[Roads] Semanticate
This commit is contained in:
vr8hub
parent
92429dc814
commit
90c8b3d46e
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Me?” said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. “Why, warden, I never was in Springfield in my life!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take him back, Cronin!” said the warden, “and fix him up with outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him come to the bull-pen. Better think over my advice, Valentine.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the warden’s outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting, ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, “Pardoned by Governor,” and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, “Pardoned by Governor,” and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.</p>
|
||||
<p>Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled chicken and a bottle of white wine—followed by a cigar a grade better than the one the warden had given him. From there he proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three hours set him down in a little town near the state line. He went to the café of one Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone behind the bar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy,” said Mike. “But we had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fine,” said Jimmy. “Got my key?”</p>
|
||||
@ -26,8 +26,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“Me?” said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand. I’m representing the New York Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and Frazzled Wheat Company.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to take a seltzer-and-milk on the spot. He never touched “hard” drinks.</p>
|
||||
<p>A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of safe-burglary done in Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author. A scant eight hundred dollars was all that was secured. Two weeks after that a patented, improved, burglar-proof safe in Logansport was opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, currency; securities and silver untouched. That began to interest the rogue-catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in Jefferson City became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of bank-notes amounting to five thousand dollars. The losses were now high enough to bring the matter up into Ben Price’s class of work. By comparing notes, a remarkable similarity in the methods of the burglaries was noticed. Ben Price investigated the scenes of the robberies, and was heard to remark:</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill but one hole. Yes, I guess I want Mr. Valentine. He’ll do his bit next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates, and a taste for good society—these ways had helped Mr. Valentine to become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and other people with burglar-proof safes felt more at ease.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill but one hole. Yes, I guess I want <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Valentine. He’ll do his bit next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates, and a taste for good society—these ways had helped <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Valentine to become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and other people with burglar-proof safes felt more at ease.</p>
|
||||
<p>One afternoon Jimmy Valentine and his suit-case climbed out of the mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down in the black-jack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an athletic young senior just home from college, went down the board side-walk toward the hotel.</p>
|
||||
<p>A young lady crossed the street, passed him at the corner and entered a door over which was the sign, “The Elmore Bank.” Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man. She lowered her eyes and coloured slightly. Young men of Jimmy’s style and looks were scarce in Elmore.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy collared a boy that was loafing on the steps of the bank as if he were one of the stockholders, and began to ask him questions about the town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady came out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with the suit-case, and went her way.</p>
|
||||
@ -35,12 +35,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“Naw,” said the boy. “She’s Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank. What’d you come to Elmore for? Is that a gold watch-chain? I’m going to get a bulldog. Got any more dimes?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy went to the Planters’ Hotel, registered as Ralph D. Spencer, and engaged a room. He leaned on the desk and declared his platform to the clerk. He said he had come to Elmore to look for a location to go into business. How was the shoe business, now, in the town? He had thought of the shoe business. Was there an opening?</p>
|
||||
<p>The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy’s manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially gave information.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped Mr. Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He would carry up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phœnix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He would carry up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer, the phœnix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured a good run of trade.</p>
|
||||
<p>Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and became more and more captivated by her charms.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of a year the situation of Mr. Ralph Spencer was this: he had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two weeks. Mr. Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He was as much at home in the family of Mr. Adams and that of Annabel’s married sister as if he were already a member.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in St. Louis:</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of a year the situation of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ralph Spencer was this: he had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two weeks. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He was as much at home in the family of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams and that of Annabel’s married sister as if he were already a member.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<blockquote class="med">
|
||||
<p class="noindent">
|
||||
@ -54,17 +54,17 @@
|
||||
<p>On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town in his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the drug-store across the street from Spencer’s shoe-store he got a good look at Ralph D. Spencer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Going to marry the banker’s daughter are you, Jimmy?” said Ben to himself, softly. “Well, I don’t know!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going to Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something nice for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town since he came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since those last professional “jobs,” and he thought he could safely venture out.</p>
|
||||
<p>After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—Mr. Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suit-case. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the railroad station.</p>
|
||||
<p>All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-room—Jimmy included, for Mr. Adams’s future son-in-law was welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his suit-case down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the suit-case. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My! Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suit-case. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the railroad station.</p>
|
||||
<p>All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-room—Jimmy included, for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams’s future son-in-law was welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his suit-case down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the suit-case. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My! Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lot of nickel-plated shoe-horns in there,” said Jimmy, coolly, “that I’m going to return. Thought I’d save express charges by taking them up. I’m getting awfully economical.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. Mr. Adams was very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single handle, and had a time-lock. Mr. Adams beamingly explained its workings to Mr. Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams was very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single handle, and had a time-lock. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams beamingly explained its workings to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.</p>
|
||||
<p>While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on his elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the teller that he didn’t want anything; he was just waiting for a man he knew.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion. Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen Mr. Adams do.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion. Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams do.</p>
|
||||
<p>The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment. “The door can’t be opened,” he groaned. “The clock hasn’t been wound nor the combination set.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Agatha’s mother screamed again, hysterically.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush!” said Mr. Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quite for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hush!” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quite for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My precious darling!” wailed the mother. “She will die of fright! Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can’t you men do something?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,” said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Agatha’s mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy, her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Can’t you do something, Ralph—<i>try</i>, won’t you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his keen eyes.</p>
|
||||
@ -78,7 +78,7 @@
|
||||
<p>At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello, Ben!” said Jimmy, still with his strange smile. “Got around at last, have you? Well, let’s go. I don’t know that it makes much difference, now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Guess you’re mistaken, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I recognize you. Your buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Guess you’re mistaken, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I recognize you. Your buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -21,27 +21,27 @@
|
||||
<p>“Thass so, boys,” said madame, summing up. “Thass ver’ wicked man, M’sieur Morin. Everybody shall be cert’ he steal those money I plaze in his hand for keep safe. Yes. He’s boun’ spend that money, somehow.” Madame turned a broad and contemplative smile upon Dumars. “I ond’stand you, M’sieur Dumars, those day you come ask fo’ tell ev’ything I know ‘bout M’sieur Morin. Ah! yes, I know most time when those men lose money you say ‘<i>Cherchez la femme</i>‘—there is somewhere the woman. But not for M’sieur Morin. No, boys. Before he shall die, he is like one saint. You might’s well, M’sieur Dumars, go try find those money in those statue of Virgin Mary that M’sieur Morin present at those <i>p’tite sœurs</i>, as try find one <i>femme</i>.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At Madame Tibault’s last words, Robbins started slightly and cast a keen, sidelong glance at Dumars. The Creole sat, unmoved, dreamily watching the spirals of his cigarette smoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was then nine o’clock in the morning and, a few minutes later, the two friends separated, going different ways to their day’s duties. And now follows the brief story of Madame Tibault’s vanished thousands:</p>
|
||||
<p>New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant upon the death of Mr. Gaspard Morin, in that city. Mr. Morin was an artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian. He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.</p>
|
||||
<p>New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant upon the death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gaspard Morin, in that city. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin was an artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian. He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.</p>
|
||||
<p>When his affairs came to be looked into, it was found that he was practically insolvent, his stock of goods and personal property barely—but nearly enough to free him from censure—covering his liabilities. Following came the disclosure that he had been entrusted with the sum of twenty thousand dollars by a former upper servant in the Morin family, one Madame Tibault, which she had received as a legacy from relatives in France.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and left no trace. Some weeks before his death, Mr. Morin had drawn the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment. Therefore, Mr. Morin’s memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and left no trace. Some weeks before his death, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had drawn the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment. Therefore, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then it was that Robbins and Dumars, representing their respective journals, began one of those pertinacious private investigations which, of late years, the press has adopted as a means to glory and the satisfaction of public curiosity.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i>Cherchez la femme</i>,” said Dumars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s the ticket!” agreed Robbins. “All roads lead to the eternal feminine. We will find the woman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of Mr. Morin’s hotel, from the bell-boy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly, pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed. They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of their labours, Mr. Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk’s; his habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.</p>
|
||||
<p>They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s hotel, from the bell-boy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly, pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed. They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of their labours, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk’s; his habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What, now?” asked Robbins, fingering his empty notebook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i>Cherchez la femme</i>,” said Dumars, lighting a cigarette. “Try Lady Bellairs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This piece of femininity was the race-track favourite of the season. Being feminine, she was erratic in her gaits, and there were a few heavy losers about town who had believed she could be true. The reporters applied for information.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races. Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races. Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shall we throw it up?” suggested Robbins, “and let the puzzle department have a try?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i>Cherchez la femme</i>,” hummed Dumars, reaching for a match. “Try the Little Sisters of What-d’-you-call-’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It had developed, during the investigation, that Mr. Morin had held this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>It had developed, during the investigation, that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had held this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thither went Robbins and Dumars, and were admitted through the narrow doorway in the blank stone wall that frowned upon Bonhomme Street. An old woman was sweeping the chapel. She told them that Sister Félicité, the head of the order, was then at prayer at the altar in the alcove. In a few moments she would emerge. Heavy, black curtains screened the alcove. They waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon the curtains were disturbed, and Sister Félicité came forth. She was tall, tragic, bony, and plain-featured, dressed in the black gown and severe bonnet of the sisterhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins, a good rough-and-tumble reporter, but lacking the delicate touch, began to speak.</p>
|
||||
<p>They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman’s memory, to probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning Mr. Morin’s habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in doing him posthumous justice.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told, but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. Mr. Morin had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth. He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled, cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt upon so good a man!</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it was found what Mr. Morin had done with Madame Tibault’s money, he feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes—in fact, very often—in affairs of the kind there was—er—as the saying goes—er—a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now—if—perhaps—</p>
|
||||
<p>They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman’s memory, to probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in doing him posthumous justice.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told, but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth. He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled, cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt upon so good a man!</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it was found what <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had done with Madame Tibault’s money, he feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes—in fact, very often—in affairs of the kind there was—er—as the saying goes—er—a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now—if—perhaps—</p>
|
||||
<p>Sister Félicité’s large eyes regarded him solemnly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was one woman,” she said, slowly, “to whom he bowed—to whom he gave his heart.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Robbins fumbled rapturously for his pencil.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-12" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>FRIENDS IN SAN ROSARIO</h2>
|
||||
<p>The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 <span class="smallcaps">a.m.</span> A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.</p>
|
||||
<p>The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 <span class="smallcaps"><abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr></span> A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.</p>
|
||||
<p>Indecision had no part in the movements of the man with the wallet. He was short in stature, but strongly built, with very light, closely-trimmed hair, smooth, determined face, and aggressive, gold-rimmed nose glasses. He was well dressed in the prevailing Eastern style. His air denoted a quiet but conscious reserve force, if not actual authority.</p>
|
||||
<p>After walking a distance of three squares he came to the centre of the town’s business area. Here another street of importance crossed the main one, forming the hub of San Rosario’s life and commerce. Upon one corner stood the post-office. Upon another Rubensky’s Clothing Emporium. The other two diagonally opposing corners were occupied by the town’s two banks, the First National and the Stockmen’s National. Into the First National Bank of San Rosario the newcomer walked, never slowing his brisk step until he stood at the cashier’s window. The bank opened for business at nine, and the working force was already assembled, each member preparing his department for the day’s business. The cashier was examining the mail when he noticed the stranger standing at his window.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bank doesn’t open ‘til nine,” he remarked curtly, but without feeling. He had had to make that statement so often to early birds since San Rosario adopted city banking hours.</p>
|
||||
@ -23,36 +23,36 @@
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
</table>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<p>“Oh—er—will you walk around inside, Mr.—er—Nettlewick. Your first visit—didn’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by Mr. Edlinger, the cashier—a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said Mr. Edlinger. “Sam’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mr. Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh—er—will you walk around inside, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—er—Nettlewick. Your first visit—didn’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger, the cashier—a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger. “Sam’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the counter for the examiner’s inspection. He knew it was right to a cent, and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor overlook an error.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda—certain checks, charge slips, etc., carried over from the previous day’s work—with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda—certain checks, charge slips, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, carried over from the previous day’s work—with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.</p>
|
||||
<p>This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam’s way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars, and tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary greeting to Dorsey had been, “Hello, Perry! Haven’t skipped out with the boodle yet, I see.” Turner’s way of counting the cash had been different, too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for Sam Turner. “No chicken feed for me,” he would say when they were set before him. “I’m not in the agricultural department.” But, then, Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank’s president, and had known Dorsey since he was a baby.</p>
|
||||
<p>While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas B. Kingman—known to every one as “Major Tom”—the president of the First National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy, and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going into the little “pony corral,” as he called it, in which his desk was railed off, he began to look over his letters.</p>
|
||||
<p>Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, Mr. Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, “you want to get a move on you. There’s a new bank examiner over at the First, and he’s a stem-winder. He’s counting nickles on Perry, and he’s got the whole outfit bluffed. Mr. Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Buckley, president of the Stockmen’s National—a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday—heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, “you want to get a move on you. There’s a new bank examiner over at the First, and he’s a stem-winder. He’s counting nickles on Perry, and he’s got the whole outfit bluffed. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buckley, president of the Stockmen’s National—a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday—heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Has Major Kingman come down to the bank yet?” he asked of the boy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, sir, he was just driving up as I left,” said Roy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want you to take him a note. Put it into his own hands as soon as you get back.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Buckley sat down and began to write.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buckley sat down and began to write.</p>
|
||||
<p>Roy returned and handed to Major Kingman the envelope containing the note. The major read it, folded it, and slipped it into his vest pocket. He leaned back in his chair for a few moments as if he were meditating deeply, and then rose and went into the vault. He came out with the bulky, old-fashioned leather note case stamped on the back in gilt letters, “Bills Discounted.” In this were the notes due the bank with their attached securities, and the major, in his rough way, dumped the lot upon his desk and began to sort them over.</p>
|
||||
<p>By this time Nettlewick had finished his count of the cash. His pencil fluttered like a swallow over the sheet of paper on which he had set his figures. He opened his black wallet, which seemed to be also a kind of secret memorandum book, made a few rapid figures in it, wheeled and transfixed Dorsey with the glare of his spectacles. That look seemed to say: “You’re safe this time, but—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cash all correct,” snapped the examiner. He made a dash for the individual bookkeeper, and, for a few minutes there was a fluttering of ledger leaves and a sailing of balance sheets through the air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How often do you balance your pass-books?” he demanded, suddenly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—once a month,” faltered the individual bookkeeper, wondering how many years they would give him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said the examiner, turning and charging upon the general bookkeeper, who had the statements of his foreign banks and their reconcilement memoranda ready. Everything there was found to be all right. Then the stub book of the certificates of deposit. Flutter—flutter—zip—zip—check! All right. List of over-drafts, please. Thanks. H’m-m. Unsigned bills of the bank, next. All right.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the cashier’s turn, and easy-going Mr. Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the cashier’s turn, and easy-going <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.</p>
|
||||
