initial commit of ebook 34284HEADmain

19 files changed, 17559 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/34284-8.txt b/34284-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dc91e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5762 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wood Fire in No. 3
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Illustrator: Alonzo Kimball
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2010 [EBook #34284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+                       BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS BY
+    ALONZO KIMBALL
+
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+    NEW YORK 1913
+
+    Copyright, 1905, by
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SON
+
+    _Published, October, 1905_
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mac had the floor this afternoon.]
+
+
+
+
+_A WORD OF WELCOME:_
+
+
+_To those of you who love an easy chair, a mug, a pipe, and a story; to
+whom a well-swept hearth is a delight and the cheery crackle of hickory
+logs a joy; the touch of whose elbows sends a thrill through responsive
+hearts and whose genial talk but knits the circle the closer,--as well
+as those gentler spirits who are content to listen--how rare they
+are!--do I repeat Sandy MacWhirter's hearty invitation: "Draw up, draw
+up! By the gods, but I'm glad to see you! Get a pipe. The tobacco is in
+the yellow jar."_
+
+    _Yours warmly,_
+
+    _THE BACK LOG._
+
+    THE HEARTH,
+    Room No. 3, Old Building,
+    October, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are set Forth
+
+II. Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described
+
+III. With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair
+
+IV. With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad
+
+V. In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood
+
+VI. Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice" and his Fellow Dogs
+
+VII. Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind
+
+VIII. In which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters
+
+IX. Around the Embers of the Dying Fire
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_From drawings in color by Alonzo Kimball_
+
+
+Mac had the floor this afternoon
+
+MacWhirter
+
+But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me
+
+The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like him!"
+
+Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days
+
+Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going
+
+"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a morning paper"
+
+Pushed the Engineer into the salon
+
+Around the embers of the dying fire
+
+
+
+
+THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+_In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are Set Forth._
+
+
+Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had been brought up on
+blazing logs and warm hearths, and could not be happy without them. In
+his own boyhood's home the fireplace was the shrine, and half the
+orchard and two big elms had been offered up on its altar.
+
+There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in--no place really to put
+one, unless he knocked a hole in the roof, started a fire on the bare
+floor, and sat around it wigwam fashion; nor was there any way of
+supporting the necessary brickwork, unless a start was made from the
+basement up through every room to No. 3 and so on to the roof. But
+trifling obstacles like these never daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a
+Beaux Arts man, who built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for
+blazing logs, solved the difficulty. It was only a matter of fifteen
+feet from where Mac's easel stood to the roof of the building that
+sheltered him, and it was not many days before Lonnegan's foreman had a
+hole in the roof and a wide and spacious chimney breast rising from
+Mac's floor, which filled the opening in the ceiling and rose some ten
+feet above it, the whole resting on an iron plate bolted to four upright
+iron rods which were in turn bolted to two heavy timbers laid flat on
+the roof. Lonnegan's men did the work, and Lonnegan settled with the
+landlord and forgot ever afterward to send Mac the bill, and hasn't to
+this day.
+
+No one else inside the four walls of the Old Building had any such
+comfort. All the other denizens had heaters; or choked-up, shivering,
+contracted grates; or a half-strangled flue from the basement below.
+Poor Pitkin relied on a rubber tube fastened to his gas light, which was
+connected with a sort of Chinese tea-caddy of a stove propped up on four
+legs, and which was shifted about so as to thaw out the coldest spots in
+his studio.
+
+It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. Everybody crowded
+in to see it--not only the men from below and on the same floor, but
+half a dozen and more cronies from the outside. No one believed
+Lonnegan's yarn about the bolts, so natural and old-timey did the
+fireplace seem, until the great architect picked the plaster away with
+his knife and showed them the irons, and even then one doubting Thomas
+had to mount the scuttle stairs and peer out through the trap-door
+before he was convinced that modern science had lent a helping hand to
+recall a boyhood memory.
+
+And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the men loved it
+despite the liberties they tried to take with it! And they did, at
+first, take liberties, and of the most exasperating kind to any
+well-intentioned, law-abiding, and knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the
+animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was
+never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face;
+Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log
+should be stood on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while
+Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the basement because of his dirty
+clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the
+back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air
+could get between it and the blackened bricks.
+
+But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks ever daunted the
+spirit of this fire. It would splutter a moment with ill-concealed
+indignation, threatening a dozen times to go out in smoke, and then all
+of a sudden a little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one
+end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roaring up the
+chimney in a very ecstasy of delight.
+
+Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many a time, when Mac
+and I would be sitting alone before it listening to its chatter.
+
+"Take a seat," it would crackle; "right in front, where I can warm you.
+Sit, too, where you can look into my face and see how ruddy and joyous
+it is. I'll not bore you; I never bored anybody--never in all my life. I
+am an endless series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can
+sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with laughter,
+dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I can smoulder away all by
+myself, crooning a low song of the woods--the song your mother loved,
+your cradle song--so full of content that it will soothe you into
+forgetfulness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of ashes and
+shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep--you and I, old friends now
+with our thousand memories."
+
+Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods--"Alexander MacWhirter,
+Room No. 3," the sign-board read in the hall below--and only MacWhirter
+could satisfy its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one
+dared touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs was
+sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity.
+
+It was not long after this that a certain sense of ownership permeated
+the coterie. They yielded the chimney and its mechanical contrivances to
+MacWhirter and Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged
+to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up from the several
+studios, each member of the half-circle furnishing his own--the most
+comfortable he owned. Then the mugs followed, and the pipe-racks, and
+soon Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one spot in the
+building that we all loved and longed for.
+
+And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just such a Temple of
+Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with one and a quarter, perhaps one
+and a half, of a chin tucked under his old one--a chin though that came
+from laughter, not from laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty
+in his voice and words, with the faintest trace--just a trace, it was so
+slight--of his mother-tongue in his speech; whole-souled, spontaneous,
+unselfish, ready to praise and never to criticise; brimming with
+anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience--on the Riviera,
+in Sicily, Egypt, and the Far East, wherever his brush had carried
+him--he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the
+snap of their coals in his eyes.
+
+"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his invariable greeting.
+"Draw up! draw up! Go get a pipe--the tobacco is in the yellow jar."
+
+This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the
+shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about.
+
+If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was giving his
+experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the climax of some tale,
+it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him
+than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of
+listening still being in vogue in those days and much respected by the
+occupants of the chairs--by all except Boggs, who would always break
+into the conversation irrespective of restrictions or traditions.
+
+Mac had the floor this afternoon.
+
+[Illustration: MacWhirter.]
+
+I knew this from the sound of his voice through the half-closed door as
+I reached the top-floor landing.
+
+"Refused, gentlemen, refused point blank," I heard Mac say. "He wouldn't
+let them search him; wouldn't empty his pockets as the others had done;
+it made a most disagreeable impression on every one at the table.
+Collins, his host, was amazed; so was Moulton."
+
+My own head was now abreast of the old Chinese screen.
+
+"What reason did he give?" Boggs asked.
+
+"Didn't give any. Just hemmed and hawed, and blushed like a girl."
+
+I was inside the cosy room now, its air etched with wavy lines of
+tobacco smoke, showing blue in the dim glare of the skylight overhead;
+had nodded to Boggs, whose face was just visible over the top of Mac's
+most comfortable chair--Boggs always hides his bulk in this particular
+chair, having furnished none of his own, a weakness or selfishness which
+we all recognize and permit--and was adding my snow-covered coat and hat
+to a collection, facing the blazing logs, and within reach of their
+genial warmth, when Mac's voice again dominated the hum of questioning
+raised by the half-circle of toasting shins.
+
+"Collins, of course, never said a word--how could he? The old fellow had
+been his friend for years; went to school with him. Now, gentlemen, what
+would you have thought?"
+
+It was easy to see that our host had full possession of the floor. His
+feet were firmly planted on the half-worn Daghestan, his square, erect
+back turned to the crackling blaze, his head raised, arms swinging,
+hands extended, accentuating every point that he made with that peculiar
+twist of the thumb common to all painters. I dropped quietly into a
+chair. Better keep still and smoke on with my ear-shutters fastened back
+and my eyes fixed on the speaker's face. The cue would come my way
+before Mac had got very far in his story.
+
+Again Mac put the question, this time in a rising voice, demanding an
+answer.
+
+"What would you have thought?"
+
+"I give it up," said Pitkin. "I knew Peaslee. Life went against him, but
+that old fellow was as straight as a string. Why, he has been
+book-keeper for that bank for half a century, more or less; I used to
+keep an account there; queer-looking chap, all spectacles."
+
+"Collins must have put the jewel in his pocket and had not been able to
+find it," remarked Ford, discussion now being in order; "like a man
+losing his railroad ticket and discovering it in his hat-band after he
+has searched every part of his clothes."
+
+"Old fellow was short in his balance and wanted to make it up," growled
+Boggs. Boggs did not mean a word of it, but it was his turn and he must
+hazard an opinion of some kind.
+
+Mac smiled and a laugh went round. Poor old Tim Peaslee stealing Sam
+Collins's or anybody else's opal to straighten out a deficiency in his
+account was about as absurd a deduction to those who remembered him, as
+Diogenes losing his lantern in the effort to scrape acquaintance with a
+thief.
+
+Marny, his face blue-white with his tramp through the snow, and Jack
+Stirling, in a new English Macintosh, now entered, shook their wet
+garments, filled their pipes from the yellow jar, and dragged up chairs
+to join the half-circle, the puffs of their newly filled pipes adding
+innumerable wavy lines to the etched plate of the atmosphere.
+
+"Mac has got the most extraordinary story, Marny, that you ever heard,"
+cried Wharton. "What do you think of old Tim Peaslee helping himself to
+Sam Collins's jewelry?"
+
+"Never heard of Peaslee or Collins in my life," answered Marny, dragging
+his chair closer and opening his chilled fingers to the blaze. "Jack
+may, he knows everybody--some he oughtn't to. Who are they, burglars or
+stockbrokers?"
+
+"Why, Collins, who has that opal mine in Mexico. Old Tim was for years
+the book-keeper of the Exeter Bank. You must have known Peaslee,"
+persisted Wharton.
+
+Marny shook his head, and Wharton turned to Mac.
+
+"Begin all over again, old man, and we'll take a vote. Marny's head is
+as thick as one of his backgrounds."
+
+"At the beginning?" asked MacWhirter, between the puffs of his pipe,
+freshly lighted now that his story had been told.
+
+"Yes, from the time Sam Collins came to New York--everything."
+
+Mac laid his pipe once more on the mantel, threw an extra stick on the
+fire from the pile by the chimney, raked the ashes clear of the front
+log, and resumed his position on the rug. Now that the circle was larger
+and he had been challenged to give every detail he intended to make his
+second telling of the extraordinary story more interesting, if possible,
+than the first.
+
+"I'll give it to you exactly as Collins gave it to me; and, Boggs, you
+will please keep still until I get through. Wharton, change your seat so
+you can clap your hand over Boggs's mouth when he breaks out. Thanks.
+
+"About two years ago Sam Collins came back to New York, first time in
+nearly twenty years. He had been up in Peru living in the clouds,
+digging for copper and not finding any, he told me; then he kept on to
+Ceylon, wandered around there for a while, and finally landed at Vera
+Cruz and went up into Mexico, until he struck the town of Queretaro.
+You've been there, Wharton; I remember your sketch of the old
+Cathedral."
+
+Wharton nodded, and settled himself deeper in his chair.
+
+"Shot Maximilian there," whispered Boggs under his breath.
+
+Mac glanced savagely at Boggs, but continued:
+
+"On taking in the town Collins found that everybody, from the beggars in
+the Plaza to the bankers in the palaces, had their pockets full of
+opals, wads and wads of them, some big as duck-shot, some big as birds'
+eggs. Collins is an expert on anything that comes out of the ground, and
+the next morning he was astride of a burro and off to the mines, noting
+how the minerals lay and the dip of the land, and the next week he was
+away prospecting, and before the month was out he had bought a hill that
+was as bare as your hand of everything but bunch grass and sand fleas,
+and had ten half-breeds at work, and by the end of the year he had
+struck hard-pan, with enough opals lying around loose to make him rich.
+This was two years ago, remember. Pretty soon Sam discovered that he
+needed more money to develop his mine, and he started for New York to
+look up his old friends to help him raise it.
+
+"When Collins arrived he found that a lot of things could happen in
+twenty years: half of his friends were dead; some were scattered over
+the world, wandering as he had been; and out of fifty or more old chums
+who had known him at college only a dozen or more were left. Tim Peaslee
+was one of them.
+
+"Sam loved Tim; he always had. For years they had kept up their letters;
+then Tim lost track of Collins, and communication ceased. All the way to
+New York Collins was thinking of Tim. If he was rich, they'd go in
+together on the mine; and if he was poor, he'd share what he had with
+him. The Tim he loved was not the kind of man to shake hands with. His
+Tim was the sort of a fellow to hug and keep your hand on his knee while
+you talked to him.
+
+"Sam found him in an old house in Bond Street--one of those
+high-stooped, passed-by wrecks that are being turned into Italian
+tenements, with wood and coal shops in the basement and sign painters in
+the garret. He was living with his old sister, Miss Peaslee--older than
+Tim. The two had a life interest in the property, and none of the heirs
+could take possession until these two were buried.
+
+"It was dark when he reached Tim's and mounted the steps; too dark for
+him to notice the queer iron railings and newel posts red with rust, and
+the front door that hadn't had a coat of paint on it for years, nor the
+knob and knocker that were black with the weather. At his first ring no
+one answered; at the third, a woman with a basket opened the door. She
+was on her way out--that's why she opened it.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Peaslee and his folks lives on the top floor. He's our
+landlord. Walk right up. This door ain't locked till twelve o'clock, so
+ye can just shut it to behind ye. We have the first floor, and another
+family has the second, but they're moved out.'
+
+"On the way upstairs, in the dim light of the single gas-jet, Sam made
+out the slender banisters and on each landing the solid mahogany doors
+that opened into the several rooms, showing him that it had once been a
+house of some pretensions.
+
+"He knocked gently; there was a hurried scuffle inside, as if someone
+wanted to escape being seen, and Tim thrust out his head. He had on an
+old calico dressing-gown and was in his slippers, his glasses pushed
+back on his forehead.
+
+"Sam told me he never had such a shock in his life as when he saw Tim.
+He had to look into his face twice and wait until he spoke before he was
+sure it was he. He had left his chum a springy, enthusiastic young
+fellow of twenty-five, full of go and life, and he found him a dried-up,
+wizen-faced, bald-pated old fellow near fifty, who looked a hundred.
+While he had been climbing mountains, sleeping in the open air, working
+with a pick or rounding up cattle, poor old Tim had been driving a quill
+behind a desk, getting drier and drier, like an old gourd hung in an
+attic--all the hope shrunk out of him, all his joyousness gone.
+
+"Who wants me?'
+
+"'Don't you know me, Tim? I'm Collins--Sam Collins,' and he caught hold
+of his limp hand.
+
+"'Collins?' muttered Tim, drawing back. 'I don't know but one--' here
+the light in the hall fell on Sam's face--'Not Sam, are you?' He knew
+him now. 'Come inside!' and he dragged him past the door, his shrivelled
+hand on the miner's collar. 'Ann, here's Sam--old Sam Collins! Where
+have you been, you old rascal, all these years? My sister--you remember
+her, of course--we've been living here--Oh, Sam, but I'm glad to see
+you! What a great girth you've got on you, and so big in the shoulders!
+And what a queer hat! How did you find me?--Oh, you rascal!'
+
+"This running fire of exclamations and questions was kept up until Sam
+had found a seat next the old sister, who was thinner even than Tim, and
+with a look in her eyes of a hungry child peering into a cake-shop. All
+this time Tim was holding on to Sam's big shoulders as if he was afraid
+he would escape.
+
+"When Sam's gaze was free to wander about the room he found it choked
+full of old furniture of the oldest and most dilapidated kind--a
+mahogany sideboard with the knobs gone; sofas with the hair-cloth seats
+in holes, all good in their day, but all wanting the upholsterer and the
+cabinet-maker. Not a dollar had been spent upon them for years. The
+life interest, Sam found out afterward, went with the furniture as well
+as the house.
+
+"One thing struck Sam more than anything else, and that was Tim's
+tenderness over Miss Ann. When she coughed--and she coughed most of the
+time--Tim would start as if it hurt him. Once he went into the next room
+and brought her a shawl, and just before Sam left Tim poured out a
+spoonful of medicine for her and made her take it right before Sam,
+adding:
+
+"'It's only Sam; he's got a heart as big as an ox, and will understand.
+Won't you, Sam?'
+
+"Next day Collins started in to raise the money for his mining. Tim
+introduced him to the cashier and the president of the Exeter, and they
+both looked Sam over and took in his wide sombrero and queer clothes,
+and examined his samples--one was a beauty, which Tiffany offered him a
+big sum for--and then they wrote him a letter--that is, the president
+did--on the bank's paper, saying that they appreciated greatly the
+opportunity, etc., but the charter of the bank prevented, etc., and they
+had no money of their own, etc.--same old kind of a lying letter these
+men write when they can't get one hundred per cent. on an investment.
+
+"Tim nearly fell off his stool with disappointment when Sam read him the
+letter, but Sam never turned a hair. If the old fossils in the Exeter
+didn't have the money, somebody else would; and, sure enough, a
+dry-goods man and a retired physician turned up, and the two roped in a
+young millionnaire, a fellow by the name of Moulton, who thought he knew
+it all, and _did_. The money was raised, and Sam got ready to go back to
+Mexico and start the mine on an enlarged scale. All this time he had
+been looking up his old school-friends, and the night before he started
+he got them all together, including the new subscribers, the young
+millionnaire among them, and Sam, at the millionnaire's suggestion,
+called on old Solari, down in University Place, and arranged for a
+farewell dinner. Tim was to sit on his right hand and the retired
+physician on his left, and Sam was to make a proposition to his guests,
+half of whom were directors in the new company, the nature of which he
+kept secret even from Tim.
+
+"The old book-keeper begged off, and vowed he couldn't go--hadn't been
+to a dinner for years; Sister Ann wasn't well, and needed him; and,
+besides, on that very night he would be up late at his home making up
+the month's returns--all the excuses a man hunts up when he is hiding
+the real reason that keeps him away. But Sam understood Tim by this
+time.
+
+"'I forgot to tell you, Tim,' he came back to say, 'that you mustn't put
+on your black evening clothes.' (Tim hadn't any, as Sam knew.) 'I'm
+going in my rough togs, so as to let everybody see me as I am every day,
+and the others will dress the same, and I want you to oblige me by not
+wearing yours. It will help me in my deal.'
+
+"So Tim went, the only addition to his toilet being a new black tie
+which Miss Ann had made for him.
+
+"The dinner was upstairs on the third floor, in Solari's back room--you
+all know it--same room Lonnegan had last year for that supper he gave
+us. Sam had told Solari to spare no expense, and to keep setting things
+up as long as anybody wanted them; and Solari carried out Collins's
+orders to the last bottle--way down to Chartreuse and Reina Victorias.
+There were oysters on the half-shell, and crab soup and an entrée of
+mushrooms, and a filêt with trimmings, and plump little quail on dry
+toast, salads, desserts, and so on.
+
+"Tim, to the delight of everybody, and especially Sam, thawed out under
+the influence of the first bottle, and sang a comic song he had not sung
+since he and Sam had parted, and took every dish in its turn--he was
+twice helped to quail--and was so happy that Sam could hardly wait for
+the time to come when the secret he had up his sleeve was to be slipped
+out and exploded.
+
+"When the coffee was served Sam got up on his feet, and in welcoming his
+guests took out the opal that Tiffany wanted to buy, and saying how
+confident he was that before the year was out he would be able to ship
+to them many more of even greater value and brilliancy, passed it to Tim
+to hand around the table, some of his old friends never having seen it.
+
+"Tim passed it across the young millionnaire to a man next him, and
+after everybody had said how beautiful it was, and how they each wanted
+one just like it, it was handed back to Tim, who laid it on the table
+beside his plate. There was no mistake about this part of the story, for
+the millionnaire called the retired physician's attention to it,
+remarking that as it lay on the white cloth by Tim's hand it looked like
+a drop of frozen absinthe--which wasn't bad for a millionnaire.
+
+"Sam had the secret now well in hand--fuse all lighted, ready to be
+touched off:
+
+"'Gentlemen,' he began, 'there are some men you have known for a short
+time, and you like them, and some go back to your boyhood, and those you
+love. I've got a friend here who is like that opal--clear as crystal
+and--Hand me the opal, Tim; I just want to dilate on it, and I can do it
+better if I have it in my hand and look into its eyes and yours.'
+
+"Tim colored scarlet, and moved his arm quickly. The friend from
+boyhood, he knew, was himself, and he was not accustomed to praise.
+
+"'Pass it along, old man!'
+
+"'I haven't got it, Sam,' came the reply.
+
+"'Yes, you have,' called out the young millionnaire. 'It's right there
+beside your glass; I saw it there a minute ago.'
+
+"'Well, if it was,' Tim stammered, 'it isn't here now.' It was the
+complimentary speech that Sam was about to make that was upsetting Tim,
+so Sam thought.
+
+"By this time half the guests were on their feet.
+
+"'Look around among the glasses,' suggested one.
+
+"'Maybe it's under your napkin,' remarked another.
+
+"'I gave it to _you_, I thought,' said Tim, turning to the physician.
+
+"'No, you didn't. You've got it somewhere around; perhaps you've slipped
+it in your pocket.' There was a slight tone of suspicion in the voice
+which jarred on Sam.
+
+"'No,' answered Tim helplessly. 'I didn't put it in my pocket. I don't
+know what I did with it.'
+
+"'Send for Hawkshaw the detective--lock the doors, and search every man
+down to his underwear!' shouted Sam in a serio-comic voice.
+
+"Chairs were now being pushed back, and some of the men were on their
+knees groping around the floor near where Tim sat, the head waiter
+holding a candle from the table.
+
+"All this time Sam was standing waiting to finish his speech, to him the
+event of the evening. The table was moved, and every square foot of the
+carpet gone over, Tim assisting in the search, but in a perfunctory way
+that attracted Sam's attention.
+
+"'Never mind, gentlemen, let it go,' Sam said. 'I can do without it. It
+will turn up somewhere; you've all seen it, anyhow, and so it's just as
+good as if I held it up before you.'
+
+"'Some men, as I said, I have known from boyhood----'
+
+"The young millionnaire now jumped up.
+
+"'Hold on, Mr. Collins; I'd like to find that opal before we do anything
+else. Nobody has swallowed it'--constant association with money had
+warped his judgment of human nature, perhaps. 'Here's what's in my
+clothes,' and he began unloading his keys, knife, loose change, and
+handkerchief from his coat-pocket and piling them up on the table.
+
+"Every man followed his lead, the contagion of his example having spread
+through the room. The unloading was as much a part of the merriment of
+the evening as Tim's comic song or Sam's sallies of wit. Tim, all this
+time, had been edging near where Sam stood.
+
+"'Out with your stuff, Peaslee,' shouted the millionnaire--'here, right
+on the table--everything.'
+
+"Tim turned pale and made a step nearer Sam.
+
+"'I haven't got the opal, Sam; indeed I haven't!' There was a tone in
+his voice that was almost pathetic.
+
+"'Of course you haven't, old man, but out with your stuff, just as the
+others have. Hurry up!'
+
+"'I can't, Sam!' groaned Tim.
+
+"You can't!'
+
+"'No, I can't! Please don't ask me. I must bid you good-night,
+gentlemen. Please let me go away,' and he moved to the door and shut it
+behind him.
+
+"Every man looked at Sam. For a moment no one spoke. Collins himself was
+dumfounded.
+
+"Damn queer, isn't it?' whispered the millionnaire to Sam. 'What do you
+think is the matter with him?'
+
+"'Nothing that YOU think!' said Sam, looking him square in the face, a
+peculiar glitter in his eye that some of his workmen knew when there was
+any trouble in the mine. 'Let us drink to his health. He is not
+accustomed to being out, and the wine has perhaps gone to his head.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MacWhirter reached for his pipe, knocked the bowl against the brickwork
+of the big fireplace to free it from its dead ashes, and turned again to
+the circle about him. At the same instant the back-log settled itself
+with a sigh of satisfaction, and a crackling of sparks--the fire's
+applause, no doubt--filled the hearth.
+
+"Is that all?" broke in Boggs.
+
+"Not quite," Mac answered. "All for that night, and all for the next
+day, so far as Tim was concerned, for the old fellow shut himself up in
+his room and said he was sick, and Sam had to leave for Mexico without
+seeing him."
+
+"What did the others think?"
+
+"Just what you would have thought, and _did_, when I told it awhile ago.
+That's why I asked you. The millionnaire believed, of course, Tim had
+stolen it, and so did the physician. Made such an impression on the new
+directors present that Sam smothered his intended surprise and left his
+speech unfinished.
+
+"Three months after that Sam came back to New York with more opals, many
+of them much larger and finer than the one which had so mysteriously
+disappeared. He arrived after everybody had gone to bed--Tim Peaslee
+among them--and remembering the dinner, and where he had eaten it, and
+how good it was, he got into a cab and drove to Solari's. The head
+waiter looked him over for a moment--he still wore the same
+sombrero--and went out and got the clerk, who asked him his name; and
+then Solari came in and asked him more questions and laid the lost opal
+in his hand. It had been found under a corner of the carpet when it had
+been taken up and shaken the week before, and Solari had been trying
+ever since to find some way of letting Sam know.
+
+"It was now eleven o'clock, but that didn't make any difference to Sam.
+He laid a five-dollar bill on the table to pay for the supper he had
+ordered and hadn't time to eat, made a rush for the door, jumped into a
+cab and drove like mad to Bond Street. The outer door was open. He
+mounted the stairs three steps at a time and banged away at Tim's door.
+It happened to be Tim's night for working over his accounts, and he was
+still up.
+
+"'I've got it, Tim--rolled under the carpet. Here it is. Let me hug you,
+you old fraud! Where's Miss Ann? I want to see her. Go and dig her out
+of bed, I tell you!'
+
+"All this time Sam was hugging Tim like a bear, lifting him up and down
+as if he had been a baby. When they got inside and Tim had shut the hall
+door, and had tiptoed toward his sister's room and had seen that her
+door was shut tight--so tight that she couldn't hear--he came back to
+where Sam stood and nearly shook his arm off.
+
+"'Found it under the carpet, did they? Oh, I'm so glad! I never shall
+forget that night, Sam. They wanted me to empty my pockets, and I
+couldn't. I didn't care what they thought. Oh, Sam, it was awful! You
+didn't think I had taken it, did you?'
+
+"'No, old man, I didn't, and that's square. But why didn't you unload
+with the others?'
+
+"Tim craned his head toward Miss Ann's door, listened intently for a
+moment, and said:
+
+"'I had one of those little fat quail in my coat-tail pocket; they
+passed me two. Ann used to love them, and I knew you wouldn't mind; and
+I lied about it when I gave it to her and told her you sent it. Don't
+tell her, please.'"
+
+As Mac finished, a log which had perhaps leaned too far forward in its
+effort to listen, lost its balance and rolled over on the hearth,
+sending a shower of astonished sparks scurrying up the chimney. Marny
+bent forward and sent it back into place with his foot. Wharton pushed
+back his chair and without a word reached for his coat; so did Pitkin
+and the others. The story had evidently made a deep impression on them,
+so much so that Marny didn't speak to Pitkin or Wharton until they
+reached the Square, and then only to say: "Regular old trump, that
+book-keeper--wasn't he?"
+
+Boggs still sat hunched up in his chair. He was less emotional than dear
+old Marny, but his heart was in the right place all the same.
+
+"Bully story, Mac--one of your best. Heard something like that before.
+Heard it in two or three ways--as a peach in a Bishop's pocket; as a
+snuff-box in an admiral's. You're a daisy, Mac, for warming over club
+chestnuts. But that's all right. Now, what was the surprise Collins had
+up his sleeve when he got up to make his speech that night?"
+
+"Why, Tim's appointment as book-keeper of the new company. His refusal
+to be searched of course knocked that in the head. He's treasurer now;
+has a big slice of the stock that Sam gave him for luck; has lost all
+his wrinkles, looks ten years younger, and is getting a new crop of
+hair. Miss Ann has got over her cough and is spry as a kitten--spryer.
+They are all out at the mine; she keeps house for them both."
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+_Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described._
+
+
+"Move back, Lonnegan, and let me get at it!" cried MacWhirter the next
+afternoon. "You jab a fire as if it were something you wanted to kill!
+Coddle it a little, like this," and Mac laid the warm cheeks of two logs
+together and a sputtering of hot kisses filled the hearth.
+
+"Don't call him 'Lonnegan,' Mac, in that rude and boisterous way,"
+expostulated Boggs. "It jars on his Royal Highness's finer
+sensibilities. Say 'Mr. Lonnegan, will you have the kindness to remove
+your beautiful and well-groomed and fashionable carcass until I can add
+a stick or two to my fire?' Lonnegan has been in society--out every
+night this week, I hear."
+
+Mac replaced the tongs and straightened his back, his face turned toward
+Lonnegan.
+
+"Were you really on exhibition, Lonny?" Mac's impatience never lasts
+many seconds.
+
+The architect nodded, then answered slowly:
+
+"Five dinners and a tea."
+
+"All rich houses, I suppose?"
+
+"Very rich."
+
+"And all wanted plans for country seats, of course?"
+
+"Some of them--two, I think."
+
+"Extra dry champagne, under-done canvas-backs and costly terrapin served
+every five minutes?"
+
+"No. Extra dry canvas-backs, done-over terrapin, and cheap champagne.
+Served but once, thank God!"
+
+"Wore your swell clothes, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, swallow-tail on me every night and a head on me every morning,"
+answered Lonnegan with a grave face. "Why do you ask, Mac?"
+
+"Oh, just to keep in touch with the history of my country, old man."
+
+While the two men talked, Pitkin and Van Brunt walked in--the latter a
+Dutch painter in New York for the winter, just arrived by steamer. The
+atmosphere of No. 3 was evidently congenial to the man, for, after a
+hand-shake all round, the Hollander produced his own pipe, filled it
+from a leather pouch in his pocket, and sat down before the fire as
+unconcerned and as contented as if he'd been one of the fire's circle
+from the day of its lighting. Good Bohemians, so called the world over,
+have an international code of manners, just as all club men of equal
+class agree upon certain details of dress and etiquette, no matter what
+their tongue. The brush, the chisel, the trowel, and the test-tube are
+so many talismans--open sesames to the whole fraternity.
+
+The Hollander had overheard the last half of Mac's sally and Lonnegan's
+grave rejoinder.
+
+"Yes, the terrapin and the canvas-back, I hear much of them. What does a
+terrapin look like, Mr. Lonnegan?"
+
+"A terrapin, Van Brunt," interrupted Boggs, "is a hide-bound little
+beast that sleeps in the mud, is as ugly as the devil, and can bite a
+tenpenny nail in two with his teeth when he's awake. When he is boiled
+and picked clean, and served with Madeira, he is the most toothsome
+compound known to cookery."
+
+"Correctly described, Boggs--'compound' is good," said Lonnegan. "The
+up-to-date-modern-millionnaire-terrapin, Mr. Van Brunt, is a reptile
+compounded of glue, chicken-bones, chopped calf's head, and old
+India-rubber shoes. When ready for use it tastes like flour paste served
+in hot flannel. I may be wrong about the chopped calf's head, but I'm
+all right about the India-rubber shoes. I've been eating them this
+week, and part of a heel is still here"--and he tapped his shirt-front.
+
+"And the canvas-back?" continued Van Brunt, laughing. "It is a duck, is
+it not?"
+
+"Occasionally a duck--I speak, of course, of tables where I have
+dined--but seldom a canvas-back."
+
+"And they live in the marshes, I hear, and feed on the wild celery--do
+they not?"
+
+"No; they live in a cold storage six months in the year, and feed on
+sawdust and ice," replied Lonnegan with the face of a stone god.
+
+"Hard life, isn't it?" remarked Boggs to the circle at large.
+
+"For the duck?" asked Pitkin.
+
+"No--for Lonnegan. Orders for country houses come high."
+
+"Serves him right!" ventured Marny. "No business eating such messes;
+ought to get back to----"
+
+"Hog and hominy," interrupted Lonnegan, still with the same grave face.
+
+"Both. That's what most of your millionnaires were brought up on."
+
+Pitkin sprang from his seat, and, thrusting both hands into his pockets,
+burst out with--
+
+"Gentlemen, you really don't know what good eating is! The taste for
+terrapin and canvas-back is part of the degeneration of the age; so is
+it for truffles, mushrooms, caviare, and a lot of such messes. The
+French, whose cuisine we imitate, turn out a lot of flat-chested,
+spindle-shanks on sauces and ragouts. We'll go to the devil in the same
+way if we follow their cooks. The English raise the highest standard of
+man on tough bread and the most insipid boiled mutton in the world. What
+we have got to do is to get back to our plain old-fashioned kitchens.
+The best dinner I ever had in my life was when I was sixteen years old,
+and even now, whenever I get a whiff from a shop where they are cooking
+the same combination, I can no more pass it than a drunkard can pass a
+rum-mill."
+
+"Drunk on pork and beans!" growled Boggs in a low voice to Marny. "I
+knew you'd come to no good end, Pitkin. You ought to sign a pledge and
+join a non-adulterated food society."
+
+"Something better than pork and beans, you beggar!" retorted
+Pitkin--"something that makes my mouth water every time I think of it.
+And hungry! the prodigal son was an over-fed alderman to me; real
+gnawing, empty kind of hunger."
+
+Ford stood up and faced the circle.
+
+"The great sculptor, gentlemen, is about to tell us what he knows of
+biblical history. Silence!"
+
+"I had been out gunning all day----"
+
+"I didn't know you were a sportsman," interpolated Boggs.
+
+"I had been gunning all day," Pitkin repeated firmly, ignoring the
+Chronic Interrupter, "and had lost my way over the mountains. Just about
+dark I reached the valley and made for a small cabin with a curl of
+smoke coming out of the chimney. As I came nearer I got a whiff from a
+fry-pan that made me ravenous--one of those smells you never forget to
+your dying day. As I opened the gate I could see the glow of a fire in
+the stove, the smell getting stronger every minute. Inside, I found a
+man sitting in his shirt-sleeves by a table. The table had two plates on
+it, two knives, two forks, and two big china cups. Bending over the hot
+stove was his wife. She was stirring a large bowl filled to the brim
+with buckwheat batter. On the stove was a hot griddle and a fry-pan, and
+coiled in the fry-pan, trim as a rope coiled flat on a yacht's deck, lay
+a string of link sausages, with the bight of the line sticking up in the
+centre, like Mac's thumb.
+
+"'Are you Pitkin's boy?' the man said, after I had explained.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Sit down and eat'
+
+"The old man had two cakes, and I had two cakes. They were griddled in
+fours, and we both had a link of sausage with each instalment. I never
+moved from my chair until the tide-mark oh the bowl had gone down five
+inches, and the core of the sausages looked as if a solid shot had
+struck it. That smell! and the way it all tasted, and the little brown
+frazzlings around the edges of the celestial cakes, and the sizzlings of
+fat on the sausages, and the boiling hot coffee that washed it all down!
+Oh, go to with your Delmonico dishes! Give me the days of my youth! If I
+had but four breaths left in me, and if somebody should pass that pan of
+sausages under my nose, I could rise up and whip my weight in wild-cats.
+And yet that smell doesn't bring to my memory the way my hunger was
+satisfied, or how the food tasted. What I recall is the low-ceiled room,
+and the glow of the fire; the warmth and comfort everywhere, and the
+high light on the old Frau's face bending over her griddle. You'd just
+love to have painted that old woman, Mac."
+
+The Hollander had listened quietly and without comment, both to
+Lonnegan's chaff and to Pitkin's enthusiastic recital.
+
+"Ah, yes, you are quite right, Mr. Pitkin; after all, it is the
+imagination that is fed, not the stomach."
+
+The measured tones of the speaker's voice at once commanded attention;
+even Boggs twisted his head to catch his words:
+
+"It is his imagination, too, which suffers when a man loses his money
+and becomes poor. What he misses most, then, is not his horses and
+carriages and fine houses; it is his table, and the clean napkins and
+the linen, and hot plates and the quite thin glasses. Is it not so? I
+can think of nothing more satisfying than a well-appointed table, with
+the servants about and the dishes properly served, and with the flowers,
+silver, and glass, the better wines coming later, the coffee and cigar
+at the end. And I can think of nothing more pitiful than for a man who
+has had all this, to be obliged to stand at a cheap counter and eat a
+cheap sandwich. My father used to tell me a story about the spendthrift
+son of an old baron who lived in my town, by the name of De Ruyter, and
+who spent in just two years every guilder his father left him. Then came
+roulette, and at last he was a tout for gaming-houses--so poor that he
+had but one coat to his back. All this time, having been born a
+gentleman, he managed to keep himself clean, his clothes brushed and
+mended, and his shirt and collar ironed. That is quite difficult for a
+man who is poor.
+
+"One day an old friend of his dead father's, a very rich man, took pity
+on him, and asked him to call at his house so that he might arrange to
+get him work. He received him in his library and rang for cigars and
+brandy, which his servant brought on a silver plate. The brandy the poor
+fellow drank, but the cigar he begged permission to put in his pocket
+and smoke later in the day. It was one of those great cigars the rich
+Hollanders smoke, about as long as your hand and thick like two fingers.
+This one had a little band around it, with the coat of arms of the
+gentleman stamped in gold; not a cigar you can buy even in Amsterdam,
+but a cigar made especially for very big customers like this one.
+
+"When young De Ruyter went out from the library he carried a letter to a
+merchant on the dock, which got for him a situation at ten guilders a
+week, and this big cigar. All the way to his lodgings in the garret he
+kept his hand on it as it lay flat in his waist-coat-pocket. At every
+street corner he took it out carefully to see that it was not mashed or
+broken. When he pushed in his room door he began to look around for a
+place to put it. He was afraid to carry it around with him for fear of
+crushing it. At last he saw a crack in the plaster just above the bed,
+showing two open laths. He wrapped it most carefully in paper and laid
+it in the opening; here it would be dry and out of danger; here he could
+always be sure that it was safe. Then he presented his letter and went
+to work for the merchant on the dock.
+
+"All that week he waited for Saturday night, when he would get his first
+ten guilders, and all that week before he went to sleep he would take a
+look at the cigar to be sure it was there. Every morning when he awoke
+he did the same thing. When Saturday night came, and the money was laid
+in his hand, he hurried to his garret, washed himself clean, brushed the
+only coat he owned, took out the precious cigar, laid it on his bed
+where it would be safe while he finished dressing, put his hat on one
+side of his head in his old rakish way, gave a look at himself in the
+broken glass, and downstairs he goes humming a tune to himself. He was
+very happy. Now he would have the best dinner he had had for months, and
+feel like a gentleman once more. And the cigar! Ah, that would end it
+all up! You see, gentlemen, with us the whole dinner is only the cigar;
+everything is arranged most carefully for that.
+
+"Then De Ruyter walks into Van Hoesen's, the largest café we have in my
+town; stands until the head waiter recognizes him and comes over to his
+side; orders with his old magnificent manner the wines, the soup, the
+entrées, even the anchovies after the sweets--that is a custom of
+ours--the whole costing ten guilders, with one guilder to the waiter.
+When it was served he sat himself down, opened his napkin, tipped the
+newspaper where he could glance at it, and ate very slowly like a man of
+leisure.
+
+"When the coffee was passed the head waiter brought to him an assortment
+of cigars on a tray, some one guilder each, some five cents. De Ruyter
+pushed them away with a contemptuous wave of the hand, saying, 'There is
+nothing you have to my taste; I will smoke my own.'
+
+"The great moment had now arrived. He paid his bill, ordered a fresh
+candle, waited until the head waiter, whose guilder had made him all the
+more obsequious, had lighted it and stood waiting where he could see,
+and then slipped his hand into his inside pocket for the cigar. It was
+not there! Then he remembered that he had not taken it from the bed.
+
+"He ran all the way home. There lay the cigar on the blanket. The next
+instant it was on the floor and under his heel.
+
+"'Lie there, damn you!' he said, crushing it to pieces. 'You have
+spoiled my dinner!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see, gentlemen, it was not the hunger of the empty stomach; it was
+a starved imagination that was ravenous like a wolf. Ah, cannot you feel
+for the poor fellow? All the week hungry, one great idea of the dignity
+of rank in his mind, and then to have his triumph spoiled, and under the
+eyes of the head waiter, too! And such beasts of waiters they are at
+home, with their eyes seeing everything and their tongues never still!
+My father, when he would tell the story, would tap his chair and say,
+'Ah, poor devil! such a pity--such a pity he forgot it! It would have
+tasted so good to him!' That was a word of my father's--'He forgot
+it--he forgot it,' he would say, shaking his finger at us."
+
+"All to the credit of your father, Van Brunt," burst out Marny; "but if
+you want my candid opinion of your blue-blooded, busted baron, I think
+he was a selfish brute, without the first glimmer of what a gentleman
+should have done under such circumstances, and I leave it to everybody
+here to decide whether I'm right or wrong. What he ought to have done
+was to hunt around for some of his friends, order a dinner for two, hand
+his friend the cigar and take a cheap one from the waiter for himself.
+What you call 'fine eating' has nothing to do with either the stomach or
+with the imagination. Fine eating is an excuse for good fellowship; when
+you don't have that, it is a 'stalled ox' and the rest of it. What you
+want is to open with a laugh and eat straight through to that same kind
+of music. All the good dinners in the world were jolly dinners; all the
+poor ones were funeral gatherings, no matter how good the cooking. I'll
+give you an idea of what a good dinner ought to be. None of your
+selfish, solitary-confinement sort of a meal like this self-centred
+Dutchman's, but a rip-roaring, waistcoat-swelling, breath-catching,
+hilarious feast, which began with a hurrah, continued with every man
+singing psalms of thanksgiving over the dishes and the company, and
+ended with a tempest of good cheer and everybody loving everybody else
+twice as much for having come together."
+
+"Clam-chowder club, of course," growled Boggs, "with a brass band and a
+cord of firewood, and three-legged stools to sit on."
+
+Marny glared at the Chronic Interrupter, made a movement with his hand
+as if to compel his silence, and continued:
+
+"We had eaten nothing since breakfast but five raw clams apiece,
+and----"
+
+"Where was all this, Marny, anyhow?" asked Boggs.
+
+"Down at Uncle Jesse Conklin's, on Cap Tree Island," retorted Marny
+impatiently.
+
+"All right--sounded as if it might be at a summer boarding-house. Go
+ahead!"
+
+"No, down on Great South Bay. The Stone Mugs had an outing and I went
+along. These clams coming on an empty stomach and being right out of the
+salt water and fresh and cold----"
+
+"Mixed in your statements, old man: can't be salt and fresh at the same
+time. But go on! So far we've only got five clams to be hilarious
+on----"
+
+Marny reached over and grabbed Boggs by the collar.
+
+"Will you shut up, or shall I throw you over the banisters?"
+
+"I'll shut up--like your clam; won't say another word, so help me!" and
+Boggs held up one hand as if to be sworn.
+
+"These clams," continued Marny, releasing his hold on Boggs's collar,
+"coming as they did on an empty stomach, made every man ravenous. French
+shrimps, Dutch pickles, and Swedish anchovies--all the appetizers you
+ever heard of--were mild compared to them. Uncle Jesse had opened them
+himself, the ten men standing around taking the contents of each shell
+from the end of Uncle Jesse's fork and then waiting their turns until
+the fork came their way again. All this was under a shed in full view of
+the harbor and the old man's boats and buildings.
+
+"When the sun went down we went into the bar-room, and Uncle Jesse
+compounded a mixture which made an afternoon call on the five clams, and
+by that time we could have eaten each other. Six o'clock came, and no
+signs of anything. Half past six, and not the faintest smell of fried,
+boiled, or roasted: no hurrying waiters in sight; no maids in aprons;
+nothing indicating any preparation or any place for it to preparate in
+unless it was a room behind a small white-pine door which Uncle Jesse
+had locked in full view of the hungry crowd. Only once did he explain
+this mystery; that was when he jerked his thumb in the direction of the
+vacancy on the other side of the panels, and remarked sententiously,
+'Won't be long now.'
+
+"Soon a wild misgiving arose in our minds. Had anything happened to the
+cook, or would the simple repast--we had left the details to Uncle
+Jesse--consist of only clams and cocktails?
+
+"All this time Uncle Jesse was patient and polite, but almighty
+mysterious. Bets now began to be made in whispers by the men: It would
+be thin oyster soup, pumpkin pies, and cider; or cold corn beef and
+preserves; or, worse still, codfish balls and griddle-cakes. Seven
+o'clock came--seven-five--seven-ten. Then a gong sounded in the next
+room, and Uncle Jesse sprang to the door, raised one hand while the
+other fumbled with the lock, and shouted as he swung back the door:
+
+"'Solid men to the front!'
+
+"You should have seen that table! One long perspective of
+bliss--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and
+broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish down to the
+end of the table; and alongside each plate a quart of extra-dry,
+frappéed to half a degree, and a pint of Burgundy the temperature of
+your sweet-heart's hand! All about were heaps of home-made bread and
+flakes of butter, and--Oh, that table!
+
+"We stood paralyzed for a moment, and then sent up a roaring cheer that
+nearly lifted the roof. Uncle Jesse wasn't going to sit down, but we
+grabbed him by the shoulders and started him on the run for the end of
+the table, and there he sat until only heaps of bones and dead bottles
+marked the scene of action. Whenever a man could get his breath he broke
+out in song, everybody joining in. 'Oh, dem golden fritters!' was
+chanted to an accompaniment of clattering forks on empty plates, the
+cook and his staff craning their heads through the door and helping out
+with a double shuffle of their own.
+
+"Coffee was served in the bar-room, and all filed out to drink it,
+every man full to his eyelids and saturated with a contentment that only
+Long Island blue-fish and Fulton Market steak with the necessary liquids
+and solids could produce.
+
+"While we smoked on and sipped our coffee, Uncle Jesse's silences became
+more frequent, and soon the old fellow dozed off to sleep. He was over
+seventy then, and was used to having a nap after dinner.
+
+"Now came the best part of the feast. Every man tiptoed out of the room,
+overhauled his sketch-trap, took out charcoal, color tubes and brushes,
+red chalk, whatever came handy, and started in to work--some standing on
+chairs above where the old man sat sound asleep, others working away
+like mad on the coarse, whitewashed walls, making portraits of
+him--sketches of the landing and fish houses we had seen during our
+waiting--outlines of the bar and background, no one breathing loud or
+even whispering, so afraid they would wake him--until every square foot
+of the walls were covered with sketches. When we were through, someone
+coughed, and the old man sat up and began to rub his eyes. Pleased!
+Well, I should think so! He gave one bound, made a tour of the room
+studying each sketch, dodged under his bar and began to set up things,
+and would have continued to set up things all night had we permitted it.
+Every spring after that, when he rewhitewashed the old room, he would
+work carefully around each sketch, the new whitewash making a mat for
+the pictures. People came for miles up and down the bay to see them, and
+there was more extra-dry and trimmings sold that summer than ever
+before. Ever after that, whenever a friend of any member of the Stone
+Mugs went ashore at Cap Tree Island, and after settling his score
+mentioned incidentally that he knew So-and-So of the Mugs, and had heard
+of the wonderful dinner, etc., the old man would always push his money
+back to him with:
+
+"'Not a cent--not a cent! Stay a week and order what you want, and if
+you don't want everything in the house I'll get my gun.'"
+
+"Haven't got a time-table, have you, Marny," asked Boggs feelingly, "of
+the boat that goes to Cap Tree Island?"
+
+"Do you no good, Boggs," answered Jack Stirling. "The old man has been
+in heaven these ten years. I knew his broiled blue-fish--none better.
+Marny is right--they were wonderful. But really, Marny, do you call that
+a good dinner?--ten men, fifteen bottles of assorted wines, five steaks,
+five broiled fish, and----"
+
+"Well, what else would you call it? What would you want?" retorted
+Marny.
+
+"What else? Oh, my dear Marny! and you ask that question!"
+
+"Wasn't there enough to eat?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Wine all right?"
+
+"Perfect."
+
+"Jolly crowd of the best fellows in the world?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"What then, you fish-monger? Why, just one woman! Let me tell you of a
+dinner!"
+
+Jack was on his feet now, his hand outstretched, his eyes partly closed
+as if the scene he was about to describe lay immediately beneath his
+gaze.
+
+"It was on a balcony overlooking St. Cloud--all Paris swimming in a
+golden haze. There were violets--and a pair of long gray gloves on the
+white cloth--and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with roses, shading a pair
+of brown eyes. Oh! such eyes! 'A pint of Chablis,' I said to the waiter;
+'sole à la Marguerey, some broiled mushrooms, and a fruit salad--and
+please take the candles away; we prefer the twilight.'
+
+"But the perfume of the violets--and the lifting of her lashes--and the
+way she looked at me, and----"
+
+[Illustration: But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at
+me.]
+
+Jack stopped, bent over, and gazed into the smouldering coals of the now
+dying fire.
+
+"Go on, Jack," urged Pitkin in an encouraging tone--they had lived
+together in the same studio in the Quartier, these two, and knew each
+other's lives as they did their own pockets,--or each other's, for that
+matter.
+
+"No, I'm not going on--only waste it on you fellows. That's all. Just
+one of my memories, my boy. But it comes from wet violets, mark you, not
+from fry-pans, cold bottles, or hot fish," and he glanced at Marny.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+_With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair._
+
+
+"Don't be angry, Colonel,"--no mortal man knows why Mac calls me
+"Colonel,"--"but would you mind leaving that red rose you've got in your
+button-hole outside in the hall, or some place where I can't smell it?
+Red roses have a singular effect on me." I had come in earlier than the
+others this afternoon and had found Mac alone.
+
+I looked at Mac in astonishment. Peculiar as he sometimes is, hatred of
+flowers is not one of his eccentricities.
+
+"Why, I thought you loved roses!"
+
+"I do--all except red ones."
+
+I unpinned the rose from my button-hole and laid it in a glass on the
+shelf over his wash-basin.
+
+"All right; anything to please you, Mac. Now out with it; give me the
+name of the girl, and tell me why."
+
+Mac laughed quietly to himself and settled down in his chair. For some
+time he did not speak.
+
+"Go on; I'm waiting."
+
+"Oh, it brings up a memory, that's all, Colonel. You heard what Stirling
+said about the perfume of violets bringing back to him the little dinner
+he had with Christine Levoix at the Bellevue overlooking the Seine,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, but he didn't mention the girl's name."
+
+"I know; but it was Christine. I remember that hat and the gloves. In my
+day they were black, not gray, and came up to her shoulders, like
+Yvette's. The eyes, though, never changed, no matter who sat opposite.
+Stirling bought a lot of violets that year; so did some of the others in
+the Quartier, until the Russian carried her off to Moscow," and again
+Mac laughed softly to himself. "Well, perfumes produce that same effect
+on me."
+
+"Of violets?" I asked, twisting my head to look into Mac's eyes.
+
+"No--tarred hemp and roses." Then he added slowly and thoughtfully, as
+if he were recalling some incident in his past life: "Quite a different
+kind of girl, my boy, from Christine; about as different as--well, there
+isn't any comparison. Yes, tarred hemp and red roses; funny combination,
+isn't it?--and yet I never catch the odor of one without smelling the
+other. And the whole scene comes back, too, every detail: the rolling
+ship; the girl as she lay in her chair, the roses in her lap; the tones
+of the Captain's voice (I have sometimes heard them in my sleep); the
+glare of the overhead light, and then the splash. Queer things, these
+memories!"
+
+Mac paused, and smoked on quietly.
+
+I made no answer. If you want Mac at his best, never interrupt him.
+When he is in one of his reminiscent moods his philosophy, his knowledge
+of life, his wide personal experience, his many adventures by land and
+sea make him the most delightful of conversationalists, while his choice
+of words and marvellous powers of description--talking as a painter
+talks, one who sees and who, therefore, can make you see; using words as
+some men do pigments with all the force of their contrasts--make his
+descriptions but so many brilliantly colored pictures. Then his voice!
+Suddenly, without a moment's warning, your eyes fill up, leaving you
+wondering why, until you remember some throat tone that vibrated through
+you like the note of a violin.
+
+When he is in one of these moods he rarely looks at me or at anyone who
+listens, especially when he is alone with some one of his chums--and we
+two were alone this afternoon, it being Varnishing Day, and all of the
+men at the Academy. He looks up at the ceiling, lying back in his chair,
+talking to some crack or stain in the plastering, or drops his head and
+talks to the smouldering coals, his human eyes fixed on the logs. This
+habit of talking to whatever is within the reach of his hands or
+legs--his brushes, palette, colors, the chair that gets in his way, the
+rug he stumbles over--is characteristic of the man; woodsmen have it who
+live alone in great forests. Mac's explanation is that he lived so much
+alone in his early life that he acquired the habit in self-defence. The
+fire, however, seems to understand, never answering back as it does to
+me when I try to punch it into life, but simmering away like a
+slow-boiling pot, giving out a steady glow for hours as it listens,
+nursing its heat until the master has finished or puts on another log.
+
+Mac refilled his pipe, rested the tongs where his hand could grasp them,
+and continued, his big shoulders filling the chair, the light of the
+blaze on his humorous, kindly face.
+
+"There are great contrasts in life, my boy, that never fail to interest
+me--big Rembrandt things that stand out sharp and solid, sudden as the
+exit from a foul shaft into a sunny winter's day, white and cold. And
+the reverse side--the black side. That is the worst of these contrasts,
+the darks always predominate--out of a yacht's warm cabin, for instance,
+into a merciless, hungry sea, without a moment's warning. No, nothing to
+do with my memory of tarred hemp and red roses; only to make my point
+clear to you," and Mac's head sank the lower in his chair. "Did you ever
+focus your mind, for one thing, on the contrasts that the two sides of a
+nine-inch brick wall of any house in town present? Did you never lie in
+your bed, with your head to the plaster, and wonder what was going on
+nine inches away from your ears? I have; I do it now. It may be sorrow
+or cruelty or death, if we did but know--some girl mourning for her
+lover; some woman crouching in fear; some silent body, cold in a sheet.
+Not always so, of course; many times the happiness is on their side and
+all the misery on ours; but the two atmospheres are never alike. Only
+nine inches of wall! Shut it out as we may, cover it with tapestries or
+pictures or paint, it is still within that many inches of our ears. What
+a blessing we can't see! Life would be a hell for some of us if we saw
+both sides of its brick walls at once. I try now and then to get a
+glimpse of both sides because of the effects I get of light and
+shadow--they always appeal to me. When I do I often get a heart wrench
+that upsets me for days, and yet the next opportunity I am at it again."
+
+Once more Mac paused and looked into the fire, as if he were trying to
+recall to his mind, among its glowing, heaped-up coals, some picture in
+that rich past of his.
+
+"And that old perfume of tarred hemp and roses," I asked, "does that
+suggest one of them?"
+
+"Yes, one of the strangest I ever experienced; and yet it was only one
+of the things that goes on every day. A steamer's deck was the brick
+wall this time: On our side a cloudless sky, fresh air, light, chairs
+filling the length of the deck, whisperings in corners, two lovers
+hanging over the rail, some in the bow away from intruders. Now and then
+a line of song wafted from open cabin windows. Seaward, a stretch of
+steely blue dominated by a clear, round moon, its light flooding a
+pathway of silver to the very side of the ship, a pathway along which
+angels might have stepped--were stepping, if we could have seen.
+
+"This was one of the times when I had both sides of the wall in review;
+she did not. Her heart and mind were on other things. No, nothing that
+you think, old man; not another Christine--I left all that behind me;
+not anybody in particular, really; just a girl I met on board. There
+were a dozen others as pretty--prettier. Our steamer chairs happened to
+come together, that was all. We were but two days out, and her roses
+were still fresh--big red ones that some of her friends had sent her.
+They lay in her lap over her steamer rug. I picked them up for her when
+they dropped to the deck, and so the acquaintance began.
+
+"Such a happy girl, with a fresh, sunburnt skin, and strong chest, and
+capable, earnest eyes; no nonsense about her, no coquetry."
+
+Mac hesitated for an instant and a look of peculiar tenderness came into
+his face--one I always remembered. Then he went on:
+
+"Just a plain, straightforward American girl, with a good mother at home
+and a matter-of-fact father who had sent her abroad with an aunt who was
+flat on her back in her cabin most of the time; she herself looked as if
+she had never known a day's sickness in her life. This was her first
+trip abroad. Half a dozen young men and as many young girls had come to
+see her off, and her share of the flowers sent on board had been the
+largest, and she was as happy over it as a child with a new toy--that
+kind of a girl. She wanted, of course, to know about Mt. Blanc and the
+Rhigi, and whether the Salon would be open, and which pictures she ought
+to see, and what at the Luxembourg--all the questions a girl asks when
+she finds you can paint. Her joyousness, though, was what appealed to
+me. I like happy people. To her the deck of the steamer was the top of a
+great hill from which she looked down on sunshine and peace; no clouds,
+no dark shadows; only perspectives of greater happiness yet to come.
+This was her side of the wall.
+
+"I did not disturb her outlook. What use would it have been? Why tell
+her of what was going on, for instance, under her very eyes? Why let her
+know that that tightly built young man who seemed to be so devoted to
+the pale, hollow-eyed gentleman of sixty, sitting beside him in the
+smoking-room or in the steamer chairs--never five feet away from him day
+or night--was a Scotland Yard detective, and that the hollow-eyed
+invalid would have a pair of handcuffs slipped over his white, trembling
+wrists as soon as the gang-plank was fastened to the dock? Or why let
+her know that the thoughtful, clean-shaven young man who now spent most
+of his time in walking the deck had never entered the smoking-room since
+the first night, when the purser took him one side and, calling him by a
+name not on the passenger list had informed him in measured tones that
+it might interfere with his comfort if he took the wrapper from another
+pack of his own or anybody else's cards during the remainder of the
+voyage. Neither did I tell her, that third night out, where I had spent
+the afternoon, except to say that I had been with Mr. Hunter, the Chief
+Engineer, in his room several decks below where we sat--down among the
+furnaces and hot steam and plunging pistons--adding that the Chief was a
+great friend of mine and had been for years. If you ever get to know him
+as I do he may some time, in a burst of confidence, open the drawer of a
+locker behind his bunk and show you a little paper box, and inside of it
+a small bit of copper about the size of a big cent with a crossbar and a
+ribbon, saying that it was for gallant conduct or something like it.
+
+"But that has got nothing to do with my perfume of tarred rope and
+roses--quite another affair altogether--an affair that the Chief and I
+had had some previous talk about; and so I was not surprised when his
+messenger approached my chair and the girl's, and said in a low voice,
+bending close to me:
+
+"'Mr. Hunter's compliments, sir, and he would like to see you in his
+room, if you don't mind. He says if you can't come it will be at twelve
+sharp, and you're not to mention it to any of the passengers, sir.'
+
+"She looked at me curiously, having heard the messenger's words, but I
+did not explain, and, rising quickly, left her with the roses in her
+lap--her last bunch, she told me.
+
+"Hunter met me at the door; the Second Engineer and the ship's Doctor
+were inside his room.
+
+"'That stoker died about an hour ago, wasn't it, Doctor?' Hunter asked,
+turning to the ship's surgeon.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"These men are accustomed to such incidents; there is hardly a voyage
+without one or more of them. To me it was but the opening of another
+crack in one of my brick walls.
+
+"'What of?' I asked.
+
+"'Exhaustion; want of food, perhaps, and the heat. The heart gave out,'
+answered the Doctor in a perfunctory tone.
+
+"'Do many of them go that way?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes, when they strike the furnaces for the first time. This man was
+too old--over fifty, I should say--and should never have been taken on,'
+and he glanced reprovingly at Hunter.
+
+"'He begged so hard,' interrupted the Second Engineer, 'I let him on. We
+are short of men, too, on account of the strike--'He spoke as if in
+defence of his Chief. 'Didn't look to me to be so old till he caved in.
+Shall I make a box for him, sir?' and he turned to Hunter.
+
+"'Yes, and paint it.'
+
+"The Chief slipped his arm through mine, led me to a seat on the sofa
+beside his desk, and continued:
+
+"'He came aboard the day before we left New York. It was about seven
+o'clock at night, and I had changed my clothes and was going uptown to
+the theatre. I stood at the end of the gang-plank for a minute looking
+up the dock, pretty clean of freight by that time, and this man came
+creeping down along the side of the ship, looking about him in a way I
+didn't like. As he got nearer he stopped under a dock light, fumbled in
+his pocket and brought out a letter. He wasn't ten feet from me, and so
+I could see his face. He read it two or three times over, turning the
+leaves, and then he slipped it back into his pocket again and looked up
+at the ship's side; then he saw me and came straight for me.
+
+"'"I must go home," he said; "can you take me on?"
+
+"'"What at?" I got a look into his eyes then, and saw he was no thief;
+seemed more like a carpenter or a bricklayer.
+
+"'"Anything you can give me."
+
+"'"Stoking?"
+
+"'"Yes, if there's nothing else."
+
+"'Then the Second Engineer came down the gang-plank and I turned the man
+over to him and went uptown. When I heard he was to be buried I sent for
+you, just as I had promised.'
+
+"I had talked with Hunter about a burial at sea--it was one of the
+contrasts I had been waiting for. They had occurred often enough in my
+many crossings, but I, like the other passengers, was never informed;
+such sights are not proper on our side of the wall.
+
+"'What else did he say to you?' This question I addressed to the Second
+Engineer.
+
+"'Nothin'. I put him on; we ought to have six or eight more, but we
+couldn't get 'em--short now.'
+
+"'Did you find the letter?' I asked.
+
+"'No; Doctor did. He's got it now. He read it.'
+
+"'What did it say?'
+
+"'Well, near as I can remember, somethin' about his comin' home; a woman
+wrote it. He'll tell you when he comes back.'
+
+"'I'd like to see where he worked.' I was stretching the crack in my
+wall; peering into the next room, finding out how they lived and what
+on--all the things you should let alone, not being my business and the
+man being beyond hope.
+
+"'Take him down,' said Hunter, 'and show him the furnaces. Here, better
+peel off that coat and slip on my overalls and this jacket,' and he
+handed me the garments from a rack behind his door. 'Greasy down there;
+and look out for those ladders, they're almighty slippery when you ain't
+accustomed to 'em.'
+
+"'This way, sir,' said the Second Engineer.
+
+"We made our way along a flat iron ledge--a grating, really, beneath
+which lunged huge pistons of steel--down vertical ladders into a cavern
+reeking with the smell of hot steam and dripping oil. All about were
+stars of electric light illumining the darkness, out of which stood
+strange shapes--a canebrake of steel rods, huge sawed-off roots of
+pillar-blocks, enormous cylinders rising up like giant trees from out a
+jungle of tangled steel.
+
+"At the bottom of this morass a great boa constrictor of a shaft,
+smooth-skinned, glistening, turning lazily in its bed of grimy water,
+its head and tail lost in the gloom. Beyond this, along a narrow
+foot-path, a low open door leading to the mouth of hell. Here were men
+stripped to the waist, the sweat from their reeking bodies making
+flesh-colored channels down their blackened skins. Some were shielding
+their faces from the blistering heat as they wrenched apart the fusing
+fires with long steel bars; others dashed into the mouths of a hungry
+furnace shovelfuls of coal, blinding the light for an instant, the white
+sulphurous breath pouring from its blazing nostrils. On one side before
+the row of hot-mouthed beasts opened a smaller cavern, its air choked
+with fine black dust; still other men shovelled here, filling iron
+barrows which they trundled out to more half-naked men before the
+scorching furnaces. A new gang now joined the group, men with clean
+faces and hands and half-scoured backs and breasts. This new gang had
+had a wash and four hours sleep in an air fouled by dust and dead steam.
+At sight of them the old workers dropped their bars and shovels,
+disappeared through the door by which we had entered, and rolled into
+bunks racked up one above the other like coffins in a catacomb.
+
+"On one side of the door through which the new gang entered was an
+inscription in chalk. The leader of the gang stopped and examined it
+carefully.
+
+"'Clean stringers inside pocket,' the record said.
+
+"The stringers were the cross-beams tying the ship together, about which
+the coal was packed; the pocket was one of the ship's bins. These
+instructions showed which death-pit pit was to be worked first.
+
+"The Engineer made no explanatory remarks as I looked about. It was all
+there before me. The man with the letter had stood where these men
+stood; blistered by the same heat, befouled with the same grime, half
+strangled with the same coal-dust; had eaten his meals, drunk his
+coffee, staggered to his bunk, been carried insensible to the small
+square room on the deck above, laid on a cot, and was now dead and to be
+buried at midnight. That was all!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Up the ladder again to a room the size of a state-room with the berths
+out. Inside, on a plank resting on two supports, lay the crude, roughly
+hewn outline of a man wrapped in canvas, a flattened hump showing the
+feet and a round mass the head. Past this open door men walked carrying
+kettles of soup for the steerage. Outside in the corridor were heard
+sounds of hammering; the box was being made ready.
+
+"Up a third ladder to Hunter's room. I stopped long enough to replace my
+coat and wash the grime from my hands and then sought the deck.
+
+"She was still in her steamer chair, the roses in her lap. Not a cloud
+dimmed the sky; a soft, fresh, sweet air blew from the moonlit sea; the
+pathway of silver was still clear; souls could go to God straight up
+that ladder without missing a step, so bright was it. From the crowded
+deck came the sound of voices; some low and muffled, others breaking out
+into song and laughter.
+
+"'Where have you been?' she called out. 'What did the Engineer want?
+Tell me, please; something had happened; I saw it in your face. Was
+anyone ill?'
+
+"'Yes; but he is better now,' and my eye travelled the pathway of
+silver.
+
+"'Oh, I am so sorry! Shall you see him again?'
+
+"'Yes, at twelve.'
+
+"'Tell me about it; can I help?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'Is anyone with him--anyone he loves?'
+
+"'No, he is quite alone.'
+
+"'Poor, poor fellow! Give him these, please,' and she laid the roses in
+my hand.
+
+"Some hours later the messenger again tapped me on the shoulder.
+
+"'All ready, sir, Mr. Hunter says.'
+
+"On the lower deck, close to the sea, a deck slashed with racing waves
+in a storm, were grouped a body of sailors and officers; all had their
+coats and caps on. Against the wall of the ship stood the Captain, an
+open book in his hand. Above his head flared a bull's-eye backed by a
+ship's reflector, marking the high light in the composition. Beneath
+him, almost under the book, which cast a shadow like the outstretched
+wings of a bird, lay a black box, straight-sided and flat-topped. I
+edged my way through the encircling crowd and stood nearer, the roses in
+my hand.
+
+"The words now fell clear and strong from the Captain's lips, every man
+uncovering his head.
+
+"'Man that is born of woman----'
+
+"I reached down to lay the flowers on the lid--loose, as she had given
+them to me.
+
+"Hunter tapped me on the arm. He was grave and dignified, and I thought
+his voice trembled as he spoke.
+
+"'Better twist a bit of tarred marlin round 'em, sir,' he whispered;
+'he'll lose 'em if you don't. Hand me a piece'--this to a sailor.
+'That's it, sir; a little tighter--so!'
+
+"'He cometh up and is cut down like a flower----'
+
+"I bent over and laid the roses on the box. The men pressed closer to
+look. Roses, on a man like him!
+
+[Illustration: The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like
+him!"]
+
+"Again the Captain's reverent tones rang out:
+
+"'We therefore commit his body to the deep----'
+
+"Two sailors stooped down and raised one end of the box. There came a
+grating sound, a splash, and the highway of silver was broken into steps
+of light.
+
+"The Captain closed his book, the crowd opening to let him pass; the
+crew went back to their tasks--the sailor with tarred marlin to finish
+the bight of the cable he was whipping, the men to their furnaces,
+Hunter to his desk, I to where the girl reclined in her chair. She
+recognized my step and half raised herself toward me, as if eager to
+catch my first word.
+
+"'Did he like the roses?' she asked, her voice full of tenderness.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"Where did you put them--by his bedside?'
+
+"'No, on his breast.'
+
+"'Poor fellow, I'm so sorry for him! Did you tell him I sent them?'
+
+"'He knows.'
+
+"'What did he say?'
+
+"'Nothing--but he will some day.'
+
+"Her eyes widened.
+
+"'When? Where?'
+
+"'In heaven.'
+
+"The eyelids relaxed again, and a smile lighted up her face. She saw now
+that I was not in earnest. Then a sudden thought possessed her.
+
+"'What is his name?' The inquiry came quick and sharp and with an
+anxious tone, as if she had been remiss in not asking before.
+
+"'He has none--not aboard ship.'
+
+"'Has no name! Why, I never heard of such a thing. How very strange!'
+
+"'No, not among stokers; stokers never have any names. This one was
+called "Number Seven."'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mac stopped and leaned toward the fire, his head in his hands, the
+fingers covering the eyes. Not once during the long narrative had he
+looked at me. He had been speaking like one in a trance, or as one
+speaks to himself when alone. That I had been present was of no
+consequence; I was no more than the portraits and studies on the walls,
+not so much as the andirons and the fire. That I had listened in
+complete silence was what pleased him. This, I think, is one reason why
+he so often unburdens his heart to me.
+
+Mac straightened his back, rose to his feet and took a turn around the
+room, restlessly, as if the tale had stirred other memories which he was
+trying to banish; then he dropped again into his chair.
+
+"That's what I mean by the other side of the brick wall, old man. Makes
+your blood boil, doesn't it? Did mine."
+
+"And the girl in the chair never knew?"
+
+"No, and never will. He did; he looked back as he mounted the silver
+steps, and pointed her out to the angel helping him up the ladder. God
+knew what he had suffered, and wiped out whatever there was against
+him."
+
+There was a tone now in Mac's voice that thrilled me. For a moment I did
+not trust myself to speak.
+
+"And about the letter--did you read it?"
+
+"Yes; it was from his wife. The Doctor gave it to me, and I hunted her
+up. Little place outside of London where they make bricks. Only two
+rooms; in one a half-starved daughter, white as chalk. She had sent for
+him, the wife said. Same old story--told a hundred times a day, if you
+will but listen with your ears to some wall. The steerage out to New
+York; the landing in a strange city; the weary, hungry hunt for work;
+money gone, clothes gone, strength gone--then the inevitable. This one
+had made one last effort, even to giving his body to be burned. The
+white-faced daughter wanted to know, of course, all about it--they all
+want to know; but I didn't tell her--I lied! I said he had had heart
+failure, and that they had buried him at sea, and in a coffin like any
+other passenger, because we were only three days out; and I described
+the service and the roses, and how sorry the passengers were. She knows
+the truth now. _He's told her._
+
+"Go get your rose, old man. I ought to have had better sense than to
+rake it all up. No use in it. Not your side of the wall, not my side.
