me all about "Mum".'
'But we're only in the CAL-CHA--' He wavered. 'Oh, well--I' he went on,
recklessly. 'I don't care. Do you?'
'No. Sit down here, dear, and I'll sit on the floor.'
Henry cleared his throat.
'"Milicz, or Militsch (d. 1374), Bohemian divine, was the most
influential among those preachers and writers in Moravia and Bohemia
who, during the fourteenth century, in a certain sense paved the way
for the reforming activity of Huss."'
He looked down. Minnie's soft hair was resting against his knee. He put
out a hand and stroked it. She turned and looked up, and he met her big
eyes.
'Can you beat it?' said Henry, silently, to himself.
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