<p>Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his elbow—a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough, grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without a flicker.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—Mr. Nettlewick,” said the cashier.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick,” said the cashier.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two men of very different types shook hands. One was a finished product of the world of straight lines, conventional methods, and formal affairs. The other was something freer, wider, and nearer to nature. Tom Kingman had not been cut to any pattern. He had been mule-driver, cowboy, ranger, soldier, sheriff, prospector, and cattleman. Now, when he was bank president, his old comrades from the prairies, of the saddle, tent, and trail found no change in him. He had made his fortune when Texas cattle were at the high tide of value, and had organized the First National Bank of San Rosario. In spite of his largeness of heart and sometimes unwise generosity toward his old friends, the bank had prospered, for Major Tom Kingman knew men as well as he knew cattle. Of late years the cattle business had known a depression, and the major’s bank was one of the few whose losses had not been great.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And now,” said the examiner, briskly, pulling out his watch, “the last thing is the loans. We will take them up now, if you please.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking speed—but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of the bank was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work. There was but one other bank in the town. He received from the Government a fee of twenty-five dollars for each bank that he examined. He should be able to go over those loans and discounts in half an hour. If so, he could examine the other bank immediately afterward, and catch the 11.45, the only other train that day in the direction he was working. Otherwise, he would have to spend the night and Sunday in this uninteresting Western town. That was why Mr. Nettlewick was rushing matters.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking speed—but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of the bank was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work. There was but one other bank in the town. He received from the Government a fee of twenty-five dollars for each bank that he examined. He should be able to go over those loans and discounts in half an hour. If so, he could examine the other bank immediately afterward, and catch the 11.45, the only other train that day in the direction he was working. Otherwise, he would have to spend the night and Sunday in this uninteresting Western town. That was why <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick was rushing matters.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come with me, sir,” said Major Kingman, in his deep voice, that united the Southern drawl with the rhythmic twang of the West; “We will go over them together. Nobody in the bank knows those notes as I do. Some of ’em are a little wobbly on their legs, and some are mavericks without extra many brands on their backs, but they’ll most all pay out at the round-up.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two sat down at the president’s desk. First, the examiner went through the notes at lightning speed, and added up their total, finding it to agree with the amount of loans carried on the book of daily balances. Next, he took up the larger loans, inquiring scrupulously into the condition of their endorsers or securities. The new examiner’s mind seemed to course and turn and make unexpected dashes hither and thither like a bloodhound seeking a trail. Finally he pushed aside all the notes except a few, which he arranged in a neat pile before him, and began a dry, formal little speech.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I find, sir, the condition of your bank to be very good, considering the poor crops and the depression in the cattle interests of your state. The clerical work seems to be done accurately and punctually. Your past-due paper is moderate in amount, and promises only a small loss. I would recommend the calling in of your large loans, and the making of only sixty and ninety day or call loans until general business revives. And now, there is one thing more, and I will have finished with the bank. Here are six notes aggregating something like $40,000. They are secured, according to their faces, by various stocks, bonds, shares, etc. to the value of $70,000. Those securities are missing from the notes to which they should be attached. I suppose you have them in the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine them.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I find, sir, the condition of your bank to be very good, considering the poor crops and the depression in the cattle interests of your state. The clerical work seems to be done accurately and punctually. Your past-due paper is moderate in amount, and promises only a small loss. I would recommend the calling in of your large loans, and the making of only sixty and ninety day or call loans until general business revives. And now, there is one thing more, and I will have finished with the bank. Here are six notes aggregating something like $40,000. They are secured, according to their faces, by various stocks, bonds, shares, <abbr>etc.</abbr> to the value of $70,000. Those securities are missing from the notes to which they should be attached. I suppose you have them in the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine them.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Major Tom’s light-blue eyes turned unflinchingly toward the examiner.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, sir,” he said, in a low but steady tone; “those securities are neither in the safe nor in the vault. I have taken them. You may hold me personally responsible for their absence.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nettlewick felt a slight thrill. He had not expected this. He had struck a momentous trail when the hunt was drawing to a close.</p>
|
||||
@ -73,7 +73,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Two days went by and we never got a clew. It couldn’t have been burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the proper way. People must have begun to talk, for one afternoon in comes Alice—that’s my wife—and the boy and girl, and Alice stamps her foot, and her eyes flash, and she cries out, ‘The lying wretches—Tom, Tom!’ and I catch her in a faint, and bring her ’round little by little, and she lays her head down and cries and cries for the first time since she took Tom Kingman’s name and fortunes. And Jack and Zilla—the youngsters—they were always wild as tiger cubs to rush at Bob and climb all over him whenever they were allowed to come to the court-house—they stood and kicked their little shoes, and herded together like scared partridges. They were having their first trip down into the shadows of life. Bob was working at his desk, and he got up and went out without a word. The grand jury was in session then, and the next morning Bob went before them and confessed that he stole the money. He said he lost it in a poker game. In fifteen minutes they had found a true bill and sent me the warrant to arrest the man with whom I’d been closer than a thousand brothers for many a year.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I did it, and then I said to Bob, pointing: ‘There’s my house, and here’s my office, and up there’s Maine, and out that way is California, and over there is Florida—and that’s your range ‘til court meets. You’re in my charge, and I take the responsibility. You be here when you’re wanted.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Thanks, Tom,’ he said, kind of carelessly; ‘I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t lock me up. Court meets next Monday, so, if you don’t object, I’ll just loaf around the office until then. I’ve got one favour to ask, if it isn’t too much. If you’d let the kids come out in the yard once in a while and have a romp I’d like it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why not?’ I answered him. ‘They’re welcome, and so are you. And come to my house, the same as ever.’ You see, Mr. Nettlewick, you can’t make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of a friend, all at once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Why not?’ I answered him. ‘They’re welcome, and so are you. And come to my house, the same as ever.’ You see, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nettlewick, you can’t make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of a friend, all at once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The examiner made no answer. At that moment was heard the shrill whistle of a locomotive pulling into the depot. That was the train on the little, narrow-gauge road that struck into San Rosario from the south. The major cocked his ear and listened for a moment, and looked at his watch. The narrow-gauge was in on time—10.35. The major continued:</p>
|
||||
<p>“So Bob hung around the office, reading the papers and smoking. I put another deputy to work in his place, and after a while, the first excitement of the case wore off.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day when we were alone in the office Bob came over to where I was sitting. He was looking sort of grim and blue—the same look he used to get when he’d been up watching for Indians all night or herd-riding.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Do you know,’ says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, ‘I like your cheek in asking me if I’ll join you; blast me if I don’t. You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an ice factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I possessed, and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my cot I could look through the window and see the consul’s old ragged Stars and Stripes hanging over his shack. ‘You’re all kinds of a fool, Billy Casparis,’ I says to myself; ‘and of all your crimes against sense it does look like this idea of celebrating the Fourth should receive the award of demerit. Your business is busted up, your thousand dollars is gone into the kitty of this corrupt country on that last bluff you made, you’ve got just fifteen Chili dollars left, worth forty-six cents each at bedtime last night and steadily going down. To-day you’ll blow in your last cent hurrahing for that flag, and to-morrow you’ll be living on bananas from the stalk and screwing your drinks out of your friends. What’s the flag done for you? While you were under it you worked for what you got. You wore your finger nails down skinning suckers, and salting mines, and driving bears and alligators off your town lot additions. How much does patriotism count for on deposit when the little man with the green eye-shade in the savings-bank adds up your book? Suppose you were to get pinched over here in this irreligious country for some little crime or other, and appealed to your country for protection—what would it do for you? Turn your appeal over to a committee of one railroad man, an army officer, a member of each labour union, and a coloured man to investigate whether any of your ancestors were ever related to a cousin of Mark Hanna, and then file the papers in the Smithsonian Institution until after the next election. That’s the kind of a sidetrack the Stars and Stripes would switch you onto.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“You can see that I was feeling like an indigo plant; but after I washed my face in some cool water, and got out my navys and ammunition, and started up to the Saloon of the Immaculate Saints where we were to meet, I felt better. And when I saw those other American boys come swaggering into the trysting place—cool, easy, conspicuous fellows, ready to risk any kind of a one-card draw, or to fight grizzlies, fire, or extradition, I began to feel glad I was one of ’em. So, I says to myself again: ‘Billy, you’ve got fifteen dollars and a country left this morning—blow in the dollars and blow up the town as an American gentleman should on Independence Day.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is my recollection that we began the day along conventional lines. The six of us—for Sterrett was along—made progress among the cantinas, divesting the bars as we went of all strong drink bearing American labels. We kept informing the atmosphere as to the glory and preeminence of the United States and its ability to subdue, outjump, and eradicate the other nations of the earth. And, as the findings of American labels grew more plentiful, we became more contaminated with patriotism. Maximilian Jones hopes that our late foe, Mr. Sterrett, will not take offense at our enthusiasm. He sets down his bottle and shakes Sterrett’s hand. ‘As white man to white man,’ says he, ‘denude our uproar of the slightest taint of personality. Excuse us for Bunker Hill, Patrick Henry, and Waldorf Astor, and such grievances as might lie between us as nations.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is my recollection that we began the day along conventional lines. The six of us—for Sterrett was along—made progress among the cantinas, divesting the bars as we went of all strong drink bearing American labels. We kept informing the atmosphere as to the glory and preeminence of the United States and its ability to subdue, outjump, and eradicate the other nations of the earth. And, as the findings of American labels grew more plentiful, we became more contaminated with patriotism. Maximilian Jones hopes that our late foe, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sterrett, will not take offense at our enthusiasm. He sets down his bottle and shakes Sterrett’s hand. ‘As white man to white man,’ says he, ‘denude our uproar of the slightest taint of personality. Excuse us for Bunker Hill, Patrick Henry, and Waldorf Astor, and such grievances as might lie between us as nations.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Fellow hoodlums,’ says Sterrett, ‘on behalf of the Queen I ask you to cheese it. It is an honour to be a guest at disturbing the peace under the American flag. Let us chant the passionate strains of “Yankee Doodle” while the señor behind the bar mitigates the occasion with another round of cochineal and aqua fortis.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old Man Billfinger, being charged with a kind of rhetoric, makes speeches every time we stop. We explained to such citizens as we happened to step on that we were celebrating the dawn of our own private brand of liberty, and to please enter such inhumanities as we might commit on the list of unavoidable casualties.</p>
|
||||
<p>“About eleven o’clock our bulletins read: ‘A considerable rise in temperature, accompanied by thirst and other alarming symptoms.’ We hooked arms and stretched our line across the narrow streets, all of us armed with Winchesters and navys for purposes of noise and without malice. We stopped on a street corner and fired a dozen or so rounds, and began a serial assortment of United States whoops and yells, probably the first ever heard in that town.</p>
|
||||
@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Don’t mind it,’ I says to him. ”Twas an accident. They happen, you know, on the Fourth. After one reading of the Declaration of Independence in New York I’ve known the S. R. O. sign to be hung out at all the hospitals and police stations.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But then Jerry gives a howl and jumps up with one hand clapped to the back of his leg where another bullet has acted over-zealous. And then comes a quantity of yells, and round a corner and across the plaza gallops General Mary Esperanza Dingo embracing the neck of his horse, with his men running behind him, mostly dropping their guns by way of discharging ballast. And chasing ’em all is a company of feverish little warriors wearing blue trousers and caps.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Assistance, amigos,’ the General shouts, trying to stop his horse. ‘Assistance, in the name of Liberty!’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘That’s the Compañia Azul, the President’s bodyguard,’ says Jones. ‘What a shame! They’ve jumped on poor old Mary just because he was helping us to celebrate. Come on, boys, it’s our Fourth;—do we let that little squad of A.D.T’s break it up?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘That’s the Compañia Azul, the President’s bodyguard,’ says Jones. ‘What a shame! They’ve jumped on poor old Mary just because he was helping us to celebrate. Come on, boys, it’s our Fourth;—do we let that little squad of <abbr class="era">AD</abbr>.T’s break it up?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I vote No,’ says Martin Dillard, gathering his Winchester. ‘It’s the privilege of an American citizen to drink, drill, dress up, and be dreadful on the Fourth of July, no matter whose country he’s in.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Fellow citizens!’ says old man Billfinger, ‘In the darkest hour of Freedom’s birth, when our brave forefathers promulgated the principles of undying liberty, they never expected that a bunch of blue jays like that should be allowed to bust up an anniversary. Let us preserve and protect the Constitution.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“We made it unanimous, and then we gathered our guns and assaulted the blue troops in force. We fired over their heads, and then charged ’em with a yell, and they broke and ran. We were irritated at having our barbecue disturbed, and we chased ’em a quarter of a mile. Some of ’em we caught and kicked hard. The General rallied his troops and joined in the chase. Finally they scattered in a thick banana grove, and we couldn’t flush a single one. So we sat down and rested.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -14,10 +14,10 @@
|
||||
<p>The Governor’s walks up Lee Avenue, the principal street, developed in their course into a sort of memorial, triumphant procession. Everyone he met saluted him with profound respect. Many would remove their hats. Those who were honoured with his personal friendship would pause to shake hands, and then you would see exemplified the genuine <i>beau ideal</i> Southern courtesy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Upon reaching the corner of the second square from the mansion, the Governor would pause. Another street crossed the venue there, and traffic, to the extent of several farmers’ wagons and a peddler’s cart or two, would rage about the junction. Then the falcon eye of General Deffenbaugh would perceive the situation, and the General would hasten, with ponderous solicitude, from his office in the First National Bank building to the assistance of his old friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the two exchanged greetings the decay of modern manners would become accusingly apparent. The General’s bulky and commanding figure would bend lissomely at a point where you would have regarded its ability to do so with incredulity. The Governor would take the General’s arm and be piloted safely between the hay-wagons and the sprinkling-cart to the other side of the street. Proceeding to the post-office in the care of his friend, the esteemed statesmen would there hold an informal levee among the citizens who were come for their morning mail. Here, gathering two or three prominent in law, politics, or family, the pageant would make a stately progress along the Avenue, stopping at the Palace Hotel, where, perhaps, would be found upon the register the name of some guest deemed worthy of an introduction to the state’s venerable and illustrious son. If any such were found, an hour or two would be spent in recalling the faded glories of the Governor’s long-vanished administration.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the return march the General would invariably suggest that, His Excellency being no doubt fatigued, it would be wise to recuperate for a few minutes at the Drug Emporium of Mr. Appleby R. Fentress (an elegant gentleman, sir—one of the Chatham County Fentresses—so many of our best-blooded families have had to go into trade, sir, since the war).</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Appleby R. Fentress was a <i>connoisseur</i> in fatigue. Indeed, if he had not been, his memory alone should have enabled him to prescribe, for the majestic invasion of his pharmacy was a casual happening that had surprised him almost daily for years. Mr. Fentress knew the formula of, and possessed the skill to compound, a certain potion antagonistic to fatigue, the salient ingredient of which he described (no doubt in pharmaceutical terms) as “genuine old hand-made Clover Leaf ’59, Private Stock.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nor did the ceremony of administering the potion ever vary. Mr. Fentress would first compound two of the celebrated mixtures—one for the Governor, and the other for the General to “sample.” Then the Governor would make this little speech in his high, piping, quavering voice:</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, sir—not one drop until you have prepared one for yourself and join us, Mr. Fentress. Your father, sir, was one of my most valued supporters and friends during My Administration, and any mark of esteem I can confer upon his son is not only a pleasure but a duty, sir.”</p>
|
||||
<p>On the return march the General would invariably suggest that, His Excellency being no doubt fatigued, it would be wise to recuperate for a few minutes at the Drug Emporium of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Appleby R. Fentress (an elegant gentleman, sir—one of the Chatham County Fentresses—so many of our best-blooded families have had to go into trade, sir, since the war).</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Appleby R. Fentress was a <i>connoisseur</i> in fatigue. Indeed, if he had not been, his memory alone should have enabled him to prescribe, for the majestic invasion of his pharmacy was a casual happening that had surprised him almost daily for years. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fentress knew the formula of, and possessed the skill to compound, a certain potion antagonistic to fatigue, the salient ingredient of which he described (no doubt in pharmaceutical terms) as “genuine old hand-made Clover Leaf ’59, Private Stock.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Nor did the ceremony of administering the potion ever vary. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fentress would first compound two of the celebrated mixtures—one for the Governor, and the other for the General to “sample.” Then the Governor would make this little speech in his high, piping, quavering voice:</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, sir—not one drop until you have prepared one for yourself and join us, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Fentress. Your father, sir, was one of my most valued supporters and friends during My Administration, and any mark of esteem I can confer upon his son is not only a pleasure but a duty, sir.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Blushing with delight at the royal condescension, the druggist would obey, and all would drink to the General’s toast: “The prosperity of our grand old state, gentlemen—the memory of her glorious past—the health of her Favourite Son.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Some one of the Old Guard was always at hand to escort the Governor home. Sometimes the General’s business duties denied him the privilege, and then Judge Broomfield or Colonel Titus, or one of the Ashford County Slaughters would be on hand to perform the rite.</p>
|
||||
<p>Such were the observances attendant upon the Governor’s morning stroll to the post-office. How much more magnificent, impressive, and spectacular, then, was the scene at public functions when the General would lead forth the silver-haired relic of former greatness, like some rare and fragile waxwork figure, and trumpet his pristine eminence to his fellow citizens!</p>
|
||||
@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Elmville watched and harked with bated breath. Never until now—when a Northern President of the United States should clasp hands with ex-war-Governor Pemberton would the breach be entirely closed—would the country be made one and indivisible—no North, not much South, very little East, and no West to speak of. So Elmville excitedly scraped kalsomine from the walls of the Palace Hotel with its Sunday best, and waited for the Voice to speak.</p>
|
||||
<p>And Billy! We had nearly forgotten Billy. He was cast for Son, and he waited patiently for his cue. He carried his “plug” in his hand, and felt serene. He admired his father’s striking air and pose. After all, it was a great deal to be a son of a man who could so gallantly hold the position of a cynosure for three generations.</p>
|
||||
<p>General Deffenbaugh cleared his throat. Elmville opened its mouth, and squirmed. The chieftain with the kindly, fateful face was holding out his hand, smiling. Ex-war-Governor Pemberton extended his own across the chasm. But what was this the General was saying?</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mr. President, allow me to present to you one who has the honour to be the father of our foremost, distinguished citizen, learned and honoured jurist, beloved townsman, and model Southern gentleman—the Honourable William B. Pemberton.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> President, allow me to present to you one who has the honour to be the father of our foremost, distinguished citizen, learned and honoured jurist, beloved townsman, and model Southern gentleman—the Honourable William B. Pemberton.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“It’s no such thing,” chimed in a pale youth, taking a large cigar from his mouth; “Tansey’s afraid to be late because Miss Katie might come down stairs to unlock the door, and kiss him in the hall.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This delicate piece of raillery sent a fiery tingle into Tansey’s blood, for the indictment was true—barring the kiss. That was a thing to dream of; to wildly hope for; but too remote and sacred a thing to think of lightly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Casting a cold and contemptuous look at the speaker—a punishment commensurate with his own diffident spirit—Tansey left the room, descending the stairs into the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>For two years he had silently adored Miss Peek, worshipping her from a spiritual distance through which her attractions took on stellar brightness and mystery. Mrs. Peek kept a few choice boarders, among whom was Tansey. The other young men romped with Katie, chased her with crickets in their fingers, and “jollied” her with an irreverent freedom that turned Tansey’s heart into cold lead in his bosom. The signs of his adoration were few—a tremulous “Good morning,” stealthy glances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) a blushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on some rare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home. Kiss him in the hall! Aye, he feared it, but it was an ecstatic fear such as Elijah must have felt when the chariot lifted him into the unknown.</p>
|
||||
<p>For two years he had silently adored Miss Peek, worshipping her from a spiritual distance through which her attractions took on stellar brightness and mystery. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Peek kept a few choice boarders, among whom was Tansey. The other young men romped with Katie, chased her with crickets in their fingers, and “jollied” her with an irreverent freedom that turned Tansey’s heart into cold lead in his bosom. The signs of his adoration were few—a tremulous “Good morning,” stealthy glances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) a blushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on some rare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home. Kiss him in the hall! Aye, he feared it, but it was an ecstatic fear such as Elijah must have felt when the chariot lifted him into the unknown.</p>
|
||||
<p>But to-night the gibes of his associates had stung him to a feeling of forward, lawless mutiny; a defiant, challenging, atavistic recklessness. Spirit of corsair, adventurer, lover, poet, bohemian, possessed him. The stars he saw above him seemed no more unattainable, no less high, than the favour of Miss Peek or the fearsome sweetness of her delectable lips. His fate seemed to him strangely dramatic and pathetic, and to call for a solace consonant with its extremity. A saloon was near by, and to this he flitted, calling for absinthe—beyond doubt the drink most adequate to his mood—the tipple of the roué, the abandoned, the vainly sighing lover.</p>
|
||||
<p>Once he drank of it, and again, and then again until he felt a strange, exalted sense of non-participation in worldly affairs pervade him. Tansey was no drinker; his consumption of three absinthe anisettes within almost as few minutes proclaimed his unproficiency in the art; Tansey was merely flooding with unproven liquor his sorrows; which record and tradition alleged to be drownable.</p>
|
||||
<p>Coming out upon the sidewalk, he snapped his fingers defiantly in the direction of the Peek homestead, turned the other way, and voyaged, Columbus-like into the wilds of an enchanted street. Nor is the figure exorbitant, for, beyond his store the foot of Tansey had scarcely been set for years—store and boarding-house; between these ports he was chartered to run, and contrary currents had rarely deflected his prow.</p>
|
||||
@ -93,10 +93,10 @@
|
||||
<p>When Tansey opened his eyes again he was sitting upon those self-same steps gazing upon the dark bulk of the sleeping convent. In the middle of his back was still the acute, chilling pain. How had he been conveyed back there again? He got stiffly to his feet and stretched his cramped limbs. Supporting himself against the stonework he revolved in his mind the extravagant adventures that had befallen him each time he had strayed from the steps that night. In reviewing them certain features strained his credulity. Had he really met Captain Peek or Katie or the unparalleled Mexican in his wanderings—had he really encountered them under commonplace conditions and his over-stimulated brain had supplied the incongruities? However that might be, a sudden, elating thought caused him an intense joy. Nearly all of us have, at some point in our lives—either to excuse our own stupidity or to placate our consciences—promulgated some theory of fatalism. We have set up an intelligent Fate that works by codes and signals. Tansey had done likewise; and now he read, through the night’s incidents, the finger-prints of destiny. Each excursion that he had made had led to the one paramount finale—to Katie and that kiss, which survived and grew strong and intoxicating in his memory. Clearly, Fate was holding up to him the mirror that night, calling him to observe what awaited him at the end of whichever road he might take. He immediately turned, and hurried homeward.</p>