+Let me smell it. Yes, same perfume. Here, put it back in your
+button-hole."
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+_With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad._
+
+
+Mac had invited three or four of us to luncheon--Boggs, Lonnegan, Marny,
+and myself. These feasts were "Dutch" in the strictest sense, the sum
+total paid being divided, share and share alike, between the host of the
+day and his guests. That was the custom among the students in Munich and
+Paris, even at Florian's in Venice, and the custom was still observed.
+It did away with unpleasant comparisons--Lonnegan's inherited
+bank-account, for instance, and Woods's income from his rich aunt, who
+refused him nothing, in contrast to my own and Boggs's annual earnings.
+The only liberty given to the host of the day was the choice of
+restaurants. At Maroni's we could get a hot sandwich and a glass of beer
+for fifteen cents; at Brown's, in Twenty-eighth Street, a chop, a baked
+potato, and a mug of bass for half of a trade dollar. When some one of
+the less opulent had sold a picture, and had become temporarily rich
+over and above the amount due for the month's rent, Lonnegan, or Woods,
+or Pitkin (Pitkin had a father who could cut off coupons) selected
+Delmonico's. These occasions were rare, and ever afterward became
+historic.
+
+This day, it being Mac's turn, he selected Oscar Pusch's, on Fourth
+Avenue--a modest little beer-house near the corner of Twenty-fourth
+Street, its only distinguishing mark being a swinging, double shutter
+door and the advertisement of a brewery in the window. Inside was a long
+bar drenched with the foam of countless mugs of Hofbrau, facing a line
+of tables centred by cheap castors and dishes of cold slaw, and flanked
+at one end by a back room. This last apartment was for the elect. One
+table was always reserved for the exalted; of this group MacWhirter was
+High Priest.
+
+Here often at night Mac held forth to an admiring crowd of young
+painters who believed in his brush and who loved the man who wielded it.
+When I look back now down the vista of twenty years and see how fine and
+strong and superb that brush was, how true, how wonderful in color, how
+much better than any other painter of his time--Barbizon, London, or
+Dusseldorf--and think of how many lies the resident picture dealer told
+his patrons to discredit Mac's genius, I always experience a peculiar
+hotness under my collar-button. It cools off, it is true, whenever I see
+one of his masterpieces hung to-day on the walls of the redeemed. My
+anger then turns to a genial warmth, suffusing my cheeks and permeating
+my being, especially when I learn the sum paid for the smallest product
+of his brush.
+
+"One of MacWhirter's, sir; one of his choicest; painted in his best
+period," says this same fraud to-day (the period, remember, when he
+would say, "What can one expect of the Hudson Rivery School, sir?"),
+and then the dealer demands a price which, had it been paid in Mac's
+earlier days, would have resulted in his breaking all students' rules
+and setting up Johannesburg of '41 instead of the simple steins of the
+Hofbrau with which Lonnegan, Boggs, and the rest of us were being
+regaled.
+
+The hospitable and ever alert Oscar did not welcome us this time, but a
+new waiter, who sprang at Mac as if he had been his lost brother--a
+joyous sort of waiter, clean-shaven as a priest, ruddy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed, with short, tan-colored hair sticking straight up on his
+head, looking as if at some time in his life he had been frightened half
+out of his wits and had never been able to keep his hair down since.
+
+The appearance of this overjoyed individual produced a peculiar effect
+on Mac.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pusch found a place for you at last, did he, Carl?" he burst
+out. "Glad you're here," and Mac stepped forward and shook the waiter's
+hand with more than his usual warmth.
+
+Boggs looked at me and winked. What would Mac be doing next?
+
+"Some member of the royal family, Mac?" asked Boggs, when the waiter had
+left the room to execute Mac's orders.
+
+"No," said Mac, unfolding his napkin, "just plain man."
+
+"I know," said Boggs, "ran off with a soprano at the Imperial Opera
+House; disinherited by his father; fought a duel with his Colonel on
+account of her; dismissed from his club; sought refuge in flight to
+God's free country, where for years he worked in a small café on Fourth
+Avenue. Was known for years as 'Carl' where----"
+
+Mac raised his eyes at Boggs.
+
+"Lively imagination you've got, Boggs. If I were you I----"
+
+"On the death of his father, the late Baron Schweizerkase," continued
+Boggs in the nasal tone of an exhibitor of wax works, completely
+ignoring Mac's interruption, "the exile, who was none other than Prince
+Pumperknickel, returned to his estates, where his beautiful and
+accomplished wife, though not of royal blood, now dispenses the
+hospitality of his noble house with all the honors which----"
+
+"Will you shut up, Boggs," cried Lonnegan. "Your tongue goes like an
+eight-day clock." Then he turned to Mac. "Seems to me I've seen that
+waiter before--last summer, if I remember. Where was it? Florian's or
+the Panthéon?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," said Mac. "Carl hasn't been out of the country
+for two years to my knowledge. Much obliged, Oscar, for giving him a
+place." This to the proprietor, who was now beaming across the bar at
+Mac. "You'll find Carl all right," and he nodded toward the waiter, who
+was again approaching the table.
+
+"Everything suit you, Carl?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. MacWhirter; I was comin' to see you about it, but I
+just got back from Philadelphy." The man seemed hardly able to keep his
+arms from around Mac's neck. I've seen a dog sometimes show that
+peculiar form of trembling joy when brought suddenly into his master's
+presence after a long absence, but never a man.
+
+Marny now spoke up.
+
+"Tell us about this waiter, Mac."
+
+"There's nothing to tell; just one of my acquaintances, that's all. Some
+I bow to, some I shake hands with--Carl is one of the last," and Mac
+nodded and emptied his glass at a single draught, shutting off all
+discussion. No one knew better than Mac how to avoid a subject on which
+he preferred to keep silence.
+
+On the way back to the Old Building Marny and I walked together,
+Lonnegan, Mac, and Boggs behind.
+
+"Something in that waiter Carl," remarked Marny, "or Mac wouldn't have
+shaken hands with him. These waiters are a queer lot; they're never in
+the same city more than a year. I drew my chair up to a table in Moscow
+two years ago in that swell café--forget the name--outside of a park,
+and sat me down, wondering which one of my ragged languages I could use
+in getting something to eat, when the waiter behind my chair leaned over
+and said in perfect English, 'What wine, Mr. Marny?' He'd waited at
+Brown's, on Twenty-eighth Street, for years. Hello! Who's Mac talking
+to?--a street beggar! Just like him!"
+
+We were crossing the Square now and nearing the Old Building and No. 3.
+There was evidently some dispute over the beggar, for Mac was apparently
+defending the woman, while the others were objecting to her asking for
+alms.
+
+"They've got a password and a signal-call for Mac," continued Boggs;
+"he never goes to luncheon but there's half a dozen of 'em strung along
+his route."
+
+We had now reached our companions.
+
+"Did you give that tramp anything, Mac?" burst out Marny.
+
+"Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth, my boy,"
+answered Mac, with a wave of his hand as he strode along.
+
+"Did he, Lonnegan?" persisted Boggs.
+
+"Yes, and wanted to know where she lived."
+
+"I can tell you where she lives," exploded Boggs. "She lives in a
+brownstone front somewhere facing the Park. Drives up Riverside every
+Sunday in her carriage, and all because fools like you, Mac, support
+her. Only last week a man I know gave some pennies to a woman who was
+crying with hunger, with two little babes to feed--'For the love of God,
+kind sir!' and all that sort of thing--and that night, going home from
+the club, he found her on a doorstep under a gaslight counting out her
+earnings--all the cents in one pile, all the dimes in another; then the
+quarters, halves, and so on. She'd earned more money that day than he
+had. When she saw him she laughed, and went right on with her counting."
+
+Mac was now entering the Building, we following him upstairs, the
+discussion still going on. Lonnegan insisted that there were city
+charities that took care of such tramps; Boggs interrupted that they
+ought to be turned over to the police. Marny thought that there might be
+some of them deserving, but the chances were that the greater part of
+them were too lazy to work.
+
+Our heads were now level with the top of the Chinese screen, and the
+next instant the whole party were inside No. 3 and warming themselves at
+MacWhirter's wood fire.
+
+Mac hung up his coat, threw some fresh logs on the andirons, swept up
+the hearth, and dragged up the chairs for his guests alongside of some
+of the other habitués--Charley Woods among them--who had already arrived
+and were awaiting our return.
+
+"Mac's been doing the noble act again," Boggs burst out; "that's why
+we're late. Shook hands with a red-headed waiter named Carl down at
+Pusch's, who seemed glad enough to eat him up; then he emptied his
+pockets to a bag of bones outside with a basket--'God knows I haven't
+eaten anything, kind sir, for three days. Got three children' (Boggs's
+drawl was inimitable). You know that kind of hag. He would have invited
+her to dinner if we hadn't been along. If he wasn't a natural born fool
+with his money it might do Mac some good to prove to him that----"
+
+"You will get left every time, Mac," interrupted Woods from his chair,
+"over this foolishness of yours." It was never considered rude to
+interrupt Boggs--not even by Boggs. "Half of these beggars are dead
+beats. I've had some experience."
+
+"Never 'left' when you're right, Woods," shouted back Mac, who had
+crossed the room to his basin and was busy washing his brushes.
+
+"It's never 'right,' Mac, to allow yourself to be buncoed; and that's
+what happened to me last fall," retorted Woods.
+
+Boggs leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on Woods. The
+buncoing of Charles Wood, Esquire--a man who prided himself on knowing
+everything--was a story so delicious that not a word of it must be lost.
+The other men were of the same opinion, for they drew their chairs
+closer to the blaze, particularly those who had just come out of the
+keen wind in crossing the Square.
+
+"You don't know, of course, for I have never told you," Woods continued,
+when every one was settled comfortably; "but when I was real pious--and
+I was once--I used to oblige my dear old aunt and go down to the Bowery
+and read to the tramps that were hived in a room rented by the church to
+which she belonged. I would give them short stories--touch of pathos,
+broad farce, or dramatic incident, whatever I thought would suit them
+best--from 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Boots at Holly Tree Inn,' and Hans
+Breitmann's yarns. I got along pretty well with the Irish, Dutch, and
+English dialects, but a new story just out at that time, 'That Lass o'
+Lowrie's,' in the Lancashire dialect, upset me completely. I didn't know
+how to read it properly, and I couldn't find anyone who could teach me.
+I tried it there one night, and after making a first-class fizzle of it
+I suddenly thought that in an audience representing almost every
+nationality on the globe there might be someone from Lancashire, and so
+I stepped again to the edge of the platform, told them why I made the
+inquiry, and invited anyone from that part of England to stand up so
+that I could see and talk to him. Nobody moved, and I went away
+determined never to read the story again.
+
+"The next day I was pegging away at my easel--it was when I had my
+studio over Duncan's grocery store on Fourteenth Street and Union
+Square, next to Quartley's and Sheldon's rooms--you remember it--when
+there came a rap at the door, and there stood a young fellow about
+twenty-five years of age, dressed in a shabby suit of once good clothes.
+Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days. I believe that you can always tell when a man has been
+a gentleman; there is something about the cut of his jib that indicates
+his blood, no matter how low he may have fallen; something in the
+quality of his skin, the lines about his nose and the way it is fastened
+to his face; the way the hair grows on his temples, and its fineness;
+the rise of the forehead; and the ears--especially the ears--small,
+well-modelled ears are as true an indication of gentle blood as small,
+well-turned hands and feet. I have painted too many portraits not to
+have found this out. This fellow had all these marks.
+
+[Illustration: Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man,
+who had evidently seen better days.]
+
+"He had, moreover, a way of looking you right in the eye without
+flinching, following yours about like a searchlight without letting go
+of his hold. His voice, too, was the voice of a man of some
+refinement--a reed-like voice, like a clarionette, well-modulated, even
+musical at times, and with an intonation and accent which showed me at
+once that he was an Englishman.
+
+"'I heard what you said last night about the Lancashire dialect,' he
+began, 'but I didn't like to stand up to speak to you. I was afraid you
+might not be satisfied with what I could do for you. But I am in such
+straits to-day that I couldn't help coming, and so I asked the
+Superintendent for your address. I don't want any money, but I must have
+some food; if you will help me you will do a kind act. I am out of
+money, and I may never get any more from home, so that what you do for
+me I may not be able to repay. I haven't really had much to eat for
+nearly a week and my strength is giving out. I could hardly get up your
+stairs.'
+
+"All this, remember, without giving me a chance to ask him a single
+question and without stopping to take breath--just as a book agent
+rattles on--he standing all the time on my door-sill, his hat in his
+hand, not as a beggar would carry it, but as some well-bred friend who
+had dropped in for an afternoon call. Good deal in the way a man holds
+his hat, let me tell you, when you are sizing a stranger up. That's
+another one of my beliefs.
+
+"I had brought him inside now and he was standing under my skylight, his
+face and figure making an even better impression on me than when he was
+in the dark of the doorway.
+
+"'And you speak the Lancashire dialect, of course?' I asked, my eyes now
+taking in the military curl of his mustache, his broad shoulders and the
+way his really fine head was set upon them.
+
+"'No,' he answered; 'to tell you the truth, I do not--not to be of any
+service to you. I know some words, of course, but not many. I ought to
+be able to speak it perfectly, for my father's place is in the next
+county; but I have been a good deal away from home. I didn't come for
+that; I came because you seemed to me last night to be the sort of a man
+I could talk to; I meet very few of them; I don't like to stop people in
+the street, and my clothes now are not fit to enter anyone's office, and
+it would do no good if I did, for I know no one here.'
+
+"'Where have you lived?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, all over; Australia part of the time, three years in Canada----'
+
+"'You don't look over twenty-five.'
+
+"He dropped his eyes now and looked down at the floor.
+
+"'I wish I was,' he answered slowly; 'I might have done differently. You
+are wrong, I am thirty-one--will be my next birthday. I was home last
+summer to see my father, but I only stayed an hour with him. He wouldn't
+talk to me, so I left and came here.'
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Well, I'd rather not go into that; it's a family matter.'
+
+"'Pretty rough, turning you out, wasn't it?' I was getting interested in
+him now.
+
+"'No, I can't say that it was. I hadn't been square with him--not the
+year before.'
+
+"'Well, you were ready to do the decent thing then, I hope?'
+
+"'Yes, but my Governor is a peculiar sort of man that don't forget
+easily. But he's my father all the same, and so I'd rather keep away
+than have him hate me. No--please don't ask me anything about it. I
+don't think he was quite fair, but I'm not going to say so.'
+
+"I had him in a chair now and had laid down my palette and brushes. When
+a man is thrown out into the world by his father and then refuses to
+abuse him, or let anybody else do so, there's something inside of him
+that you can build on.
+
+"I handed him a greenback. 'Go down,' I said, 'on Sixth Avenue and get
+something to eat and anything else you need for your comfort, and then
+come back to me.'
+
+"He folded the bill up carefully, put it in his waistcoat pocket,
+thanked me in a simple, straightforward way, just as any of you would
+have done had I loaned you an equal amount to tide you over some
+temporary emergency, and with the bow of a thoroughbred closed my door
+behind him and went downstairs.
+
+"While he was gone I began unconsciously to let my imagination loose on
+him. I immediately invested him with all the attributes I had failed to
+discover in him while he stood hat in hand under my skylight. Some young
+blood, no doubt, of good family, I said to myself; ran through his
+allowance, shipped off to Australia, returns and is forgiven. Then more
+debts, more escapades. Father a choleric old Britisher, who gets purple
+in the face when he is angry--'Out you go, you dog; never more shall you
+be son of mine!" You remember George Holland as an irate father of the
+old school?--same kind of an old sardine. No question, though, but that
+his son was in hard lines and on the verge of suicide or, what was
+worse, crime.
+
+"What, then, was my duty under the circumstances? What would my own
+Governor think of a man who had found me in a similar strait in London,
+penniless, half-clothed, and hungry, and who had turned me out again
+into the cold?
+
+"Before I had decided what to do he was back again in my studio looking
+like a different man. Not only had he been fed, but he was clean-shaven
+and clean-collared.
+
+"'I took you at your word,' he said. 'I had a bath and bought me a clean
+collar. Here is the change,' and he handed me back some silver. 'I don't
+want to promise anything I can't do, and I don't say I'll pay it back,
+for I may not be able to, but I'll try my best to do so. Good-by, and
+thank you again.'
+
+"'Hold on,' I said. 'Sit down, and let me talk to you.' Now right here,
+gentlemen, I want to tell you"--Woods swept his eye around the circle as
+he spoke, then rose to his feet as if to give greater emphasis to what
+he was about to say, his round bullet-head, eye-glasses, and immaculate
+shirt collar glistening in the overhead light--"I want to tell you
+right here that the buying of that clean collar and the return of the
+change settled the matter for me. I'm a student of human nature, as most
+of you know, and I have certain fixed rules to guide me which never
+fail. My duty was clear; I would play the Good Samaritan for all I was
+worth. I wouldn't cross over and ask him how the cripple was getting on;
+I'd walk down both sides of the street, call an ambulance, lift him in
+to a down-covered cot run on C springs, and trundle him off to flowery
+beds of ease or whatever else I could scrape up that was comforting. Now
+listen--and, Mac, I want you to take all this in, for I am telling this
+yarn for your special benefit.
+
+"That same afternoon I took him up to my rooms--I was living with my
+aunt then up on Murray Hill--opened up my wardrobe, pulled out a shirt,
+underwear, socks, shoes, cut-away coat, waistcoat, and trousers; gave
+him a scarf, and then to add a touch to his whole get-up I picked a
+scarf-pin from my cushion and stuck it in myself. Next I handed him a
+cigar, opened up a bottle of Scotch, and after dinner--my aunt was
+dining out, and we had the table to ourselves--sat up with him till near
+midnight, he and I talking together like any other two men who had met
+for the first time and who had, to their delight, found something in
+common.
+
+"Nor would any of you have known the difference had you happened to drop
+in upon us. No reference, of course, was made to his condition or to the
+way in which we had met. He was clean, well-dressed, well-mannered,
+perfectly at ease, and entirely at home. You could see that by the way
+in which he shadowed his wine-glass as a sign to the waiter not to
+refill it; passed the end of his cigar toward me that I might snip it
+with the cutter attached to my watch-chain, having none of his own, of
+course--a fact he made no comment upon; did everything, in fact, down to
+the smallest detail (and I watched and studied him pretty closely) that
+any one of you would have done under similar circumstances; all of which
+proved his birth and breeding, and all of which, you will admit, no man
+not born to it can acquire and not be detected by one who knows.
+
+"My idea was--and this is another one of my theories--that you can
+restore a man's energies only when you restore his self-respect, and I
+intended to prove my theory on this Englishman. What I was after was
+first to bring him back to his old self--he taking his place where he
+belonged, shutting out the hideous nightmare that was pursuing him--and
+then get him a situation where he could be self-sustaining. This done, I
+proposed to write to his father and patch it up somehow between them,
+and the next time I went abroad we would go together and kill the fatted
+calf, haul in the Yule log, summon the tenants, build triumphal arches,
+and all that sort of thing.
+
+"The following morning promptly at ten o'clock he rapped at my studio
+door. Pitkin saw him and thought he had come to buy out the studio, he
+was so well dressed--you remember him, Pit?"
+
+Pitkin shook his head and smiled.
+
+"Then commenced the hunt for work, and I tell you it was hard sledding;
+but I stuck at it, and at the end of the week old Porterfield gave him a
+position as entry clerk in his foreign department. During all that week
+he was spending his time between my studio and my aunt's, I looking
+after his expenditures--not much, only a few dollars a day. Every
+evening we dined at home, and every evening we roamed the world:
+mountain climbing, pig sticking, pheasant shooting in Devonshire; who
+won the Derby, and why; English politics, English art, the tariff--every
+topic under the sun that I knew anything about and a lot I didn't, he
+leading or following in the talk, his eyes fixed on mine, his rich,
+musical voice filling the room, his handsome, well-bred body comfortably
+seated in my aunt's easiest chair.
+
+"And now comes the most interesting part of this story. The afternoon
+before he was to present himself at Porterfield's, about five
+o'clock--an hour before I reached home--he rang my aunt's front-door
+bell; told the servant that I had been called suddenly out of town for
+the night and had sent him post haste in a cab for my portmanteau and
+overcoat. Then he tripped upstairs to my apartment, waited beside the
+servant until she had stowed away in my best Gladstone my dress-suit,
+shirt with its links and pearl studs, collars--everything, even to my
+patent-leather shoes; and then, while she was out of the room in search
+of my overcoat, emptied into his pockets all my scarf-pins, my silver
+brandy-flask, and a lot of knick-knacks on my bureau, took the coat on
+his arm, preceded her leisurely downstairs, she carrying the bag,
+stepped into the cab, _and I haven't seen him since_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There, Mac, that yarn is told for your especial benefit. What do you
+think of it?"
+
+"I think you're all white, Woods, and I'm glad to know you," cried Mac
+as he grasped the painter's hand and shook it warmly.
+
+"Yes, but what do you think of that cur of an Englishman?"
+
+"I think he'll live to see the day he'll regret the mean trick he played
+you," answered Mac; "but that doesn't prove your contention that all
+beggars are frauds."
+
+"Did you try to catch him?" interrupted Boggs.
+
+"No, I was too hurt. I didn't mind the money or the clothes. What I
+minded was the way in which I had squandered my personality. The only
+thing I did do was to tell Captain Alec Williams of our precinct about
+him.
+
+"'Smooth-talking fellow?' Williams asked; 'had a scrap with his father?
+Light-blue eyes and a little turned-up mustache? Yes, I know
+him--slickest con' man in the business. We've got his mug in our
+collection; show it to you some day, if you come;' and _he did_."
+
+"And the great reader of human nature didn't go to London and build
+arches and kill the fatted calf, after all," remarked Lonnegan, with a
+wink at Boggs.
+
+"No," retorted Boggs; "he could have suicided himself at home with less
+trouble."
+
+"Laugh on, you can't hurt me! I'm immune," said Woods. "I learned my
+lesson that time, and I've graduated. I'm not practising any theories,
+old or new; I'm doing missionary work instead, pointing out and running
+down dead beats wherever I see them. No more men's night meetings for
+me, no more widows with twins--no nothing. When I've got anything to
+give I hand it to my aunt. It isn't a pleasant yarn--it's one on me
+every time. I only told it to Mac so he could save his money."
+
+"I'm saving it, Woods--save it every day; got a lot of small banks all
+over the place that pay me compound interest. Now I'll tell _you_ a
+yarn, and I want you fellows to listen and keep still till I get
+through. If there's any doubts, Boggs, of your releasing your grasp on
+your talking machine, I'll take your remarks now. All right, enough
+said. Now hand me that tobacco, Lonnegan, and one of you fellows move
+back so I can get up closer, where you can all hear. This story,
+remember, Woods, is for you."
+
+When Mac talks we listen. The story, whatever it may be, always comes
+straight from his heart.
+
+"One cold, snowy night--so cold, I remember, that I had to turn up my
+coat collar and stuff my handkerchief inside to keep out the driving
+sleet--I turned into Tenth Street out of Fifth Avenue on my way here. It
+was after midnight--nearly one o'clock, in fact--and with the exception
+of the policeman on our beat--and I had met him on the corner of the
+Avenue--I had not passed a single soul since I had left the club. When I
+got abreast of the long iron railing I caught sight of the figure of a
+man standing under the gaslight. He wore a long ulster, almost to his
+feet, and a slouch hat. At sound of my footsteps he shrank back out of
+the light and crouched close to the steps of one of those old houses
+this side of the long wall. His movements did not interest me; waiting
+for somebody, I concluded, and doesn't want to be seen. Then the thought
+crossed my mind that it was a bad night to be out in, and that perhaps
+he might be suffering or drunk, a conclusion I at once abandoned when I
+remembered how warmly he was clad and how quickly he had sprung into
+the shadow of the steps when he heard my approach--all this, of course,
+as I was walking toward him. That I was in any danger of being robbed
+never crossed my mind. I never go armed, and never think of such things.
+It's the fellow who sees first who escapes, and up to this time I had
+watched his every move.
+
+"When I got abreast of the steps he rose on his feet with a quick spring
+and stood before me.
+
+"'I'm hungry,' he said in a low, grating voice. 'Give me some money; I
+don't mean to hurt you, but give me some money, quick!'
+
+"I threw up my hands to defend myself and backed to the lamp-post so
+that I could see where to hit him best, trying all the time to get a
+view of his face, which he still kept concealed by the brim of his
+slouch hat.
+
+"'That's not the way to ask for it,' I answered. I would have struck him
+then only for the tones of his voice, which seemed to carry a note of
+suffering which left me irresolute.
+
+"He was edging nearer and nearer, with the movement of a prize-fighter
+trying to get in a telling blow, his long overcoat concealing the
+movements of his legs as thoroughly as his slouch hat did the features
+of his face. Two thoughts now flashed through my mind: Should I shout
+for the policeman, who could not yet be out of hearing, or should I land
+a blow under his chin and tumble him into the gutter.
+
+"All this time he was muttering to himself: 'I'm crazy, I know, but I'm
+starving; nobody listens to me. This man's got to listen to me or I'll
+kill him and take it away from him.'
+
+"I had gathered myself together and was about to let drive when he
+grabbed me around the waist; we both slipped on the ice and fell to the
+pavement, he underneath and I on top. I had my knee on his chest now,
+and was trying to get my fingers into his shirt collar to choke the
+breath out of him, when the buttons on his ulster gave way. I let go my
+hold and sprang up. The man was naked to his shoes, except for a pair of
+ragged cotton drawers!
+
+"'Don't kill me,' he cried, 'don't kill me.' He was sobbing now, hat
+off, his face in the snow, all the fight out of him.
+
+"I know a hungry man when I see him; been famished myself, wolfish and
+desperate once--and this man was hungry.
+
+"'Put on your hat, button up your coat,' I said, 'and come with me.'"
+
+"Bully for you, Mac; that's the kind of talk," cried Boggs. "Waltzed him
+right down to the police station, didn't you?"
+
+"No, I brought him to this very room, sat him down in that very chair
+where you sit, Boggs," answered Mac, "and before this very fire. He
+followed me like a homeless dog that you meet in the street, never
+speaking, keeping a few steps behind; waited until I had unlocked the
+street door, held it back for me to pass through; mounted the flight of
+steps behind me--the light is out, as you know, at that hour, and I had
+to scratch a match to find my way; remained motionless inside this room
+until I had turned on the gas, when I found him standing by that screen
+over there, a dazed expression on his face--like a man who had fallen
+overboard and been picked up by a passing ship.
+
+"He had been discharged from his last place because some drunken young
+men had lost their money in a bar-room and had accused him of taking it.
+For some weeks he had slept in a ten-cent lodging-house. Two days before
+someone had stolen his clothes, all but his overcoat, which was over
+him. Since that time he had been walking around half-naked.
+
+"'Pull that coat off,' I said, 'and put on these,' and I handed him some
+underwear and a suit of sketching clothes that hung in my closet. 'And
+now drink this,' and I poured out a spoonful of whiskey--all he needed
+on an empty stomach.
+
+"When he was warm and dry--this did not take many minutes--we started
+downstairs again and over to Sixth Avenue. Jerry's screens and blinds
+were shut, but his lights were still burning; some fellows were having a
+game of poker in the back room.
+
+"'Got anything to eat, Jerry?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. MacWhirter; a cold ham and some hot chowder, if they ain't
+turned off the steam. Pretty good chowder, too, this week. What'll it
+be--for one or two?'
+
+"'For one, Jerry.'
+
+"I left him alone for a while sitting at one of Jerry's tables, his
+hungry, eager eyes watching every movement of the old man, as a starved
+cat watches the bowl of milk you are about to place before it.
+
+"When he had devoured everything Jerry had given him, I moved to the
+bar, poured out half a glass of whiskey from one of Jerry's bottles,
+waited until he had swallowed it, and then sent him upstairs to sleep in
+one of Jerry's beds."
+
+"And that was the last you ever saw of him, of course," broke out Woods,
+with a laugh.
+
+"No; saw him every day for a month, till he got work. Saw him again
+to-day at Pusch's. He waited on us. It was Carl."
+
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+_In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood._
+
+
+Mr. Alexander Macwhirter's great picture, "Early Morning on the East
+River," was still on his easel. The Hanging Committee had taken the
+outside measurement of the frame; had hung the other pictures up to the
+line of this measurement; had inserted the title and price in the
+official catalogue, and were then awaiting Mac's finishing touches.
+
+MacWhirter had struck a snag in the middle distance, and until this was
+repainted to his satisfaction the picture would not leave his studio,
+official catalogue or no official catalogue.
+
+On this afternoon Lonnegan was the first to arrive. The great architect
+on his way downtown must have dropped in upon some social function, or
+was about to attend one later in the day, for he wore his morning
+frock-coat, white waistcoat, and a decoration in his button-hole--an
+unusual attire for Lonnegan unless the affair was of more than customary
+brilliancy and importance.
+
+"Let up, Mac," cried Lonnegan from behind the Chinese screen, as he
+looked over its top; "the light's gone and you can't see what you're
+doing."
+
+"I've got light enough to see where to put my foot," Mac shouted back.
+
+"Easy, easy, old man! Don't smash it; masterpieces are rare! Let me have
+a look at it. Why, it's all right! What's the matter with it?"
+
+"Shadow tones under the cliffs all out of key. There are a lot of
+wharves, sheds, and vessels lying there half-smothered in mist. I do not
+want to do more than suggest them, but they've got to be right."
+
+"Well, but you can't see to paint any longer. Give it up until morning."
+
+"Haven't got time! Hanging Committee has sent here three times to-day."
+
+Marny, Pitkin, Boggs, and Woods walked in and joined the group about
+Mac's easel, a "sick picture" (pictures get ill and die, or recover and
+become famous, as well as men) being a matter of the very first
+importance.
+
+Each new arrival had some advice to offer. Pitkin thought the sky
+reflections were not silvery enough. Woods wanted a touch of red
+somewhere on the sides or sterns of the boats, with a "click" of high
+light on their decks to relieve them from the haze of the background.
+"Right out of the tube, old man, and don't touch it afterward. It'll
+make it _sing_!" Boggs ignored all suggestions by saying, in a
+dictatorial tone:
+
+"Don't you do anything of the kind, Mac; you don't want any drops of red
+sealing wax spilt on that middle distance, or any blobs of white; only
+make it worse. All you need is a touch here and there of yellow-white
+against that purple haze. But you don't want to guess at it. This East
+River is a _fact_, not a _dream_. And it's right here under our eyes.
+Everybody knows it and everybody knows how it looks. If you want it
+true, the best thing for you to do is to go there to-morrow morning at
+daylight and wait until the sun gets to your angle. You fellows that
+insist on painting things out of your heads instead of following what is
+set down before you will run to seed like cabbages. Why you want to
+scoop up the emptyings of everybody's wash-basins, when it is so easy to
+get buckets of pure water fresh from nature's well, is what gets me."
+
+"Talks like an art critic," growled Pitkin.
+
+"And with as little sense," added Woods.
+
+"More like a plumber, I should think," remarked Lonnegan drily. "Only
+don't you go up on that hill at five o'clock in the morning, Mac, or
+you'll never finish that picture or anything else. Some thug will finish
+_you_. That's the worst hole on the river--regular den of thieves live
+under that hill. I came near being murdered there myself once."
+
+Lonnegan's statement caused a sensation.
+
+"You came near being murdered, you dear Lonny?" Mac asked nervously.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Some three years ago."
+
+Boggs, who was still smarting under the contempt with which his
+suggestion had been received, now shouted in the voice of a newsboy
+selling an afternoon edition:
+
+"Full and graphic account of the hair-breadth escape of a great
+architect. Sit down, gentlemen, and listen to a tale that will clog your
+veins with dynamite and make goose shivers go up and down your spine.
+Here, Lonnegan, rest your immaculately upholstered body in this chair
+and tell us all about it. Put up your brushes, Mac; I'll help you wash
+'em. Everybody draw up to the fire." (Here Boggs dropped into his own
+chair.) "The modern Moses is going to tell us how he was pulled out of
+the bulrushes and why he has an excuse for still walking around among
+his fellow-men instead of being tucked away in some comfortable cemetery
+on a hill under a mausoleum of his own designing.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen"--Boggs was again on his feet, a ring in his voice
+like that of a showman--"it is my especial privilege, and one of the
+greatest honors of my life, to introduce to you this afternoon the
+distinguished architect, Mr. Archibald Perkins Lonnegan, who----"
+
+"Will you keep still!" cried Pitkin, putting both hands on Boggs's
+shoulder and forcing him into his chair. "Sit on him, Marny!"
+
+Mac by this time had laid his palette on his painting table and had
+moved to the fire.
+
+"You never told me anything about that, Lonny."
+
+"Well, don't know that I did; 'twas some time ago."
+
+"You're sure that you aren't really murdered, me long-lost che-ild?"
+whined Boggs in an anxious tone; these changes of manner, tone, and
+gesture of the Chronic Interrupter,--imitating in one sentence the
+newsboy, in another the showman, and now the anxious mother--were as
+much a part of his personality, and as much enjoyed by the coterie,
+despite their constant protests, as the bubbling good nature which
+inspired them.
+
+"Feel that," said Lonnegan, tapping his biceps as he frowned at Boggs,
+"and you'll find out how much of a corpse I am."
+
+Boggs' plump fingers squeezed the corded muscles of the speaker with the
+dexterity of a surgeon hunting for broken bones. Then he cast his eyes
+heavenward.
+
+"Saved by a miracle, gentlemen. Thank God, he is still spared to us! Now
+go on, you fashion-plate! When, where, and in what part of your valuable
+and talented person were you almost murdered?"
+
+Everybody was now seated and had his pipe filled, all except Lonnegan,
+who stood on the rug with his slender, well-built and, to-day,
+well-dressed body in silhouette against the blazing logs, his shapely
+legs forming an inverted V.
+
+"This isn't much of a story. I wouldn't tell it at all if it wasn't to
+save Mac's life. There are two or three places under that East River
+hill where it is unsafe to walk even in broad daylight, let alone in the
+gray of the morning. When I tried it I was looking for one of my
+foremen--or, rather, for one of his derrick-men. I knew the street, but
+I didn't know the number. After dinner I started up Third Avenue, turned
+to Avenue A, and found that my only way to reach the place was down a
+long street leading to the river, flanked on each side by barren lots
+used as dumping-grounds and dotted here and there with squatters'
+shanties built of refuse timber, old tin roofs, and junk; gas lamps a
+block apart, with the sidewalks flagged only in the centre.
+
+"I went myself because I wanted the derrick-man, and I wanted him at
+seven o'clock on Monday morning, and I knew he'd come if I could see
+him.
+
+"Half-way down this long street, say two blocks from the avenue, which
+was brilliantly lighted and thronged with people--it was Saturday
+night--I saw the lights of a bar-room, the only brick building fronting
+either side of the walk."
+
+"Were you rigged out in this royal apparel, Lonny?" broke in Boggs.
+
+"No; I was in a dress-suit and wore an overcoat. Without thinking of the
+danger, I stepped inside and walked up to the barkeeper--a
+villainous-looking cutthroat, in his shirt sleeves.
+
+"'I am looking for a man by the name of Dennis McGrath,' I said; 'I
+thought some of you men might know him.'
+
+"The fellow looked me all over, and then he called to two men sitting at
+the table behind the stove. As he spoke I caught the flash of a wink
+quivering on his eyelid--the lid farthest from me. Nothing uncovers the
+workings of a man's brain like a carefully concealed wink. It may mean
+anything from ridicule to murder.
+
+"One of the men winked at got up from a table and approached the bar,
+followed by a larger man, with a face like a bull terrier.
+
+"'What yer say his name is--McGrath?'
+
+"All this time his eyes were sizing me up, scrutinizing my hat, my
+shirt-studs, watch-chain, overcoat, gloves, down to my shoes. The
+smaller man--'Shorty,' the barkeeper called him--now repeated the larger
+man's question.
+
+"'Did yer say his name's McGrath? What's he do?'
+
+"'He is a derrick-man.'
+
+"Shorty was now well under the light of the bar. He had a scar over one
+damaged eye and a flattened nose, the same blow having evidently wrecked
+both; over the other was pulled a black cloth cap; around his throat was
+a dirty red handkerchief, no collar showing--a capital make-up for a
+stage villain, I thought, as I looked him over, especially the
+handkerchief. Even Mac here would look like a burglar with his hair
+mussed, collar off, and a red handkerchief tied around his throat.
+
+"The barkeeper piped up again: 'Get a move on, Shorty, and help the gent
+find the Mick.'
+
+"'Shure! I know him. He's a-livin' under de rocks. Come 'long, Boss.
+I'll git him.'
+
+"Two more men stepped out of the gloom; one, in a cap and yellow
+overcoat, went behind the bar and slipped something into his pocket;
+then the two lounged out of the room and shut the door behind them. I
+began to take in the situation. The purpose of the wink was clear now. I
+was in a dive in a deserted street, unarmed and alone, and surrounded by
+cutthroats. If I tried to find McGrath with any one of these men as a
+guide I would be robbed and thrown over the cliff; if I attempted to go
+back I would land in the clutches of the man in the yellow overcoat and
+his companion. All this time the barkeeper was leaning over the bar, his
+eyes fixed on my face. My only hope lay in a bold front.
+
+"'All right,' I said to Shorty; 'how far is it?'
+
+"'Oh, not very fur--'bout t'ree blocks.'
+
+"I stepped out into the night.
+
+"Down the long street on the way to the river stood three men--the man
+in the yellow overcoat, his companion, and one other. They separated
+when they saw me, the one in the overcoat retracing his steps toward the
+dive without looking my way, the others sauntering on ahead. I walked
+on, meditating what to do next. I could throttle Shorty and take to my
+heels, but then I would have to reckon with the pickets who might be
+between me and the bar-room.
+
+"Sometimes, when in great danger, a sudden inspiration comes to a man;
+mine came out of a clear sky.
+
+"'Hold on,' I said to Shorty--we were now half a block from the dive.
+'Wait a minute; I have nothing smaller than a ten-dollar bill, and I
+want to give you something for your trouble. I'll run back and get the
+barkeeper to change it. Stay where you are; I won't be a minute.'
+
+"I turned on my heel and walked back toward the dive with a quick step,
+as if I had forgotten something. The man with the yellow overcoat saw me
+coming and stepped into the street as if to intercept me. Shorty gave
+two low whistles, and the man stepped back to the sidewalk again. I
+reached the doorstep of the dive. All the men were now between me and
+the river, the one in the yellow overcoat but a short distance from the
+bar-room, Shorty waiting for me where I left him. With the same hurried
+movement I swung back the door, stepped inside, stripped off my
+overcoat, folded it close, threw it over my arm, and, before the
+barkeeper could realize what I was doing, pulled my hat close down to my
+ears, jerked the lapels of my dress-coat over my shirt-front to hide the
+white bosom, dashed out of the door and sprang for the middle of the
+street."
+
+Here Lonnegan stopped and puffed away at his pipe. For a minute every
+man kept still.
+
+"Go on, Lonny," said Mac, the intensity of his interest apparent in the
+tones of his voice.
+
+"That's all," said Lonnegan. "The change of coats and slight disguise of
+hat and lapels threw them off their guard. The outside pickets thought,
+when I burst through the door, that I was somebody else until I was too
+far away to be overtaken. That's what saved my life."
+
+"And you call that an adventure, you fake!" cried Boggs. "Ran like a
+street dog, did you, and hid under your mammy's bed?"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with the yarn," retorted Lonnegan; "it's true,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Matter with it? Everything! No point to it, no common sense in it; just
+a fool yarn! You go out hunting trouble with your imagination on edge,
+like a scared child. You meet a man who offers to conduct you
+gratuitously to a house up a back street; you agree to pay him for his
+trouble; you make a lame excuse to dodge him, he relying on your word to
+return, and then you take to your heels and cheat him out of his pay. No
+yarn at all; just a disgraceful bunco game!"
+
+The Circle were now in an uproar of laughter, everybody talking at once.
+Marny finally got the floor.
+
+"Boggs is right," he said, "about Lonnegan's conduct. It is
+extraordinary how low an honest man will sometimes stoop. Lonnegan's
+life among the aristocrats of Murray Hill is undermining his high sense
+of honor. Now I'll tell you a story of an escape that really has some
+point to it."
+
+"Is this another fake murder yarn?" asked Boggs. "We don't want any more
+fizzles."
+
+"Pretty close to the real thing--close enough to turn your hair gray.
+About fifteen years ago----"
+
+"Now hold on, Marny," interrupted Boggs, "one thing more. Is this out of
+your head, like one of your muddy, woolly landscapes, or is it founded
+on fact?"
+
+"It's founded on fact."
+
+"Got any proof?"
+
+"Yes, got the pistol that saved my life. It's on a shelf in my studio
+downstairs. If anybody doubts my story I'll bring it up. About twelve or
+fifteen years back----"
+
+"He said _fifteen_ a moment since," grumbled Boggs in an undertone to
+himself, "now he's qualifying it. First knock-down for the doubters. Go
+on."
+
+"Well, say fifteen then; my memory is not good on dates; my brother and
+I made a trip to the Peaks of Otter, just over the North Carolina line.
+I was a boy of twenty and he was a man of thirty-two. He was a dead shot
+with a rifle or pistol and could knock a cent to pieces edgewise at
+fifty yards. While I painted, he scalped red squirrels and chipmunks
+with a long Flobert pistol that carried a ball the size of a buckshot; a
+toy really, but true as a Winchester.
+
+"We found the Peaks, or rather the peak we climbed, a sugar-loaf of a
+mountain with almost perpendicular slopes near its top, crowned by a
+cluster of enormous boulders. From its crest one can see all over that
+part of the State. Half-way up we stopped at a small tavern, inquired
+the way to the top, borrowed two small blankets of the landlord, and
+bought some cold meat and bread and a few teaspoonfuls of tea. These we
+put in a haversack, and leaving my heavy painting-trap we continued on
+about three o'clock in the afternoon to climb the peak. The only things
+we carried, outside of the provisions and blankets, were my pocket
+sketch-book and the Flobert pistol. It was the worst I have ever done in
+all my mountain climbing. Sometimes we edged along a precipice and
+sometimes we pulled ourselves up a cliff almost perpendicular. There was
+no doubt about the path--that was plainly marked by sign-boards and
+blazed trees and the wear of many feet, and then again it was perfectly
+plain that it was the only way up the mountain.
+
+"We reached the top about sundown and found a cabin built of logs, with
+one window, a sawed pine door with a bolt inside, a rusty stove and
+pipe, and a low bed covered with dry straw. Scattered about were two or
+three wooden stools, and on the window-sill stood a tin coffee-pot and
+two tin cups.
+
+"When it began to grow dark and the chill of the mountains had settled
+down, we started a fire in the stove, put on the pot, dumped in our tea,
+and began to spread out our provisions. Then we lighted one of the
+candles the inn people had given us, and ate our supper.
+
+"About ten o'clock a puff of wind struck the stovepipe and scattered the
+ashes over the floor. The next instant the growl of distant thunder
+reached our ears. Then a storm burst upon the mountains, the lightning
+striking all about us. This went on for two hours--after midnight
+really; we couldn't sleep, and we didn't try to. We just sat up and took
+it, expecting every minute that the shanty would be tumbled in on top of
+us. About one o'clock the rain slackened, the wind went down, and we
+could hear the growl of the thunder as the lightning played havoc on
+the peak to the north of us. Then we bolted the door to keep the wind
+from blowing it in should the storm return, rolled up in our blankets on
+our bed of straw and leaves, and fell asleep, leaving the matches close
+to the candle.
+
+"We had hardly dropped off when we were awakened by a pounding at the
+door. In the dead of night, remember, on top of a mountain that a cat
+could hardly climb in the daytime, and after that storm!
+
+"We both sprang up, scared out of our wits. Then we heard a man's voice,
+rough and coarse, and in a commanding tone:
+
+"'Open the door!'
+
+"I was on my feet now. My brother caught up his pistol, slipped in a
+cartridge, and poured the balance of the ammunition into his
+side-pocket; then he called:
+
+"'Who are you?'
+
+"'Don't make any difference who we are,' came another voice, sharper and
+in a higher key. 'You don't own this shanty. Open the door, damn you, or
+we'll break it in!'
+
+"We might have handled one man; two or more were out of the question. My
+brother stepped across the bed, backed into the shadow away from the
+rays of the flickering firelight, cocked the pistol, and nodded to me. I
+slipped back the bolt.
+
+"Two men entered. One had a brown, bushy beard, a low forehead, and
+ugly, uncertain mouth. He was stockily built, with stout legs and short,
+powerful arms and hands. The other was tall and lanky, with a hatchet
+face and cunning, searching eyes--eyes that looked at you and then
+looked away. He wore a slouch hat and homespun clothes and high boots,
+in which were stuffed the bottoms of his trousers. As he followed the
+shorter man inside the cabin he had to stoop to clear the top of the
+door-jamb.
+
+"We saw that they were not mountaineers--their dress showed that; nor
+did they look like the men we had seen in the village. Both were
+drenched to the skin, the legs of their trousers and boots reeking with
+mud, the water still dripping from their hats.
+
+"The shorter man looked at me and then ran his eye around the room.
+
+"'Where is the other one?' he asked in the same domineering tone.
+
+"'Here he is,' answered my brother coolly, from behind the bed.
+
+"The two men peered into the shadow, where my brother sat crouched with
+his back to the logs, the pistol on his knee within reach of his hand.
+From where I stood I could catch the red glint of the forelight flashing
+down its barrel. The men must have seen it too.
+
+"'We're goin' to chuck some wood in this 'ere stove. Got any
+objections?' asked the tall man, pulling his wet slouch hat from his
+head and beating the water out of it against the pile of firewood. The
+tone was a little less brutal.
+
+"'No,' answered my brother curtly.
+
+"The tall one reached over the pile, picked up a log and shoved it in
+the stove. Then the two stretched themselves out at full length and
+looked steadily at the blaze, the steam from their wet clothes filling
+the room. No other word was passed, either by the men or by my brother
+or myself, nor did we change our positions. I sat on one of the stools
+and my brother sat in the corner where he could draw a bead if either of
+the men showed fight. Three o'clock came, then four, then five, and then
+the cold gray light which tells of the coming dawn stole in between the
+cracks of the cabin and the broken window. At the first streak of light
+the tall man lifted himself to his feet, the short man followed, and
+swinging wide the door the two stalked out to the farthest edge of the
+pile of boulders overlooking the plain, where they squatted on their
+haunches, their eyes toward the east. We took our positions on a rock
+behind them, a little higher up. Any move they made would come under the
+fire of my brother's toy gun. The sun's disk rose slowly--first a peep
+of the old fellow's eye, then half his cheek, and then his round, jolly
+face wreathed in smiles. When the bottom edge of his chin had swung
+clear of the crest of the distant mountain range the tall man leaned
+over his companion and said in a decisive tone:
+
+"'Well, Bill, she's up,' and without a word to either of us they swung
+themselves through the opening in the boulders and disappeared."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The coterie had listened in their usual absorbed way whenever Marny had
+the floor. His experience, like Mac's, covered half the world. Boggs
+had not taken his eyes from Marny's face during the entire recital.
+
+"And that's all you know about them?" asked Lonnegan in a serious tone.
+
+"Except what the landlord told us," continued Marny in answer, turning
+to Lonnegan. "The two men, he said, had stopped at the tavern about nine
+o'clock that night, had asked who was on top, and had hurried on; all
+they wanted was a stable lantern, which he lent them, and which they
+didn't return. He had never seen either of them before, and they didn't
+pass the tavern on their way back."
+
+"What did you think of the affair?" asked Pitkin in a serious tone of
+voice.
+
+"We had only two conclusions. They had either come to rob us, and were
+scared off by the toy pistol, or they were carrying out a wager of some
+kind."
+
+"And it took you all night and the next day to find that out?"
+exclaimed Boggs in a tone of assumed contempt. "Really, gentlemen, this
+whole afternoon should go on record as the proceedings of a
+kindergarten. Just think what rot we've had: Lonnegan promises a poor
+workingman a job and takes to his heels to cheat him out of his pay;
+Marny, who, like Mac, poses as a philanthropist, and claims to feed the
+hungry and clothe the naked, refuses shelter to two half-drowned
+tourists who come up to see the sunrise, and instead of hustling round
+to get 'em hot tea and grub, he posts his big brother in a corner with a
+gun where he can blow the tops of their heads off. Rot--all of it! But
+what I object to most is the 'let-down' at the tag-end of each of these
+yarns. You work up to a climax, and nothing happens. Just like one of
+these half-baked modern plays we've been having--all the climax in the
+first act, and a dreary drivel from that on till the curtain drops. I
+expected Marny's yarn would taper off in a hand-to-hand death struggle;
+both men thrown over the cliff; the finding of their mangled bodies,
+impaled on the trees, by the sheriff, who had tracked them for years,
+and who promptly identified both scoundrels, one as 'Dead House Dick'
+and the other as 'Murder Pete'; a vote of thanks to the two heroes by
+the State legislature, one of whom, thank God! is still with us"--and he
+bowed grandiloquently at Marny--"and a ring-down with a beautiful,
+unknown woman, supposed to be an heiress, creeping in at twilight to
+weep over their graves, all the stage lights turned down and a low
+tremolo going on in the orchestra. Tamest, deadest lot of twaddle I've
+heard around this fire! Now let me tell you a yarn that _means_
+something. Blood this time--red blood. None of your dress-suit and
+warmed-up tea and toy-pistol adventures."
+
+Everybody straightened up in his chair to get a better view of Boggs.
+The Chronic Interrupter was about to appear in a new rôle. The speaker
+opened his coat, tossed back the lapels as if to give his plump body
+more room, and rose slowly to his feet, his black diamond-pointed eyes
+glistening, his lips quivering with suppressed merriment. It was evident
+that Boggs was loaded to the muzzle; it was also evident, from the
+unusual earnestness of his manner, that he was about to fire off
+something of more than usual importance.
+
+"No preliminaries, mind you. Right to the spot in a jump. This happened
+in Stamboul the winter I made those sketches of the mosques."
+
+Mac looked up, an expression of surprise in his face. He thought he knew
+every act of Boggs's life from his cradle up--they being bosom chums.
+That Boggs had even been in the East was news to him. Boggs caught the
+look and repeated his opening in a louder voice.
+
+"In Stamboul, remember, across the Galata from Pera. I had finished the
+flight of marble steps and entrance of the Valedée, and was looking
+around for another subject, when a Turk with a green scarf around his
+fez (that showed he'd been to Mecca), who had been keeping off the crowd
+while I painted, offered to carry my trap to the Mosque of the Six
+Minarets up in the Plaza of the Hippodrome. A man who has been to Mecca
+is generally to be trusted, so I handed him my kit and followed his
+lead. On the way to the plaza he stopped beside a low wall and pointed
+to an opening in the ground. I looked down and saw a flight of stone
+steps.
+
+"'This is not for the Effendi to paint,' he said, 'but it is something
+for him to see. It is the great underground cistern where the water was
+kept during the sieges.'
+
+"That suited me to a dot--caverns always appeal to me--and down I went,
+followed by the green fez. Down, down, down, into a big vaulted chamber,
+the roof supported on marble columns running back into the gloom, only
+the nearby ones in relief where the light from the opening above fell
+upon their white shafts, very much as a forest looks at night when a
+torch is lighted. Stretching away was a dirt floor, uneven in places,
+and away back in the half-gloom I could make out the surface of a great
+pool. Now and then something would strike the water, the splash
+reverberating through the cavern.
+
+"When my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness I could see men
+moving about, dragging ropes, and beyond these a dull light, like that
+from a grimy cellar window. This, the Turk said, was the other exit, the
+one nearest to the Mosque of the Six Minarets; the men, he added, were
+rope-makers; some of them lived here and only left the cisterns at
+night, as the daylight blinded them. So I followed on, the Turk ahead,
+my kit in his hand.
+
+"In the centre of the enormous cavern, half-way between the light of the
+street opening above the steps and the distant cellar-window light, I
+came to a circle of big stone columns standing close together, enclosing
+a space not much bigger than this room of Mac's. They were of marble and
+rather large for their height, although it was so dark that I could not
+see the roof distinctly. At this instant one of those indefinable
+chills, which with me always foretells danger, crept over me. I called
+to the Turk. There was no answer; only the sound of his feet, but
+quicker, as if he were running. Then a feeling took possession of me of
+someone following me--that's another one of my safeguards. I turned my
+head quickly and caught the edge of a man's body as it dodged behind the
+column I had just passed. Then a head was thrust from around the column
+in front, then another on the side--rough looking brutes, bareheaded and
+frowzy. There was no question now--the Turk was their accomplice and had
+led me into this trap. These fellows meant business. Not backsheesh, but
+murder, and your body in the pool!" Here Boggs's manner became more
+serious. The suppressed smile had vanished.
+
+"I was better built in those days than I am now," he continued in a
+graver tone; "not so fat, and could run like a sand-snipe, and it didn't
+take me long to decide what to do. To reach the staircase was my only
+hope.
+
+"I whirled suddenly, struck the brute behind the rear column full in the
+face before he could raise his hands, sprang over his body, and ran with
+all my might toward the light at the foot of the staircase. If you
+thought you were running, Lonnegan, up that long street, you should have
+seen me light out. It was a race for life over an uneven pavement, where
+I might stumble any moment, four men pursuing me, then three, then one.
+I could tell this from their footfalls. The light grew stronger; I
+turned my head for a second to size up my opponent. He was younger than
+the others, was naked to the waist, and wore only a pair of trunks. His
+bare feet made hardly a sound. I was within fifty yards now of the
+lower step, running like a deer, my wind almost gone. If I could reach
+that and bound up into the daylight, he would be afraid to follow. The
+light footfalls came closer; he was within twenty feet of me; I could
+hear his heavy breathing and smothered curses. My foot was now within a
+few feet of the steps; one spring and I would be safe. I put forth all
+my strength, miscalculated the bottom step, and fell headlong on the
+steps! The next instant his body struck mine with the impact of a tiger
+falling upon his prey, flattening me to the steps and grinding my lips
+into the sand covering the stones--I can taste it now. His fingers
+tightened about my throat. In my agony I braced myself and rolled over,
+partly throwing him off. Then my eyes lighted on a long curved knife
+with a turquoise-studded handle. A man notes these things in a moment
+like this. I minded even a spot of rust on the blade.
+
+"Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going. That peculiar
+swelling of the tongue and dryness which sometimes comes with fever
+filled my mouth. The knife was now tightly gripped in his right hand,
+his fingers twisting my shirt collar into a tourniquet. I straightened
+my back, gathered all my strength, and lunged forward. The knife
+flashed, and then a horrible thing happened!"
+
+[Illustration: Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going.]
+
+Boggs stopped and began mopping his face with his handkerchief. The
+memory of the fight for his life seemed to have strangely affected him.
+No one of the coterie had ever seen him so stirred, and no one had ever
+dreamed that he could tell a story with so much real dramatic power. In
+the few moments in which he had been speaking the room was almost
+breathless except for the tones of his voice.
+
+"Go on, Boggs, don't stop!" said Lonnegan.
+
+"In the struggle for mastery the point of the dagger pressed against my
+heart. There came a sudden lunge--Oh, I guess, boys, I won't go any
+further; I never like to think of the affair. I'd no business to tell
+it; always affects me this way."
+
+"Yes, go on; served the brute right," spoke up Mac.
+
+"I tried, of course, to avoid it, but I was powerless. The knife went
+straight through my own heart, and I fell dead at his feet. That
+afternoon they threw my body in the pool. I have lain there ever since."
+
+The listeners, one and all, glared at Boggs. The surprise had been so
+great that for an instant no one found his tongue. Then the fireside
+rang with shouts of laughter.
+
+Lonnegan got his breath first.
+
+"Boggs," he cried, "you are the most picturesque liar I know."
+
+"Yes, Lonny, I guess that's so; but I gave you fellows a _thrill_, and
+that's what none of you gave me!"
+
+
+
+
+PART VI
+
+_Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice," and his Fellow Dogs._
+
+
+The group about the blazing logs was enriched this afternoon by a new
+member. Lonnegan had brought his dog, a big white and yellow St.
+Bernard, fluffy as a girl's muff, a huge, splendid fellow, who answered
+with great dignity and with considerable condescension to the name of
+"Chief," an abbreviation of "His Worship, the Chief Justice."
+
+No other name would have suited him. Grave, dignified, wide-browed, with
+deep, thoughtful eyes; ponderous of form, slow in his movements, keeping
+perfectly still minutes at a time, he needed only a wig and a pair of
+big-bowed spectacles to make him the fitting occupant of any bench.
+
+Mac put his arm around Chief's neck before His Worship had fully made up
+his mind as to where on the Daghestan rug he would place his august
+person.
+
+The salutation over, and the dog's soft, fur-tippet ears having been
+duly rubbed, and his finely modelled cheeks pressed close between Mac's
+two warm hands--their two noses were but an inch apart--His Worship
+stretched himself out at full length before the fire, his nose resting
+on his extended paws, his kindly, human eyes fixed on the crackling
+logs.
+
+"Lonnegan," said Mac in a thoughtful tone, "do you know I think a good
+deal more of you since you got this dog? I didn't know you were that
+human," and Mac changed his seat so that he could rest his hand on
+Chief's head.
+
+"Lonnegan hasn't anything human about him," broke in Boggs, tugging at
+his collar to give his fat throat the more room; "not in your sense,
+Mac. If you will study the Great Architect as closely as I have done,
+you will see that his humanity is to always keep one point ahead of the
+social game." Here Boggs got up and moved his chair to the other side of
+the fireplace, so as to be out of reach of Lonnegan's long arms.
+
+"Let me explain, gentlemen, for I don't want to do this distinguished
+man any injustice. You and I, Mac, being common-sense people, without
+any frills about us, wear just an ordinary plain scarf-pin--a horseshoe
+or a gold ball, or some such trifle. Lonnegan must have a scarab, or a
+coin two thousand years old; same thing in his dress, if you study him.
+You will note that his collars are an inch higher than ours, his scarfs
+twice as puffy, his coat-tails longer, his trouserloons more baggy--not
+offensively baggy, gentlemen," and he waved his hand to the coterie;
+"perhaps more unique in cut, so to put it. So it is with his dogs. This
+big St. Bernard, hulking along after the Great Architect when he takes
+his afternoon walks up and down the Avenue, is quite on a par with all
+Lonnegan's other frills. You and I would affect an inconspicuous
+canine--a poodle, a terrier, or a bull pup. Not so Lonnegan. He wants a
+dog as big as a mule. It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper. 'My dear,' says a stout lady, built in two movements, to
+her husband at a theatre" (Boggs's imitation of a society woman's drawl
+was now inimitable), "'I saw such a magnificent St. Bernard coming up
+the Avenue. Belongs to Mr. Lonnegan, the architect. He certainly is a
+man of very exquisite taste. I think it would be a good idea for you to
+consult him about the plans for our----'"
+
+[Illustration: "It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper."]
+
+Lonnegan sprang from his seat and made a lunge at his tormentor with a
+look in his eyes as if he intended to throttle Boggs on the spot. At the
+same instant the great dog drew in his paws and rose to his feet, his
+eyes fixed on his master's movements--rose as an athlete rises, using
+the muscles of his knees and ankles to pull his body erect. If his
+master was in danger he was ready. Only smothered laughter, however,
+came from both Boggs and Lonnegan.
+
+"I take it all back, Lonny," sputtered Boggs, trying to release himself
+from Lonnegan's grip. "The woman's husband wanted two country houses,
+not one. Call off your dog, I can't fight two brutes at once."
+
+Pitkin sprang to his feet, his partly bald head and forehead rose-pink
+in the excitement of the moment.
+
+"Don't call your dog off, Lonny! Don't move. Keep on choking Boggs. Just
+look at the pose of that dog. Isn't that stunning. By Jove, fellows!
+wouldn't he be a corker in bronze, life size. Just see the line of the
+back and lift of the head!" And the sculptor, after the manner of his
+guild, held the edge of his hand against his eye as a guide by which to
+measure the proportions of the noble beast.
+
+Lonnegan loosened his hold, and Boggs, now purple in the face from loss
+of breath and laughter, shook himself free and rearranged his collar
+with his fat fingers. The attention of the whole fireside was now
+centred on the dog. His pose was now less tense and his legs less rigid,
+but his paws had kept their original position on the rug. As he stood,
+trying to comprehend the situation, he had the bearing of a charger
+overlooking a battle-field.
+
+"No, you're wrong, Pitkin," cried Marny; "Chief would be lumpy and
+inexpressive in bronze. He's too woolly. You want clear-cut anatomy when
+you're going to put a dog or any other animal in bronze. Color is better
+for Chief. I'd use him as a foil to a half-nude, life-size scheme of
+brown, yellow, and white; old Chinese jar on her left, filled with
+chrysanthemums, some stuffs in the background--this kind of thing. I can
+see it now," and Marny picked up a bit of charcoal and blocked in on a
+fresh canvas resting on Mac's easel the position of the figure, the men
+crowding about him to watch the result.
+
+"Won't do, old man," cried Woods, as soon as Marny's rapid outline
+became clear. "Out of scale; all dog and no girl. I'd have him stretched
+out as he is now" (Chief had regained his position), "with a fellow in a
+chair reading--lamplight on book for high light, dog in half shadow."
+
+"You're quite right, Woods," said Mac, who was still caressing Chiefs
+silky ears. "Marny's missed it this time; girl scheme won't do. This is
+a gentleman's dog, and he has always moved among his kind."
+
+"Careful, Mac; careful," remarked Boggs in a reproving tone. "You said
+'_has_ moved.' You don't mean to reflect on his present owner, do you?"
+
+Mac waved Boggs away with the same gesture with which he would have
+brushed off a fly, and continued:
+
+"When I say that he has always lived among _gentlemen_, I state the
+exact fact. You can see that in his manners and in the way in which he
+retains not only his self-respect, but his courage and loyalty. You
+noticed, did you not, that it took him but an instant to get on his feet
+when Lonnegan seized Boggs? You will also agree with me that no one has
+entered this room this winter more gracefully, or with more ease and
+composure, nor one who has known better what to do with his arms and
+legs. And as for his well-bred reticence, he has yet to open his
+mouth--certainly a great rebuke to Boggs, if he did but know it," and he
+nodded in the direction of the Chronic Interrupter. "Great study, these
+dogs. Chief has had a gentleman for a master, I tell you, and has lived
+in a gentleman's house, accustomed all his life to oriental rugs, wood
+fires, four-in-hands, two-wheeled carts, golden-haired children in black
+velvet suits, servants in livery--regular thoroughbred. That is, _bred
+thorough_, by somebody who never insulted him, who never misunderstood
+him, and who never mortified him. Offending a dog is as bad as offending
+a child, and ten times worse than offending a woman. A dozen men would
+spring to a woman's assistance; no one ever interferes in a quarrel
+between a dog and his master. When they do they generally take the
+master's side."
+
+Mac reached over, tapped the bowl of his pipe against the brick of the
+fireplace, emptied it of its ashes, and laying it on the mantel resumed
+his seat.
+
+"It's pathetic to me," he continued, "to see how hard some dogs try to
+understand their masters. All they can do is to take their cue from the
+men who own them. It isn't astonishing, really, that they should
+sometimes copy them. It only takes a few months for a butcher to make
+his dog as bloody and as brutal as the toughest hand in his shop."
+
+"What a responsibility," sighed Boggs, turning toward Lonnegan. "You
+won't corrupt His Worship with any of your Murray Hill swaggerdoms, will
+you, Lonny?"
+
+Lonnegan closed one eye at Boggs and wagged his chin in denial. Mac went
+on:
+
+"Dogs can just as well be educated up as educated down. There is no
+question of their ability to learn--not the slightest. I am not speaking
+of the things they are expected to know--hunting, rat catching, and so
+on; I mean the things they are _not_ expected to know. If you'd like to
+hear how they can understand each other, get the Colonel to tell you
+about those two dogs he saw in Constantinople some two years ago," and
+he turned to me.
+
+"It wasn't in Constantinople, Mac," I answered, "it was in Stamboul, on
+the Plaza of the Hippodrome."
+
+"Near where I was murdered, and where I still lie buried?" Boggs asked
+gravely, with a sly wink at Marny.
+
+"Yes, within a stone's throw of your present tomb, old man, up near the
+Obelisk. That plaza is the home of four or five packs of street curs,
+who divide up the territory among themselves, and no dog dares cross the
+imaginary line without getting into trouble. Every day or so there is a
+pitched battle directed by their leaders--always the biggest dogs in the
+pack. What Mac refers to occurred some years ago, when, looking over my
+easel one morning, I saw a lame dog skulking along by the side of a low
+wall that forms the boundary of one side of the plaza. He was on three
+legs, the other held up in the air. A big shaggy brute, the leader of
+another pack, made straight for him, followed by three others. The
+cripple saw them coming, and at once lay down on his back, his injured
+paw thrust up. The big dog stood over him and heard what he had to say.
+I was not ten feet from them, and I understood every word.
+
+"'I am lame, gentlemen, as you see,' he pleaded, 'and I am on my way
+home. I am in too much pain to walk around the side of the plaza where I
+belong, and I therefore humbly beg your permission to cross this small
+part of your territory.'
+
+"The big leader listened, snarled at his companions who were standing by
+ready to help tear the intruder to pieces, sent them back to their
+quarters with a commanding toss of his head, and walked by the side of
+the cripple until he had cleared the corner; then he slowly returned to
+his pack. There was no question about it; if the cripple had spoken
+English I could not have understood him better."
+
+"I can beat that yarn," chimed in Woods, "so far as sympathy is
+concerned. I was in an omnibus once going up the Boulevard des
+Italiennes when a man on the seat opposite me whistled out of the end
+window--his two dogs were following behind the 'bus. One was a white
+bull terrier, the other a French poodle, black as tar. Whenever anything
+got in the way--and it was pretty crowded along there--the dogs fell
+behind. When they appeared again the owner would whistle to let them
+know where he was. All of a sudden I heard a yell. The poodle had been
+run over. I could see him lying flat on the asphalt, kicking. The man
+stopped the omnibus and sprang out, and a crowd gathered. In that short
+space of time the terrier had fastened his teeth in the poodle's collar,
+had dragged him clear of the traffic to the sidewalk, and was bending
+over him licking the hurt. Four or five people got out of the stage, I
+among them, and a cheer went up for the owner when he picked up the
+injured dog in his arms and took him clear of the crowd, the terrier
+following behind, as anxious as a mother over her child. I have believed
+in the sympathy of dogs for each other ever since."
+
+"My turn now," said Boggs. "My uncle's got a poodle, answers to the name
+of Mirza. Got more common sense than anything that walks on four legs.
+They keep a bowl in one corner of the dining-room, which is always
+filled with water so the dog can get a drink when she wants it. My uncle
+says that's one thing half the people who own dogs never think of--dogs
+not being able to turn faucets. Well, they shifted servants one day and
+forgot to tell the new one about the bowl. Mirza did her best to make
+her understand--pulled her dress, got up on her hind legs and sniffed
+around the empty tea-cups. No use. Then an idea struck the dog. She made
+a spring for the empty bowl and rolled it over with her four paws from
+the dining-room into the butler's pantry. By that time the wooden-headed
+idiot understood, and Mirza got her drink."
+
+During the discussion Mac had sat with the great head of the St. Bernard
+resting on his knee. It was evident that His Worship had found an
+acquaintance whom he could trust, one whom he considered his equal. For
+some minutes the painter looked into the dog's face, his hands smoothing
+the dog's ears, the St. Bernard's eyes growing sleepy under the caress.
+Then Mac said in a half-audible tone, speaking to the dog, not to us:
+
+"You've got a great head, old fellow--full of sense. All your bumps are
+in the right place. You know a lot of things that are too much for us
+humans. I wish you'd tell me one thing. You know what we all think of
+you, but what do you think of us--of your master Lonnegan, of this
+crowd, this fireplace? Speak out, old man; I'd like to know."
+
+Boggs shifted his fat body in his chair, jerked his head over his
+shoulder, and winking meaningly at Lonnegan, said in a low voice:
+
+"Mac is going to give us one of his reminuisances; I know the sign."
+
+"Make the dog begin on Boggs, Mac," cried Woods.
+
+"No, Chief's too much of a gentleman. He knows all about Boggs, but he's
+too polite to tell," replied Mac.
+
+"Get him to whisper it then in your off ear," suggested Boggs. "He'll
+surprise you with his estimate of one of nature's noblemen," and he
+thrust his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
+
+"No, keep it to yourself, Chief," remarked Mac. "But I'm not joking, I'm
+in dead earnest. Anybody can find out what a man thinks of a dog; but
+what does a dog think of a man, especially some of those two-legged
+brutes who by right of dollars claim to own them? I took the measure of
+a man once who----"
+
+Boggs sprang from his seat and struck one of his ring-master attitudes.
+
+"What did I tell you, gentlemen? Just as I expected, the semi-nuisance
+has arrived. Give him room! The great landscape painter is about to
+explode with another tale of his youth. You took the measure of a man
+once, I think you said, Mac; was it for a suit of clothes or a coffin?
+No, don't answer; keep right on."
+
+"Yes, I did take his measure," said Mac, in a low, earnest tone,
+ignoring Boggs's aside; "and I've never taken any stock in him since. I
+don't think any of you know him, and it's just as well that you don't. I
+may be a little Quixotic about these things--guess I am--but I'm going
+to stay so. I met this Quarterman--that's more than he deserves; he's
+nearer one-eighth of a man than a quarter--up at the club-house on Salt
+Beach. I was a guest; he was a member. Big, heavily built young fellow;
+weighed about two hundred pounds; rather good-looking; wore the best of
+English shooting togs; carried an English gun and carted around a lot of
+English leather cases, bound in brass, with his name plate on them. A
+regular out-and-out sport of the better type, I thought, when I first
+saw him. He had with him one of the most beautiful reddish-brown setters
+I ever laid my eyes on--what you'd get with burnt sienna and
+madder--with a coat as fine and silky as a camel's hair brush. One of
+those clean-mouthed, clean-toothed, agate-eyed, sweet-breathed dogs that
+every girl loves at first sight, and can no more help putting her hands
+on than she can help coddling a roly-poly kitten just out of a basket.
+He had the same well-bred manners that Chief has, the same grace of
+movement, same repose, only more gentle and more confiding. The only
+thing that struck me as peculiar about him was the way he watched his
+master; he seemed to love him and yet to be afraid of him; always ready
+to bound out of his way and yet equally ready to come when he was
+called--a manner which he never showed to anyone who tried to make
+friends with him.