|
||||
<p>Clothed in an elaborate, pale blue wrapper, cut to fit, Miss Katie Peek reclined in an armchair before a waning fire in her room. Her little, bare feet were thrust into house-shoes rimmed with swan’s down. By the light of a small lamp she was attacking the society news of the latest Sunday paper. Some happy substance, seemingly indestructible, was being rhythmically crushed between her small white teeth. Miss Katie read of functions and furbelows, but she kept a vigilant ear for outside sounds and a frequent eye upon the clock over the mantel. At every footstep upon the asphalt sidewalk her smooth, round chin would cease for a moment its regular rise and fall, and a frown of listening would pucker her pretty brows.</p>
|
||||
<p>At last she heard the latch of the iron gate click. She sprang up, tripped softly to the mirror, where she made a few of those feminine, flickering passes at her front hair and throat which are warranted to hypnotize the approaching guest.</p>
|
||||
<p>The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of the lamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down stairs into the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and Mr. Tansey side-stepped in.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, the i-de-a!” exclaimed Miss Katie, “is this you, Mr. Tansey? It’s after midnight. Aren’t you ashamed to wake me up at such an hour to let you in? You’re just <i>awful</i>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of the lamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down stairs into the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tansey side-stepped in.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, the i-de-a!” exclaimed Miss Katie, “is this you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tansey? It’s after midnight. Aren’t you ashamed to wake me up at such an hour to let you in? You’re just <i>awful</i>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was late,” said Tansey, brilliantly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should think you were! Ma was awfully worried about you. When you weren’t in by ten, that hateful Tom McGill said you were out calling on another—said you were out calling on some young lady. I just despise Mr. McGill. Well, I’m not going to scold you any more, Mr. Tansey, if it <i>is</i> a little late—Oh! I turned it the wrong way!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should think you were! Ma was awfully worried about you. When you weren’t in by ten, that hateful Tom McGill said you were out calling on another—said you were out calling on some young lady. I just despise <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McGill. Well, I’m not going to scold you any more, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tansey, if it <i>is</i> a little late—Oh! I turned it the wrong way!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Katie gave a little scream. Absent-mindedly she had turned the blaze of the lamp entirely out instead of higher. It was very dark.</p>
|
||||
<p>Tansey heard a musical, soft giggle, and breathed an entrancing odour of heliotrope. A groping light hand touched his arm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How awkward I was! Can you find your way—Sam?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Wherefore and therefore, Luke Coonrod Standifer, son of Ezra Standifer, ex-Terry ranger, simon-pure democrat, and lucky dweller in an unrepresented portion of the politico-geographical map, was appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.</p>
|
||||
<p>Standifer accepted the honour with some doubt as to the nature of the office he was to fill and his capacity for filling it—but he accepted, and by wire. He immediately set out from the little country town where he maintained (and was scarcely maintained by) a somnolent and unfruitful office of surveying and map-drawing. Before departing, he had looked up under the I’s, S’s and H’s in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” what information and preparation toward his official duties that those weighty volumes afforded.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few weeks of incumbency diminished the new commissioner’s awe of the great and important office he had been called upon to conduct. An increasing familiarity with its workings soon restored him to his accustomed placid course of life. In his office was an old, spectacled clerk—a consecrated, informed, able machine, who held his desk regardless of changes of administrative heads. Old Kauffman instructed his new chief gradually in the knowledge of the department without seeming to do so, and kept the wheels revolving without the slip of a cog.</p>
|
||||
<p>Indeed, the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History carried no great heft of the burden of state. Its main work was the regulating of the business done in the state by foreign insurance companies, and the letter of the law was its guide. As for statistics—well, you wrote letters to county officers, and scissored other people’s reports, and each year you got out a report of your own about the corn crop and the cotton crop and pecans and pigs and black and white population, and a great many columns of figures headed “bushels” and “acres” and “square miles,” etc.—and there you were. History? The branch was purely a receptive one. Old ladies interested in the science bothered you some with long reports of proceedings of their historical societies. Some twenty or thirty people would write you each year that they had secured Sam Houston’s pocket-knife or Santa Ana’s whisky-flask or Davy Crockett’s rifle—all absolutely authenticated—and demanded legislative appropriation to purchase. Most of the work in the history branch went into pigeon-holes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Indeed, the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History carried no great heft of the burden of state. Its main work was the regulating of the business done in the state by foreign insurance companies, and the letter of the law was its guide. As for statistics—well, you wrote letters to county officers, and scissored other people’s reports, and each year you got out a report of your own about the corn crop and the cotton crop and pecans and pigs and black and white population, and a great many columns of figures headed “bushels” and “acres” and “square miles,” <abbr>etc.</abbr>—and there you were. History? The branch was purely a receptive one. Old ladies interested in the science bothered you some with long reports of proceedings of their historical societies. Some twenty or thirty people would write you each year that they had secured Sam Houston’s pocket-knife or Santa Ana’s whisky-flask or Davy Crockett’s rifle—all absolutely authenticated—and demanded legislative appropriation to purchase. Most of the work in the history branch went into pigeon-holes.</p>
|
||||
<p>One sizzling August afternoon the commissioner reclined in his office chair, with his feet upon the long, official table covered with green billiard cloth. The commissioner was smoking a cigar, and dreamily regarding the quivering landscape framed by the window that looked upon the treeless capitol grounds. Perhaps he was thinking of the rough and ready life he had led, of the old days of breathless adventure and movement, of the comrades who now trod other paths or had ceased to tread any, of the changes civilization and peace had brought, and, maybe, complacently, of the snug and comfortable camp pitched for him under the dome of the capitol of the state that had not forgotten his services.</p>
|
||||
<p>The business of the department was lax. Insurance was easy. Statistics were not in demand. History was dead. Old Kauffman, the efficient and perpetual clerk, had requested an infrequent half-holiday, incited to the unusual dissipation by the joy of having successfully twisted the tail of a Connecticut insurance company that was trying to do business contrary to the edicts of the great Lone Star State.</p>
|
||||
<p>The office was very still. A few subdued noises trickled in through the open door from the other departments—a dull tinkling crash from the treasurer’s office adjoining, as a clerk tossed a bag of silver to the floor of the vault—the vague, intermittent clatter of a dilatory typewriter—a dull tapping from the state geologist’s quarters as if some woodpecker had flown in to bore for his prey in the cool of the massive building—and then a faint rustle and the light shuffling of the well-worn shoes along the hall, the sounds ceasing at the door toward which the commissioner’s lethargic back was presented. Following this, the sound of a gentle voice speaking words unintelligible to the commissioner’s somewhat dormant comprehension, but giving evidence of bewilderment and hesitation.</p>
|
||||
@ -38,8 +38,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“Yes, yes—well—oh, that wasn’t anything,” said Standifer, “hemming” loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. “And now, ma’am, who was the infernal skunk—I beg your pardon, ma’am—who was the gentleman you married?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Benton Sharp.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The commissioner plumped down again into his chair, with a groan. This gentle, sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter of his oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of the most noted “bad” men in that part of the state—a man who had been a cattle thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler, a swaggering bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier towns, relying upon his record and the quickness of his gun play to maintain his supremacy. Seldom did any one take the risk of going “up against” Benton Sharp. Even the law officers were content to let him make his own terms of peace. Sharp was a ready and an accurate shot, and as lucky as a brand-new penny at coming clear from his scrapes. Standifer wondered how this pillaging eagle ever came to be mated with Amos Colvin’s little dove, and expressed his wonder.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mrs. Sharp sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see, Mr. Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp sighed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You see, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer, we didn’t know anything about him, and he can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out into the world. I’ve barely been able to live, for I’m not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,” touching the livid bruise on her temple, “is what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that he never would ask for.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Luke Standifer rose to his feet, and pushed his chair back. He looked rather perplexedly around the big office, with its handsome furniture.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a long trail to follow,” he said, slowly, “trying to get back dues from the government. There’s red tape and lawyers and rulings and evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I’m not certain,” continued the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown, “whether this department that I’m the boss of has any jurisdiction or not. It’s only Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, and it don’t sound as if it would cover the case. But sometimes a saddle blanket can be made to stretch. You keep your seat, just for a few minutes, ma’am, till I step into the next room and see about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The state treasurer was seated within his massive, complicated railings, reading a newspaper. Business for the day was about over. The clerks lolled at their desks, awaiting the closing hour. The Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History entered, and leaned in at the window.</p>
|
||||
@ -68,12 +68,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“Your name’s Amanda, isn’t it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought so. I’ve heard your dad say it often enough. Well, Amanda, here’s your father’s best friend, the head of a big office in the state government, that’s going to help you out of your troubles. And here’s the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your father has helped out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask you a question. Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the next two or three days?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mrs. Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp’s white face flushed the least bit.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Plenty, sir—for a few days.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, then, ma’am. Now you go back where you are stopping here, and you come to the office again the day after to-morrow at four o’clock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be something definite to report to you.” The commissioner hesitated, and looked a trifle embarrassed. “You said your husband had insured his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid upon it or not?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said Mrs. Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Standifer. “It’s best to look after things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mrs. Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad time-table in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad time-table in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.</p>
|
||||
<p>The San Antonio <i>Express</i> of the following morning contained this sensational piece of news:</p>
|
||||
<h4>BENTON SHARP MEETS HIS MATCH</h4>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
@ -82,15 +82,15 @@
|
||||
<span class="smallcaps">The Most Noted Desperado in Southwest Texas Shot to Death in the Gold Front Restaurant—Prominent State Official Successfully Defends Himself Against the Noted Bully—Magnificent Exhibition of Quick Gun Play.</span>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>Last night about eleven o’clock Benton Sharp, with two other men, entered the Gold Front Restaurant and seated themselves at a table. Sharp had been drinking, and was loud and boisterous, as he always was when under the influence of liquor. Five minutes after the party was seated a tall, well-dressed, elderly gentleman entered the restaurant. Few present recognized the Honourable Luke Standifer, the recently appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.</p>
|
||||
<p>Going over to the same side where Sharp was, Mr. Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. Mr. Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. Mr. Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of Mr. Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is not believed that Mr. Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing to-day, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.</p>
|
||||
<p>Going over to the same side where Sharp was, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp’s head. Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the other roundly. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer apologized calmly for the accident, but Sharp continued his vituperations. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer was observed to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away, and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of his loosely hanging coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip pocket—a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp’s pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is not believed that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing to-day, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>When Mrs. Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. Mr. Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I had to do it, ma’am,” he said, simply, “or get it myself. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kauffman,” he added, turning to the old clerk, “please look up the records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No need to look,” grunted Kauffman, who had everything in his head. “It’s all O.K. They pay all losses within ten days.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mrs. Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present. Rest and time would bring her what she needed.</p>
|
||||
<p>But, as she was leaving, Luke Standifer indulged himself in an official remark:</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma’am, has done the best it could with your case. ’Twas a case hard to cover according to red tape. Statistics failed, and History missed fire, but, if I may be permitted to say it, we came out particularly strong on Insurance.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<section id="chapter-17" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>THE RENAISSANCE AT CHARLEROI</h2>
|
||||
<p>Grandemont Charles was a little Creole gentleman, aged thirty-four, with a bald spot on the top of his head and the manners of a prince. By day he was a clerk in a cotton broker’s office in one of those cold, rancid mountains of oozy brick, down near the levee in New Orleans. By night, in his three-story-high <i>chambre garnier</i> in the old French Quarter he was again the last male descendant of the Charles family, that noble house that had lorded it in France, and had pushed its way smiling, rapiered, and courtly into Louisiana’s early and brilliant days. Of late years the Charleses had subsided into the more republican but scarcely less royally carried magnificence and ease of plantation life along the Mississippi. Perhaps Grandemont was even Marquis de Brassé. There was that title in the family. But a Marquis on seventy-five dollars per month! <i>Vraiment!</i> Still, it has been done on less.</p>
|
||||
<p>Grandemont had saved out of his salary the sum of six hundred dollars. Enough, you would say, for any man to marry on. So, after a silence of two years on that subject, he reopened that most hazardous question to Mlle. Adèle Fauquier, riding down to Meade d’Or, her father’s plantation. Her answer was the same that it had been any time during the last ten years: “First find my brother, Monsieur Charles.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Grandemont had saved out of his salary the sum of six hundred dollars. Enough, you would say, for any man to marry on. So, after a silence of two years on that subject, he reopened that most hazardous question to <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Adèle Fauquier, riding down to Meade d’Or, her father’s plantation. Her answer was the same that it had been any time during the last ten years: “First find my brother, Monsieur Charles.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This time he had stood before her, perhaps discouraged by a love so long and hopeless, being dependent upon a contingency so unreasonable, and demanded to be told in simple words whether she loved him or no.</p>
|
||||
<p>Adèle looked at him steadily out of her gray eyes that betrayed no secrets and answered, a little more softly:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Grandemont, you have no right to ask that question unless you can do what I ask of you. Either bring back brother Victor to us or the proof that he died.”</p>
|
||||
@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Charleroi was the old family plantation, lying some twenty miles down the river. Years ago the estate had been sold to discharge the debts of its too-bountiful owners. Once again it had changed hands, and now the must and mildew of litigation had settled upon it. A question of heirship was in the courts, and the dwelling house of Charleroi, unless the tales told of ghostly powdered and laced Charleses haunting its unechoing chambers were true, stood uninhabited.</p>
|
||||
<p>Grandemont found the solicitor in chancery who held the keys pending the decision. He proved to be an old friend of the family. Grandemont explained briefly that he desired to rent the house for two or three days. He wanted to give a dinner at his old home to a few friends. That was all.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take it for a week—a month, if you will,” said the solicitor; “but do not speak to me of rental.” With a sigh he concluded: “The dinners I have eaten under that roof, <i>mon fils</i>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>There came to many of the old, established dealers in furniture, china, silverware, decorations and household fittings at their stores on Canal, Chartres, St. Charles, and Royal Streets, a quiet young man with a little bald spot on the top of his head, distinguished manners, and the eye of a <i>connoisseur</i>, who explained what he wanted. To hire the complete and elegant equipment of a dining-room, hall, reception-room, and cloak-rooms. The goods were to be packed and sent, by boat, to the Charleroi landing, and would be returned within three or four days. All damage or loss to be promptly paid for.</p>
|
||||
<p>There came to many of the old, established dealers in furniture, china, silverware, decorations and household fittings at their stores on Canal, Chartres, <abbr>St.</abbr> Charles, and Royal Streets, a quiet young man with a little bald spot on the top of his head, distinguished manners, and the eye of a <i>connoisseur</i>, who explained what he wanted. To hire the complete and elegant equipment of a dining-room, hall, reception-room, and cloak-rooms. The goods were to be packed and sent, by boat, to the Charleroi landing, and would be returned within three or four days. All damage or loss to be promptly paid for.</p>
|
||||
<p>Many of those old merchants knew Grandemont by sight, and the Charleses of old by association. Some of them were of Creole stock and felt a thrill of responsive sympathy with the magnificently indiscreet design of this impoverished clerk who would revive but for a moment the ancient flame of glory with the fuel of his savings.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Choose what you want,” they said to him. “Handle everything carefully. See that the damage bill is kept low, and the charges for the loan will not oppress you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>To the wine merchants next; and here a doleful slice was lopped from the six hundred. It was an exquisite pleasure to Grandemont once more to pick among the precious vintages. The champagne bins lured him like the abodes of sirens, but these he was forced to pass. With his six hundred he stood before them as a child with a penny stands before a French doll. But he bought with taste and discretion of other wines—Chablis, Moselle, Château d’Or, Hochheimer, and port of right age and pedigree.</p>
|
||||
@ -73,20 +73,20 @@
|
||||
<p>Promptly, in twenty minutes, Absalom announced dinner, and, a moment later, the guest was ushered into the dining hall where Grandemont waited, standing, at the head of the table. The attentions of Louis had transformed the stranger into something resembling the polite animal. Clean linen and an old evening suit that had been sent down from town to clothe a waiter had worked a miracle with his exterior. Brush and comb had partially subdued the wild disorder of his hair. Now he might have passed for no more extravagant a thing than one of those <i>poseurs</i> in art and music who affect such oddity of guise. The man’s countenance and demeanour, as he approached the table, exhibited nothing of the awkwardness or confusion to be expected from his Arabian Nights change. He allowed Absalom to seat him at Grandemont’s right hand with the manner of one thus accustomed to be waited upon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It grieves me,” said Grandemont, “to be obliged to exchange names with a guest. My own name is Charles.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“In the mountains,” said the wayfarer, “they call me Gringo. Along the roads they call me Jack.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I prefer the latter,” said Grandemont. “A glass of wine with you, Mr. Jack.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I prefer the latter,” said Grandemont. “A glass of wine with you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Course after course was served by the supernumerous waiters. Grandemont, inspired by the results of André’s exquisite skill in cookery and his own in the selection of wines became the model host, talkative, witty, and genial. The guest was fitful in conversation. His mind seemed to be sustaining a succession of waves of dementia followed by intervals of comparative lucidity. There was the glassy brightness of recent fever in his eyes. A long course of it must have been the cause of his emaciation and weakness, his distracted mind, and the dull pallor that showed even through the tan of wind and sun.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Charles,” he said to Grandemont—for thus he seemed to interpret his name—“you never saw the mountains dance, did you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, Mr. Jack,” answered Grandemont, gravely, “the spectacle has been denied me. But, I assure you, I can understand it must be a diverting sight. The big ones, you know, white with snow on the tops, waltzing—<i>décolleté</i>, we may say.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You first scour the kettles,” said Mr. Jack, leaning toward him excitedly, “to cook the beans in the morning, and you lie down on a blanket and keep quite still. Then they come out and dance for you. You would go out and dance with them but you are chained every night to the centre pole of the hut. You believe the mountains dance, don’t you, Charlie?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack,” answered Grandemont, gravely, “the spectacle has been denied me. But, I assure you, I can understand it must be a diverting sight. The big ones, you know, white with snow on the tops, waltzing—<i>décolleté</i>, we may say.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You first scour the kettles,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack, leaning toward him excitedly, “to cook the beans in the morning, and you lie down on a blanket and keep quite still. Then they come out and dance for you. You would go out and dance with them but you are chained every night to the centre pole of the hut. You believe the mountains dance, don’t you, Charlie?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I contradict no traveller’s tales,” said Grandemont, with a smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Jack laughed loudly. He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack laughed loudly. He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are a fool to believe it,” he went on. “They don’t really dance. It’s the fever in your head. It’s the hard work and the bad water that does it. You are sick for weeks and there is no medicine. The fever comes on every evening, and then you are as strong as two men. One night the <i>compania</i> are lying drunk with <i>mescal</i>. They have brought back sacks of silver dollars from a ride, and they drink to celebrate. In the night you file the chain in two and go down the mountain. You walk for miles—hundreds of them. By and by the mountains are all gone, and you come to the prairies. They do not dance at night; they are merciful, and you sleep. Then you come to the river, and it says things to you. You follow it down, down, but you can’t find what you are looking for.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Jack leaned back in his chair, and his eyes slowly closed. The food and wine had steeped him in a deep calm. The tense strain had been smoothed from his face. The languor of repletion was claiming him. Drowsily he spoke again.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack leaned back in his chair, and his eyes slowly closed. The food and wine had steeped him in a deep calm. The tense strain had been smoothed from his face. The languor of repletion was claiming him. Drowsily he spoke again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s bad manners—I know—to go to sleep—at table—but—that was—such a good dinner—Grande, old fellow.”</p>
|
||||
<p><i>Grande!</i> The owner of the name started and set down his glass. How should this wretched tatterdemalion whom he had invited, Caliph-like, to sit at his feet know his name?</p>
|
||||
<p>Not at first, but soon, little by little, the suspicion, wild and unreasonable as it was, stole into his brain. He drew out his watch with hands that almost balked him by their trembling, and opened the back case. There was a picture there—a photograph fixed to the inner side.</p>
|
||||