+
+"I saw Quarterman that morning when he started out alone quail
+shooting, the setter bounding before him, running up and springing at
+him, and off again--doing all the things a human dog does to tell a man
+how happy he is to go along, and what a lot of fun the two are going to
+have together. I watched them until they got clear of the marshes and
+disappeared in the woods on the way to the open country beyond. All that
+day the picture of the well-equipped, alert young fellow and the spring
+of the joyous setter kept coming to my mind. I don't believe in killing
+things, as you know (so I don't shoot), but I thought if I did I'd just
+like to have a dog like that one to show me how.
+
+"About six o'clock that night the two returned. I was sitting by the
+wood fire--a good deal bigger than this one, the logs nearly six feet
+long--when the outer door was swung back and Quarterman came in, his
+boots covered with mud, his bird-bag over his shoulder. The setter
+followed close at his heels, his beautiful brown coat covered with
+burrs and dirt. Both man and dog had had a hard day's work and a poor
+one, judging from the bird-bag which hung almost flat against
+Quarterman's shoulder.
+
+"Everybody pushed back his chair to make room for the tired-out
+sportsman.
+
+"'What luck?' cried out half-a-dozen men at once.
+
+"Quarterman, without answering, stopped in the middle of the room some
+distance from the fire, laid his gun on the table, reached around for
+his bird-bag, thrust in his hand, drew out a small quail--all he had
+shot--and threw it with all his might against the wall of the fireplace,
+where it dropped into the ashes--threw it as a boy would throw a brick
+against a fence. Then with a vicious hind thrust of his boot he kicked
+the setter in the face. The dog gave a cry of pain and crawled under the
+table and out of the room.
+
+"'What luck!' growled Quarterman. 'Footed it fifteen miles clear to
+Pottsburg, and that damned dog scared up every bird before I could get a
+shot at it!' and without another word he mounted the stairs to his room.
+
+"His opinion of the dog was now common property. If any man who had
+heard it disagreed with him, he kept his opinion to himself. But what I
+wanted to know was what the setter thought of Quarterman? He had
+followed him all day through swamps and briars; had run, jumped, crept
+on his belly, sniffed, scented, and nosed into every tuft of grass and
+brush-heap where a quail could hide itself; had walked miles to the
+man's one, leaped fences, scoured hills, raced down country roads and
+over ditches, had pointed and flushed a dozen birds the brute couldn't
+hit, and after doing his level best had come back to the club-house
+expecting to get a warm corner and a hot supper--his right as well as
+Quarterman's--and instead got a kick in the face.
+
+"I ask you now, what did the dog think of him? I was so mad I had to go
+outside and let off steam myself. I was half Quarterman's weight and ten
+years his senior, but if he had stayed five minutes longer by that fire
+I am quite sure I should have told him what I thought of him."
+
+"I bet you told the dog, didn't you, Mac?" remarked Lonnegan.
+
+"Yes, I did. Gave him a hug, and hunted up the cook and saw he was fed.
+He tried to tell me all about it, putting out his paw and drawing it in
+again, looking up into my face with his big eyes--tears in 'em, I tell
+you--real tears! Not so much from the hurt as from the mortification. I
+understood then his shrinking away from his master. It hadn't been the
+first time he had been humiliated and hurt. Dirty brute! If I knew where
+he was I think I'd go and thrash him now."
+
+The coterie broke out into a laugh over Mac's indignation, but a laugh
+in which there was more love than ridicule.
+
+"Yes, I would; I feel like it this minute. But I tell you the setter got
+his revenge; a revenge that showed his blood and breeding; the revenge
+of a gentleman.
+
+"Back of the club-house was a swampy place where some cranberry raisers
+had dug holes and squares trying to get something to grow, and back of
+this was another swamp perhaps a mile or two wide. Ugly place--full of
+suck-holes, twisted briars, and vines--where they told Quarterman he
+could get some woodcock or snipe or whatever you do get in a marsh. The
+setter rose to his feet to accompany him (this was two days later) but
+was met with, 'Go back, damn you!' Followed by an aside, 'What that fool
+dog wants is a dose of buckshot, and he'll get it if he ain't careful.'
+
+"That day I had been off sketching and did not get back until nearly
+dark. There were only two other men left besides myself and Quarterman,
+most of the others having gone to town. When dinner was served the
+steward went upstairs expecting to find Quarterman asleep on his bed. No
+Quarterman! Then he began to inquire around. He had not been back to
+luncheon, and no one had seen him since he went off in the morning
+heading for the cranberry swamp. The setter was still outside on the
+porch, where he had lain all day, foot-sore and worn out, the men said,
+with his hunt the day before. I made no reply to this, but I thought
+differently. Eight o'clock came, then nine, and still no sign of
+Quarterman. One of the club servants suggested that something must have
+happened to him. 'Never Mr. Quarterman's way,' he added, 'to be out
+after sundown, in all the five years he had been a member of the club.
+He certainly would not go to the city in his shooting clothes, and he
+hadn't changed them, for the suit he had worn down from town still hung
+in his closet.' At ten o'clock we got uneasy and started out to look for
+him, a party of three, the two servants carrying stable lanterns. The
+setter again rose to his feet, wondering what was up, and was again
+rebuffed, this time by the steward.
+
+"We soon found that fooling around a swamp of a dark night, with your
+eyes blinded by a lantern, was no joke. Every other step we took we fell
+into holes or got tripped up by briars. We stumbled on, skirting by the
+edge of the cranberry patch, hollering as loud as we could; stopping to
+listen; then going on again. We tried the other big swamp, but that was
+impossible in the dark. Then an idea popped into my head. I gave the
+lantern I was carrying to one of the men, hollered to the others to stay
+where they were till I got back, cleared the cranberry patch, struck out
+for the club-house on a run, sprang upstairs, grabbed Quarterman's coat
+hanging in the closet, ran downstairs again, and shoved it under the
+nose of the setter. Then I told him all about it, just as I'd tell you.
+Quarterman was lost--he was in the swamp, perhaps; where, we didn't
+know--and he was the only one who could find him. Would he go? _Go!_ You
+just ought to have seen him! He threw his nose up in the air, sniffed
+around as though he were looking for gnats to bite; made a spring from
+the porch and began circling the lawn, his nose to the ground and sand;
+then he made a bound over the fence and disappeared in the night.
+
+"I hollered for the others and we kept after the setter as best we
+could. Every now and then he would give a short bark--sometimes far
+away, sometimes nearer. All we could do was to skirt along the edge of
+the cranberry patch swinging the lanterns and hollering, 'Quarterman!
+Quarterman!' until our throats gave out.
+
+"Then I heard a quick, sharp bark, followed by a series of short yelps,
+not fifty yards away. Next there came a faint halloo, a man's voice. We
+pushed on, and there, about ten yards from hard ground, we found
+Quarterman stretched out, the setter squatting beside him. He had
+slipped into a hole some hours before, had broken his ankle, and had
+made up his mind to wait until daylight, the pain, every time he moved,
+almost making him faint. He was soaked to the skin and shivering with
+cold. We helped him up on one foot, carried him to dry land, and finally
+got him home; the dog following at a respectful distance.
+
+"After we had put Quarterman to bed and had sent a man off on horseback
+to Pottsburg for a doctor, I looked up the setter. He was in his old
+place on the porch, stretched out under one of the wooden benches, his
+nose resting on his paws--just as Chief lies here now--thinking the
+whole situation over. He raised his head for an instant, licked my hand
+and looked up inquiringly into my face as if expecting some further
+service might be required of him; then he dropped his head again and
+kept on thinking. Nobody had bothered himself about him; they hadn't
+even thanked him in their hearts. Nothing to thank him for. Childish to
+think of it! All the setter had done was just being plain dog. Hunting
+up things was what he was born for.
+
+"Next morning the dog turned up missing.
+
+"Quarterman raised himself up on his elbow when he heard the news and
+said he must be found at any cost; he was worth five hundred dollars.
+The men started out, of course; searched the stables, boat-houses,
+swamp, and fields clear down to the water's edge; whistled and called;
+did all the things you do when a dog is lost--but no setter. Everybody
+wondered why he ran away. Some said one thing, some another. I knew why.
+_He had gone off in search of a gentleman._"
+
+"Did Quarterman get well?" ventured Lonnegan.
+
+"I don't know and I don't care. I left the next morning."
+
+"Did Quarterman get his dog back?" asked Boggs.
+
+"Not while I was there. I could have told him where to look for him, but
+I didn't. I saw him on a porch with some children about a week after
+that, when I was driving through a neighboring village--but I didn't
+send word to Quarterman. I had too much respect for the dog.
+
+"Come here, old fellow," and Mac took the great head of the St. Bernard
+between his warm hands and the two snuggled their cheeks together.
+
+
+
+
+PART VII
+
+_Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind._
+
+
+When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright
+piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of
+the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the
+screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by
+Mac's easel.
+
+This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment.
+The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with
+a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was
+stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous
+collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color,
+half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the
+table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the
+divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed
+up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in
+later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs--those of the regular
+members, and brand new ones for the invited guests--lined up on the
+cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being
+especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare
+nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle
+that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.
+
+These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the
+stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have
+logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter
+how late they stayed; the hearth swept--all its "dear gray hair combed
+back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the
+Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts;
+candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy
+Dutch lanterns; and last--and this he attended to himself--every vestige
+of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs
+could find one. There were strangers coming to-night--one a partner in
+a big banking house and a suspected buyer--and no canvas of his must be
+visible.
+
+With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders
+of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause,
+where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of
+kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its
+sill a paper box filled with smilax--his own touch in remembrance of his
+Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the
+enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a
+sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.
+
+Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from
+whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of
+the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted
+into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest.
+Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be
+debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The
+habitués of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac)
+the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.
+
+Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a
+stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods,
+who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from
+the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.
+
+Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented
+to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded
+according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's
+grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any
+financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a
+description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the
+proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a
+mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the
+etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass--dropping finally into
+one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which
+he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny,
+Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each
+guest feel at home--guests and hosts conducting themselves after the
+manner of humans.
+
+Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He
+walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an
+instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he
+returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his
+knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in
+turn--those he knew--waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and
+then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire,
+where he lay without moving during the entire evening.
+
+"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac--he had followed Chief's every
+movement since the dog entered the room--"see the way he lies down. Got
+royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his
+ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were
+entertaining a Prime Minister."
+
+The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker
+found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host
+increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing,
+hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings,
+and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might
+be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship,
+was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession
+of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward
+discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.
+
+Murphy, the journalist, being poor himself, had other views of life. To
+him MacWhirter and his intimates were men after his own heart. He and
+they had followed the same road, although with different aims. They
+understood each other. As to the rich banker, if the journalist
+considered him at all it was purely in the line of his own calling--just
+so much material for future columns of type, whenever he could utilize
+either his personality or his views.
+
+"No, I don't think American Bohemian life--which is a misnomer," said
+Murphy in answer to one of the banker's inquiries, "because no such
+thing exists--is any different from any other such life the world over.
+We are a class to ourselves, but we in no way differ from our brothers
+of the brush and quill abroad. I, of course, am only allowed to creep
+around the outside edges, but even that small privilege affords me more
+pleasure than any other I possess. Murray Hill and Belgravia may be
+necessary to our civilization, but neither one nor the other interests
+the man who has any purpose in life. Take, for instance, these men
+here," and he pointed to Mac, who was for the moment driving a wooden
+spigot into the keg of beer. "Look at MacWhirter. He doesn't want any
+liveried servant to wait on him; he would serve that beer himself if
+there was a line of flunkies extending from the door to the sidewalk."
+
+"That's what I like him for," cried the banker, jumping up, "and I'm
+going to help him," and he carried some of the mugs over to Mac's side.
+"Here, fill these, Mr. MacWhirter."
+
+"Bully for him!" muttered Pitkin, turning to me as if for confirmation.
+"Didn't know it was in him."
+
+"This mug's for you, Mr. MacWhirter," cried out the banker, with an
+enthusiasm he had not shown since his college days, as he handed the mug
+to Mac, who drank its contents, his merry eyes fixed on the banker.
+
+"See the monarch picking up the painter's brushes," whispered Boggs to
+Marny from behind his hand.
+
+And so the evening went on, the mugs being filled and emptied, the piano
+opened, Woods playing the accompaniment to all the songs the Irishman
+sang--and he had a dozen of them that no one had ever heard before--the
+banker and club man joining in the chorus. Then with pipes and mugs in
+hand the circle about the crackling logs was formed anew--this time
+twice its regular size to give Chief plenty of room--and the
+story-telling part of the evening began.
+
+The club man told of a supper he had been to after the theatre in an
+uptown back room, in which a mysterious man and a veiled lady figured.
+Woods supplemented it by an experience of his own, having special
+reference to a lost lace handkerchief which had been discovered in the
+outside pocket of one of the male guests, producing uncomfortable
+consequences. I gave the details of a dinner where I had met a titled
+individual who claimed to be a mighty hunter of big game, and about whom
+the prettiest woman in the room had gone wild, and who turned out later
+to be somebody's footman.
+
+Murphy, not to be outdone, and recognizing that his turn had come,
+remarked in a low voice that my story of big game reminded him "of
+something in his own experience," at which Boggs twisted his head to
+listen. It was evident to Boggs, and to the other habitués, that if the
+Irishman talked as well as he sang he would not only be a welcome guest
+at these "nights" but he might also attain to full membership in the
+charmed circle. Of one thing everybody was assured--there was no "water
+in his oil."
+
+"It's about a fellow countryman of Mr. MacWhirter's, a Scotchman by the
+name of MacDuff," the Irishman began.
+
+"Me a Scotchman!" cried Mac; "I'm only half Scotch--wish I was a whole
+one."
+
+"That's because you took to beer and left off drinking whiskey," laughed
+Murphy. "MacDuff stuck to his national beverage. That's what helped him
+to keep his end up. All this happened at an English country house."
+
+Here Boggs hitched his chair closer so that he might lead the applause
+if this new departure of his friend as a story-teller failed at first to
+make the expected hit, and thus needed his encouragement.
+
+"Up in Devonshire," continued Murphy, "a very noble lord (his ancestors
+were something in beer, I think) was giving a dinner to Lord Ponsonby,
+K.C.B., Y.Z., and maybe P.D.Q., for all I know. Ponsonby had just
+returned from India, where he had distinguished himself in Her Majesty's
+service; stamped out a mutiny, perhaps, by hanging the natives, or
+otherwise disporting himself after the manner of his kind.
+
+"Imagine the interior of the dining-room, if you please, gentlemen--the
+walls panelled in black oak; sideboards to match, covered with George
+the Third silver and bearing the new coat-of-arms; noiseless servants in
+knee breeches, except the head butler in funereal black--black as a
+raven and as awkward; old family portraits on the walls; big windows
+overlooking the lawn sweeping to the river, with rabbits and pheasants
+making free until the shooting season opened. At the head of the table
+sat the noble lord, presiding with a smile that was an inch deep on his
+face. On his right sat the distinguished diplomat with a bay window in
+front of him, resting on the edge of the table, and kept snugly in place
+by a white waistcoat; red face, burgundy red, with daily washings of
+champagne to lend some tone to the color; gray side-whiskers with gray
+standing hair, straight up like a shoe brush; big jowls of cheeks;
+flabby mouth; two little restless eyes like a terrier's, and a voice
+like a fog-horn with an attack of croup. When he glanced down the table
+everybody expected fifty lashes; he had learned that look in India and
+carried it with him; it was part of his stock in trade.
+
+"Next to Ponsonby sat two dudes from London, high-collared chaps, all
+shirt front and white tie, hair parted in the middle and slicked down on
+the sides like a lady's lap-dog. One had six hairs on each side of his
+upper lip and the other was smooth shaven. Then came a country parson,
+a fellow in a long-tailed coat, buttoned up to his chin, with an inch of
+collar showing above; a mild-mannered, girl-voiced, timid brother, with
+a face as round as a custard pie and about as expressive. When he was
+spoken to he rubbed his bleached, bony hands together, bent his
+shoulders, and answered with a humility that would have done credit to a
+Franciscan monk begging alms for a convent. He had eaten nothing for two
+days before the dinner--so nervous had he become over the great honor
+conferred upon him in being invited--and was so humble when he arrived,
+and so pale and washed-out looking, that after being presented to the
+great man his host inquired if he were not ill. Opposite these sat two
+or three country gentlemen, simple, straightforward men who make up the
+best of English life. Men of no pretence and men of great simplicity.
+These two, of course, were also in evening dress.
+
+"At the end of the table sat MacDuff, a little, red-headed, sawed-off
+Scotchman, about as high as Mr. Boggs's shoulder, chunkily built,
+square-chested; clean-shaven face, with bristling eyebrows, searching
+brown eyes that never winked, a determined jaw, and a mouth that came
+together like a trunk lid--even all along the lips. He was dressed in a
+suit of gray cloth, sack coat and all. His ancestors antedated all those
+on the wall by about two hundred years, and as a modern dress-suit was
+unknown in their day he selected one of his own. This was a fad of his
+and one everybody recognized. No dinner was complete without MacDuff.
+Very often he never spoke half a dozen words during the entire repast.
+He had friends, however, up at the castle, and that made up for all his
+other shortcomings. A nod of MacDuff's head got many a man his
+appointment.
+
+"When the port was served, the noble lord turned to his distinguished
+guest and said, with a glow on his face that made the candles pale with
+envy:
+
+"'Gentlemen, I am about to arsk Lord Ponsonby a great favor, and I know
+that you will add your voice to mine in urging him to comply. Only larst
+night he delighted a number of us at the club by giving us an account of
+a most ex_trawd_'nary adventure that befell him in the wilds of India--a
+most ex_trawd_'nary adventure. I have rarely seen, in all me
+expa-rience, so profound an impression made upon a group of men. I am
+now going to arsk our distinguished guest to repeat it.'
+
+"At this Ponsonby waved his hand in a deprecating way, just as he would
+have done had his retainers offered him the crown--such trifles being
+beneath his notice. Our host went on:
+
+"'Despite his reluctance, I feel sure that he will yield. May I arsk
+your Lordship to repeat it to me guests?'
+
+"Ponsonby bowed; settled himself slightly in his chair so that the curve
+in his waistcoat could have full play, toyed with his knife a moment,
+looked up at the ceiling as if to remember some of the most important
+details, cleared his throat, and shot a glance down the table to command
+attention. Everybody felt that the slightest sound from any lips but his
+own would be punished with instant death.
+
+"'Well, I don't care if I do. About four years ago His Royal Highness,
+as you know, came out to India, and it became part of me duty to attend
+upon his purson. He was good enough to remember that service in a way
+with which, of course, you are all familiar. One morning at daylight his
+equerry came to me quarters, routed me out of bed, and informed me that
+His Royal Highness desired me to join him in a tiger hunt, which had
+been arranged for the night before, and which, owing to me purfect
+knowledge of the country--I knowing every inch of the ground--His Royal
+Highness desired to have conducted under me supervision.'
+
+"The two dudes were now listening so intently that one of them came near
+sliding off the chair. The Curate sat with eyes and mouth open, his hand
+cupping his ear, drinking in each word with the same attention that he
+would have shown the Bishop of his diocese. The two country gentlemen
+leaned forward to hear the better. MacDuff kept perfectly still, his
+eyes on his plate, his finger around his glass of Scotch and soda.
+
+"'When we reached the jungle--I was mounted on an elephant with two of
+me retainers; His Royal Highness ahead on another elephant, an
+_enor_-mous beast accustomed to hunts of this ke-ind--I heard a plunge
+in the thicket to me left, the spring of a man-eater! There is no sound
+like it, gentlemen. The next instant he came head on, bounding like a
+great cat. When he reached the elephant of His Royal Highness he
+gathered his forepaws under him, hunched his hind legs, and made ready
+for the fatal spring. I knew what would happen. I realized in an instant
+the danger. There was one chawnce in a thousand, but that chawnce I must
+take. I caught up me forty-four! The beast was now in the air. The next
+instant his claws would be in the flank of the elephant, and the next
+His Royal Highness would be chewed to mince-meat. At that instant I
+fired; there came a yell; the brute fell back lifeless, and the Prince
+was saved! The ball had taken him over the left eye! I dismounted and
+hurried to his side. He was the largest beast of his ke-ind I had ever
+seen in all me expa'rience of twenty years. When we got him out upon the
+sward he measured twenty-nine feet from the end of his nose to the tip
+of his tail. If His Royal Highness, gentlemen, is with us to-day, it is
+due to that shot.'
+
+"A dead silence followed. Saving a future king's life was too grave a
+matter for applause. The silence was broken by one of the dudes cackling
+in a low whisper to his mate:
+
+"'Gus, old chap, you know that Ponsonby when he was in the
+Gyards--aw--was an awful man with a gun. He used to hit--aw--a
+bull's-eye every time, you know--aw--aw--aw----'
+
+"The country gentlemen held their peace. The Curate now piped up. This
+was his opportunity.
+
+"'Me Lawd,' he cooed--a dove could not have been more dulcet in its
+tones--'what I like in a sto-ory of that ke-ind is not so much the
+wonderful skill of the sportsman as the marvellous inflooence of the
+British character over the brute beasts of the field.'
+
+"Ponsonby nodded pompously in acknowledgment, and continued to play with
+his knife. The host beamed down the table; comments were still in
+order--that's what the story was told for. The country gentlemen
+passed, and MacDuff, reaching over, drew his glass of Scotch closer,
+leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, lowered his head, and fixed
+his gimlet eyes on Ponsonby's face.
+
+"'Well, I have listened with gr'at pl'asure to the story of Lord
+Ponsonby. It is veery interestin', and it was veery patriootic of him. I
+am not much of a hunter mesel', and I do not shoot tagers, but I am a
+wee bit of a fasherman, and last soommer up in the County of Dee I
+'ooked a veery pecooliar fash called a skat'--here MacDuff raised his
+glass to his lips, his eyes still glued to Ponsonby's face--'and when we
+got him oout upon th' bank he covered four acres.'
+
+"Ponsonby rose to his feet red as a lobster; swore that he had never
+been so insulted in his life, the host trying to pacify him. The dudes
+were stunned, while the country gentlemen and the Curate stood aghast.
+MacDuff never moved an inch from his seat. Ponsonby, purple with rage,
+stalked out of the room, flung himself into the library, followed by the
+host and all the guests except MacDuff. The dudes were so overcome that
+they were mopping their faces with their napkins, believing them to be
+their handkerchiefs. While Ponsonby was roaring for his carriage the
+host rushed back to MacDuff's side.
+
+"'You must apologize, sir, and at once,' he screamed; 'at once, Mr.
+MacDuff. How is it possible, sir, for a man raised as a gentleman to
+come into an Englishman's house and insult one of Her Majesty's most
+distinguished sarvants; a man who for fifty years has----'
+
+"MacDuff clapped one hand to his ear as if to protect it from rupture.
+
+"'Don't br'ak the drum of me ear,' he said in a low, deprecating tone.
+'I didn't mean to insoolt Lord Ponsonby. I can't apologize, for the
+story of the skat's true. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If Lord
+Ponsonby will tak' aboout eighteen feet off the length of that tager,
+I'll see what can be doon aboout the skat.' And he emptied the contents
+of his glass into his person."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The laughter that followed the conclusion of Murphy's story was so loud
+and continuous that the big St. Bernard dog rose to his feet and
+fastened his eyes on his master, only resuming his position on the rug
+when Lonnegan laid his hand reassuringly on his head.
+
+Boggs was so pleased at his friend's success that he could hardly keep
+from hugging him. All doubts as to Murphy's being asked to become a
+permanent member of the Select Circle were dissipated. What delighted
+Boggs most was the combination of English, Irish, and Scotch dialects
+twisted about the same tongue. He thought he knew something about
+dialects, but Murphy had beaten him at his own game.
+
+Every man present had some opinion to offer regarding Ponsonby's
+adventure, and they all differed. Marny thought the Scot served the old
+bag of wind right, even if he did have a numismatic collection
+decorating his chest. The banker was interested in the social side and
+what it expressed, and said so, winding up with the remark that the
+"Englishmen knew how to live." Mac, to the surprise of everybody, had no
+opinion to offer. Woods was more philosophical.
+
+"To me the story is much more than funny," said Woods, "it's
+instructive. Shows the whole national spirit of the English. They
+believe in rank and they love to kowtow. I say this in no offensive
+spirit; and being an Irishman, you, of course, know what I mean; and to
+tell you the truth I am English in that sense myself. I believe in an
+aristocracy and in class distinction. Here everybody is free and equal;
+free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon
+as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."
+
+"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you
+and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr.
+Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country.
+You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one
+hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings
+bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats.
+The son of the man who waits behind Lonnegan's chair at one of the swell
+affairs uptown, if he has his way, will be Minister to England, and wear
+knee-breeches at the Queen's receptions. Even the negroes are climbing;
+some of them even now are putting on more airs than a Harlem goat with a
+hoopskirt. When they get on top there won't be anything left of the
+white man. They are beginning in that way now down South. Now you,"
+turning to his friend Murphy, "have told us a story which illustrates a
+phase of English life in which the middle classes stand in awe of the
+higher ones. Now listen to one of mine, which illustrates a phase of
+American life, and quite the reverse of yours. I'll tell it to you just
+as Major Yancey told it to me, and I'll give you, as near as I can, his
+tones of voice. Wonderfully pathetic, that Southern dialect; it
+certainly was to me the day I heard him tell it. This Yancey was a
+fraud, so far as being a representative Virginia gentleman; didn't get
+within a thousand miles of the real thing; but that didn't rob his story
+of a certain meaning."
+
+Here Boggs rose to his feet. "I'll have to get up," he said, "for this
+is one of the stories I can't tell sitting down." Nobody ever heard
+Boggs tell any story sitting down. The restless little fellow was
+generally on his plump legs during most of his deliveries.
+
+"I had seen Yancey in the hotel corridor when I came in, and had stubbed
+my toe over his outstretched legs--out like a pair of skids on the tail
+of a dray; had apologized to the legs; had been apologized to most
+effusively in return, with the result that a few minutes later I found
+him at my elbow at the bar, where, after some protestations on his part,
+he concluded to accept my very 'co-tious' invitation, and 'take
+somethin'.'
+
+"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh--Thomas
+Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that
+po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have
+taken place, suh--not only in our section of the State, but in our
+people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later.
+The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash
+and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall
+have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an
+idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are
+creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with
+my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take
+a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper.
+'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's
+the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a
+Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of
+the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we
+Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still
+sufferin'.
+
+"'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically
+confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place
+immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other
+gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first
+stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my
+ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had
+arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could
+I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't
+taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want
+to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a
+groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin'
+over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I
+know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low,
+but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years
+and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company
+had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge
+Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents
+unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed
+it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two
+horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by
+a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of
+second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'--"Thomas Martin
+Yancey, Livery & Sale Stable."
+
+"'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam--free
+then, of co'se, suh--come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey,
+there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville----"
+
+"'"Is there, Sam?" I said. "You niggers seem to be gettin' up in the
+world."
+
+"'"Yes," he said, "and I want you to hook yo' rig and take eight of
+us----"
+
+"'"What! you infernal scoundrel! You come to me and ask me to----"
+
+"'"Now, don't get het up, Major! Eight niggers at fifty cents apiece is
+fo' dollars."
+
+"'"Yancey," I said to myself, "brace up! This is one of the great crises
+of yo' life. Sam, bring on yo' mokes!"
+
+"'There was fo' bucks and fo' wenches, all rigged out to kill. I put 'em
+in and started.
+
+"'It was a very cold night, coldest weather I'd seen in my State for
+years, with a light crust of snow on the ground. When we got to
+Barboursville--it was about eight miles--I found the ball was over a
+grocery store with a pair of steps goin' up on the outside to a little
+balcony. Well, suh, they got out and went up ahead, and I blanketed the
+horses and followed. When I opened the do'--you ain't familiar, suh, I
+reckon, with our part of the country, suh, but I tell you, suh, that
+with three fiddles, two red hot stoves, and eighty niggers, all dancin',
+the atmosphere was oppressive! I stood it as long as I could and then I
+went out on the balcony. Then I said to myself--"Yancey, this is a great
+crisis of yo' life, but you needn't get pneumonia. Go in and sit down
+inside."
+
+"'I hadn't been there three minutes, suh, when black Sam came up to the
+bench on which I was sittin'--he had two wenches on his arm--and said,
+"Major Yancey; would you have any objection to steppin' outside?"
+
+"'"Why?" I asked.
+
+"'"Cause some of the ladies objects to the smell of horse in yo'
+clo'es."
+
+"'I left the livery business that night, suh, and I am what you see--a
+broken-down Southern gentleman.'"
+
+Another outburst of laughter followed. Everybody agreed that Boggs had
+never been so happy in his delineations. The banker, who knew something
+of the Southern dialects, was overjoyed. The allusion to the
+ungentlemanly foreclosure proceedings touched his funny-bone in a
+peculiar manner, and set him to laughing again whenever he thought of
+it. Everybody had expressed some opinion both of Murphy's story and of
+Boggs's yarn but MacWhirter, who, strange to say, had seen nothing
+humorous in either narrative. During the telling he had been bending
+over in his chair stroking the dog's ears.
+
+"What do you think of the two yarns, Mac?" asked Marny.
+
+"Think just what Mr. Murphy thinks--that the Englishman was a snob,
+Ponsonby a cad, and that MacDuff should have been shown the door. The
+group about that Englishman's table was not of the best English
+society--nowhere near it. Consideration for the other man's feelings,
+the one below you in rank, invariably distinguishes the true English
+gentleman. That old story about the sergeant who got the Victoria Cross
+for bringing a wounded officer out under fire illustrates what I mean,"
+continued Mac in a perfectly grave, sober voice.
+
+"Never heard it."
+
+"Then I'll tell you. He had crawled on all fours to a wounded officer,
+picked him up, and had carried him off the firing line under a hail of
+bullets, one of which broke his wrist. He was promoted on the field by
+his commanding officer, got the V.C., and took his place among his now
+brother officers at the company's mess, and, it being his first meal,
+sat on the Colonel's right. Ice was served, a little piece about the
+size of a lump of sugar--precious as gold in that climate. It was for
+the champagne, something he had never seen. The hero was served first.
+He hesitated a moment, and dropped it in his soup. The Colonel took his
+piece and dropped it in his soup; so did every other gentleman down both
+sides of the table drop his in the soup. As to Boggs's Virginian, he got
+what he deserved. He was trying to be something that he wasn't; I'm glad
+the darkey took the pride out of him. It's all a pretence and a sham.
+They are all trying to be something they are not. 'Tisn't democracy or
+aristocracy that is to blame with us--it's the growing power of riches;
+the crowding the poor from off the face of the earth. Nothing counts now
+but a bank account. Pretty soon we will have a clearing-house of titles,
+based on incomes. When the cashier certifies to the amount, the title is
+conferred. The man of one million will become a lord; the man with two
+millions a count; three millions a duke, and so on. To me all this
+climbing is idiotic."
+
+Roars of laughter followed Mac's outburst. When Boggs got his breath he
+declared between his gasps that Mac's criticisms were funnier than
+Murphy's story.
+
+"Takes it all seriously; not a ghost of a sense of humor in him! Isn't
+he delicious!"
+
+"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you,
+is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the
+top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up
+to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the
+other fellow, who couldn't climb so high. If it wasn't for our wood fire
+even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he's real
+mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell's
+drawing-room. But that's only Lonny's veneer; his heart's all right
+underneath, and it's solid hickory all the way through."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the
+habitués, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within
+a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs
+were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the
+andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely--the
+old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the
+evening was to come--that part when its incidents are talked over.
+
+"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, class distinctions, ambition. What
+would you want most if you had your wish?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.
+
+"What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog
+once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old
+man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder.
+
+"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.
+
+"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm
+turning out."
+
+"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes
+on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.
+
+"No--" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes--"What?"
+
+"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to
+hang it up in," laughed Boggs.
+
+Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire
+lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a
+half-smothered sigh escaped him.
+
+Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer
+chair, the roses in her lap.
+
+"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.
+
+
+
+
+PART VIII
+
+_In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters._
+
+
+The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the
+winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl
+standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows
+which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the
+Palisades.
+
+Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb
+stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another,
+the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end
+of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a
+fourth and fifth--all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming
+Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.
+
+Woods was having a tea!
+
+The portrait of Miss B. J.--in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on
+her chin, her pet dog in her lap--was finished, and the B. Js. were
+assisting Woods's aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event.
+The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There
+were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of
+twisted iron, china, and dingy brass, the grease running down the sides
+of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps
+of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell
+together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were
+combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels
+draped in stuffs; screens hung with Japanese and Chinese robes; divans
+covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last,
+but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the
+young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group
+of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others
+that it did not do her justice, and still another--this time an art
+critic--who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the
+canvas that looked alive.
+
+Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me
+to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn't believe in mixing
+with society.
+
+"Better shut the door, hadn't I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of
+Woods's smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen.
+"Hello, Lonnegan, that you?"
+
+"That's me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you
+moving house?"
+
+"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than
+that heathen punk Woods is burning?"
+
+"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan.
+"Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people.
+Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he
+continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince
+Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his button-hole. "You're
+going down, Mac, aren't you?"
+
+"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."
+
+"Woods won't like it."
+
+"Can't help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio
+upside down for a lot of people that don't know a Velasquez from an 'Old
+Oaken Bucket' chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show.
+Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his 'Night Watch' for
+the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or Titian
+making a night of it over his 'Ascension.' Sacrilege, I tell you, this
+mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a
+mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world
+it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they
+can't; not to turn clowns for their amusement."
+
+Boggs and Murphy--the Irish journalist had long since become a full
+member--had entered and stood listening to Mac's harangue.
+
+"Land o' Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What's the
+matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit
+up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don't know what's going
+on outside. Woods is all right. He's got his living to make and his
+studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old
+and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them
+out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let 'em do it.
+That doesn't make the picture any worse. You saw it. It's a bully good
+portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good
+things in it--shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown
+are way up in G. Don't you think so, Lonnegan?"
+
+"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam
+downstairs. Half of them didn't know Woods when they came in. One woman
+asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she
+said, 'What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that
+the picture? Why, I am surprised!'
+
+"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see
+was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."
+
+Jack Stirling's head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had
+been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a
+prolonged shout of welcome.
+
+"Yes, that's me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad
+to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown
+young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow!
+Hello, Boggs! you're fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you;
+heard you had been given a chair by Mac's fire. Oh, biggest joke on me,
+fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods's tea-party a few minutes
+ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it.
+Struck a pretty girl--French, I think--pretty as a picture; big hat,
+gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth--well! You remember
+Christine, don't you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same
+type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods's
+tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got
+her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady
+came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know
+that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes
+and----"
+
+"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That's something like! That's probably
+the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to
+her and did your prettiest to entertain her."
+
+"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows,
+but it's good to get back! You'll find this a haven of rest, Mr.
+Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman's knee.
+
+"It's the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow,"
+answered Murphy. "It's good of you to let me in. You live so fast over
+here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush,
+is a Godsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr.
+Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses
+last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."
+
+Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy's yarns
+were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone,
+"they are all brand-new and he tells 'em like a master. Nobody can touch
+him. Draw up, Pitkin--" the sculptor had just come in from Woods's tea.
+
+"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here.
+Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are
+never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to
+occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square,
+occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle--a dingy, smoky,
+grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in
+the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of
+the balcony above.
+
+"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that
+were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the
+miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her
+drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry
+jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or
+tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads,
+hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat
+composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes
+in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let
+loose at the Arbuckle's Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her
+mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked
+that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked.
+He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and
+immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally,
+when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the
+drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or
+stares of those he did not.
+
+"On this particular night there was to be an imposing list of guests,
+the dinner being served at eight-thirty sharp. Not only was the Prime
+Minister expected, but a special collection of social freaks had been
+invited to meet him, including Prince Pompernetski of the Imperial
+Guards--who turned out afterward to be a renegade Pole and a swindler;
+the Rajah of Bramapootah--a waddling Oriental who always brought his
+Cayenne pepper with him in the pocket of his embroidered pajamas; one or
+two noble lords and their wives, some officers, and a scattering of
+lesser lights--twenty-two in all.
+
+"At eight-twenty the carriages began to arrive, the Bobby on the beat
+regulating the traffic; the guests stepping out upon a carpet a little
+longer and wider than the one Mr. Woods has laid over the sidewalk
+downstairs.
+
+"Once inside, the guests were taken in charge by a line of flunkeys--the
+women to a cloak room on the right, the men to a basement room on the
+left--where 'Chawles' handed each man an envelope containing the name of
+the lady he was to take out to dinner and a diagram designating the
+location of his seat at his host's table.
+
+"By eight-twenty-five all the guests had arrived except General Sir John
+Catnall and Lady Catnall, who had passed thirty years of their life in
+India and who had arrived in London but the night before, where they
+were met by one of Lady Arbuckle's notes inviting them to dinner to meet
+the Prime Minister. That the dear woman had never laid eyes on the
+Indian exiles and would not know either of them had she met them on her
+sidewalk made no difference to her. The butler in announcing their names
+would help her over this difficulty, as he had done a hundred times
+before. That the short notice might prevent their putting in an
+appearance did not trouble her in the least. She knew her London. Prime
+Ministers were not met with every day, even in the best of houses.
+
+"At eight-thirty the two missing guests arrived, Sir John sun-baked to
+the color of a coolie, and Lady Catnall not much better off so far as
+complexion was concerned. The climate had evidently done its work. Their
+queerly cut clothes, too, showed how long they had been out of London.
+
+"With their announcement by the flunkey, who bawled out their names so
+indistinctly that nobody caught them--not even Lady Arbuckle--the guests
+marched out to dinner, Lord Arbuckle leading with the wife of the Prime
+Minister; Lady Arbuckle bringing up the rear with the Rajah, without
+that lady having the dimmest idea as to whether all her guests were
+present or not.
+
+"Sir John found himself next to a Roumanian woman who had spent
+three-quarters of her life in Persia, and Lady Catnall sat beside a
+bald-headed scientist from Berlin who spoke English as if he were
+cracking nuts. None of the four had ever heard of the others' existence.
+
+"The dinner was the usual deadly dull affair. The Prime Minister smiled
+and beamed over his high collar and emitted platitudes that anybody
+could print without getting the faintest idea of his meaning; and the
+Rajah peppered and ate with hardly a word of any kind to the lady next
+him, who talked incessantly; the Scientist jabbered German, completely
+ignorant of the fact that Lady Catnall could not understand a word of
+what he said, and the other great personages--especially the
+women--looked through their lorgnons and studied the menagerie.
+
+"When the port had been served and the ladies had risen to leave the men
+to their cigars, Sir John Catnall conducted the Roumanian-Persian
+combination to the drawing-room door, clicked his heels, bent his back
+in a salaam, and with a certain anxious look on his face hurried back to
+the dining-room, and seeing the seat next Lord Arbuckle temporarily
+empty slid into it, laid his bronzed hand on his host's thin, white,
+blue-veined wrist, and said in a voice trembling with suppressed
+emotion:
+
+"'We got your wife's note and came at once, although our boxes are still
+unpacked. I could hardly get through the dinner I have been so anxious,
+but we arrived so late I could not ask your wife--indeed you were
+already moving in to dinner when your man brought us in. I am in London,
+as you know, to consult an oculist, for my eyesight is greatly impaired,
+and he called professionally just as I was leaving my lodgings.' Then
+bending over Lord Arbuckle he said in a voice tremulous with emotion,
+'Tell me now about Eliza; is she really as badly off as your wife
+thinks?'
+
+"Arbuckle had learned one thing during his long life with Catherine,
+never, as you Americans say, to 'give her away.' The identity of the
+partly blind, sunburned man, with half a cataract over each eye, who was
+gazing at him so intently awaiting an answer from his lips, was as much
+of a mystery to him as was the particular malady with which the unknown
+Eliza was afflicted or the contents of his wife's letter. Instantly Lord
+Arbuckle's face took on a grave and serious expression.
+
+"'Yes,' he answered slowly; 'yes, I regret to say that it is all true.'
+
+"'Good God!' ejaculated the stranger, 'you don't say so. Terrible!
+Terrible!' and without another word he rose from his seat, tarried for a
+moment at the mantel gazing into the coals, and then slowly rejoined the
+ladies.
+
+"When the last guest had departed Arbuckle, who had been smothering a
+fire of indignation over the stranger's inquiry and at the uncomfortable
+position in which his wife had placed him, owing to her never consulting
+him about her guests or her correspondence, shut the door of the
+drawing-room so the servants could not hear and burst out with:
+
+"'What damned nonsense it is, Catherine, to invite people who bore you
+to death with questions you can't answer! Who the devil is Eliza, and
+what's the matter with her?'
+
+"'Who wanted to know, my dear?'
+
+"'That horribly dressed, red-faced person who sat half-way down the
+table, next to that frightful frump in a turban from Persia.'
+
+"'I don't know any Eliza!'
+
+"'But you said you did.'
+
+"'I said I did?'
+
+"'Yes; he told me so. You wrote him! Now be good enough, Catherine, to
+let me know in advance who you----'
+
+"'But I never told anybody about Eliza; never heard of her.'
+
+"'You did, I tell you. You told that fellow who winks all the time, with
+some beastly thing the matter with his eyes.'
+
+"'You mean Sir John Catnall? The man who came in just as we were going
+in to dinner? That is, I suppose it was he. Barton told me we were
+waiting for him.'
+
+"'Yes; the fellow said he was late.'
+
+"'And he told you--' Here the door opened and the butler entered for her
+Ladyship's orders for the night.
+
+"'Barton, whom did you announce last?'
+
+"'I didn't catch the name, your Ladyship, quite.'
+
+"'Was it Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall?'
+
+"'No, your Ladyship. Something that began with P.'
+
+"'Are you sure it was not "Catnall"?'
+
+"'Quite sure, your Ladyship. Sir John's man was here just after dinner
+was announced and left a message, your Ladyship--I forgot to give it to
+you. He said Sir John had been out of town, and had that moment
+received your Ladyship's note, and that it was impossible for him to
+come to dinner. I supposed your Ladyship had known of it and had invited
+the gentleman and his lady who came last to take their places, and I put
+them in Sir John's and Lady Catnall's seats as it was marked on the
+diagram you gave Chawles.'
+
+"'Just as I supposed, Catherine,' snorted Arbuckle, 'a couple of damned
+impostors; one passing himself off as a blind man. Serves you right.
+They've carried off half the plate by this time. Bingeley lost all of
+his spoons and forks that way last week; he told me so in the House
+yesterday.'
+
+"'Impostors! You don't think--Barton, go down instantly and see if
+anything has been taken out of the cloak-room. And, Barton, see if that
+miniature with the jewels around the frame is where I left it on the
+mantel--and the candlesticks--Oh! you don't think--It can't be--Oh,
+dear--dear--dear!'
+
+"Again the door opened and Barton appeared.
+
+"'The candlesticks are all right, your Ladyship; but the miniature is
+gone. I looked everywhere. Chawles said it was taken to your room by the
+maid.'
+
+"'Ring for Prodgers at once.'
+
+"'I have, your Ladyship. Here she comes with it in her hand,' and he
+handed the jeweled frame to his mistress.
+
+"'Oh, I'm so thankful! You're sure nothing else is missing?'
+
+"'No, your Ladyship; but Chawles found this note on the mantel, which he
+says he picked up from the table after they had left.'
+
+"Lord Arbuckle craned his head and his wife eagerly scanned the
+inscription.
+
+"On the envelope, scrawled in pencil, were the three words: 'For dear
+Eliza.'
+
+"Lady Arbuckle broke the seal.
+
+"Out dropped two twenty-pound Bank of England notes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Irishman rose to his feet, pushed back his chair, and taking a
+briarwood from his pocket and a small bag of tobacco proceeded to fill
+his pipe.
+
+Mac broke the silence first:
+
+"Case of wrong house, wasn't it? I wonder Catnall didn't find it out
+before dinner was over."
+
+"Put Arbuckle in a bad hole," remarked Boggs. "What excuse could he make
+when he returned the money?"
+
+"I'd have given that butler a dressing down," muttered Lonnegan. "He
+ought to have known that there was some mistake when the note arrived,"
+Lonnegan like Mac was born without the slightest sense of humor, Boggs
+always maintained.
+
+"Keep on guessing, gentlemen," exclaimed Murphy; "London guessed for a
+week, and gave it up."
+
+"Well, but is that all?" asked Stirling.
+
+"Every word and line. Nobody knows to this day who they were or where
+they came from. The flunkey on the curb said they arrived in a
+four-wheeler; that he had whistled to the rank at the end of the square
+for a hansom, and that they both stepped in and drove off."
+
+"And old Arbuckle still bags the money?" inquired Boggs.
+
+"Did, the last I heard."
+
+"Did he try to find out who the fellow was?"
+
+"No, Lady Arbuckle wouldn't let him; it would have given the whole thing
+away. Besides, it was Arbuckle's statement about Eliza that made the
+stranger give the money; rather a delicate situation; looked as if he
+and his wife had put up a job."
+
+"Poor devil!" muttered Mac. "Lied to his guest, insulted his wife, and
+robbed some poor woman of a charity that might have restored her to
+health, and all because of just the same kind of idiotic foolishness
+that is going on downstairs at Woods's this very minute. Damnable, the
+whole thing."
+
+"I know of a case," said Lonnegan without noticing Mac's outburst, as he
+reached for his pipe which he had laid on the mantel, "in which not a
+mysterious couple but a mysterious woman figured, and I know the man who
+was mixed up in the affair. He's a civil engineer now and lives in
+London; got quite a position. When I first met him he was a draughtsman
+in one of the downtown offices--this was some fifteen years ago. He was
+a good-looking fellow then, about twenty-seven or eight, I should say,
+with a smooth-shaven face and features like a girl's, they were so
+regular; a handsome chap, really, if he was about up to your shoulders,
+Mac."
+
+"What sort of a yarn is this, Lonny?" interrupted Boggs. "Got any point
+to it, or is it one of your long-winded things like the one you told us
+when you weren't murdered?"
+
+"It's one that will make your hair stand on end," retorted the
+architect. "Wonder I never told you before!"
+
+"Go on, Lonny," broke in Jack Stirling. "Dry up, Boggs. He was a
+good-looking chap, you said, Lonny, and about up to Mac's shoulders."
+
+"Yes, and half the size of Boggs around his waist," continued Lonnegan,
+with a look at MacWhirter.
+
+"The firm he was with sent him to Vienna with some plans and
+specifications of a big enterprise in which they were interested. He
+arrived in the evening, hungry, and late for dinner; left his trunk at
+the station, jumped into a fiacre and drove to a café on the Ring
+Strasse that he knew. After dining he made up his mind to go back to the
+station, pick up his baggage, and find rooms at the Metropole. When he
+entered the café and took a seat near the door a woman at the next table
+turned her head and fastened her eyes upon him in a way that attracted
+his attention. He saw that she was of rather distinguished presence,
+tall and well formed, broad shoulders--square for a woman--and with a
+strong nose and chin. She was dressed all in black, her veil almost
+hiding her face. Not a handsome woman and not young--certainly not under
+thirty.
+
+"With the serving of the soup he forgot her and went on with his dinner.
+That over he paid the waiter, strolled out to the street and called a
+cab. When it drove up the veiled woman stood beside him.
+
+"'I think this cab is mine, sir,' she said in excellent English.
+
+"The Engineer raised his hat, offered his hand to the woman and assisted
+her into her seat. When he withdrew his fingers they held a small card
+edged with black. The woman and the cab disappeared. He turned the card
+to the light of the street lamp. On it was written in pencil, 'Meet me
+at Café Ivanoff at ten to-night. You are in danger.'
+
+"The man read the card and strained his eyes after the cab; then he
+called another, drove down to the station, picked up his trunk, and
+started for the Hotel Metropole.
+
+"On the way to the hotel he kept thinking of the woman and the card. It
+had not been the first time that his fresh cheeks and clean-cut features
+had attracted the attention of some woman dining alone--especially in a
+city like Vienna; any continental city, in fact. Some of these
+adventures he had followed up with varying success; some he had
+forgotten. This one interested him. The proffered acquaintance had been
+cleverly managed. The warning at the end was, he knew, one of the many
+ruses to pique his curiosity; but that did not put the woman out of his
+mind.
+
+"When his baggage had been deposited in his rooms, a small salon,
+bedroom, and dressing-room, all opening on the corridor--he needed the
+salon in which to lay out his plans and maps--he gave his hat an extra
+brush, strolled downstairs, and stepped to the porter's desk.
+
+"'Porter.'
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"'Where is the Café Ivanoff?'
+
+"'Near the Opera, sir.'
+
+"'Is it a respectable place?'
+
+"'That depends on what your Excellency requires,' and the porter
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"'It sounds Russian.'
+
+"'No, sir; it is Polish. You have music and vodka, and sometimes you
+have trouble.'
+
+"'With whom?'
+
+"Again the porter shrugged his shoulders. 'With the police.'
+
+"'Are there rows?'
+
+"'No, there are refugees. Vienna is full of them. For you it is
+nothing--you are an American--am I not right?'
+
+"The Engineer touched his inside pocket, felt the bulge of his
+pocketbook containing his passport, turned down the Ring Strasse, and
+stopped at the Opera House. Then he began to look about him. Young,
+well-built, clear-headed, and imaginative, this sort of an adventure was
+just what he wanted. Soon his eyes fell upon a café ablaze with light.
+On a ground-glass globe over the door was the word 'Ivanoff.'
+
+"He passed through the front room, turned into another, and was stopped
+by a man at the door of the third.
+
+"'What do you want, Monsieur?' This in French.
+
+"'Some cognac and a cup of coffee.'
+
+"'Did Monsieur come in a cab?'
+
+"'No, on foot.'
+
+"'Perhaps, then, the lady came in a cab--and is waiting for you?'
+
+"'Perhaps.'
+
+"'This way, Monsieur.'
+
+"She sat in the far corner of the room, her face hidden in a file of
+newspapers. She must have known the attendant's step for she raised her
+head and fastened her eyes on the young man before he was half-way
+across the room.
+
+"'Sit here, sir,' she said in perfect English, drawing her dress aside
+so that he could pass to the chair next the wall. 'I am glad you came; I
+am glad you trusted me enough to come.' Her manner was as composed and
+her voice as low and gentle and as free from nervousness as if she had
+known him all her life. 'And now, before I tell you what I have to say
+to you, please tell me something about yourself. You are an American and
+have just arrived in Vienna?'
+
+"The Engineer nodded, his eyes still scanning her face, keeping his own
+composure as best he could, his astonishment increasing every moment. He
+had seen at the first glance that she was not the woman he had taken
+her to be. Her face, on closer inspection, showed her to be nearer forty
+than thirty, with certain lines about the mouth and eyes which could
+only have come from suffering. What she wanted of him, or why she had
+interested herself in his welfare, was what puzzled him.
+
+"'You have a mother, perhaps, at home, and some brothers, and you love
+them,' she continued.
+
+"Again the Engineer nodded.
+
+"'How many brothers have you?'
+
+"'One, Madame.'
+
+"'That is another bond of sympathy between us. I have one brother left.'
+All this time her eyes had been riveted on his, boring into his own as
+if she was trying to read his very thoughts.
+
+"'Is he in danger like me, Madame?' asked the Engineer with a smile.
+
+"'Yes, we all are; we live in danger. I have been brought up in it.'
+
+"'But why should I be?' and he handed her the card with the black edge.
+
+"'You are not,' she said, crumpling the card in her hand and slipping it
+into her dress. 'It was only a very cheap ruse of mine. I saw you at the
+next table and knew your nationality at once. You can help me, if you
+will, and you are the only one who can. You seemed to be sent to me. I
+thought it all out and determined what to do. You see how calm I am, and
+yet my hands have been icy cold waiting for you. I dared not hope you
+would really come until I saw you enter and speak to Polski. But you
+cannot stay here; you may be seen and I do not want you to be seen--not
+now. We Poles are watched night and day; someone may come in and you
+might have to tell who you are, and that must not be.' Then she added
+cautiously, her eyes fastened on his, 'Your passport--you have one, have
+you not?'
+
+"'Yes, for all over Europe.'
+
+"'Oh, yes; of course.' This came with a sigh of relief, as if she had
+dreaded another answer. 'That is the right way to travel while this
+revolution goes on. Yes, yes; a passport is quite necessary. Now give me
+your address. Metropole? Which room? Number thirty-nine? Very well; I'll
+be there at eight o'clock to-morrow night. Never mind the coffee, I will
+pay for it with mine. Go--now--out the other door; not the one you came
+in. There is somebody coming--quick!'
+
+"The tone of her voice and the look in her eye lifted him out of his
+seat and started him toward the door without another word. She was
+evidently accustomed to be obeyed.
+
+"The next night at eight precisely there came a rap at his door and a
+woman wrapped in a coarse shawl, and with a basket covered with a cloth
+on her arm, stood outside.
+
+"'I have brought Monsieur's laundry,' she said. 'Shall I lay it in the
+bedroom or here in the salon?' and she stepped inside.
+
+"The door shut, she laid the empty basket on the floor and threw back
+her shawl.
+
+"'Don't be worried,' she said, turning the key in the lock, 'and don't
+ask any questions. I will go as I came. Someone might have stopped me. I
+got this basket and shawl from my own laundress. There will be no one
+here? You are sure? Then let me sit beside you and tell you what I could
+not last night.
+
+"'Our people go to that café,' she continued, as she led him to the
+sofa, 'because, strange to say, the police think none of us would dare
+go there. That makes it the safest. Besides, every one of the servants
+is our friend.'
+
+"Then she unfolded a yarn that made his hair stand on end. She had been
+banished from a little town in central Poland where she had taken part
+in the revolution. Two brothers had died in exile, the other was in
+hiding in Vienna. It was absolutely necessary that this remaining
+brother should get back to Warsaw. Not only her own life depended on it
+but the lives of their compatriots. Some papers which had been hidden
+were in danger of being discovered; these must be found and destroyed.
+Her brother was now on his way to the hotel and the room in which they
+then sat; he would join them in an hour. At nine o'clock he would send
+his card up and must be received. His name was Matzoff--her own name
+before she was married. Would he lend him his clothes and his passport?
+She could not ask this of anyone but an American; when she saw him and
+looked into his face she knew God had sent him to her. Only Americans
+sympathized with her poor country. The passport would be handed back to
+him in three days by the same man--Polski--who conducted him to her
+table at the Café Ivanoff; so would the clothes. He would not need
+either in that time. Would he save her and her people?'
+
+"Well, you can imagine what happened. Like many other young fellows,
+carried off his feet by the picturesqueness of the whole affair--the
+appeal to his patriotism, to his love of justice, to all the things that
+count when you are twenty-five and have the world in a sling--he
+consented. It was agreed that she was to wait in the dressing-room,
+which also opened on the corridor, and show herself to the brother, and
+get him safely inside the dressing-room. The Engineer was not to see him
+come. If anything went wrong it was best that he could not identify him.
+She would then help him dress--he was about the same build as the
+Engineer and could easily wear his clothes. Moreover, he was dark like
+the Engineer; black hair and black eyes and just his age. Indeed one
+reason she picked him out at the café on the Ring Strasse was because he
+looked so much like her own brother.
+
+"The two began to get ready for the expected arrival--a shirt and
+collar, tie, gloves, travelling suit, overcoat, and the Engineer's bag
+with his initials on it were laid out in the dressing-room, together
+with an umbrella and walking-stick and the passport. He was to walk down
+the corridor and out of the hotel precisely as the young Engineer would
+walk out. If he could only see her brother he would know how complete
+the disguise would be; just his size--her own, really--her brother being
+small for a man and she being tall and broad for a woman.
+
+"At nine o'clock she put her head out of the dressing-room door, laid
+her fingers on her lips, pushed the Engineer into the salon and locked
+the door. The brother evidently was approaching. Next he heard the
+dressing-room door click. Then the sound of a man rapidly changing his
+clothes could be heard. Then a soft click of the latch and a heavy step.
+
+[Illustration: Pushed the engineer into the salon.]
+
+"Here his curiosity overcame him and he cautiously opened the salon door
+and peered down the corridor. A man carrying his bag, cane, and
+umbrella, an overcoat on his arm, was walking rapidly toward the
+staircase. He drew in his head and waited. Five minutes passed, then
+ten. He tried the dressing-room door. It was still locked. Stepping out
+into the corridor he turned the knob and walked into the dressing-room.
+It was empty. On the floor was a pair of corsets, some petticoats, and a
+dress!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Skipped! Well, by Jove!" cried Marny. "Nihilist, wasn't she?"
+
+"He never knew; doesn't to this day."
+
+"What was she then?" persisted Marny.
+
+"I don't know. My only solution was that she was herself in danger of
+her life and had cooked up the yarn about her brother to get out of
+Vienna."
+
+"Did he get his passport back?" asked Stirling.
+
+"Yes, three months afterward by mail to his bankers from the Hotel
+Metropole. She, or somebody else, had been half over Europe with it;
+twice to St. Petersburg and once to Warsaw. The clothes and bag he never
+heard of. The waiter at the Café Ivanoff--the one she called Polski--had
+disappeared and he dare not make any inquiries."
+
+"But I don't see why he was afraid, an American like him," broke in
+Marny.
+
+"Let up, Marny!" exclaimed Boggs. "Don't spoil a good yarn. What
+difference does it make who she was? You've got a first rate doll, don't
+pick it to pieces to find out what it's stuffed with; give your
+imagination play and enjoy it. She suggests a dozen things to me, but I
+don't want any one of them _proved_. She might have been chief of a band
+of poisoners with a private graveyard in her cellar; her smile,
+perdition; her glance, death. She could also have eluded the Secret
+Service of Russia for years in disguises that the mother who bore her
+wouldn't have known her in;--her exploits the talk of all Europe. Then
+her miraculous escapes--one for instance across the frontier in a sledge
+on forged passports, and the disguise of an officer, her maid dressed as
+an orderly, both of them smothered in priceless furs; her being trailed
+to her hotel by a sleuth; her lightning change of costume to low-neck
+gown and jewels given her by a Russian Grand Duke whose body was found
+in the Neva the morning after she left; the murder of the sleuth, with a
+card tied to the stiletto marked with a skull and crossbones. You
+fellows are going wild over this new French impressionistic craze--the
+vague, the mysterious, and the suggestive. Why not apply it to
+literature? If a man can paint a figure with three dabs of his brush,
+why can't a man draw a character or a situation with three strokes of
+his pen? You are too literal, old man!"
+
+"Anything else, you overstuffed, loquacious sausage?" cried Marny.
+
+"Yes," retorted Boggs. "That woman was no doubt a member of the----"
+
+"Stop, you beggar!" cried Jack Stirling. "Don't let him get loose again,
+Marny! Stuff a pipe in his mouth. Boggs, you are the only man I know who
+can start his mouth going and go away and leave it. Here, fellows, get
+on your feet and line up and receive the spoilt child of fashion. He's
+coming upstairs: I know his step."
+
+At this instant Woods's body was thrust around the jamb of the door. He
+still wore the rose in his button-hole, the one Miss B. J.--the original
+of the portrait--had pinned there.
+
+Mac sprang up and caught the intruder by the shoulders before he had
+time to open his mouth.
+
+"Been having a tea, have you, you gilt-edged fraud! A highly perfumed
+powder-puff tea, with lace on the edges and two flounces. 'Oh, how
+exquisite, dear Mr. Woods! And is it really all hand-painted? and did
+you do it all yourself? How enormously clever you are--How
+lovely--How--' Got pretty sick of that sort of taffy after they had
+gormed you up with it for three hours, didn't you, Woods? and you had to
+come up where you could breathe! Now rip off that undertaker's coat,
+throw away that rose, get into that sketching jacket, and sit down here
+and disinfect yourself with a pipe--" and Mac's hearty laugh rang
+through the room.
+
+
+
+
+PART IX
+
+_Around the Embers of the Dying Fire._
+
+
+Spring had come. The trees in the old Square were tuneful with impatient
+birds ready to move in and begin housekeeping as soon as the buds poked
+their yellow heads out of their nestings of bark. The eager sun, who had
+been trying all winter to gain the corner of Mac's studio window, had
+finally carried the sash and grimy pane by assault: its beams were now
+basking on the Daghestan rug in full defiance of the smouldering coals
+crouching half-dead in their bed of ashes.
+
+[Illustration: Around the embers of the dying fire.]
+
+From an open window--Mac had thrown it wide--came a breath of summer
+air, telling of green fields and fleecy clouds; of lappings about the
+bows of canoes; of balsam beds under bark slants; of white scoured decks
+and dancing waves; of queer cafés under cool arched trees and snowy
+peaks against the blue.
+
+The glorious old fire felt the sun's power and shuddered, trembling with
+an ill-defined fear. It knew its days were numbered, perhaps its hours.
+No more romping and sky-larking; no more outbursts of crackling
+laughter; no more scurrying up the ghostly chimney, the madcap sparks
+playing hide-and-seek in the soot; no more hugging close of the old
+logs, warming themselves and everybody about them; no more jolly nights
+with the hearth swept and the pipes lighted, the faces of the smokers
+aglow with the radiance of the cheery blaze.
+
+Its old enemy, the cold, had given up the fight and had crept away to
+hide in the North; so had the snow and the icy winds. No more! No more!
+Spring had come. Summer was already calling. Now for big bowls of
+blossoms, their fragrance mingling with the pungent odor of slanting
+lines of smoke. Now for half-closed blinds, through which sunbeams
+peeped and restless insects buzzed in and out. Now for long afternoons,
+soft twilights, and wide-open windows, their sashes framing the stars.
+
+Mac had noted the signs and was getting ready for the change. Already
+had he opened his dust-covered trunk and had hauled out, from a
+collection of tramping shoes, old straw hats, and summer clothes, a thin
+painting coat in place of his pet velveteen jacket. It was only at night
+that he raked out the coals hiding their faces in the ashes, gathered
+them together--the fire had never gone out since the day he lighted
+it--and encouraged them with a comforting log.
+
+Most of the members had formed their plans for the summer; one or two
+had already bidden good-by to the Circle. Lonnegan was off
+trout-fishing, and Jack Stirling was three days out--off the Banks
+really.
+
+"Gone to look up Christine and the old boys and girls," Marny said; at
+which Mac shook his head, knowing the bee, and knowing also the kinds
+and varieties of flowers which grew in the gardens most frequented by
+that happy-go-lucky fellow.
+
+Murphy was back in London; cabled for, and left without being able to
+bid anybody good-by. "Throw on another stick," he had written Mac by the
+pilot-boat, "and give the dear old logs a friendly punch and tell 'em it
+is from that wild Irishman, Murphy. I'd give you a tract of woodland if
+I had one, and build you a fireplace as big as the nave of a church. I
+shall never forget my afternoons around your fire, MacWhirter. You and
+your back-logs and the dear boys warmed me clear through to my heart.
+Keep my chair dusted, I'm coming back if I live."
+
+With the budding trees and soft air and all the delights of the
+out-of-doors, the attendance even of those members who still remained in
+town began to drop off. Only when a raw, chill wind blew from the east,
+reminding us of the winter and the welcome of Mac's fire, would the
+chairs about the hearth be filled. Boggs, Pitkin, Woods, Marny, and I
+were the only ones who came with any regularity.
+
+"Got to cover them up, Colonel," Mac said to me the last afternoon the
+fire was alight. I had arrived ahead of the others and had found him
+crooning over the smouldering logs, looking into the embers. "They've
+been mighty good to us all winter--never sulked, never backed out; start
+them going and give them a pat or two on their backs and away they
+went." He spoke as if the logs were alive. "Lots of comfort we've had
+out of them; going to have a lot more next year, too. I shall bury the
+embers of the last fire--perhaps this one, I can't tell--in its ashes
+and keep the whole till we start them up in the autumn. It will seem
+then like the same old fire. The flowers lie dead all winter but they
+bloom from the same old charred ember of a root. All the root needs is
+the sun and all the coals need is warmth. And the two never bloom in the
+same season--that's the best part of it."
+
+He had not once looked at me as he spoke; he knew me by my tread, and he
+knew my voice, but his eyes had not once turned my way, not even when I
+took the chair beside him.
+
+"And what are _you_ going to do, Mac, all summer? Got any plans?"
+
+"Got plenty of plans, but no money. Heard there was a man nibbling
+around my 'East River'--but you can't tell. Brown, the salesman, says
+it's as good as sold, but I've heard Brown say those things before.
+Exhibition closes this week. Guess the distinguished connoisseur, Mr. A.
+MacWhirter, will add that picture to his collection: that closet behind
+us is full of 'em."
+
+"Where would you like to go, old man?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, Colonel. I'd like to try Holland once more and get
+some new skies--and boats."
+
+"Nothing on this side, Mac?" I was not probing for subjects for Mac's
+brush.
+
+"No, don't seem so. Can't sell them anyhow. I thought my 'East River'
+was about the best I had done, but nobody wants it. Cook calls it a
+'Melancholy Monochrome,' and that other critic--I forget his name--says
+it lacks 'spontaneity,' whatever that is. I ought to have stayed at home
+and helped my Governor instead of roaming round the world deluding
+myself with the idea that I could paint. About everything I've tried has
+failed: Had to borrow the money to get me to Munich; took me three years
+to pay it back, doing pot-boilers; even painted signs one time. Been
+chasing these phantoms now for a good many years, but I haven't got
+anywhere. I'd rather paint than eat, but I've got to eat--that's the
+worst of it. A little encouragement, too, would help. I try not to mind
+what Cook says about my things, but it hurts all the same. And yet if he
+ever over-praised my work it would be just as offensive. What I want is
+somebody to come along and get underneath the paint and find something
+of myself and what I am trying to do with my brush. It may be monotonous
+to Cook; it isn't to me. I could crisp up my 'East River' with a lot of
+cheap color and a boat or two with figures in the foreground, but it was
+that vast silence of the morning that I was after, and the silvering
+quality of the dawn. Doesn't everybody see that? Some of them can't.
+Well, in she goes with the rest; you'll all have a fine bonfire when I'm
+gone. I'll keep out the one hanging over the lounge and maybe another
+back somewhere in that mausoleum of a closet. I'll give one to you, old
+man, if you'll promise to take care of it," and Mac took an unframed
+canvas from the wall and propped it up on a chair. There were dozens of
+others around it and so it had never attracted my attention.
+
+"Not much--just a garden wall and a bench--pretty black--too much
+bitumen, I guess," and he wet his finger and rubbed the canvas.
+
+I took the sketch in my hand and examined it carefully. It was dated
+"Lucerne," and signed with two initials, not Mac's.
+
+"Old sketch?"
+
+"Yes, about fifteen years ago."
+
+"Doesn't look like your work."
+
+"It isn't."
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+"A pupil of mine."
+
+"Girl?"
+
+Mac nodded, replaced the sketch on the wall and sank into his chair
+again.
+
+"Only pupil I ever had. She and her mother had spent the winter in
+Munich--that's where I met her."
+
+"It is signed 'Lucerne,'" I said.
+
+"Yes, I followed her there."
+
+"To teach?"
+
+"No; because I loved her."
+
+The announcement came so suddenly that for a moment I could not answer.
+He often gave me his confidence, and I thought I knew his life, but this
+was news to me. I had always suspected that some love affair had
+sweetened and mellowed his nature, but he always avoided the subject and
+I had, of course, never pressed my inquiries. If he was ready to tell me
+now I was willing to listen with open ears.
+
+"You loved her, Mac?" I said simply.
+
+"Yes, as a boy loves; without thought--crazily--only that one idea in
+his mind; ready to die for her; no sleep; sometimes a whole day without
+tasting a mouthful; floating on soap-bubbles. Ah! we never love that way
+but once. It was all burned out of me though, that summer. I've just
+lived on ever since--painting a little, nursing these old logs,
+hobnobbing with you boys; getting older--most forty now--getting
+poorer."
+
+"And did she love you, Mac?"
+
+"Yes, same way. Only she got over it and I didn't."
+
+"Some other fellow?"
+
+"No, her father. Oh, there's no use going into it! But sometimes when I
+do my level best and put my heart into a thing, as I have done into that
+picture at the Academy, or as I poured it out to that girl in that old
+garden at Lucerne, and it all comes to naught, I lose my grip for a time
+and feel like putting my foot through my canvases and hiring out
+somewhere for a dollar a day."
+
+I made no comment. My long years of intimacy with my friend had taught
+me never to interrupt him when he was in one of these moods, and never
+to ask him any question outside the trend of his thoughts.
+
+"Self-made, dominating man, her father; began life as a brass-moulder.
+'Worked with my hands, sir,' he would tell me, holding out his stubs of
+fingers. Didn't want any loafers and spongers around him. He didn't say
+that to me, of course, but he did to her. The mother was different, like
+the daughter; she believed in me. She believed in anything Nell liked.
+Behind in her music--that's what she came to Munich for; and when she
+wanted to paint, hunted me up to teach her. She was eighteen and I was
+twenty-three. Well, you can fill in the rest. Every day, you know;
+sometimes at my hole in the wall, sometimes at her apartment. Went on
+all winter. In May he came over and wired them to meet him in Lucerne.
+We tried parting; sat up half the night, we three, talking it over--the
+dear mother helping. She loved us both by that time! I tried it for two
+days and then locked up my place and started. That old garden was where
+we met and where we continued to meet. He came down one morning to see
+what we were doing; we were doing that sketch--had been doing it for two
+weeks. Some days it got a brushful of paint and some days it didn't. You
+know how hard you would work when the girl you loved best in the world
+sat beside you looking up into your face. Sometimes the dear mother
+would be with us, and sometimes she would make believe she was. In the
+intervals she was working on the old gentleman, trying to break it to
+him easy. 'You have worked all your life,' she would say to him, 'and
+you have, outside of me, only two things left--your money and your
+daughter. The money won't make her happy unless there is somebody to
+share it with her. This boy loves her; he is clean'--I'm just quoting
+her words, old man; I was in those days--'honest, has an honorable
+profession, and will succeed the better once he has Nellie to help him
+and your money to relieve his mind for the time of anxiety. When he
+becomes famous, as he is sure to be, he will return it to you with
+interest.' That was the sort of talk, and it occurred about every day.
+Nellie would hear it and add her voice, and we would talk it over in the
+garden.
+
+"One day he came down himself. The garden was up the hill behind the
+Schweitzerhoff--you remember it--in one of those smaller
+hotels--Lucerne was crowded.
+
+"'Let me see what you two are doing,' he said, with a sort of
+police-officer air.
+
+"I turned the easel toward him. The sketch was about as you see it--all
+except the signature and the word 'Lucerne'--that I added afterward.
+
+"'How long have you been at this?'
+
+"'About two weeks,' I said. I thought I'd give it its full time, so as
+to prove to him how carefully it had been painted.
+
+"'Two weeks, eh?' he repeated slowly. 'Done anything else?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'What's it worth?'
+
+"'Well, it's only a study, sir.'
+
+"'Well, but what's it worth?'
+
+"I thought for a moment, and then, knowing how he valued everything by
+his own standard, said:
+
+"'I should think, perhaps, fifty dollars, when it's finished.'
+
+"'That's at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week, isn't it? A little
+over three dollars a day. I earned more than that, young man, when I was
+younger than you, and I was making something that was _sold_ before I
+turned a hand to it. You've got to shop your things around till you sell
+'em. Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'
+
+"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money!
+Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the accumulation of
+dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in
+the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty
+and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind
+words to speak; famishing minds to educate; there is art, and science,
+and music--Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! I'm sick of it!"
+
+"And that ended it with the girl?" I asked, without moving my head from
+my hand.
+
+"Yes, practically. She went to Paris and I went back to Munich. I felt
+as if my heart had been torn out of me; like a plant twisted up by the
+roots. The letters came--first every day, then once or twice a week,
+then at long intervals. You won't believe it, old man, but do you know
+that wound never healed for years; hasn't yet, parts of it. Shams,
+flaunted wealth, society--all irritate it, and me. It seemed so cruel,
+so damned stupid. What counts but love, I would say to myself over and
+over again. If I had a million dollars, what better off would I be? If
+we were both on a desert island without a cent we could be happy
+together, and if we had a million apiece and didn't love each other we
+would be miserable. Quixotic, I know, indefensible, out of date with
+modern methods, but I'd give my career if more of that sort of doctrine
+saturated the air we breathe."
+
+"You saw her again?"
+
+"Yes, once in Paris, driving with her husband. This was about five years
+ago. She didn't see me, although I stood within ten feet of her. He was
+much older, older than I am now, I should think. Commonplace sort of
+fellow--see a dozen like him any morning on the Avenue going down to
+Wall Street. Only her eyes were left, and the fluff of hair about her
+forehead. She made no impression on me; she wasn't the woman I loved. My
+memories were of a girl in the garden, all in white, her hair about her
+shoulders, the molten sunlight splashed here and there, the cool shadow
+tones between the drippings of gold. And the sound of her voice, and the
+way she raised her eyes to mine! No, it never comes but once. It is the
+bloom on the peach, the flush of dawn, never repeated in any other sky;
+the thrill of the first kiss at the altar, the cry of the first child.
+Yours! Yours! for ever and ever!
+
+"Talking like a first-class idiot, am I not, old man? But I can't help
+it. And I get so lonely for it sometimes! Often when you fellows go home
+and I am left alone at night I draw up by this fire and build castles in
+the coals. And I see so many things: the figure of a woman, the uplifted
+hands of children, paths leading to low porticos, gardens with tall
+flowers along their paths, an arm about my neck and a warm cheek held
+close to mine. I know I am only half living tucked up here pegging away,
+and that I ought to shake myself loose and go out into the world more
+and see what it is made of. In a few years I'll be frozen fast into my
+habits like an old branch in a stream when the winter's cold strikes it.
+Only you and the other boys and the fire keep me young."
+
+"Have you never met anybody since, Mac, you cared for?" I had braced
+myself for that question, wondering how he would take it.
+
+"Yes, once, but she never knew it. I had nothing--why begin over again?
+It would have turned out like the other--worse. Then I was too young,
+now I'm too old. Besides, she's on the other side of the water; lives
+there."
+
+"She liked you?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Women are hard to understand. I never abuse their
+confidence when they trust me, and they generally do trust me when I get
+close to them. I seem always to be the big brother to them and so they
+let themselves go, knowing I won't misunderstand. Women _like_ me, they
+don't love me--great difference. A lot of men make this mistake,
+thinking a woman is in love with them when she only wants to be kind.
+She can't always be on the defensive and still be natural. The greatest
+relief that can come to one of them is to find that the man whom she
+wants only as a companion is contented to be that and nothing more and
+won't take advantage of her confidence. So I say I don't know. She was a
+human kind of a girl, this one--real human."
+
+Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers--as if
+he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. "Had a heart for
+things outside of her own affairs. Girl a man could tie up to. Human, I
+tell you--real human!"
+
+"Follow it up, Mac?" He had volunteered nothing about her personality,
+and I dared not ask.
+
+"No, let it go. I've been hoping I'd make a hit some time and then maybe
+I'd--no, don't talk about it any more. Listen! who's that coming
+upstairs? That's Woods, I know his step. Happy fellow! Hear his
+whistle--he must have got another order for a full-length; nothing like
+powder-puff teas for encouraging American art, my boy," and a smile
+crept over Mac's face, which broadened into a laugh when he added, "I'm
+beginning to think that a course in cooking is as necessary for a
+painter as a course in perspective."
+
+The expected arrival was by this time beating a rat-a-tat-too on the
+Chinese screen, his whistle more shrill than ever.
+
+"Come in, you pampered child of fashion!" cried Mac, the sound of
+Woods's joyous step having completely changed the current of his
+thoughts. "Stop that racket, I tell you. We know you've got another
+portrait, but don't split our ears over it."
+
+A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock
+of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs!
+
+"Thought you were Woods," cried Mac.
+
+"I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful
+painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently.
+
+"You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted
+back Mac.
+
+"I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more
+valuable. I carry priceless things about me. In fact I'm just chuck-full
+of priceless things. Shake me and I'll exude glad tidings. Marvellous
+events are happening at the Academy. I have just left there, and I
+_know_! The main stairway is in the hands of a mob of disappointed
+millionnaires pressing up toward the South Room. Every art critic in
+town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a
+collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are
+fastened--even Brown's glazed peepers--on a small yellow card slipped
+into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the
+south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in
+thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks,
+his----"
+
+"Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light
+breaking out on his face. "Do you mean----"
+
+"I do, most masterful painter--I mean just that! Toot the hewgag! Bang
+the lyre! The 'East River' is sold!"
+
+"Sold!"
+
+"SOLD! you duffer!"
+
+"Who to?" Mac's voice had an unsteady tremor in it.
+
+"To Pitkins's friend, the banker. He's wild about it. Says he's been
+looking for something of yours ever since the night he was here, and
+only knew you had a picture on exhibition when he read Cook's abuse of
+it in yesterday's paper. And that isn't all! No sooner had the 'Sold'
+card been slipped into the frame than Mr. Blodgett came in; swore he had
+been intending to buy the 'East River' for his gallery ever since the
+show opened; offered an advance of five hundred dollars to the banker,
+who laughed at him; and then in despair bought your other picture, 'The
+Storm,' hung on the top line. Both sold, O most masterful painter! All
+together now, gentlemen--
+
+"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot--'" and Boggs's voice rang out in
+the tune he knew Mac loved best.
+
+Mac dropped into his chair. The news thrilled him in more ways than one.
+Certain vague, hopeless plans could now, perhaps, be carried out; plans
+he had driven from his mind as soon as they had taken shape: Holland for
+one, which seemed nearer of realization now than ever. So did some
+others.
+
+"Millionaires have their uses, Mac, after all," laughed Marny.
+
+"Yes, but this fellow was an exception. He filled my mug and----"
+
+"--And your pocket," added Boggs; "don't forget that, you ingrate.
+Again--all together, gentlemen--
+
+"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot----'"
+
+This time Boggs sang the couplet to the end, Mac and all of us joining
+in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When all the others had gone I still kept my chair. There was one thing
+more I wanted to know. Mac was on his feet, restlessly pacing the room,
+a quickness in his step, a buoyant tone in his voice that I had not
+noticed all winter.
+
+"Sit down here, old man, and let me ask you a question."
+
+"No," answered Mac, "fire it at me here. I'm too happy to sit down. What
+is it?"
+
+"Was that human girl you spoke of, who lives abroad, the one in the
+steamer chair with the red roses in her lap?"
+
+Mac stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"Yes; I got a letter from her this morning."
+
+"And you are going over?"
+
+"By the first steamer, old man."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+
+THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN
+
+"It would be hard to find a more entertaining, piquant, and
+sweet-spirited companion in book-form."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+KENNEDY SQUARE
+
+"All that was best in the banished life of the old South has been
+touched into life and love, into humor and pathos, in this fine and
+memorable American novel."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+PETER
+
+"It is an old-fashioned love story."--_The Outlook._
+
+"Old Peter Grayson is a charming character, with his old-fashioned
+virtues, his warm sympathies, and his readiness to lend a
+hand."--_Springfield Republican._
+
+THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT
+
+"The story is one of strong dramatic power. Its style is direct and
+incisive, revealing a series of strongly drawn pictures."--_Philadelphia
+Record._
+
+FORTY MINUTES LATE AND OTHER STORIES
+
+"It overflows with friendliness and enjoyment of life, and it furnishes
+a capital example of impressionistic writing."--_The Outlook._
+
+THE VEILED LADY
+
+"These little stories are as entertaining as any he has written and we
+can recommend them confidently to his many admirers."--_New York Sun._
+
+"They are exceedingly agreeable stories with an atmospheric quality
+which the versatile author imparts to them."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+AT CLOSE RANGE
+
+"These simple tales contain more of the real art of character-drawing
+than a score of novels of the day."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+"He has set down with humorous compassion and wit the real life that we
+live every day."--_The Independent._
+
+THE UNDER DOG
+
+"Mr. Hopkinson Smith's genius for sympathy finds full expression in his
+stories of human under dogs of one sort and another ... each serves as a
+centre for an episode, rapid, vivid, story-telling."--_The Nation._
+
+THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN
+
+"It is in the character-drawing that the author has done his best work.
+No three finer examples of women can be found than Margaret Grant,
+Sallie Horn, Oliver's mother, and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old
+spinster."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
+
+THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN
+
+"A breath of pure and invigorating fragrance out of the fogs and
+tempests of the day's fiction."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+"None of Mr. Smith's writings have shown more delightfully his spirit of
+genial kindliness and sympathetic humor."--_Boston Herald._
+
+COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS
+
+"The dear old colonel claims our smiles and our love as simply and as
+whole-heartedly as ever."--_Life._
+
+THE NOVELS, STORIES AND SKETCHES OF F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+"He has always had unquestioning faith in the significance and interest
+of the simple, universal human experiences as they come to normal,
+brave, affectionate, gentle-mannered, or robust, untrained men and
+women.
+
+"As he looks at nature so he looks at man: with clear vision, with
+sympathy rather than curiosity; with an eye for the fine things in the
+rugged man and the vigorous, sinewy, self-sustaining woman, and for the
+natural virtues, the deep tenderness, the true-heartedness in the man of
+long descent and the woman of gentle breeding.
+
+"His style is singularly concise, exact, compact; possessed of a
+vitality which uses various arts of expression; his style is notable for
+concentration, solidity, reality."--HAMILTON W. MABIE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34284-8.txt or 34284-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/8/34284/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/34284-8.zip b/34284-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ac54f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-8.zip
diff --git a/34284-h.zip b/34284-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f42a99e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h.zip
diff --git a/34284-h/34284-h.htm b/34284-h/34284-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d98bce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/34284-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,6019 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wood Fire In No. 3, by F. HOPKINSON SMITH.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+.linenum {
+    position: absolute;
+    top: auto;
+    left: 4%;
+} /* poetry number */
+
+.blockquot {
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+.sidenote {
+    width: 20%;
+    padding-bottom: .5em;
+    padding-top: .5em;
+    padding-left: .5em;
+    padding-right: .5em;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    color: black;
+    background: #eeeeee;
+    border: dashed 1px;
+}
+
+.bb       {border-bottom: solid 2px;}
+
+.bl       {border-left: solid 2px;}
+
+.bt       {border-top: solid 2px;}
+
+.br       {border-right: solid 2px;}
+
+.bbox     {border: solid 2px;}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
+
+.caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
+/* Images */
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: auto;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figleft {
+    float: left;
+    clear: left;
+    margin-left: 0;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 1em;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figright {
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    margin-bottom:
+    1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 0;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+/* Footnotes */
+.footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+
+.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+
+.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+
+.fnanchor {
+    vertical-align: super;
+    font-size: .8em;
+    text-decoration:
+    none;
+}
+
+/* Poetry */
+.poem {
+    margin-left:10%;
+    margin-right:10%;
+    text-align: left;
+}
+
+.poem br {display: none;}
+
+.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+
+.poem span.i0 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 0em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+.poem span.i2 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 2em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+.poem span.i4 {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 4em;
+    padding-left: 3em;
+    text-indent: -3em;
+}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wood Fire in No. 3
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Illustrator: Alonzo Kimball
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2010 [EBook #34284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3</h1>
+
+<h2>BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH</h2>
+
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS BY<br />
+ALONZO KIMBALL</h3>
+
+<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br />
+NEW YORK 1913</h3>
+
+<h3>Copyright, 1905, by<br />
+<span class="smcap">Charles Scribner's Son</span><br /></h3>
+
+<h3><i>Published, October, 1905</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a>
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Mac had the floor this afternoon.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_WORD_OF_WELCOME" id="A_WORD_OF_WELCOME"></a><i>A WORD OF WELCOME:</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><i>To those of you who love an easy chair, a mug, a pipe, and a story; to
+whom a well-swept hearth is a delight and the cheery crackle of hickory
+logs a joy; the touch of whose elbows sends a thrill through responsive
+hearts and whose genial talk but knits the circle the closer,&mdash;as well
+as those gentler spirits who are content to listen&mdash;how rare they
+are!&mdash;do I repeat Sandy MacWhirter's hearty invitation: "Draw up, draw
+up! By the gods, but I'm glad to see you! Get a pipe. The tobacco is in
+the yellow jar."</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Yours warmly,</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i><span class="smcap">The Back Log</span>.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The Hearth</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Room No. 3, Old Building,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">October, 1905.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#A_WORD_OF_WELCOME">A WORD OF WELCOME:</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_I">PART I. In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are set Forth</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_II">PART II. Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_III">PART III. With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_IV">PART IV. With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_V">PART V. In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_VI">PART VI. Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice" and his Fellow Dogs</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_VII">PART VII. Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_VIII">PART VIII. In which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_IX">PART IX. Around the Embers of the Dying Fire</a><br />
+<a href="#BOOKS_BY_F_HOPKINSON_SMITH">BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h4><i>From drawings in color by Alonzo Kimball</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><a href="#illus1">Mac had the floor this afternoon</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus2">MacWhirter</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus3">But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus4">The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like him!"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus5">Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus6">Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus7">"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a morning paper"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus8">Pushed the Engineer into the salon</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus9">Around the embers of the dying fire</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are Set Forth.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had been brought up on
+blazing logs and warm hearths, and could not be happy without them. In
+his own boyhood's home the fireplace was the shrine, and half the
+orchard and two big elms had been offered up on its altar.</p>
+
+<p>There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in&mdash;no place really to put
+one, unless he knocked a hole in the roof, started a fire on the bare
+floor, and sat around it wigwam fashion; nor was there any way of
+supporting the necessary brickwork, unless a start was made from the
+basement up through every room to No. 3 and so on to the roof. But
+trifling obstacles like these never daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a
+Beaux Arts man, who built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for
+blazing logs, solved the difficulty. It was only a matter of fifteen
+feet from where Mac's easel stood to the roof of the building that
+sheltered him, and it was not many days before Lonnegan's foreman had a
+hole in the roof and a wide and spacious chimney breast rising from
+Mac's floor, which filled the opening in the ceiling and rose some ten
+feet above it, the whole resting on an iron plate bolted to four upright
+iron rods which were in turn bolted to two heavy timbers laid flat on
+the roof. Lonnegan's men did the work, and Lonnegan settled with the
+landlord and forgot ever afterward to send Mac the bill, and hasn't to
+this day.</p>
+
+<p>No one else inside the four walls of the Old Building had any such
+comfort. All the other denizens had heaters; or choked-up, shivering,
+contracted grates; or a half-strangled flue from the basement below.
+Poor Pitkin relied on a rubber tube fastened to his gas light, which was
+connected with a sort of Chinese tea-caddy of a stove propped up on four
+legs, and which was shifted about so as to thaw out the coldest spots in
+his studio.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. Everybody crowded
+in to see it&mdash;not only the men from below and on the same floor, but
+half a dozen and more cronies from the outside. No one believed
+Lonnegan's yarn about the bolts, so natural and old-timey did the
+fireplace seem, until the great architect picked the plaster away with
+his knife and showed them the irons, and even then one doubting Thomas
+had to mount the scuttle stairs and peer out through the trap-door
+before he was convinced that modern science had lent a helping hand to
+recall a boyhood memory.</p>
+
+<p>And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the men loved it
+despite the liberties they tried to take with it! And they did, at
+first, take liberties, and of the most exasperating kind to any
+well-intentioned, law-abiding, and knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the
+animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was
+never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face;
+Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log
+should be stood on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while
+Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the basement because of his dirty
+clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the
+back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air
+could get between it and the blackened bricks.</p>
+
+<p>But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks ever daunted the
+spirit of this fire. It would splutter a moment with ill-concealed
+indignation, threatening a dozen times to go out in smoke, and then all
+of a sudden a little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one
+end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roaring up the
+chimney in a very ecstasy of delight.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many a time, when Mac
+and I would be sitting alone before it listening to its chatter.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a seat," it would crackle; "right in front, where I can warm you.
+Sit, too, where you can look into my face and see how ruddy and joyous
+it is. I'll not bore you; I never bored anybody&mdash;never in all my life. I
+am an endless series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can
+sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with laughter,
+dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I can smoulder away all by
+myself, crooning a low song of the woods&mdash;the song your mother loved,
+your cradle song&mdash;so full of content that it will soothe you into
+forgetfulness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of ashes and
+shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep&mdash;you and I, old friends now
+with our thousand memories."</p>
+
+<p>Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods&mdash;"Alexander MacWhirter,
+Room No. 3," the sign-board read in the hall below&mdash;and only MacWhirter
+could satisfy its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one
+dared touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs was
+sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after this that a certain sense of ownership permeated
+the coterie. They yielded the chimney and its mechanical contrivances to
+MacWhirter and Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged
+to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up from the several
+studios, each member of the half-circle furnishing his own&mdash;the most
+comfortable he owned. Then the mugs followed, and the pipe-racks, and
+soon Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one spot in the
+building that we all loved and longed for.</p>
+
+<p>And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just such a Temple of
+Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with one and a quarter, perhaps one
+and a half, of a chin tucked under his old one&mdash;a chin though that came
+from laughter, not from laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty
+in his voice and words, with the faintest trace&mdash;just a trace, it was so
+slight&mdash;of his mother-tongue in his speech; whole-souled, spontaneous,
+unselfish, ready to praise and never to criticise; brimming with
+anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience&mdash;on the Riviera,
+in Sicily, Egypt, and the Far East, wherever his brush had carried
+him&mdash;he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the
+snap of their coals in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his invariable greeting.
+"Draw up! draw up! Go get a pipe&mdash;the tobacco is in the yellow jar."</p>
+
+<p>This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the
+shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was giving his
+experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the climax of some tale,
+it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him
+than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of
+listening still being in vogue in those days and much respected by the
+occupants of the chairs&mdash;by all except Boggs, who would always break
+into the conversation irrespective of restrictions or traditions.</p>
+
+<p>Mac had the floor this afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a>
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>MacWhirter.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>I knew this from the sound of his voice through the half-closed door as
+I reached the top-floor landing.</p>
+
+<p>"Refused, gentlemen, refused point blank," I heard Mac say. "He wouldn't
+let them search him; wouldn't empty his pockets as the others had done;
+it made a most disagreeable impression on every one at the table.
+Collins, his host, was amazed; so was Moulton."</p>
+
+<p>My own head was now abreast of the old Chinese screen.</p>
+
+<p>"What reason did he give?" Boggs asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't give any. Just hemmed and hawed, and blushed like a girl."</p>
+
+<p>I was inside the cosy room now, its air etched with wavy lines of
+tobacco smoke, showing blue in the dim glare of the skylight overhead;
+had nodded to Boggs, whose face was just visible over the top of Mac's
+most comfortable chair&mdash;Boggs always hides his bulk in this particular
+chair, having furnished none of his own, a weakness or selfishness which
+we all recognize and permit&mdash;and was adding my snow-covered coat and hat
+to a collection, facing the blazing logs, and within reach of their
+genial warmth, when Mac's voice again dominated the hum of questioning
+raised by the half-circle of toasting shins.</p>
+
+<p>"Collins, of course, never said a word&mdash;how could he? The old fellow had
+been his friend for years; went to school with him. Now, gentlemen, what
+would you have thought?"</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to see that our host had full possession of the floor. His
+feet were firmly planted on the half-worn Daghestan, his square, erect
+back turned to the crackling blaze, his head raised, arms swinging,
+hands extended, accentuating every point that he made with that peculiar
+twist of the thumb common to all painters. I dropped quietly into a
+chair. Better keep still and smoke on with my ear-shutters fastened back
+and my eyes fixed on the speaker's face. The cue would come my way
+before Mac had got very far in his story.</p>
+
+<p>Again Mac put the question, this time in a rising voice, demanding an
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have thought?"</p>
+
+<p>"I give it up," said Pitkin. "I knew Peaslee. Life went against him, but
+that old fellow was as straight as a string. Why, he has been
+book-keeper for that bank for half a century, more or less; I used to
+keep an account there; queer-looking chap, all spectacles."</p>
+
+<p>"Collins must have put the jewel in his pocket and had not been able to
+find it," remarked Ford, discussion now being in order; "like a man
+losing his railroad ticket and discovering it in his hat-band after he
+has searched every part of his clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"Old fellow was short in his balance and wanted to make it up," growled
+Boggs. Boggs did not mean a word of it, but it was his turn and he must
+hazard an opinion of some kind.</p>
+
+<p>Mac smiled and a laugh went round. Poor old Tim Peaslee stealing Sam
+Collins's or anybody else's opal to straighten out a deficiency in his
+account was about as absurd a deduction to those who remembered him, as
+Diogenes losing his lantern in the effort to scrape acquaintance with a
+thief.</p>
+
+<p>Marny, his face blue-white with his tramp through the snow, and Jack
+Stirling, in a new English Macintosh, now entered, shook their wet
+garments, filled their pipes from the yellow jar, and dragged up chairs
+to join the half-circle, the puffs of their newly filled pipes adding
+innumerable wavy lines to the etched plate of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"Mac has got the most extraordinary story, Marny, that you ever heard,"
+cried Wharton. "What do you think of old Tim Peaslee helping himself to
+Sam Collins's jewelry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard of Peaslee or Collins in my life," answered Marny, dragging
+his chair closer and opening his chilled fingers to the blaze. "Jack
+may, he knows everybody&mdash;some he oughtn't to. Who are they, burglars or
+stockbrokers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Collins, who has that opal mine in Mexico. Old Tim was for years
+the book-keeper of the Exeter Bank. You must have known Peaslee,"
+persisted Wharton.</p>
+
+<p>Marny shook his head, and Wharton turned to Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"Begin all over again, old man, and we'll take a vote. Marny's head is
+as thick as one of his backgrounds."</p>
+
+<p>"At the beginning?" asked MacWhirter, between the puffs of his pipe,
+freshly lighted now that his story had been told.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, from the time Sam Collins came to New York&mdash;everything."</p>
+
+<p>Mac laid his pipe once more on the mantel, threw an extra stick on the
+fire from the pile by the chimney, raked the ashes clear of the front
+log, and resumed his position on the rug. Now that the circle was larger
+and he had been challenged to give every detail he intended to make his
+second telling of the extraordinary story more interesting, if possible,
+than the first.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give it to you exactly as Collins gave it to me; and, Boggs, you
+will please keep still until I get through. Wharton, change your seat so
+you can clap your hand over Boggs's mouth when he breaks out. Thanks.</p>
+
+<p>"About two years ago Sam Collins came back to New York, first time in
+nearly twenty years. He had been up in Peru living in the clouds,
+digging for copper and not finding any, he told me; then he kept on to
+Ceylon, wandered around there for a while, and finally landed at Vera
+Cruz and went up into Mexico, until he struck the town of Queretaro.
+You've been there, Wharton; I remember your sketch of the old
+Cathedral."</p>
+
+<p>Wharton nodded, and settled himself deeper in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Shot Maximilian there," whispered Boggs under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Mac glanced savagely at Boggs, but continued:</p>
+
+<p>"On taking in the town Collins found that everybody, from the beggars in
+the Plaza to the bankers in the palaces, had their pockets full of
+opals, wads and wads of them, some big as duck-shot, some big as birds'
+eggs. Collins is an expert on anything that comes out of the ground, and
+the next morning he was astride of a burro and off to the mines, noting
+how the minerals lay and the dip of the land, and the next week he was
+away prospecting, and before the month was out he had bought a hill that
+was as bare as your hand of everything but bunch grass and sand fleas,
+and had ten half-breeds at work, and by the end of the year he had
+struck hard-pan, with enough opals lying around loose to make him rich.
+This was two years ago, remember. Pretty soon Sam discovered that he
+needed more money to develop his mine, and he started for New York to
+look up his old friends to help him raise it.</p>
+
+<p>"When Collins arrived he found that a lot of things could happen in
+twenty years: half of his friends were dead; some were scattered over
+the world, wandering as he had been; and out of fifty or more old chums
+who had known him at college only a dozen or more were left. Tim Peaslee
+was one of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam loved Tim; he always had. For years they had kept up their letters;
+then Tim lost track of Collins, and communication ceased. All the way to
+New York Collins was thinking of Tim. If he was rich, they'd go in
+together on the mine; and if he was poor, he'd share what he had with
+him. The Tim he loved was not the kind of man to shake hands with. His
+Tim was the sort of a fellow to hug and keep your hand on his knee while
+you talked to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam found him in an old house in Bond Street&mdash;one of those
+high-stooped, passed-by wrecks that are being turned into Italian
+tenements, with wood and coal shops in the basement and sign painters in
+the garret. He was living with his old sister, Miss Peaslee&mdash;older than
+Tim. The two had a life interest in the property, and none of the heirs
+could take possession until these two were buried.</p>
+
+<p>"It was dark when he reached Tim's and mounted the steps; too dark for
+him to notice the queer iron railings and newel posts red with rust, and
+the front door that hadn't had a coat of paint on it for years, nor the
+knob and knocker that were black with the weather. At his first ring no
+one answered; at the third, a woman with a basket opened the door. She
+was on her way out&mdash;that's why she opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Mr. Peaslee and his folks lives on the top floor. He's our
+landlord. Walk right up. This door ain't locked till twelve o'clock, so
+ye can just shut it to behind ye. We have the first floor, and another
+family has the second, but they're moved out.'</p>
+
+<p>"On the way upstairs, in the dim light of the single gas-jet, Sam made
+out the slender banisters and on each landing the solid mahogany doors
+that opened into the several rooms, showing him that it had once been a
+house of some pretensions.</p>
+
+<p>"He knocked gently; there was a hurried scuffle inside, as if someone
+wanted to escape being seen, and Tim thrust out his head. He had on an
+old calico dressing-gown and was in his slippers, his glasses pushed
+back on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam told me he never had such a shock in his life as when he saw Tim.
+He had to look into his face twice and wait until he spoke before he was
+sure it was he. He had left his chum a springy, enthusiastic young
+fellow of twenty-five, full of go and life, and he found him a dried-up,
+wizen-faced, bald-pated old fellow near fifty, who looked a hundred.
+While he had been climbing mountains, sleeping in the open air, working
+with a pick or rounding up cattle, poor old Tim had been driving a quill
+behind a desk, getting drier and drier, like an old gourd hung in an
+attic&mdash;all the hope shrunk out of him, all his joyousness gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Who wants me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you know me, Tim? I'm Collins&mdash;Sam Collins,' and he caught hold
+of his limp hand.</p>
+
+<p>"'Collins?' muttered Tim, drawing back. 'I don't know but one&mdash;' here
+the light in the hall fell on Sam's face&mdash;'Not Sam, are you?' He knew
+him now. 'Come inside!' and he dragged him past the door, his shrivelled
+hand on the miner's collar. 'Ann, here's Sam&mdash;old Sam Collins! Where
+have you been, you old rascal, all these years? My sister&mdash;you remember
+her, of course&mdash;we've been living here&mdash;Oh, Sam, but I'm glad to see
+you! What a great girth you've got on you, and so big in the shoulders!
+And what a queer hat! How did you find me?&mdash;Oh, you rascal!'</p>
+
+<p>"This running fire of exclamations and questions was kept up until Sam
+had found a seat next the old sister, who was thinner even than Tim, and
+with a look in her eyes of a hungry child peering into a cake-shop. All
+this time Tim was holding on to Sam's big shoulders as if he was afraid
+he would escape.</p>
+
+<p>"When Sam's gaze was free to wander about the room he found it choked
+full of old furniture of the oldest and most dilapidated kind&mdash;a
+mahogany sideboard with the knobs gone; sofas with the hair-cloth seats
+in holes, all good in their day, but all wanting the upholsterer and the
+cabinet-maker. Not a dollar had been spent upon them for years. The
+life interest, Sam found out afterward, went with the furniture as well
+as the house.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing struck Sam more than anything else, and that was Tim's
+tenderness over Miss Ann. When she coughed&mdash;and she coughed most of the
+time&mdash;Tim would start as if it hurt him. Once he went into the next room
+and brought her a shawl, and just before Sam left Tim poured out a
+spoonful of medicine for her and made her take it right before Sam,
+adding:</p>
+
+<p>"'It's only Sam; he's got a heart as big as an ox, and will understand.
+Won't you, Sam?'</p>
+
+<p>"Next day Collins started in to raise the money for his mining. Tim
+introduced him to the cashier and the president of the Exeter, and they
+both looked Sam over and took in his wide sombrero and queer clothes,
+and examined his samples&mdash;one was a beauty, which Tiffany offered him a
+big sum for&mdash;and then they wrote him a letter&mdash;that is, the president
+did&mdash;on the bank's paper, saying that they appreciated greatly the
+opportunity, etc., but the charter of the bank prevented, etc., and they
+had no money of their own, etc.&mdash;same old kind of a lying letter these
+men write when they can't get one hundred per cent. on an investment.</p>
+
+<p>"Tim nearly fell off his stool with disappointment when Sam read him the
+letter, but Sam never turned a hair. If the old fossils in the Exeter
+didn't have the money, somebody else would; and, sure enough, a
+dry-goods man and a retired physician turned up, and the two roped in a
+young millionnaire, a fellow by the name of Moulton, who thought he knew
+it all, and <i>did</i>. The money was raised, and Sam got ready to go back to
+Mexico and start the mine on an enlarged scale. All this time he had
+been looking up his old school-friends, and the night before he started
+he got them all together, including the new subscribers, the young
+millionnaire among them, and Sam, at the millionnaire's suggestion,
+called on old Solari, down in University Place, and arranged for a
+farewell dinner. Tim was to sit on his right hand and the retired
+physician on his left, and Sam was to make a proposition to his guests,
+half of whom were directors in the new company, the nature of which he
+kept secret even from Tim.</p>
+
+<p>"The old book-keeper begged off, and vowed he couldn't go&mdash;hadn't been
+to a dinner for years; Sister Ann wasn't well, and needed him; and,
+besides, on that very night he would be up late at his home making up
+the month's returns&mdash;all the excuses a man hunts up when he is hiding
+the real reason that keeps him away. But Sam understood Tim by this
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"'I forgot to tell you, Tim,' he came back to say, 'that you mustn't put
+on your black evening clothes.' (Tim hadn't any, as Sam knew.) 'I'm
+going in my rough togs, so as to let everybody see me as I am every day,
+and the others will dress the same, and I want you to oblige me by not
+wearing yours. It will help me in my deal.'</p>
+
+<p>"So Tim went, the only addition to his toilet being a new black tie
+which Miss Ann had made for him.</p>
+
+<p>"The dinner was upstairs on the third floor, in Solari's back room&mdash;you
+all know it&mdash;same room Lonnegan had last year for that supper he gave
+us. Sam had told Solari to spare no expense, and to keep setting things
+up as long as anybody wanted them; and Solari carried out Collins's
+orders to the last bottle&mdash;way down to Chartreuse and Reina Victorias.
+There were oysters on the half-shell, and crab soup and an entrée of
+mushrooms, and a filêt with trimmings, and plump little quail on dry
+toast, salads, desserts, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>"Tim, to the delight of everybody, and especially Sam, thawed out under
+the influence of the first bottle, and sang a comic song he had not sung
+since he and Sam had parted, and took every dish in its turn&mdash;he was
+twice helped to quail&mdash;and was so happy that Sam could hardly wait for
+the time to come when the secret he had up his sleeve was to be slipped
+out and exploded.</p>
+
+<p>"When the coffee was served Sam got up on his feet, and in welcoming his
+guests took out the opal that Tiffany wanted to buy, and saying how
+confident he was that before the year was out he would be able to ship
+to them many more of even greater value and brilliancy, passed it to Tim
+to hand around the table, some of his old friends never having seen it.</p>
+
+<p>"Tim passed it across the young millionnaire to a man next him, and
+after everybody had said how beautiful it was, and how they each wanted
+one just like it, it was handed back to Tim, who laid it on the table
+beside his plate. There was no mistake about this part of the story, for
+the millionnaire called the retired physician's attention to it,
+remarking that as it lay on the white cloth by Tim's hand it looked like
+a drop of frozen absinthe&mdash;which wasn't bad for a millionnaire.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam had the secret now well in hand&mdash;fuse all lighted, ready to be
+touched off:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen,' he began, 'there are some men you have known for a short
+time, and you like them, and some go back to your boyhood, and those you
+love. I've got a friend here who is like that opal&mdash;clear as crystal
+and&mdash;Hand me the opal, Tim; I just want to dilate on it, and I can do it
+better if I have it in my hand and look into its eyes and yours.'</p>
+
+<p>"Tim colored scarlet, and moved his arm quickly. The friend from
+boyhood, he knew, was himself, and he was not accustomed to praise.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pass it along, old man!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I haven't got it, Sam,' came the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, you have,' called out the young millionnaire. 'It's right there
+beside your glass; I saw it there a minute ago.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, if it was,' Tim stammered, 'it isn't here now.' It was the
+complimentary speech that Sam was about to make that was upsetting Tim,
+so Sam thought.</p>
+
+<p>"By this time half the guests were on their feet.</p>
+
+<p>"'Look around among the glasses,' suggested one.</p>
+
+<p>"'Maybe it's under your napkin,' remarked another.</p>
+
+<p>"'I gave it to <i>you</i>, I thought,' said Tim, turning to the physician.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, you didn't. You've got it somewhere around; perhaps you've slipped
+it in your pocket.' There was a slight tone of suspicion in the voice
+which jarred on Sam.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' answered Tim helplessly. 'I didn't put it in my pocket. I don't
+know what I did with it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Send for Hawkshaw the detective&mdash;lock the doors, and search every man
+down to his underwear!' shouted Sam in a serio-comic voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Chairs were now being pushed back, and some of the men were on their
+knees groping around the floor near where Tim sat, the head waiter
+holding a candle from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"All this time Sam was standing waiting to finish his speech, to him the
+event of the evening. The table was moved, and every square foot of the
+carpet gone over, Tim assisting in the search, but in a perfunctory way
+that attracted Sam's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind, gentlemen, let it go,' Sam said. 'I can do without it. It
+will turn up somewhere; you've all seen it, anyhow, and so it's just as
+good as if I held it up before you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Some men, as I said, I have known from boyhood&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"The young millionnaire now jumped up.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hold on, Mr. Collins; I'd like to find that opal before we do anything
+else. Nobody has swallowed it'&mdash;constant association with money had
+warped his judgment of human nature, perhaps. 'Here's what's in my
+clothes,' and he began unloading his keys, knife, loose change, and
+handkerchief from his coat-pocket and piling them up on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Every man followed his lead, the contagion of his example having spread
+through the room. The unloading was as much a part of the merriment of
+the evening as Tim's comic song or Sam's sallies of wit. Tim, all this
+time, had been edging near where Sam stood.</p>
+
+<p>"'Out with your stuff, Peaslee,' shouted the millionnaire&mdash;'here, right
+on the table&mdash;everything.'</p>
+
+<p>"Tim turned pale and made a step nearer Sam.</p>
+
+<p>"'I haven't got the opal, Sam; indeed I haven't!' There was a tone in
+his voice that was almost pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course you haven't, old man, but out with your stuff, just as the
+others have. Hurry up!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can't, Sam!' groaned Tim.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't!'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, I can't! Please don't ask me. I must bid you good-night,
+gentlemen. Please let me go away,' and he moved to the door and shut it
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Every man looked at Sam. For a moment no one spoke. Collins himself was
+dumfounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn queer, isn't it?' whispered the millionnaire to Sam. 'What do you
+think is the matter with him?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing that <span class="smcap">you</span> think!' said Sam, looking him square in the face, a
+peculiar glitter in his eye that some of his workmen knew when there was
+any trouble in the mine. 'Let us drink to his health. He is not
+accustomed to being out, and the wine has perhaps gone to his head.'"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>MacWhirter reached for his pipe, knocked the bowl against the brickwork
+of the big fireplace to free it from its dead ashes, and turned again to
+the circle about him. At the same instant the back-log settled itself
+with a sigh of satisfaction, and a crackling of sparks&mdash;the fire's
+applause, no doubt&mdash;filled the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" broke in Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite," Mac answered. "All for that night, and all for the next
+day, so far as Tim was concerned, for the old fellow shut himself up in
+his room and said he was sick, and Sam had to leave for Mexico without
+seeing him."</p>
+
+<p>"What did the others think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just what you would have thought, and <i>did</i>, when I told it awhile ago.
+That's why I asked you. The millionnaire believed, of course, Tim had
+stolen it, and so did the physician. Made such an impression on the new
+directors present that Sam smothered his intended surprise and left his
+speech unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>"Three months after that Sam came back to New York with more opals, many
+of them much larger and finer than the one which had so mysteriously
+disappeared. He arrived after everybody had gone to bed&mdash;Tim Peaslee
+among them&mdash;and remembering the dinner, and where he had eaten it, and
+how good it was, he got into a cab and drove to Solari's. The head
+waiter looked him over for a moment&mdash;he still wore the same
+sombrero&mdash;and went out and got the clerk, who asked him his name; and
+then Solari came in and asked him more questions and laid the lost opal
+in his hand. It had been found under a corner of the carpet when it had
+been taken up and shaken the week before, and Solari had been trying
+ever since to find some way of letting Sam know.</p>
+
+<p>"It was now eleven o'clock, but that didn't make any difference to Sam.
+He laid a five-dollar bill on the table to pay for the supper he had
+ordered and hadn't time to eat, made a rush for the door, jumped into a
+cab and drove like mad to Bond Street. The outer door was open. He
+mounted the stairs three steps at a time and banged away at Tim's door.
+It happened to be Tim's night for working over his accounts, and he was
+still up.</p>
+
+<p>"'I've got it, Tim&mdash;rolled under the carpet. Here it is. Let me hug you,
+you old fraud! Where's Miss Ann? I want to see her. Go and dig her out
+of bed, I tell you!'</p>
+
+<p>"All this time Sam was hugging Tim like a bear, lifting him up and down
+as if he had been a baby. When they got inside and Tim had shut the hall
+door, and had tiptoed toward his sister's room and had seen that her
+door was shut tight&mdash;so tight that she couldn't hear&mdash;he came back to
+where Sam stood and nearly shook his arm off.</p>
+
+<p>"'Found it under the carpet, did they? Oh, I'm so glad! I never shall
+forget that night, Sam. They wanted me to empty my pockets, and I
+couldn't. I didn't care what they thought. Oh, Sam, it was awful! You
+didn't think I had taken it, did you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, old man, I didn't, and that's square. But why didn't you unload
+with the others?'</p>
+
+<p>"Tim craned his head toward Miss Ann's door, listened intently for a
+moment, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I had one of those little fat quail in my coat-tail pocket; they
+passed me two. Ann used to love them, and I knew you wouldn't mind; and
+I lied about it when I gave it to her and told her you sent it. Don't
+tell her, please.'"</p>
+
+<p>As Mac finished, a log which had perhaps leaned too far forward in its
+effort to listen, lost its balance and rolled over on the hearth,
+sending a shower of astonished sparks scurrying up the chimney. Marny
+bent forward and sent it back into place with his foot. Wharton pushed
+back his chair and without a word reached for his coat; so did Pitkin
+and the others. The story had evidently made a deep impression on them,
+so much so that Marny didn't speak to Pitkin or Wharton until they
+reached the Square, and then only to say: "Regular old trump, that
+book-keeper&mdash;wasn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Boggs still sat hunched up in his chair. He was less emotional than dear
+old Marny, but his heart was in the right place all the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully story, Mac&mdash;one of your best. Heard something like that before.
+Heard it in two or three ways&mdash;as a peach in a Bishop's pocket; as a
+snuff-box in an admiral's. You're a daisy, Mac, for warming over club
+chestnuts. But that's all right. Now, what was the surprise Collins had
+up his sleeve when he got up to make his speech that night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Tim's appointment as book-keeper of the new company. His refusal
+to be searched of course knocked that in the head. He's treasurer now;
+has a big slice of the stock that Sam gave him for luck; has lost all
+his wrinkles, looks ten years younger, and is getting a new crop of
+hair. Miss Ann has got over her cough and is spry as a kitten&mdash;spryer.
+They are all out at the mine; she keeps house for them both."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>"Move back, Lonnegan, and let me get at it!" cried MacWhirter the next
+afternoon. "You jab a fire as if it were something you wanted to kill!
+Coddle it a little, like this," and Mac laid the warm cheeks of two logs
+together and a sputtering of hot kisses filled the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call him 'Lonnegan,' Mac, in that rude and boisterous way,"
+expostulated Boggs. "It jars on his Royal Highness's finer
+sensibilities. Say 'Mr. Lonnegan, will you have the kindness to remove
+your beautiful and well-groomed and fashionable carcass until I can add
+a stick or two to my fire?' Lonnegan has been in society&mdash;out every
+night this week, I hear."</p>
+
+<p>Mac replaced the tongs and straightened his back, his face turned toward
+Lonnegan.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you really on exhibition, Lonny?" Mac's impatience never lasts
+many seconds.</p>
+
+<p>The architect nodded, then answered slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Five dinners and a tea."</p>
+
+<p>"All rich houses, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very rich."</p>
+
+<p>"And all wanted plans for country seats, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some of them&mdash;two, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Extra dry champagne, under-done canvas-backs and costly terrapin served
+every five minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Extra dry canvas-backs, done-over terrapin, and cheap champagne.
+Served but once, thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wore your swell clothes, I presume?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, swallow-tail on me every night and a head on me every morning,"
+answered Lonnegan with a grave face. "Why do you ask, Mac?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just to keep in touch with the history of my country, old man."</p>
+
+<p>While the two men talked, Pitkin and Van Brunt walked in&mdash;the latter a
+Dutch painter in New York for the winter, just arrived by steamer. The
+atmosphere of No. 3 was evidently congenial to the man, for, after a
+hand-shake all round, the Hollander produced his own pipe, filled it
+from a leather pouch in his pocket, and sat down before the fire as
+unconcerned and as contented as if he'd been one of the fire's circle
+from the day of its lighting. Good Bohemians, so called the world over,
+have an international code of manners, just as all club men of equal
+class agree upon certain details of dress and etiquette, no matter what
+their tongue. The brush, the chisel, the trowel, and the test-tube are
+so many talismans&mdash;open sesames to the whole fraternity.</p>
+
+<p>The Hollander had overheard the last half of Mac's sally and Lonnegan's
+grave rejoinder.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the terrapin and the canvas-back, I hear much of them. What does a
+terrapin look like, Mr. Lonnegan?"</p>
+
+<p>"A terrapin, Van Brunt," interrupted Boggs, "is a hide-bound little
+beast that sleeps in the mud, is as ugly as the devil, and can bite a
+tenpenny nail in two with his teeth when he's awake. When he is boiled
+and picked clean, and served with Madeira, he is the most toothsome
+compound known to cookery."</p>
+
+<p>"Correctly described, Boggs&mdash;'compound' is good," said Lonnegan. "The
+up-to-date-modern-millionnaire-terrapin, Mr. Van Brunt, is a reptile
+compounded of glue, chicken-bones, chopped calf's head, and old
+India-rubber shoes. When ready for use it tastes like flour paste served
+in hot flannel. I may be wrong about the chopped calf's head, but I'm
+all right about the India-rubber shoes. I've been eating them this
+week, and part of a heel is still here"&mdash;and he tapped his shirt-front.</p>
+
+<p>"And the canvas-back?" continued Van Brunt, laughing. "It is a duck, is
+it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Occasionally a duck&mdash;I speak, of course, of tables where I have
+dined&mdash;but seldom a canvas-back."</p>
+
+<p>"And they live in the marshes, I hear, and feed on the wild celery&mdash;do
+they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; they live in a cold storage six months in the year, and feed on
+sawdust and ice," replied Lonnegan with the face of a stone god.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard life, isn't it?" remarked Boggs to the circle at large.</p>
+
+<p>"For the duck?" asked Pitkin.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;for Lonnegan. Orders for country houses come high."</p>
+
+<p>"Serves him right!" ventured Marny. "No business eating such messes;
+ought to get back to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hog and hominy," interrupted Lonnegan, still with the same grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"Both. That's what most of your millionnaires were brought up on."</p>
+
+<p>Pitkin sprang from his seat, and, thrusting both hands into his pockets,
+burst out with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, you really don't know what good eating is! The taste for
+terrapin and canvas-back is part of the degeneration of the age; so is
+it for truffles, mushrooms, caviare, and a lot of such messes. The
+French, whose cuisine we imitate, turn out a lot of flat-chested,
+spindle-shanks on sauces and ragouts. We'll go to the devil in the same
+way if we follow their cooks. The English raise the highest standard of
+man on tough bread and the most insipid boiled mutton in the world. What
+we have got to do is to get back to our plain old-fashioned kitchens.
+The best dinner I ever had in my life was when I was sixteen years old,
+and even now, whenever I get a whiff from a shop where they are cooking
+the same combination, I can no more pass it than a drunkard can pass a
+rum-mill."</p>
+
+<p>"Drunk on pork and beans!" growled Boggs in a low voice to Marny. "I
+knew you'd come to no good end, Pitkin. You ought to sign a pledge and
+join a non-adulterated food society."</p>
+
+<p>"Something better than pork and beans, you beggar!" retorted
+Pitkin&mdash;"something that makes my mouth water every time I think of it.
+And hungry! the prodigal son was an over-fed alderman to me; real
+gnawing, empty kind of hunger."</p>
+
+<p>Ford stood up and faced the circle.</p>
+
+<p>"The great sculptor, gentlemen, is about to tell us what he knows of
+biblical history. Silence!"</p>
+
+<p>"I had been out gunning all day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know you were a sportsman," interpolated Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been gunning all day," Pitkin repeated firmly, ignoring the
+Chronic Interrupter, "and had lost my way over the mountains. Just about
+dark I reached the valley and made for a small cabin with a curl of
+smoke coming out of the chimney. As I came nearer I got a whiff from a
+fry-pan that made me ravenous&mdash;one of those smells you never forget to
+your dying day. As I opened the gate I could see the glow of a fire in
+the stove, the smell getting stronger every minute. Inside, I found a
+man sitting in his shirt-sleeves by a table. The table had two plates on
+it, two knives, two forks, and two big china cups. Bending over the hot
+stove was his wife. She was stirring a large bowl filled to the brim
+with buckwheat batter. On the stove was a hot griddle and a fry-pan, and
+coiled in the fry-pan, trim as a rope coiled flat on a yacht's deck, lay
+a string of link sausages, with the bight of the line sticking up in the
+centre, like Mac's thumb.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you Pitkin's boy?' the man said, after I had explained.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Sit down and eat'</p>
+
+<p>"The old man had two cakes, and I had two cakes. They were griddled in
+fours, and we both had a link of sausage with each instalment. I never
+moved from my chair until the tide-mark oh the bowl had gone down five
+inches, and the core of the sausages looked as if a solid shot had
+struck it. That smell! and the way it all tasted, and the little brown
+frazzlings around the edges of the celestial cakes, and the sizzlings of
+fat on the sausages, and the boiling hot coffee that washed it all down!
+Oh, go to with your Delmonico dishes! Give me the days of my youth! If I
+had but four breaths left in me, and if somebody should pass that pan of
+sausages under my nose, I could rise up and whip my weight in wild-cats.
+And yet that smell doesn't bring to my memory the way my hunger was
+satisfied, or how the food tasted. What I recall is the low-ceiled room,
+and the glow of the fire; the warmth and comfort everywhere, and the
+high light on the old Frau's face bending over her griddle. You'd just
+love to have painted that old woman, Mac."</p>
+
+<p>The Hollander had listened quietly and without comment, both to
+Lonnegan's chaff and to Pitkin's enthusiastic recital.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, you are quite right, Mr. Pitkin; after all, it is the
+imagination that is fed, not the stomach."</p>
+
+<p>The measured tones of the speaker's voice at once commanded attention;
+even Boggs twisted his head to catch his words:</p>
+
+<p>"It is his imagination, too, which suffers when a man loses his money
+and becomes poor. What he misses most, then, is not his horses and
+carriages and fine houses; it is his table, and the clean napkins and
+the linen, and hot plates and the quite thin glasses. Is it not so? I
+can think of nothing more satisfying than a well-appointed table, with
+the servants about and the dishes properly served, and with the flowers,
+silver, and glass, the better wines coming later, the coffee and cigar
+at the end. And I can think of nothing more pitiful than for a man who
+has had all this, to be obliged to stand at a cheap counter and eat a
+cheap sandwich. My father used to tell me a story about the spendthrift
+son of an old baron who lived in my town, by the name of De Ruyter, and
+who spent in just two years every guilder his father left him. Then came
+roulette, and at last he was a tout for gaming-houses&mdash;so poor that he
+had but one coat to his back. All this time, having been born a
+gentleman, he managed to keep himself clean, his clothes brushed and
+mended, and his shirt and collar ironed. That is quite difficult for a
+man who is poor.</p>
+
+<p>"One day an old friend of his dead father's, a very rich man, took pity
+on him, and asked him to call at his house so that he might arrange to
+get him work. He received him in his library and rang for cigars and
+brandy, which his servant brought on a silver plate. The brandy the poor
+fellow drank, but the cigar he begged permission to put in his pocket
+and smoke later in the day. It was one of those great cigars the rich
+Hollanders smoke, about as long as your hand and thick like two fingers.
+This one had a little band around it, with the coat of arms of the
+gentleman stamped in gold; not a cigar you can buy even in Amsterdam,
+but a cigar made especially for very big customers like this one.</p>
+
+<p>"When young De Ruyter went out from the library he carried a letter to a
+merchant on the dock, which got for him a situation at ten guilders a
+week, and this big cigar. All the way to his lodgings in the garret he
+kept his hand on it as it lay flat in his waist-coat-pocket. At every
+street corner he took it out carefully to see that it was not mashed or
+broken. When he pushed in his room door he began to look around for a
+place to put it. He was afraid to carry it around with him for fear of
+crushing it. At last he saw a crack in the plaster just above the bed,
+showing two open laths. He wrapped it most carefully in paper and laid
+it in the opening; here it would be dry and out of danger; here he could
+always be sure that it was safe. Then he presented his letter and went
+to work for the merchant on the dock.</p>
+
+<p>"All that week he waited for Saturday night, when he would get his first
+ten guilders, and all that week before he went to sleep he would take a
+look at the cigar to be sure it was there. Every morning when he awoke
+he did the same thing. When Saturday night came, and the money was laid
+in his hand, he hurried to his garret, washed himself clean, brushed the
+only coat he owned, took out the precious cigar, laid it on his bed
+where it would be safe while he finished dressing, put his hat on one
+side of his head in his old rakish way, gave a look at himself in the
+broken glass, and downstairs he goes humming a tune to himself. He was
+very happy. Now he would have the best dinner he had had for months, and
+feel like a gentleman once more. And the cigar! Ah, that would end it
+all up! You see, gentlemen, with us the whole dinner is only the cigar;
+everything is arranged most carefully for that.</p>
+
+<p>"Then De Ruyter walks into Van Hoesen's, the largest café we have in my
+town; stands until the head waiter recognizes him and comes over to his
+side; orders with his old magnificent manner the wines, the soup, the
+entrées, even the anchovies after the sweets&mdash;that is a custom of
+ours&mdash;the whole costing ten guilders, with one guilder to the waiter.
+When it was served he sat himself down, opened his napkin, tipped the
+newspaper where he could glance at it, and ate very slowly like a man of
+leisure.</p>
+
+<p>"When the coffee was passed the head waiter brought to him an assortment
+of cigars on a tray, some one guilder each, some five cents. De Ruyter
+pushed them away with a contemptuous wave of the hand, saying, 'There is
+nothing you have to my taste; I will smoke my own.'</p>
+
+<p>"The great moment had now arrived. He paid his bill, ordered a fresh
+candle, waited until the head waiter, whose guilder had made him all the
+more obsequious, had lighted it and stood waiting where he could see,
+and then slipped his hand into his inside pocket for the cigar. It was
+not there! Then he remembered that he had not taken it from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"He ran all the way home. There lay the cigar on the blanket. The next
+instant it was on the floor and under his heel.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lie there, damn you!' he said, crushing it to pieces. 'You have
+spoiled my dinner!'</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"You see, gentlemen, it was not the hunger of the empty stomach; it was
+a starved imagination that was ravenous like a wolf. Ah, cannot you feel
+for the poor fellow? All the week hungry, one great idea of the dignity
+of rank in his mind, and then to have his triumph spoiled, and under the
+eyes of the head waiter, too! And such beasts of waiters they are at
+home, with their eyes seeing everything and their tongues never still!
+My father, when he would tell the story, would tap his chair and say,
+'Ah, poor devil! such a pity&mdash;such a pity he forgot it! It would have
+tasted so good to him!' That was a word of my father's&mdash;'He forgot
+it&mdash;he forgot it,' he would say, shaking his finger at us."</p>
+
+<p>"All to the credit of your father, Van Brunt," burst out Marny; "but if
+you want my candid opinion of your blue-blooded, busted baron, I think
+he was a selfish brute, without the first glimmer of what a gentleman
+should have done under such circumstances, and I leave it to everybody
+here to decide whether I'm right or wrong. What he ought to have done
+was to hunt around for some of his friends, order a dinner for two, hand
+his friend the cigar and take a cheap one from the waiter for himself.
+What you call 'fine eating' has nothing to do with either the stomach or
+with the imagination. Fine eating is an excuse for good fellowship; when
+you don't have that, it is a 'stalled ox' and the rest of it. What you
+want is to open with a laugh and eat straight through to that same kind
+of music. All the good dinners in the world were jolly dinners; all the
+poor ones were funeral gatherings, no matter how good the cooking. I'll
+give you an idea of what a good dinner ought to be. None of your
+selfish, solitary-confinement sort of a meal like this self-centred
+Dutchman's, but a rip-roaring, waistcoat-swelling, breath-catching,
+hilarious feast, which began with a hurrah, continued with every man
+singing psalms of thanksgiving over the dishes and the company, and
+ended with a tempest of good cheer and everybody loving everybody else
+twice as much for having come together."</p>
+
+<p>"Clam-chowder club, of course," growled Boggs, "with a brass band and a
+cord of firewood, and three-legged stools to sit on."</p>
+
+<p>Marny glared at the Chronic Interrupter, made a movement with his hand
+as if to compel his silence, and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"We had eaten nothing since breakfast but five raw clams apiece,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Where was all this, Marny, anyhow?" asked Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Down at Uncle Jesse Conklin's, on Cap Tree Island," retorted Marny
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;sounded as if it might be at a summer boarding-house. Go
+ahead!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, down on Great South Bay. The Stone Mugs had an outing and I went
+along. These clams coming on an empty stomach and being right out of the
+salt water and fresh and cold&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mixed in your statements, old man: can't be salt and fresh at the same
+time. But go on! So far we've only got five clams to be hilarious
+on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Marny reached over and grabbed Boggs by the collar.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you shut up, or shall I throw you over the banisters?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll shut up&mdash;like your clam; won't say another word, so help me!" and
+Boggs held up one hand as if to be sworn.</p>
+
+<p>"These clams," continued Marny, releasing his hold on Boggs's collar,
+"coming as they did on an empty stomach, made every man ravenous. French
+shrimps, Dutch pickles, and Swedish anchovies&mdash;all the appetizers you
+ever heard of&mdash;were mild compared to them. Uncle Jesse had opened them
+himself, the ten men standing around taking the contents of each shell
+from the end of Uncle Jesse's fork and then waiting their turns until
+the fork came their way again. All this was under a shed in full view of
+the harbor and the old man's boats and buildings.</p>
+
+<p>"When the sun went down we went into the bar-room, and Uncle Jesse
+compounded a mixture which made an afternoon call on the five clams, and
+by that time we could have eaten each other. Six o'clock came, and no
+signs of anything. Half past six, and not the faintest smell of fried,
+boiled, or roasted: no hurrying waiters in sight; no maids in aprons;
+nothing indicating any preparation or any place for it to preparate in
+unless it was a room behind a small white-pine door which Uncle Jesse
+had locked in full view of the hungry crowd. Only once did he explain
+this mystery; that was when he jerked his thumb in the direction of the
+vacancy on the other side of the panels, and remarked sententiously,
+'Won't be long now.'</p>
+
+<p>"Soon a wild misgiving arose in our minds. Had anything happened to the
+cook, or would the simple repast&mdash;we had left the details to Uncle
+Jesse&mdash;consist of only clams and cocktails?</p>
+
+<p>"All this time Uncle Jesse was patient and polite, but almighty
+mysterious. Bets now began to be made in whispers by the men: It would
+be thin oyster soup, pumpkin pies, and cider; or cold corn beef and
+preserves; or, worse still, codfish balls and griddle-cakes. Seven
+o'clock came&mdash;seven-five&mdash;seven-ten. Then a gong sounded in the next
+room, and Uncle Jesse sprang to the door, raised one hand while the
+other fumbled with the lock, and shouted as he swung back the door:</p>
+
+<p>"'Solid men to the front!'</p>
+
+<p>"You should have seen that table! One long perspective of
+bliss&mdash;porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish&mdash;porter-house steak and
+broiled blue-fish&mdash;porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish down to the
+end of the table; and alongside each plate a quart of extra-dry,
+frappéed to half a degree, and a pint of Burgundy the temperature of
+your sweet-heart's hand! All about were heaps of home-made bread and
+flakes of butter, and&mdash;Oh, that table!</p>
+
+<p>"We stood paralyzed for a moment, and then sent up a roaring cheer that
+nearly lifted the roof. Uncle Jesse wasn't going to sit down, but we
+grabbed him by the shoulders and started him on the run for the end of
+the table, and there he sat until only heaps of bones and dead bottles
+marked the scene of action. Whenever a man could get his breath he broke
+out in song, everybody joining in. 'Oh, dem golden fritters!' was
+chanted to an accompaniment of clattering forks on empty plates, the
+cook and his staff craning their heads through the door and helping out
+with a double shuffle of their own.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee was served in the bar-room, and all filed out to drink it,
+every man full to his eyelids and saturated with a contentment that only
+Long Island blue-fish and Fulton Market steak with the necessary liquids
+and solids could produce.</p>
+
+<p>"While we smoked on and sipped our coffee, Uncle Jesse's silences became
+more frequent, and soon the old fellow dozed off to sleep. He was over
+seventy then, and was used to having a nap after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"Now came the best part of the feast. Every man tiptoed out of the room,
+overhauled his sketch-trap, took out charcoal, color tubes and brushes,
+red chalk, whatever came handy, and started in to work&mdash;some standing on
+chairs above where the old man sat sound asleep, others working away
+like mad on the coarse, whitewashed walls, making portraits of
+him&mdash;sketches of the landing and fish houses we had seen during our
+waiting&mdash;outlines of the bar and background, no one breathing loud or
+even whispering, so afraid they would wake him&mdash;until every square foot
+of the walls were covered with sketches. When we were through, someone
+coughed, and the old man sat up and began to rub his eyes. Pleased!
+Well, I should think so! He gave one bound, made a tour of the room
+studying each sketch, dodged under his bar and began to set up things,
+and would have continued to set up things all night had we permitted it.
+Every spring after that, when he rewhitewashed the old room, he would
+work carefully around each sketch, the new whitewash making a mat for
+the pictures. People came for miles up and down the bay to see them, and
+there was more extra-dry and trimmings sold that summer than ever
+before. Ever after that, whenever a friend of any member of the Stone
+Mugs went ashore at Cap Tree Island, and after settling his score
+mentioned incidentally that he knew So-and-So of the Mugs, and had heard
+of the wonderful dinner, etc., the old man would always push his money
+back to him with:</p>
+
+<p>"'Not a cent&mdash;not a cent! Stay a week and order what you want, and if
+you don't want everything in the house I'll get my gun.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got a time-table, have you, Marny," asked Boggs feelingly, "of
+the boat that goes to Cap Tree Island?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you no good, Boggs," answered Jack Stirling. "The old man has been
+in heaven these ten years. I knew his broiled blue-fish&mdash;none better.
+Marny is right&mdash;they were wonderful. But really, Marny, do you call that
+a good dinner?&mdash;ten men, fifteen bottles of assorted wines, five steaks,
+five broiled fish, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what else would you call it? What would you want?" retorted
+Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"What else? Oh, my dear Marny! and you ask that question!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't there enough to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Wine all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect."</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly crowd of the best fellows in the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"What then, you fish-monger? Why, just one woman! Let me tell you of a
+dinner!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack was on his feet now, his hand outstretched, his eyes partly closed
+as if the scene he was about to describe lay immediately beneath his
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"It was on a balcony overlooking St. Cloud&mdash;all Paris swimming in a
+golden haze. There were violets&mdash;and a pair of long gray gloves on the
+white cloth&mdash;and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with roses, shading a pair
+of brown eyes. Oh! such eyes! 'A pint of Chablis,' I said to the waiter;
+'sole à la Marguerey, some broiled mushrooms, and a fruit salad&mdash;and
+please take the candles away; we prefer the twilight.'</p>
+
+<p>"But the perfume of the violets&mdash;and the lifting of her lashes&mdash;and the
+way she looked at me, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a>
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at
+me.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Jack stopped, bent over, and gazed into the smouldering coals of the now
+dying fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Jack," urged Pitkin in an encouraging tone&mdash;they had lived
+together in the same studio in the Quartier, these two, and knew each
+other's lives as they did their own pockets,&mdash;or each other's, for that
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not going on&mdash;only waste it on you fellows. That's all. Just
+one of my memories, my boy. But it comes from wet violets, mark you, not
+from fry-pans, cold bottles, or hot fish," and he glanced at Marny.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III</h2>
+
+<h3><i>With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>"Don't be angry, Colonel,"&mdash;no mortal man knows why Mac calls me
+"Colonel,"&mdash;"but would you mind leaving that red rose you've got in your
+button-hole outside in the hall, or some place where I can't smell it?
+Red roses have a singular effect on me." I had come in earlier than the
+others this afternoon and had found Mac alone.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Mac in astonishment. Peculiar as he sometimes is, hatred of
+flowers is not one of his eccentricities.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought you loved roses!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do&mdash;all except red ones."</p>
+
+<p>I unpinned the rose from my button-hole and laid it in a glass on the
+shelf over his wash-basin.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; anything to please you, Mac. Now out with it; give me the
+name of the girl, and tell me why."</p>
+
+<p>Mac laughed quietly to himself and settled down in his chair. For some
+time he did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on; I'm waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it brings up a memory, that's all, Colonel. You heard what Stirling
+said about the perfume of violets bringing back to him the little dinner
+he had with Christine Levoix at the Bellevue overlooking the Seine,
+didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but he didn't mention the girl's name."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but it was Christine. I remember that hat and the gloves. In my
+day they were black, not gray, and came up to her shoulders, like
+Yvette's. The eyes, though, never changed, no matter who sat opposite.
+Stirling bought a lot of violets that year; so did some of the others in
+the Quartier, until the Russian carried her off to Moscow," and again
+Mac laughed softly to himself. "Well, perfumes produce that same effect
+on me."</p>
+
+<p>"Of violets?" I asked, twisting my head to look into Mac's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;tarred hemp and roses." Then he added slowly and thoughtfully, as
+if he were recalling some incident in his past life: "Quite a different
+kind of girl, my boy, from Christine; about as different as&mdash;well, there
+isn't any comparison. Yes, tarred hemp and red roses; funny combination,
+isn't it?&mdash;and yet I never catch the odor of one without smelling the
+other. And the whole scene comes back, too, every detail: the rolling
+ship; the girl as she lay in her chair, the roses in her lap; the tones
+of the Captain's voice (I have sometimes heard them in my sleep); the
+glare of the overhead light, and then the splash. Queer things, these
+memories!"</p>
+
+<p>Mac paused, and smoked on quietly.</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer. If you want Mac at his best, never interrupt him.
+When he is in one of his reminiscent moods his philosophy, his knowledge
+of life, his wide personal experience, his many adventures by land and
+sea make him the most delightful of conversationalists, while his choice
+of words and marvellous powers of description&mdash;talking as a painter
+talks, one who sees and who, therefore, can make you see; using words as
+some men do pigments with all the force of their contrasts&mdash;make his
+descriptions but so many brilliantly colored pictures. Then his voice!
+Suddenly, without a moment's warning, your eyes fill up, leaving you
+wondering why, until you remember some throat tone that vibrated through
+you like the note of a violin.</p>
+
+<p>When he is in one of these moods he rarely looks at me or at anyone who
+listens, especially when he is alone with some one of his chums&mdash;and we
+two were alone this afternoon, it being Varnishing Day, and all of the
+men at the Academy. He looks up at the ceiling, lying back in his chair,
+talking to some crack or stain in the plastering, or drops his head and
+talks to the smouldering coals, his human eyes fixed on the logs. This
+habit of talking to whatever is within the reach of his hands or
+legs&mdash;his brushes, palette, colors, the chair that gets in his way, the
+rug he stumbles over&mdash;is characteristic of the man; woodsmen have it who
+live alone in great forests. Mac's explanation is that he lived so much
+alone in his early life that he acquired the habit in self-defence. The
+fire, however, seems to understand, never answering back as it does to
+me when I try to punch it into life, but simmering away like a
+slow-boiling pot, giving out a steady glow for hours as it listens,
+nursing its heat until the master has finished or puts on another log.</p>
+
+<p>Mac refilled his pipe, rested the tongs where his hand could grasp them,
+and continued, his big shoulders filling the chair, the light of the
+blaze on his humorous, kindly face.</p>
+
+<p>"There are great contrasts in life, my boy, that never fail to interest
+me&mdash;big Rembrandt things that stand out sharp and solid, sudden as the
+exit from a foul shaft into a sunny winter's day, white and cold. And
+the reverse side&mdash;the black side. That is the worst of these contrasts,
+the darks always predominate&mdash;out of a yacht's warm cabin, for instance,
+into a merciless, hungry sea, without a moment's warning. No, nothing to
+do with my memory of tarred hemp and red roses; only to make my point
+clear to you," and Mac's head sank the lower in his chair. "Did you ever
+focus your mind, for one thing, on the contrasts that the two sides of a
+nine-inch brick wall of any house in town present? Did you never lie in
+your bed, with your head to the plaster, and wonder what was going on
+nine inches away from your ears? I have; I do it now. It may be sorrow
+or cruelty or death, if we did but know&mdash;some girl mourning for her
+lover; some woman crouching in fear; some silent body, cold in a sheet.
+Not always so, of course; many times the happiness is on their side and
+all the misery on ours; but the two atmospheres are never alike. Only
+nine inches of wall! Shut it out as we may, cover it with tapestries or
+pictures or paint, it is still within that many inches of our ears. What
+a blessing we can't see! Life would be a hell for some of us if we saw
+both sides of its brick walls at once. I try now and then to get a
+glimpse of both sides because of the effects I get of light and
+shadow&mdash;they always appeal to me. When I do I often get a heart wrench
+that upsets me for days, and yet the next opportunity I am at it again."</p>
+
+<p>Once more Mac paused and looked into the fire, as if he were trying to
+recall to his mind, among its glowing, heaped-up coals, some picture in
+that rich past of his.</p>
+
+<p>"And that old perfume of tarred hemp and roses," I asked, "does that
+suggest one of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one of the strangest I ever experienced; and yet it was only one
+of the things that goes on every day. A steamer's deck was the brick
+wall this time: On our side a cloudless sky, fresh air, light, chairs
+filling the length of the deck, whisperings in corners, two lovers
+hanging over the rail, some in the bow away from intruders. Now and then
+a line of song wafted from open cabin windows. Seaward, a stretch of
+steely blue dominated by a clear, round moon, its light flooding a
+pathway of silver to the very side of the ship, a pathway along which
+angels might have stepped&mdash;were stepping, if we could have seen.</p>
+
+<p>"This was one of the times when I had both sides of the wall in review;
+she did not. Her heart and mind were on other things. No, nothing that
+you think, old man; not another Christine&mdash;I left all that behind me;
+not anybody in particular, really; just a girl I met on board. There
+were a dozen others as pretty&mdash;prettier. Our steamer chairs happened to
+come together, that was all. We were but two days out, and her roses
+were still fresh&mdash;big red ones that some of her friends had sent her.
+They lay in her lap over her steamer rug. I picked them up for her when
+they dropped to the deck, and so the acquaintance began.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a happy girl, with a fresh, sunburnt skin, and strong chest, and
+capable, earnest eyes; no nonsense about her, no coquetry."</p>
+
+<p>Mac hesitated for an instant and a look of peculiar tenderness came into
+his face&mdash;one I always remembered. Then he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Just a plain, straightforward American girl, with a good mother at home
+and a matter-of-fact father who had sent her abroad with an aunt who was
+flat on her back in her cabin most of the time; she herself looked as if
+she had never known a day's sickness in her life. This was her first
+trip abroad. Half a dozen young men and as many young girls had come to
+see her off, and her share of the flowers sent on board had been the
+largest, and she was as happy over it as a child with a new toy&mdash;that
+kind of a girl. She wanted, of course, to know about Mt. Blanc and the
+Rhigi, and whether the Salon would be open, and which pictures she ought
+to see, and what at the Luxembourg&mdash;all the questions a girl asks when
+she finds you can paint. Her joyousness, though, was what appealed to
+me. I like happy people. To her the deck of the steamer was the top of a
+great hill from which she looked down on sunshine and peace; no clouds,
+no dark shadows; only perspectives of greater happiness yet to come.