<p>Rising, Grandemont shook Mr. Jack by the shoulder. The weary guest opened his eyes. Grandemont held the watch.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look at this picture, Mr. Jack. Have you ever—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Rising, Grandemont shook <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack by the shoulder. The weary guest opened his eyes. Grandemont held the watch.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look at this picture, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jack. Have you ever—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i>My sister Adèle</i>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The vagrant’s voice rang loud and sudden through the room. He started to his feet, but Grandemont’s arms were about him, and Grandemont was calling him “Victor!—Victor Fauquier! <i>Merci, merci, mon Dieu!</i>”</p>
|
||||
<p>Too far overcome by sleep and fatigue was the lost one to talk that night. Days afterward, when the tropic <i>calentura</i> had cooled in his veins, the disordered fragments he had spoken were completed in shape and sequence. He told the story of his angry flight, of toils and calamities on sea and shore, of his ebbing and flowing fortune in southern lands, and of his latest peril when, held a captive, he served menially in a stronghold of bandits in the Sonora Mountains of Mexico. And of the fever that seized him there and his escape and delirium, during which he strayed, perhaps led by some marvellous instinct, back to the river on whose bank he had been born. And of the proud and stubborn thing in his blood that had kept him silent through all those years, clouding the honour of one, though he knew it not, and keeping apart two loving hearts. “What a thing is love!” you may say. And if I grant it, you shall say, with me: “What a thing is pride!”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -102,7 +102,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Did you fix things up with the General?’ I asks him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Did I?’ says Denver. ‘Come and see.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He takes me by the arm and walks me to the dining-room door. There was a little chocolate-brown fat man in a dress suit, with his face shining with joy as he swelled himself and skipped about the floor. Danged if Denver hadn’t made General Rompiro head waiter of the Hotel Brunswick!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is Mr. Galloway still in the managing business?” I asked, as Mr. Magoon ceased.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Galloway still in the managing business?” I asked, as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Magoon ceased.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sully shook his head.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Denver married an auburn-haired widow that owns a big hotel in Harlem. He just helps around the place.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Without hesitation he climbed the fence to windward. He found himself in an apparently disused lot, where piles of old bricks were stacked, and rejected, decaying lumber. In a corner he saw the faint glow of a fire that had become little more than a bed of living coals, and he thought he could see some dim human forms sitting or lying about it. He drew nearer, and by the light of a little blaze that suddenly flared up he saw plainly the fat figure of a ragged man in an old brown sweater and cap.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dat man,” said Whistling Dick to himself softly, “is a dead ringer for Boston Harry. I’ll try him wit de high sign.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He whistled one or two bars of a rag-time melody, and the air was immediately taken up, and then quickly ended with a peculiar run. The first whistler walked confidently up to the fire. The fat man looked up, and spake in a loud, asthmatic wheeze:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gents, the unexpected but welcome addition to our circle is Mr. Whistling Dick, an old friend of mine for whom I fully vouches. The waiter will lay another cover at once. Mr. W. D. will join us at supper, during which function he will enlighten us in regard to the circumstances that gave us the pleasure of his company.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gents, the unexpected but welcome addition to our circle is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Whistling Dick, an old friend of mine for whom I fully vouches. The waiter will lay another cover at once. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> W. D. will join us at supper, during which function he will enlighten us in regard to the circumstances that gave us the pleasure of his company.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Chewin’ de stuffin’ out ‘n de dictionary, as usual, Boston,” said Whistling Dick; “but t’anks all de same for de invitashun. I guess I finds meself here about de same way as yous guys. A cop gimme de tip dis mornin’. Yous workin’ on dis farm?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A guest,” said Boston, sternly, “shouldn’t never insult his entertainers until he’s filled up wid grub. ‘Tain’t good business sense. Workin’!—but I will restrain myself. We five—me, Deaf Pete, Blinky, Goggles, and Indiana Tom—got put on to this scheme of Noo Orleans to work visiting gentlemen upon her dirty streets, and we hit the road last evening just as the tender hues of twilight had flopped down upon the daisies and things. Blinky, pass the empty oyster-can at your left to the empty gentleman at your right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>For the next ten minutes the gang of roadsters paid their undivided attention to the supper. In an old five-gallon kerosene can they had cooked a stew of potatoes, meat, and onions, which they partook of from smaller cans they had found scattered about the vacant lot.</p>
|
||||
@ -94,7 +94,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“By Jupiter!” he cried. “A meteoric shower of hosiery! Has communication at last been established with Mars?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I should say—ahem—Venus,” ventured a young-gentleman visitor, looking hopefully for approbation toward the unresponsive young-lady visitors.</p>
|
||||
<p>The planter held at arm’s length the unceremonious visitor—a long dangling black stocking. “It’s loaded,” he announced.</p>
|
||||
<p>As he spoke, he reversed the stocking, holding it by the toe, and down from it dropped a roundish stone, wrapped about by a piece of yellowish paper. “Now for the first interstellar message of the century!” he cried; and nodding to the company, who had crowded about him, he adjusted his glasses with provoking deliberation, and examined it closely. When he finished, he had changed from the jolly host to the practical, decisive man of business. He immediately struck a bell, and said to the silent-footed mulatto man who responded: “Go and tell Mr. Wesley to get Reeves and Maurice and about ten stout hands they can rely upon, and come to the hall door at once. Tell him to have the men arm themselves, and bring plenty of ropes and plough lines. Tell him to hurry.” And then he read aloud from the paper these words:</p>
|
||||
<p>As he spoke, he reversed the stocking, holding it by the toe, and down from it dropped a roundish stone, wrapped about by a piece of yellowish paper. “Now for the first interstellar message of the century!” he cried; and nodding to the company, who had crowded about him, he adjusted his glasses with provoking deliberation, and examined it closely. When he finished, he had changed from the jolly host to the practical, decisive man of business. He immediately struck a bell, and said to the silent-footed mulatto man who responded: “Go and tell <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wesley to get Reeves and Maurice and about ten stout hands they can rely upon, and come to the hall door at once. Tell him to have the men arm themselves, and bring plenty of ropes and plough lines. Tell him to hurry.” And then he read aloud from the paper these words:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<blockquote class="med">
|
||||
<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">To the Gent of de Hous</span>:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,13 +9,13 @@
|
||||
<section id="chapter-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>THE GUARDIAN OF THE ACCOLADE</h2>
|
||||
<p>Not the least important of the force of the Weymouth Bank was Uncle Bushrod. Sixty years had Uncle Bushrod given of faithful service to the house of Weymouth as chattel, servitor, and friend. Of the colour of the mahogany bank furniture was Uncle Bushrod—thus dark was he externally; white as the uninked pages of the bank ledgers was his soul. Eminently pleasing to Uncle Bushrod would the comparison have been; for to him the only institution in existence worth considering was the Weymouth Bank, of which he was something between porter and generalissimo-in-charge.</p>
|
||||
<p>Weymouth lay, dreamy and umbrageous, among the low foothills along the brow of a Southern valley. Three banks there were in Weymouthville. Two were hopeless, misguided enterprises, lacking the presence and prestige of a Weymouth to give them glory. The third was The Bank, managed by the Weymouths—and Uncle Bushrod. In the old Weymouth homestead—the red brick, white-porticoed mansion, the first to your right as you crossed Elder Creek, coming into town—lived Mr. Robert Weymouth (the president of the bank), his widowed daughter, Mrs. Vesey—called “Miss Letty” by every one—and her two children, Nan and Guy. There, also in a cottage on the grounds, resided Uncle Bushrod and Aunt Malindy, his wife. Mr. William Weymouth (the cashier of the bank) lived in a modern, fine house on the principal avenue.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes. He was high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like. Mr. William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in business. The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were looked up to, as was their right of heritage.</p>
|
||||
<p>Uncle Bushrod was the bank’s trusted porter, messenger, vassal, and guardian. He carried a key to the vault, just as Mr. Robert and Mr. William did. Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor. It was safe with Uncle Bushrod. He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of late Uncle Bushrod had not been without worry. It was on account of Marse Robert. For nearly a year Mr. Robert had been known to indulge in too much drink. Not enough, understand, to become tipsy, but the habit was getting a hold upon him, and every one was beginning to notice it. Half a dozen times a day he would leave the bank and step around to the Merchants and Planters’ Hotel to take a drink. Mr. Robert’s usual keen judgment and business capacity became a little impaired. Mr. William, a Weymouth, but not so rich in experience, tried to dam the inevitable backflow of the tide, but with incomplete success. The deposits in the Weymouth Bank dropped from six figures to five. Past-due paper began to accumulate, owing to injudicious loans. No one cared to address Mr. Robert on the subject of temperance. Many of his friends said that the cause of it had been the death of his wife some two years before. Others hesitated on account of Mr. Robert’s quick temper, which was extremely apt to resent personal interference of such a nature. Miss Letty and the children noticed the change and grieved about it. Uncle Bushrod also worried, but he was one of those who would not have dared to remonstrate, although he and Marse Robert had been raised almost as companions. But there was a heavier shock coming to Uncle Bushrod than that caused by the bank president’s toddies and juleps.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert had a passion for fishing, which he usually indulged whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his intention of making a two or three days’ visit to the lakes. He was going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an old friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, Uncle Bushrod was treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of the Burning Bush. Every association he belonged to made him treasurer without hesitation. He stood AA1 in coloured circles. He was understood among them to be Mr. Bushrod Weymouth, of the Weymouth Bank.</p>
|
||||
<p>The night following the day on which Mr. Robert mentioned his intended fishing-trip the old man woke up and rose from his bed at twelve o’clock, declaring he must go down to the bank and fetch the pass-book of the Sons and Daughters, which he had forgotten to bring home. The bookkeeper had balanced it for him that day, put the cancelled checks in it, and snapped two elastic bands around it. He put but one band around other pass-books.</p>
|
||||
<p>Weymouth lay, dreamy and umbrageous, among the low foothills along the brow of a Southern valley. Three banks there were in Weymouthville. Two were hopeless, misguided enterprises, lacking the presence and prestige of a Weymouth to give them glory. The third was The Bank, managed by the Weymouths—and Uncle Bushrod. In the old Weymouth homestead—the red brick, white-porticoed mansion, the first to your right as you crossed Elder Creek, coming into town—lived <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert Weymouth (the president of the bank), his widowed daughter, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Vesey—called “Miss Letty” by every one—and her two children, Nan and Guy. There, also in a cottage on the grounds, resided Uncle Bushrod and Aunt Malindy, his wife. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William Weymouth (the cashier of the bank) lived in a modern, fine house on the principal avenue.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes. He was high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in business. The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were looked up to, as was their right of heritage.</p>
|
||||
<p>Uncle Bushrod was the bank’s trusted porter, messenger, vassal, and guardian. He carried a key to the vault, just as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William did. Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor. It was safe with Uncle Bushrod. He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of late Uncle Bushrod had not been without worry. It was on account of Marse Robert. For nearly a year <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert had been known to indulge in too much drink. Not enough, understand, to become tipsy, but the habit was getting a hold upon him, and every one was beginning to notice it. Half a dozen times a day he would leave the bank and step around to the Merchants and Planters’ Hotel to take a drink. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert’s usual keen judgment and business capacity became a little impaired. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William, a Weymouth, but not so rich in experience, tried to dam the inevitable backflow of the tide, but with incomplete success. The deposits in the Weymouth Bank dropped from six figures to five. Past-due paper began to accumulate, owing to injudicious loans. No one cared to address <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert on the subject of temperance. Many of his friends said that the cause of it had been the death of his wife some two years before. Others hesitated on account of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert’s quick temper, which was extremely apt to resent personal interference of such a nature. Miss Letty and the children noticed the change and grieved about it. Uncle Bushrod also worried, but he was one of those who would not have dared to remonstrate, although he and Marse Robert had been raised almost as companions. But there was a heavier shock coming to Uncle Bushrod than that caused by the bank president’s toddies and juleps.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert had a passion for fishing, which he usually indulged whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his intention of making a two or three days’ visit to the lakes. He was going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an old friend.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, Uncle Bushrod was treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of the Burning Bush. Every association he belonged to made him treasurer without hesitation. He stood AA1 in coloured circles. He was understood among them to be <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bushrod Weymouth, of the Weymouth Bank.</p>
|
||||
<p>The night following the day on which <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert mentioned his intended fishing-trip the old man woke up and rose from his bed at twelve o’clock, declaring he must go down to the bank and fetch the pass-book of the Sons and Daughters, which he had forgotten to bring home. The bookkeeper had balanced it for him that day, put the cancelled checks in it, and snapped two elastic bands around it. He put but one band around other pass-books.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aunt Malindy objected to the mission at so late an hour, denouncing it as foolish and unnecessary, but Uncle Bushrod was not to be deflected from duty.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I done told Sister Adaline Hoskins,” he said, “to come by here for dat book to-morrer mawnin’ at sebin o’clock, for to kyar’ it to de meetin’ of de bo’d of ‘rangements, and dat book gwine to be here when she come.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, Uncle Bushrod put on his old brown suit, got his thick hickory stick, and meandered through the almost deserted streets of Weymouthville. He entered the bank, unlocking the side door, and found the pass-book where he had left it, in the little back room used for consultations, where he always hung his coat. Looking about casually, he saw that everything was as he had left it, and was about to start for home when he was brought to a standstill by the sudden rattle of a key in the front door. Some one came quickly in, closed the door softly, and entered the counting-room through the door in the iron railing.</p>
|
||||
@ -23,17 +23,17 @@
|
||||
<p>Uncle Bushrod, firmly gripping his hickory stick, tiptoed gently up this passage until he could see the midnight intruder into the sacred precincts of the Weymouth Bank. One dim gas-jet burned there, but even in its nebulous light he perceived at once that the prowler was the bank’s president.</p>
|
||||
<p>Wondering, fearful, undecided what to do, the old coloured man stood motionless in the gloomy strip of hallway, and waited developments.</p>
|
||||
<p>The vault, with its big iron door, was opposite him. Inside that was the safe, holding the papers of value, the gold and currency of the bank. On the floor of the vault was, perhaps, eighteen thousand dollars in silver.</p>
|
||||
<p>The president took his key from his pocket, opened the vault and went inside, nearly closing the door behind him. Uncle Bushrod saw, through the narrow aperture, the flicker of a candle. In a minute or two—it seemed an hour to the watcher—Mr. Robert came out, bringing with him a large hand-satchel, handling it in a careful but hurried manner, as if fearful that he might be observed. With one hand he closed and locked the vault door.</p>
|
||||
<p>The president took his key from his pocket, opened the vault and went inside, nearly closing the door behind him. Uncle Bushrod saw, through the narrow aperture, the flicker of a candle. In a minute or two—it seemed an hour to the watcher—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert came out, bringing with him a large hand-satchel, handling it in a careful but hurried manner, as if fearful that he might be observed. With one hand he closed and locked the vault door.</p>
|
||||
<p>With a reluctant theory forming itself beneath his wool, Uncle Bushrod waited and watched, shaking in his concealing shadow.</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert set the satchel softly upon a desk, and turned his coat collar up about his neck and ears. He was dressed in a rough suit of gray, as if for travelling. He glanced with frowning intentness at the big office clock above the burning gas-jet, and then looked lingeringly about the bank—lingeringly and fondly, Uncle Bushrod thought, as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert set the satchel softly upon a desk, and turned his coat collar up about his neck and ears. He was dressed in a rough suit of gray, as if for travelling. He glanced with frowning intentness at the big office clock above the burning gas-jet, and then looked lingeringly about the bank—lingeringly and fondly, Uncle Bushrod thought, as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now he caught up his burden again and moved promptly and softly out of the bank by the way he had come locking the front door behind him.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a minute or longer Uncle Bushrod was as stone in his tracks. Had that midnight rifler of safes and vaults been any other on earth than the man he was, the old retainer would have rushed upon him and struck to save the Weymouth property. But now the watcher’s soul was tortured by the poignant dread of something worse than mere robbery. He was seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the Weymouth honour were about to be lost. Marse Robert robbing the bank! What else could it mean? The hour of the night, the stealthy visit to the vault, the satchel brought forth full and with expedition and silence, the prowler’s rough dress, his solicitous reading of the clock, and noiseless departure—what else could it mean?</p>
|
||||
<p>And then to the turmoil of Uncle Bushrod’s thoughts came the corroborating recollection of preceding events—Mr. Robert’s increasing intemperance and consequent many moods of royal high spirits and stern tempers; the casual talk he had heard in the bank of the decrease in business and difficulty in collecting loans. What else could it all mean but that Mr. Robert Weymouth was an absconder—was about to fly with the bank’s remaining funds, leaving Mr. William, Miss Letty, little Nan, Guy, and Uncle Bushrod to bear the disgrace?</p>
|
||||
<p>And then to the turmoil of Uncle Bushrod’s thoughts came the corroborating recollection of preceding events—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert’s increasing intemperance and consequent many moods of royal high spirits and stern tempers; the casual talk he had heard in the bank of the decrease in business and difficulty in collecting loans. What else could it all mean but that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert Weymouth was an absconder—was about to fly with the bank’s remaining funds, leaving <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William, Miss Letty, little Nan, Guy, and Uncle Bushrod to bear the disgrace?</p>
|
||||
<p>During one minute Uncle Bushrod considered these things, and then he awoke to sudden determination and action.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lawd! Lawd!” he moaned aloud, as he hobbled hastily toward the side door. “Sech a come-off after all dese here years of big doin’s and fine doin’s. Scan’lous sights upon de yearth when de Weymouth fambly done turn out robbers and ‘bezzlers! Time for Uncle Bushrod to clean out somebody’s chicken-coop and eben matters up. Oh, Lawd! Marse Robert, you ain’t gwine do dat. ‘N Miss Letty an’ dem chillun so proud and talkin’ ‘Weymouth, Weymouth,’ all de time! I’m gwine to stop you ef I can. ‘Spec you shoot Mr. Nigger’s head off ef he fool wid you, but I’m gwine stop you ef I can.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Uncle Bushrod, aided by his hickory stick, impeded by his rheumatism, hurried down the street toward the railroad station, where the two lines touching Weymouthville met. As he had expected and feared, he saw there Mr. Robert, standing in the shadow of the building, waiting for the train. He held the satchel in his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lawd! Lawd!” he moaned aloud, as he hobbled hastily toward the side door. “Sech a come-off after all dese here years of big doin’s and fine doin’s. Scan’lous sights upon de yearth when de Weymouth fambly done turn out robbers and ‘bezzlers! Time for Uncle Bushrod to clean out somebody’s chicken-coop and eben matters up. Oh, Lawd! Marse Robert, you ain’t gwine do dat. ‘N Miss Letty an’ dem chillun so proud and talkin’ ‘Weymouth, Weymouth,’ all de time! I’m gwine to stop you ef I can. ‘Spec you shoot <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nigger’s head off ef he fool wid you, but I’m gwine stop you ef I can.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Uncle Bushrod, aided by his hickory stick, impeded by his rheumatism, hurried down the street toward the railroad station, where the two lines touching Weymouthville met. As he had expected and feared, he saw there <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, standing in the shadow of the building, waiting for the train. He held the satchel in his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Uncle Bushrod came within twenty yards of the bank president, standing like a huge, gray ghost by the station wall, sudden perturbation seized him. The rashness and audacity of the thing he had come to do struck him fully. He would have been happy could he have turned and fled from the possibilities of the famous Weymouth wrath. But again he saw, in his fancy, the white reproachful face of Miss Letty, and the distressed looks of Nan and Guy, should he fail in his duty and they question him as to his stewardship.</p>
|
||||
<p>Braced by the thought, he approached in a straight line, clearing his throat and pounding with his stick so that he might be early recognized. Thus he might avoid the likely danger of too suddenly surprising the sometimes hasty Mr. Robert.</p>
|
||||
<p>Braced by the thought, he approached in a straight line, clearing his throat and pounding with his stick so that he might be early recognized. Thus he might avoid the likely danger of too suddenly surprising the sometimes hasty <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is that you, Bushrod?” called the clamant, clear voice of the gray ghost.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, suh, Marse Robert.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What the devil are you doing out at this time of night?”</p>
|
||||
@ -41,30 +41,30 @@
|
||||