+This was her side of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not disturb her outlook. What use would it have been? Why tell
+her of what was going on, for instance, under her very eyes? Why let her
+know that that tightly built young man who seemed to be so devoted to
+the pale, hollow-eyed gentleman of sixty, sitting beside him in the
+smoking-room or in the steamer chairs&mdash;never five feet away from him day
+or night&mdash;was a Scotland Yard detective, and that the hollow-eyed
+invalid would have a pair of handcuffs slipped over his white, trembling
+wrists as soon as the gang-plank was fastened to the dock? Or why let
+her know that the thoughtful, clean-shaven young man who now spent most
+of his time in walking the deck had never entered the smoking-room since
+the first night, when the purser took him one side and, calling him by a
+name not on the passenger list had informed him in measured tones that
+it might interfere with his comfort if he took the wrapper from another
+pack of his own or anybody else's cards during the remainder of the
+voyage. Neither did I tell her, that third night out, where I had spent
+the afternoon, except to say that I had been with Mr. Hunter, the Chief
+Engineer, in his room several decks below where we sat&mdash;down among the
+furnaces and hot steam and plunging pistons&mdash;adding that the Chief was a
+great friend of mine and had been for years. If you ever get to know him
+as I do he may some time, in a burst of confidence, open the drawer of a
+locker behind his bunk and show you a little paper box, and inside of it
+a small bit of copper about the size of a big cent with a crossbar and a
+ribbon, saying that it was for gallant conduct or something like it.</p>
+
+<p>"But that has got nothing to do with my perfume of tarred rope and
+roses&mdash;quite another affair altogether&mdash;an affair that the Chief and I
+had had some previous talk about; and so I was not surprised when his
+messenger approached my chair and the girl's, and said in a low voice,
+bending close to me:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Hunter's compliments, sir, and he would like to see you in his
+room, if you don't mind. He says if you can't come it will be at twelve
+sharp, and you're not to mention it to any of the passengers, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"She looked at me curiously, having heard the messenger's words, but I
+did not explain, and, rising quickly, left her with the roses in her
+lap&mdash;her last bunch, she told me.</p>
+
+<p>"Hunter met me at the door; the Second Engineer and the ship's Doctor
+were inside his room.</p>
+
+<p>"'That stoker died about an hour ago, wasn't it, Doctor?' Hunter asked,
+turning to the ship's surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"These men are accustomed to such incidents; there is hardly a voyage
+without one or more of them. To me it was but the opening of another
+crack in one of my brick walls.</p>
+
+<p>"'What of?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Exhaustion; want of food, perhaps, and the heat. The heart gave out,'
+answered the Doctor in a perfunctory tone.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do many of them go that way?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, when they strike the furnaces for the first time. This man was
+too old&mdash;over fifty, I should say&mdash;and should never have been taken on,'
+and he glanced reprovingly at Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>"'He begged so hard,' interrupted the Second Engineer, 'I let him on. We
+are short of men, too, on account of the strike&mdash;'He spoke as if in
+defence of his Chief. 'Didn't look to me to be so old till he caved in.
+Shall I make a box for him, sir?' and he turned to Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, and paint it.'</p>
+
+<p>"The Chief slipped his arm through mine, led me to a seat on the sofa
+beside his desk, and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"'He came aboard the day before we left New York. It was about seven
+o'clock at night, and I had changed my clothes and was going uptown to
+the theatre. I stood at the end of the gang-plank for a minute looking
+up the dock, pretty clean of freight by that time, and this man came
+creeping down along the side of the ship, looking about him in a way I
+didn't like. As he got nearer he stopped under a dock light, fumbled in
+his pocket and brought out a letter. He wasn't ten feet from me, and so
+I could see his face. He read it two or three times over, turning the
+leaves, and then he slipped it back into his pocket again and looked up
+at the ship's side; then he saw me and came straight for me.</p>
+
+<p>"'"I must go home," he said; "can you take me on?"</p>
+
+<p>"'"What at?" I got a look into his eyes then, and saw he was no thief;
+seemed more like a carpenter or a bricklayer.</p>
+
+<p>"'"Anything you can give me."</p>
+
+<p>"'"Stoking?"</p>
+
+<p>"'"Yes, if there's nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"'Then the Second Engineer came down the gang-plank and I turned the man
+over to him and went uptown. When I heard he was to be buried I sent for
+you, just as I had promised.'</p>
+
+<p>"I had talked with Hunter about a burial at sea&mdash;it was one of the
+contrasts I had been waiting for. They had occurred often enough in my
+many crossings, but I, like the other passengers, was never informed;
+such sights are not proper on our side of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"'What else did he say to you?' This question I addressed to the Second
+Engineer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothin'. I put him on; we ought to have six or eight more, but we
+couldn't get 'em&mdash;short now.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you find the letter?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'No; Doctor did. He's got it now. He read it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What did it say?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, near as I can remember, somethin' about his comin' home; a woman
+wrote it. He'll tell you when he comes back.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I'd like to see where he worked.' I was stretching the crack in my
+wall; peering into the next room, finding out how they lived and what
+on&mdash;all the things you should let alone, not being my business and the
+man being beyond hope.</p>
+
+<p>"'Take him down,' said Hunter, 'and show him the furnaces. Here, better
+peel off that coat and slip on my overalls and this jacket,' and he
+handed me the garments from a rack behind his door. 'Greasy down there;
+and look out for those ladders, they're almighty slippery when you ain't
+accustomed to 'em.'</p>
+
+<p>"'This way, sir,' said the Second Engineer.</p>
+
+<p>"We made our way along a flat iron ledge&mdash;a grating, really, beneath
+which lunged huge pistons of steel&mdash;down vertical ladders into a cavern
+reeking with the smell of hot steam and dripping oil. All about were
+stars of electric light illumining the darkness, out of which stood
+strange shapes&mdash;a canebrake of steel rods, huge sawed-off roots of
+pillar-blocks, enormous cylinders rising up like giant trees from out a
+jungle of tangled steel.</p>
+
+<p>"At the bottom of this morass a great boa constrictor of a shaft,
+smooth-skinned, glistening, turning lazily in its bed of grimy water,
+its head and tail lost in the gloom. Beyond this, along a narrow
+foot-path, a low open door leading to the mouth of hell. Here were men
+stripped to the waist, the sweat from their reeking bodies making
+flesh-colored channels down their blackened skins. Some were shielding
+their faces from the blistering heat as they wrenched apart the fusing
+fires with long steel bars; others dashed into the mouths of a hungry
+furnace shovelfuls of coal, blinding the light for an instant, the white
+sulphurous breath pouring from its blazing nostrils. On one side before
+the row of hot-mouthed beasts opened a smaller cavern, its air choked
+with fine black dust; still other men shovelled here, filling iron
+barrows which they trundled out to more half-naked men before the
+scorching furnaces. A new gang now joined the group, men with clean
+faces and hands and half-scoured backs and breasts. This new gang had
+had a wash and four hours sleep in an air fouled by dust and dead steam.
+At sight of them the old workers dropped their bars and shovels,
+disappeared through the door by which we had entered, and rolled into
+bunks racked up one above the other like coffins in a catacomb.</p>
+
+<p>"On one side of the door through which the new gang entered was an
+inscription in chalk. The leader of the gang stopped and examined it
+carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Clean stringers inside pocket,' the record said.</p>
+
+<p>"The stringers were the cross-beams tying the ship together, about which
+the coal was packed; the pocket was one of the ship's bins. These
+instructions showed which death-pit pit was to be worked first.</p>
+
+<p>"The Engineer made no explanatory remarks as I looked about. It was all
+there before me. The man with the letter had stood where these men
+stood; blistered by the same heat, befouled with the same grime, half
+strangled with the same coal-dust; had eaten his meals, drunk his
+coffee, staggered to his bunk, been carried insensible to the small
+square room on the deck above, laid on a cot, and was now dead and to be
+buried at midnight. That was all!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Up the ladder again to a room the size of a state-room with the berths
+out. Inside, on a plank resting on two supports, lay the crude, roughly
+hewn outline of a man wrapped in canvas, a flattened hump showing the
+feet and a round mass the head. Past this open door men walked carrying
+kettles of soup for the steerage. Outside in the corridor were heard
+sounds of hammering; the box was being made ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Up a third ladder to Hunter's room. I stopped long enough to replace my
+coat and wash the grime from my hands and then sought the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"She was still in her steamer chair, the roses in her lap. Not a cloud
+dimmed the sky; a soft, fresh, sweet air blew from the moonlit sea; the
+pathway of silver was still clear; souls could go to God straight up
+that ladder without missing a step, so bright was it. From the crowded
+deck came the sound of voices; some low and muffled, others breaking out
+into song and laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where have you been?' she called out. 'What did the Engineer want?
+Tell me, please; something had happened; I saw it in your face. Was
+anyone ill?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; but he is better now,' and my eye travelled the pathway of
+silver.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I am so sorry! Shall you see him again?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, at twelve.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell me about it; can I help?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is anyone with him&mdash;anyone he loves?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, he is quite alone.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Poor, poor fellow! Give him these, please,' and she laid the roses in
+my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Some hours later the messenger again tapped me on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"'All ready, sir, Mr. Hunter says.'</p>
+
+<p>"On the lower deck, close to the sea, a deck slashed with racing waves
+in a storm, were grouped a body of sailors and officers; all had their
+coats and caps on. Against the wall of the ship stood the Captain, an
+open book in his hand. Above his head flared a bull's-eye backed by a
+ship's reflector, marking the high light in the composition. Beneath
+him, almost under the book, which cast a shadow like the outstretched
+wings of a bird, lay a black box, straight-sided and flat-topped. I
+edged my way through the encircling crowd and stood nearer, the roses in
+my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"The words now fell clear and strong from the Captain's lips, every man
+uncovering his head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Man that is born of woman&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"I reached down to lay the flowers on the lid&mdash;loose, as she had given
+them to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Hunter tapped me on the arm. He was grave and dignified, and I thought
+his voice trembled as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"'Better twist a bit of tarred marlin round 'em, sir,' he whispered;
+'he'll lose 'em if you don't. Hand me a piece'&mdash;this to a sailor.
+'That's it, sir; a little tighter&mdash;so!'</p>
+
+<p>"'He cometh up and is cut down like a flower&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"I bent over and laid the roses on the box. The men pressed closer to
+look. Roses, on a man like him!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a>
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3> The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like
+him!"</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Again the Captain's reverent tones rang out:</p>
+
+<p>"'We therefore commit his body to the deep&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"Two sailors stooped down and raised one end of the box. There came a
+grating sound, a splash, and the highway of silver was broken into steps
+of light.</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain closed his book, the crowd opening to let him pass; the
+crew went back to their tasks&mdash;the sailor with tarred marlin to finish
+the bight of the cable he was whipping, the men to their furnaces,
+Hunter to his desk, I to where the girl reclined in her chair. She
+recognized my step and half raised herself toward me, as if eager to
+catch my first word.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did he like the roses?' she asked, her voice full of tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you put them&mdash;by his bedside?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, on his breast.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Poor fellow, I'm so sorry for him! Did you tell him I sent them?'</p>
+
+<p>"'He knows.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What did he say?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing&mdash;but he will some day.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her eyes widened.</p>
+
+<p>"'When? Where?'</p>
+
+<p>"'In heaven.'</p>
+
+<p>"The eyelids relaxed again, and a smile lighted up her face. She saw now
+that I was not in earnest. Then a sudden thought possessed her.</p>
+
+<p>"'What is his name?' The inquiry came quick and sharp and with an
+anxious tone, as if she had been remiss in not asking before.</p>
+
+<p>"'He has none&mdash;not aboard ship.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Has no name! Why, I never heard of such a thing. How very strange!'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, not among stokers; stokers never have any names. This one was
+called "Number Seven."'"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mac stopped and leaned toward the fire, his head in his hands, the
+fingers covering the eyes. Not once during the long narrative had he
+looked at me. He had been speaking like one in a trance, or as one
+speaks to himself when alone. That I had been present was of no
+consequence; I was no more than the portraits and studies on the walls,
+not so much as the andirons and the fire. That I had listened in
+complete silence was what pleased him. This, I think, is one reason why
+he so often unburdens his heart to me.</p>
+
+<p>Mac straightened his back, rose to his feet and took a turn around the
+room, restlessly, as if the tale had stirred other memories which he was
+trying to banish; then he dropped again into his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I mean by the other side of the brick wall, old man. Makes
+your blood boil, doesn't it? Did mine."</p>
+
+<p>"And the girl in the chair never knew?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and never will. He did; he looked back as he mounted the silver
+steps, and pointed her out to the angel helping him up the ladder. God
+knew what he had suffered, and wiped out whatever there was against
+him."</p>
+
+<p>There was a tone now in Mac's voice that thrilled me. For a moment I did
+not trust myself to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"And about the letter&mdash;did you read it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it was from his wife. The Doctor gave it to me, and I hunted her
+up. Little place outside of London where they make bricks. Only two
+rooms; in one a half-starved daughter, white as chalk. She had sent for
+him, the wife said. Same old story&mdash;told a hundred times a day, if you
+will but listen with your ears to some wall. The steerage out to New
+York; the landing in a strange city; the weary, hungry hunt for work;
+money gone, clothes gone, strength gone&mdash;then the inevitable. This one
+had made one last effort, even to giving his body to be burned. The
+white-faced daughter wanted to know, of course, all about it&mdash;they all
+want to know; but I didn't tell her&mdash;I lied! I said he had had heart
+failure, and that they had buried him at sea, and in a coffin like any
+other passenger, because we were only three days out; and I described
+the service and the roses, and how sorry the passengers were. She knows
+the truth now. <i>He's told her.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Go get your rose, old man. I ought to have had better sense than to
+rake it all up. No use in it. Not your side of the wall, not my side.
+Let me smell it. Yes, same perfume. Here, put it back in your
+button-hole."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_IV" id="PART_IV"></a>PART IV</h2>
+
+<h3><i>With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mac had invited three or four of us to luncheon&mdash;Boggs, Lonnegan, Marny,
+and myself. These feasts were "Dutch" in the strictest sense, the sum
+total paid being divided, share and share alike, between the host of the
+day and his guests. That was the custom among the students in Munich and
+Paris, even at Florian's in Venice, and the custom was still observed.
+It did away with unpleasant comparisons&mdash;Lonnegan's inherited
+bank-account, for instance, and Woods's income from his rich aunt, who
+refused him nothing, in contrast to my own and Boggs's annual earnings.
+The only liberty given to the host of the day was the choice of
+restaurants. At Maroni's we could get a hot sandwich and a glass of beer
+for fifteen cents; at Brown's, in Twenty-eighth Street, a chop, a baked
+potato, and a mug of bass for half of a trade dollar. When some one of
+the less opulent had sold a picture, and had become temporarily rich
+over and above the amount due for the month's rent, Lonnegan, or Woods,
+or Pitkin (Pitkin had a father who could cut off coupons) selected
+Delmonico's. These occasions were rare, and ever afterward became
+historic.</p>
+
+<p>This day, it being Mac's turn, he selected Oscar Pusch's, on Fourth
+Avenue&mdash;a modest little beer-house near the corner of Twenty-fourth
+Street, its only distinguishing mark being a swinging, double shutter
+door and the advertisement of a brewery in the window. Inside was a long
+bar drenched with the foam of countless mugs of Hofbrau, facing a line
+of tables centred by cheap castors and dishes of cold slaw, and flanked
+at one end by a back room. This last apartment was for the elect. One
+table was always reserved for the exalted; of this group MacWhirter was
+High Priest.</p>
+
+<p>Here often at night Mac held forth to an admiring crowd of young
+painters who believed in his brush and who loved the man who wielded it.
+When I look back now down the vista of twenty years and see how fine and
+strong and superb that brush was, how true, how wonderful in color, how
+much better than any other painter of his time&mdash;Barbizon, London, or
+Dusseldorf&mdash;and think of how many lies the resident picture dealer told
+his patrons to discredit Mac's genius, I always experience a peculiar
+hotness under my collar-button. It cools off, it is true, whenever I see
+one of his masterpieces hung to-day on the walls of the redeemed. My
+anger then turns to a genial warmth, suffusing my cheeks and permeating
+my being, especially when I learn the sum paid for the smallest product
+of his brush.</p>
+
+<p>"One of MacWhirter's, sir; one of his choicest; painted in his best
+period," says this same fraud to-day (the period, remember, when he
+would say, "What can one expect of the Hudson Rivery School, sir?"),
+and then the dealer demands a price which, had it been paid in Mac's
+earlier days, would have resulted in his breaking all students' rules
+and setting up Johannesburg of '41 instead of the simple steins of the
+Hofbrau with which Lonnegan, Boggs, and the rest of us were being
+regaled.</p>
+
+<p>The hospitable and ever alert Oscar did not welcome us this time, but a
+new waiter, who sprang at Mac as if he had been his lost brother&mdash;a
+joyous sort of waiter, clean-shaven as a priest, ruddy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed, with short, tan-colored hair sticking straight up on his
+head, looking as if at some time in his life he had been frightened half
+out of his wits and had never been able to keep his hair down since.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of this overjoyed individual produced a peculiar effect
+on Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Pusch found a place for you at last, did he, Carl?" he burst
+out. "Glad you're here," and Mac stepped forward and shook the waiter's
+hand with more than his usual warmth.</p>
+
+<p>Boggs looked at me and winked. What would Mac be doing next?</p>
+
+<p>"Some member of the royal family, Mac?" asked Boggs, when the waiter had
+left the room to execute Mac's orders.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mac, unfolding his napkin, "just plain man."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Boggs, "ran off with a soprano at the Imperial Opera
+House; disinherited by his father; fought a duel with his Colonel on
+account of her; dismissed from his club; sought refuge in flight to
+God's free country, where for years he worked in a small café on Fourth
+Avenue. Was known for years as 'Carl' where&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mac raised his eyes at Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Lively imagination you've got, Boggs. If I were you I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"On the death of his father, the late Baron Schweizerkase," continued
+Boggs in the nasal tone of an exhibitor of wax works, completely
+ignoring Mac's interruption, "the exile, who was none other than Prince
+Pumperknickel, returned to his estates, where his beautiful and
+accomplished wife, though not of royal blood, now dispenses the
+hospitality of his noble house with all the honors which&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you shut up, Boggs," cried Lonnegan. "Your tongue goes like an
+eight-day clock." Then he turned to Mac. "Seems to me I've seen that
+waiter before&mdash;last summer, if I remember. Where was it? Florian's or
+the Panthéon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think so," said Mac. "Carl hasn't been out of the country
+for two years to my knowledge. Much obliged, Oscar, for giving him a
+place." This to the proprietor, who was now beaming across the bar at
+Mac. "You'll find Carl all right," and he nodded toward the waiter, who
+was again approaching the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything suit you, Carl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. MacWhirter; I was comin' to see you about it, but I
+just got back from Philadelphy." The man seemed hardly able to keep his
+arms from around Mac's neck. I've seen a dog sometimes show that
+peculiar form of trembling joy when brought suddenly into his master's
+presence after a long absence, but never a man.</p>
+
+<p>Marny now spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us about this waiter, Mac."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to tell; just one of my acquaintances, that's all. Some
+I bow to, some I shake hands with&mdash;Carl is one of the last," and Mac
+nodded and emptied his glass at a single draught, shutting off all
+discussion. No one knew better than Mac how to avoid a subject on which
+he preferred to keep silence.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back to the Old Building Marny and I walked together,
+Lonnegan, Mac, and Boggs behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Something in that waiter Carl," remarked Marny, "or Mac wouldn't have
+shaken hands with him. These waiters are a queer lot; they're never in
+the same city more than a year. I drew my chair up to a table in Moscow
+two years ago in that swell café&mdash;forget the name&mdash;outside of a park,
+and sat me down, wondering which one of my ragged languages I could use
+in getting something to eat, when the waiter behind my chair leaned over
+and said in perfect English, 'What wine, Mr. Marny?' He'd waited at
+Brown's, on Twenty-eighth Street, for years. Hello! Who's Mac talking
+to?&mdash;a street beggar! Just like him!"</p>
+
+<p>We were crossing the Square now and nearing the Old Building and No. 3.
+There was evidently some dispute over the beggar, for Mac was apparently
+defending the woman, while the others were objecting to her asking for
+alms.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got a password and a signal-call for Mac," continued Boggs;
+"he never goes to luncheon but there's half a dozen of 'em strung along
+his route."</p>
+
+<p>We had now reached our companions.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you give that tramp anything, Mac?" burst out Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth, my boy,"
+answered Mac, with a wave of his hand as he strode along.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he, Lonnegan?" persisted Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and wanted to know where she lived."</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you where she lives," exploded Boggs. "She lives in a
+brownstone front somewhere facing the Park. Drives up Riverside every
+Sunday in her carriage, and all because fools like you, Mac, support
+her. Only last week a man I know gave some pennies to a woman who was
+crying with hunger, with two little babes to feed&mdash;'For the love of God,
+kind sir!' and all that sort of thing&mdash;and that night, going home from
+the club, he found her on a doorstep under a gaslight counting out her
+earnings&mdash;all the cents in one pile, all the dimes in another; then the
+quarters, halves, and so on. She'd earned more money that day than he
+had. When she saw him she laughed, and went right on with her counting."</p>
+
+<p>Mac was now entering the Building, we following him upstairs, the
+discussion still going on. Lonnegan insisted that there were city
+charities that took care of such tramps; Boggs interrupted that they
+ought to be turned over to the police. Marny thought that there might be
+some of them deserving, but the chances were that the greater part of
+them were too lazy to work.</p>
+
+<p>Our heads were now level with the top of the Chinese screen, and the
+next instant the whole party were inside No. 3 and warming themselves at
+MacWhirter's wood fire.</p>
+
+<p>Mac hung up his coat, threw some fresh logs on the andirons, swept up
+the hearth, and dragged up the chairs for his guests alongside of some
+of the other habitués&mdash;Charley Woods among them&mdash;who had already arrived
+and were awaiting our return.</p>
+
+<p>"Mac's been doing the noble act again," Boggs burst out; "that's why
+we're late. Shook hands with a red-headed waiter named Carl down at
+Pusch's, who seemed glad enough to eat him up; then he emptied his
+pockets to a bag of bones outside with a basket&mdash;'God knows I haven't
+eaten anything, kind sir, for three days. Got three children' (Boggs's
+drawl was inimitable). You know that kind of hag. He would have invited
+her to dinner if we hadn't been along. If he wasn't a natural born fool
+with his money it might do Mac some good to prove to him that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will get left every time, Mac," interrupted Woods from his chair,
+"over this foolishness of yours." It was never considered rude to
+interrupt Boggs&mdash;not even by Boggs. "Half of these beggars are dead
+beats. I've had some experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Never 'left' when you're right, Woods," shouted back Mac, who had
+crossed the room to his basin and was busy washing his brushes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's never 'right,' Mac, to allow yourself to be buncoed; and that's
+what happened to me last fall," retorted Woods.</p>
+
+<p>Boggs leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on Woods. The
+buncoing of Charles Wood, Esquire&mdash;a man who prided himself on knowing
+everything&mdash;was a story so delicious that not a word of it must be lost.
+The other men were of the same opinion, for they drew their chairs
+closer to the blaze, particularly those who had just come out of the
+keen wind in crossing the Square.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know, of course, for I have never told you," Woods continued,
+when every one was settled comfortably; "but when I was real pious&mdash;and
+I was once&mdash;I used to oblige my dear old aunt and go down to the Bowery
+and read to the tramps that were hived in a room rented by the church to
+which she belonged. I would give them short stories&mdash;touch of pathos,
+broad farce, or dramatic incident, whatever I thought would suit them
+best&mdash;from 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Boots at Holly Tree Inn,' and Hans
+Breitmann's yarns. I got along pretty well with the Irish, Dutch, and
+English dialects, but a new story just out at that time, 'That Lass o'
+Lowrie's,' in the Lancashire dialect, upset me completely. I didn't know
+how to read it properly, and I couldn't find anyone who could teach me.
+I tried it there one night, and after making a first-class fizzle of it
+I suddenly thought that in an audience representing almost every
+nationality on the globe there might be someone from Lancashire, and so
+I stepped again to the edge of the platform, told them why I made the
+inquiry, and invited anyone from that part of England to stand up so
+that I could see and talk to him. Nobody moved, and I went away
+determined never to read the story again.</p>
+
+<p>"The next day I was pegging away at my easel&mdash;it was when I had my
+studio over Duncan's grocery store on Fourteenth Street and Union
+Square, next to Quartley's and Sheldon's rooms&mdash;you remember it&mdash;when
+there came a rap at the door, and there stood a young fellow about
+twenty-five years of age, dressed in a shabby suit of once good clothes.
+Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days. I believe that you can always tell when a man has been
+a gentleman; there is something about the cut of his jib that indicates
+his blood, no matter how low he may have fallen; something in the
+quality of his skin, the lines about his nose and the way it is fastened
+to his face; the way the hair grows on his temples, and its fineness;
+the rise of the forehead; and the ears&mdash;especially the ears&mdash;small,
+well-modelled ears are as true an indication of gentle blood as small,
+well-turned hands and feet. I have painted too many portraits not to
+have found this out. This fellow had all these marks.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a>
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man,
+who had evidently seen better days.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"He had, moreover, a way of looking you right in the eye without
+flinching, following yours about like a searchlight without letting go
+of his hold. His voice, too, was the voice of a man of some
+refinement&mdash;a reed-like voice, like a clarionette, well-modulated, even
+musical at times, and with an intonation and accent which showed me at
+once that he was an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>"'I heard what you said last night about the Lancashire dialect,' he
+began, 'but I didn't like to stand up to speak to you. I was afraid you
+might not be satisfied with what I could do for you. But I am in such
+straits to-day that I couldn't help coming, and so I asked the
+Superintendent for your address. I don't want any money, but I must have
+some food; if you will help me you will do a kind act. I am out of
+money, and I may never get any more from home, so that what you do for
+me I may not be able to repay. I haven't really had much to eat for
+nearly a week and my strength is giving out. I could hardly get up your
+stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>"All this, remember, without giving me a chance to ask him a single
+question and without stopping to take breath&mdash;just as a book agent
+rattles on&mdash;he standing all the time on my door-sill, his hat in his
+hand, not as a beggar would carry it, but as some well-bred friend who
+had dropped in for an afternoon call. Good deal in the way a man holds
+his hat, let me tell you, when you are sizing a stranger up. That's
+another one of my beliefs.</p>
+
+<p>"I had brought him inside now and he was standing under my skylight, his
+face and figure making an even better impression on me than when he was
+in the dark of the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"'And you speak the Lancashire dialect, of course?' I asked, my eyes now
+taking in the military curl of his mustache, his broad shoulders and the
+way his really fine head was set upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' he answered; 'to tell you the truth, I do not&mdash;not to be of any
+service to you. I know some words, of course, but not many. I ought to
+be able to speak it perfectly, for my father's place is in the next
+county; but I have been a good deal away from home. I didn't come for
+that; I came because you seemed to me last night to be the sort of a man
+I could talk to; I meet very few of them; I don't like to stop people in
+the street, and my clothes now are not fit to enter anyone's office, and
+it would do no good if I did, for I know no one here.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where have you lived?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, all over; Australia part of the time, three years in Canada&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'You don't look over twenty-five.'</p>
+
+<p>"He dropped his eyes now and looked down at the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"'I wish I was,' he answered slowly; 'I might have done differently. You
+are wrong, I am thirty-one&mdash;will be my next birthday. I was home last
+summer to see my father, but I only stayed an hour with him. He wouldn't
+talk to me, so I left and came here.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why not?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, I'd rather not go into that; it's a family matter.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Pretty rough, turning you out, wasn't it?' I was getting interested in
+him now.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, I can't say that it was. I hadn't been square with him&mdash;not the
+year before.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, you were ready to do the decent thing then, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, but my Governor is a peculiar sort of man that don't forget
+easily. But he's my father all the same, and so I'd rather keep away
+than have him hate me. No&mdash;please don't ask me anything about it. I
+don't think he was quite fair, but I'm not going to say so.'</p>
+
+<p>"I had him in a chair now and had laid down my palette and brushes. When
+a man is thrown out into the world by his father and then refuses to
+abuse him, or let anybody else do so, there's something inside of him
+that you can build on.</p>
+
+<p>"I handed him a greenback. 'Go down,' I said, 'on Sixth Avenue and get
+something to eat and anything else you need for your comfort, and then
+come back to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"He folded the bill up carefully, put it in his waistcoat pocket,
+thanked me in a simple, straightforward way, just as any of you would
+have done had I loaned you an equal amount to tide you over some
+temporary emergency, and with the bow of a thoroughbred closed my door
+behind him and went downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"While he was gone I began unconsciously to let my imagination loose on
+him. I immediately invested him with all the attributes I had failed to
+discover in him while he stood hat in hand under my skylight. Some young
+blood, no doubt, of good family, I said to myself; ran through his
+allowance, shipped off to Australia, returns and is forgiven. Then more
+debts, more escapades. Father a choleric old Britisher, who gets purple
+in the face when he is angry&mdash;'Out you go, you dog; never more shall you
+be son of mine!" You remember George Holland as an irate father of the
+old school?&mdash;same kind of an old sardine. No question, though, but that
+his son was in hard lines and on the verge of suicide or, what was
+worse, crime.</p>
+
+<p>"What, then, was my duty under the circumstances? What would my own
+Governor think of a man who had found me in a similar strait in London,
+penniless, half-clothed, and hungry, and who had turned me out again
+into the cold?</p>
+
+<p>"Before I had decided what to do he was back again in my studio looking
+like a different man. Not only had he been fed, but he was clean-shaven
+and clean-collared.</p>
+
+<p>"'I took you at your word,' he said. 'I had a bath and bought me a clean
+collar. Here is the change,' and he handed me back some silver. 'I don't
+want to promise anything I can't do, and I don't say I'll pay it back,
+for I may not be able to, but I'll try my best to do so. Good-by, and
+thank you again.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Hold on,' I said. 'Sit down, and let me talk to you.' Now right here,
+gentlemen, I want to tell you"&mdash;Woods swept his eye around the circle as
+he spoke, then rose to his feet as if to give greater emphasis to what
+he was about to say, his round bullet-head, eye-glasses, and immaculate
+shirt collar glistening in the overhead light&mdash;"I want to tell you
+right here that the buying of that clean collar and the return of the
+change settled the matter for me. I'm a student of human nature, as most
+of you know, and I have certain fixed rules to guide me which never
+fail. My duty was clear; I would play the Good Samaritan for all I was
+worth. I wouldn't cross over and ask him how the cripple was getting on;
+I'd walk down both sides of the street, call an ambulance, lift him in
+to a down-covered cot run on C springs, and trundle him off to flowery
+beds of ease or whatever else I could scrape up that was comforting. Now
+listen&mdash;and, Mac, I want you to take all this in, for I am telling this
+yarn for your special benefit.</p>
+
+<p>"That same afternoon I took him up to my rooms&mdash;I was living with my
+aunt then up on Murray Hill&mdash;opened up my wardrobe, pulled out a shirt,
+underwear, socks, shoes, cut-away coat, waistcoat, and trousers; gave
+him a scarf, and then to add a touch to his whole get-up I picked a
+scarf-pin from my cushion and stuck it in myself. Next I handed him a
+cigar, opened up a bottle of Scotch, and after dinner&mdash;my aunt was
+dining out, and we had the table to ourselves&mdash;sat up with him till near
+midnight, he and I talking together like any other two men who had met
+for the first time and who had, to their delight, found something in
+common.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor would any of you have known the difference had you happened to drop
+in upon us. No reference, of course, was made to his condition or to the
+way in which we had met. He was clean, well-dressed, well-mannered,
+perfectly at ease, and entirely at home. You could see that by the way
+in which he shadowed his wine-glass as a sign to the waiter not to
+refill it; passed the end of his cigar toward me that I might snip it
+with the cutter attached to my watch-chain, having none of his own, of
+course&mdash;a fact he made no comment upon; did everything, in fact, down to
+the smallest detail (and I watched and studied him pretty closely) that
+any one of you would have done under similar circumstances; all of which
+proved his birth and breeding, and all of which, you will admit, no man
+not born to it can acquire and not be detected by one who knows.</p>
+
+<p>"My idea was&mdash;and this is another one of my theories&mdash;that you can
+restore a man's energies only when you restore his self-respect, and I
+intended to prove my theory on this Englishman. What I was after was
+first to bring him back to his old self&mdash;he taking his place where he
+belonged, shutting out the hideous nightmare that was pursuing him&mdash;and
+then get him a situation where he could be self-sustaining. This done, I
+proposed to write to his father and patch it up somehow between them,
+and the next time I went abroad we would go together and kill the fatted
+calf, haul in the Yule log, summon the tenants, build triumphal arches,
+and all that sort of thing.</p>
+
+<p>"The following morning promptly at ten o'clock he rapped at my studio
+door. Pitkin saw him and thought he had come to buy out the studio, he
+was so well dressed&mdash;you remember him, Pit?"</p>
+
+<p>Pitkin shook his head and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then commenced the hunt for work, and I tell you it was hard sledding;
+but I stuck at it, and at the end of the week old Porterfield gave him a
+position as entry clerk in his foreign department. During all that week
+he was spending his time between my studio and my aunt's, I looking
+after his expenditures&mdash;not much, only a few dollars a day. Every
+evening we dined at home, and every evening we roamed the world:
+mountain climbing, pig sticking, pheasant shooting in Devonshire; who
+won the Derby, and why; English politics, English art, the tariff&mdash;every
+topic under the sun that I knew anything about and a lot I didn't, he
+leading or following in the talk, his eyes fixed on mine, his rich,
+musical voice filling the room, his handsome, well-bred body comfortably
+seated in my aunt's easiest chair.</p>
+
+<p>"And now comes the most interesting part of this story. The afternoon
+before he was to present himself at Porterfield's, about five
+o'clock&mdash;an hour before I reached home&mdash;he rang my aunt's front-door
+bell; told the servant that I had been called suddenly out of town for
+the night and had sent him post haste in a cab for my portmanteau and
+overcoat. Then he tripped upstairs to my apartment, waited beside the
+servant until she had stowed away in my best Gladstone my dress-suit,
+shirt with its links and pearl studs, collars&mdash;everything, even to my
+patent-leather shoes; and then, while she was out of the room in search
+of my overcoat, emptied into his pockets all my scarf-pins, my silver
+brandy-flask, and a lot of knick-knacks on my bureau, took the coat on
+his arm, preceded her leisurely downstairs, she carrying the bag,
+stepped into the cab, <i>and I haven't seen him since</i>!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"There, Mac, that yarn is told for your especial benefit. What do you
+think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you're all white, Woods, and I'm glad to know you," cried Mac
+as he grasped the painter's hand and shook it warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but what do you think of that cur of an Englishman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he'll live to see the day he'll regret the mean trick he played
+you," answered Mac; "but that doesn't prove your contention that all
+beggars are frauds."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you try to catch him?" interrupted Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was too hurt. I didn't mind the money or the clothes. What I
+minded was the way in which I had squandered my personality. The only
+thing I did do was to tell Captain Alec Williams of our precinct about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Smooth-talking fellow?' Williams asked; 'had a scrap with his father?
+Light-blue eyes and a little turned-up mustache? Yes, I know
+him&mdash;slickest con' man in the business. We've got his mug in our
+collection; show it to you some day, if you come;' and <i>he did</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And the great reader of human nature didn't go to London and build
+arches and kill the fatted calf, after all," remarked Lonnegan, with a
+wink at Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"No," retorted Boggs; "he could have suicided himself at home with less
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Laugh on, you can't hurt me! I'm immune," said Woods. "I learned my
+lesson that time, and I've graduated. I'm not practising any theories,
+old or new; I'm doing missionary work instead, pointing out and running
+down dead beats wherever I see them. No more men's night meetings for
+me, no more widows with twins&mdash;no nothing. When I've got anything to
+give I hand it to my aunt. It isn't a pleasant yarn&mdash;it's one on me
+every time. I only told it to Mac so he could save his money."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm saving it, Woods&mdash;save it every day; got a lot of small banks all
+over the place that pay me compound interest. Now I'll tell <i>you</i> a
+yarn, and I want you fellows to listen and keep still till I get
+through. If there's any doubts, Boggs, of your releasing your grasp on
+your talking machine, I'll take your remarks now. All right, enough
+said. Now hand me that tobacco, Lonnegan, and one of you fellows move
+back so I can get up closer, where you can all hear. This story,
+remember, Woods, is for you."</p>
+
+<p>When Mac talks we listen. The story, whatever it may be, always comes
+straight from his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"One cold, snowy night&mdash;so cold, I remember, that I had to turn up my
+coat collar and stuff my handkerchief inside to keep out the driving
+sleet&mdash;I turned into Tenth Street out of Fifth Avenue on my way here. It
+was after midnight&mdash;nearly one o'clock, in fact&mdash;and with the exception
+of the policeman on our beat&mdash;and I had met him on the corner of the
+Avenue&mdash;I had not passed a single soul since I had left the club. When I
+got abreast of the long iron railing I caught sight of the figure of a
+man standing under the gaslight. He wore a long ulster, almost to his
+feet, and a slouch hat. At sound of my footsteps he shrank back out of
+the light and crouched close to the steps of one of those old houses
+this side of the long wall. His movements did not interest me; waiting
+for somebody, I concluded, and doesn't want to be seen. Then the thought
+crossed my mind that it was a bad night to be out in, and that perhaps
+he might be suffering or drunk, a conclusion I at once abandoned when I
+remembered how warmly he was clad and how quickly he had sprung into
+the shadow of the steps when he heard my approach&mdash;all this, of course,
+as I was walking toward him. That I was in any danger of being robbed
+never crossed my mind. I never go armed, and never think of such things.
+It's the fellow who sees first who escapes, and up to this time I had
+watched his every move.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got abreast of the steps he rose on his feet with a quick spring
+and stood before me.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm hungry,' he said in a low, grating voice. 'Give me some money; I
+don't mean to hurt you, but give me some money, quick!'</p>
+
+<p>"I threw up my hands to defend myself and backed to the lamp-post so
+that I could see where to hit him best, trying all the time to get a
+view of his face, which he still kept concealed by the brim of his
+slouch hat.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's not the way to ask for it,' I answered. I would have struck him
+then only for the tones of his voice, which seemed to carry a note of
+suffering which left me irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>"He was edging nearer and nearer, with the movement of a prize-fighter
+trying to get in a telling blow, his long overcoat concealing the
+movements of his legs as thoroughly as his slouch hat did the features
+of his face. Two thoughts now flashed through my mind: Should I shout
+for the policeman, who could not yet be out of hearing, or should I land
+a blow under his chin and tumble him into the gutter.</p>
+
+<p>"All this time he was muttering to himself: 'I'm crazy, I know, but I'm
+starving; nobody listens to me. This man's got to listen to me or I'll
+kill him and take it away from him.'</p>
+
+<p>"I had gathered myself together and was about to let drive when he
+grabbed me around the waist; we both slipped on the ice and fell to the
+pavement, he underneath and I on top. I had my knee on his chest now,
+and was trying to get my fingers into his shirt collar to choke the
+breath out of him, when the buttons on his ulster gave way. I let go my
+hold and sprang up. The man was naked to his shoes, except for a pair of
+ragged cotton drawers!</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't kill me,' he cried, 'don't kill me.' He was sobbing now, hat
+off, his face in the snow, all the fight out of him.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a hungry man when I see him; been famished myself, wolfish and
+desperate once&mdash;and this man was hungry.</p>
+
+<p>"'Put on your hat, button up your coat,' I said, 'and come with me.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Bully for you, Mac; that's the kind of talk," cried Boggs. "Waltzed him
+right down to the police station, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I brought him to this very room, sat him down in that very chair
+where you sit, Boggs," answered Mac, "and before this very fire. He
+followed me like a homeless dog that you meet in the street, never
+speaking, keeping a few steps behind; waited until I had unlocked the
+street door, held it back for me to pass through; mounted the flight of
+steps behind me&mdash;the light is out, as you know, at that hour, and I had
+to scratch a match to find my way; remained motionless inside this room
+until I had turned on the gas, when I found him standing by that screen
+over there, a dazed expression on his face&mdash;like a man who had fallen
+overboard and been picked up by a passing ship.</p>
+
+<p>"He had been discharged from his last place because some drunken young
+men had lost their money in a bar-room and had accused him of taking it.
+For some weeks he had slept in a ten-cent lodging-house. Two days before
+someone had stolen his clothes, all but his overcoat, which was over
+him. Since that time he had been walking around half-naked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pull that coat off,' I said, 'and put on these,' and I handed him some
+underwear and a suit of sketching clothes that hung in my closet. 'And
+now drink this,' and I poured out a spoonful of whiskey&mdash;all he needed
+on an empty stomach.</p>
+
+<p>"When he was warm and dry&mdash;this did not take many minutes&mdash;we started
+downstairs again and over to Sixth Avenue. Jerry's screens and blinds
+were shut, but his lights were still burning; some fellows were having a
+game of poker in the back room.</p>
+
+<p>"'Got anything to eat, Jerry?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Mr. MacWhirter; a cold ham and some hot chowder, if they ain't
+turned off the steam. Pretty good chowder, too, this week. What'll it
+be&mdash;for one or two?'</p>
+
+<p>"'For one, Jerry.'</p>
+
+<p>"I left him alone for a while sitting at one of Jerry's tables, his
+hungry, eager eyes watching every movement of the old man, as a starved
+cat watches the bowl of milk you are about to place before it.</p>
+
+<p>"When he had devoured everything Jerry had given him, I moved to the
+bar, poured out half a glass of whiskey from one of Jerry's bottles,
+waited until he had swallowed it, and then sent him upstairs to sleep in
+one of Jerry's beds."</p>
+
+<p>"And that was the last you ever saw of him, of course," broke out Woods,
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"No; saw him every day for a month, till he got work. Saw him again
+to-day at Pusch's. He waited on us. It was Carl."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_V" id="PART_V"></a>PART V</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Alexander Macwhirter's great picture, "Early Morning on the East
+River," was still on his easel. The Hanging Committee had taken the
+outside measurement of the frame; had hung the other pictures up to the
+line of this measurement; had inserted the title and price in the
+official catalogue, and were then awaiting Mac's finishing touches.</p>
+
+<p>MacWhirter had struck a snag in the middle distance, and until this was
+repainted to his satisfaction the picture would not leave his studio,
+official catalogue or no official catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>On this afternoon Lonnegan was the first to arrive. The great architect
+on his way downtown must have dropped in upon some social function, or
+was about to attend one later in the day, for he wore his morning
+frock-coat, white waistcoat, and a decoration in his button-hole&mdash;an
+unusual attire for Lonnegan unless the affair was of more than customary
+brilliancy and importance.</p>
+
+<p>"Let up, Mac," cried Lonnegan from behind the Chinese screen, as he
+looked over its top; "the light's gone and you can't see what you're
+doing."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got light enough to see where to put my foot," Mac shouted back.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, easy, old man! Don't smash it; masterpieces are rare! Let me have
+a look at it. Why, it's all right! What's the matter with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shadow tones under the cliffs all out of key. There are a lot of
+wharves, sheds, and vessels lying there half-smothered in mist. I do not
+want to do more than suggest them, but they've got to be right."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but you can't see to paint any longer. Give it up until morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got time! Hanging Committee has sent here three times to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Marny, Pitkin, Boggs, and Woods walked in and joined the group about
+Mac's easel, a "sick picture" (pictures get ill and die, or recover and
+become famous, as well as men) being a matter of the very first
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>Each new arrival had some advice to offer. Pitkin thought the sky
+reflections were not silvery enough. Woods wanted a touch of red
+somewhere on the sides or sterns of the boats, with a "click" of high
+light on their decks to relieve them from the haze of the background.
+"Right out of the tube, old man, and don't touch it afterward. It'll
+make it <i>sing</i>!" Boggs ignored all suggestions by saying, in a
+dictatorial tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you do anything of the kind, Mac; you don't want any drops of red
+sealing wax spilt on that middle distance, or any blobs of white; only
+make it worse. All you need is a touch here and there of yellow-white
+against that purple haze. But you don't want to guess at it. This East
+River is a <i>fact</i>, not a <i>dream</i>. And it's right here under our eyes.
+Everybody knows it and everybody knows how it looks. If you want it
+true, the best thing for you to do is to go there to-morrow morning at
+daylight and wait until the sun gets to your angle. You fellows that
+insist on painting things out of your heads instead of following what is
+set down before you will run to seed like cabbages. Why you want to
+scoop up the emptyings of everybody's wash-basins, when it is so easy to
+get buckets of pure water fresh from nature's well, is what gets me."</p>
+
+<p>"Talks like an art critic," growled Pitkin.</p>
+
+<p>"And with as little sense," added Woods.</p>
+
+<p>"More like a plumber, I should think," remarked Lonnegan drily. "Only
+don't you go up on that hill at five o'clock in the morning, Mac, or
+you'll never finish that picture or anything else. Some thug will finish
+<i>you</i>. That's the worst hole on the river&mdash;regular den of thieves live
+under that hill. I came near being murdered there myself once."</p>
+
+<p>Lonnegan's statement caused a sensation.</p>
+
+<p>"You came near being murdered, you dear Lonny?" Mac asked nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some three years ago."</p>
+
+<p>Boggs, who was still smarting under the contempt with which his
+suggestion had been received, now shouted in the voice of a newsboy
+selling an afternoon edition:</p>
+
+<p>"Full and graphic account of the hair-breadth escape of a great
+architect. Sit down, gentlemen, and listen to a tale that will clog your
+veins with dynamite and make goose shivers go up and down your spine.
+Here, Lonnegan, rest your immaculately upholstered body in this chair
+and tell us all about it. Put up your brushes, Mac; I'll help you wash
+'em. Everybody draw up to the fire." (Here Boggs dropped into his own
+chair.) "The modern Moses is going to tell us how he was pulled out of
+the bulrushes and why he has an excuse for still walking around among
+his fellow-men instead of being tucked away in some comfortable cemetery
+on a hill under a mausoleum of his own designing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen"&mdash;Boggs was again on his feet, a ring in his voice
+like that of a showman&mdash;"it is my especial privilege, and one of the
+greatest honors of my life, to introduce to you this afternoon the
+distinguished architect, Mr. Archibald Perkins Lonnegan, who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you keep still!" cried Pitkin, putting both hands on Boggs's
+shoulder and forcing him into his chair. "Sit on him, Marny!"</p>
+
+<p>Mac by this time had laid his palette on his painting table and had
+moved to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"You never told me anything about that, Lonny."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't know that I did; 'twas some time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure that you aren't really murdered, me long-lost che-ild?"
+whined Boggs in an anxious tone; these changes of manner, tone, and
+gesture of the Chronic Interrupter,&mdash;imitating in one sentence the
+newsboy, in another the showman, and now the anxious mother&mdash;were as
+much a part of his personality, and as much enjoyed by the coterie,
+despite their constant protests, as the bubbling good nature which
+inspired them.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel that," said Lonnegan, tapping his biceps as he frowned at Boggs,
+"and you'll find out how much of a corpse I am."</p>
+
+<p>Boggs' plump fingers squeezed the corded muscles of the speaker with the
+dexterity of a surgeon hunting for broken bones. Then he cast his eyes
+heavenward.</p>
+
+<p>"Saved by a miracle, gentlemen. Thank God, he is still spared to us! Now
+go on, you fashion-plate! When, where, and in what part of your valuable
+and talented person were you almost murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was now seated and had his pipe filled, all except Lonnegan,
+who stood on the rug with his slender, well-built and, to-day,
+well-dressed body in silhouette against the blazing logs, his shapely
+legs forming an inverted V.</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't much of a story. I wouldn't tell it at all if it wasn't to
+save Mac's life. There are two or three places under that East River
+hill where it is unsafe to walk even in broad daylight, let alone in the
+gray of the morning. When I tried it I was looking for one of my
+foremen&mdash;or, rather, for one of his derrick-men. I knew the street, but
+I didn't know the number. After dinner I started up Third Avenue, turned
+to Avenue A, and found that my only way to reach the place was down a
+long street leading to the river, flanked on each side by barren lots
+used as dumping-grounds and dotted here and there with squatters'
+shanties built of refuse timber, old tin roofs, and junk; gas lamps a
+block apart, with the sidewalks flagged only in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>"I went myself because I wanted the derrick-man, and I wanted him at
+seven o'clock on Monday morning, and I knew he'd come if I could see
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Half-way down this long street, say two blocks from the avenue, which
+was brilliantly lighted and thronged with people&mdash;it was Saturday
+night&mdash;I saw the lights of a bar-room, the only brick building fronting
+either side of the walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you rigged out in this royal apparel, Lonny?" broke in Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I was in a dress-suit and wore an overcoat. Without thinking of the
+danger, I stepped inside and walked up to the barkeeper&mdash;a
+villainous-looking cutthroat, in his shirt sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am looking for a man by the name of Dennis McGrath,' I said; 'I
+thought some of you men might know him.'</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow looked me all over, and then he called to two men sitting at
+the table behind the stove. As he spoke I caught the flash of a wink
+quivering on his eyelid&mdash;the lid farthest from me. Nothing uncovers the
+workings of a man's brain like a carefully concealed wink. It may mean
+anything from ridicule to murder.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the men winked at got up from a table and approached the bar,
+followed by a larger man, with a face like a bull terrier.</p>
+
+<p>"'What yer say his name is&mdash;McGrath?'</p>
+
+<p>"All this time his eyes were sizing me up, scrutinizing my hat, my
+shirt-studs, watch-chain, overcoat, gloves, down to my shoes. The
+smaller man&mdash;'Shorty,' the barkeeper called him&mdash;now repeated the larger
+man's question.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did yer say his name's McGrath? What's he do?'</p>
+
+<p>"'He is a derrick-man.'</p>
+
+<p>"Shorty was now well under the light of the bar. He had a scar over one
+damaged eye and a flattened nose, the same blow having evidently wrecked
+both; over the other was pulled a black cloth cap; around his throat was
+a dirty red handkerchief, no collar showing&mdash;a capital make-up for a
+stage villain, I thought, as I looked him over, especially the
+handkerchief. Even Mac here would look like a burglar with his hair
+mussed, collar off, and a red handkerchief tied around his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"The barkeeper piped up again: 'Get a move on, Shorty, and help the gent
+find the Mick.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Shure! I know him. He's a-livin' under de rocks. Come 'long, Boss.
+I'll git him.'</p>
+
+<p>"Two more men stepped out of the gloom; one, in a cap and yellow
+overcoat, went behind the bar and slipped something into his pocket;
+then the two lounged out of the room and shut the door behind them. I
+began to take in the situation. The purpose of the wink was clear now. I
+was in a dive in a deserted street, unarmed and alone, and surrounded by
+cutthroats. If I tried to find McGrath with any one of these men as a
+guide I would be robbed and thrown over the cliff; if I attempted to go
+back I would land in the clutches of the man in the yellow overcoat and
+his companion. All this time the barkeeper was leaning over the bar, his
+eyes fixed on my face. My only hope lay in a bold front.</p>
+
+<p>"'All right,' I said to Shorty; 'how far is it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, not very fur&mdash;'bout t'ree blocks.'</p>
+
+<p>"I stepped out into the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Down the long street on the way to the river stood three men&mdash;the man
+in the yellow overcoat, his companion, and one other. They separated
+when they saw me, the one in the overcoat retracing his steps toward the
+dive without looking my way, the others sauntering on ahead. I walked
+on, meditating what to do next. I could throttle Shorty and take to my
+heels, but then I would have to reckon with the pickets who might be
+between me and the bar-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes, when in great danger, a sudden inspiration comes to a man;
+mine came out of a clear sky.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hold on,' I said to Shorty&mdash;we were now half a block from the dive.
+'Wait a minute; I have nothing smaller than a ten-dollar bill, and I
+want to give you something for your trouble. I'll run back and get the
+barkeeper to change it. Stay where you are; I won't be a minute.'</p>
+
+<p>"I turned on my heel and walked back toward the dive with a quick step,
+as if I had forgotten something. The man with the yellow overcoat saw me
+coming and stepped into the street as if to intercept me. Shorty gave
+two low whistles, and the man stepped back to the sidewalk again. I
+reached the doorstep of the dive. All the men were now between me and
+the river, the one in the yellow overcoat but a short distance from the
+bar-room, Shorty waiting for me where I left him. With the same hurried
+movement I swung back the door, stepped inside, stripped off my
+overcoat, folded it close, threw it over my arm, and, before the
+barkeeper could realize what I was doing, pulled my hat close down to my
+ears, jerked the lapels of my dress-coat over my shirt-front to hide the
+white bosom, dashed out of the door and sprang for the middle of the
+street."</p>
+
+<p>Here Lonnegan stopped and puffed away at his pipe. For a minute every
+man kept still.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Lonny," said Mac, the intensity of his interest apparent in the
+tones of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said Lonnegan. "The change of coats and slight disguise of
+hat and lapels threw them off their guard. The outside pickets thought,
+when I burst through the door, that I was somebody else until I was too
+far away to be overtaken. That's what saved my life."</p>
+
+<p>"And you call that an adventure, you fake!" cried Boggs. "Ran like a
+street dog, did you, and hid under your mammy's bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's the matter with the yarn," retorted Lonnegan; "it's true,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Matter with it? Everything! No point to it, no common sense in it; just
+a fool yarn! You go out hunting trouble with your imagination on edge,
+like a scared child. You meet a man who offers to conduct you
+gratuitously to a house up a back street; you agree to pay him for his
+trouble; you make a lame excuse to dodge him, he relying on your word to
+return, and then you take to your heels and cheat him out of his pay. No
+yarn at all; just a disgraceful bunco game!"</p>
+
+<p>The Circle were now in an uproar of laughter, everybody talking at once.
+Marny finally got the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Boggs is right," he said, "about Lonnegan's conduct. It is
+extraordinary how low an honest man will sometimes stoop. Lonnegan's
+life among the aristocrats of Murray Hill is undermining his high sense
+of honor. Now I'll tell you a story of an escape that really has some
+point to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this another fake murder yarn?" asked Boggs. "We don't want any more
+fizzles."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty close to the real thing&mdash;close enough to turn your hair gray.
+About fifteen years ago&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now hold on, Marny," interrupted Boggs, "one thing more. Is this out of
+your head, like one of your muddy, woolly landscapes, or is it founded
+on fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's founded on fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Got any proof?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, got the pistol that saved my life. It's on a shelf in my studio
+downstairs. If anybody doubts my story I'll bring it up. About twelve or
+fifteen years back&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He said <i>fifteen</i> a moment since," grumbled Boggs in an undertone to
+himself, "now he's qualifying it. First knock-down for the doubters. Go
+on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, say fifteen then; my memory is not good on dates; my brother and
+I made a trip to the Peaks of Otter, just over the North Carolina line.
+I was a boy of twenty and he was a man of thirty-two. He was a dead shot
+with a rifle or pistol and could knock a cent to pieces edgewise at
+fifty yards. While I painted, he scalped red squirrels and chipmunks
+with a long Flobert pistol that carried a ball the size of a buckshot; a
+toy really, but true as a Winchester.</p>
+
+<p>"We found the Peaks, or rather the peak we climbed, a sugar-loaf of a
+mountain with almost perpendicular slopes near its top, crowned by a
+cluster of enormous boulders. From its crest one can see all over that
+part of the State. Half-way up we stopped at a small tavern, inquired
+the way to the top, borrowed two small blankets of the landlord, and
+bought some cold meat and bread and a few teaspoonfuls of tea. These we
+put in a haversack, and leaving my heavy painting-trap we continued on
+about three o'clock in the afternoon to climb the peak. The only things
+we carried, outside of the provisions and blankets, were my pocket
+sketch-book and the Flobert pistol. It was the worst I have ever done in
+all my mountain climbing. Sometimes we edged along a precipice and
+sometimes we pulled ourselves up a cliff almost perpendicular. There was
+no doubt about the path&mdash;that was plainly marked by sign-boards and
+blazed trees and the wear of many feet, and then again it was perfectly
+plain that it was the only way up the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>"We reached the top about sundown and found a cabin built of logs, with
+one window, a sawed pine door with a bolt inside, a rusty stove and
+pipe, and a low bed covered with dry straw. Scattered about were two or
+three wooden stools, and on the window-sill stood a tin coffee-pot and
+two tin cups.</p>
+
+<p>"When it began to grow dark and the chill of the mountains had settled
+down, we started a fire in the stove, put on the pot, dumped in our tea,
+and began to spread out our provisions. Then we lighted one of the
+candles the inn people had given us, and ate our supper.</p>
+
+<p>"About ten o'clock a puff of wind struck the stovepipe and scattered the
+ashes over the floor. The next instant the growl of distant thunder
+reached our ears. Then a storm burst upon the mountains, the lightning
+striking all about us. This went on for two hours&mdash;after midnight
+really; we couldn't sleep, and we didn't try to. We just sat up and took
+it, expecting every minute that the shanty would be tumbled in on top of
+us. About one o'clock the rain slackened, the wind went down, and we
+could hear the growl of the thunder as the lightning played havoc on
+the peak to the north of us. Then we bolted the door to keep the wind
+from blowing it in should the storm return, rolled up in our blankets on
+our bed of straw and leaves, and fell asleep, leaving the matches close
+to the candle.</p>
+
+<p>"We had hardly dropped off when we were awakened by a pounding at the
+door. In the dead of night, remember, on top of a mountain that a cat
+could hardly climb in the daytime, and after that storm!</p>
+
+<p>"We both sprang up, scared out of our wits. Then we heard a man's voice,
+rough and coarse, and in a commanding tone:</p>
+
+<p>"'Open the door!'</p>
+
+<p>"I was on my feet now. My brother caught up his pistol, slipped in a
+cartridge, and poured the balance of the ammunition into his
+side-pocket; then he called:</p>
+
+<p>"'Who are you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't make any difference who we are,' came another voice, sharper and
+in a higher key. 'You don't own this shanty. Open the door, damn you, or
+we'll break it in!'</p>
+
+<p>"We might have handled one man; two or more were out of the question. My
+brother stepped across the bed, backed into the shadow away from the
+rays of the flickering firelight, cocked the pistol, and nodded to me. I
+slipped back the bolt.</p>
+
+<p>"Two men entered. One had a brown, bushy beard, a low forehead, and
+ugly, uncertain mouth. He was stockily built, with stout legs and short,
+powerful arms and hands. The other was tall and lanky, with a hatchet
+face and cunning, searching eyes&mdash;eyes that looked at you and then
+looked away. He wore a slouch hat and homespun clothes and high boots,
+in which were stuffed the bottoms of his trousers. As he followed the
+shorter man inside the cabin he had to stoop to clear the top of the
+door-jamb.</p>
+
+<p>"We saw that they were not mountaineers&mdash;their dress showed that; nor
+did they look like the men we had seen in the village. Both were
+drenched to the skin, the legs of their trousers and boots reeking with
+mud, the water still dripping from their hats.</p>
+
+<p>"The shorter man looked at me and then ran his eye around the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where is the other one?' he asked in the same domineering tone.</p>
+
+<p>"'Here he is,' answered my brother coolly, from behind the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"The two men peered into the shadow, where my brother sat crouched with
+his back to the logs, the pistol on his knee within reach of his hand.
+From where I stood I could catch the red glint of the forelight flashing
+down its barrel. The men must have seen it too.</p>
+
+<p>"'We're goin' to chuck some wood in this 'ere stove. Got any
+objections?' asked the tall man, pulling his wet slouch hat from his
+head and beating the water out of it against the pile of firewood. The
+tone was a little less brutal.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' answered my brother curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"The tall one reached over the pile, picked up a log and shoved it in
+the stove. Then the two stretched themselves out at full length and
+looked steadily at the blaze, the steam from their wet clothes filling
+the room. No other word was passed, either by the men or by my brother
+or myself, nor did we change our positions. I sat on one of the stools
+and my brother sat in the corner where he could draw a bead if either of
+the men showed fight. Three o'clock came, then four, then five, and then
+the cold gray light which tells of the coming dawn stole in between the
+cracks of the cabin and the broken window. At the first streak of light
+the tall man lifted himself to his feet, the short man followed, and
+swinging wide the door the two stalked out to the farthest edge of the
+pile of boulders overlooking the plain, where they squatted on their
+haunches, their eyes toward the east. We took our positions on a rock
+behind them, a little higher up. Any move they made would come under the
+fire of my brother's toy gun. The sun's disk rose slowly&mdash;first a peep
+of the old fellow's eye, then half his cheek, and then his round, jolly
+face wreathed in smiles. When the bottom edge of his chin had swung
+clear of the crest of the distant mountain range the tall man leaned
+over his companion and said in a decisive tone:</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Bill, she's up,' and without a word to either of us they swung
+themselves through the opening in the boulders and disappeared."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The coterie had listened in their usual absorbed way whenever Marny had
+the floor. His experience, like Mac's, covered half the world. Boggs
+had not taken his eyes from Marny's face during the entire recital.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's all you know about them?" asked Lonnegan in a serious tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Except what the landlord told us," continued Marny in answer, turning
+to Lonnegan. "The two men, he said, had stopped at the tavern about nine
+o'clock that night, had asked who was on top, and had hurried on; all
+they wanted was a stable lantern, which he lent them, and which they
+didn't return. He had never seen either of them before, and they didn't
+pass the tavern on their way back."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you think of the affair?" asked Pitkin in a serious tone of
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We had only two conclusions. They had either come to rob us, and were
+scared off by the toy pistol, or they were carrying out a wager of some
+kind."</p>
+
+<p>"And it took you all night and the next day to find that out?"
+exclaimed Boggs in a tone of assumed contempt. "Really, gentlemen, this
+whole afternoon should go on record as the proceedings of a
+kindergarten. Just think what rot we've had: Lonnegan promises a poor
+workingman a job and takes to his heels to cheat him out of his pay;
+Marny, who, like Mac, poses as a philanthropist, and claims to feed the
+hungry and clothe the naked, refuses shelter to two half-drowned
+tourists who come up to see the sunrise, and instead of hustling round
+to get 'em hot tea and grub, he posts his big brother in a corner with a
+gun where he can blow the tops of their heads off. Rot&mdash;all of it! But
+what I object to most is the 'let-down' at the tag-end of each of these
+yarns. You work up to a climax, and nothing happens. Just like one of
+these half-baked modern plays we've been having&mdash;all the climax in the
+first act, and a dreary drivel from that on till the curtain drops. I
+expected Marny's yarn would taper off in a hand-to-hand death struggle;
+both men thrown over the cliff; the finding of their mangled bodies,
+impaled on the trees, by the sheriff, who had tracked them for years,
+and who promptly identified both scoundrels, one as 'Dead House Dick'
+and the other as 'Murder Pete'; a vote of thanks to the two heroes by
+the State legislature, one of whom, thank God! is still with us"&mdash;and he
+bowed grandiloquently at Marny&mdash;"and a ring-down with a beautiful,
+unknown woman, supposed to be an heiress, creeping in at twilight to
+weep over their graves, all the stage lights turned down and a low
+tremolo going on in the orchestra. Tamest, deadest lot of twaddle I've
+heard around this fire! Now let me tell you a yarn that <i>means</i>
+something. Blood this time&mdash;red blood. None of your dress-suit and
+warmed-up tea and toy-pistol adventures."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody straightened up in his chair to get a better view of Boggs.
+The Chronic Interrupter was about to appear in a new rôle. The speaker
+opened his coat, tossed back the lapels as if to give his plump body
+more room, and rose slowly to his feet, his black diamond-pointed eyes
+glistening, his lips quivering with suppressed merriment. It was evident
+that Boggs was loaded to the muzzle; it was also evident, from the
+unusual earnestness of his manner, that he was about to fire off
+something of more than usual importance.</p>
+
+<p>"No preliminaries, mind you. Right to the spot in a jump. This happened
+in Stamboul the winter I made those sketches of the mosques."</p>
+
+<p>Mac looked up, an expression of surprise in his face. He thought he knew
+every act of Boggs's life from his cradle up&mdash;they being bosom chums.
+That Boggs had even been in the East was news to him. Boggs caught the
+look and repeated his opening in a louder voice.</p>
+
+<p>"In Stamboul, remember, across the Galata from Pera. I had finished the
+flight of marble steps and entrance of the Valedée, and was looking
+around for another subject, when a Turk with a green scarf around his
+fez (that showed he'd been to Mecca), who had been keeping off the crowd
+while I painted, offered to carry my trap to the Mosque of the Six
+Minarets up in the Plaza of the Hippodrome. A man who has been to Mecca
+is generally to be trusted, so I handed him my kit and followed his
+lead. On the way to the plaza he stopped beside a low wall and pointed
+to an opening in the ground. I looked down and saw a flight of stone
+steps.</p>
+
+<p>"'This is not for the Effendi to paint,' he said, 'but it is something
+for him to see. It is the great underground cistern where the water was
+kept during the sieges.'</p>
+
+<p>"That suited me to a dot&mdash;caverns always appeal to me&mdash;and down I went,
+followed by the green fez. Down, down, down, into a big vaulted chamber,
+the roof supported on marble columns running back into the gloom, only
+the nearby ones in relief where the light from the opening above fell
+upon their white shafts, very much as a forest looks at night when a
+torch is lighted. Stretching away was a dirt floor, uneven in places,
+and away back in the half-gloom I could make out the surface of a great
+pool. Now and then something would strike the water, the splash
+reverberating through the cavern.</p>
+
+<p>"When my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness I could see men
+moving about, dragging ropes, and beyond these a dull light, like that
+from a grimy cellar window. This, the Turk said, was the other exit, the
+one nearest to the Mosque of the Six Minarets; the men, he added, were
+rope-makers; some of them lived here and only left the cisterns at
+night, as the daylight blinded them. So I followed on, the Turk ahead,
+my kit in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"In the centre of the enormous cavern, half-way between the light of the
+street opening above the steps and the distant cellar-window light, I
+came to a circle of big stone columns standing close together, enclosing
+a space not much bigger than this room of Mac's. They were of marble and
+rather large for their height, although it was so dark that I could not
+see the roof distinctly. At this instant one of those indefinable
+chills, which with me always foretells danger, crept over me. I called
+to the Turk. There was no answer; only the sound of his feet, but
+quicker, as if he were running. Then a feeling took possession of me of
+someone following me&mdash;that's another one of my safeguards. I turned my
+head quickly and caught the edge of a man's body as it dodged behind the
+column I had just passed. Then a head was thrust from around the column
+in front, then another on the side&mdash;rough looking brutes, bareheaded and
+frowzy. There was no question now&mdash;the Turk was their accomplice and had
+led me into this trap. These fellows meant business. Not backsheesh, but
+murder, and your body in the pool!" Here Boggs's manner became more
+serious. The suppressed smile had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"I was better built in those days than I am now," he continued in a
+graver tone; "not so fat, and could run like a sand-snipe, and it didn't
+take me long to decide what to do. To reach the staircase was my only
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>"I whirled suddenly, struck the brute behind the rear column full in the
+face before he could raise his hands, sprang over his body, and ran with
+all my might toward the light at the foot of the staircase. If you
+thought you were running, Lonnegan, up that long street, you should have
+seen me light out. It was a race for life over an uneven pavement, where
+I might stumble any moment, four men pursuing me, then three, then one.
+I could tell this from their footfalls. The light grew stronger; I
+turned my head for a second to size up my opponent. He was younger than
+the others, was naked to the waist, and wore only a pair of trunks. His
+bare feet made hardly a sound. I was within fifty yards now of the
+lower step, running like a deer, my wind almost gone. If I could reach
+that and bound up into the daylight, he would be afraid to follow. The
+light footfalls came closer; he was within twenty feet of me; I could
+hear his heavy breathing and smothered curses. My foot was now within a
+few feet of the steps; one spring and I would be safe. I put forth all
+my strength, miscalculated the bottom step, and fell headlong on the
+steps! The next instant his body struck mine with the impact of a tiger
+falling upon his prey, flattening me to the steps and grinding my lips
+into the sand covering the stones&mdash;I can taste it now. His fingers
+tightened about my throat. In my agony I braced myself and rolled over,
+partly throwing him off. Then my eyes lighted on a long curved knife
+with a turquoise-studded handle. A man notes these things in a moment
+like this. I minded even a spot of rust on the blade.</p>
+
+<p>"Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going. That peculiar
+swelling of the tongue and dryness which sometimes comes with fever
+filled my mouth. The knife was now tightly gripped in his right hand,
+his fingers twisting my shirt collar into a tourniquet. I straightened
+my back, gathered all my strength, and lunged forward. The knife
+flashed, and then a horrible thing happened!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus6" id="illus6"></a>
+<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Boggs stopped and began mopping his face with his handkerchief. The
+memory of the fight for his life seemed to have strangely affected him.
+No one of the coterie had ever seen him so stirred, and no one had ever
+dreamed that he could tell a story with so much real dramatic power. In
+the few moments in which he had been speaking the room was almost
+breathless except for the tones of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Boggs, don't stop!" said Lonnegan.</p>
+
+<p>"In the struggle for mastery the point of the dagger pressed against my
+heart. There came a sudden lunge&mdash;Oh, I guess, boys, I won't go any
+further; I never like to think of the affair. I'd no business to tell
+it; always affects me this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go on; served the brute right," spoke up Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"I tried, of course, to avoid it, but I was powerless. The knife went
+straight through my own heart, and I fell dead at his feet. That
+afternoon they threw my body in the pool. I have lain there ever since."</p>
+
+<p>The listeners, one and all, glared at Boggs. The surprise had been so
+great that for an instant no one found his tongue. Then the fireside
+rang with shouts of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Lonnegan got his breath first.</p>
+
+<p>"Boggs," he cried, "you are the most picturesque liar I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lonny, I guess that's so; but I gave you fellows a <i>thrill</i>, and
+that's what none of you gave me!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VI" id="PART_VI"></a>PART VI</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice," and his Fellow Dogs.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The group about the blazing logs was enriched this afternoon by a new
+member. Lonnegan had brought his dog, a big white and yellow St.
+Bernard, fluffy as a girl's muff, a huge, splendid fellow, who answered
+with great dignity and with considerable condescension to the name of
+"Chief," an abbreviation of "His Worship, the Chief Justice."</p>
+
+<p>No other name would have suited him. Grave, dignified, wide-browed, with
+deep, thoughtful eyes; ponderous of form, slow in his movements, keeping
+perfectly still minutes at a time, he needed only a wig and a pair of
+big-bowed spectacles to make him the fitting occupant of any bench.</p>
+
+<p>Mac put his arm around Chief's neck before His Worship had fully made up
+his mind as to where on the Daghestan rug he would place his august
+person.</p>
+
+<p>The salutation over, and the dog's soft, fur-tippet ears having been
+duly rubbed, and his finely modelled cheeks pressed close between Mac's
+two warm hands&mdash;their two noses were but an inch apart&mdash;His Worship
+stretched himself out at full length before the fire, his nose resting
+on his extended paws, his kindly, human eyes fixed on the crackling
+logs.</p>
+
+<p>"Lonnegan," said Mac in a thoughtful tone, "do you know I think a good
+deal more of you since you got this dog? I didn't know you were that
+human," and Mac changed his seat so that he could rest his hand on
+Chief's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Lonnegan hasn't anything human about him," broke in Boggs, tugging at
+his collar to give his fat throat the more room; "not in your sense,
+Mac. If you will study the Great Architect as closely as I have done,
+you will see that his humanity is to always keep one point ahead of the
+social game." Here Boggs got up and moved his chair to the other side of
+the fireplace, so as to be out of reach of Lonnegan's long arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me explain, gentlemen, for I don't want to do this distinguished
+man any injustice. You and I, Mac, being common-sense people, without
+any frills about us, wear just an ordinary plain scarf-pin&mdash;a horseshoe
+or a gold ball, or some such trifle. Lonnegan must have a scarab, or a
+coin two thousand years old; same thing in his dress, if you study him.