<p>“I done been down, suh, to see ol’ Aunt M’ria Patterson. She taken sick in de night, and I kyar’ed her a bottle of M’lindy’s medercine. Yes, suh.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Humph!” said Robert. “You better get home out of the night air. It’s damp. You’ll hardly be worth killing to-morrow on account of your rheumatism. Think it’ll be a clear day, Bushrod?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I ‘low it will, suh. De sun sot red las’ night.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off—three miles away, at the Jimtown switch—he heard the faint whistle of the coming train, the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty, terrible Weymouth—he bearded him there at the brink of the awful thing that was about to happen.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off—three miles away, at the Jimtown switch—he heard the faint whistle of the coming train, the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty, terrible Weymouth—he bearded him there at the brink of the awful thing that was about to happen.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marse Robert,” he began, his voice quivering a little with the stress of his feelings, “you ‘member de day dey-all rode de tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin’, and you crown Miss Lucy de queen?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tournament?” said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth. “Yes, I remember very well the—but what the deuce are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go ‘long home, Bushrod. I believe you’re sleep-walking.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder,” continued the old man, never heeding, “wid a s’ord, and say: ‘I mek you a knight, Suh Robert—rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’ Dat what Miss Lucy say. Dat’s been a long time ago, but me nor you ain’t forgot it. And den dar’s another time we ain’t forgot—de time when Miss Lucy lay on her las’ bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: ‘Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like’—so Miss Lucy say—‘he listen to you mo’ dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to ‘suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be ’round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes’—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin’ in her po’, thin face—‘but he always been’—dem was her words—‘my knight, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Tournament?” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth. “Yes, I remember very well the—but what the deuce are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go ‘long home, Bushrod. I believe you’re sleep-walking.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder,” continued the old man, never heeding, “wid a s’ord, and say: ‘I mek you a knight, Suh Robert—rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’ Dat what Miss Lucy say. Dat’s been a long time ago, but me nor you ain’t forgot it. And den dar’s another time we ain’t forgot—de time when Miss Lucy lay on her las’ bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: ‘Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert. Seem like’—so Miss Lucy say—‘he listen to you mo’ dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to ‘suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be ’round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes’—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin’ in her po’, thin face—‘but he always been’—dem was her words—‘my knight, pure and fearless and widout reproach.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You—you old windbag!” he growled through a cloud of swirling cigar smoke. “I believe you are crazy. I told you to go home, Bushrod. Miss Lucy said that, did she? Well, we haven’t kept the scutcheon very clear. Two years ago last week, wasn’t it, Bushrod, when she died? Confound it! Are you going to stand there all night gabbing like a coffee-coloured gander?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The train whistled again. Now it was at the water tank, a mile away.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marse Robert,” said Uncle Bushrod, laying his hand on the satchel that the banker held. “For Gawd’s sake, don’ take dis wid you. I knows what’s in it. I knows where you got it in de bank. Don’ kyar’ it wid you. Dey’s big trouble in dat valise for Miss Lucy and Miss Lucy’s child’s chillun. Hit’s bound to destroy de name of Weymouth and bow down dem dat own it wid shame and triberlation. Marse Robert, you can kill dis ole nigger ef you will, but don’t take away dis ‘er’ valise. If I ever crosses over de Jordan, what I gwine to say to Miss Lucy when she ax me: ‘Uncle Bushrod, wharfo’ didn’ you take good care of Mr. Robert?’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert Weymouth threw away his cigar and shook free one arm with that peculiar gesture that always preceded his outbursts of irascibility. Uncle Bushrod bowed his head to the expected storm, but he did not flinch. If the house of Weymouth was to fall, he would fall with it. The banker spoke, and Uncle Bushrod blinked with surprise. The storm was there, but it was suppressed to the quietness of a summer breeze.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bushrod,” said Mr. Robert, in a lower voice than he usually employed, “you have overstepped all bounds. You have presumed upon the leniency with which you have been treated to meddle unpardonably. So you know what is in this satchel! Your long and faithful service is some excuse, but—go home, Bushrod—not another word!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marse Robert,” said Uncle Bushrod, laying his hand on the satchel that the banker held. “For Gawd’s sake, don’ take dis wid you. I knows what’s in it. I knows where you got it in de bank. Don’ kyar’ it wid you. Dey’s big trouble in dat valise for Miss Lucy and Miss Lucy’s child’s chillun. Hit’s bound to destroy de name of Weymouth and bow down dem dat own it wid shame and triberlation. Marse Robert, you can kill dis ole nigger ef you will, but don’t take away dis ‘er’ valise. If I ever crosses over de Jordan, what I gwine to say to Miss Lucy when she ax me: ‘Uncle Bushrod, wharfo’ didn’ you take good care of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert?’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert Weymouth threw away his cigar and shook free one arm with that peculiar gesture that always preceded his outbursts of irascibility. Uncle Bushrod bowed his head to the expected storm, but he did not flinch. If the house of Weymouth was to fall, he would fall with it. The banker spoke, and Uncle Bushrod blinked with surprise. The storm was there, but it was suppressed to the quietness of a summer breeze.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bushrod,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, in a lower voice than he usually employed, “you have overstepped all bounds. You have presumed upon the leniency with which you have been treated to meddle unpardonably. So you know what is in this satchel! Your long and faithful service is some excuse, but—go home, Bushrod—not another word!”</p>
|
||||
<p>But Bushrod grasped the satchel with a firmer hand. The headlight of the train was now lightening the shadows about the station. The roar was increasing, and folks were stirring about at the track side.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marse Robert, gimme dis ‘er’ valise. I got a right, suh, to talk to you dis ‘er’ way. I slaved for you and ‘tended to you from a child up. I went th’ough de war as yo’ body-servant tell we whipped de Yankees and sent ’em back to de No’th. I was at yo’ weddin’, and I was n’ fur away when yo’ Miss Letty was bawn. And Miss Letty’s chillun, dey watches to-day for Uncle Bushrod when he come home ever’ evenin’. I been a Weymouth, all ‘cept in colour and entitlements. Both of us is old, Marse Robert. ‘Tain’t goin’ to be long till we gwine to see Miss Lucy and has to give an account of our doin’s. De ole nigger man won’t be ‘spected to say much mo’ dan he done all he could by de fambly dat owned him. But de Weymouths, dey must say dey been livin’ pure and fearless and widout reproach. Gimme dis valise, Marse Robert—I’m gwine to hab it. I’m gwine to take it back to the bank and lock it up in de vault. I’m gwine to do Miss Lucy’s biddin’. Turn ‘er loose, Marse Robert.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The train was standing at the station. Some men were pushing trucks along the side. Two or three sleepy passengers got off and wandered away into the night. The conductor stepped to the gravel, swung his lantern and called: “Hello, Frank!” at some one invisible. The bell clanged, the brakes hissed, the conductor drawled: “All aboard!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Mr. Robert released his hold on the satchel. Uncle Bushrod hugged it to his breast with both arms, as a lover clasps his first beloved.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take it back with you, Bushrod,” said Mr. Robert, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “And let the subject drop—now mind! You’ve said quite enough. I’m going to take the train. Tell Mr. William I will be back on Saturday. Good night.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The banker climbed the steps of the moving train and disappeared in a coach. Uncle Bushrod stood motionless, still embracing the precious satchel. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving in thanks to the Master above for the salvation of the Weymouth honour. He knew Mr. Robert would return when he said he would. The Weymouths never lied. Nor now, thank the Lord! could it be said that they embezzled the money in banks.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert released his hold on the satchel. Uncle Bushrod hugged it to his breast with both arms, as a lover clasps his first beloved.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take it back with you, Bushrod,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “And let the subject drop—now mind! You’ve said quite enough. I’m going to take the train. Tell <abbr>Mr.</abbr> William I will be back on Saturday. Good night.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The banker climbed the steps of the moving train and disappeared in a coach. Uncle Bushrod stood motionless, still embracing the precious satchel. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving in thanks to the Master above for the salvation of the Weymouth honour. He knew <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert would return when he said he would. The Weymouths never lied. Nor now, thank the Lord! could it be said that they embezzled the money in banks.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then awake to the necessity for further guardianship of Weymouth trust funds, the old man started for the bank with the redeemed satchel.</p>
|
||||
<p>Three hours from Weymouthville, in the gray dawn, Mr. Robert alighted from the train at a lonely flag-station. Dimly he could see the figure of a man waiting on the platform, and the shape of a spring-waggon, team and driver. Half a dozen lengthy bamboo fishing-poles projected from the waggon’s rear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re here, Bob,” said Judge Archinard, Mr. Robert’s old friend and schoolmate. “It’s going to be a royal day for fishing. I thought you said—why, didn’t you bring along the stuff?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Three hours from Weymouthville, in the gray dawn, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert alighted from the train at a lonely flag-station. Dimly he could see the figure of a man waiting on the platform, and the shape of a spring-waggon, team and driver. Half a dozen lengthy bamboo fishing-poles projected from the waggon’s rear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re here, Bob,” said Judge Archinard, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert’s old friend and schoolmate. “It’s going to be a royal day for fishing. I thought you said—why, didn’t you bring along the stuff?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The president of the Weymouth Bank took off his hat and rumpled his gray locks.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Ben, to tell you the truth, there’s an infernally presumptuous old nigger belonging in my family that broke up the arrangement. He came down to the depot and vetoed the whole proceeding. He means all right, and—well, I reckon he <i>is</i> right. Somehow, he had found out what I had along—though I hid it in the bank vault and sneaked it out at midnight. I reckon he has noticed that I’ve been indulging a little more than a gentleman should, and he laid for me with some reaching arguments.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going to quit drinking,” Mr. Robert concluded. “I’ve come to the conclusion that a man can’t keep it up and be quite what he’d like to be—‘pure and fearless and without reproach’—that’s the way old Bushrod quoted it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going to quit drinking,” <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert concluded. “I’ve come to the conclusion that a man can’t keep it up and be quite what he’d like to be—‘pure and fearless and without reproach’—that’s the way old Bushrod quoted it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I’ll have to admit,” said the judge, thoughtfully, as they climbed into the waggon, “that the old darkey’s argument can’t conscientiously be overruled.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Still,” said Mr. Robert, with a ghost of a sigh, “there was two quarts of the finest old silk-velvet Bourbon in that satchel you ever wet your lips with.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Still,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, with a ghost of a sigh, “there was two quarts of the finest old silk-velvet Bourbon in that satchel you ever wet your lips with.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,11 +8,11 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-20" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>THE HALBERDIER OF THE LITTLE RHEINSCHLOSS</h2>
|
||||
<p>I go sometimes into the <i>Bierhalle</i> and restaurant called Old Munich. Not long ago it was a resort of interesting Bohemians, but now only artists and musicians and literary folk frequent it. But the Pilsner is yet good, and I take some diversion from the conversation of Waiter No. 18.</p>
|
||||
<p>I go sometimes into the <i>Bierhalle</i> and restaurant called Old Munich. Not long ago it was a resort of interesting Bohemians, but now only artists and musicians and literary folk frequent it. But the Pilsner is yet good, and I take some diversion from the conversation of Waiter <abbr>No.</abbr> 18.</p>
|
||||
<p>For many years the customers of Old Munich have accepted the place as a faithful copy from the ancient German town. The big hall with its smoky rafters, rows of imported steins, portrait of Goethe, and verses painted on the walls—translated into German from the original of the Cincinnati poets—seems atmospherically correct when viewed through the bottom of a glass.</p>
|
||||
<p>But not long ago the proprietors added the room above, called it the Little Rheinschloss, and built in a stairway. Up there was an imitation stone parapet, ivy-covered, and the walls were painted to represent depth and distance, with the Rhine winding at the base of the vineyarded slopes, and the castle of Ehrenbreitstein looming directly opposite the entrance. Of course there were tables and chairs; and you could have beer and food brought you, as you naturally would on the top of a castle on the Rhine.</p>
|
||||
<p>I went into Old Munich one afternoon when there were few customers, and sat at my usual table near the stairway. I was shocked and almost displeased to perceive that the glass cigar-case by the orchestra stand had been smashed to smithereens. I did not like things to happen in Old Munich. Nothing had ever happened there before.</p>
|
||||
<p>Waiter No. 18 came and breathed on my neck. I was his by right of discovery. Eighteen’s brain was built like a corral. It was full of ideas which, when he opened the gate, came huddling out like a flock of sheep that might get together afterward or might not. I did not shine as a shepherd. As a type Eighteen fitted nowhere. I did not find out if he had a nationality, family, creed, grievance, hobby, soul, preference, home, or vote. He only came always to my table and, as long as his leisure would permit, let words flutter from him like swallows leaving a barn at daylight.</p>
|
||||
<p>Waiter <abbr>No.</abbr> 18 came and breathed on my neck. I was his by right of discovery. Eighteen’s brain was built like a corral. It was full of ideas which, when he opened the gate, came huddling out like a flock of sheep that might get together afterward or might not. I did not shine as a shepherd. As a type Eighteen fitted nowhere. I did not find out if he had a nationality, family, creed, grievance, hobby, soul, preference, home, or vote. He only came always to my table and, as long as his leisure would permit, let words flutter from him like swallows leaving a barn at daylight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How did the cigar-case come to be broken, Eighteen?” I asked, with a certain feeling of personal grievance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I can tell you about that, sir,” said he, resting his foot on the chair next to mine. “Did you ever have anybody hand you a double handful of good luck while both your hands was full of bad luck, and stop to notice how your fingers behaved?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No riddles, Eighteen,” said I. “Leave out palmistry and manicuring.”</p>
|
||||
@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I hear talk in the kitchen of a fishball,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bully for you, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘You and I’ll get on. Show me the boss’s desk.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, the boss tries the Harveyized pajamas on him, and they fitted him like the scales on a baked redsnapper, and he gets the job. You’ve seen what it is—he stood straight up in the corner of the first landing with his halberd to his shoulder, looking right ahead and guarding the Portugals of the castle. The boss is nutty about having the true Old-World flavour to his joint. ‘Halberdiers goes with Rindsloshes,’ says he, ‘just as rats goes with rathskellers and white cotton stockings with Tyrolean villages.’ The boss is a kind of a antiologist, and is all posted up on data and such information.</p>
|
||||
<p>“From 8 <span class="smallcaps">p.m.</span> to two in the morning was the halberdier’s hours. He got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to him: ‘Have some more of the spuds, Mr. Frelinghuysen.’ ‘Oh, don’t be so formal and offish, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘Call me Hal—that’s short for halberdier.’ ‘Oh, don’t think I wanted to pry for names,’ says I. ‘I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We’ve got a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender used to be a Pullman conductor. And they <i>work</i>, Sir Percival,’ says I, sarcastic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“From 8 <span class="smallcaps"><abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr></span> to two in the morning was the halberdier’s hours. He got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to him: ‘Have some more of the spuds, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Frelinghuysen.’ ‘Oh, don’t be so formal and offish, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘Call me Hal—that’s short for halberdier.’ ‘Oh, don’t think I wanted to pry for names,’ says I. ‘I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We’ve got a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender used to be a Pullman conductor. And they <i>work</i>, Sir Percival,’ says I, sarcastic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Eighteen,’ says he, ‘as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented hell, would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don’t say that it’s got more muscle than I have, but—’ And then he shows me the insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned and swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks criss-crossed with a knife—the kind the butchers hide and take home, knowing what is the best.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Shoveling coal,’ says he, ‘and piling bricks and loading drays. But they gave out, and I had to resign. I was born for a halberdier, and I’ve been educated for twenty-four years to fill the position. Now, quit knocking my profession, and pass along a lot more of that ham. I’m holding the closing exercises,’ says he, ‘of a forty-eight-hour fast.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The second night he was on the job he walks down from his corner to the cigar-case and calls for cigarettes. The customers at the tables all snicker out loud to show their acquaintance with history. The boss is on.</p>
|
||||
@ -47,7 +47,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I see you’re not ashamed,’ says she, ‘of your peculiar tastes. I wonder, though, that the manhood I used to think I saw in you didn’t prompt you to draw water or hew wood instead of publicly flaunting your ignominy in this disgraceful masquerade.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sir Percival kind of rattles his armour and says: ‘Helen, will you suspend sentence in this matter for just a little while? You don’t understand,’ says he. ‘I’ve got to hold this job down a little longer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You like being a harlequin—or halberdier, as you call it?’ says she.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I wouldn’t get thrown out of the job just now,’ says he, with a grin, ‘to be appointed Minister to the Court of St. James’s.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I wouldn’t get thrown out of the job just now,’ says he, with a grin, ‘to be appointed Minister to the Court of <abbr>St.</abbr> James’s.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“And then the 40-H.P. girl’s eyes sparkled as hard as diamonds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Very well,’ says she. ‘You shall have full run of your serving-man’s tastes this night.’ And she swims over to the boss’s desk and gives him a smile that knocks the specks off his nose.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I think your Rindslosh,’ says she, ‘is as beautiful as a dream. It is a little slice of the Old World set down in New York. We shall have a nice supper up there; but if you will grant us one favour the illusion will be perfect—give us your halberdier to wait on our table.’</p>
|
||||
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Wait a minute, Herr Brockmann,’ says Sir Percival, easy and smiling. But he was worked up under his tin suitings; I could see that. And then he made the finest, neatest little speech I ever listened to. I can’t give you the words, of course. He give the millionaires a lovely roast in a sarcastic way, describing their automobiles and opera-boxes and diamonds; and then he got around to the working-classes and the kind of grub they eat and the long hours they work—and all that sort of stuff—bunkum, of course. ‘The restless rich,’ says he, ‘never content with their luxuries, always prowling among the haunts of the poor and humble, amusing themselves with the imperfections and misfortunes of their fellow men and women. And even here, Herr Brockmann,’ he says, ‘in this beautiful Rindslosh, a grand and enlightening reproduction of Old World history and architecture, they come to disturb its symmetry and picturesqueness by demanding in their arrogance that the halberdier of the castle wait upon their table! I have faithfuly and conscientiously,’ says he, ‘performed my duties as a halberdier. I know nothing of a waiter’s duties. It was the insolent whim of these transient, pampered aristocrats that I should be detailed to serve them food. Must I be blamed—must I be deprived of the means of a livelihood,’ he goes on, ‘on account of an accident that was the result of their own presumption and haughtiness? But what hurts me more than all,’ says Sir Percival, ‘is the desecration that has been done to this splendid Rindslosh—the confiscation of its halberdier to serve menially at the banquet board.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Even I could see that this stuff was piffle; but it caught the boss.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Mein Gott,’ says he, ‘you vas right. Ein halberdier have not got der right to dish up soup. Him I vill not discharge. Have anoder waiter if you like, und let mein halberdier go back und stand mit his halberd. But, gentlemen,’ he says, pointing to the old man, ‘you go ahead and sue mit der dress. Sue me for $600 or $6,000. I stand der suit.’ And the boss puffs off down-stairs. Old Brockmann was an all-right Dutchman.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Just then the clock strikes twelve, and the old guy laughs loud. ‘You win, Deering,’ says he. ‘And let me explain to all,’ he goes on. ‘Some time ago Mr. Deering asked me for something that I did not want to give him.’ (I looks at the girl, and she turns as red as a pickled beet.) ‘I told him,’ says the old guy, ‘if he would earn his own living for three months without being discharged for incompetence, I would give him what he wanted. It seems that the time was up at twelve o’clock to-night. I came near fetching you, though, Deering, on that soup question,’ says the old boy, standing up and grabbing Sir Percival’s hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Just then the clock strikes twelve, and the old guy laughs loud. ‘You win, Deering,’ says he. ‘And let me explain to all,’ he goes on. ‘Some time ago <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Deering asked me for something that I did not want to give him.’ (I looks at the girl, and she turns as red as a pickled beet.) ‘I told him,’ says the old guy, ‘if he would earn his own living for three months without being discharged for incompetence, I would give him what he wanted. It seems that the time was up at twelve o’clock to-night. I came near fetching you, though, Deering, on that soup question,’ says the old boy, standing up and grabbing Sir Percival’s hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The halberdier lets out a yell and jumps three feet high.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Look out for those hands,’ says he, and he holds ’em up. You never saw such hands except on a labourer in a limestone quarry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Heavens, boy!’ says old side-whiskers, ‘what have you been doing to ’em?’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“What talk is this?” I asked. “Your financial digression is merely a subterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks of the Confederate Veterans?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Because, my lad,” answered O’Keefe, “the Confederate Government in its might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O’Keefe against immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a blood-thirsty foreign country after the Unites States of America had overruled his appeal for protection, and had instructed Private Secretary Cortelyou to reduce his estimate of the Republican majority for 1905 by one vote.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come, Barney,” said I, “the Confederate States of America has been out of existence nearly forty years. You do not look older yourself. When was it that the deceased government exerted its foreign policy in your behalf?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Four months ago,” said O’Keefe, promptly. “The infamous foreign power I alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt it by Mr. Davis’s contraband aggregation of states. That’s why you see me cake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about ‘simmon-seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington, but I am not going back on Mars’ Jeff. You say the Confederacy has been dead forty years? Well, if it hadn’t been for it, I’d have been breathing to-day with soul so dead I couldn’t have whispered a single cuss-word about my native land. The O’Keefes are not overburdened with ingratitude.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Four months ago,” said O’Keefe, promptly. “The infamous foreign power I alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt it by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Davis’s contraband aggregation of states. That’s why you see me cake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about ‘simmon-seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington, but I am not going back on Mars’ Jeff. You say the Confederacy has been dead forty years? Well, if it hadn’t been for it, I’d have been breathing to-day with soul so dead I couldn’t have whispered a single cuss-word about my native land. The O’Keefes are not overburdened with ingratitude.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I must have looked bewildered. “The war was over,” I said vacantly, “in—”</p>
|
||||
<p>O’Keefe laughed loudly, scattering my thoughts.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ask old Doc Millikin if the war is over!” he shouted, hugely diverted. “Oh, no! Doc hasn’t surrendered yet. And the Confederate States! Well, I just told you they bucked officially and solidly and nationally against a foreign government four months ago and kept me from being shot. Old Jeff’s country stepped in and brought me off under its wing while Roosevelt was having a gunboat painted and waiting for the National Campaign Committee to look up whether I had ever scratched the ticket.”</p>
|
||||
@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now, see here, O’Keefe,’ says the consul, getting the best of a hiccup, ‘what do you want to bother the State Department about this matter for?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ says I; ‘I’m to be shot in two weeks. Did you think I said I was going to a lawn-party? And it wouldn’t hurt of Roosevelt could get the Japs to send down the <i>Yellowyamtiskookum</i> or the <i>Ogotosingsing</i> or some other first-class cruisers to help. It would make me feel safer.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now, what you want,’ says the consul, ‘is not to get excited. I’ll send you over some chewing tobacco and some banana fritters when I go back. The United States can’t interfere in this. You know you were caught insurging against the government, and you’re subject to the laws of this country. To tell the truth, I’ve had an intimation from the State Department—unofficially, of course—that whenever a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary <i>katzenjammer</i>, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he wants, and after he’s shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for part payment of my salary.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Consul,’ says I to him, ‘this is a serious question. You are representing Uncle Sam. This ain’t any little international tomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of the <i>Shamrock IV</i>. I’m an American citizen and I demand protection. I demand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron, and Bob Evans, and General E. Byrd Grubb, and two or three protocols. What are you going to do about it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Consul,’ says I to him, ‘this is a serious question. You are representing Uncle Sam. This ain’t any little international tomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of the <i>Shamrock <span epub:type="z3998:roman">IV</span></i>. I’m an American citizen and I demand protection. I demand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron, and Bob Evans, and General E. Byrd Grubb, and two or three protocols. What are you going to do about it?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Nothing doing,’ says the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Be off with you, then,’ says I, out of patience with him, ‘and send me Doc Millikin. Ask Doc to come and see me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirty soldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looks mightily pleased.</p>
|
||||
@ -91,7 +91,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Negotiations,’ says old Doc, ‘will be opened between the two governments at once. You will know later to-day if they are successful.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“About four in the afternoon a soldier in red trousers brings a paper round to the jail, and they unlocks the door and I walks out. The guard at the door bows and I bows, and I steps into the grass and wades around to Doc Millikin’s shack.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doc was sitting in his hammock playing ‘Dixie,’ soft and low and out of tune, on his flute. I interrupted him at ‘Look away! look away!’ and shook his hand for five minutes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I never thought,’ says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, ‘that I’d ever try to save any blame Yank’s life. But, Mr. O’Keefe, I don’t see but what you are entitled to be considered part human, anyhow. I never thought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudability about them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in my tabulation. But it ain’t me you want to thank—it’s the Confederate States of America.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I never thought,’ says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, ‘that I’d ever try to save any blame Yank’s life. But, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> O’Keefe, I don’t see but what you are entitled to be considered part human, anyhow. I never thought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudability about them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in my tabulation. But it ain’t me you want to thank—it’s the Confederate States of America.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘And I’m much obliged to ’em,’ says I. ‘It’s a poor man that wouldn’t be patriotic with a country that’s saved his life. I’ll drink to the Stars and Bars whenever there’s a flagstaff and a glass convenient. But where,’ says I, ‘are the rescuing troops? If there was a gun fired or a shell burst, I didn’t hear it.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Doc Millikin raises up and points out the window with his flute at the banana-steamer loading with fruit.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Yank,’ says he, ‘there’s a steamer that’s going to sail in the morning. If I was you, I’d sail on it. The Confederate Government’s done all it can for you. There wasn’t a gun fired. The negotiations were carried on secretly between the two nations by the purser of that steamer. I got him to do it because I didn’t want to appear in it. Twelve thousand dollars was paid to the officials in bribes to let you go.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I wasn’t even asked to the wedding. I reckon the bride had my pedigree and the front elevation of my habits all mapped out, and she decided that Perry would trot better in double harness without any unconverted mustang like Buck Caperton whickering around on the matrimonial range. So it was six months before I saw Perry again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One day I was passing on the edge of town, and I see something like a man in a little yard by a little house with a sprinkling-pot squirting water on a rose-bush. Seemed to me, I’d seen something like it before, and I stopped at the gate, trying to figure out its brands. ’Twas not Perry Rountree, but ’twas the kind of a curdled jellyfish matrimony had made out of him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Homicide was what that Mariana had perpetrated. He was looking well enough, but he had on a white collar and shoes, and you could tell in a minute that he’d speak polite and pay taxes and stick his little finger out while drinking, just like a sheep man or a citizen. Great skyrockets! but I hated to see Perry all corrupted and Willie-ized like that.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He came out to the gate, and shook hands; and I says, with scorn, and speaking like a paroquet with the pip: ‘Beg pardon—Mr. Rountree, I believe. Seems to me I sagatiated in your associations once, if I am not mistaken.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“He came out to the gate, and shook hands; and I says, with scorn, and speaking like a paroquet with the pip: ‘Beg pardon—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Rountree, I believe. Seems to me I sagatiated in your associations once, if I am not mistaken.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, go to the devil, Buck,’ says Perry, polite, as I was afraid he’d be.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘you poor, contaminated adjunct of a sprinkling-pot and degraded household pet, what did you go and do it for? Look at you, all decent and unriotous, and only fit to sit on juries and mend the wood-house door. You was a man once. I have hostility for all such acts. Why don’t you go in the house and count the tidies or set the clock, and not stand out here in the atmosphere? A jack-rabbit might come along and bite you.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now, Buck,’ says Perry, speaking mild, and some sorrowful, ‘you don’t understand. A married man has got to be different. He feels different from a tough old cloudburst like you. It’s sinful to waste time pulling up towns just to look at their roots, and playing faro and looking upon red liquor, and such restless policies as them.’</p>
|
||||
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I went in the back room with Perry. Before we closed the door, I says to Mike:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Don’t ever let it straggle out from under your hat that you seen Buck Caperton fraternal with sarsaparilla or <i>persona grata</i> with a checker-board, or I’ll make a swallow-fork in your other ear.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I locked the door and me and Perry played checkers. To see that poor old humiliated piece of household bric-a-brac sitting there and sniggering out loud whenever he jumped a man, and all obnoxious with animation when he got into my king row, would have made a sheep-dog sick with mortification. Him that was once satisfied only when he was pegging six boards at keno or giving the faro dealers nervous prostration—to see him pushing them checkers about like Sally Louisa at a school-children’s party—why, I was all smothered up with mortification.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I sits there playing the black men, all sweating for fear somebody I knew would find it out. And I thinks to myself some about this marrying business, and how it seems to be the same kind of a game as that Mrs. Delilah played. She give her old man a hair cut, and everybody knows what a man’s head looks like after a woman cuts his hair. And then when the Pharisees came around to guy him he was so ‘shamed that he went to work and kicked the whole house down on top of the whole outfit. ‘Them married men,’ thinks I, ‘lose all their spirit and instinct for riot and foolishness. They won’t drink, they won’t buck the tiger, they won’t even fight. What do they want to go and stay married for?’ I asks myself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And I sits there playing the black men, all sweating for fear somebody I knew would find it out. And I thinks to myself some about this marrying business, and how it seems to be the same kind of a game as that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Delilah played. She give her old man a hair cut, and everybody knows what a man’s head looks like after a woman cuts his hair. And then when the Pharisees came around to guy him he was so ‘shamed that he went to work and kicked the whole house down on top of the whole outfit. ‘Them married men,’ thinks I, ‘lose all their spirit and instinct for riot and foolishness. They won’t drink, they won’t buck the tiger, they won’t even fight. What do they want to go and stay married for?’ I asks myself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But Perry seems to be having hilarity in considerable quantities.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Buck old hoss,’ says he, ‘isn’t this just the hell-roaringest time we ever had in our lives? I don’t know when I’ve been stirred up so. You see, I’ve been sticking pretty close to home since I married, and I haven’t been on a spree in a long time.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Spree!’ Yes, that’s what he called it. Playing checkers in the back room of the Gray Mule! I suppose it did seem to him a little immoral and nearer to a prolonged debauch than standing over six tomato plants with a sprinkling-pot.</p>
|
||||
@ -73,7 +73,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hush up, you old locoed road runner,’ I interrupts. ‘Did you ever notice your Uncle Buck locking doors against trouble? I’m not married,’ says I, ‘but I’m as big a d––––n fool as any Mormon. One from four leaves three,’ says I, and I gathers out another leg of the table. ‘We’ll get home by seven,’ says I, ‘whether it’s the heavenly one or the other. May I see you home?’ says I, ‘you sarsaparilla-drinking, checker-playing glutton for death and destruction.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“We opened the door easy, and then stampeded for the front. Part of the gang was lined up at the bar; part of ’em was passing over the drinks, and two or three was peeping out the door and window and taking shots at the marshal’s crowd. The room was so full of smoke we got half-way to the front door before they noticed us. Then I heard Berry Trimble’s voice somewhere yell out:</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How’d that Buck Caperton get in here?’ and he skinned the side of my neck with a bullet. I reckon he felt bad over that miss, for Berry’s the best shot south of the Southern Pacific Railroad. But the smoke in the saloon was some too thick for good shooting.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Me and Perry smashed over two of the gang with our table legs, which didn’t miss like the guns did, and as we run out the door I grabbed a Winchester from a fellow who was watching the outside, and I turned and regulated the account of Mr. Berry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Me and Perry smashed over two of the gang with our table legs, which didn’t miss like the guns did, and as we run out the door I grabbed a Winchester from a fellow who was watching the outside, and I turned and regulated the account of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Berry.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Me and Perry got out and around the corner all right. I never much expected to get out, but I wasn’t going to be intimidated by that married man. According to Perry’s idea, checkers was the event of the day, but if I am any judge of gentle recreations that little table-leg parade through the Gray Mule saloon deserved the head-lines in the bill of particulars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Walk fast,’ says Perry, ‘it’s two minutes to seven, and I got to be home by—’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Oh, shut up,’ says I. ‘I had an appointment as chief performer at an inquest at seven, and I’m not kicking about not keeping it.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,21 +10,21 @@
|
||||
<h2>THE DISCOUNTERS OF MONEY</h2>
|
||||
<p>The spectacle of the money-caliphs of the present day going about Bagdad-on-the-Subway trying to relieve the wants of the people is enough to make the great Al Raschid turn Haroun in his grave. If not so, then the assertion should do so, the real caliph having been a wit and a scholar and therefore a hater of puns.</p>
|
||||
<p>How properly to alleviate the troubles of the poor is one of the greatest troubles of the rich. But one thing agreed upon by all professional philanthropists is that you must never hand over any cash to your subject. The poor are notoriously temperamental; and when they get money they exhibit a strong tendency to spend it for stuffed olives and enlarged crayon portraits instead of giving it to the instalment man.</p>
|
||||
<p>And still, old Haroun had some advantages as an eleemosynarian. He took around with him on his rambles his vizier, Giafar (a vizier is a composite of a chauffeur, a secretary of state, and a night-and-day bank), and old Uncle Mesrour, his executioner, who toted a snickersnee. With this entourage a caliphing tour could hardly fail to be successful. Have you noticed lately any newspaper articles headed, “What Shall We Do With Our Ex-Presidents?” Well, now, suppose that Mr. Carnegie could engage <i>him</i> and Joe Gans to go about assisting in the distribution of free libraries? Do you suppose any town would have had the hardihood to refuse one? That caliphalous combination would cause two libraries to grow where there had been only one set of E. P. Roe’s works before.</p>
|
||||
<p>And still, old Haroun had some advantages as an eleemosynarian. He took around with him on his rambles his vizier, Giafar (a vizier is a composite of a chauffeur, a secretary of state, and a night-and-day bank), and old Uncle Mesrour, his executioner, who toted a snickersnee. With this entourage a caliphing tour could hardly fail to be successful. Have you noticed lately any newspaper articles headed, “What Shall We Do With Our Ex-Presidents?” Well, now, suppose that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carnegie could engage <i>him</i> and Joe Gans to go about assisting in the distribution of free libraries? Do you suppose any town would have had the hardihood to refuse one? That caliphalous combination would cause two libraries to grow where there had been only one set of E. P. Roe’s works before.</p>
|
||||
<p>But, as I said, the money-caliphs are handicapped. They have the idea that earth has no sorrow that dough cannot heal; and they rely upon it solely. Al Raschid administered justice, rewarding the deserving, and punished whomsoever he disliked on the spot. He was the originator of the short-story contest. Whenever he succoured any chance pick-up in the bazaars he always made the succouree tell the sad story of his life. If the narrative lacked construction, style, and <i>esprit</i> he commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple of thousand ten-dollar notes of the First National Bank of the Bosphorus, or else gave him a soft job as Keeper of the Bird Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial Gardens. If the story was a cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the executioner, whack off his head. The report that Haroun Al Raschid is yet alive and is editing the magazine that your grandmother used to subscribe for lacks confirmation.</p>
|
||||
<p>And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.</p>
|
||||
<p>Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the residence of his immediate ancestors, the Pilkins Brewing Company. For his mother was a partner in the business. Finally old man Pilkins died from a torpid liver, and then Mrs. Pilkins died from worry on account of torpid delivery-waggons—and there you have young Howard Pilkins with 4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable, modestly arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could buy anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.</p>
|
||||
<p>Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the residence of his immediate ancestors, the Pilkins Brewing Company. For his mother was a partner in the business. Finally old man Pilkins died from a torpid liver, and then <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pilkins died from worry on account of torpid delivery-waggons—and there you have young Howard Pilkins with 4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable, modestly arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could buy anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.</p>
|
||||
<p>But the Rat-trap caught him at last; he heard the spring snap, and found his heart in a wire cage regarding a piece of cheese whose other name was Alice von der Ruysling.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which so much has been said, and in which so little has been done. To-day you hear of Mr. Tilden’s underground passage, and you hear Mr. Gould’s elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world made by Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der Ruyslings live there yet, and they received <i>the first key ever made to Gramercy Park</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>You shall have no description of Alice v. d. R. Just call up in your mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make her beautiful and unattainable—and you have a faint dry-point etching of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed to belong to the order of the Perissodactyla, and had toes instead of hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for the Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red portières designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that Indian’s perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh, well, I don’t mean that; I mean people who have <i>just</i> money.</p>
|
||||
<p>One evening Pilkins went down to the red brick house in Gramercy Square, and made what he thought was a proposal to Alice v. d. R. Alice, with her nose turned down, and thinking of his money, considered it a proposition, and refused it and him. Pilkins, summoning all his resources as any good general would have done, made an indiscreet references to the advantages that his money would provide. That settled it. The lady turned so cold that Walter Wellman himself would have waited until spring to make a dash for her in a dog-sled.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which so much has been said, and in which so little has been done. To-day you hear of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tilden’s underground passage, and you hear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gould’s elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world made by Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der Ruyslings live there yet, and they received <i>the first key ever made to Gramercy Park</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>You shall have no description of Alice <span epub:type="z3998:roman">v</span>. d. R. Just call up in your mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make her beautiful and unattainable—and you have a faint dry-point etching of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed to belong to the order of the Perissodactyla, and had toes instead of hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for the Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red portières designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that Indian’s perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh, well, I don’t mean that; I mean people who have <i>just</i> money.</p>
|
||||
<p>One evening Pilkins went down to the red brick house in Gramercy Square, and made what he thought was a proposal to Alice <span epub:type="z3998:roman">v</span>. d. R. Alice, with her nose turned down, and thinking of his money, considered it a proposition, and refused it and him. Pilkins, summoning all his resources as any good general would have done, made an indiscreet references to the advantages that his money would provide. That settled it. The lady turned so cold that Walter Wellman himself would have waited until spring to make a dash for her in a dog-sled.</p>
|
||||
<p>But Pilkins was something of a sport himself. You can’t fool all the millionaires every time the ball drops on the Western Union Building.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If, at any time,” he said to A. v. d. R., “you feel that you would like to reconsider your answer, send me a rose like that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“If, at any time,” he said to A. <span epub:type="z3998:roman">v</span>. d. R., “you feel that you would like to reconsider your answer, send me a rose like that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Pilkins audaciously touched a Jacque rose that she wore loosely in her hair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very well,” said she. “And when I do, you will understand by it that either you or I have learned something new about the purchasing power of money. You’ve been spoiled, my friend. No, I don’t think I could marry you. To-morrow I will send you back the presents you have given me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Presents!” said Pilkins in surprise. “I never gave you a present in my life. I would like to see a full-length portrait of the man that you would take a present from. Why, you never would let me send you flowers or candy or even art calendars.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve forgotten,” said Alice v. d. R., with a little smile. “It was a long time ago when our families were neighbours. You were seven, and I was trundling my doll on the sidewalk. You have me a little gray, hairy kitten, with shoe-buttony eyes. Its head came off and it was full of candy. You paid five cents for it—you told me so. I haven’t the candy to return to you—I hadn’t developed a conscience at three, so I ate it. But I have the kitten yet, and I will wrap it up neatly to-night and send it to you to-morrow.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Beneath the lightness of Alice v. d. R.’s talk the steadfastness of her rejection showed firm and plain. So there was nothing left for him but to leave the crumbly red brick house, and be off with his abhorred millions.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve forgotten,” said Alice <span epub:type="z3998:roman">v</span>. d. R., with a little smile. “It was a long time ago when our families were neighbours. You were seven, and I was trundling my doll on the sidewalk. You have me a little gray, hairy kitten, with shoe-buttony eyes. Its head came off and it was full of candy. You paid five cents for it—you told me so. I haven’t the candy to return to you—I hadn’t developed a conscience at three, so I ate it. But I have the kitten yet, and I will wrap it up neatly to-night and send it to you to-morrow.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Beneath the lightness of Alice <span epub:type="z3998:roman">v</span>. d. R.’s talk the steadfastness of her rejection showed firm and plain. So there was nothing left for him but to leave the crumbly red brick house, and be off with his abhorred millions.</p>
|
||||
<p>On his way back, Pilkins walked through Madison Square. The hour hand of the clock hung about eight; the air was stingingly cool, but not at the freezing point. The dim little square seemed like a great, cold, unroofed room, with its four walls of houses, spangled with thousands of insufficient lights. Only a few loiterers were huddled here and there on the benches.</p>
|
||||
<p>But suddenly Pilkins came upon a youth sitting brave and, as if conflicting with summer sultriness, coatless, his white shirt-sleeves conspicuous in the light from the globe of an electric. Close to his side was a girl, smiling, dreamy, happy. Around her shoulders was, palpably, the missing coat of the cold-defying youth. It appeared to be a modern panorama of the Babes in the Wood, revised and brought up to date, with the exception that the robins hadn’t turned up yet with the protecting leaves.</p>
|
||||
<p>With delight the money-caliphs view a situation that they think is relievable while you wait.</p>
|
||||
@ -38,12 +38,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“Then you force me to say good night,” said the millionaire.</p>
|
||||
<p>Twice that day had his money been scorned by simple ones to whom his dollars had appeared as but tin tobacco-tags. He was no worshipper of the actual minted coin or stamped paper, but he had always believed in its almost unlimited power to purchase.</p>
|
||||
<p>Pilkins walked away rapidly, and then turned abruptly and returned to the bench where the young couple sat. He took off his hat and began to speak. The girl looked at him with the same sprightly, glowing interest that she had been giving to the lights and statuary and sky-reaching buildings that made the old square seem so far away from Bedford County.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mr.—er—Roanoke,” said Pilkins, “I admire your—your indepen—your idiocy so much that I’m going to appeal to your chivalry. I believe that’s what you Southerners call it when you keep a lady sitting outdoors on a bench on a cold night just to keep your old, out-of-date pride going. Now, I’ve a friend—a lady—whom I have known all my life—who lives a few blocks from here—with her parents and sisters and aunts, and all that kind of endorsement, of course. I am sure this lady would be happy and pleased to put up—that is, to have Miss—er—Bedford give her the pleasure of having her as a guest for the night. Don’t you think, Mr. Roanoke, of—er—Virginia, that you could unbend your prejudices that far?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr>—er—Roanoke,” said Pilkins, “I admire your—your indepen—your idiocy so much that I’m going to appeal to your chivalry. I believe that’s what you Southerners call it when you keep a lady sitting outdoors on a bench on a cold night just to keep your old, out-of-date pride going. Now, I’ve a friend—a lady—whom I have known all my life—who lives a few blocks from here—with her parents and sisters and aunts, and all that kind of endorsement, of course. I am sure this lady would be happy and pleased to put up—that is, to have Miss—er—Bedford give her the pleasure of having her as a guest for the night. Don’t you think, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Roanoke, of—er—Virginia, that you could unbend your prejudices that far?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Clayton of Roanoke rose and held out his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Old man,” he said, “Miss Bedford will be much pleased to accept the hospitality of the lady you refer to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He formally introduced Mr. Pilkins to Miss Bedford. The girl looked at him sweetly and comfortably. “It’s a lovely evening, Mr. Pilkins—don’t you think so?” she said slowly.</p>
|
||||
<p>He formally introduced <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pilkins to Miss Bedford. The girl looked at him sweetly and comfortably. “It’s a lovely evening, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pilkins—don’t you think so?” she said slowly.</p>
|
||||
<p>Pilkins conducted them to the crumbly red brick house of the Von der Ruyslings. His card brought Alice downstairs wondering. The runaways were sent into the drawing-room, while Pilkins told Alice all about it in the hall.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, I will take her in,” said Alice. “Haven’t those Southern girls a thoroughbred air? Of course, she will stay here. You will look after Mr. Clayton, of course.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, I will take her in,” said Alice. “Haven’t those Southern girls a thoroughbred air? Of course, she will stay here. You will look after <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Clayton, of course.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will I?” said Pilkins, delightedly. “Oh yes, I’ll look after him! As a citizen of New York, and therefore a part owner of its public parks, I’m going to extend to him the hospitality of Madison Square to-night. He’s going to sit there on a bench till morning. There’s no use arguing with him. Isn’t he wonderful? I’m glad you’ll look after the little lady, Alice. I tell you those Babes in the Wood made my—that is, er—made Wall Street and the Bank of England look like penny arcades.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Von der Ruysling whisked Miss Bedford of Bedford County up to restful regions upstairs. When she came down, she put an oblong small pasteboard box into Pilkins’ hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Your present,” she said, “that I am returning to you.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>There are few Caliphesses. Women are Scheherazades by birth, predilection, instinct, and arrangement of the vocal cords. The thousand and one stories are being told every day by hundreds of thousands of viziers’ daughters to their respective sultans. But the bowstring will get some of ’em yet if they don’t watch out.</p>