+You will note that his collars are an inch higher than ours, his scarfs
+twice as puffy, his coat-tails longer, his trouserloons more baggy&mdash;not
+offensively baggy, gentlemen," and he waved his hand to the coterie;
+"perhaps more unique in cut, so to put it. So it is with his dogs. This
+big St. Bernard, hulking along after the Great Architect when he takes
+his afternoon walks up and down the Avenue, is quite on a par with all
+Lonnegan's other frills. You and I would affect an inconspicuous
+canine&mdash;a poodle, a terrier, or a bull pup. Not so Lonnegan. He wants a
+dog as big as a mule. It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper. 'My dear,' says a stout lady, built in two movements, to
+her husband at a theatre" (Boggs's imitation of a society woman's drawl
+was now inimitable), "'I saw such a magnificent St. Bernard coming up
+the Avenue. Belongs to Mr. Lonnegan, the architect. He certainly is a
+man of very exquisite taste. I think it would be a good idea for you to
+consult him about the plans for our&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus7" id="illus7"></a>
+<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper."</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Lonnegan sprang from his seat and made a lunge at his tormentor with a
+look in his eyes as if he intended to throttle Boggs on the spot. At the
+same instant the great dog drew in his paws and rose to his feet, his
+eyes fixed on his master's movements&mdash;rose as an athlete rises, using
+the muscles of his knees and ankles to pull his body erect. If his
+master was in danger he was ready. Only smothered laughter, however,
+came from both Boggs and Lonnegan.</p>
+
+<p>"I take it all back, Lonny," sputtered Boggs, trying to release himself
+from Lonnegan's grip. "The woman's husband wanted two country houses,
+not one. Call off your dog, I can't fight two brutes at once."</p>
+
+<p>Pitkin sprang to his feet, his partly bald head and forehead rose-pink
+in the excitement of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call your dog off, Lonny! Don't move. Keep on choking Boggs. Just
+look at the pose of that dog. Isn't that stunning. By Jove, fellows!
+wouldn't he be a corker in bronze, life size. Just see the line of the
+back and lift of the head!" And the sculptor, after the manner of his
+guild, held the edge of his hand against his eye as a guide by which to
+measure the proportions of the noble beast.</p>
+
+<p>Lonnegan loosened his hold, and Boggs, now purple in the face from loss
+of breath and laughter, shook himself free and rearranged his collar
+with his fat fingers. The attention of the whole fireside was now
+centred on the dog. His pose was now less tense and his legs less rigid,
+but his paws had kept their original position on the rug. As he stood,
+trying to comprehend the situation, he had the bearing of a charger
+overlooking a battle-field.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you're wrong, Pitkin," cried Marny; "Chief would be lumpy and
+inexpressive in bronze. He's too woolly. You want clear-cut anatomy when
+you're going to put a dog or any other animal in bronze. Color is better
+for Chief. I'd use him as a foil to a half-nude, life-size scheme of
+brown, yellow, and white; old Chinese jar on her left, filled with
+chrysanthemums, some stuffs in the background&mdash;this kind of thing. I can
+see it now," and Marny picked up a bit of charcoal and blocked in on a
+fresh canvas resting on Mac's easel the position of the figure, the men
+crowding about him to watch the result.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't do, old man," cried Woods, as soon as Marny's rapid outline
+became clear. "Out of scale; all dog and no girl. I'd have him stretched
+out as he is now" (Chief had regained his position), "with a fellow in a
+chair reading&mdash;lamplight on book for high light, dog in half shadow."</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right, Woods," said Mac, who was still caressing Chiefs
+silky ears. "Marny's missed it this time; girl scheme won't do. This is
+a gentleman's dog, and he has always moved among his kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Careful, Mac; careful," remarked Boggs in a reproving tone. "You said
+'<i>has</i> moved.' You don't mean to reflect on his present owner, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mac waved Boggs away with the same gesture with which he would have
+brushed off a fly, and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"When I say that he has always lived among <i>gentlemen</i>, I state the
+exact fact. You can see that in his manners and in the way in which he
+retains not only his self-respect, but his courage and loyalty. You
+noticed, did you not, that it took him but an instant to get on his feet
+when Lonnegan seized Boggs? You will also agree with me that no one has
+entered this room this winter more gracefully, or with more ease and
+composure, nor one who has known better what to do with his arms and
+legs. And as for his well-bred reticence, he has yet to open his
+mouth&mdash;certainly a great rebuke to Boggs, if he did but know it," and he
+nodded in the direction of the Chronic Interrupter. "Great study, these
+dogs. Chief has had a gentleman for a master, I tell you, and has lived
+in a gentleman's house, accustomed all his life to oriental rugs, wood
+fires, four-in-hands, two-wheeled carts, golden-haired children in black
+velvet suits, servants in livery&mdash;regular thoroughbred. That is, <i>bred
+thorough</i>, by somebody who never insulted him, who never misunderstood
+him, and who never mortified him. Offending a dog is as bad as offending
+a child, and ten times worse than offending a woman. A dozen men would
+spring to a woman's assistance; no one ever interferes in a quarrel
+between a dog and his master. When they do they generally take the
+master's side."</p>
+
+<p>Mac reached over, tapped the bowl of his pipe against the brick of the
+fireplace, emptied it of its ashes, and laying it on the mantel resumed
+his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"It's pathetic to me," he continued, "to see how hard some dogs try to
+understand their masters. All they can do is to take their cue from the
+men who own them. It isn't astonishing, really, that they should
+sometimes copy them. It only takes a few months for a butcher to make
+his dog as bloody and as brutal as the toughest hand in his shop."</p>
+
+<p>"What a responsibility," sighed Boggs, turning toward Lonnegan. "You
+won't corrupt His Worship with any of your Murray Hill swaggerdoms, will
+you, Lonny?"</p>
+
+<p>Lonnegan closed one eye at Boggs and wagged his chin in denial. Mac went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"Dogs can just as well be educated up as educated down. There is no
+question of their ability to learn&mdash;not the slightest. I am not speaking
+of the things they are expected to know&mdash;hunting, rat catching, and so
+on; I mean the things they are <i>not</i> expected to know. If you'd like to
+hear how they can understand each other, get the Colonel to tell you
+about those two dogs he saw in Constantinople some two years ago," and
+he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't in Constantinople, Mac," I answered, "it was in Stamboul, on
+the Plaza of the Hippodrome."</p>
+
+<p>"Near where I was murdered, and where I still lie buried?" Boggs asked
+gravely, with a sly wink at Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, within a stone's throw of your present tomb, old man, up near the
+Obelisk. That plaza is the home of four or five packs of street curs,
+who divide up the territory among themselves, and no dog dares cross the
+imaginary line without getting into trouble. Every day or so there is a
+pitched battle directed by their leaders&mdash;always the biggest dogs in the
+pack. What Mac refers to occurred some years ago, when, looking over my
+easel one morning, I saw a lame dog skulking along by the side of a low
+wall that forms the boundary of one side of the plaza. He was on three
+legs, the other held up in the air. A big shaggy brute, the leader of
+another pack, made straight for him, followed by three others. The
+cripple saw them coming, and at once lay down on his back, his injured
+paw thrust up. The big dog stood over him and heard what he had to say.
+I was not ten feet from them, and I understood every word.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am lame, gentlemen, as you see,' he pleaded, 'and I am on my way
+home. I am in too much pain to walk around the side of the plaza where I
+belong, and I therefore humbly beg your permission to cross this small
+part of your territory.'</p>
+
+<p>"The big leader listened, snarled at his companions who were standing by
+ready to help tear the intruder to pieces, sent them back to their
+quarters with a commanding toss of his head, and walked by the side of
+the cripple until he had cleared the corner; then he slowly returned to
+his pack. There was no question about it; if the cripple had spoken
+English I could not have understood him better."</p>
+
+<p>"I can beat that yarn," chimed in Woods, "so far as sympathy is
+concerned. I was in an omnibus once going up the Boulevard des
+Italiennes when a man on the seat opposite me whistled out of the end
+window&mdash;his two dogs were following behind the 'bus. One was a white
+bull terrier, the other a French poodle, black as tar. Whenever anything
+got in the way&mdash;and it was pretty crowded along there&mdash;the dogs fell
+behind. When they appeared again the owner would whistle to let them
+know where he was. All of a sudden I heard a yell. The poodle had been
+run over. I could see him lying flat on the asphalt, kicking. The man
+stopped the omnibus and sprang out, and a crowd gathered. In that short
+space of time the terrier had fastened his teeth in the poodle's collar,
+had dragged him clear of the traffic to the sidewalk, and was bending
+over him licking the hurt. Four or five people got out of the stage, I
+among them, and a cheer went up for the owner when he picked up the
+injured dog in his arms and took him clear of the crowd, the terrier
+following behind, as anxious as a mother over her child. I have believed
+in the sympathy of dogs for each other ever since."</p>
+
+<p>"My turn now," said Boggs. "My uncle's got a poodle, answers to the name
+of Mirza. Got more common sense than anything that walks on four legs.
+They keep a bowl in one corner of the dining-room, which is always
+filled with water so the dog can get a drink when she wants it. My uncle
+says that's one thing half the people who own dogs never think of&mdash;dogs
+not being able to turn faucets. Well, they shifted servants one day and
+forgot to tell the new one about the bowl. Mirza did her best to make
+her understand&mdash;pulled her dress, got up on her hind legs and sniffed
+around the empty tea-cups. No use. Then an idea struck the dog. She made
+a spring for the empty bowl and rolled it over with her four paws from
+the dining-room into the butler's pantry. By that time the wooden-headed
+idiot understood, and Mirza got her drink."</p>
+
+<p>During the discussion Mac had sat with the great head of the St. Bernard
+resting on his knee. It was evident that His Worship had found an
+acquaintance whom he could trust, one whom he considered his equal. For
+some minutes the painter looked into the dog's face, his hands smoothing
+the dog's ears, the St. Bernard's eyes growing sleepy under the caress.
+Then Mac said in a half-audible tone, speaking to the dog, not to us:</p>
+
+<p>"You've got a great head, old fellow&mdash;full of sense. All your bumps are
+in the right place. You know a lot of things that are too much for us
+humans. I wish you'd tell me one thing. You know what we all think of
+you, but what do you think of us&mdash;of your master Lonnegan, of this
+crowd, this fireplace? Speak out, old man; I'd like to know."</p>
+
+<p>Boggs shifted his fat body in his chair, jerked his head over his
+shoulder, and winking meaningly at Lonnegan, said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Mac is going to give us one of his reminuisances; I know the sign."</p>
+
+<p>"Make the dog begin on Boggs, Mac," cried Woods.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Chief's too much of a gentleman. He knows all about Boggs, but he's
+too polite to tell," replied Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"Get him to whisper it then in your off ear," suggested Boggs. "He'll
+surprise you with his estimate of one of nature's noblemen," and he
+thrust his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"No, keep it to yourself, Chief," remarked Mac. "But I'm not joking, I'm
+in dead earnest. Anybody can find out what a man thinks of a dog; but
+what does a dog think of a man, especially some of those two-legged
+brutes who by right of dollars claim to own them? I took the measure of
+a man once who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Boggs sprang from his seat and struck one of his ring-master attitudes.</p>
+
+<p>"What did I tell you, gentlemen? Just as I expected, the semi-nuisance
+has arrived. Give him room! The great landscape painter is about to
+explode with another tale of his youth. You took the measure of a man
+once, I think you said, Mac; was it for a suit of clothes or a coffin?
+No, don't answer; keep right on."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did take his measure," said Mac, in a low, earnest tone,
+ignoring Boggs's aside; "and I've never taken any stock in him since. I
+don't think any of you know him, and it's just as well that you don't. I
+may be a little Quixotic about these things&mdash;guess I am&mdash;but I'm going
+to stay so. I met this Quarterman&mdash;that's more than he deserves; he's
+nearer one-eighth of a man than a quarter&mdash;up at the club-house on Salt
+Beach. I was a guest; he was a member. Big, heavily built young fellow;
+weighed about two hundred pounds; rather good-looking; wore the best of
+English shooting togs; carried an English gun and carted around a lot of
+English leather cases, bound in brass, with his name plate on them. A
+regular out-and-out sport of the better type, I thought, when I first
+saw him. He had with him one of the most beautiful reddish-brown setters
+I ever laid my eyes on&mdash;what you'd get with burnt sienna and
+madder&mdash;with a coat as fine and silky as a camel's hair brush. One of
+those clean-mouthed, clean-toothed, agate-eyed, sweet-breathed dogs that
+every girl loves at first sight, and can no more help putting her hands
+on than she can help coddling a roly-poly kitten just out of a basket.
+He had the same well-bred manners that Chief has, the same grace of
+movement, same repose, only more gentle and more confiding. The only
+thing that struck me as peculiar about him was the way he watched his
+master; he seemed to love him and yet to be afraid of him; always ready
+to bound out of his way and yet equally ready to come when he was
+called&mdash;a manner which he never showed to anyone who tried to make
+friends with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw Quarterman that morning when he started out alone quail
+shooting, the setter bounding before him, running up and springing at
+him, and off again&mdash;doing all the things a human dog does to tell a man
+how happy he is to go along, and what a lot of fun the two are going to
+have together. I watched them until they got clear of the marshes and
+disappeared in the woods on the way to the open country beyond. All that
+day the picture of the well-equipped, alert young fellow and the spring
+of the joyous setter kept coming to my mind. I don't believe in killing
+things, as you know (so I don't shoot), but I thought if I did I'd just
+like to have a dog like that one to show me how.</p>
+
+<p>"About six o'clock that night the two returned. I was sitting by the
+wood fire&mdash;a good deal bigger than this one, the logs nearly six feet
+long&mdash;when the outer door was swung back and Quarterman came in, his
+boots covered with mud, his bird-bag over his shoulder. The setter
+followed close at his heels, his beautiful brown coat covered with
+burrs and dirt. Both man and dog had had a hard day's work and a poor
+one, judging from the bird-bag which hung almost flat against
+Quarterman's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody pushed back his chair to make room for the tired-out
+sportsman.</p>
+
+<p>"'What luck?' cried out half-a-dozen men at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarterman, without answering, stopped in the middle of the room some
+distance from the fire, laid his gun on the table, reached around for
+his bird-bag, thrust in his hand, drew out a small quail&mdash;all he had
+shot&mdash;and threw it with all his might against the wall of the fireplace,
+where it dropped into the ashes&mdash;threw it as a boy would throw a brick
+against a fence. Then with a vicious hind thrust of his boot he kicked
+the setter in the face. The dog gave a cry of pain and crawled under the
+table and out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'What luck!' growled Quarterman. 'Footed it fifteen miles clear to
+Pottsburg, and that damned dog scared up every bird before I could get a
+shot at it!' and without another word he mounted the stairs to his room.</p>
+
+<p>"His opinion of the dog was now common property. If any man who had
+heard it disagreed with him, he kept his opinion to himself. But what I
+wanted to know was what the setter thought of Quarterman? He had
+followed him all day through swamps and briars; had run, jumped, crept
+on his belly, sniffed, scented, and nosed into every tuft of grass and
+brush-heap where a quail could hide itself; had walked miles to the
+man's one, leaped fences, scoured hills, raced down country roads and
+over ditches, had pointed and flushed a dozen birds the brute couldn't
+hit, and after doing his level best had come back to the club-house
+expecting to get a warm corner and a hot supper&mdash;his right as well as
+Quarterman's&mdash;and instead got a kick in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you now, what did the dog think of him? I was so mad I had to go
+outside and let off steam myself. I was half Quarterman's weight and ten
+years his senior, but if he had stayed five minutes longer by that fire
+I am quite sure I should have told him what I thought of him."</p>
+
+<p>"I bet you told the dog, didn't you, Mac?" remarked Lonnegan.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did. Gave him a hug, and hunted up the cook and saw he was fed.
+He tried to tell me all about it, putting out his paw and drawing it in
+again, looking up into my face with his big eyes&mdash;tears in 'em, I tell
+you&mdash;real tears! Not so much from the hurt as from the mortification. I
+understood then his shrinking away from his master. It hadn't been the
+first time he had been humiliated and hurt. Dirty brute! If I knew where
+he was I think I'd go and thrash him now."</p>
+
+<p>The coterie broke out into a laugh over Mac's indignation, but a laugh
+in which there was more love than ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would; I feel like it this minute. But I tell you the setter got
+his revenge; a revenge that showed his blood and breeding; the revenge
+of a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Back of the club-house was a swampy place where some cranberry raisers
+had dug holes and squares trying to get something to grow, and back of
+this was another swamp perhaps a mile or two wide. Ugly place&mdash;full of
+suck-holes, twisted briars, and vines&mdash;where they told Quarterman he
+could get some woodcock or snipe or whatever you do get in a marsh. The
+setter rose to his feet to accompany him (this was two days later) but
+was met with, 'Go back, damn you!' Followed by an aside, 'What that fool
+dog wants is a dose of buckshot, and he'll get it if he ain't careful.'</p>
+
+<p>"That day I had been off sketching and did not get back until nearly
+dark. There were only two other men left besides myself and Quarterman,
+most of the others having gone to town. When dinner was served the
+steward went upstairs expecting to find Quarterman asleep on his bed. No
+Quarterman! Then he began to inquire around. He had not been back to
+luncheon, and no one had seen him since he went off in the morning
+heading for the cranberry swamp. The setter was still outside on the
+porch, where he had lain all day, foot-sore and worn out, the men said,
+with his hunt the day before. I made no reply to this, but I thought
+differently. Eight o'clock came, then nine, and still no sign of
+Quarterman. One of the club servants suggested that something must have
+happened to him. 'Never Mr. Quarterman's way,' he added, 'to be out
+after sundown, in all the five years he had been a member of the club.
+He certainly would not go to the city in his shooting clothes, and he
+hadn't changed them, for the suit he had worn down from town still hung
+in his closet.' At ten o'clock we got uneasy and started out to look for
+him, a party of three, the two servants carrying stable lanterns. The
+setter again rose to his feet, wondering what was up, and was again
+rebuffed, this time by the steward.</p>
+
+<p>"We soon found that fooling around a swamp of a dark night, with your
+eyes blinded by a lantern, was no joke. Every other step we took we fell
+into holes or got tripped up by briars. We stumbled on, skirting by the
+edge of the cranberry patch, hollering as loud as we could; stopping to
+listen; then going on again. We tried the other big swamp, but that was
+impossible in the dark. Then an idea popped into my head. I gave the
+lantern I was carrying to one of the men, hollered to the others to stay
+where they were till I got back, cleared the cranberry patch, struck out
+for the club-house on a run, sprang upstairs, grabbed Quarterman's coat
+hanging in the closet, ran downstairs again, and shoved it under the
+nose of the setter. Then I told him all about it, just as I'd tell you.
+Quarterman was lost&mdash;he was in the swamp, perhaps; where, we didn't
+know&mdash;and he was the only one who could find him. Would he go? <i>Go!</i> You
+just ought to have seen him! He threw his nose up in the air, sniffed
+around as though he were looking for gnats to bite; made a spring from
+the porch and began circling the lawn, his nose to the ground and sand;
+then he made a bound over the fence and disappeared in the night.</p>
+
+<p>"I hollered for the others and we kept after the setter as best we
+could. Every now and then he would give a short bark&mdash;sometimes far
+away, sometimes nearer. All we could do was to skirt along the edge of
+the cranberry patch swinging the lanterns and hollering, 'Quarterman!
+Quarterman!' until our throats gave out.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I heard a quick, sharp bark, followed by a series of short yelps,
+not fifty yards away. Next there came a faint halloo, a man's voice. We
+pushed on, and there, about ten yards from hard ground, we found
+Quarterman stretched out, the setter squatting beside him. He had
+slipped into a hole some hours before, had broken his ankle, and had
+made up his mind to wait until daylight, the pain, every time he moved,
+almost making him faint. He was soaked to the skin and shivering with
+cold. We helped him up on one foot, carried him to dry land, and finally
+got him home; the dog following at a respectful distance.</p>
+
+<p>"After we had put Quarterman to bed and had sent a man off on horseback
+to Pottsburg for a doctor, I looked up the setter. He was in his old
+place on the porch, stretched out under one of the wooden benches, his
+nose resting on his paws&mdash;just as Chief lies here now&mdash;thinking the
+whole situation over. He raised his head for an instant, licked my hand
+and looked up inquiringly into my face as if expecting some further
+service might be required of him; then he dropped his head again and
+kept on thinking. Nobody had bothered himself about him; they hadn't
+even thanked him in their hearts. Nothing to thank him for. Childish to
+think of it! All the setter had done was just being plain dog. Hunting
+up things was what he was born for.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning the dog turned up missing.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarterman raised himself up on his elbow when he heard the news and
+said he must be found at any cost; he was worth five hundred dollars.
+The men started out, of course; searched the stables, boat-houses,
+swamp, and fields clear down to the water's edge; whistled and called;
+did all the things you do when a dog is lost&mdash;but no setter. Everybody
+wondered why he ran away. Some said one thing, some another. I knew why.
+<i>He had gone off in search of a gentleman.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Did Quarterman get well?" ventured Lonnegan.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know and I don't care. I left the next morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Quarterman get his dog back?" asked Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Not while I was there. I could have told him where to look for him, but
+I didn't. I saw him on a porch with some children about a week after
+that, when I was driving through a neighboring village&mdash;but I didn't
+send word to Quarterman. I had too much respect for the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, old fellow," and Mac took the great head of the St. Bernard
+between his warm hands and the two snuggled their cheeks together.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VII" id="PART_VII"></a>PART VII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright
+piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of
+the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the
+screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by
+Mac's easel.</p>
+
+<p>This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment.
+The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with
+a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was
+stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous
+collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color,
+half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the
+table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the
+divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed
+up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in
+later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs&mdash;those of the regular
+members, and brand new ones for the invited guests&mdash;lined up on the
+cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being
+especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare
+nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle
+that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.</p>
+
+<p>These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the
+stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have
+logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter
+how late they stayed; the hearth swept&mdash;all its "dear gray hair combed
+back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the
+Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts;
+candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy
+Dutch lanterns; and last&mdash;and this he attended to himself&mdash;every vestige
+of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs
+could find one. There were strangers coming to-night&mdash;one a partner in
+a big banking house and a suspected buyer&mdash;and no canvas of his must be
+visible.</p>
+
+<p>With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders
+of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause,
+where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of
+kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its
+sill a paper box filled with smilax&mdash;his own touch in remembrance of his
+Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the
+enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a
+sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.</p>
+
+<p>Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from
+whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of
+the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted
+into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest.
+Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be
+debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The
+habitués of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac)
+the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.</p>
+
+<p>Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a
+stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods,
+who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from
+the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.</p>
+
+<p>Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented
+to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded
+according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's
+grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any
+financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a
+description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the
+proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a
+mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the
+etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass&mdash;dropping finally into
+one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which
+he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny,
+Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each
+guest feel at home&mdash;guests and hosts conducting themselves after the
+manner of humans.</p>
+
+<p>Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He
+walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an
+instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he
+returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his
+knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in
+turn&mdash;those he knew&mdash;waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and
+then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire,
+where he lay without moving during the entire evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac&mdash;he had followed Chief's every
+movement since the dog entered the room&mdash;"see the way he lies down. Got
+royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his
+ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were
+entertaining a Prime Minister."</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker
+found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host
+increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing,
+hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings,
+and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might
+be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship,
+was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession
+of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward
+discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy, the journalist, being poor himself, had other views of life. To
+him MacWhirter and his intimates were men after his own heart. He and
+they had followed the same road, although with different aims. They
+understood each other. As to the rich banker, if the journalist
+considered him at all it was purely in the line of his own calling&mdash;just
+so much material for future columns of type, whenever he could utilize
+either his personality or his views.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think American Bohemian life&mdash;which is a misnomer," said
+Murphy in answer to one of the banker's inquiries, "because no such
+thing exists&mdash;is any different from any other such life the world over.
+We are a class to ourselves, but we in no way differ from our brothers
+of the brush and quill abroad. I, of course, am only allowed to creep
+around the outside edges, but even that small privilege affords me more
+pleasure than any other I possess. Murray Hill and Belgravia may be
+necessary to our civilization, but neither one nor the other interests
+the man who has any purpose in life. Take, for instance, these men
+here," and he pointed to Mac, who was for the moment driving a wooden
+spigot into the keg of beer. "Look at MacWhirter. He doesn't want any
+liveried servant to wait on him; he would serve that beer himself if
+there was a line of flunkies extending from the door to the sidewalk."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I like him for," cried the banker, jumping up, "and I'm
+going to help him," and he carried some of the mugs over to Mac's side.
+"Here, fill these, Mr. MacWhirter."</p>
+
+<p>"Bully for him!" muttered Pitkin, turning to me as if for confirmation.
+"Didn't know it was in him."</p>
+
+<p>"This mug's for you, Mr. MacWhirter," cried out the banker, with an
+enthusiasm he had not shown since his college days, as he handed the mug
+to Mac, who drank its contents, his merry eyes fixed on the banker.</p>
+
+<p>"See the monarch picking up the painter's brushes," whispered Boggs to
+Marny from behind his hand.</p>
+
+<p>And so the evening went on, the mugs being filled and emptied, the piano
+opened, Woods playing the accompaniment to all the songs the Irishman
+sang&mdash;and he had a dozen of them that no one had ever heard before&mdash;the
+banker and club man joining in the chorus. Then with pipes and mugs in
+hand the circle about the crackling logs was formed anew&mdash;this time
+twice its regular size to give Chief plenty of room&mdash;and the
+story-telling part of the evening began.</p>
+
+<p>The club man told of a supper he had been to after the theatre in an
+uptown back room, in which a mysterious man and a veiled lady figured.
+Woods supplemented it by an experience of his own, having special
+reference to a lost lace handkerchief which had been discovered in the
+outside pocket of one of the male guests, producing uncomfortable
+consequences. I gave the details of a dinner where I had met a titled
+individual who claimed to be a mighty hunter of big game, and about whom
+the prettiest woman in the room had gone wild, and who turned out later
+to be somebody's footman.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy, not to be outdone, and recognizing that his turn had come,
+remarked in a low voice that my story of big game reminded him "of
+something in his own experience," at which Boggs twisted his head to
+listen. It was evident to Boggs, and to the other habitués, that if the
+Irishman talked as well as he sang he would not only be a welcome guest
+at these "nights" but he might also attain to full membership in the
+charmed circle. Of one thing everybody was assured&mdash;there was no "water
+in his oil."</p>
+
+<p>"It's about a fellow countryman of Mr. MacWhirter's, a Scotchman by the
+name of MacDuff," the Irishman began.</p>
+
+<p>"Me a Scotchman!" cried Mac; "I'm only half Scotch&mdash;wish I was a whole
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you took to beer and left off drinking whiskey," laughed
+Murphy. "MacDuff stuck to his national beverage. That's what helped him
+to keep his end up. All this happened at an English country house."</p>
+
+<p>Here Boggs hitched his chair closer so that he might lead the applause
+if this new departure of his friend as a story-teller failed at first to
+make the expected hit, and thus needed his encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"Up in Devonshire," continued Murphy, "a very noble lord (his ancestors
+were something in beer, I think) was giving a dinner to Lord Ponsonby,
+K.C.B., Y.Z., and maybe P.D.Q., for all I know. Ponsonby had just
+returned from India, where he had distinguished himself in Her Majesty's
+service; stamped out a mutiny, perhaps, by hanging the natives, or
+otherwise disporting himself after the manner of his kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine the interior of the dining-room, if you please, gentlemen&mdash;the
+walls panelled in black oak; sideboards to match, covered with George
+the Third silver and bearing the new coat-of-arms; noiseless servants in
+knee breeches, except the head butler in funereal black&mdash;black as a
+raven and as awkward; old family portraits on the walls; big windows
+overlooking the lawn sweeping to the river, with rabbits and pheasants
+making free until the shooting season opened. At the head of the table
+sat the noble lord, presiding with a smile that was an inch deep on his
+face. On his right sat the distinguished diplomat with a bay window in
+front of him, resting on the edge of the table, and kept snugly in place
+by a white waistcoat; red face, burgundy red, with daily washings of
+champagne to lend some tone to the color; gray side-whiskers with gray
+standing hair, straight up like a shoe brush; big jowls of cheeks;
+flabby mouth; two little restless eyes like a terrier's, and a voice
+like a fog-horn with an attack of croup. When he glanced down the table
+everybody expected fifty lashes; he had learned that look in India and
+carried it with him; it was part of his stock in trade.</p>
+
+<p>"Next to Ponsonby sat two dudes from London, high-collared chaps, all
+shirt front and white tie, hair parted in the middle and slicked down on
+the sides like a lady's lap-dog. One had six hairs on each side of his
+upper lip and the other was smooth shaven. Then came a country parson,
+a fellow in a long-tailed coat, buttoned up to his chin, with an inch of
+collar showing above; a mild-mannered, girl-voiced, timid brother, with
+a face as round as a custard pie and about as expressive. When he was
+spoken to he rubbed his bleached, bony hands together, bent his
+shoulders, and answered with a humility that would have done credit to a
+Franciscan monk begging alms for a convent. He had eaten nothing for two
+days before the dinner&mdash;so nervous had he become over the great honor
+conferred upon him in being invited&mdash;and was so humble when he arrived,
+and so pale and washed-out looking, that after being presented to the
+great man his host inquired if he were not ill. Opposite these sat two
+or three country gentlemen, simple, straightforward men who make up the
+best of English life. Men of no pretence and men of great simplicity.
+These two, of course, were also in evening dress.</p>
+
+<p>"At the end of the table sat MacDuff, a little, red-headed, sawed-off
+Scotchman, about as high as Mr. Boggs's shoulder, chunkily built,
+square-chested; clean-shaven face, with bristling eyebrows, searching
+brown eyes that never winked, a determined jaw, and a mouth that came
+together like a trunk lid&mdash;even all along the lips. He was dressed in a
+suit of gray cloth, sack coat and all. His ancestors antedated all those
+on the wall by about two hundred years, and as a modern dress-suit was
+unknown in their day he selected one of his own. This was a fad of his
+and one everybody recognized. No dinner was complete without MacDuff.
+Very often he never spoke half a dozen words during the entire repast.
+He had friends, however, up at the castle, and that made up for all his
+other shortcomings. A nod of MacDuff's head got many a man his
+appointment.</p>
+
+<p>"When the port was served, the noble lord turned to his distinguished
+guest and said, with a glow on his face that made the candles pale with
+envy:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, I am about to arsk Lord Ponsonby a great favor, and I know
+that you will add your voice to mine in urging him to comply. Only larst
+night he delighted a number of us at the club by giving us an account of
+a most ex<i>trawd</i>'nary adventure that befell him in the wilds of India&mdash;a
+most ex<i>trawd</i>'nary adventure. I have rarely seen, in all me
+expa-rience, so profound an impression made upon a group of men. I am
+now going to arsk our distinguished guest to repeat it.'</p>
+
+<p>"At this Ponsonby waved his hand in a deprecating way, just as he would
+have done had his retainers offered him the crown&mdash;such trifles being
+beneath his notice. Our host went on:</p>
+
+<p>"'Despite his reluctance, I feel sure that he will yield. May I arsk
+your Lordship to repeat it to me guests?'</p>
+
+<p>"Ponsonby bowed; settled himself slightly in his chair so that the curve
+in his waistcoat could have full play, toyed with his knife a moment,
+looked up at the ceiling as if to remember some of the most important
+details, cleared his throat, and shot a glance down the table to command
+attention. Everybody felt that the slightest sound from any lips but his
+own would be punished with instant death.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, I don't care if I do. About four years ago His Royal Highness,
+as you know, came out to India, and it became part of me duty to attend
+upon his purson. He was good enough to remember that service in a way
+with which, of course, you are all familiar. One morning at daylight his
+equerry came to me quarters, routed me out of bed, and informed me that
+His Royal Highness desired me to join him in a tiger hunt, which had
+been arranged for the night before, and which, owing to me purfect
+knowledge of the country&mdash;I knowing every inch of the ground&mdash;His Royal
+Highness desired to have conducted under me supervision.'</p>
+
+<p>"The two dudes were now listening so intently that one of them came near
+sliding off the chair. The Curate sat with eyes and mouth open, his hand
+cupping his ear, drinking in each word with the same attention that he
+would have shown the Bishop of his diocese. The two country gentlemen
+leaned forward to hear the better. MacDuff kept perfectly still, his
+eyes on his plate, his finger around his glass of Scotch and soda.</p>
+
+<p>"'When we reached the jungle&mdash;I was mounted on an elephant with two of
+me retainers; His Royal Highness ahead on another elephant, an
+<i>enor</i>-mous beast accustomed to hunts of this ke-ind&mdash;I heard a plunge
+in the thicket to me left, the spring of a man-eater! There is no sound
+like it, gentlemen. The next instant he came head on, bounding like a
+great cat. When he reached the elephant of His Royal Highness he
+gathered his forepaws under him, hunched his hind legs, and made ready
+for the fatal spring. I knew what would happen. I realized in an instant
+the danger. There was one chawnce in a thousand, but that chawnce I must
+take. I caught up me forty-four! The beast was now in the air. The next
+instant his claws would be in the flank of the elephant, and the next
+His Royal Highness would be chewed to mince-meat. At that instant I
+fired; there came a yell; the brute fell back lifeless, and the Prince
+was saved! The ball had taken him over the left eye! I dismounted and
+hurried to his side. He was the largest beast of his ke-ind I had ever
+seen in all me expa'rience of twenty years. When we got him out upon the
+sward he measured twenty-nine feet from the end of his nose to the tip
+of his tail. If His Royal Highness, gentlemen, is with us to-day, it is
+due to that shot.'</p>
+
+<p>"A dead silence followed. Saving a future king's life was too grave a
+matter for applause. The silence was broken by one of the dudes cackling
+in a low whisper to his mate:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gus, old chap, you know that Ponsonby when he was in the
+Gyards&mdash;aw&mdash;was an awful man with a gun. He used to hit&mdash;aw&mdash;a
+bull's-eye every time, you know&mdash;aw&mdash;aw&mdash;aw&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"The country gentlemen held their peace. The Curate now piped up. This
+was his opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"'Me Lawd,' he cooed&mdash;a dove could not have been more dulcet in its
+tones&mdash;'what I like in a sto-ory of that ke-ind is not so much the
+wonderful skill of the sportsman as the marvellous inflooence of the
+British character over the brute beasts of the field.'</p>
+
+<p>"Ponsonby nodded pompously in acknowledgment, and continued to play with
+his knife. The host beamed down the table; comments were still in
+order&mdash;that's what the story was told for. The country gentlemen
+passed, and MacDuff, reaching over, drew his glass of Scotch closer,
+leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, lowered his head, and fixed
+his gimlet eyes on Ponsonby's face.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, I have listened with gr'at pl'asure to the story of Lord
+Ponsonby. It is veery interestin', and it was veery patriootic of him. I
+am not much of a hunter mesel', and I do not shoot tagers, but I am a
+wee bit of a fasherman, and last soommer up in the County of Dee I
+'ooked a veery pecooliar fash called a skat'&mdash;here MacDuff raised his
+glass to his lips, his eyes still glued to Ponsonby's face&mdash;'and when we
+got him oout upon th' bank he covered four acres.'</p>
+
+<p>"Ponsonby rose to his feet red as a lobster; swore that he had never
+been so insulted in his life, the host trying to pacify him. The dudes
+were stunned, while the country gentlemen and the Curate stood aghast.
+MacDuff never moved an inch from his seat. Ponsonby, purple with rage,
+stalked out of the room, flung himself into the library, followed by the
+host and all the guests except MacDuff. The dudes were so overcome that
+they were mopping their faces with their napkins, believing them to be
+their handkerchiefs. While Ponsonby was roaring for his carriage the
+host rushed back to MacDuff's side.</p>
+
+<p>"'You must apologize, sir, and at once,' he screamed; 'at once, Mr.
+MacDuff. How is it possible, sir, for a man raised as a gentleman to
+come into an Englishman's house and insult one of Her Majesty's most
+distinguished sarvants; a man who for fifty years has&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"MacDuff clapped one hand to his ear as if to protect it from rupture.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't br'ak the drum of me ear,' he said in a low, deprecating tone.
+'I didn't mean to insoolt Lord Ponsonby. I can't apologize, for the
+story of the skat's true. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If Lord
+Ponsonby will tak' aboout eighteen feet off the length of that tager,
+I'll see what can be doon aboout the skat.' And he emptied the contents
+of his glass into his person."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The laughter that followed the conclusion of Murphy's story was so loud
+and continuous that the big St. Bernard dog rose to his feet and
+fastened his eyes on his master, only resuming his position on the rug
+when Lonnegan laid his hand reassuringly on his head.</p>
+
+<p>Boggs was so pleased at his friend's success that he could hardly keep
+from hugging him. All doubts as to Murphy's being asked to become a
+permanent member of the Select Circle were dissipated. What delighted
+Boggs most was the combination of English, Irish, and Scotch dialects
+twisted about the same tongue. He thought he knew something about
+dialects, but Murphy had beaten him at his own game.</p>
+
+<p>Every man present had some opinion to offer regarding Ponsonby's
+adventure, and they all differed. Marny thought the Scot served the old
+bag of wind right, even if he did have a numismatic collection
+decorating his chest. The banker was interested in the social side and
+what it expressed, and said so, winding up with the remark that the
+"Englishmen knew how to live." Mac, to the surprise of everybody, had no
+opinion to offer. Woods was more philosophical.</p>
+
+<p>"To me the story is much more than funny," said Woods, "it's
+instructive. Shows the whole national spirit of the English. They
+believe in rank and they love to kowtow. I say this in no offensive
+spirit; and being an Irishman, you, of course, know what I mean; and to
+tell you the truth I am English in that sense myself. I believe in an
+aristocracy and in class distinction. Here everybody is free and equal;
+free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon
+as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."</p>
+
+<p>"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you
+and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr.
+Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country.
+You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one
+hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings
+bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats.
+The son of the man who waits behind Lonnegan's chair at one of the swell
+affairs uptown, if he has his way, will be Minister to England, and wear
+knee-breeches at the Queen's receptions. Even the negroes are climbing;
+some of them even now are putting on more airs than a Harlem goat with a
+hoopskirt. When they get on top there won't be anything left of the
+white man. They are beginning in that way now down South. Now you,"
+turning to his friend Murphy, "have told us a story which illustrates a
+phase of English life in which the middle classes stand in awe of the
+higher ones. Now listen to one of mine, which illustrates a phase of
+American life, and quite the reverse of yours. I'll tell it to you just
+as Major Yancey told it to me, and I'll give you, as near as I can, his
+tones of voice. Wonderfully pathetic, that Southern dialect; it
+certainly was to me the day I heard him tell it. This Yancey was a
+fraud, so far as being a representative Virginia gentleman; didn't get
+within a thousand miles of the real thing; but that didn't rob his story
+of a certain meaning."</p>
+
+<p>Here Boggs rose to his feet. "I'll have to get up," he said, "for this
+is one of the stories I can't tell sitting down." Nobody ever heard
+Boggs tell any story sitting down. The restless little fellow was
+generally on his plump legs during most of his deliveries.</p>
+
+<p>"I had seen Yancey in the hotel corridor when I came in, and had stubbed
+my toe over his outstretched legs&mdash;out like a pair of skids on the tail
+of a dray; had apologized to the legs; had been apologized to most
+effusively in return, with the result that a few minutes later I found
+him at my elbow at the bar, where, after some protestations on his part,
+he concluded to accept my very 'co-tious' invitation, and 'take
+somethin'.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh&mdash;Thomas
+Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that
+po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have
+taken place, suh&mdash;not only in our section of the State, but in our
+people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later.
+The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash
+and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall
+have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an
+idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are
+creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with
+my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take
+a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper.
+'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's
+the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a
+Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of
+the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we
+Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still
+sufferin'.</p>
+
+<p>"'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically
+confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place
+immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other
+gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first
+stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my
+ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had
+arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could
+I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't
+taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want
+to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a
+groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin'
+over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I
+know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low,
+but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years
+and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company
+had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge
+Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents
+unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed
+it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two
+horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by
+a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of
+second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'&mdash;"Thomas Martin
+Yancey, Livery &amp; Sale Stable."</p>
+
+<p>"'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam&mdash;free
+then, of co'se, suh&mdash;come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey,
+there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'"Is there, Sam?" I said. "You niggers seem to be gettin' up in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"'"Yes," he said, "and I want you to hook yo' rig and take eight of
+us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'"What! you infernal scoundrel! You come to me and ask me to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'"Now, don't get het up, Major! Eight niggers at fifty cents apiece is
+fo' dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"'"Yancey," I said to myself, "brace up! This is one of the great crises
+of yo' life. Sam, bring on yo' mokes!"</p>
+
+<p>"'There was fo' bucks and fo' wenches, all rigged out to kill. I put 'em
+in and started.</p>
+
+<p>"'It was a very cold night, coldest weather I'd seen in my State for
+years, with a light crust of snow on the ground. When we got to
+Barboursville&mdash;it was about eight miles&mdash;I found the ball was over a
+grocery store with a pair of steps goin' up on the outside to a little
+balcony. Well, suh, they got out and went up ahead, and I blanketed the
+horses and followed. When I opened the do'&mdash;you ain't familiar, suh, I
+reckon, with our part of the country, suh, but I tell you, suh, that
+with three fiddles, two red hot stoves, and eighty niggers, all dancin',
+the atmosphere was oppressive! I stood it as long as I could and then I
+went out on the balcony. Then I said to myself&mdash;"Yancey, this is a great
+crisis of yo' life, but you needn't get pneumonia. Go in and sit down
+inside."</p>
+
+<p>"'I hadn't been there three minutes, suh, when black Sam came up to the
+bench on which I was sittin'&mdash;he had two wenches on his arm&mdash;and said,
+"Major Yancey; would you have any objection to steppin' outside?"</p>
+
+<p>"'"Why?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'"Cause some of the ladies objects to the smell of horse in yo'
+clo'es."</p>
+
+<p>"'I left the livery business that night, suh, and I am what you see&mdash;a
+broken-down Southern gentleman.'"</p>
+
+<p>Another outburst of laughter followed. Everybody agreed that Boggs had
+never been so happy in his delineations. The banker, who knew something
+of the Southern dialects, was overjoyed. The allusion to the
+ungentlemanly foreclosure proceedings touched his funny-bone in a
+peculiar manner, and set him to laughing again whenever he thought of
+it. Everybody had expressed some opinion both of Murphy's story and of
+Boggs's yarn but MacWhirter, who, strange to say, had seen nothing
+humorous in either narrative. During the telling he had been bending
+over in his chair stroking the dog's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of the two yarns, Mac?" asked Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Think just what Mr. Murphy thinks&mdash;that the Englishman was a snob,
+Ponsonby a cad, and that MacDuff should have been shown the door. The
+group about that Englishman's table was not of the best English
+society&mdash;nowhere near it. Consideration for the other man's feelings,
+the one below you in rank, invariably distinguishes the true English
+gentleman. That old story about the sergeant who got the Victoria Cross
+for bringing a wounded officer out under fire illustrates what I mean,"
+continued Mac in a perfectly grave, sober voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll tell you. He had crawled on all fours to a wounded officer,
+picked him up, and had carried him off the firing line under a hail of
+bullets, one of which broke his wrist. He was promoted on the field by
+his commanding officer, got the V.C., and took his place among his now
+brother officers at the company's mess, and, it being his first meal,
+sat on the Colonel's right. Ice was served, a little piece about the
+size of a lump of sugar&mdash;precious as gold in that climate. It was for
+the champagne, something he had never seen. The hero was served first.
+He hesitated a moment, and dropped it in his soup. The Colonel took his
+piece and dropped it in his soup; so did every other gentleman down both
+sides of the table drop his in the soup. As to Boggs's Virginian, he got
+what he deserved. He was trying to be something that he wasn't; I'm glad
+the darkey took the pride out of him. It's all a pretence and a sham.
+They are all trying to be something they are not. 'Tisn't democracy or
+aristocracy that is to blame with us&mdash;it's the growing power of riches;
+the crowding the poor from off the face of the earth. Nothing counts now
+but a bank account. Pretty soon we will have a clearing-house of titles,
+based on incomes. When the cashier certifies to the amount, the title is
+conferred. The man of one million will become a lord; the man with two
+millions a count; three millions a duke, and so on. To me all this
+climbing is idiotic."</p>
+
+<p>Roars of laughter followed Mac's outburst. When Boggs got his breath he
+declared between his gasps that Mac's criticisms were funnier than
+Murphy's story.</p>
+
+<p>"Takes it all seriously; not a ghost of a sense of humor in him! Isn't
+he delicious!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you,
+is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the
+top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up
+to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the
+other fellow, who couldn't climb so high. If it wasn't for our wood fire
+even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he's real
+mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell's
+drawing-room. But that's only Lonny's veneer; his heart's all right
+underneath, and it's solid hickory all the way through."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the
+habitués, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within
+a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs
+were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the
+andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely&mdash;the
+old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the
+evening was to come&mdash;that part when its incidents are talked over.</p>
+
+<p>"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, class distinctions, ambition. What
+would you want most if you had your wish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog
+once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old
+man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm
+turning out."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes
+on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes&mdash;"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to
+hang it up in," laughed Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire
+lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a
+half-smothered sigh escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer
+chair, the roses in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_VIII" id="PART_VIII"></a>PART VIII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the
+winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl
+standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows
+which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the
+Palisades.</p>
+
+<p>Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb
+stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another,
+the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end
+of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a
+fourth and fifth&mdash;all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming
+Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.</p>
+
+<p>Woods was having a tea!</p>
+
+<p>The portrait of Miss B. J.&mdash;in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on
+her chin, her pet dog in her lap&mdash;was finished, and the B. Js. were
+assisting Woods's aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event.
+The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There
+were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of
+twisted iron, china, and dingy brass, the grease running down the sides
+of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps
+of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell
+together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were
+combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels
+draped in stuffs; screens hung with Japanese and Chinese robes; divans
+covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last,
+but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the
+young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group
+of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others
+that it did not do her justice, and still another&mdash;this time an art
+critic&mdash;who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the
+canvas that looked alive.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me
+to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn't believe in mixing
+with society.</p>
+
+<p>"Better shut the door, hadn't I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of
+Woods's smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen.
+"Hello, Lonnegan, that you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you
+moving house?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than
+that heathen punk Woods is burning?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan.
+"Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people.
+Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he
+continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince
+Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his button-hole. "You're
+going down, Mac, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."</p>
+
+<p>"Woods won't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio
+upside down for a lot of people that don't know a Velasquez from an 'Old
+Oaken Bucket' chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show.
+Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his 'Night Watch' for
+the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or Titian
+making a night of it over his 'Ascension.' Sacrilege, I tell you, this
+mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a
+mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world
+it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they
+can't; not to turn clowns for their amusement."</p>
+
+<p>Boggs and Murphy&mdash;the Irish journalist had long since become a full
+member&mdash;had entered and stood listening to Mac's harangue.</p>
+
+<p>"Land o' Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What's the
+matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit
+up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don't know what's going
+on outside. Woods is all right. He's got his living to make and his
+studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old
+and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them
+out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let 'em do it.
+That doesn't make the picture any worse. You saw it. It's a bully good
+portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good
+things in it&mdash;shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown
+are way up in G. Don't you think so, Lonnegan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam
+downstairs. Half of them didn't know Woods when they came in. One woman
+asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she
+said, 'What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that
+the picture? Why, I am surprised!'</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see
+was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Stirling's head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had
+been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a
+prolonged shout of welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad
+to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown
+young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow!
+Hello, Boggs! you're fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you;
+heard you had been given a chair by Mac's fire. Oh, biggest joke on me,
+fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods's tea-party a few minutes
+ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it.
+Struck a pretty girl&mdash;French, I think&mdash;pretty as a picture; big hat,
+gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth&mdash;well! You remember
+Christine, don't you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same
+type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods's
+tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got
+her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady
+came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know
+that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That's something like! That's probably
+the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to
+her and did your prettiest to entertain her."</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows,
+but it's good to get back! You'll find this a haven of rest, Mr.
+Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman's knee.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow,"
+answered Murphy. "It's good of you to let me in. You live so fast over
+here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush,
+is a Godsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr.
+Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses
+last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."</p>
+
+<p>Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy's yarns
+were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone,
+"they are all brand-new and he tells 'em like a master. Nobody can touch
+him. Draw up, Pitkin&mdash;" the sculptor had just come in from Woods's tea.</p>
+
+<p>"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here.
+Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are
+never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to
+occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square,
+occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle&mdash;a dingy, smoky,
+grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in
+the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of
+the balcony above.</p>
+
+<p>"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that
+were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the
+miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her
+drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry
+jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or
+tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads,
+hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat
+composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes
+in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let
+loose at the Arbuckle's Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her
+mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked
+that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked.
+He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and
+immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally,
+when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the
+drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or
+stares of those he did not.</p>
+
+<p>"On this particular night there was to be an imposing list of guests,
+the dinner being served at eight-thirty sharp. Not only was the Prime
+Minister expected, but a special collection of social freaks had been
+invited to meet him, including Prince Pompernetski of the Imperial
+Guards&mdash;who turned out afterward to be a renegade Pole and a swindler;
+the Rajah of Bramapootah&mdash;a waddling Oriental who always brought his
+Cayenne pepper with him in the pocket of his embroidered pajamas; one or
+two noble lords and their wives, some officers, and a scattering of
+lesser lights&mdash;twenty-two in all.</p>
+
+<p>"At eight-twenty the carriages began to arrive, the Bobby on the beat
+regulating the traffic; the guests stepping out upon a carpet a little
+longer and wider than the one Mr. Woods has laid over the sidewalk
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Once inside, the guests were taken in charge by a line of flunkeys&mdash;the
+women to a cloak room on the right, the men to a basement room on the
+left&mdash;where 'Chawles' handed each man an envelope containing the name of
+the lady he was to take out to dinner and a diagram designating the
+location of his seat at his host's table.</p>
+
+<p>"By eight-twenty-five all the guests had arrived except General Sir John
+Catnall and Lady Catnall, who had passed thirty years of their life in
+India and who had arrived in London but the night before, where they
+were met by one of Lady Arbuckle's notes inviting them to dinner to meet
+the Prime Minister. That the dear woman had never laid eyes on the
+Indian exiles and would not know either of them had she met them on her
+sidewalk made no difference to her. The butler in announcing their names
+would help her over this difficulty, as he had done a hundred times
+before. That the short notice might prevent their putting in an
+appearance did not trouble her in the least. She knew her London. Prime
+Ministers were not met with every day, even in the best of houses.</p>
+
+<p>"At eight-thirty the two missing guests arrived, Sir John sun-baked to
+the color of a coolie, and Lady Catnall not much better off so far as
+complexion was concerned. The climate had evidently done its work. Their
+queerly cut clothes, too, showed how long they had been out of London.</p>
+
+<p>"With their announcement by the flunkey, who bawled out their names so
+indistinctly that nobody caught them&mdash;not even Lady Arbuckle&mdash;the guests
+marched out to dinner, Lord Arbuckle leading with the wife of the Prime
+Minister; Lady Arbuckle bringing up the rear with the Rajah, without
+that lady having the dimmest idea as to whether all her guests were
+present or not.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir John found himself next to a Roumanian woman who had spent
+three-quarters of her life in Persia, and Lady Catnall sat beside a
+bald-headed scientist from Berlin who spoke English as if he were
+cracking nuts. None of the four had ever heard of the others' existence.</p>
+
+<p>"The dinner was the usual deadly dull affair. The Prime Minister smiled
+and beamed over his high collar and emitted platitudes that anybody
+could print without getting the faintest idea of his meaning; and the
+Rajah peppered and ate with hardly a word of any kind to the lady next
+him, who talked incessantly; the Scientist jabbered German, completely
+ignorant of the fact that Lady Catnall could not understand a word of
+what he said, and the other great personages&mdash;especially the
+women&mdash;looked through their lorgnons and studied the menagerie.</p>
+
+<p>"When the port had been served and the ladies had risen to leave the men
+to their cigars, Sir John Catnall conducted the Roumanian-Persian
+combination to the drawing-room door, clicked his heels, bent his back
+in a salaam, and with a certain anxious look on his face hurried back to
+the dining-room, and seeing the seat next Lord Arbuckle temporarily
+empty slid into it, laid his bronzed hand on his host's thin, white,
+blue-veined wrist, and said in a voice trembling with suppressed
+emotion:</p>
+
+<p>"'We got your wife's note and came at once, although our boxes are still
+unpacked. I could hardly get through the dinner I have been so anxious,
+but we arrived so late I could not ask your wife&mdash;indeed you were
+already moving in to dinner when your man brought us in. I am in London,
+as you know, to consult an oculist, for my eyesight is greatly impaired,
+and he called professionally just as I was leaving my lodgings.' Then
+bending over Lord Arbuckle he said in a voice tremulous with emotion,
+'Tell me now about Eliza; is she really as badly off as your wife
+thinks?'</p>
+
+<p>"Arbuckle had learned one thing during his long life with Catherine,
+never, as you Americans say, to 'give her away.' The identity of the
+partly blind, sunburned man, with half a cataract over each eye, who was
+gazing at him so intently awaiting an answer from his lips, was as much
+of a mystery to him as was the particular malady with which the unknown
+Eliza was afflicted or the contents of his wife's letter. Instantly Lord
+Arbuckle's face took on a grave and serious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' he answered slowly; 'yes, I regret to say that it is all true.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good God!' ejaculated the stranger, 'you don't say so. Terrible!
+Terrible!' and without another word he rose from his seat, tarried for a
+moment at the mantel gazing into the coals, and then slowly rejoined the
+ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"When the last guest had departed Arbuckle, who had been smothering a
+fire of indignation over the stranger's inquiry and at the uncomfortable
+position in which his wife had placed him, owing to her never consulting
+him about her guests or her correspondence, shut the door of the
+drawing-room so the servants could not hear and burst out with:</p>
+
+<p>"'What damned nonsense it is, Catherine, to invite people who bore you
+to death with questions you can't answer! Who the devil is Eliza, and
+what's the matter with her?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Who wanted to know, my dear?'</p>
+
+<p>"'That horribly dressed, red-faced person who sat half-way down the
+table, next to that frightful frump in a turban from Persia.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't know any Eliza!'</p>
+
+<p>"'But you said you did.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I said I did?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; he told me so. You wrote him! Now be good enough, Catherine, to
+let me know in advance who you&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'But I never told anybody about Eliza; never heard of her.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You did, I tell you. You told that fellow who winks all the time, with
+some beastly thing the matter with his eyes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You mean Sir John Catnall? The man who came in just as we were going
+in to dinner? That is, I suppose it was he. Barton told me we were
+waiting for him.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; the fellow said he was late.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And he told you&mdash;' Here the door opened and the butler entered for her
+Ladyship's orders for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"'Barton, whom did you announce last?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I didn't catch the name, your Ladyship, quite.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Was it Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, your Ladyship. Something that began with P.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you sure it was not "Catnall"?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Quite sure, your Ladyship. Sir John's man was here just after dinner
+was announced and left a message, your Ladyship&mdash;I forgot to give it to
+you. He said Sir John had been out of town, and had that moment
+received your Ladyship's note, and that it was impossible for him to
+come to dinner. I supposed your Ladyship had known of it and had invited
+the gentleman and his lady who came last to take their places, and I put
+them in Sir John's and Lady Catnall's seats as it was marked on the
+diagram you gave Chawles.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Just as I supposed, Catherine,' snorted Arbuckle, 'a couple of damned
+impostors; one passing himself off as a blind man. Serves you right.
+They've carried off half the plate by this time. Bingeley lost all of
+his spoons and forks that way last week; he told me so in the House
+yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Impostors! You don't think&mdash;Barton, go down instantly and see if
+anything has been taken out of the cloak-room. And, Barton, see if that
+miniature with the jewels around the frame is where I left it on the
+mantel&mdash;and the candlesticks&mdash;Oh! you don't think&mdash;It can't be&mdash;Oh,
+dear&mdash;dear&mdash;dear!'</p>
+
+<p>"Again the door opened and Barton appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"'The candlesticks are all right, your Ladyship; but the miniature is
+gone. I looked everywhere. Chawles said it was taken to your room by the
+maid.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ring for Prodgers at once.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have, your Ladyship. Here she comes with it in her hand,' and he
+handed the jeweled frame to his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I'm so thankful! You're sure nothing else is missing?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, your Ladyship; but Chawles found this note on the mantel, which he
+says he picked up from the table after they had left.'</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Arbuckle craned his head and his wife eagerly scanned the
+inscription.</p>
+
+<p>"On the envelope, scrawled in pencil, were the three words: 'For dear
+Eliza.'</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Arbuckle broke the seal.</p>
+
+<p>"Out dropped two twenty-pound Bank of England notes."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The Irishman rose to his feet, pushed back his chair, and taking a
+briarwood from his pocket and a small bag of tobacco proceeded to fill
+his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>Mac broke the silence first:</p>
+
+<p>"Case of wrong house, wasn't it? I wonder Catnall didn't find it out
+before dinner was over."</p>
+
+<p>"Put Arbuckle in a bad hole," remarked Boggs. "What excuse could he make
+when he returned the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have given that butler a dressing down," muttered Lonnegan. "He
+ought to have known that there was some mistake when the note arrived,"
+Lonnegan like Mac was born without the slightest sense of humor, Boggs
+always maintained.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep on guessing, gentlemen," exclaimed Murphy; "London guessed for a
+week, and gave it up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but is that all?" asked Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>"Every word and line. Nobody knows to this day who they were or where
+they came from. The flunkey on the curb said they arrived in a
+four-wheeler; that he had whistled to the rank at the end of the square
+for a hansom, and that they both stepped in and drove off."</p>
+
+<p>"And old Arbuckle still bags the money?" inquired Boggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Did, the last I heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he try to find out who the fellow was?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Lady Arbuckle wouldn't let him; it would have given the whole thing
+away. Besides, it was Arbuckle's statement about Eliza that made the
+stranger give the money; rather a delicate situation; looked as if he
+and his wife had put up a job."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor devil!" muttered Mac. "Lied to his guest, insulted his wife, and
+robbed some poor woman of a charity that might have restored her to
+health, and all because of just the same kind of idiotic foolishness
+that is going on downstairs at Woods's this very minute. Damnable, the
+whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I know of a case," said Lonnegan without noticing Mac's outburst, as he
+reached for his pipe which he had laid on the mantel, "in which not a
+mysterious couple but a mysterious woman figured, and I know the man who
+was mixed up in the affair. He's a civil engineer now and lives in
+London; got quite a position. When I first met him he was a draughtsman
+in one of the downtown offices&mdash;this was some fifteen years ago. He was
+a good-looking fellow then, about twenty-seven or eight, I should say,
+with a smooth-shaven face and features like a girl's, they were so
+regular; a handsome chap, really, if he was about up to your shoulders,
+Mac."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a yarn is this, Lonny?" interrupted Boggs. "Got any point
+to it, or is it one of your long-winded things like the one you told us
+when you weren't murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's one that will make your hair stand on end," retorted the
+architect. "Wonder I never told you before!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Lonny," broke in Jack Stirling. "Dry up, Boggs. He was a
+good-looking chap, you said, Lonny, and about up to Mac's shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and half the size of Boggs around his waist," continued Lonnegan,
+with a look at MacWhirter.</p>
+
+<p>"The firm he was with sent him to Vienna with some plans and
+specifications of a big enterprise in which they were interested. He
+arrived in the evening, hungry, and late for dinner; left his trunk at
+the station, jumped into a fiacre and drove to a café on the Ring
+Strasse that he knew. After dining he made up his mind to go back to the
+station, pick up his baggage, and find rooms at the Metropole. When he
+entered the café and took a seat near the door a woman at the next table
+turned her head and fastened her eyes upon him in a way that attracted
+his attention. He saw that she was of rather distinguished presence,
+tall and well formed, broad shoulders&mdash;square for a woman&mdash;and with a
+strong nose and chin. She was dressed all in black, her veil almost
+hiding her face. Not a handsome woman and not young&mdash;certainly not under
+thirty.</p>
+
+<p>"With the serving of the soup he forgot her and went on with his dinner.
+That over he paid the waiter, strolled out to the street and called a
+cab. When it drove up the veiled woman stood beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"'I think this cab is mine, sir,' she said in excellent English.</p>
+
+<p>"The Engineer raised his hat, offered his hand to the woman and assisted
+her into her seat. When he withdrew his fingers they held a small card
+edged with black. The woman and the cab disappeared. He turned the card
+to the light of the street lamp. On it was written in pencil, 'Meet me
+at Café Ivanoff at ten to-night. You are in danger.'</p>
+
+<p>"The man read the card and strained his eyes after the cab; then he
+called another, drove down to the station, picked up his trunk, and
+started for the Hotel Metropole.</p>
+
+<p>"On the way to the hotel he kept thinking of the woman and the card. It
+had not been the first time that his fresh cheeks and clean-cut features
+had attracted the attention of some woman dining alone&mdash;especially in a
+city like Vienna; any continental city, in fact. Some of these
+adventures he had followed up with varying success; some he had
+forgotten. This one interested him. The proffered acquaintance had been
+cleverly managed. The warning at the end was, he knew, one of the many
+ruses to pique his curiosity; but that did not put the woman out of his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"When his baggage had been deposited in his rooms, a small salon,
+bedroom, and dressing-room, all opening on the corridor&mdash;he needed the
+salon in which to lay out his plans and maps&mdash;he gave his hat an extra
+brush, strolled downstairs, and stepped to the porter's desk.</p>
+
+<p>"'Porter.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where is the Café Ivanoff?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Near the Opera, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it a respectable place?'</p>
+
+<p>"'That depends on what your Excellency requires,' and the porter
+shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"'It sounds Russian.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, sir; it is Polish. You have music and vodka, and sometimes you
+have trouble.'</p>
+
+<p>"'With whom?'</p>
+
+<p>"Again the porter shrugged his shoulders. 'With the police.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Are there rows?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, there are refugees. Vienna is full of them. For you it is
+nothing&mdash;you are an American&mdash;am I not right?'</p>
+
+<p>"The Engineer touched his inside pocket, felt the bulge of his
+pocketbook containing his passport, turned down the Ring Strasse, and
+stopped at the Opera House. Then he began to look about him. Young,
+well-built, clear-headed, and imaginative, this sort of an adventure was
+just what he wanted. Soon his eyes fell upon a café ablaze with light.
+On a ground-glass globe over the door was the word 'Ivanoff.'</p>
+
+<p>"He passed through the front room, turned into another, and was stopped
+by a man at the door of the third.</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you want, Monsieur?' This in French.</p>
+
+<p>"'Some cognac and a cup of coffee.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Did Monsieur come in a cab?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, on foot.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps, then, the lady came in a cab&mdash;and is waiting for you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps.'</p>
+
+<p>"'This way, Monsieur.'</p>
+
+<p>"She sat in the far corner of the room, her face hidden in a file of
+newspapers. She must have known the attendant's step for she raised her
+head and fastened her eyes on the young man before he was half-way
+across the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sit here, sir,' she said in perfect English, drawing her dress aside
+so that he could pass to the chair next the wall. 'I am glad you came; I
+am glad you trusted me enough to come.' Her manner was as composed and
+her voice as low and gentle and as free from nervousness as if she had
+known him all her life. 'And now, before I tell you what I have to say
+to you, please tell me something about yourself. You are an American and
+have just arrived in Vienna?'</p>
+
+<p>"The Engineer nodded, his eyes still scanning her face, keeping his own
+composure as best he could, his astonishment increasing every moment. He
+had seen at the first glance that she was not the woman he had taken
+her to be. Her face, on closer inspection, showed her to be nearer forty
+than thirty, with certain lines about the mouth and eyes which could
+only have come from suffering. What she wanted of him, or why she had
+interested herself in his welfare, was what puzzled him.</p>
+
+<p>"'You have a mother, perhaps, at home, and some brothers, and you love
+them,' she continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Again the Engineer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"'How many brothers have you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'One, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That is another bond of sympathy between us. I have one brother left.'
+All this time her eyes had been riveted on his, boring into his own as
+if she was trying to read his very thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is he in danger like me, Madame?' asked the Engineer with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, we all are; we live in danger. I have been brought up in it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But why should I be?' and he handed her the card with the black edge.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are not,' she said, crumpling the card in her hand and slipping it
+into her dress. 'It was only a very cheap ruse of mine. I saw you at the
+next table and knew your nationality at once. You can help me, if you
+will, and you are the only one who can. You seemed to be sent to me. I
+thought it all out and determined what to do. You see how calm I am, and
+yet my hands have been icy cold waiting for you. I dared not hope you
+would really come until I saw you enter and speak to Polski. But you
+cannot stay here; you may be seen and I do not want you to be seen&mdash;not
+now. We Poles are watched night and day; someone may come in and you
+might have to tell who you are, and that must not be.' Then she added
+cautiously, her eyes fastened on his, 'Your passport&mdash;you have one, have
+you not?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, for all over Europe.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yes; of course.' This came with a sigh of relief, as if she had
+dreaded another answer. 'That is the right way to travel while this
+revolution goes on. Yes, yes; a passport is quite necessary. Now give me
+your address. Metropole? Which room? Number thirty-nine? Very well; I'll
+be there at eight o'clock to-morrow night. Never mind the coffee, I will
+pay for it with mine. Go&mdash;now&mdash;out the other door; not the one you came
+in. There is somebody coming&mdash;quick!'</p>
+
+<p>"The tone of her voice and the look in her eye lifted him out of his
+seat and started him toward the door without another word. She was
+evidently accustomed to be obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"The next night at eight precisely there came a rap at his door and a
+woman wrapped in a coarse shawl, and with a basket covered with a cloth
+on her arm, stood outside.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have brought Monsieur's laundry,' she said. 'Shall I lay it in the
+bedroom or here in the salon?' and she stepped inside.</p>
+
+<p>"The door shut, she laid the empty basket on the floor and threw back
+her shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't be worried,' she said, turning the key in the lock, 'and don't
+ask any questions. I will go as I came. Someone might have stopped me. I
+got this basket and shawl from my own laundress. There will be no one
+here? You are sure? Then let me sit beside you and tell you what I could
+not last night.</p>
+
+<p>"'Our people go to that café,' she continued, as she led him to the
+sofa, 'because, strange to say, the police think none of us would dare
+go there. That makes it the safest. Besides, every one of the servants
+is our friend.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then she unfolded a yarn that made his hair stand on end. She had been
+banished from a little town in central Poland where she had taken part
+in the revolution. Two brothers had died in exile, the other was in
+hiding in Vienna. It was absolutely necessary that this remaining
+brother should get back to Warsaw. Not only her own life depended on it
+but the lives of their compatriots. Some papers which had been hidden
+were in danger of being discovered; these must be found and destroyed.
+Her brother was now on his way to the hotel and the room in which they
+then sat; he would join them in an hour. At nine o'clock he would send
+his card up and must be received. His name was Matzoff&mdash;her own name
+before she was married. Would he lend him his clothes and his passport?
+She could not ask this of anyone but an American; when she saw him and
+looked into his face she knew God had sent him to her. Only Americans
+sympathized with her poor country. The passport would be handed back to
+him in three days by the same man&mdash;Polski&mdash;who conducted him to her
+table at the Café Ivanoff; so would the clothes. He would not need
+either in that time. Would he save her and her people?'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can imagine what happened. Like many other young fellows,
+carried off his feet by the picturesqueness of the whole affair&mdash;the
+appeal to his patriotism, to his love of justice, to all the things that
+count when you are twenty-five and have the world in a sling&mdash;he
+consented. It was agreed that she was to wait in the dressing-room,
+which also opened on the corridor, and show herself to the brother, and
+get him safely inside the dressing-room. The Engineer was not to see him
+come. If anything went wrong it was best that he could not identify him.
+She would then help him dress&mdash;he was about the same build as the
+Engineer and could easily wear his clothes. Moreover, he was dark like
+the Engineer; black hair and black eyes and just his age. Indeed one
+reason she picked him out at the café on the Ring Strasse was because he
+looked so much like her own brother.</p>
+
+<p>"The two began to get ready for the expected arrival&mdash;a shirt and
+collar, tie, gloves, travelling suit, overcoat, and the Engineer's bag
+with his initials on it were laid out in the dressing-room, together
+with an umbrella and walking-stick and the passport. He was to walk down
+the corridor and out of the hotel precisely as the young Engineer would
+walk out. If he could only see her brother he would know how complete
+the disguise would be; just his size&mdash;her own, really&mdash;her brother being
+small for a man and she being tall and broad for a woman.</p>
+
+<p>"At nine o'clock she put her head out of the dressing-room door, laid
+her fingers on her lips, pushed the Engineer into the salon and locked
+the door. The brother evidently was approaching. Next he heard the
+dressing-room door click. Then the sound of a man rapidly changing his
+clothes could be heard. Then a soft click of the latch and a heavy step.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus8" id="illus8"></a>
+<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Pushed the engineer into the salon.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Here his curiosity overcame him and he cautiously opened the salon door
+and peered down the corridor. A man carrying his bag, cane, and
+umbrella, an overcoat on his arm, was walking rapidly toward the
+staircase. He drew in his head and waited. Five minutes passed, then
+ten. He tried the dressing-room door. It was still locked. Stepping out
+into the corridor he turned the knob and walked into the dressing-room.
+It was empty. On the floor was a pair of corsets, some petticoats, and a
+dress!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Skipped! Well, by Jove!" cried Marny. "Nihilist, wasn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"He never knew; doesn't to this day."</p>
+
+<p>"What was she then?" persisted Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. My only solution was that she was herself in danger of
+her life and had cooked up the yarn about her brother to get out of
+Vienna."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he get his passport back?" asked Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, three months afterward by mail to his bankers from the Hotel
+Metropole. She, or somebody else, had been half over Europe with it;
+twice to St. Petersburg and once to Warsaw. The clothes and bag he never
+heard of. The waiter at the Café Ivanoff&mdash;the one she called Polski&mdash;had
+disappeared and he dare not make any inquiries."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't see why he was afraid, an American like him," broke in
+Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Let up, Marny!" exclaimed Boggs. "Don't spoil a good yarn. What
+difference does it make who she was? You've got a first rate doll, don't
+pick it to pieces to find out what it's stuffed with; give your
+imagination play and enjoy it. She suggests a dozen things to me, but I
+don't want any one of them <i>proved</i>. She might have been chief of a band
+of poisoners with a private graveyard in her cellar; her smile,
+perdition; her glance, death. She could also have eluded the Secret
+Service of Russia for years in disguises that the mother who bore her
+wouldn't have known her in;&mdash;her exploits the talk of all Europe. Then
+her miraculous escapes&mdash;one for instance across the frontier in a sledge
+on forged passports, and the disguise of an officer, her maid dressed as
+an orderly, both of them smothered in priceless furs; her being trailed
+to her hotel by a sleuth; her lightning change of costume to low-neck
+gown and jewels given her by a Russian Grand Duke whose body was found
+in the Neva the morning after she left; the murder of the sleuth, with a
+card tied to the stiletto marked with a skull and crossbones. You
+fellows are going wild over this new French impressionistic craze&mdash;the
+vague, the mysterious, and the suggestive. Why not apply it to
+literature? If a man can paint a figure with three dabs of his brush,
+why can't a man draw a character or a situation with three strokes of
+his pen? You are too literal, old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else, you overstuffed, loquacious sausage?" cried Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," retorted Boggs. "That woman was no doubt a member of the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, you beggar!" cried Jack Stirling. "Don't let him get loose again,
+Marny! Stuff a pipe in his mouth. Boggs, you are the only man I know who
+can start his mouth going and go away and leave it. Here, fellows, get
+on your feet and line up and receive the spoilt child of fashion. He's
+coming upstairs: I know his step."</p>
+
+<p>At this instant Woods's body was thrust around the jamb of the door. He
+still wore the rose in his button-hole, the one Miss B. J.&mdash;the original
+of the portrait&mdash;had pinned there.</p>
+
+<p>Mac sprang up and caught the intruder by the shoulders before he had
+time to open his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Been having a tea, have you, you gilt-edged fraud! A highly perfumed
+powder-puff tea, with lace on the edges and two flounces. 'Oh, how
+exquisite, dear Mr. Woods! And is it really all hand-painted? and did
+you do it all yourself? How enormously clever you are&mdash;How
+lovely&mdash;How&mdash;' Got pretty sick of that sort of taffy after they had
+gormed you up with it for three hours, didn't you, Woods? and you had to
+come up where you could breathe! Now rip off that undertaker's coat,
+throw away that rose, get into that sketching jacket, and sit down here
+and disinfect yourself with a pipe&mdash;" and Mac's hearty laugh rang
+through the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_IX" id="PART_IX"></a>PART IX</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Around the Embers of the Dying Fire.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Spring had come. The trees in the old Square were tuneful with impatient
+birds ready to move in and begin housekeeping as soon as the buds poked
+their yellow heads out of their nestings of bark. The eager sun, who had
+been trying all winter to gain the corner of Mac's studio window, had
+finally carried the sash and grimy pane by assault: its beams were now
+basking on the Daghestan rug in full defiance of the smouldering coals
+crouching half-dead in their bed of ashes.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus9" id="illus9"></a>
+<img src="images/illus9.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Around the embers of the dying fire.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>From an open window&mdash;Mac had thrown it wide&mdash;came a breath of summer
+air, telling of green fields and fleecy clouds; of lappings about the
+bows of canoes; of balsam beds under bark slants; of white scoured decks
+and dancing waves; of queer cafés under cool arched trees and snowy
+peaks against the blue.</p>
+
+<p>The glorious old fire felt the sun's power and shuddered, trembling with
+an ill-defined fear. It knew its days were numbered, perhaps its hours.
+No more romping and sky-larking; no more outbursts of crackling
+laughter; no more scurrying up the ghostly chimney, the madcap sparks
+playing hide-and-seek in the soot; no more hugging close of the old
+logs, warming themselves and everybody about them; no more jolly nights
+with the hearth swept and the pipes lighted, the faces of the smokers
+aglow with the radiance of the cheery blaze.</p>
+
+<p>Its old enemy, the cold, had given up the fight and had crept away to
+hide in the North; so had the snow and the icy winds. No more! No more!
+Spring had come. Summer was already calling. Now for big bowls of
+blossoms, their fragrance mingling with the pungent odor of slanting
+lines of smoke. Now for half-closed blinds, through which sunbeams
+peeped and restless insects buzzed in and out. Now for long afternoons,
+soft twilights, and wide-open windows, their sashes framing the stars.</p>
+
+<p>Mac had noted the signs and was getting ready for the change. Already
+had he opened his dust-covered trunk and had hauled out, from a
+collection of tramping shoes, old straw hats, and summer clothes, a thin
+painting coat in place of his pet velveteen jacket. It was only at night
+that he raked out the coals hiding their faces in the ashes, gathered
+them together&mdash;the fire had never gone out since the day he lighted
+it&mdash;and encouraged them with a comforting log.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the members had formed their plans for the summer; one or two
+had already bidden good-by to the Circle. Lonnegan was off
+trout-fishing, and Jack Stirling was three days out&mdash;off the Banks
+really.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone to look up Christine and the old boys and girls," Marny said; at
+which Mac shook his head, knowing the bee, and knowing also the kinds
+and varieties of flowers which grew in the gardens most frequented by
+that happy-go-lucky fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy was back in London; cabled for, and left without being able to
+bid anybody good-by. "Throw on another stick," he had written Mac by the
+pilot-boat, "and give the dear old logs a friendly punch and tell 'em it
+is from that wild Irishman, Murphy. I'd give you a tract of woodland if
+I had one, and build you a fireplace as big as the nave of a church. I
+shall never forget my afternoons around your fire, MacWhirter. You and
+your back-logs and the dear boys warmed me clear through to my heart.
+Keep my chair dusted, I'm coming back if I live."</p>
+
+<p>With the budding trees and soft air and all the delights of the
+out-of-doors, the attendance even of those members who still remained in
+town began to drop off. Only when a raw, chill wind blew from the east,
+reminding us of the winter and the welcome of Mac's fire, would the
+chairs about the hearth be filled. Boggs, Pitkin, Woods, Marny, and I
+were the only ones who came with any regularity.</p>
+
+<p>"Got to cover them up, Colonel," Mac said to me the last afternoon the
+fire was alight. I had arrived ahead of the others and had found him
+crooning over the smouldering logs, looking into the embers. "They've
+been mighty good to us all winter&mdash;never sulked, never backed out; start
+them going and give them a pat or two on their backs and away they
+went." He spoke as if the logs were alive. "Lots of comfort we've had
+out of them; going to have a lot more next year, too. I shall bury the
+embers of the last fire&mdash;perhaps this one, I can't tell&mdash;in its ashes
+and keep the whole till we start them up in the autumn. It will seem
+then like the same old fire. The flowers lie dead all winter but they
+bloom from the same old charred ember of a root. All the root needs is
+the sun and all the coals need is warmth. And the two never bloom in the
+same season&mdash;that's the best part of it."</p>
+
+<p>He had not once looked at me as he spoke; he knew me by my tread, and he
+knew my voice, but his eyes had not once turned my way, not even when I
+took the chair beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"And what are <i>you</i> going to do, Mac, all summer? Got any plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Got plenty of plans, but no money. Heard there was a man nibbling
+around my 'East River'&mdash;but you can't tell. Brown, the salesman, says
+it's as good as sold, but I've heard Brown say those things before.
+Exhibition closes this week. Guess the distinguished connoisseur, Mr. A.
+MacWhirter, will add that picture to his collection: that closet behind
+us is full of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Where would you like to go, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know, Colonel. I'd like to try Holland once more and get
+some new skies&mdash;and boats."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing on this side, Mac?" I was not probing for subjects for Mac's
+brush.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't seem so. Can't sell them anyhow. I thought my 'East River'
+was about the best I had done, but nobody wants it. Cook calls it a
+'Melancholy Monochrome,' and that other critic&mdash;I forget his name&mdash;says
+it lacks 'spontaneity,' whatever that is. I ought to have stayed at home
+and helped my Governor instead of roaming round the world deluding
+myself with the idea that I could paint. About everything I've tried has
+failed: Had to borrow the money to get me to Munich; took me three years
+to pay it back, doing pot-boilers; even painted signs one time. Been
+chasing these phantoms now for a good many years, but I haven't got
+anywhere. I'd rather paint than eat, but I've got to eat&mdash;that's the
+worst of it. A little encouragement, too, would help. I try not to mind
+what Cook says about my things, but it hurts all the same. And yet if he
+ever over-praised my work it would be just as offensive. What I want is
+somebody to come along and get underneath the paint and find something
+of myself and what I am trying to do with my brush. It may be monotonous
+to Cook; it isn't to me. I could crisp up my 'East River' with a lot of
+cheap color and a boat or two with figures in the foreground, but it was
+that vast silence of the morning that I was after, and the silvering
+quality of the dawn. Doesn't everybody see that? Some of them can't.
+Well, in she goes with the rest; you'll all have a fine bonfire when I'm
+gone. I'll keep out the one hanging over the lounge and maybe another
+back somewhere in that mausoleum of a closet. I'll give one to you, old
+man, if you'll promise to take care of it," and Mac took an unframed
+canvas from the wall and propped it up on a chair. There were dozens of
+others around it and so it had never attracted my attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much&mdash;just a garden wall and a bench&mdash;pretty black&mdash;too much
+bitumen, I guess," and he wet his finger and rubbed the canvas.</p>
+
+<p>I took the sketch in my hand and examined it carefully. It was dated
+"Lucerne," and signed with two initials, not Mac's.</p>
+
+<p>"Old sketch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, about fifteen years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't look like your work."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Who did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A pupil of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Girl?"</p>
+
+<p>Mac nodded, replaced the sketch on the wall and sank into his chair
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Only pupil I ever had. She and her mother had spent the winter in
+Munich&mdash;that's where I met her."</p>
+
+<p>"It is signed 'Lucerne,'" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I followed her there."</p>
+
+<p>"To teach?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; because I loved her."</p>
+
+<p>The announcement came so suddenly that for a moment I could not answer.
+He often gave me his confidence, and I thought I knew his life, but this
+was news to me. I had always suspected that some love affair had
+sweetened and mellowed his nature, but he always avoided the subject and
+I had, of course, never pressed my inquiries. If he was ready to tell me
+now I was willing to listen with open ears.</p>
+
+<p>"You loved her, Mac?" I said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, as a boy loves; without thought&mdash;crazily&mdash;only that one idea in
+his mind; ready to die for her; no sleep; sometimes a whole day without
+tasting a mouthful; floating on soap-bubbles. Ah! we never love that way
+but once. It was all burned out of me though, that summer. I've just
+lived on ever since&mdash;painting a little, nursing these old logs,
+hobnobbing with you boys; getting older&mdash;most forty now&mdash;getting
+poorer."</p>
+
+<p>"And did she love you, Mac?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, same way. Only she got over it and I didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Some other fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, her father. Oh, there's no use going into it! But sometimes when I
+do my level best and put my heart into a thing, as I have done into that
+picture at the Academy, or as I poured it out to that girl in that old
+garden at Lucerne, and it all comes to naught, I lose my grip for a time
+and feel like putting my foot through my canvases and hiring out
+somewhere for a dollar a day."</p>
+
+<p>I made no comment. My long years of intimacy with my friend had taught
+me never to interrupt him when he was in one of these moods, and never
+to ask him any question outside the trend of his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Self-made, dominating man, her father; began life as a brass-moulder.
+'Worked with my hands, sir,' he would tell me, holding out his stubs of
+fingers. Didn't want any loafers and spongers around him. He didn't say
+that to me, of course, but he did to her. The mother was different, like
+the daughter; she believed in me. She believed in anything Nell liked.
+Behind in her music&mdash;that's what she came to Munich for; and when she
+wanted to paint, hunted me up to teach her. She was eighteen and I was
+twenty-three. Well, you can fill in the rest. Every day, you know;
+sometimes at my hole in the wall, sometimes at her apartment. Went on
+all winter. In May he came over and wired them to meet him in Lucerne.
+We tried parting; sat up half the night, we three, talking it over&mdash;the
+dear mother helping. She loved us both by that time! I tried it for two
+days and then locked up my place and started. That old garden was where
+we met and where we continued to meet. He came down one morning to see
+what we were doing; we were doing that sketch&mdash;had been doing it for two
+weeks. Some days it got a brushful of paint and some days it didn't. You
+know how hard you would work when the girl you loved best in the world
+sat beside you looking up into your face. Sometimes the dear mother
+would be with us, and sometimes she would make believe she was. In the
+intervals she was working on the old gentleman, trying to break it to
+him easy. 'You have worked all your life,' she would say to him, 'and
+you have, outside of me, only two things left&mdash;your money and your
+daughter. The money won't make her happy unless there is somebody to
+share it with her. This boy loves her; he is clean'&mdash;I'm just quoting
+her words, old man; I was in those days&mdash;'honest, has an honorable
+profession, and will succeed the better once he has Nellie to help him
+and your money to relieve his mind for the time of anxiety. When he
+becomes famous, as he is sure to be, he will return it to you with
+interest.' That was the sort of talk, and it occurred about every day.
+Nellie would hear it and add her voice, and we would talk it over in the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>"One day he came down himself. The garden was up the hill behind the
+Schweitzerhoff&mdash;you remember it&mdash;in one of those smaller
+hotels&mdash;Lucerne was crowded.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me see what you two are doing,' he said, with a sort of
+police-officer air.</p>
+
+<p>"I turned the easel toward him. The sketch was about as you see it&mdash;all
+except the signature and the word 'Lucerne'&mdash;that I added afterward.</p>
+
+<p>"'How long have you been at this?'</p>
+
+<p>"'About two weeks,' I said. I thought I'd give it its full time, so as
+to prove to him how carefully it had been painted.</p>
+
+<p>"'Two weeks, eh?' he repeated slowly. 'Done anything else?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What's it worth?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, it's only a study, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, but what's it worth?'</p>
+
+<p>"I thought for a moment, and then, knowing how he valued everything by
+his own standard, said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I should think, perhaps, fifty dollars, when it's finished.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That's at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week, isn't it? A little
+over three dollars a day. I earned more than that, young man, when I was
+younger than you, and I was making something that was <i>sold</i> before I
+turned a hand to it. You've got to shop your things around till you sell
+'em. Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money!
+Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the accumulation of
+dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in
+the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty
+and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind
+words to speak; famishing minds to educate; there is art, and science,
+and music&mdash;Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! I'm sick of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And that ended it with the girl?" I asked, without moving my head from
+my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, practically. She went to Paris and I went back to Munich. I felt
+as if my heart had been torn out of me; like a plant twisted up by the
+roots. The letters came&mdash;first every day, then once or twice a week,
+then at long intervals. You won't believe it, old man, but do you know
+that wound never healed for years; hasn't yet, parts of it. Shams,
+flaunted wealth, society&mdash;all irritate it, and me. It seemed so cruel,
+so damned stupid. What counts but love, I would say to myself over and
+over again. If I had a million dollars, what better off would I be? If
+we were both on a desert island without a cent we could be happy
+together, and if we had a million apiece and didn't love each other we
+would be miserable. Quixotic, I know, indefensible, out of date with
+modern methods, but I'd give my career if more of that sort of doctrine
+saturated the air we breathe."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw her again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once in Paris, driving with her husband. This was about five years
+ago. She didn't see me, although I stood within ten feet of her. He was
+much older, older than I am now, I should think. Commonplace sort of
+fellow&mdash;see a dozen like him any morning on the Avenue going down to
+Wall Street. Only her eyes were left, and the fluff of hair about her
+forehead. She made no impression on me; she wasn't the woman I loved. My
+memories were of a girl in the garden, all in white, her hair about her
+shoulders, the molten sunlight splashed here and there, the cool shadow
+tones between the drippings of gold. And the sound of her voice, and the
+way she raised her eyes to mine! No, it never comes but once. It is the
+bloom on the peach, the flush of dawn, never repeated in any other sky;
+the thrill of the first kiss at the altar, the cry of the first child.
+Yours! Yours! for ever and ever!</p>
+
+<p>"Talking like a first-class idiot, am I not, old man? But I can't help
+it. And I get so lonely for it sometimes! Often when you fellows go home
+and I am left alone at night I draw up by this fire and build castles in
+the coals. And I see so many things: the figure of a woman, the uplifted
+hands of children, paths leading to low porticos, gardens with tall
+flowers along their paths, an arm about my neck and a warm cheek held
+close to mine. I know I am only half living tucked up here pegging away,
+and that I ought to shake myself loose and go out into the world more
+and see what it is made of. In a few years I'll be frozen fast into my
+habits like an old branch in a stream when the winter's cold strikes it.
+Only you and the other boys and the fire keep me young."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never met anybody since, Mac, you cared for?" I had braced
+myself for that question, wondering how he would take it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once, but she never knew it. I had nothing&mdash;why begin over again?
+It would have turned out like the other&mdash;worse. Then I was too young,
+now I'm too old. Besides, she's on the other side of the water; lives
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"She liked you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. Women are hard to understand. I never abuse their
+confidence when they trust me, and they generally do trust me when I get
+close to them. I seem always to be the big brother to them and so they
+let themselves go, knowing I won't misunderstand. Women <i>like</i> me, they
+don't love me&mdash;great difference. A lot of men make this mistake,
+thinking a woman is in love with them when she only wants to be kind.
+She can't always be on the defensive and still be natural. The greatest
+relief that can come to one of them is to find that the man whom she
+wants only as a companion is contented to be that and nothing more and
+won't take advantage of her confidence. So I say I don't know. She was a
+human kind of a girl, this one&mdash;real human."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers&mdash;as if
+he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. "Had a heart for
+things outside of her own affairs. Girl a man could tie up to. Human, I
+tell you&mdash;real human!"</p>
+
+<p>"Follow it up, Mac?" He had volunteered nothing about her personality,
+and I dared not ask.</p>
+
+<p>"No, let it go. I've been hoping I'd make a hit some time and then maybe
+I'd&mdash;no, don't talk about it any more. Listen! who's that coming
+upstairs? That's Woods, I know his step. Happy fellow! Hear his
+whistle&mdash;he must have got another order for a full-length; nothing like
+powder-puff teas for encouraging American art, my boy," and a smile
+crept over Mac's face, which broadened into a laugh when he added, "I'm
+beginning to think that a course in cooking is as necessary for a
+painter as a course in perspective."</p>
+
+<p>The expected arrival was by this time beating a rat-a-tat-too on the
+Chinese screen, his whistle more shrill than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, you pampered child of fashion!" cried Mac, the sound of
+Woods's joyous step having completely changed the current of his
+thoughts. "Stop that racket, I tell you. We know you've got another
+portrait, but don't split our ears over it."</p>
+
+<p>A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock
+of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs!</p>
+
+<p>"Thought you were Woods," cried Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful
+painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted
+back Mac.</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more
+valuable. I carry priceless things about me. In fact I'm just chuck-full
+of priceless things. Shake me and I'll exude glad tidings. Marvellous
+events are happening at the Academy. I have just left there, and I
+<i>know</i>! The main stairway is in the hands of a mob of disappointed
+millionnaires pressing up toward the South Room. Every art critic in
+town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a
+collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are
+fastened&mdash;even Brown's glazed peepers&mdash;on a small yellow card slipped
+into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the
+south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in
+thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks,
+his&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light
+breaking out on his face. "Do you mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, most masterful painter&mdash;I mean just that! Toot the hewgag! Bang
+the lyre! The 'East River' is sold!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sold!"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sold</span>! you duffer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who to?" Mac's voice had an unsteady tremor in it.</p>
+
+<p>"To Pitkins's friend, the banker. He's wild about it. Says he's been
+looking for something of yours ever since the night he was here, and
+only knew you had a picture on exhibition when he read Cook's abuse of
+it in yesterday's paper. And that isn't all! No sooner had the 'Sold'
+card been slipped into the frame than Mr. Blodgett came in; swore he had
+been intending to buy the 'East River' for his gallery ever since the
+show opened; offered an advance of five hundred dollars to the banker,
+who laughed at him; and then in despair bought your other picture, 'The
+Storm,' hung on the top line. Both sold, O most masterful painter! All
+together now, gentlemen&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot&mdash;'" and Boggs's voice rang out in
+the tune he knew Mac loved best.</p>
+
+<p>Mac dropped into his chair. The news thrilled him in more ways than one.
+Certain vague, hopeless plans could now, perhaps, be carried out; plans
+he had driven from his mind as soon as they had taken shape: Holland for
+one, which seemed nearer of realization now than ever. So did some
+others.</p>
+
+<p>"Millionaires have their uses, Mac, after all," laughed Marny.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but this fellow was an exception. He filled my mug and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And your pocket," added Boggs; "don't forget that, you ingrate.
+Again&mdash;all together, gentlemen&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>This time Boggs sang the couplet to the end, Mac and all of us joining
+in.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>When all the others had gone I still kept my chair. There was one thing
+more I wanted to know. Mac was on his feet, restlessly pacing the room,
+a quickness in his step, a buoyant tone in his voice that I had not
+noticed all winter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down here, old man, and let me ask you a question."</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Mac, "fire it at me here. I'm too happy to sit down. What
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was that human girl you spoke of, who lives abroad, the one in the
+steamer chair with the red roses in her lap?"</p>
+
+<p>Mac stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I got a letter from her this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are going over?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the first steamer, old man."</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BOOKS_BY_F_HOPKINSON_SMITH" id="BOOKS_BY_F_HOPKINSON_SMITH"></a>BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH</h2>
+
+
+<h3>THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN</h3>
+
+<p>"It would be hard to find a more entertaining, piquant, and
+sweet-spirited companion in book-form."&mdash;<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p>
+
+<h3>KENNEDY SQUARE</h3>
+
+<p>"All that was best in the banished life of the old South has been
+touched into life and love, into humor and pathos, in this fine and
+memorable American novel."&mdash;<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p>
+
+<h3>PETER</h3>
+
+<p>"It is an old-fashioned love story."&mdash;<i>The Outlook.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Old Peter Grayson is a charming character, with his old-fashioned
+virtues, his warm sympathies, and his readiness to lend a
+hand."&mdash;<i>Springfield Republican.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT</h3>
+
+<p>"The story is one of strong dramatic power. Its style is direct and
+incisive, revealing a series of strongly drawn pictures."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia
+Record.</i></p>
+
+<h3>FORTY MINUTES LATE AND OTHER STORIES</h3>
+
+<p>"It overflows with friendliness and enjoyment of life, and it furnishes
+a capital example of impressionistic writing."&mdash;<i>The Outlook.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE VEILED LADY</h3>
+
+<p>"These little stories are as entertaining as any he has written and we
+can recommend them confidently to his many admirers."&mdash;<i>New York Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>"They are exceedingly agreeable stories with an atmospheric quality
+which the versatile author imparts to them."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p>
+
+<h3>AT CLOSE RANGE</h3>
+
+<p>"These simple tales contain more of the real art of character-drawing
+than a score of novels of the day."&mdash;<i>New York Evening Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>"He has set down with humorous compassion and wit the real life that we
+live every day."&mdash;<i>The Independent.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE UNDER DOG</h3>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hopkinson Smith's genius for sympathy finds full expression in his
+stories of human under dogs of one sort and another ... each serves as a
+centre for an episode, rapid, vivid, story-telling."&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN</h3>
+
+<p>"It is in the character-drawing that the author has done his best work.
+No three finer examples of women can be found than Margaret Grant,
+Sallie Horn, Oliver's mother, and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old
+spinster."&mdash;<i>Louisville Courier-Journal.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN</h3>
+
+<p>"A breath of pure and invigorating fragrance out of the fogs and
+tempests of the day's fiction."&mdash;<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3</h3>
+
+<p>"None of Mr. Smith's writings have shown more delightfully his spirit of
+genial kindliness and sympathetic humor."&mdash;<i>Boston Herald.</i></p>
+
+<h3>COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS</h3>
+
+<p>"The dear old colonel claims our smiles and our love as simply and as
+whole-heartedly as ever."&mdash;<i>Life.</i></p>
+
+<h3>THE NOVELS, STORIES AND SKETCHES OF F. HOPKINSON SMITH</h3>
+
+<p>"He has always had unquestioning faith in the significance and interest
+of the simple, universal human experiences as they come to normal,
+brave, affectionate, gentle-mannered, or robust, untrained men and
+women.</p>
+
+<p>"As he looks at nature so he looks at man: with clear vision, with
+sympathy rather than curiosity; with an eye for the fine things in the
+rugged man and the vigorous, sinewy, self-sustaining woman, and for the
+natural virtues, the deep tenderness, the true-heartedness in the man of
+long descent and the woman of gentle breeding.</p>
+
+<p>"His style is singularly concise, exact, compact; possessed of a
+vitality which uses various arts of expression; his style is notable for
+concentration, solidity, reality."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hamilton W. Mabie.</span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34284-h.htm or 34284-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/8/34284/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/34284-h/images/cover.jpg b/34284-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c352123
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus1.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus1.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45ad52a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus1.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus2.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus2.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abfcac1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus2.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus3.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus3.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98baafb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus3.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus4.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus4.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..864fc41
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus4.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus5.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus5.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..334ed54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus5.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus6.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus6.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f1551d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus6.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus7.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus7.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f1d502a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus7.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus8.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus8.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f8a74b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus8.jpg
diff --git a/34284-h/images/illus9.jpg b/34284-h/images/illus9.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5a128b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284-h/images/illus9.jpg
diff --git a/34284.txt b/34284.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb14fb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5762 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wood Fire in No. 3
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Illustrator: Alonzo Kimball
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2010 [EBook #34284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+                       BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS BY
+    ALONZO KIMBALL
+
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+    NEW YORK 1913
+
+    Copyright, 1905, by
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SON
+
+    _Published, October, 1905_
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mac had the floor this afternoon.]
+
+
+
+
+_A WORD OF WELCOME:_
+
+
+_To those of you who love an easy chair, a mug, a pipe, and a story; to
+whom a well-swept hearth is a delight and the cheery crackle of hickory
+logs a joy; the touch of whose elbows sends a thrill through responsive
+hearts and whose genial talk but knits the circle the closer,--as well
+as those gentler spirits who are content to listen--how rare they
+are!--do I repeat Sandy MacWhirter's hearty invitation: "Draw up, draw
+up! By the gods, but I'm glad to see you! Get a pipe. The tobacco is in
+the yellow jar."_
+
+    _Yours warmly,_
+
+    _THE BACK LOG._
+
+    THE HEARTH,
+    Room No. 3, Old Building,
+    October, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are set Forth
+
+II. Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described
+
+III. With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair
+
+IV. With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad
+
+V. In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood
+
+VI. Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice" and his Fellow Dogs
+
+VII. Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind
+
+VIII. In which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters
+
+IX. Around the Embers of the Dying Fire
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_From drawings in color by Alonzo Kimball_
+
+
+Mac had the floor this afternoon
+
+MacWhirter
+
+But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me
+
+The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like him!"
+
+Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days
+
+Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going
+
+"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a morning paper"
+
+Pushed the Engineer into the salon
+
+Around the embers of the dying fire
+
+
+
+
+THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+_In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are Set Forth._
+
+
+Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had been brought up on
+blazing logs and warm hearths, and could not be happy without them. In
+his own boyhood's home the fireplace was the shrine, and half the
+orchard and two big elms had been offered up on its altar.
+
+There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in--no place really to put
+one, unless he knocked a hole in the roof, started a fire on the bare
+floor, and sat around it wigwam fashion; nor was there any way of
+supporting the necessary brickwork, unless a start was made from the
+basement up through every room to No. 3 and so on to the roof. But
+trifling obstacles like these never daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a
+Beaux Arts man, who built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for
+blazing logs, solved the difficulty. It was only a matter of fifteen
+feet from where Mac's easel stood to the roof of the building that
+sheltered him, and it was not many days before Lonnegan's foreman had a
+hole in the roof and a wide and spacious chimney breast rising from
+Mac's floor, which filled the opening in the ceiling and rose some ten
+feet above it, the whole resting on an iron plate bolted to four upright
+iron rods which were in turn bolted to two heavy timbers laid flat on
+the roof. Lonnegan's men did the work, and Lonnegan settled with the
+landlord and forgot ever afterward to send Mac the bill, and hasn't to
+this day.
+
+No one else inside the four walls of the Old Building had any such
+comfort. All the other denizens had heaters; or choked-up, shivering,
+contracted grates; or a half-strangled flue from the basement below.
+Poor Pitkin relied on a rubber tube fastened to his gas light, which was
+connected with a sort of Chinese tea-caddy of a stove propped up on four
+legs, and which was shifted about so as to thaw out the coldest spots in
+his studio.
+
+It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. Everybody crowded
+in to see it--not only the men from below and on the same floor, but
+half a dozen and more cronies from the outside. No one believed
+Lonnegan's yarn about the bolts, so natural and old-timey did the
+fireplace seem, until the great architect picked the plaster away with
+his knife and showed them the irons, and even then one doubting Thomas
+had to mount the scuttle stairs and peer out through the trap-door
+before he was convinced that modern science had lent a helping hand to
+recall a boyhood memory.
+
+And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the men loved it
+despite the liberties they tried to take with it! And they did, at
+first, take liberties, and of the most exasperating kind to any
+well-intentioned, law-abiding, and knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the
+animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was
+never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face;
+Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log
+should be stood on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while
+Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the basement because of his dirty
+clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the
+back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air
+could get between it and the blackened bricks.
+
+But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks ever daunted the
+spirit of this fire. It would splutter a moment with ill-concealed
+indignation, threatening a dozen times to go out in smoke, and then all
+of a sudden a little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one
+end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roaring up the
+chimney in a very ecstasy of delight.
+
+Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many a time, when Mac
+and I would be sitting alone before it listening to its chatter.
+
+"Take a seat," it would crackle; "right in front, where I can warm you.
+Sit, too, where you can look into my face and see how ruddy and joyous
+it is. I'll not bore you; I never bored anybody--never in all my life. I
+am an endless series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can
+sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with laughter,
+dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I can smoulder away all by
+myself, crooning a low song of the woods--the song your mother loved,
+your cradle song--so full of content that it will soothe you into
+forgetfulness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of ashes and
+shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep--you and I, old friends now
+with our thousand memories."
+
+Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods--"Alexander MacWhirter,
+Room No. 3," the sign-board read in the hall below--and only MacWhirter
+could satisfy its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one
+dared touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs was
+sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity.
+
+It was not long after this that a certain sense of ownership permeated
+the coterie. They yielded the chimney and its mechanical contrivances to
+MacWhirter and Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged
+to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up from the several
+studios, each member of the half-circle furnishing his own--the most
+comfortable he owned. Then the mugs followed, and the pipe-racks, and
+soon Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one spot in the
+building that we all loved and longed for.
+
+And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just such a Temple of
+Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with one and a quarter, perhaps one
+and a half, of a chin tucked under his old one--a chin though that came
+from laughter, not from laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty
+in his voice and words, with the faintest trace--just a trace, it was so
+slight--of his mother-tongue in his speech; whole-souled, spontaneous,
+unselfish, ready to praise and never to criticise; brimming with
+anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience--on the Riviera,
+in Sicily, Egypt, and the Far East, wherever his brush had carried
+him--he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the
+snap of their coals in his eyes.
+
+"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his invariable greeting.
+"Draw up! draw up! Go get a pipe--the tobacco is in the yellow jar."
+
+This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the
+shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about.
+
+If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was giving his
+experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the climax of some tale,
+it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him
+than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of
+listening still being in vogue in those days and much respected by the
+occupants of the chairs--by all except Boggs, who would always break
+into the conversation irrespective of restrictions or traditions.
+
+Mac had the floor this afternoon.
+
+[Illustration: MacWhirter.]
+
+I knew this from the sound of his voice through the half-closed door as
+I reached the top-floor landing.
+
+"Refused, gentlemen, refused point blank," I heard Mac say. "He wouldn't
+let them search him; wouldn't empty his pockets as the others had done;
+it made a most disagreeable impression on every one at the table.
+Collins, his host, was amazed; so was Moulton."
+
+My own head was now abreast of the old Chinese screen.
+
+"What reason did he give?" Boggs asked.
+
+"Didn't give any. Just hemmed and hawed, and blushed like a girl."
+
+I was inside the cosy room now, its air etched with wavy lines of
+tobacco smoke, showing blue in the dim glare of the skylight overhead;
+had nodded to Boggs, whose face was just visible over the top of Mac's
+most comfortable chair--Boggs always hides his bulk in this particular
+chair, having furnished none of his own, a weakness or selfishness which
+we all recognize and permit--and was adding my snow-covered coat and hat
+to a collection, facing the blazing logs, and within reach of their
+genial warmth, when Mac's voice again dominated the hum of questioning
+raised by the half-circle of toasting shins.
+
+"Collins, of course, never said a word--how could he? The old fellow had
+been his friend for years; went to school with him. Now, gentlemen, what
+would you have thought?"
+
+It was easy to see that our host had full possession of the floor. His
+feet were firmly planted on the half-worn Daghestan, his square, erect
+back turned to the crackling blaze, his head raised, arms swinging,
+hands extended, accentuating every point that he made with that peculiar
+twist of the thumb common to all painters. I dropped quietly into a
+chair. Better keep still and smoke on with my ear-shutters fastened back
+and my eyes fixed on the speaker's face. The cue would come my way
+before Mac had got very far in his story.
+
+Again Mac put the question, this time in a rising voice, demanding an
+answer.
+
+"What would you have thought?"
+
+"I give it up," said Pitkin. "I knew Peaslee. Life went against him, but
+that old fellow was as straight as a string. Why, he has been
+book-keeper for that bank for half a century, more or less; I used to
+keep an account there; queer-looking chap, all spectacles."
+
+"Collins must have put the jewel in his pocket and had not been able to
+find it," remarked Ford, discussion now being in order; "like a man
+losing his railroad ticket and discovering it in his hat-band after he
+has searched every part of his clothes."
+
+"Old fellow was short in his balance and wanted to make it up," growled
+Boggs. Boggs did not mean a word of it, but it was his turn and he must
+hazard an opinion of some kind.
+
+Mac smiled and a laugh went round. Poor old Tim Peaslee stealing Sam
+Collins's or anybody else's opal to straighten out a deficiency in his
+account was about as absurd a deduction to those who remembered him, as
+Diogenes losing his lantern in the effort to scrape acquaintance with a
+thief.
+
+Marny, his face blue-white with his tramp through the snow, and Jack
+Stirling, in a new English Macintosh, now entered, shook their wet
+garments, filled their pipes from the yellow jar, and dragged up chairs
+to join the half-circle, the puffs of their newly filled pipes adding
+innumerable wavy lines to the etched plate of the atmosphere.
+
+"Mac has got the most extraordinary story, Marny, that you ever heard,"
+cried Wharton. "What do you think of old Tim Peaslee helping himself to
+Sam Collins's jewelry?"
+
+"Never heard of Peaslee or Collins in my life," answered Marny, dragging
+his chair closer and opening his chilled fingers to the blaze. "Jack
+may, he knows everybody--some he oughtn't to. Who are they, burglars or
+stockbrokers?"
+
+"Why, Collins, who has that opal mine in Mexico. Old Tim was for years
+the book-keeper of the Exeter Bank. You must have known Peaslee,"
+persisted Wharton.
+
+Marny shook his head, and Wharton turned to Mac.
+
+"Begin all over again, old man, and we'll take a vote. Marny's head is
+as thick as one of his backgrounds."
+
+"At the beginning?" asked MacWhirter, between the puffs of his pipe,
+freshly lighted now that his story had been told.
+
+"Yes, from the time Sam Collins came to New York--everything."
+
+Mac laid his pipe once more on the mantel, threw an extra stick on the
+fire from the pile by the chimney, raked the ashes clear of the front
+log, and resumed his position on the rug. Now that the circle was larger
+and he had been challenged to give every detail he intended to make his
+second telling of the extraordinary story more interesting, if possible,
+than the first.
+
+"I'll give it to you exactly as Collins gave it to me; and, Boggs, you
+will please keep still until I get through. Wharton, change your seat so
+you can clap your hand over Boggs's mouth when he breaks out. Thanks.
+
+"About two years ago Sam Collins came back to New York, first time in
+nearly twenty years. He had been up in Peru living in the clouds,
+digging for copper and not finding any, he told me; then he kept on to
+Ceylon, wandered around there for a while, and finally landed at Vera
+Cruz and went up into Mexico, until he struck the town of Queretaro.
+You've been there, Wharton; I remember your sketch of the old
+Cathedral."
+
+Wharton nodded, and settled himself deeper in his chair.
+
+"Shot Maximilian there," whispered Boggs under his breath.
+
+Mac glanced savagely at Boggs, but continued:
+
+"On taking in the town Collins found that everybody, from the beggars in
+the Plaza to the bankers in the palaces, had their pockets full of
+opals, wads and wads of them, some big as duck-shot, some big as birds'
+eggs. Collins is an expert on anything that comes out of the ground, and
+the next morning he was astride of a burro and off to the mines, noting
+how the minerals lay and the dip of the land, and the next week he was
+away prospecting, and before the month was out he had bought a hill that
+was as bare as your hand of everything but bunch grass and sand fleas,
+and had ten half-breeds at work, and by the end of the year he had
+struck hard-pan, with enough opals lying around loose to make him rich.
+This was two years ago, remember. Pretty soon Sam discovered that he
+needed more money to develop his mine, and he started for New York to
+look up his old friends to help him raise it.
+
+"When Collins arrived he found that a lot of things could happen in
+twenty years: half of his friends were dead; some were scattered over
+the world, wandering as he had been; and out of fifty or more old chums
+who had known him at college only a dozen or more were left. Tim Peaslee
+was one of them.
+
+"Sam loved Tim; he always had. For years they had kept up their letters;
+then Tim lost track of Collins, and communication ceased. All the way to
+New York Collins was thinking of Tim. If he was rich, they'd go in
+together on the mine; and if he was poor, he'd share what he had with
+him. The Tim he loved was not the kind of man to shake hands with. His
+Tim was the sort of a fellow to hug and keep your hand on his knee while
+you talked to him.
+
+"Sam found him in an old house in Bond Street--one of those
+high-stooped, passed-by wrecks that are being turned into Italian
+tenements, with wood and coal shops in the basement and sign painters in
+the garret. He was living with his old sister, Miss Peaslee--older than
+Tim. The two had a life interest in the property, and none of the heirs
+could take possession until these two were buried.
+
+"It was dark when he reached Tim's and mounted the steps; too dark for
+him to notice the queer iron railings and newel posts red with rust, and
+the front door that hadn't had a coat of paint on it for years, nor the
+knob and knocker that were black with the weather. At his first ring no
+one answered; at the third, a woman with a basket opened the door. She
+was on her way out--that's why she opened it.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Peaslee and his folks lives on the top floor. He's our
+landlord. Walk right up. This door ain't locked till twelve o'clock, so
+ye can just shut it to behind ye. We have the first floor, and another
+family has the second, but they're moved out.'
+
+"On the way upstairs, in the dim light of the single gas-jet, Sam made
+out the slender banisters and on each landing the solid mahogany doors
+that opened into the several rooms, showing him that it had once been a
+house of some pretensions.
+
+"He knocked gently; there was a hurried scuffle inside, as if someone
+wanted to escape being seen, and Tim thrust out his head. He had on an
+old calico dressing-gown and was in his slippers, his glasses pushed
+back on his forehead.
+
+"Sam told me he never had such a shock in his life as when he saw Tim.
+He had to look into his face twice and wait until he spoke before he was
+sure it was he. He had left his chum a springy, enthusiastic young
+fellow of twenty-five, full of go and life, and he found him a dried-up,
+wizen-faced, bald-pated old fellow near fifty, who looked a hundred.
+While he had been climbing mountains, sleeping in the open air, working
+with a pick or rounding up cattle, poor old Tim had been driving a quill
+behind a desk, getting drier and drier, like an old gourd hung in an
+attic--all the hope shrunk out of him, all his joyousness gone.
+
+"Who wants me?'
+
+"'Don't you know me, Tim? I'm Collins--Sam Collins,' and he caught hold
+of his limp hand.
+
+"'Collins?' muttered Tim, drawing back. 'I don't know but one--' here
+the light in the hall fell on Sam's face--'Not Sam, are you?' He knew
+him now. 'Come inside!' and he dragged him past the door, his shrivelled
+hand on the miner's collar. 'Ann, here's Sam--old Sam Collins! Where
+have you been, you old rascal, all these years? My sister--you remember
+her, of course--we've been living here--Oh, Sam, but I'm glad to see
+you! What a great girth you've got on you, and so big in the shoulders!
+And what a queer hat! How did you find me?--Oh, you rascal!'
+
+"This running fire of exclamations and questions was kept up until Sam
+had found a seat next the old sister, who was thinner even than Tim, and
+with a look in her eyes of a hungry child peering into a cake-shop. All
+this time Tim was holding on to Sam's big shoulders as if he was afraid
+he would escape.
+
+"When Sam's gaze was free to wander about the room he found it choked
+full of old furniture of the oldest and most dilapidated kind--a
+mahogany sideboard with the knobs gone; sofas with the hair-cloth seats
+in holes, all good in their day, but all wanting the upholsterer and the
+cabinet-maker. Not a dollar had been spent upon them for years. The
+life interest, Sam found out afterward, went with the furniture as well
+as the house.
+
+"One thing struck Sam more than anything else, and that was Tim's
+tenderness over Miss Ann. When she coughed--and she coughed most of the
+time--Tim would start as if it hurt him. Once he went into the next room
+and brought her a shawl, and just before Sam left Tim poured out a
+spoonful of medicine for her and made her take it right before Sam,
+adding:
+
+"'It's only Sam; he's got a heart as big as an ox, and will understand.
+Won't you, Sam?'
+
+"Next day Collins started in to raise the money for his mining. Tim
+introduced him to the cashier and the president of the Exeter, and they
+both looked Sam over and took in his wide sombrero and queer clothes,
+and examined his samples--one was a beauty, which Tiffany offered him a
+big sum for--and then they wrote him a letter--that is, the president
+did--on the bank's paper, saying that they appreciated greatly the
+opportunity, etc., but the charter of the bank prevented, etc., and they
+had no money of their own, etc.--same old kind of a lying letter these
+men write when they can't get one hundred per cent. on an investment.
+
+"Tim nearly fell off his stool with disappointment when Sam read him the
+letter, but Sam never turned a hair. If the old fossils in the Exeter
+didn't have the money, somebody else would; and, sure enough, a
+dry-goods man and a retired physician turned up, and the two roped in a
+young millionnaire, a fellow by the name of Moulton, who thought he knew
+it all, and _did_. The money was raised, and Sam got ready to go back to
+Mexico and start the mine on an enlarged scale. All this time he had
+been looking up his old school-friends, and the night before he started
+he got them all together, including the new subscribers, the young
+millionnaire among them, and Sam, at the millionnaire's suggestion,
+called on old Solari, down in University Place, and arranged for a
+farewell dinner. Tim was to sit on his right hand and the retired
+physician on his left, and Sam was to make a proposition to his guests,
+half of whom were directors in the new company, the nature of which he
+kept secret even from Tim.
+
+"The old book-keeper begged off, and vowed he couldn't go--hadn't been
+to a dinner for years; Sister Ann wasn't well, and needed him; and,
+besides, on that very night he would be up late at his home making up
+the month's returns--all the excuses a man hunts up when he is hiding
+the real reason that keeps him away. But Sam understood Tim by this
+time.
+
+"'I forgot to tell you, Tim,' he came back to say, 'that you mustn't put
+on your black evening clothes.' (Tim hadn't any, as Sam knew.) 'I'm
+going in my rough togs, so as to let everybody see me as I am every day,
+and the others will dress the same, and I want you to oblige me by not
+wearing yours. It will help me in my deal.'
+
+"So Tim went, the only addition to his toilet being a new black tie
+which Miss Ann had made for him.
+
+"The dinner was upstairs on the third floor, in Solari's back room--you
+all know it--same room Lonnegan had last year for that supper he gave
+us. Sam had told Solari to spare no expense, and to keep setting things
+up as long as anybody wanted them; and Solari carried out Collins's
+orders to the last bottle--way down to Chartreuse and Reina Victorias.
+There were oysters on the half-shell, and crab soup and an entree of
+mushrooms, and a filet with trimmings, and plump little quail on dry
+toast, salads, desserts, and so on.
+
+"Tim, to the delight of everybody, and especially Sam, thawed out under
+the influence of the first bottle, and sang a comic song he had not sung
+since he and Sam had parted, and took every dish in its turn--he was
+twice helped to quail--and was so happy that Sam could hardly wait for
+the time to come when the secret he had up his sleeve was to be slipped
+out and exploded.
+
+"When the coffee was served Sam got up on his feet, and in welcoming his
+guests took out the opal that Tiffany wanted to buy, and saying how
+confident he was that before the year was out he would be able to ship
+to them many more of even greater value and brilliancy, passed it to Tim
+to hand around the table, some of his old friends never having seen it.
+
+"Tim passed it across the young millionnaire to a man next him, and
+after everybody had said how beautiful it was, and how they each wanted
+one just like it, it was handed back to Tim, who laid it on the table
+beside his plate. There was no mistake about this part of the story, for
+the millionnaire called the retired physician's attention to it,
+remarking that as it lay on the white cloth by Tim's hand it looked like
+a drop of frozen absinthe--which wasn't bad for a millionnaire.
+
+"Sam had the secret now well in hand--fuse all lighted, ready to be
+touched off:
+
+"'Gentlemen,' he began, 'there are some men you have known for a short
+time, and you like them, and some go back to your boyhood, and those you
+love. I've got a friend here who is like that opal--clear as crystal
+and--Hand me the opal, Tim; I just want to dilate on it, and I can do it
+better if I have it in my hand and look into its eyes and yours.'
+
+"Tim colored scarlet, and moved his arm quickly. The friend from
+boyhood, he knew, was himself, and he was not accustomed to praise.
+
+"'Pass it along, old man!'
+
+"'I haven't got it, Sam,' came the reply.
+
+"'Yes, you have,' called out the young millionnaire. 'It's right there
+beside your glass; I saw it there a minute ago.'
+
+"'Well, if it was,' Tim stammered, 'it isn't here now.' It was the
+complimentary speech that Sam was about to make that was upsetting Tim,
+so Sam thought.
+
+"By this time half the guests were on their feet.
+
+"'Look around among the glasses,' suggested one.
+
+"'Maybe it's under your napkin,' remarked another.
+
+"'I gave it to _you_, I thought,' said Tim, turning to the physician.
+
+"'No, you didn't. You've got it somewhere around; perhaps you've slipped
+it in your pocket.' There was a slight tone of suspicion in the voice
+which jarred on Sam.
+
+"'No,' answered Tim helplessly. 'I didn't put it in my pocket. I don't
+know what I did with it.'
+
+"'Send for Hawkshaw the detective--lock the doors, and search every man
+down to his underwear!' shouted Sam in a serio-comic voice.
+
+"Chairs were now being pushed back, and some of the men were on their
+knees groping around the floor near where Tim sat, the head waiter
+holding a candle from the table.
+
+"All this time Sam was standing waiting to finish his speech, to him the
+event of the evening. The table was moved, and every square foot of the
+carpet gone over, Tim assisting in the search, but in a perfunctory way
+that attracted Sam's attention.
+
+"'Never mind, gentlemen, let it go,' Sam said. 'I can do without it. It
+will turn up somewhere; you've all seen it, anyhow, and so it's just as
+good as if I held it up before you.'
+
+"'Some men, as I said, I have known from boyhood----'
+
+"The young millionnaire now jumped up.
+
+"'Hold on, Mr. Collins; I'd like to find that opal before we do anything
+else. Nobody has swallowed it'--constant association with money had
+warped his judgment of human nature, perhaps. 'Here's what's in my
+clothes,' and he began unloading his keys, knife, loose change, and
+handkerchief from his coat-pocket and piling them up on the table.
+
+"Every man followed his lead, the contagion of his example having spread
+through the room. The unloading was as much a part of the merriment of
+the evening as Tim's comic song or Sam's sallies of wit. Tim, all this
+time, had been edging near where Sam stood.
+
+"'Out with your stuff, Peaslee,' shouted the millionnaire--'here, right
+on the table--everything.'
+
+"Tim turned pale and made a step nearer Sam.
+
+"'I haven't got the opal, Sam; indeed I haven't!' There was a tone in
+his voice that was almost pathetic.
+
+"'Of course you haven't, old man, but out with your stuff, just as the
+others have. Hurry up!'
+
+"'I can't, Sam!' groaned Tim.
+
+"You can't!'
+
+"'No, I can't! Please don't ask me. I must bid you good-night,
+gentlemen. Please let me go away,' and he moved to the door and shut it
+behind him.
+
+"Every man looked at Sam. For a moment no one spoke. Collins himself was
+dumfounded.
+
+"Damn queer, isn't it?' whispered the millionnaire to Sam. 'What do you
+think is the matter with him?'
+
+"'Nothing that YOU think!' said Sam, looking him square in the face, a
+peculiar glitter in his eye that some of his workmen knew when there was
+any trouble in the mine. 'Let us drink to his health. He is not
+accustomed to being out, and the wine has perhaps gone to his head.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MacWhirter reached for his pipe, knocked the bowl against the brickwork
+of the big fireplace to free it from its dead ashes, and turned again to
+the circle about him. At the same instant the back-log settled itself
+with a sigh of satisfaction, and a crackling of sparks--the fire's
+applause, no doubt--filled the hearth.
+
+"Is that all?" broke in Boggs.
+
+"Not quite," Mac answered. "All for that night, and all for the next
+day, so far as Tim was concerned, for the old fellow shut himself up in
+his room and said he was sick, and Sam had to leave for Mexico without
+seeing him."
+
+"What did the others think?"
+
+"Just what you would have thought, and _did_, when I told it awhile ago.
+That's why I asked you. The millionnaire believed, of course, Tim had
+stolen it, and so did the physician. Made such an impression on the new
+directors present that Sam smothered his intended surprise and left his
+speech unfinished.
+
+"Three months after that Sam came back to New York with more opals, many
+of them much larger and finer than the one which had so mysteriously
+disappeared. He arrived after everybody had gone to bed--Tim Peaslee
+among them--and remembering the dinner, and where he had eaten it, and
+how good it was, he got into a cab and drove to Solari's. The head
+waiter looked him over for a moment--he still wore the same
+sombrero--and went out and got the clerk, who asked him his name; and
+then Solari came in and asked him more questions and laid the lost opal
+in his hand. It had been found under a corner of the carpet when it had
+been taken up and shaken the week before, and Solari had been trying
+ever since to find some way of letting Sam know.
+
+"It was now eleven o'clock, but that didn't make any difference to Sam.
+He laid a five-dollar bill on the table to pay for the supper he had
+ordered and hadn't time to eat, made a rush for the door, jumped into a
+cab and drove like mad to Bond Street. The outer door was open. He
+mounted the stairs three steps at a time and banged away at Tim's door.
+It happened to be Tim's night for working over his accounts, and he was
+still up.
+
+"'I've got it, Tim--rolled under the carpet. Here it is. Let me hug you,
+you old fraud! Where's Miss Ann? I want to see her. Go and dig her out
+of bed, I tell you!'
+
+"All this time Sam was hugging Tim like a bear, lifting him up and down
+as if he had been a baby. When they got inside and Tim had shut the hall
+door, and had tiptoed toward his sister's room and had seen that her
+door was shut tight--so tight that she couldn't hear--he came back to
+where Sam stood and nearly shook his arm off.
+
+"'Found it under the carpet, did they? Oh, I'm so glad! I never shall
+forget that night, Sam. They wanted me to empty my pockets, and I
+couldn't. I didn't care what they thought. Oh, Sam, it was awful! You
+didn't think I had taken it, did you?'
+
+"'No, old man, I didn't, and that's square. But why didn't you unload
+with the others?'
+
+"Tim craned his head toward Miss Ann's door, listened intently for a
+moment, and said:
+
+"'I had one of those little fat quail in my coat-tail pocket; they
+passed me two. Ann used to love them, and I knew you wouldn't mind; and
+I lied about it when I gave it to her and told her you sent it. Don't
+tell her, please.'"
+
+As Mac finished, a log which had perhaps leaned too far forward in its
+effort to listen, lost its balance and rolled over on the hearth,
+sending a shower of astonished sparks scurrying up the chimney. Marny
+bent forward and sent it back into place with his foot. Wharton pushed
+back his chair and without a word reached for his coat; so did Pitkin
+and the others. The story had evidently made a deep impression on them,
+so much so that Marny didn't speak to Pitkin or Wharton until they
+reached the Square, and then only to say: "Regular old trump, that
+book-keeper--wasn't he?"
+
+Boggs still sat hunched up in his chair. He was less emotional than dear
+old Marny, but his heart was in the right place all the same.
+
+"Bully story, Mac--one of your best. Heard something like that before.
+Heard it in two or three ways--as a peach in a Bishop's pocket; as a
+snuff-box in an admiral's. You're a daisy, Mac, for warming over club
+chestnuts. But that's all right. Now, what was the surprise Collins had
+up his sleeve when he got up to make his speech that night?"
+
+"Why, Tim's appointment as book-keeper of the new company. His refusal
+to be searched of course knocked that in the head. He's treasurer now;
+has a big slice of the stock that Sam gave him for luck; has lost all
+his wrinkles, looks ten years younger, and is getting a new crop of
+hair. Miss Ann has got over her cough and is spry as a kitten--spryer.
+They are all out at the mine; she keeps house for them both."
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+_Wherein the Gentle Art of Dining is Variously Described._
+
+
+"Move back, Lonnegan, and let me get at it!" cried MacWhirter the next
+afternoon. "You jab a fire as if it were something you wanted to kill!
+Coddle it a little, like this," and Mac laid the warm cheeks of two logs
+together and a sputtering of hot kisses filled the hearth.
+
+"Don't call him 'Lonnegan,' Mac, in that rude and boisterous way,"
+expostulated Boggs. "It jars on his Royal Highness's finer
+sensibilities. Say 'Mr. Lonnegan, will you have the kindness to remove
+your beautiful and well-groomed and fashionable carcass until I can add
+a stick or two to my fire?' Lonnegan has been in society--out every
+night this week, I hear."
+
+Mac replaced the tongs and straightened his back, his face turned toward
+Lonnegan.
+
+"Were you really on exhibition, Lonny?" Mac's impatience never lasts
+many seconds.
+
+The architect nodded, then answered slowly:
+
+"Five dinners and a tea."
+
+"All rich houses, I suppose?"
+
+"Very rich."
+
+"And all wanted plans for country seats, of course?"
+
+"Some of them--two, I think."
+
+"Extra dry champagne, under-done canvas-backs and costly terrapin served
+every five minutes?"
+
+"No. Extra dry canvas-backs, done-over terrapin, and cheap champagne.
+Served but once, thank God!"
+
+"Wore your swell clothes, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, swallow-tail on me every night and a head on me every morning,"
+answered Lonnegan with a grave face. "Why do you ask, Mac?"
+
+"Oh, just to keep in touch with the history of my country, old man."
+
+While the two men talked, Pitkin and Van Brunt walked in--the latter a
+Dutch painter in New York for the winter, just arrived by steamer. The
+atmosphere of No. 3 was evidently congenial to the man, for, after a
+hand-shake all round, the Hollander produced his own pipe, filled it
+from a leather pouch in his pocket, and sat down before the fire as
+unconcerned and as contented as if he'd been one of the fire's circle
+from the day of its lighting. Good Bohemians, so called the world over,
+have an international code of manners, just as all club men of equal
+class agree upon certain details of dress and etiquette, no matter what
+their tongue. The brush, the chisel, the trowel, and the test-tube are
+so many talismans--open sesames to the whole fraternity.
+
+The Hollander had overheard the last half of Mac's sally and Lonnegan's
+grave rejoinder.
+
+"Yes, the terrapin and the canvas-back, I hear much of them. What does a
+terrapin look like, Mr. Lonnegan?"
+
+"A terrapin, Van Brunt," interrupted Boggs, "is a hide-bound little
+beast that sleeps in the mud, is as ugly as the devil, and can bite a
+tenpenny nail in two with his teeth when he's awake. When he is boiled
+and picked clean, and served with Madeira, he is the most toothsome
+compound known to cookery."
+
+"Correctly described, Boggs--'compound' is good," said Lonnegan. "The
+up-to-date-modern-millionnaire-terrapin, Mr. Van Brunt, is a reptile
+compounded of glue, chicken-bones, chopped calf's head, and old
+India-rubber shoes. When ready for use it tastes like flour paste served
+in hot flannel. I may be wrong about the chopped calf's head, but I'm
+all right about the India-rubber shoes. I've been eating them this
+week, and part of a heel is still here"--and he tapped his shirt-front.
+
+"And the canvas-back?" continued Van Brunt, laughing. "It is a duck, is
+it not?"
+
+"Occasionally a duck--I speak, of course, of tables where I have
+dined--but seldom a canvas-back."
+
+"And they live in the marshes, I hear, and feed on the wild celery--do
+they not?"
+
+"No; they live in a cold storage six months in the year, and feed on
+sawdust and ice," replied Lonnegan with the face of a stone god.
+
+"Hard life, isn't it?" remarked Boggs to the circle at large.
+
+"For the duck?" asked Pitkin.
+
+"No--for Lonnegan. Orders for country houses come high."
+
+"Serves him right!" ventured Marny. "No business eating such messes;
+ought to get back to----"
+
+"Hog and hominy," interrupted Lonnegan, still with the same grave face.
+
+"Both. That's what most of your millionnaires were brought up on."
+
+Pitkin sprang from his seat, and, thrusting both hands into his pockets,
+burst out with--
+
+"Gentlemen, you really don't know what good eating is! The taste for
+terrapin and canvas-back is part of the degeneration of the age; so is
+it for truffles, mushrooms, caviare, and a lot of such messes. The
+French, whose cuisine we imitate, turn out a lot of flat-chested,
+spindle-shanks on sauces and ragouts. We'll go to the devil in the same
+way if we follow their cooks. The English raise the highest standard of
+man on tough bread and the most insipid boiled mutton in the world. What
+we have got to do is to get back to our plain old-fashioned kitchens.
+The best dinner I ever had in my life was when I was sixteen years old,
+and even now, whenever I get a whiff from a shop where they are cooking
+the same combination, I can no more pass it than a drunkard can pass a
+rum-mill."
+
+"Drunk on pork and beans!" growled Boggs in a low voice to Marny. "I
+knew you'd come to no good end, Pitkin. You ought to sign a pledge and
+join a non-adulterated food society."
+
+"Something better than pork and beans, you beggar!" retorted
+Pitkin--"something that makes my mouth water every time I think of it.
+And hungry! the prodigal son was an over-fed alderman to me; real
+gnawing, empty kind of hunger."
+
+Ford stood up and faced the circle.
+
+"The great sculptor, gentlemen, is about to tell us what he knows of
+biblical history. Silence!"
+
+"I had been out gunning all day----"
+
+"I didn't know you were a sportsman," interpolated Boggs.
+
+"I had been gunning all day," Pitkin repeated firmly, ignoring the
+Chronic Interrupter, "and had lost my way over the mountains. Just about
+dark I reached the valley and made for a small cabin with a curl of
+smoke coming out of the chimney. As I came nearer I got a whiff from a
+fry-pan that made me ravenous--one of those smells you never forget to
+your dying day. As I opened the gate I could see the glow of a fire in
+the stove, the smell getting stronger every minute. Inside, I found a
+man sitting in his shirt-sleeves by a table. The table had two plates on
+it, two knives, two forks, and two big china cups. Bending over the hot
+stove was his wife. She was stirring a large bowl filled to the brim
+with buckwheat batter. On the stove was a hot griddle and a fry-pan, and
+coiled in the fry-pan, trim as a rope coiled flat on a yacht's deck, lay
+a string of link sausages, with the bight of the line sticking up in the
+centre, like Mac's thumb.
+
+"'Are you Pitkin's boy?' the man said, after I had explained.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Sit down and eat'
+
+"The old man had two cakes, and I had two cakes. They were griddled in
+fours, and we both had a link of sausage with each instalment. I never
+moved from my chair until the tide-mark oh the bowl had gone down five
+inches, and the core of the sausages looked as if a solid shot had
+struck it. That smell! and the way it all tasted, and the little brown
+frazzlings around the edges of the celestial cakes, and the sizzlings of
+fat on the sausages, and the boiling hot coffee that washed it all down!
+Oh, go to with your Delmonico dishes! Give me the days of my youth! If I
+had but four breaths left in me, and if somebody should pass that pan of
+sausages under my nose, I could rise up and whip my weight in wild-cats.
+And yet that smell doesn't bring to my memory the way my hunger was
+satisfied, or how the food tasted. What I recall is the low-ceiled room,
+and the glow of the fire; the warmth and comfort everywhere, and the
+high light on the old Frau's face bending over her griddle. You'd just
+love to have painted that old woman, Mac."
+
+The Hollander had listened quietly and without comment, both to
+Lonnegan's chaff and to Pitkin's enthusiastic recital.
+
+"Ah, yes, you are quite right, Mr. Pitkin; after all, it is the
+imagination that is fed, not the stomach."
+
+The measured tones of the speaker's voice at once commanded attention;
+even Boggs twisted his head to catch his words:
+
+"It is his imagination, too, which suffers when a man loses his money
+and becomes poor. What he misses most, then, is not his horses and
+carriages and fine houses; it is his table, and the clean napkins and
+the linen, and hot plates and the quite thin glasses. Is it not so? I
+can think of nothing more satisfying than a well-appointed table, with
+the servants about and the dishes properly served, and with the flowers,
+silver, and glass, the better wines coming later, the coffee and cigar
+at the end. And I can think of nothing more pitiful than for a man who
+has had all this, to be obliged to stand at a cheap counter and eat a
+cheap sandwich. My father used to tell me a story about the spendthrift
+son of an old baron who lived in my town, by the name of De Ruyter, and
+who spent in just two years every guilder his father left him. Then came
+roulette, and at last he was a tout for gaming-houses--so poor that he
+had but one coat to his back. All this time, having been born a
+gentleman, he managed to keep himself clean, his clothes brushed and
+mended, and his shirt and collar ironed. That is quite difficult for a
+man who is poor.
+
+"One day an old friend of his dead father's, a very rich man, took pity
+on him, and asked him to call at his house so that he might arrange to
+get him work. He received him in his library and rang for cigars and
+brandy, which his servant brought on a silver plate. The brandy the poor
+fellow drank, but the cigar he begged permission to put in his pocket
+and smoke later in the day. It was one of those great cigars the rich
+Hollanders smoke, about as long as your hand and thick like two fingers.
+This one had a little band around it, with the coat of arms of the
+gentleman stamped in gold; not a cigar you can buy even in Amsterdam,
+but a cigar made especially for very big customers like this one.
+
+"When young De Ruyter went out from the library he carried a letter to a
+merchant on the dock, which got for him a situation at ten guilders a
+week, and this big cigar. All the way to his lodgings in the garret he
+kept his hand on it as it lay flat in his waist-coat-pocket. At every
+street corner he took it out carefully to see that it was not mashed or
+broken. When he pushed in his room door he began to look around for a
+place to put it. He was afraid to carry it around with him for fear of
+crushing it. At last he saw a crack in the plaster just above the bed,
+showing two open laths. He wrapped it most carefully in paper and laid
+it in the opening; here it would be dry and out of danger; here he could
+always be sure that it was safe. Then he presented his letter and went
+to work for the merchant on the dock.
+
+"All that week he waited for Saturday night, when he would get his first
+ten guilders, and all that week before he went to sleep he would take a
+look at the cigar to be sure it was there. Every morning when he awoke
+he did the same thing. When Saturday night came, and the money was laid
+in his hand, he hurried to his garret, washed himself clean, brushed the
+only coat he owned, took out the precious cigar, laid it on his bed
+where it would be safe while he finished dressing, put his hat on one
+side of his head in his old rakish way, gave a look at himself in the
+broken glass, and downstairs he goes humming a tune to himself. He was
+very happy. Now he would have the best dinner he had had for months, and
+feel like a gentleman once more. And the cigar! Ah, that would end it
+all up! You see, gentlemen, with us the whole dinner is only the cigar;
+everything is arranged most carefully for that.
+
+"Then De Ruyter walks into Van Hoesen's, the largest cafe we have in my
+town; stands until the head waiter recognizes him and comes over to his
+side; orders with his old magnificent manner the wines, the soup, the
+entrees, even the anchovies after the sweets--that is a custom of
+ours--the whole costing ten guilders, with one guilder to the waiter.
+When it was served he sat himself down, opened his napkin, tipped the
+newspaper where he could glance at it, and ate very slowly like a man of
+leisure.
+
+"When the coffee was passed the head waiter brought to him an assortment
+of cigars on a tray, some one guilder each, some five cents. De Ruyter
+pushed them away with a contemptuous wave of the hand, saying, 'There is
+nothing you have to my taste; I will smoke my own.'
+
+"The great moment had now arrived. He paid his bill, ordered a fresh
+candle, waited until the head waiter, whose guilder had made him all the
+more obsequious, had lighted it and stood waiting where he could see,
+and then slipped his hand into his inside pocket for the cigar. It was
+not there! Then he remembered that he had not taken it from the bed.
+
+"He ran all the way home. There lay the cigar on the blanket. The next
+instant it was on the floor and under his heel.
+
+"'Lie there, damn you!' he said, crushing it to pieces. 'You have
+spoiled my dinner!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see, gentlemen, it was not the hunger of the empty stomach; it was
+a starved imagination that was ravenous like a wolf. Ah, cannot you feel
+for the poor fellow? All the week hungry, one great idea of the dignity
+of rank in his mind, and then to have his triumph spoiled, and under the
+eyes of the head waiter, too! And such beasts of waiters they are at
+home, with their eyes seeing everything and their tongues never still!
+My father, when he would tell the story, would tap his chair and say,
+'Ah, poor devil! such a pity--such a pity he forgot it! It would have
+tasted so good to him!' That was a word of my father's--'He forgot
+it--he forgot it,' he would say, shaking his finger at us."
+
+"All to the credit of your father, Van Brunt," burst out Marny; "but if
+you want my candid opinion of your blue-blooded, busted baron, I think
+he was a selfish brute, without the first glimmer of what a gentleman
+should have done under such circumstances, and I leave it to everybody
+here to decide whether I'm right or wrong. What he ought to have done
+was to hunt around for some of his friends, order a dinner for two, hand
+his friend the cigar and take a cheap one from the waiter for himself.
+What you call 'fine eating' has nothing to do with either the stomach or
+with the imagination. Fine eating is an excuse for good fellowship; when
+you don't have that, it is a 'stalled ox' and the rest of it. What you
+want is to open with a laugh and eat straight through to that same kind
+of music. All the good dinners in the world were jolly dinners; all the
+poor ones were funeral gatherings, no matter how good the cooking. I'll
+give you an idea of what a good dinner ought to be. None of your
+selfish, solitary-confinement sort of a meal like this self-centred
+Dutchman's, but a rip-roaring, waistcoat-swelling, breath-catching,
+hilarious feast, which began with a hurrah, continued with every man
+singing psalms of thanksgiving over the dishes and the company, and
+ended with a tempest of good cheer and everybody loving everybody else
+twice as much for having come together."
+
+"Clam-chowder club, of course," growled Boggs, "with a brass band and a
+cord of firewood, and three-legged stools to sit on."
+
+Marny glared at the Chronic Interrupter, made a movement with his hand
+as if to compel his silence, and continued:
+
+"We had eaten nothing since breakfast but five raw clams apiece,
+and----"
+
+"Where was all this, Marny, anyhow?" asked Boggs.
+
+"Down at Uncle Jesse Conklin's, on Cap Tree Island," retorted Marny
+impatiently.
+
+"All right--sounded as if it might be at a summer boarding-house. Go
+ahead!"
+
+"No, down on Great South Bay. The Stone Mugs had an outing and I went
+along. These clams coming on an empty stomach and being right out of the
+salt water and fresh and cold----"
+
+"Mixed in your statements, old man: can't be salt and fresh at the same
+time. But go on! So far we've only got five clams to be hilarious
+on----"
+
+Marny reached over and grabbed Boggs by the collar.
+
+"Will you shut up, or shall I throw you over the banisters?"
+
+"I'll shut up--like your clam; won't say another word, so help me!" and
+Boggs held up one hand as if to be sworn.
+
+"These clams," continued Marny, releasing his hold on Boggs's collar,
+"coming as they did on an empty stomach, made every man ravenous. French
+shrimps, Dutch pickles, and Swedish anchovies--all the appetizers you
+ever heard of--were mild compared to them. Uncle Jesse had opened them
+himself, the ten men standing around taking the contents of each shell
+from the end of Uncle Jesse's fork and then waiting their turns until
+the fork came their way again. All this was under a shed in full view of
+the harbor and the old man's boats and buildings.
+
+"When the sun went down we went into the bar-room, and Uncle Jesse
+compounded a mixture which made an afternoon call on the five clams, and
+by that time we could have eaten each other. Six o'clock came, and no
+signs of anything. Half past six, and not the faintest smell of fried,
+boiled, or roasted: no hurrying waiters in sight; no maids in aprons;
+nothing indicating any preparation or any place for it to preparate in
+unless it was a room behind a small white-pine door which Uncle Jesse
+had locked in full view of the hungry crowd. Only once did he explain
+this mystery; that was when he jerked his thumb in the direction of the
+vacancy on the other side of the panels, and remarked sententiously,
+'Won't be long now.'
+
+"Soon a wild misgiving arose in our minds. Had anything happened to the
+cook, or would the simple repast--we had left the details to Uncle
+Jesse--consist of only clams and cocktails?
+
+"All this time Uncle Jesse was patient and polite, but almighty
+mysterious. Bets now began to be made in whispers by the men: It would
+be thin oyster soup, pumpkin pies, and cider; or cold corn beef and
+preserves; or, worse still, codfish balls and griddle-cakes. Seven
+o'clock came--seven-five--seven-ten. Then a gong sounded in the next
+room, and Uncle Jesse sprang to the door, raised one hand while the
+other fumbled with the lock, and shouted as he swung back the door:
+
+"'Solid men to the front!'
+
+"You should have seen that table! One long perspective of
+bliss--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and
+broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish down to the
+end of the table; and alongside each plate a quart of extra-dry,
+frappeed to half a degree, and a pint of Burgundy the temperature of
+your sweet-heart's hand! All about were heaps of home-made bread and
+flakes of butter, and--Oh, that table!
+
+"We stood paralyzed for a moment, and then sent up a roaring cheer that
+nearly lifted the roof. Uncle Jesse wasn't going to sit down, but we
+grabbed him by the shoulders and started him on the run for the end of
+the table, and there he sat until only heaps of bones and dead bottles
+marked the scene of action. Whenever a man could get his breath he broke
+out in song, everybody joining in. 'Oh, dem golden fritters!' was
+chanted to an accompaniment of clattering forks on empty plates, the
+cook and his staff craning their heads through the door and helping out
+with a double shuffle of their own.