|
||||
<p>I heard a story, though, of one lady Caliph. It isn’t precisely an Arabian Nights story, because it brings in Cinderella, who flourished her dishrag in another epoch and country. So, if you don’t mind the mixed dates (which seem to give it an Eastern flavour, after all), we’ll get along.</p>
|
||||
<p>In New York there is an old, old hotel. You have seen woodcuts of it in the magazines. It was built—let’s see—at a time when there was nothing above Fourteenth Street except the old Indian trail to Boston and Hammerstein’s office. Soon the old hostelry will be torn down. And, as the stout walls are riven apart and the bricks go roaring down the chutes, crowds of citizens will gather at the nearest corners and weep over the destruction of a dear old landmark. Civic pride is strongest in New Bagdad; and the wettest weeper and the loudest howler against the iconoclasts will be the man (originally from Terre Haute) whose fond memories of the old hotel are limited to his having been kicked out from its free-lunch counter in 1873.</p>
|
||||
<p>At this hotel always stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown was said to be the third richest woman in the world; and these solicitous gentlemen were only the city’s wealthiest brokers and business men seeking trifling loans of half a dozen millions or so from the dingy old lady with the prehistoric handbag.</p>
|
||||
<p>At this hotel always stopped <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maggie Brown. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown was said to be the third richest woman in the world; and these solicitous gentlemen were only the city’s wealthiest brokers and business men seeking trifling loans of half a dozen millions or so from the dingy old lady with the prehistoric handbag.</p>
|
||||
<p>The stenographer and typewriter of the Acropolis Hotel (there! I’ve let the name of it out!) was Miss Ida Bates. She was a hold-over from the Greek classics. There wasn’t a flaw in her looks. Some old-timer paying his regards to a lady said: “To have loved her was a liberal education.” Well, even to have looked over the black hair and neat white shirtwaist of Miss Bates was equal to a full course in any correspondence school in the country. She sometimes did a little typewriting for me, and, as she refused to take the money in advance, she came to look upon me as something of a friend and protégé. She had unfailing kindliness and a good nature; and not even a white-lead drummer or a fur importer had ever dared to cross the dead line of good behaviour in her presence. The entire force of the Acropolis, from the owner, who lived in Vienna, down to the head porter, who had been bedridden for sixteen years, would have sprung to her defence in a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day I walked past Miss Bates’s little sanctum Remingtorium, and saw in her place a black-haired unit—unmistakably a person—pounding with each of her forefingers upon the keys. Musing on the mutability of temporal affairs, I passed on. The next day I went on a two weeks’ vacation. Returning, I strolled through the lobby of the Acropolis, and saw, with a little warm glow of auld lang syne, Miss Bates, as Grecian and kind and flawless as ever, just putting the cover on her machine. The hour for closing had come; but she asked me in to sit for a few minutes in the dictation chair. Miss Bates explained her absence from and return to the Acropolis Hotel in words identical with or similar to these following:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Man, how are the stories coming?”</p>
|
||||
@ -20,12 +20,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“No one,” said I, “whom I have ever known knows as well as you do how to space properly belt buckles, semi-colons, hotel guests, and hairpins. But you’ve been away, too. I saw a package of peppermint-pepsin in your place the other day.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was going to tell you all about it,” said Miss Bates, “if you hadn’t interrupted me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course, you know about Maggie Brown, who stops here. Well, she’s worth $40,000,000. She lives in Jersey in a ten-dollar flat. She’s always got more cash on hand than half a dozen business candidates for vice-president. I don’t know whether she carries it in her stocking or not, but I know she’s mighty popular down in the part of town where they worship the golden calf.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, about two weeks ago, Mrs. Brown stops at the door and rubbers at me for ten minutes. I’m sitting with my side to her, striking off some manifold copies of a copper-mine proposition for a nice old man from Tonopah. But I always see everything all around me. When I’m hard at work I can see things through my side-combs; and I can leave one button unbuttoned in the back of my shirtwaist and see who’s behind me. I didn’t look around, because I make from eighteen to twenty dollars a week, and I didn’t have to.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, about two weeks ago, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown stops at the door and rubbers at me for ten minutes. I’m sitting with my side to her, striking off some manifold copies of a copper-mine proposition for a nice old man from Tonopah. But I always see everything all around me. When I’m hard at work I can see things through my side-combs; and I can leave one button unbuttoned in the back of my shirtwaist and see who’s behind me. I didn’t look around, because I make from eighteen to twenty dollars a week, and I didn’t have to.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That evening at knocking-off time she sends for me to come up to her apartment. I expected to have to typewrite about two thousand words of notes-of-hand, liens, and contracts, with a ten-cent tip in sight; but I went. Well, Man, I was certainly surprised. Old Maggie Brown had turned human.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Child,’ says she, ‘you’re the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life. I want you to quit your work and come and live with me. I’ve no kith or kin,’ says she, ‘except a husband and a son or two, and I hold no communication with any of ’em. They’re extravagant burdens on a hard-working woman. I want you to be a daughter to me. They say I’m stingy and mean, and the papers print lies about my doing my own cooking and washing. It’s a lie,’ she goes on. ‘I put my washing out, except the handkerchiefs and stockings and petticoats and collars, and light stuff like that. I’ve got forty million dollars in cash and stocks and bonds that are as negotiable as Standard Oil, preferred, at a church fair. I’m a lonely old woman and I need companionship. You’re the most beautiful human being I ever saw,’ says she. ‘Will you come and live with me? I’ll show ’em whether I can spend money or not,’ she says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Man, what would you have done? Of course, I fell to it. And, to tell you the truth, I began to like old Maggie. It wasn’t all on account of the forty millions and what she could do for me. I was kind of lonesome in the world too. Everybody’s got to have somebody they can explain to about the pain in their left shoulder and how fast patent-leather shoes wear out when they begin to crack. And you can’t talk about such things to men you meet in hotels—they’re looking for just such openings.</p>
|
||||
<p>“So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with Mrs. Brown. I certainly seemed to have a mash on her. She’d look at me for half an hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the magazines.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One time I says to her: ‘Do I remind you of some deceased relative or friend of your childhood, Mrs. Brown? I’ve noticed you give me a pretty good optical inspection from time to time.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown. I certainly seemed to have a mash on her. She’d look at me for half an hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the magazines.</p>
|
||||
<p>“One time I says to her: ‘Do I remind you of some deceased relative or friend of your childhood, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown? I’ve noticed you give me a pretty good optical inspection from time to time.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘You have a face,’ she says, ‘exactly like a dear friend of mine—the best friend I ever had. But I like you for yourself, child, too,’ she says.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And say, Man, what do you suppose she did? Loosened up like a Marcel wave in the surf at Coney. She took me to a swell dressmaker and gave her <i>a la carte</i> to fit me out—money no object. They were rush orders, and madame locked the front door and put the whole force to work.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then we moved to—where do you think?—no; guess again—that’s right—the Hotel Bonton. We had a six-room apartment; and it cost $100 a day. I saw the bill. I began to love that old lady.</p>
|
||||
@ -36,20 +36,20 @@
|
||||
<p>“Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner service was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. You’d never have known the third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that lived in a top-floor studio.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And my dress!—say, Man, I can’t waste the words on you. It was all hand-made lace—where there was any of it at all—and it cost $300. I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents. and Bryan and the cotton crop.</p>
|
||||
<p>“On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He was the only—well, I was going to tell you.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After the dinner was over Mrs. Brown and I went up to the apartment. We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all the way through the halls. That’s one of the things money does for you. Say, do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop—a tall man with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I don’t remember what paper he works on. Well, all right.</p>
|
||||
<p>“When we got upstairs Mrs. Brown telephones for the bill right away. It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After the dinner was over <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown and I went up to the apartment. We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all the way through the halls. That’s one of the things money does for you. Say, do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop—a tall man with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I don’t remember what paper he works on. Well, all right.</p>
|
||||
<p>“When we got upstairs <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown telephones for the bill right away. It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Child,’ says she, when she got back to the world, ‘what was it? A raise of rent or an income-tax?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Just a little dinner,’ says I. ‘Nothing to worry about—hardly a drop in the bucket-shop. Sit up and take notice—a dispossess notice, if there’s no other kind.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But say, Man, do you know what Aunt Maggie did? She got cold feet! She hustled me out of that Hotel Bonton at nine the next morning. We went to a rooming-house on the lower West Side. She rented one room that had water on the floor below and light on the floor above. After we got moved all you could see in the room was about $1,500 worth of new swell dresses and a one-burner gas-stove.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Aunt Maggie had had a sudden attack of the hedges. I guess everybody has got to go on a spree once in their life. A man spends his on highballs, and a woman gets woozy on clothes. But with forty million dollars—say, I’d like to have a picture of—but, speaking of pictures, did you ever run across a newspaper artist named Lathrop—a tall—oh, I asked you that before, didn’t I? He was mighty nice to me at the dinner. His voice just suited me. I guess he must have thought I was to inherit some of Aunt Maggie’s money.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, Mr. Man, three days of that light-housekeeping was plenty for me. Aunt Maggie was affectionate as ever. She’d hardly let me get out of her sight. But let me tell you. She was a hedger from Hedgersville, Hedger County. Seventy-five cents a day was the limit she set. We cooked our own meals in the room. There I was, with a thousand dollars’ worth of the latest things in clothes, doing stunts over a one-burner gas-stove.</p>
|
||||
<p>“As I say, on the third day I flew the coop. I couldn’t stand for throwing together a fifteen-cent kidney stew while wearing, at the same time, a $150 house-dress, with Valenciennes lace insertion. So I goes into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown had bought for me—it’s the one I’ve got on now—not so bad for $75, is it? I’d left all my own clothes in my sister’s flat in Brooklyn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Mrs. Brown, formerly “Aunt Maggie,” ’ says I to her, ‘I’m going to extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner and direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest possible time. I am no worshipper of money,’ says I, ‘but there are some things I can’t stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that I’ve read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same breath. But I can’t stand a quitter,’ says I. ‘They say you’ve got forty million dollars—well, you’ll never have any less. And I was beginning to like you, too,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Man, three days of that light-housekeeping was plenty for me. Aunt Maggie was affectionate as ever. She’d hardly let me get out of her sight. But let me tell you. She was a hedger from Hedgersville, Hedger County. Seventy-five cents a day was the limit she set. We cooked our own meals in the room. There I was, with a thousand dollars’ worth of the latest things in clothes, doing stunts over a one-burner gas-stove.</p>
|
||||
<p>“As I say, on the third day I flew the coop. I couldn’t stand for throwing together a fifteen-cent kidney stew while wearing, at the same time, a $150 house-dress, with Valenciennes lace insertion. So I goes into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown had bought for me—it’s the one I’ve got on now—not so bad for $75, is it? I’d left all my own clothes in my sister’s flat in Brooklyn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown, formerly “Aunt Maggie,” ’ says I to her, ‘I’m going to extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner and direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest possible time. I am no worshipper of money,’ says I, ‘but there are some things I can’t stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that I’ve read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same breath. But I can’t stand a quitter,’ says I. ‘They say you’ve got forty million dollars—well, you’ll never have any less. And I was beginning to like you, too,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, the late Aunt Maggie kicks till the tears flow. She offers to move into a swell room with a two-burner stove and running water.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I’ve spent an awful lot of money, child,’ says she. ‘We’ll have to economize for a while. You’re the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on,’ she says, ‘and I don’t want you to leave me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you see me, don’t you? I walked straight to the Acropolis and asked for my job back, and I got it. How did you say your writings were getting along? I know you’ve lost out some by not having me to type ’em. Do you ever have ’em illustrated? And, by the way, did you ever happen to know a newspaper artist—oh, shut up! I know I asked you before. I wonder what paper he works on? It’s funny, but I couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t thinking about the money he might have been thinking I was thinking I’d get from old Maggie Brown. If I only knew some of the newspaper editors I’d—”</p>
|
||||
<p>The sound of an easy footstep came from the doorway. Ida Bates saw who it was with her back-hair comb. I saw her turn pink, perfect statue that she was—a miracle that I share with Pygmalion only.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Am I excusable?” she said to me—adorable petitioner that she became. “It’s—it’s Mr. Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn’t the money—I wonder, if after all, he—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Am I excusable?” she said to me—adorable petitioner that she became. “It’s—it’s <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn’t the money—I wonder, if after all, he—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Of course, I was invited to the wedding. After the ceremony I dragged Lathrop aside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are an artist,” said I, “and haven’t figured out why Maggie Brown conceived such a strong liking for Miss Bates—that was? Let me show you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the costumes of the ancient Greeks. I took some leaves from one of the decorative wreaths in the little parlour, and made a chaplet of them, and placed them on née Bates’ shining chestnut hair, and made her turn her profile to her husband.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -24,8 +24,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“But is was of romance and adventure and the ways of women that was I going to tell you, and not of zoölogical animals.</p>
|
||||
<p>“For fifteen years I was the ruling power behind old Sancho Benavides, the Royal High Thumbscrew of the republic. You’ve seen his picture in the papers—a mushy black man with whiskers like the notes on a Swiss music-box cylinder, and a scroll in his right hand like the ones they write births on in the family Bible. Well, that chocolate potentate used to be the biggest item of interest anywhere between the colour line and the parallels of latitude. It was three throws, horses, whether he was to wind up in the Hall of Fame or the Bureau of Combustibles. He’d have been sure called the Roosevelt of the Southern Continent if it hadn’t been that Grover Cleveland was President at the time. He’d hold office a couple of terms, then he’d sit out for a hand—always after appointing his own successor for the interims.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But it was not Benavides, the Liberator, who was making all this fame for himself. Not him. It was Judson Tate. Benavides was only the chip over the bug. I gave him the tip when to declare war and increase import duties and wear his state trousers. But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. How did I get to be It? I’ll tell you. Because I’m the most gifted talker that ever made vocal sounds since Adam first opened his eyes, pushed aside the smelling-salts, and asked: ‘Where am I?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“As you observe, I am about the ugliest man you ever saw outside the gallery of photographs of the New England early Christian Scientists. So, at an early age, I perceived that what I lacked in looks I must make up in eloquence. That I’ve done. I get what I go after. As the back-stop and still small voice of old Benavides I made all the great historical powers-behind-the-throne, such as Talleyrand, Mrs. de Pompadour, and Loeb, look as small as the minority report of a Duma. I could talk nations into or out of debt, harangue armies to sleep on the battlefield, reduce insurrections, inflammations, taxes, appropriations or surpluses with a few words, and call up the dogs of war or the dove of peace with the same bird-like whistle. Beauty and epaulettes and curly moustaches and Grecian profiles in other men were never in my way. When people first look at me they shudder. Unless they are in the last stages of <i>angina pectoris</i> they are mine in ten minutes after I begin to talk. Women and men—I win ’em as they come. Now, you wouldn’t think women would fancy a man with a face like mine, would you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, Mr. Tate,” said I. “History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women. There seems—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“As you observe, I am about the ugliest man you ever saw outside the gallery of photographs of the New England early Christian Scientists. So, at an early age, I perceived that what I lacked in looks I must make up in eloquence. That I’ve done. I get what I go after. As the back-stop and still small voice of old Benavides I made all the great historical powers-behind-the-throne, such as Talleyrand, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> de Pompadour, and Loeb, look as small as the minority report of a Duma. I could talk nations into or out of debt, harangue armies to sleep on the battlefield, reduce insurrections, inflammations, taxes, appropriations or surpluses with a few words, and call up the dogs of war or the dove of peace with the same bird-like whistle. Beauty and epaulettes and curly moustaches and Grecian profiles in other men were never in my way. When people first look at me they shudder. Unless they are in the last stages of <i>angina pectoris</i> they are mine in ten minutes after I begin to talk. Women and men—I win ’em as they come. Now, you wouldn’t think women would fancy a man with a face like mine, would you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tate,” said I. “History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women. There seems—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Pardon me,” interrupted Judson Tate, “but you don’t quite understand. You have yet to hear my story.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Fergus McMahan was a friend of mine in the capital. For a handsome man I’ll admit he was the duty-free merchandise. He had blond curls and laughing blue eyes and was featured regular. They said he was a ringer for the statue they call Herr Mees, the god of speech and eloquence resting in some museum at Rome. Some German anarchist, I suppose. They are always resting and talking.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But Fergus was no talker. He was brought up with the idea that to be beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got to be friends—maybe because we was so opposite, don’t you think? Looking at the Hallowe’en mask that I call my face when I’m shaving seemed to give Fergus pleasure; and I’m sure that whenever I heard the feeble output of throat noises that he called conversation I felt contented to be a gargoyle with a silver tongue.</p>
|
||||
@ -67,11 +67,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“I looked and felt the ground rock under my feet. For Señorita Anabela Zamora was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the only one from that moment on, so far as Judson Tate was concerned. I saw at a glance that I must be hers and she mine forever. I thought of my face and nearly fainted; and then I thought of my other talents and stood upright again. And I had been wooing her for three weeks for another man!</p>
|
||||
<p>“As Señorita Anabela’s carriage rolled slowly past, she gave Fergus a long, soft glance from the corners of her night-black eyes, a glance that would have sent Judson Tate up into heaven in a rubber-tired chariot. But she never looked at me. And that handsome man only ruffles his curls and smirks and prances like a lady-killer at my side.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What do you think of her, Judson?’ asks Fergus, with an air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘This much,’ says I. ‘She is to be Mrs. Judson Tate. I am no man to play tricks on a friend. So take your warning.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘This much,’ says I. ‘She is to be <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate. I am no man to play tricks on a friend. So take your warning.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought Fergus would die laughing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, well, well,’ said he, ‘you old doughface! Struck too, are you? That’s great! But you’re too late. Francesca tells me that Anabela talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, I’m awfully obliged to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings. But, do you know, I’ve an idea that I could have done it as well myself.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Mrs. Judson Tate,’ says I. ‘Don’t forget the name. You’ve had the use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can’t lend me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the name that’s to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half—“Mrs. Judson Tate.” That’s all.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘All right,’ says Fergus, laughing again. ‘I’ve talked with her father, the alcalde, and he’s willing. He’s to give a <i>baile</i> to-morrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man, Jud, I’d expect you around to meet the future Mrs. McMahan.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate,’ says I. ‘Don’t forget the name. You’ve had the use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can’t lend me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the name that’s to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half—“<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate.” That’s all.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘All right,’ says Fergus, laughing again. ‘I’ve talked with her father, the alcalde, and he’s willing. He’s to give a <i>baile</i> to-morrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man, Jud, I’d expect you around to meet the future <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McMahan.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the Alcade Zamora’s <i>baile</i>, into the room steps Judson Tate in new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation, which he was.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and one or two of the timidest señoritas let out a screech or two. But up prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with his forehead. No mere good looks could have won me that sensational entrance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I hear much, Señor Zamora,’ says I, ‘of the charm of your daughter. It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.’</p>
|
||||
@ -99,11 +99,11 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Señorita Anabela,’ says I, ‘may I speak with you aside for a moment?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“You don’t want details about that, do you? Thanks. The old eloquence had come back all right. I led her under a cocoanut palm and put my old verbal spell on her again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Judson,’ says she, ‘when you are talking to me I can hear nothing else—I can see nothing else—there is nothing and nobody else in the world for me.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, that’s about all of the story. Anabela went back to Oratama in the steamer with me. I never heard what became of Fergus. I never saw him any more. Anabela is now Mrs. Judson Tate. Has my story bored you much?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, that’s about all of the story. Anabela went back to Oratama in the steamer with me. I never heard what became of Fergus. I never saw him any more. Anabela is now <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate. Has my story bored you much?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said I. “I am always interested in psychological studies. A human heart—and especially a woman’s—is a wonderful thing to contemplate.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is,” said Judson Tate. “And so are the trachea and bronchial tubes of man. And the larynx too. Did you ever make a study of the windpipe?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never,” said I. “But I have taken much pleasure in your story. May I ask after Mrs. Tate, and inquire of her present health and whereabouts?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, sure,” said Judson Tate. “We are living in Bergen Avenue, Jersey City. The climate down in Oratama didn’t suit Mrs. T. I don’t suppose you ever dissected the arytenoid cartilages of the epiglottis, did you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never,” said I. “But I have taken much pleasure in your story. May I ask after <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Tate, and inquire of her present health and whereabouts?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, sure,” said Judson Tate. “We are living in Bergen Avenue, Jersey City. The climate down in Oratama didn’t suit <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> T. I don’t suppose you ever dissected the arytenoid cartilages of the epiglottis, did you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, no,” said I, “I am no surgeon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Pardon me,” said Judson Tate, “but every man should know enough of anatomy and therapeutics to safeguard his own health. A sudden cold may set up capillary bronchitis or inflammation of the pulmonary vesicles, which may result in a serious affection of the vocal organs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps so,” said I, with some impatience; “but that is neither here nor there. Speaking of the strange manifestations of the affection of women, I—”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>My reply was to pound on the table for Rousselin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Strolling along Tchoupitoulas Street one night,” began Captain Maloné, “I noticed, without especially taxing my interest, a small man walking rapidly toward me. He stepped upon a wooden cellar door, crashed through it, and disappeared. I rescued him from a heap of soft coal below. He dusted himself briskly, swearing fluently in a mechanical tone, as an underpaid actor recites the gypsy’s curse. Gratitude and the dust in his throat seemed to call for fluids to clear them away. His desire for liquidation was expressed so heartily that I went with him to a café down the street where we had some vile vermouth and bitters.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Looking across that little table I had my first clear sight of Francis Kearny. He was about five feet seven, but as tough as a cypress knee. His hair was darkest red, his mouth such a mere slit that you wondered how the flood of his words came rushing from it. His eyes were the brightest and lightest blue and the hopefulest that I ever saw. He gave the double impression that he was at bay and that you had better not crowd him further.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Just in from a gold-hunting expedition on the coast of Costa Rica,’ he explained. ‘Second mate of a banana steamer told me the natives were panning out enough from the beach sands to buy all the rum, red calico, and parlour melodeons in the world. The day I got there a syndicate named Incorporated Jones gets a government concession to all minerals from a given point. For a next choice I take coast fever and count green and blue lizards for six weeks in a grass hut. I had to be notified when I was well, for the reptiles were actually there. Then I shipped back as third cook on a Norwegian tramp that blew up her boiler two miles below Quarantine. I was due to bust through that cellar door here to-night, so I hurried the rest of the way up the river, roustabouting on a lower coast packet that made up a landing for every fisherman that wanted a plug of tobacco. And now I’m here for what comes next. And it’ll be along, it’ll be along,’ said this queer Mr. Kearny; ‘it’ll be along on the beams of my bright but not very particular star.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Just in from a gold-hunting expedition on the coast of Costa Rica,’ he explained. ‘Second mate of a banana steamer told me the natives were panning out enough from the beach sands to buy all the rum, red calico, and parlour melodeons in the world. The day I got there a syndicate named Incorporated Jones gets a government concession to all minerals from a given point. For a next choice I take coast fever and count green and blue lizards for six weeks in a grass hut. I had to be notified when I was well, for the reptiles were actually there. Then I shipped back as third cook on a Norwegian tramp that blew up her boiler two miles below Quarantine. I was due to bust through that cellar door here to-night, so I hurried the rest of the way up the river, roustabouting on a lower coast packet that made up a landing for every fisherman that wanted a plug of tobacco. And now I’m here for what comes next. And it’ll be along, it’ll be along,’ said this queer <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kearny; ‘it’ll be along on the beams of my bright but not very particular star.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“From the first the personality of Kearny charmed me. I saw in him the bold heart, the restless nature, and the valiant front against the buffets of fate that make his countrymen such valuable comrades in risk and adventure. And just then I was wanting such men. Moored at a fruit company’s pier I had a 500-ton steamer ready to sail the next day with a cargo of sugar, lumber, and corrugated iron for a port in—well, let us call the country Esperando—it has not been long ago, and the name of Patricio Maloné is still spoken there when its unsettled politics are discussed. Beneath the sugar and iron were packed a thousand Winchester rifles. In Aguas Frias, the capital, Don Rafael Valdevia, Minister of War, Esperando’s greatest-hearted and most able patriot, awaited my coming. No doubt you have heard, with a smile, of the insignificant wars and uprisings in those little tropic republics. They make but a faint clamour against the din of great nations’ battles; but down there, under all the ridiculous uniforms and petty diplomacy and senseless countermarching and intrigue, are to be found statesmen and patriots. Don Rafael Valdevia was one. His great ambition was to raise Esperando into peace and honest prosperity and the respect of the serious nations. So he waited for my rifles in Aguas Frias. But one would think I am trying to win a recruit in you! No; it was Francis Kearny I wanted. And so I told him, speaking long over our execrable vermouth, breathing the stifling odour from garlic and tarpaulins, which, as you know, is the distinctive flavour of cafés in the lower slant of our city. I spoke of the tyrant President Cruz and the burdens that his greed and insolent cruelty laid upon the people. And at that Kearny’s tears flowed. And then I dried them with a picture of the fat rewards that would be ours when the oppressor should be overthrown and the wise and generous Valdevia in his seat. Then Kearny leaped to his feet and wrung my hand with the strength of a roustabout. He was mine, he said, till the last minion of the hated despot was hurled from the highest peaks of the Cordilleras into the sea.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I paid the score, and we went out. Near the door Kearny’s elbow overturned an upright glass showcase, smashing it into little bits. I paid the storekeeper the price he asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Come to my hotel for the night,’ I said to Kearny. ‘We sail to-morrow at noon.’</p>
|
||||
@ -67,7 +67,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“On the morning of the 14th we began our march toward the sea-following range of mountains, over the sixty-mile trail to the capital. Our small arms and provisions were laden on pack mules. Twenty men harnessed to each Gatling gun rolled them smoothly along the flat, alluvial lowlands. Our troops, well-shod and well-fed, moved with alacrity and heartiness. I and my three lieutenants were mounted on the tough mountain ponies of the country.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A mile out of camp one of the pack mules, becoming stubborn, broke away from the train and plunged from the path into the thicket. The alert Kearny spurred quickly after it and intercepted its flight. Rising in his stirrups, he released one foot and bestowed upon the mutinous animal a hearty kick. The mule tottered and fell with a crash broadside upon the ground. As we gathered around it, it walled its great eyes almost humanly towards Kearny and expired. That was bad; but worse, to our minds, was the concomitant disaster. Part of the mule’s burden had been one hundred pounds of the finest coffee to be had in the tropics. The bag burst and spilled the priceless brown mass of the ground berries among the dense vines and weeds of the swampy land. <i>Mala suerte!</i> When you take away from an Esperandan his coffee, you abstract his patriotism and 50 per cent. of his value as a soldier. The men began to rake up the precious stuff; but I beckoned Kearny back along the trail where they would not hear. The limit had been reached.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I took from my pocket a wallet of money and drew out some bills.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Mr. Kearny,’ said I, ‘here are some funds belonging to Don Rafael Valdevia, which I am expending in his cause. I know of no better service it can buy for him than this. Here is one hundred dollars. Luck or no luck, we part company here. Star or no star, calamity seems to travel by your side. You will return to the steamer. She touches at Amotapa to discharge her lumber and iron, and then puts back to New Orleans. Hand this note to the sailing-master, who will give you passage.’ I wrote on a leaf torn from my book, and placed it and the money in Kearny’s hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kearny,’ said I, ‘here are some funds belonging to Don Rafael Valdevia, which I am expending in his cause. I know of no better service it can buy for him than this. Here is one hundred dollars. Luck or no luck, we part company here. Star or no star, calamity seems to travel by your side. You will return to the steamer. She touches at Amotapa to discharge her lumber and iron, and then puts back to New Orleans. Hand this note to the sailing-master, who will give you passage.’ I wrote on a leaf torn from my book, and placed it and the money in Kearny’s hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Good-bye,’ I said, extending my own. ‘It is not that I am displeased with you; but there is no place in this expedition for—let us say, the Señorita Phœbe.’ I said this with a smile, trying to smooth the thing for him. ‘May you have better luck, <i>companero</i>.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Kearny took the money and the paper.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It was just a little touch,’ said he, ‘just a little lift with the toe of my boot—but what’s the odds?—that blamed mule would have died if I had only dusted his ribs with a powder puff. It was my luck. Well, Captain, I would have liked to be in that little fight with you over in Aguas Frias. Success to the cause. <i>Adios!</i>’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<p>With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular “blowout.” The duel in Valdos’s had cut short his season of hilarity, but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight that it had made necessary.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, buddy,” said the captain. “I hope your ma won’t blame me for this little childish escapade of yours.” He beckoned to one of the boat’s crew. “Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won’t get your feet wet.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o’clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude—a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels—until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and courtesy due from the representative of a great nation. “Don’t disturb yourself,” said the Kid, easily. “I just dropped in. They told me it was customary to light at your camp before starting in to round up the town. I just came in on a ship from Texas.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Glad to see you, Mr.—” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Glad to see you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid laughed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sprague Dalton,” he said. “It sounds funny to me to hear it. I’m called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m Thacker,” said the consul. “Take that cane-bottom chair. Now if you’ve come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These dingies will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don’t understand their ways. Try a cigar?”</p>
|
||||
@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“You haven’t been eating loco weed, have you?” asked the Kid.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sit down again,” said Thacker, “and I’ll tell you. Twelve years ago they lost a kid. No, he didn’t die—although most of ’em here do from drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he wasn’t but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Señor Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head with big stories about the States; and about a month after they left, the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans. He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars having him looked for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he’ll come back to her some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the boy’s left hand was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws. That’s old Urique’s coat of arms or something that he inherited in Spain.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you’d drop in some day, Mr. Dalton.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s it,” said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. “You’re not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I’ll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you’d think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you’d drop in some day, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dalton.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, hell,” said the Kid. “I thought I told you my name!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, ‘Kid,’ then. It won’t be that long. How does Señorito Urique sound, for a change?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I never played son any that I remember of,” said the Kid. “If I had any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?”</p>
|
||||
@ -99,14 +99,14 @@
|
||||
<p>“Nothing much,” said the Kid calmly. “I eat my first iguana steak to-day. They’re them big lizards, you <i>sabe</i>? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles,” said Thacker.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his state of beatitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s U.S. currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s time you were making good, sonny,” he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. “You’re not playing up to me square. You’ve been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you’d wanted it. Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kid, do you think it’s right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What’s the trouble? Don’t you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don’t tell me you don’t. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It’s U.S. currency, too; he don’t accept anything else. What’s doing? Don’t say ‘nothing’ this time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, sure,” said the Kid, admiring his diamond, “there’s plenty of money up there. I’m no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I’ve seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I’m the real little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Thacker, angrily. “Don’t you forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don’t know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between ’em. These people here’d stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they’d wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they’d feed to alligators.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Thacker, angrily. “Don’t you forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don’t know this country, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between ’em. These people here’d stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they’d wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they’d feed to alligators.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I might just as well tell you now, pardner,” said the Kid, sliding down low on his steamer chair, “that things are going to stay just as they are. They’re about right now.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What do you mean?” asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on his desk.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The scheme’s off,” said the Kid. “And whenever you have the pleasure of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I’ll guarantee I’ll answer to it. We’ll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of Laredo as far as you and me are concerned.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re going to throw me down, then, are you?” said the consul.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure,” said the Kid cheerfully. “Throw you down. That’s it. And now I’ll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel’s house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor—a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. ‘Panchito,’ she says, ‘my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name forever.’ It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, Mr. Thacker. And it’s been that way ever since. And it’s got to stay that way. Don’t you think that it’s for what’s in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep ’em to yourself. I haven’t had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here’s a lady that we’ve got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won’t. I’m a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I’ll travel it to the end. And now, don’t forget that I’m Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure,” said the Kid cheerfully. “Throw you down. That’s it. And now I’ll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel’s house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor—a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. ‘Panchito,’ she says, ‘my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name forever.’ It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Thacker. And it’s been that way ever since. And it’s got to stay that way. Don’t you think that it’s for what’s in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep ’em to yourself. I haven’t had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here’s a lady that we’ve got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won’t. I’m a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I’ll travel it to the end. And now, don’t forget that I’m Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll expose you to-day, you—you double-dyed traitor,” stammered Thacker.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of it against the consul’s mouth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I told you why I come here,” he said, with his old freezing smile. “If I leave here, you’ll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now, what is my name?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
||||
<section id="chapter-9" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2>THE PASSING OF BLACK EAGLE</h2>
|
||||
<p>For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve was this notorious marauder. His personality secured him the title of “Black Eagle, the Terror of the Border.” Many fearsome tales are on record concerning the doings of him and his followers. Suddenly, in the space of a single minute, Black Eagle vanished from earth. He was never heard of again. His own band never even guessed the mystery of his disappearance. The border ranches and settlements feared he would come again to ride and ravage the mesquite flats. He never will. It is to disclose the fate of Black Eagle that this narrative is written.</p>
|
||||
<p>The initial movement of the story is furnished by the foot of a bartender in St. Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form of Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch. Chicken was a “hobo.” He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl, an inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it without expense, which accounts for the name given him by his fellow vagrants.</p>
|
||||
<p>The initial movement of the story is furnished by the foot of a bartender in <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form of Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch. Chicken was a “hobo.” He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl, an inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it without expense, which accounts for the name given him by his fellow vagrants.</p>
|
||||
<p>Physicians agree that the partaking of liquids at meal times is not a healthy practice. The hygiene of the saloon promulgates the opposite. Chicken had neglected to purchase a drink to accompany his meal. The bartender rounded the counter, caught the injudicious diner by the ear with a lemon squeezer, led him to the door and kicked him into the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus the mind of Chicken was brought to realize the signs of coming winter. The night was cold; the stars shone with unkindly brilliancy; people were hurrying along the streets in two egotistic, jostling streams. Men had donned their overcoats, and Chicken knew to an exact percentage the increased difficulty of coaxing dimes from those buttoned-in vest pockets. The time had come for his annual exodus to the south.</p>
|
||||
<p>A little boy, five or six years old, stood looking with covetous eyes in a confectioner’s window. In one small hand he held an empty two-ounce vial; in the other he grasped tightly something flat and round, with a shining milled edge. The scene presented a field of operations commensurate to Chicken’s talents and daring. After sweeping the horizon to make sure that no official tug was cruising near, he insidiously accosted his prey. The boy, having been early taught by his household to regard altruistic advances with extreme suspicion, received the overtures coldly.</p>
|
||||
@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Beginning artfully to question the boy concerning his choice of sweets, he gradually drew out the information he wanted. Mamma said he was to ask the drug store man for ten cents’ worth of paregoric in the bottle; he was to keep his hand shut tight over the dollar; he must not stop to talk to anyone in the street; he must ask the drug-store man to wrap up the change and put it in the pocket of his trousers. Indeed, they had pockets—two of them! And he liked chocolate creams best.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chicken went into the store and turned plunger. He invested his entire capital in C.A.N.D.Y. stocks, simply to pave the way to the greater risk following.</p>
|
||||
<p>He gave the sweets to the youngster, and had the satisfaction of perceiving that confidence was established. After that it was easy to obtain leadership of the expedition; to take the investment by the hand and lead it to a nice drug store he knew of in the same block. There Chicken, with a parental air, passed over the dollar and called for the medicine, while the boy crunched his candy, glad to be relieved of the responsibility of the purchase. And then the successful investor, searching his pockets, found an overcoat button—the extent of his winter trousseau—and, wrapping it carefully, placed the ostensible change in the pocket of confiding juvenility. Setting the youngster’s face homeward, and patting him benevolently on the back—for Chicken’s heart was as soft as those of his feathered namesakes—the speculator quit the market with a profit of 1,700 per cent. on his invested capital.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside him in his nest was a quart bottle of very poor whisky and a paper bag of bread and cheese. Mr. Ruggles, in his private car, was on his trip south for the winter season.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside him in his nest was a quart bottle of very poor whisky and a paper bag of bread and cheese. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ruggles, in his private car, was on his trip south for the winter season.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a week that car was trundled southward, shifted, laid over, and manipulated after the manner of rolling stock, but Chicken stuck to it, leaving it only at necessary times to satisfy his hunger and thirst. He knew it must go down to the cattle country, and San Antonio, in the heart of it, was his goal. There the air was salubrious and mild; the people indulgent and long-suffering. The bartenders there would not kick him. If he should eat too long or too often at one place they would swear at him as if by rote and without heat. They swore so drawlingly, and they rarely paused short of their full vocabulary, which was copious, so that Chicken had often gulped a good meal during the process of the vituperative prohibition. The season there was always spring-like; the plazas were pleasant at night, with music and gaiety; except during the slight and infrequent cold snaps one could sleep comfortably out of doors in case the interiors should develop inhospitability.</p>
|
||||
<p>At Texarkana his car was switched to the I. and G. N. Then still southward it trailed until, at length, it crawled across the Colorado bridge at Austin, and lined out, straight as an arrow, for the run to San Antonio.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the freight halted at that town Chicken was fast asleep. In ten minutes the train was off again for Laredo, the end of the road. Those empty cattle cars were for distribution along the line at points from which the ranches shipped their stock.</p>
|
||||
@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Bud acted “on the level,” agreeing to take a subordinate place in the gang until Black Eagle should have been given a trial as leader.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a great deal of consultation, studying of time-tables, and discussion of the country’s topography, the time and place for carrying out their new enterprise was decided upon. At that time there was a feedstuff famine in Mexico and a cattle famine in certain parts of the United States, and there was a brisk international trade. Much money was being shipped along the railroads that connected the two republics. It was agreed that the most promising place for the contemplated robbery was at Espina, a little station on the I. and G. N., about forty miles north of Laredo. The train stopped there one minute; the country around was wild and unsettled; the station consisted of but one house in which the agent lived.</p>
|
||||
<p>Black Eagle’s band set out, riding by night. Arriving in the vicinity of Espina they rested their horses all day in a thicket a few miles distant.</p>
|
||||
<p>The train was due at Espina at 10.30 <span class="smallcaps">p.m.</span> They could rob the train and be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next morning.</p>
|
||||
<p>The train was due at Espina at 10.30 <span class="smallcaps"><abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr></span> They could rob the train and be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next morning.</p>
|
||||
<p>To do Black Eagle justice, he exhibited no signs of flinching from the responsible honours that had been conferred upon him.</p>
|
||||
<p>He assigned his men to their respective posts with discretion, and coached them carefully as to their duties. On each side of the track four of the band were to lie concealed in the chaparral. Gotch-Ear Rodgers was to stick up the station agent. Bronco Charlie was to remain with the horses, holding them in readiness. At a spot where it was calculated the engine would be when the train stopped, Bud King was to lie hidden on one side, and Black Eagle himself on the other. The two would get the drop on the engineer and fireman, force them to descend and proceed to the rear. Then the express car would be looted, and the escape made. No one was to move until Black Eagle gave the signal by firing his revolver. The plan was perfect.</p>
|
||||
<p>At ten minutes to train time every man was at his post, effectually concealed by the thick chaparral that grew almost to the rails. The night was dark and lowering, with a fine drizzle falling from the flying gulf clouds. Black Eagle crouched behind a bush within five yards of the track. Two six-shooters were belted around him. Occasionally he drew a large black bottle from his pocket and raised it to his mouth.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user