+
+"Coffee was served in the bar-room, and all filed out to drink it,
+every man full to his eyelids and saturated with a contentment that only
+Long Island blue-fish and Fulton Market steak with the necessary liquids
+and solids could produce.
+
+"While we smoked on and sipped our coffee, Uncle Jesse's silences became
+more frequent, and soon the old fellow dozed off to sleep. He was over
+seventy then, and was used to having a nap after dinner.
+
+"Now came the best part of the feast. Every man tiptoed out of the room,
+overhauled his sketch-trap, took out charcoal, color tubes and brushes,
+red chalk, whatever came handy, and started in to work--some standing on
+chairs above where the old man sat sound asleep, others working away
+like mad on the coarse, whitewashed walls, making portraits of
+him--sketches of the landing and fish houses we had seen during our
+waiting--outlines of the bar and background, no one breathing loud or
+even whispering, so afraid they would wake him--until every square foot
+of the walls were covered with sketches. When we were through, someone
+coughed, and the old man sat up and began to rub his eyes. Pleased!
+Well, I should think so! He gave one bound, made a tour of the room
+studying each sketch, dodged under his bar and began to set up things,
+and would have continued to set up things all night had we permitted it.
+Every spring after that, when he rewhitewashed the old room, he would
+work carefully around each sketch, the new whitewash making a mat for
+the pictures. People came for miles up and down the bay to see them, and
+there was more extra-dry and trimmings sold that summer than ever
+before. Ever after that, whenever a friend of any member of the Stone
+Mugs went ashore at Cap Tree Island, and after settling his score
+mentioned incidentally that he knew So-and-So of the Mugs, and had heard
+of the wonderful dinner, etc., the old man would always push his money
+back to him with:
+
+"'Not a cent--not a cent! Stay a week and order what you want, and if
+you don't want everything in the house I'll get my gun.'"
+
+"Haven't got a time-table, have you, Marny," asked Boggs feelingly, "of
+the boat that goes to Cap Tree Island?"
+
+"Do you no good, Boggs," answered Jack Stirling. "The old man has been
+in heaven these ten years. I knew his broiled blue-fish--none better.
+Marny is right--they were wonderful. But really, Marny, do you call that
+a good dinner?--ten men, fifteen bottles of assorted wines, five steaks,
+five broiled fish, and----"
+
+"Well, what else would you call it? What would you want?" retorted
+Marny.
+
+"What else? Oh, my dear Marny! and you ask that question!"
+
+"Wasn't there enough to eat?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Wine all right?"
+
+"Perfect."
+
+"Jolly crowd of the best fellows in the world?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"What then, you fish-monger? Why, just one woman! Let me tell you of a
+dinner!"
+
+Jack was on his feet now, his hand outstretched, his eyes partly closed
+as if the scene he was about to describe lay immediately beneath his
+gaze.
+
+"It was on a balcony overlooking St. Cloud--all Paris swimming in a
+golden haze. There were violets--and a pair of long gray gloves on the
+white cloth--and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with roses, shading a pair
+of brown eyes. Oh! such eyes! 'A pint of Chablis,' I said to the waiter;
+'sole a la Marguerey, some broiled mushrooms, and a fruit salad--and
+please take the candles away; we prefer the twilight.'
+
+"But the perfume of the violets--and the lifting of her lashes--and the
+way she looked at me, and----"
+
+[Illustration: But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at
+me.]
+
+Jack stopped, bent over, and gazed into the smouldering coals of the now
+dying fire.
+
+"Go on, Jack," urged Pitkin in an encouraging tone--they had lived
+together in the same studio in the Quartier, these two, and knew each
+other's lives as they did their own pockets,--or each other's, for that
+matter.
+
+"No, I'm not going on--only waste it on you fellows. That's all. Just
+one of my memories, my boy. But it comes from wet violets, mark you, not
+from fry-pans, cold bottles, or hot fish," and he glanced at Marny.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+_With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair._
+
+
+"Don't be angry, Colonel,"--no mortal man knows why Mac calls me
+"Colonel,"--"but would you mind leaving that red rose you've got in your
+button-hole outside in the hall, or some place where I can't smell it?
+Red roses have a singular effect on me." I had come in earlier than the
+others this afternoon and had found Mac alone.
+
+I looked at Mac in astonishment. Peculiar as he sometimes is, hatred of
+flowers is not one of his eccentricities.
+
+"Why, I thought you loved roses!"
+
+"I do--all except red ones."
+
+I unpinned the rose from my button-hole and laid it in a glass on the
+shelf over his wash-basin.
+
+"All right; anything to please you, Mac. Now out with it; give me the
+name of the girl, and tell me why."
+
+Mac laughed quietly to himself and settled down in his chair. For some
+time he did not speak.
+
+"Go on; I'm waiting."
+
+"Oh, it brings up a memory, that's all, Colonel. You heard what Stirling
+said about the perfume of violets bringing back to him the little dinner
+he had with Christine Levoix at the Bellevue overlooking the Seine,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, but he didn't mention the girl's name."
+
+"I know; but it was Christine. I remember that hat and the gloves. In my
+day they were black, not gray, and came up to her shoulders, like
+Yvette's. The eyes, though, never changed, no matter who sat opposite.
+Stirling bought a lot of violets that year; so did some of the others in
+the Quartier, until the Russian carried her off to Moscow," and again
+Mac laughed softly to himself. "Well, perfumes produce that same effect
+on me."
+
+"Of violets?" I asked, twisting my head to look into Mac's eyes.
+
+"No--tarred hemp and roses." Then he added slowly and thoughtfully, as
+if he were recalling some incident in his past life: "Quite a different
+kind of girl, my boy, from Christine; about as different as--well, there
+isn't any comparison. Yes, tarred hemp and red roses; funny combination,
+isn't it?--and yet I never catch the odor of one without smelling the
+other. And the whole scene comes back, too, every detail: the rolling
+ship; the girl as she lay in her chair, the roses in her lap; the tones
+of the Captain's voice (I have sometimes heard them in my sleep); the
+glare of the overhead light, and then the splash. Queer things, these
+memories!"
+
+Mac paused, and smoked on quietly.
+
+I made no answer. If you want Mac at his best, never interrupt him.
+When he is in one of his reminiscent moods his philosophy, his knowledge
+of life, his wide personal experience, his many adventures by land and
+sea make him the most delightful of conversationalists, while his choice
+of words and marvellous powers of description--talking as a painter
+talks, one who sees and who, therefore, can make you see; using words as
+some men do pigments with all the force of their contrasts--make his
+descriptions but so many brilliantly colored pictures. Then his voice!
+Suddenly, without a moment's warning, your eyes fill up, leaving you
+wondering why, until you remember some throat tone that vibrated through
+you like the note of a violin.
+
+When he is in one of these moods he rarely looks at me or at anyone who
+listens, especially when he is alone with some one of his chums--and we
+two were alone this afternoon, it being Varnishing Day, and all of the
+men at the Academy. He looks up at the ceiling, lying back in his chair,
+talking to some crack or stain in the plastering, or drops his head and
+talks to the smouldering coals, his human eyes fixed on the logs. This
+habit of talking to whatever is within the reach of his hands or
+legs--his brushes, palette, colors, the chair that gets in his way, the
+rug he stumbles over--is characteristic of the man; woodsmen have it who
+live alone in great forests. Mac's explanation is that he lived so much
+alone in his early life that he acquired the habit in self-defence. The
+fire, however, seems to understand, never answering back as it does to
+me when I try to punch it into life, but simmering away like a
+slow-boiling pot, giving out a steady glow for hours as it listens,
+nursing its heat until the master has finished or puts on another log.
+
+Mac refilled his pipe, rested the tongs where his hand could grasp them,
+and continued, his big shoulders filling the chair, the light of the
+blaze on his humorous, kindly face.
+
+"There are great contrasts in life, my boy, that never fail to interest
+me--big Rembrandt things that stand out sharp and solid, sudden as the
+exit from a foul shaft into a sunny winter's day, white and cold. And
+the reverse side--the black side. That is the worst of these contrasts,
+the darks always predominate--out of a yacht's warm cabin, for instance,
+into a merciless, hungry sea, without a moment's warning. No, nothing to
+do with my memory of tarred hemp and red roses; only to make my point
+clear to you," and Mac's head sank the lower in his chair. "Did you ever
+focus your mind, for one thing, on the contrasts that the two sides of a
+nine-inch brick wall of any house in town present? Did you never lie in
+your bed, with your head to the plaster, and wonder what was going on
+nine inches away from your ears? I have; I do it now. It may be sorrow
+or cruelty or death, if we did but know--some girl mourning for her
+lover; some woman crouching in fear; some silent body, cold in a sheet.
+Not always so, of course; many times the happiness is on their side and
+all the misery on ours; but the two atmospheres are never alike. Only
+nine inches of wall! Shut it out as we may, cover it with tapestries or
+pictures or paint, it is still within that many inches of our ears. What
+a blessing we can't see! Life would be a hell for some of us if we saw
+both sides of its brick walls at once. I try now and then to get a
+glimpse of both sides because of the effects I get of light and
+shadow--they always appeal to me. When I do I often get a heart wrench
+that upsets me for days, and yet the next opportunity I am at it again."
+
+Once more Mac paused and looked into the fire, as if he were trying to
+recall to his mind, among its glowing, heaped-up coals, some picture in
+that rich past of his.
+
+"And that old perfume of tarred hemp and roses," I asked, "does that
+suggest one of them?"
+
+"Yes, one of the strangest I ever experienced; and yet it was only one
+of the things that goes on every day. A steamer's deck was the brick
+wall this time: On our side a cloudless sky, fresh air, light, chairs
+filling the length of the deck, whisperings in corners, two lovers
+hanging over the rail, some in the bow away from intruders. Now and then
+a line of song wafted from open cabin windows. Seaward, a stretch of
+steely blue dominated by a clear, round moon, its light flooding a
+pathway of silver to the very side of the ship, a pathway along which
+angels might have stepped--were stepping, if we could have seen.
+
+"This was one of the times when I had both sides of the wall in review;
+she did not. Her heart and mind were on other things. No, nothing that
+you think, old man; not another Christine--I left all that behind me;
+not anybody in particular, really; just a girl I met on board. There
+were a dozen others as pretty--prettier. Our steamer chairs happened to
+come together, that was all. We were but two days out, and her roses
+were still fresh--big red ones that some of her friends had sent her.
+They lay in her lap over her steamer rug. I picked them up for her when
+they dropped to the deck, and so the acquaintance began.
+
+"Such a happy girl, with a fresh, sunburnt skin, and strong chest, and
+capable, earnest eyes; no nonsense about her, no coquetry."
+
+Mac hesitated for an instant and a look of peculiar tenderness came into
+his face--one I always remembered. Then he went on:
+
+"Just a plain, straightforward American girl, with a good mother at home
+and a matter-of-fact father who had sent her abroad with an aunt who was
+flat on her back in her cabin most of the time; she herself looked as if
+she had never known a day's sickness in her life. This was her first
+trip abroad. Half a dozen young men and as many young girls had come to
+see her off, and her share of the flowers sent on board had been the
+largest, and she was as happy over it as a child with a new toy--that
+kind of a girl. She wanted, of course, to know about Mt. Blanc and the
+Rhigi, and whether the Salon would be open, and which pictures she ought
+to see, and what at the Luxembourg--all the questions a girl asks when
+she finds you can paint. Her joyousness, though, was what appealed to
+me. I like happy people. To her the deck of the steamer was the top of a
+great hill from which she looked down on sunshine and peace; no clouds,
+no dark shadows; only perspectives of greater happiness yet to come.
+This was her side of the wall.
+
+"I did not disturb her outlook. What use would it have been? Why tell
+her of what was going on, for instance, under her very eyes? Why let her
+know that that tightly built young man who seemed to be so devoted to
+the pale, hollow-eyed gentleman of sixty, sitting beside him in the
+smoking-room or in the steamer chairs--never five feet away from him day
+or night--was a Scotland Yard detective, and that the hollow-eyed
+invalid would have a pair of handcuffs slipped over his white, trembling
+wrists as soon as the gang-plank was fastened to the dock? Or why let
+her know that the thoughtful, clean-shaven young man who now spent most
+of his time in walking the deck had never entered the smoking-room since
+the first night, when the purser took him one side and, calling him by a
+name not on the passenger list had informed him in measured tones that
+it might interfere with his comfort if he took the wrapper from another
+pack of his own or anybody else's cards during the remainder of the
+voyage. Neither did I tell her, that third night out, where I had spent
+the afternoon, except to say that I had been with Mr. Hunter, the Chief
+Engineer, in his room several decks below where we sat--down among the
+furnaces and hot steam and plunging pistons--adding that the Chief was a
+great friend of mine and had been for years. If you ever get to know him
+as I do he may some time, in a burst of confidence, open the drawer of a
+locker behind his bunk and show you a little paper box, and inside of it
+a small bit of copper about the size of a big cent with a crossbar and a
+ribbon, saying that it was for gallant conduct or something like it.
+
+"But that has got nothing to do with my perfume of tarred rope and
+roses--quite another affair altogether--an affair that the Chief and I
+had had some previous talk about; and so I was not surprised when his
+messenger approached my chair and the girl's, and said in a low voice,
+bending close to me:
+
+"'Mr. Hunter's compliments, sir, and he would like to see you in his
+room, if you don't mind. He says if you can't come it will be at twelve
+sharp, and you're not to mention it to any of the passengers, sir.'
+
+"She looked at me curiously, having heard the messenger's words, but I
+did not explain, and, rising quickly, left her with the roses in her
+lap--her last bunch, she told me.
+
+"Hunter met me at the door; the Second Engineer and the ship's Doctor
+were inside his room.
+
+"'That stoker died about an hour ago, wasn't it, Doctor?' Hunter asked,
+turning to the ship's surgeon.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"These men are accustomed to such incidents; there is hardly a voyage
+without one or more of them. To me it was but the opening of another
+crack in one of my brick walls.
+
+"'What of?' I asked.
+
+"'Exhaustion; want of food, perhaps, and the heat. The heart gave out,'
+answered the Doctor in a perfunctory tone.
+
+"'Do many of them go that way?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes, when they strike the furnaces for the first time. This man was
+too old--over fifty, I should say--and should never have been taken on,'
+and he glanced reprovingly at Hunter.
+
+"'He begged so hard,' interrupted the Second Engineer, 'I let him on. We
+are short of men, too, on account of the strike--'He spoke as if in
+defence of his Chief. 'Didn't look to me to be so old till he caved in.
+Shall I make a box for him, sir?' and he turned to Hunter.
+
+"'Yes, and paint it.'
+
+"The Chief slipped his arm through mine, led me to a seat on the sofa
+beside his desk, and continued:
+
+"'He came aboard the day before we left New York. It was about seven
+o'clock at night, and I had changed my clothes and was going uptown to
+the theatre. I stood at the end of the gang-plank for a minute looking
+up the dock, pretty clean of freight by that time, and this man came
+creeping down along the side of the ship, looking about him in a way I
+didn't like. As he got nearer he stopped under a dock light, fumbled in
+his pocket and brought out a letter. He wasn't ten feet from me, and so
+I could see his face. He read it two or three times over, turning the
+leaves, and then he slipped it back into his pocket again and looked up
+at the ship's side; then he saw me and came straight for me.
+
+"'"I must go home," he said; "can you take me on?"
+
+"'"What at?" I got a look into his eyes then, and saw he was no thief;
+seemed more like a carpenter or a bricklayer.
+
+"'"Anything you can give me."
+
+"'"Stoking?"
+
+"'"Yes, if there's nothing else."
+
+"'Then the Second Engineer came down the gang-plank and I turned the man
+over to him and went uptown. When I heard he was to be buried I sent for
+you, just as I had promised.'
+
+"I had talked with Hunter about a burial at sea--it was one of the
+contrasts I had been waiting for. They had occurred often enough in my
+many crossings, but I, like the other passengers, was never informed;
+such sights are not proper on our side of the wall.
+
+"'What else did he say to you?' This question I addressed to the Second
+Engineer.
+
+"'Nothin'. I put him on; we ought to have six or eight more, but we
+couldn't get 'em--short now.'
+
+"'Did you find the letter?' I asked.
+
+"'No; Doctor did. He's got it now. He read it.'
+
+"'What did it say?'
+
+"'Well, near as I can remember, somethin' about his comin' home; a woman
+wrote it. He'll tell you when he comes back.'
+
+"'I'd like to see where he worked.' I was stretching the crack in my
+wall; peering into the next room, finding out how they lived and what
+on--all the things you should let alone, not being my business and the
+man being beyond hope.
+
+"'Take him down,' said Hunter, 'and show him the furnaces. Here, better
+peel off that coat and slip on my overalls and this jacket,' and he
+handed me the garments from a rack behind his door. 'Greasy down there;
+and look out for those ladders, they're almighty slippery when you ain't
+accustomed to 'em.'
+
+"'This way, sir,' said the Second Engineer.
+
+"We made our way along a flat iron ledge--a grating, really, beneath
+which lunged huge pistons of steel--down vertical ladders into a cavern
+reeking with the smell of hot steam and dripping oil. All about were
+stars of electric light illumining the darkness, out of which stood
+strange shapes--a canebrake of steel rods, huge sawed-off roots of
+pillar-blocks, enormous cylinders rising up like giant trees from out a
+jungle of tangled steel.
+
+"At the bottom of this morass a great boa constrictor of a shaft,
+smooth-skinned, glistening, turning lazily in its bed of grimy water,
+its head and tail lost in the gloom. Beyond this, along a narrow
+foot-path, a low open door leading to the mouth of hell. Here were men
+stripped to the waist, the sweat from their reeking bodies making
+flesh-colored channels down their blackened skins. Some were shielding
+their faces from the blistering heat as they wrenched apart the fusing
+fires with long steel bars; others dashed into the mouths of a hungry
+furnace shovelfuls of coal, blinding the light for an instant, the white
+sulphurous breath pouring from its blazing nostrils. On one side before
+the row of hot-mouthed beasts opened a smaller cavern, its air choked
+with fine black dust; still other men shovelled here, filling iron
+barrows which they trundled out to more half-naked men before the
+scorching furnaces. A new gang now joined the group, men with clean
+faces and hands and half-scoured backs and breasts. This new gang had
+had a wash and four hours sleep in an air fouled by dust and dead steam.
+At sight of them the old workers dropped their bars and shovels,
+disappeared through the door by which we had entered, and rolled into
+bunks racked up one above the other like coffins in a catacomb.
+
+"On one side of the door through which the new gang entered was an
+inscription in chalk. The leader of the gang stopped and examined it
+carefully.
+
+"'Clean stringers inside pocket,' the record said.
+
+"The stringers were the cross-beams tying the ship together, about which
+the coal was packed; the pocket was one of the ship's bins. These
+instructions showed which death-pit pit was to be worked first.
+
+"The Engineer made no explanatory remarks as I looked about. It was all
+there before me. The man with the letter had stood where these men
+stood; blistered by the same heat, befouled with the same grime, half
+strangled with the same coal-dust; had eaten his meals, drunk his
+coffee, staggered to his bunk, been carried insensible to the small
+square room on the deck above, laid on a cot, and was now dead and to be
+buried at midnight. That was all!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Up the ladder again to a room the size of a state-room with the berths
+out. Inside, on a plank resting on two supports, lay the crude, roughly
+hewn outline of a man wrapped in canvas, a flattened hump showing the
+feet and a round mass the head. Past this open door men walked carrying
+kettles of soup for the steerage. Outside in the corridor were heard
+sounds of hammering; the box was being made ready.
+
+"Up a third ladder to Hunter's room. I stopped long enough to replace my
+coat and wash the grime from my hands and then sought the deck.
+
+"She was still in her steamer chair, the roses in her lap. Not a cloud
+dimmed the sky; a soft, fresh, sweet air blew from the moonlit sea; the
+pathway of silver was still clear; souls could go to God straight up
+that ladder without missing a step, so bright was it. From the crowded
+deck came the sound of voices; some low and muffled, others breaking out
+into song and laughter.
+
+"'Where have you been?' she called out. 'What did the Engineer want?
+Tell me, please; something had happened; I saw it in your face. Was
+anyone ill?'
+
+"'Yes; but he is better now,' and my eye travelled the pathway of
+silver.
+
+"'Oh, I am so sorry! Shall you see him again?'
+
+"'Yes, at twelve.'
+
+"'Tell me about it; can I help?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'Is anyone with him--anyone he loves?'
+
+"'No, he is quite alone.'
+
+"'Poor, poor fellow! Give him these, please,' and she laid the roses in
+my hand.
+
+"Some hours later the messenger again tapped me on the shoulder.
+
+"'All ready, sir, Mr. Hunter says.'
+
+"On the lower deck, close to the sea, a deck slashed with racing waves
+in a storm, were grouped a body of sailors and officers; all had their
+coats and caps on. Against the wall of the ship stood the Captain, an
+open book in his hand. Above his head flared a bull's-eye backed by a
+ship's reflector, marking the high light in the composition. Beneath
+him, almost under the book, which cast a shadow like the outstretched
+wings of a bird, lay a black box, straight-sided and flat-topped. I
+edged my way through the encircling crowd and stood nearer, the roses in
+my hand.
+
+"The words now fell clear and strong from the Captain's lips, every man
+uncovering his head.
+
+"'Man that is born of woman----'
+
+"I reached down to lay the flowers on the lid--loose, as she had given
+them to me.
+
+"Hunter tapped me on the arm. He was grave and dignified, and I thought
+his voice trembled as he spoke.
+
+"'Better twist a bit of tarred marlin round 'em, sir,' he whispered;
+'he'll lose 'em if you don't. Hand me a piece'--this to a sailor.
+'That's it, sir; a little tighter--so!'
+
+"'He cometh up and is cut down like a flower----'
+
+"I bent over and laid the roses on the box. The men pressed closer to
+look. Roses, on a man like him!
+
+[Illustration: The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like
+him!"]
+
+"Again the Captain's reverent tones rang out:
+
+"'We therefore commit his body to the deep----'
+
+"Two sailors stooped down and raised one end of the box. There came a
+grating sound, a splash, and the highway of silver was broken into steps
+of light.
+
+"The Captain closed his book, the crowd opening to let him pass; the
+crew went back to their tasks--the sailor with tarred marlin to finish
+the bight of the cable he was whipping, the men to their furnaces,
+Hunter to his desk, I to where the girl reclined in her chair. She
+recognized my step and half raised herself toward me, as if eager to
+catch my first word.
+
+"'Did he like the roses?' she asked, her voice full of tenderness.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"Where did you put them--by his bedside?'
+
+"'No, on his breast.'
+
+"'Poor fellow, I'm so sorry for him! Did you tell him I sent them?'
+
+"'He knows.'
+
+"'What did he say?'
+
+"'Nothing--but he will some day.'
+
+"Her eyes widened.
+
+"'When? Where?'
+
+"'In heaven.'
+
+"The eyelids relaxed again, and a smile lighted up her face. She saw now
+that I was not in earnest. Then a sudden thought possessed her.
+
+"'What is his name?' The inquiry came quick and sharp and with an
+anxious tone, as if she had been remiss in not asking before.
+
+"'He has none--not aboard ship.'
+
+"'Has no name! Why, I never heard of such a thing. How very strange!'
+
+"'No, not among stokers; stokers never have any names. This one was
+called "Number Seven."'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mac stopped and leaned toward the fire, his head in his hands, the
+fingers covering the eyes. Not once during the long narrative had he
+looked at me. He had been speaking like one in a trance, or as one
+speaks to himself when alone. That I had been present was of no
+consequence; I was no more than the portraits and studies on the walls,
+not so much as the andirons and the fire. That I had listened in
+complete silence was what pleased him. This, I think, is one reason why
+he so often unburdens his heart to me.
+
+Mac straightened his back, rose to his feet and took a turn around the
+room, restlessly, as if the tale had stirred other memories which he was
+trying to banish; then he dropped again into his chair.
+
+"That's what I mean by the other side of the brick wall, old man. Makes
+your blood boil, doesn't it? Did mine."
+
+"And the girl in the chair never knew?"
+
+"No, and never will. He did; he looked back as he mounted the silver
+steps, and pointed her out to the angel helping him up the ladder. God
+knew what he had suffered, and wiped out whatever there was against
+him."
+
+There was a tone now in Mac's voice that thrilled me. For a moment I did
+not trust myself to speak.
+
+"And about the letter--did you read it?"
+
+"Yes; it was from his wife. The Doctor gave it to me, and I hunted her
+up. Little place outside of London where they make bricks. Only two
+rooms; in one a half-starved daughter, white as chalk. She had sent for
+him, the wife said. Same old story--told a hundred times a day, if you
+will but listen with your ears to some wall. The steerage out to New
+York; the landing in a strange city; the weary, hungry hunt for work;
+money gone, clothes gone, strength gone--then the inevitable. This one
+had made one last effort, even to giving his body to be burned. The
+white-faced daughter wanted to know, of course, all about it--they all
+want to know; but I didn't tell her--I lied! I said he had had heart
+failure, and that they had buried him at sea, and in a coffin like any
+other passenger, because we were only three days out; and I described
+the service and the roses, and how sorry the passengers were. She knows
+the truth now. _He's told her._
+
+"Go get your rose, old man. I ought to have had better sense than to
+rake it all up. No use in it. Not your side of the wall, not my side.
+Let me smell it. Yes, same perfume. Here, put it back in your
+button-hole."
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+_With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad._
+
+
+Mac had invited three or four of us to luncheon--Boggs, Lonnegan, Marny,
+and myself. These feasts were "Dutch" in the strictest sense, the sum
+total paid being divided, share and share alike, between the host of the
+day and his guests. That was the custom among the students in Munich and
+Paris, even at Florian's in Venice, and the custom was still observed.
+It did away with unpleasant comparisons--Lonnegan's inherited
+bank-account, for instance, and Woods's income from his rich aunt, who
+refused him nothing, in contrast to my own and Boggs's annual earnings.
+The only liberty given to the host of the day was the choice of
+restaurants. At Maroni's we could get a hot sandwich and a glass of beer
+for fifteen cents; at Brown's, in Twenty-eighth Street, a chop, a baked
+potato, and a mug of bass for half of a trade dollar. When some one of
+the less opulent had sold a picture, and had become temporarily rich
+over and above the amount due for the month's rent, Lonnegan, or Woods,
+or Pitkin (Pitkin had a father who could cut off coupons) selected
+Delmonico's. These occasions were rare, and ever afterward became
+historic.
+
+This day, it being Mac's turn, he selected Oscar Pusch's, on Fourth
+Avenue--a modest little beer-house near the corner of Twenty-fourth
+Street, its only distinguishing mark being a swinging, double shutter
+door and the advertisement of a brewery in the window. Inside was a long
+bar drenched with the foam of countless mugs of Hofbrau, facing a line
+of tables centred by cheap castors and dishes of cold slaw, and flanked
+at one end by a back room. This last apartment was for the elect. One
+table was always reserved for the exalted; of this group MacWhirter was
+High Priest.
+
+Here often at night Mac held forth to an admiring crowd of young
+painters who believed in his brush and who loved the man who wielded it.
+When I look back now down the vista of twenty years and see how fine and
+strong and superb that brush was, how true, how wonderful in color, how
+much better than any other painter of his time--Barbizon, London, or
+Dusseldorf--and think of how many lies the resident picture dealer told
+his patrons to discredit Mac's genius, I always experience a peculiar
+hotness under my collar-button. It cools off, it is true, whenever I see
+one of his masterpieces hung to-day on the walls of the redeemed. My
+anger then turns to a genial warmth, suffusing my cheeks and permeating
+my being, especially when I learn the sum paid for the smallest product
+of his brush.
+
+"One of MacWhirter's, sir; one of his choicest; painted in his best
+period," says this same fraud to-day (the period, remember, when he
+would say, "What can one expect of the Hudson Rivery School, sir?"),
+and then the dealer demands a price which, had it been paid in Mac's
+earlier days, would have resulted in his breaking all students' rules
+and setting up Johannesburg of '41 instead of the simple steins of the
+Hofbrau with which Lonnegan, Boggs, and the rest of us were being
+regaled.
+
+The hospitable and ever alert Oscar did not welcome us this time, but a
+new waiter, who sprang at Mac as if he had been his lost brother--a
+joyous sort of waiter, clean-shaven as a priest, ruddy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed, with short, tan-colored hair sticking straight up on his
+head, looking as if at some time in his life he had been frightened half
+out of his wits and had never been able to keep his hair down since.
+
+The appearance of this overjoyed individual produced a peculiar effect
+on Mac.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pusch found a place for you at last, did he, Carl?" he burst
+out. "Glad you're here," and Mac stepped forward and shook the waiter's
+hand with more than his usual warmth.
+
+Boggs looked at me and winked. What would Mac be doing next?
+
+"Some member of the royal family, Mac?" asked Boggs, when the waiter had
+left the room to execute Mac's orders.
+
+"No," said Mac, unfolding his napkin, "just plain man."
+
+"I know," said Boggs, "ran off with a soprano at the Imperial Opera
+House; disinherited by his father; fought a duel with his Colonel on
+account of her; dismissed from his club; sought refuge in flight to
+God's free country, where for years he worked in a small cafe on Fourth
+Avenue. Was known for years as 'Carl' where----"
+
+Mac raised his eyes at Boggs.
+
+"Lively imagination you've got, Boggs. If I were you I----"
+
+"On the death of his father, the late Baron Schweizerkase," continued
+Boggs in the nasal tone of an exhibitor of wax works, completely
+ignoring Mac's interruption, "the exile, who was none other than Prince
+Pumperknickel, returned to his estates, where his beautiful and
+accomplished wife, though not of royal blood, now dispenses the
+hospitality of his noble house with all the honors which----"
+
+"Will you shut up, Boggs," cried Lonnegan. "Your tongue goes like an
+eight-day clock." Then he turned to Mac. "Seems to me I've seen that
+waiter before--last summer, if I remember. Where was it? Florian's or
+the Pantheon?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," said Mac. "Carl hasn't been out of the country
+for two years to my knowledge. Much obliged, Oscar, for giving him a
+place." This to the proprietor, who was now beaming across the bar at
+Mac. "You'll find Carl all right," and he nodded toward the waiter, who
+was again approaching the table.
+
+"Everything suit you, Carl?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. MacWhirter; I was comin' to see you about it, but I
+just got back from Philadelphy." The man seemed hardly able to keep his
+arms from around Mac's neck. I've seen a dog sometimes show that
+peculiar form of trembling joy when brought suddenly into his master's
+presence after a long absence, but never a man.
+
+Marny now spoke up.
+
+"Tell us about this waiter, Mac."
+
+"There's nothing to tell; just one of my acquaintances, that's all. Some
+I bow to, some I shake hands with--Carl is one of the last," and Mac
+nodded and emptied his glass at a single draught, shutting off all
+discussion. No one knew better than Mac how to avoid a subject on which
+he preferred to keep silence.
+
+On the way back to the Old Building Marny and I walked together,
+Lonnegan, Mac, and Boggs behind.
+
+"Something in that waiter Carl," remarked Marny, "or Mac wouldn't have
+shaken hands with him. These waiters are a queer lot; they're never in
+the same city more than a year. I drew my chair up to a table in Moscow
+two years ago in that swell cafe--forget the name--outside of a park,
+and sat me down, wondering which one of my ragged languages I could use
+in getting something to eat, when the waiter behind my chair leaned over
+and said in perfect English, 'What wine, Mr. Marny?' He'd waited at
+Brown's, on Twenty-eighth Street, for years. Hello! Who's Mac talking
+to?--a street beggar! Just like him!"
+
+We were crossing the Square now and nearing the Old Building and No. 3.
+There was evidently some dispute over the beggar, for Mac was apparently
+defending the woman, while the others were objecting to her asking for
+alms.
+
+"They've got a password and a signal-call for Mac," continued Boggs;
+"he never goes to luncheon but there's half a dozen of 'em strung along
+his route."
+
+We had now reached our companions.
+
+"Did you give that tramp anything, Mac?" burst out Marny.
+
+"Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth, my boy,"
+answered Mac, with a wave of his hand as he strode along.
+
+"Did he, Lonnegan?" persisted Boggs.
+
+"Yes, and wanted to know where she lived."
+
+"I can tell you where she lives," exploded Boggs. "She lives in a
+brownstone front somewhere facing the Park. Drives up Riverside every
+Sunday in her carriage, and all because fools like you, Mac, support
+her. Only last week a man I know gave some pennies to a woman who was
+crying with hunger, with two little babes to feed--'For the love of God,
+kind sir!' and all that sort of thing--and that night, going home from
+the club, he found her on a doorstep under a gaslight counting out her
+earnings--all the cents in one pile, all the dimes in another; then the
+quarters, halves, and so on. She'd earned more money that day than he
+had. When she saw him she laughed, and went right on with her counting."
+
+Mac was now entering the Building, we following him upstairs, the
+discussion still going on. Lonnegan insisted that there were city
+charities that took care of such tramps; Boggs interrupted that they
+ought to be turned over to the police. Marny thought that there might be
+some of them deserving, but the chances were that the greater part of
+them were too lazy to work.
+
+Our heads were now level with the top of the Chinese screen, and the
+next instant the whole party were inside No. 3 and warming themselves at
+MacWhirter's wood fire.
+
+Mac hung up his coat, threw some fresh logs on the andirons, swept up
+the hearth, and dragged up the chairs for his guests alongside of some
+of the other habitues--Charley Woods among them--who had already arrived
+and were awaiting our return.
+
+"Mac's been doing the noble act again," Boggs burst out; "that's why
+we're late. Shook hands with a red-headed waiter named Carl down at
+Pusch's, who seemed glad enough to eat him up; then he emptied his
+pockets to a bag of bones outside with a basket--'God knows I haven't
+eaten anything, kind sir, for three days. Got three children' (Boggs's
+drawl was inimitable). You know that kind of hag. He would have invited
+her to dinner if we hadn't been along. If he wasn't a natural born fool
+with his money it might do Mac some good to prove to him that----"
+
+"You will get left every time, Mac," interrupted Woods from his chair,
+"over this foolishness of yours." It was never considered rude to
+interrupt Boggs--not even by Boggs. "Half of these beggars are dead
+beats. I've had some experience."
+
+"Never 'left' when you're right, Woods," shouted back Mac, who had
+crossed the room to his basin and was busy washing his brushes.
+
+"It's never 'right,' Mac, to allow yourself to be buncoed; and that's
+what happened to me last fall," retorted Woods.
+
+Boggs leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on Woods. The
+buncoing of Charles Wood, Esquire--a man who prided himself on knowing
+everything--was a story so delicious that not a word of it must be lost.
+The other men were of the same opinion, for they drew their chairs
+closer to the blaze, particularly those who had just come out of the
+keen wind in crossing the Square.
+
+"You don't know, of course, for I have never told you," Woods continued,
+when every one was settled comfortably; "but when I was real pious--and
+I was once--I used to oblige my dear old aunt and go down to the Bowery
+and read to the tramps that were hived in a room rented by the church to
+which she belonged. I would give them short stories--touch of pathos,
+broad farce, or dramatic incident, whatever I thought would suit them
+best--from 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Boots at Holly Tree Inn,' and Hans
+Breitmann's yarns. I got along pretty well with the Irish, Dutch, and
+English dialects, but a new story just out at that time, 'That Lass o'
+Lowrie's,' in the Lancashire dialect, upset me completely. I didn't know
+how to read it properly, and I couldn't find anyone who could teach me.
+I tried it there one night, and after making a first-class fizzle of it
+I suddenly thought that in an audience representing almost every
+nationality on the globe there might be someone from Lancashire, and so
+I stepped again to the edge of the platform, told them why I made the
+inquiry, and invited anyone from that part of England to stand up so
+that I could see and talk to him. Nobody moved, and I went away
+determined never to read the story again.
+
+"The next day I was pegging away at my easel--it was when I had my
+studio over Duncan's grocery store on Fourteenth Street and Union
+Square, next to Quartley's and Sheldon's rooms--you remember it--when
+there came a rap at the door, and there stood a young fellow about
+twenty-five years of age, dressed in a shabby suit of once good clothes.
+Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently
+seen better days. I believe that you can always tell when a man has been
+a gentleman; there is something about the cut of his jib that indicates
+his blood, no matter how low he may have fallen; something in the
+quality of his skin, the lines about his nose and the way it is fastened
+to his face; the way the hair grows on his temples, and its fineness;
+the rise of the forehead; and the ears--especially the ears--small,
+well-modelled ears are as true an indication of gentle blood as small,
+well-turned hands and feet. I have painted too many portraits not to
+have found this out. This fellow had all these marks.
+
+[Illustration: Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man,
+who had evidently seen better days.]
+
+"He had, moreover, a way of looking you right in the eye without
+flinching, following yours about like a searchlight without letting go
+of his hold. His voice, too, was the voice of a man of some
+refinement--a reed-like voice, like a clarionette, well-modulated, even
+musical at times, and with an intonation and accent which showed me at
+once that he was an Englishman.
+
+"'I heard what you said last night about the Lancashire dialect,' he
+began, 'but I didn't like to stand up to speak to you. I was afraid you
+might not be satisfied with what I could do for you. But I am in such
+straits to-day that I couldn't help coming, and so I asked the
+Superintendent for your address. I don't want any money, but I must have
+some food; if you will help me you will do a kind act. I am out of
+money, and I may never get any more from home, so that what you do for
+me I may not be able to repay. I haven't really had much to eat for
+nearly a week and my strength is giving out. I could hardly get up your
+stairs.'
+
+"All this, remember, without giving me a chance to ask him a single
+question and without stopping to take breath--just as a book agent
+rattles on--he standing all the time on my door-sill, his hat in his
+hand, not as a beggar would carry it, but as some well-bred friend who
+had dropped in for an afternoon call. Good deal in the way a man holds
+his hat, let me tell you, when you are sizing a stranger up. That's
+another one of my beliefs.
+
+"I had brought him inside now and he was standing under my skylight, his
+face and figure making an even better impression on me than when he was
+in the dark of the doorway.
+
+"'And you speak the Lancashire dialect, of course?' I asked, my eyes now
+taking in the military curl of his mustache, his broad shoulders and the
+way his really fine head was set upon them.
+
+"'No,' he answered; 'to tell you the truth, I do not--not to be of any
+service to you. I know some words, of course, but not many. I ought to
+be able to speak it perfectly, for my father's place is in the next
+county; but I have been a good deal away from home. I didn't come for
+that; I came because you seemed to me last night to be the sort of a man
+I could talk to; I meet very few of them; I don't like to stop people in
+the street, and my clothes now are not fit to enter anyone's office, and
+it would do no good if I did, for I know no one here.'
+
+"'Where have you lived?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, all over; Australia part of the time, three years in Canada----'
+
+"'You don't look over twenty-five.'
+
+"He dropped his eyes now and looked down at the floor.
+
+"'I wish I was,' he answered slowly; 'I might have done differently. You
+are wrong, I am thirty-one--will be my next birthday. I was home last
+summer to see my father, but I only stayed an hour with him. He wouldn't
+talk to me, so I left and came here.'
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Well, I'd rather not go into that; it's a family matter.'
+
+"'Pretty rough, turning you out, wasn't it?' I was getting interested in
+him now.
+
+"'No, I can't say that it was. I hadn't been square with him--not the
+year before.'
+
+"'Well, you were ready to do the decent thing then, I hope?'
+
+"'Yes, but my Governor is a peculiar sort of man that don't forget
+easily. But he's my father all the same, and so I'd rather keep away
+than have him hate me. No--please don't ask me anything about it. I
+don't think he was quite fair, but I'm not going to say so.'
+
+"I had him in a chair now and had laid down my palette and brushes. When
+a man is thrown out into the world by his father and then refuses to
+abuse him, or let anybody else do so, there's something inside of him
+that you can build on.
+
+"I handed him a greenback. 'Go down,' I said, 'on Sixth Avenue and get
+something to eat and anything else you need for your comfort, and then
+come back to me.'
+
+"He folded the bill up carefully, put it in his waistcoat pocket,
+thanked me in a simple, straightforward way, just as any of you would
+have done had I loaned you an equal amount to tide you over some
+temporary emergency, and with the bow of a thoroughbred closed my door
+behind him and went downstairs.
+
+"While he was gone I began unconsciously to let my imagination loose on
+him. I immediately invested him with all the attributes I had failed to
+discover in him while he stood hat in hand under my skylight. Some young
+blood, no doubt, of good family, I said to myself; ran through his
+allowance, shipped off to Australia, returns and is forgiven. Then more
+debts, more escapades. Father a choleric old Britisher, who gets purple
+in the face when he is angry--'Out you go, you dog; never more shall you
+be son of mine!" You remember George Holland as an irate father of the
+old school?--same kind of an old sardine. No question, though, but that
+his son was in hard lines and on the verge of suicide or, what was
+worse, crime.
+
+"What, then, was my duty under the circumstances? What would my own
+Governor think of a man who had found me in a similar strait in London,
+penniless, half-clothed, and hungry, and who had turned me out again
+into the cold?
+
+"Before I had decided what to do he was back again in my studio looking
+like a different man. Not only had he been fed, but he was clean-shaven
+and clean-collared.
+
+"'I took you at your word,' he said. 'I had a bath and bought me a clean
+collar. Here is the change,' and he handed me back some silver. 'I don't
+want to promise anything I can't do, and I don't say I'll pay it back,
+for I may not be able to, but I'll try my best to do so. Good-by, and
+thank you again.'
+
+"'Hold on,' I said. 'Sit down, and let me talk to you.' Now right here,
+gentlemen, I want to tell you"--Woods swept his eye around the circle as
+he spoke, then rose to his feet as if to give greater emphasis to what
+he was about to say, his round bullet-head, eye-glasses, and immaculate
+shirt collar glistening in the overhead light--"I want to tell you
+right here that the buying of that clean collar and the return of the
+change settled the matter for me. I'm a student of human nature, as most
+of you know, and I have certain fixed rules to guide me which never
+fail. My duty was clear; I would play the Good Samaritan for all I was
+worth. I wouldn't cross over and ask him how the cripple was getting on;
+I'd walk down both sides of the street, call an ambulance, lift him in
+to a down-covered cot run on C springs, and trundle him off to flowery
+beds of ease or whatever else I could scrape up that was comforting. Now
+listen--and, Mac, I want you to take all this in, for I am telling this
+yarn for your special benefit.
+
+"That same afternoon I took him up to my rooms--I was living with my
+aunt then up on Murray Hill--opened up my wardrobe, pulled out a shirt,
+underwear, socks, shoes, cut-away coat, waistcoat, and trousers; gave
+him a scarf, and then to add a touch to his whole get-up I picked a
+scarf-pin from my cushion and stuck it in myself. Next I handed him a
+cigar, opened up a bottle of Scotch, and after dinner--my aunt was
+dining out, and we had the table to ourselves--sat up with him till near
+midnight, he and I talking together like any other two men who had met
+for the first time and who had, to their delight, found something in
+common.
+
+"Nor would any of you have known the difference had you happened to drop
+in upon us. No reference, of course, was made to his condition or to the
+way in which we had met. He was clean, well-dressed, well-mannered,
+perfectly at ease, and entirely at home. You could see that by the way
+in which he shadowed his wine-glass as a sign to the waiter not to
+refill it; passed the end of his cigar toward me that I might snip it
+with the cutter attached to my watch-chain, having none of his own, of
+course--a fact he made no comment upon; did everything, in fact, down to
+the smallest detail (and I watched and studied him pretty closely) that
+any one of you would have done under similar circumstances; all of which
+proved his birth and breeding, and all of which, you will admit, no man
+not born to it can acquire and not be detected by one who knows.
+
+"My idea was--and this is another one of my theories--that you can
+restore a man's energies only when you restore his self-respect, and I
+intended to prove my theory on this Englishman. What I was after was
+first to bring him back to his old self--he taking his place where he
+belonged, shutting out the hideous nightmare that was pursuing him--and
+then get him a situation where he could be self-sustaining. This done, I
+proposed to write to his father and patch it up somehow between them,
+and the next time I went abroad we would go together and kill the fatted
+calf, haul in the Yule log, summon the tenants, build triumphal arches,
+and all that sort of thing.
+
+"The following morning promptly at ten o'clock he rapped at my studio
+door. Pitkin saw him and thought he had come to buy out the studio, he
+was so well dressed--you remember him, Pit?"
+
+Pitkin shook his head and smiled.
+
+"Then commenced the hunt for work, and I tell you it was hard sledding;
+but I stuck at it, and at the end of the week old Porterfield gave him a
+position as entry clerk in his foreign department. During all that week
+he was spending his time between my studio and my aunt's, I looking
+after his expenditures--not much, only a few dollars a day. Every
+evening we dined at home, and every evening we roamed the world:
+mountain climbing, pig sticking, pheasant shooting in Devonshire; who
+won the Derby, and why; English politics, English art, the tariff--every
+topic under the sun that I knew anything about and a lot I didn't, he
+leading or following in the talk, his eyes fixed on mine, his rich,
+musical voice filling the room, his handsome, well-bred body comfortably
+seated in my aunt's easiest chair.
+
+"And now comes the most interesting part of this story. The afternoon
+before he was to present himself at Porterfield's, about five
+o'clock--an hour before I reached home--he rang my aunt's front-door
+bell; told the servant that I had been called suddenly out of town for
+the night and had sent him post haste in a cab for my portmanteau and
+overcoat. Then he tripped upstairs to my apartment, waited beside the
+servant until she had stowed away in my best Gladstone my dress-suit,
+shirt with its links and pearl studs, collars--everything, even to my
+patent-leather shoes; and then, while she was out of the room in search
+of my overcoat, emptied into his pockets all my scarf-pins, my silver
+brandy-flask, and a lot of knick-knacks on my bureau, took the coat on
+his arm, preceded her leisurely downstairs, she carrying the bag,
+stepped into the cab, _and I haven't seen him since_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There, Mac, that yarn is told for your especial benefit. What do you
+think of it?"
+
+"I think you're all white, Woods, and I'm glad to know you," cried Mac
+as he grasped the painter's hand and shook it warmly.
+
+"Yes, but what do you think of that cur of an Englishman?"
+
+"I think he'll live to see the day he'll regret the mean trick he played
+you," answered Mac; "but that doesn't prove your contention that all
+beggars are frauds."
+
+"Did you try to catch him?" interrupted Boggs.
+
+"No, I was too hurt. I didn't mind the money or the clothes. What I
+minded was the way in which I had squandered my personality. The only
+thing I did do was to tell Captain Alec Williams of our precinct about
+him.
+
+"'Smooth-talking fellow?' Williams asked; 'had a scrap with his father?
+Light-blue eyes and a little turned-up mustache? Yes, I know
+him--slickest con' man in the business. We've got his mug in our
+collection; show it to you some day, if you come;' and _he did_."
+
+"And the great reader of human nature didn't go to London and build
+arches and kill the fatted calf, after all," remarked Lonnegan, with a
+wink at Boggs.
+
+"No," retorted Boggs; "he could have suicided himself at home with less
+trouble."
+
+"Laugh on, you can't hurt me! I'm immune," said Woods. "I learned my
+lesson that time, and I've graduated. I'm not practising any theories,
+old or new; I'm doing missionary work instead, pointing out and running
+down dead beats wherever I see them. No more men's night meetings for
+me, no more widows with twins--no nothing. When I've got anything to
+give I hand it to my aunt. It isn't a pleasant yarn--it's one on me
+every time. I only told it to Mac so he could save his money."
+
+"I'm saving it, Woods--save it every day; got a lot of small banks all
+over the place that pay me compound interest. Now I'll tell _you_ a
+yarn, and I want you fellows to listen and keep still till I get
+through. If there's any doubts, Boggs, of your releasing your grasp on
+your talking machine, I'll take your remarks now. All right, enough
+said. Now hand me that tobacco, Lonnegan, and one of you fellows move
+back so I can get up closer, where you can all hear. This story,
+remember, Woods, is for you."
+
+When Mac talks we listen. The story, whatever it may be, always comes
+straight from his heart.
+
+"One cold, snowy night--so cold, I remember, that I had to turn up my
+coat collar and stuff my handkerchief inside to keep out the driving
+sleet--I turned into Tenth Street out of Fifth Avenue on my way here. It
+was after midnight--nearly one o'clock, in fact--and with the exception
+of the policeman on our beat--and I had met him on the corner of the
+Avenue--I had not passed a single soul since I had left the club. When I
+got abreast of the long iron railing I caught sight of the figure of a
+man standing under the gaslight. He wore a long ulster, almost to his
+feet, and a slouch hat. At sound of my footsteps he shrank back out of
+the light and crouched close to the steps of one of those old houses
+this side of the long wall. His movements did not interest me; waiting
+for somebody, I concluded, and doesn't want to be seen. Then the thought
+crossed my mind that it was a bad night to be out in, and that perhaps
+he might be suffering or drunk, a conclusion I at once abandoned when I
+remembered how warmly he was clad and how quickly he had sprung into
+the shadow of the steps when he heard my approach--all this, of course,
+as I was walking toward him. That I was in any danger of being robbed
+never crossed my mind. I never go armed, and never think of such things.
+It's the fellow who sees first who escapes, and up to this time I had
+watched his every move.
+
+"When I got abreast of the steps he rose on his feet with a quick spring
+and stood before me.
+
+"'I'm hungry,' he said in a low, grating voice. 'Give me some money; I
+don't mean to hurt you, but give me some money, quick!'
+
+"I threw up my hands to defend myself and backed to the lamp-post so
+that I could see where to hit him best, trying all the time to get a
+view of his face, which he still kept concealed by the brim of his
+slouch hat.
+
+"'That's not the way to ask for it,' I answered. I would have struck him
+then only for the tones of his voice, which seemed to carry a note of
+suffering which left me irresolute.
+
+"He was edging nearer and nearer, with the movement of a prize-fighter
+trying to get in a telling blow, his long overcoat concealing the
+movements of his legs as thoroughly as his slouch hat did the features
+of his face. Two thoughts now flashed through my mind: Should I shout
+for the policeman, who could not yet be out of hearing, or should I land
+a blow under his chin and tumble him into the gutter.
+
+"All this time he was muttering to himself: 'I'm crazy, I know, but I'm
+starving; nobody listens to me. This man's got to listen to me or I'll
+kill him and take it away from him.'
+
+"I had gathered myself together and was about to let drive when he
+grabbed me around the waist; we both slipped on the ice and fell to the
+pavement, he underneath and I on top. I had my knee on his chest now,
+and was trying to get my fingers into his shirt collar to choke the
+breath out of him, when the buttons on his ulster gave way. I let go my
+hold and sprang up. The man was naked to his shoes, except for a pair of
+ragged cotton drawers!
+
+"'Don't kill me,' he cried, 'don't kill me.' He was sobbing now, hat
+off, his face in the snow, all the fight out of him.
+
+"I know a hungry man when I see him; been famished myself, wolfish and
+desperate once--and this man was hungry.
+
+"'Put on your hat, button up your coat,' I said, 'and come with me.'"
+
+"Bully for you, Mac; that's the kind of talk," cried Boggs. "Waltzed him
+right down to the police station, didn't you?"
+
+"No, I brought him to this very room, sat him down in that very chair
+where you sit, Boggs," answered Mac, "and before this very fire. He
+followed me like a homeless dog that you meet in the street, never
+speaking, keeping a few steps behind; waited until I had unlocked the
+street door, held it back for me to pass through; mounted the flight of
+steps behind me--the light is out, as you know, at that hour, and I had
+to scratch a match to find my way; remained motionless inside this room
+until I had turned on the gas, when I found him standing by that screen
+over there, a dazed expression on his face--like a man who had fallen
+overboard and been picked up by a passing ship.
+
+"He had been discharged from his last place because some drunken young
+men had lost their money in a bar-room and had accused him of taking it.
+For some weeks he had slept in a ten-cent lodging-house. Two days before
+someone had stolen his clothes, all but his overcoat, which was over
+him. Since that time he had been walking around half-naked.
+
+"'Pull that coat off,' I said, 'and put on these,' and I handed him some
+underwear and a suit of sketching clothes that hung in my closet. 'And
+now drink this,' and I poured out a spoonful of whiskey--all he needed
+on an empty stomach.
+
+"When he was warm and dry--this did not take many minutes--we started
+downstairs again and over to Sixth Avenue. Jerry's screens and blinds
+were shut, but his lights were still burning; some fellows were having a
+game of poker in the back room.
+
+"'Got anything to eat, Jerry?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. MacWhirter; a cold ham and some hot chowder, if they ain't
+turned off the steam. Pretty good chowder, too, this week. What'll it
+be--for one or two?'
+
+"'For one, Jerry.'
+
+"I left him alone for a while sitting at one of Jerry's tables, his
+hungry, eager eyes watching every movement of the old man, as a starved
+cat watches the bowl of milk you are about to place before it.
+
+"When he had devoured everything Jerry had given him, I moved to the
+bar, poured out half a glass of whiskey from one of Jerry's bottles,
+waited until he had swallowed it, and then sent him upstairs to sleep in
+one of Jerry's beds."
+
+"And that was the last you ever saw of him, of course," broke out Woods,
+with a laugh.
+
+"No; saw him every day for a month, till he got work. Saw him again
+to-day at Pusch's. He waited on us. It was Carl."
+
+
+
+
+PART V
+
+_In which Boggs Becomes Dramatic and Relates a Tale of Blood._
+
+
+Mr. Alexander Macwhirter's great picture, "Early Morning on the East
+River," was still on his easel. The Hanging Committee had taken the
+outside measurement of the frame; had hung the other pictures up to the
+line of this measurement; had inserted the title and price in the
+official catalogue, and were then awaiting Mac's finishing touches.
+
+MacWhirter had struck a snag in the middle distance, and until this was
+repainted to his satisfaction the picture would not leave his studio,
+official catalogue or no official catalogue.
+
+On this afternoon Lonnegan was the first to arrive. The great architect
+on his way downtown must have dropped in upon some social function, or
+was about to attend one later in the day, for he wore his morning
+frock-coat, white waistcoat, and a decoration in his button-hole--an
+unusual attire for Lonnegan unless the affair was of more than customary
+brilliancy and importance.
+
+"Let up, Mac," cried Lonnegan from behind the Chinese screen, as he
+looked over its top; "the light's gone and you can't see what you're
+doing."
+
+"I've got light enough to see where to put my foot," Mac shouted back.
+
+"Easy, easy, old man! Don't smash it; masterpieces are rare! Let me have
+a look at it. Why, it's all right! What's the matter with it?"
+
+"Shadow tones under the cliffs all out of key. There are a lot of
+wharves, sheds, and vessels lying there half-smothered in mist. I do not
+want to do more than suggest them, but they've got to be right."
+
+"Well, but you can't see to paint any longer. Give it up until morning."
+
+"Haven't got time! Hanging Committee has sent here three times to-day."
+
+Marny, Pitkin, Boggs, and Woods walked in and joined the group about
+Mac's easel, a "sick picture" (pictures get ill and die, or recover and
+become famous, as well as men) being a matter of the very first
+importance.
+
+Each new arrival had some advice to offer. Pitkin thought the sky
+reflections were not silvery enough. Woods wanted a touch of red
+somewhere on the sides or sterns of the boats, with a "click" of high
+light on their decks to relieve them from the haze of the background.
+"Right out of the tube, old man, and don't touch it afterward. It'll
+make it _sing_!" Boggs ignored all suggestions by saying, in a
+dictatorial tone:
+
+"Don't you do anything of the kind, Mac; you don't want any drops of red
+sealing wax spilt on that middle distance, or any blobs of white; only
+make it worse. All you need is a touch here and there of yellow-white
+against that purple haze. But you don't want to guess at it. This East
+River is a _fact_, not a _dream_. And it's right here under our eyes.
+Everybody knows it and everybody knows how it looks. If you want it
+true, the best thing for you to do is to go there to-morrow morning at
+daylight and wait until the sun gets to your angle. You fellows that
+insist on painting things out of your heads instead of following what is
+set down before you will run to seed like cabbages. Why you want to
+scoop up the emptyings of everybody's wash-basins, when it is so easy to
+get buckets of pure water fresh from nature's well, is what gets me."
+
+"Talks like an art critic," growled Pitkin.
+
+"And with as little sense," added Woods.
+
+"More like a plumber, I should think," remarked Lonnegan drily. "Only
+don't you go up on that hill at five o'clock in the morning, Mac, or
+you'll never finish that picture or anything else. Some thug will finish
+_you_. That's the worst hole on the river--regular den of thieves live
+under that hill. I came near being murdered there myself once."
+
+Lonnegan's statement caused a sensation.
+
+"You came near being murdered, you dear Lonny?" Mac asked nervously.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Some three years ago."
+
+Boggs, who was still smarting under the contempt with which his
+suggestion had been received, now shouted in the voice of a newsboy
+selling an afternoon edition:
+
+"Full and graphic account of the hair-breadth escape of a great
+architect. Sit down, gentlemen, and listen to a tale that will clog your
+veins with dynamite and make goose shivers go up and down your spine.
+Here, Lonnegan, rest your immaculately upholstered body in this chair
+and tell us all about it. Put up your brushes, Mac; I'll help you wash
+'em. Everybody draw up to the fire." (Here Boggs dropped into his own
+chair.) "The modern Moses is going to tell us how he was pulled out of
+the bulrushes and why he has an excuse for still walking around among
+his fellow-men instead of being tucked away in some comfortable cemetery
+on a hill under a mausoleum of his own designing.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen"--Boggs was again on his feet, a ring in his voice
+like that of a showman--"it is my especial privilege, and one of the
+greatest honors of my life, to introduce to you this afternoon the
+distinguished architect, Mr. Archibald Perkins Lonnegan, who----"
+
+"Will you keep still!" cried Pitkin, putting both hands on Boggs's
+shoulder and forcing him into his chair. "Sit on him, Marny!"
+
+Mac by this time had laid his palette on his painting table and had
+moved to the fire.
+
+"You never told me anything about that, Lonny."
+
+"Well, don't know that I did; 'twas some time ago."
+
+"You're sure that you aren't really murdered, me long-lost che-ild?"
+whined Boggs in an anxious tone; these changes of manner, tone, and
+gesture of the Chronic Interrupter,--imitating in one sentence the
+newsboy, in another the showman, and now the anxious mother--were as
+much a part of his personality, and as much enjoyed by the coterie,
+despite their constant protests, as the bubbling good nature which
+inspired them.
+
+"Feel that," said Lonnegan, tapping his biceps as he frowned at Boggs,
+"and you'll find out how much of a corpse I am."
+
+Boggs' plump fingers squeezed the corded muscles of the speaker with the
+dexterity of a surgeon hunting for broken bones. Then he cast his eyes
+heavenward.
+
+"Saved by a miracle, gentlemen. Thank God, he is still spared to us! Now
+go on, you fashion-plate! When, where, and in what part of your valuable
+and talented person were you almost murdered?"
+
+Everybody was now seated and had his pipe filled, all except Lonnegan,
+who stood on the rug with his slender, well-built and, to-day,
+well-dressed body in silhouette against the blazing logs, his shapely
+legs forming an inverted V.
+
+"This isn't much of a story. I wouldn't tell it at all if it wasn't to
+save Mac's life. There are two or three places under that East River
+hill where it is unsafe to walk even in broad daylight, let alone in the
+gray of the morning. When I tried it I was looking for one of my
+foremen--or, rather, for one of his derrick-men. I knew the street, but
+I didn't know the number. After dinner I started up Third Avenue, turned
+to Avenue A, and found that my only way to reach the place was down a
+long street leading to the river, flanked on each side by barren lots
+used as dumping-grounds and dotted here and there with squatters'
+shanties built of refuse timber, old tin roofs, and junk; gas lamps a
+block apart, with the sidewalks flagged only in the centre.
+
+"I went myself because I wanted the derrick-man, and I wanted him at
+seven o'clock on Monday morning, and I knew he'd come if I could see
+him.
+
+"Half-way down this long street, say two blocks from the avenue, which
+was brilliantly lighted and thronged with people--it was Saturday
+night--I saw the lights of a bar-room, the only brick building fronting
+either side of the walk."
+
+"Were you rigged out in this royal apparel, Lonny?" broke in Boggs.
+
+"No; I was in a dress-suit and wore an overcoat. Without thinking of the
+danger, I stepped inside and walked up to the barkeeper--a
+villainous-looking cutthroat, in his shirt sleeves.
+
+"'I am looking for a man by the name of Dennis McGrath,' I said; 'I
+thought some of you men might know him.'
+
+"The fellow looked me all over, and then he called to two men sitting at
+the table behind the stove. As he spoke I caught the flash of a wink
+quivering on his eyelid--the lid farthest from me. Nothing uncovers the
+workings of a man's brain like a carefully concealed wink. It may mean
+anything from ridicule to murder.
+
+"One of the men winked at got up from a table and approached the bar,
+followed by a larger man, with a face like a bull terrier.
+
+"'What yer say his name is--McGrath?'
+
+"All this time his eyes were sizing me up, scrutinizing my hat, my
+shirt-studs, watch-chain, overcoat, gloves, down to my shoes. The
+smaller man--'Shorty,' the barkeeper called him--now repeated the larger
+man's question.
+
+"'Did yer say his name's McGrath? What's he do?'
+
+"'He is a derrick-man.'
+
+"Shorty was now well under the light of the bar. He had a scar over one
+damaged eye and a flattened nose, the same blow having evidently wrecked
+both; over the other was pulled a black cloth cap; around his throat was
+a dirty red handkerchief, no collar showing--a capital make-up for a
+stage villain, I thought, as I looked him over, especially the
+handkerchief. Even Mac here would look like a burglar with his hair
+mussed, collar off, and a red handkerchief tied around his throat.
+
+"The barkeeper piped up again: 'Get a move on, Shorty, and help the gent
+find the Mick.'
+
+"'Shure! I know him. He's a-livin' under de rocks. Come 'long, Boss.
+I'll git him.'
+
+"Two more men stepped out of the gloom; one, in a cap and yellow
+overcoat, went behind the bar and slipped something into his pocket;
+then the two lounged out of the room and shut the door behind them. I
+began to take in the situation. The purpose of the wink was clear now. I
+was in a dive in a deserted street, unarmed and alone, and surrounded by
+cutthroats. If I tried to find McGrath with any one of these men as a
+guide I would be robbed and thrown over the cliff; if I attempted to go
+back I would land in the clutches of the man in the yellow overcoat and
+his companion. All this time the barkeeper was leaning over the bar, his
+eyes fixed on my face. My only hope lay in a bold front.
+
+"'All right,' I said to Shorty; 'how far is it?'
+
+"'Oh, not very fur--'bout t'ree blocks.'
+
+"I stepped out into the night.
+
+"Down the long street on the way to the river stood three men--the man
+in the yellow overcoat, his companion, and one other. They separated
+when they saw me, the one in the overcoat retracing his steps toward the
+dive without looking my way, the others sauntering on ahead. I walked
+on, meditating what to do next. I could throttle Shorty and take to my
+heels, but then I would have to reckon with the pickets who might be
+between me and the bar-room.
+
+"Sometimes, when in great danger, a sudden inspiration comes to a man;
+mine came out of a clear sky.
+
+"'Hold on,' I said to Shorty--we were now half a block from the dive.
+'Wait a minute; I have nothing smaller than a ten-dollar bill, and I
+want to give you something for your trouble. I'll run back and get the
+barkeeper to change it. Stay where you are; I won't be a minute.'
+
+"I turned on my heel and walked back toward the dive with a quick step,
+as if I had forgotten something. The man with the yellow overcoat saw me
+coming and stepped into the street as if to intercept me. Shorty gave
+two low whistles, and the man stepped back to the sidewalk again. I
+reached the doorstep of the dive. All the men were now between me and
+the river, the one in the yellow overcoat but a short distance from the
+bar-room, Shorty waiting for me where I left him. With the same hurried
+movement I swung back the door, stepped inside, stripped off my
+overcoat, folded it close, threw it over my arm, and, before the
+barkeeper could realize what I was doing, pulled my hat close down to my
+ears, jerked the lapels of my dress-coat over my shirt-front to hide the
+white bosom, dashed out of the door and sprang for the middle of the
+street."
+
+Here Lonnegan stopped and puffed away at his pipe. For a minute every
+man kept still.
+
+"Go on, Lonny," said Mac, the intensity of his interest apparent in the
+tones of his voice.
+
+"That's all," said Lonnegan. "The change of coats and slight disguise of
+hat and lapels threw them off their guard. The outside pickets thought,
+when I burst through the door, that I was somebody else until I was too
+far away to be overtaken. That's what saved my life."
+
+"And you call that an adventure, you fake!" cried Boggs. "Ran like a
+street dog, did you, and hid under your mammy's bed?"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with the yarn," retorted Lonnegan; "it's true,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Matter with it? Everything! No point to it, no common sense in it; just
+a fool yarn! You go out hunting trouble with your imagination on edge,
+like a scared child. You meet a man who offers to conduct you
+gratuitously to a house up a back street; you agree to pay him for his
+trouble; you make a lame excuse to dodge him, he relying on your word to
+return, and then you take to your heels and cheat him out of his pay. No
+yarn at all; just a disgraceful bunco game!"
+
+The Circle were now in an uproar of laughter, everybody talking at once.
+Marny finally got the floor.
+
+"Boggs is right," he said, "about Lonnegan's conduct. It is
+extraordinary how low an honest man will sometimes stoop. Lonnegan's
+life among the aristocrats of Murray Hill is undermining his high sense
+of honor. Now I'll tell you a story of an escape that really has some
+point to it."
+
+"Is this another fake murder yarn?" asked Boggs. "We don't want any more
+fizzles."
+
+"Pretty close to the real thing--close enough to turn your hair gray.
+About fifteen years ago----"
+
+"Now hold on, Marny," interrupted Boggs, "one thing more. Is this out of
+your head, like one of your muddy, woolly landscapes, or is it founded
+on fact?"
+
+"It's founded on fact."
+
+"Got any proof?"
+
+"Yes, got the pistol that saved my life. It's on a shelf in my studio
+downstairs. If anybody doubts my story I'll bring it up. About twelve or
+fifteen years back----"
+
+"He said _fifteen_ a moment since," grumbled Boggs in an undertone to
+himself, "now he's qualifying it. First knock-down for the doubters. Go
+on."
+
+"Well, say fifteen then; my memory is not good on dates; my brother and
+I made a trip to the Peaks of Otter, just over the North Carolina line.
+I was a boy of twenty and he was a man of thirty-two. He was a dead shot
+with a rifle or pistol and could knock a cent to pieces edgewise at
+fifty yards. While I painted, he scalped red squirrels and chipmunks
+with a long Flobert pistol that carried a ball the size of a buckshot; a
+toy really, but true as a Winchester.
+
+"We found the Peaks, or rather the peak we climbed, a sugar-loaf of a
+mountain with almost perpendicular slopes near its top, crowned by a
+cluster of enormous boulders. From its crest one can see all over that
+part of the State. Half-way up we stopped at a small tavern, inquired
+the way to the top, borrowed two small blankets of the landlord, and
+bought some cold meat and bread and a few teaspoonfuls of tea. These we
+put in a haversack, and leaving my heavy painting-trap we continued on
+about three o'clock in the afternoon to climb the peak. The only things
+we carried, outside of the provisions and blankets, were my pocket
+sketch-book and the Flobert pistol. It was the worst I have ever done in
+all my mountain climbing. Sometimes we edged along a precipice and
+sometimes we pulled ourselves up a cliff almost perpendicular. There was
+no doubt about the path--that was plainly marked by sign-boards and
+blazed trees and the wear of many feet, and then again it was perfectly
+plain that it was the only way up the mountain.
+
+"We reached the top about sundown and found a cabin built of logs, with
+one window, a sawed pine door with a bolt inside, a rusty stove and
+pipe, and a low bed covered with dry straw. Scattered about were two or
+three wooden stools, and on the window-sill stood a tin coffee-pot and
+two tin cups.
+
+"When it began to grow dark and the chill of the mountains had settled
+down, we started a fire in the stove, put on the pot, dumped in our tea,
+and began to spread out our provisions. Then we lighted one of the
+candles the inn people had given us, and ate our supper.
+
+"About ten o'clock a puff of wind struck the stovepipe and scattered the
+ashes over the floor. The next instant the growl of distant thunder
+reached our ears. Then a storm burst upon the mountains, the lightning
+striking all about us. This went on for two hours--after midnight
+really; we couldn't sleep, and we didn't try to. We just sat up and took
+it, expecting every minute that the shanty would be tumbled in on top of
+us. About one o'clock the rain slackened, the wind went down, and we
+could hear the growl of the thunder as the lightning played havoc on
+the peak to the north of us. Then we bolted the door to keep the wind
+from blowing it in should the storm return, rolled up in our blankets on
+our bed of straw and leaves, and fell asleep, leaving the matches close
+to the candle.
+
+"We had hardly dropped off when we were awakened by a pounding at the
+door. In the dead of night, remember, on top of a mountain that a cat
+could hardly climb in the daytime, and after that storm!
+
+"We both sprang up, scared out of our wits. Then we heard a man's voice,
+rough and coarse, and in a commanding tone:
+
+"'Open the door!'
+
+"I was on my feet now. My brother caught up his pistol, slipped in a
+cartridge, and poured the balance of the ammunition into his
+side-pocket; then he called:
+
+"'Who are you?'
+
+"'Don't make any difference who we are,' came another voice, sharper and
+in a higher key. 'You don't own this shanty. Open the door, damn you, or
+we'll break it in!'
+
+"We might have handled one man; two or more were out of the question. My
+brother stepped across the bed, backed into the shadow away from the
+rays of the flickering firelight, cocked the pistol, and nodded to me. I
+slipped back the bolt.
+
+"Two men entered. One had a brown, bushy beard, a low forehead, and
+ugly, uncertain mouth. He was stockily built, with stout legs and short,
+powerful arms and hands. The other was tall and lanky, with a hatchet
+face and cunning, searching eyes--eyes that looked at you and then
+looked away. He wore a slouch hat and homespun clothes and high boots,
+in which were stuffed the bottoms of his trousers. As he followed the
+shorter man inside the cabin he had to stoop to clear the top of the
+door-jamb.
+
+"We saw that they were not mountaineers--their dress showed that; nor
+did they look like the men we had seen in the village. Both were
+drenched to the skin, the legs of their trousers and boots reeking with
+mud, the water still dripping from their hats.
+
+"The shorter man looked at me and then ran his eye around the room.
+
+"'Where is the other one?' he asked in the same domineering tone.
+
+"'Here he is,' answered my brother coolly, from behind the bed.
+
+"The two men peered into the shadow, where my brother sat crouched with
+his back to the logs, the pistol on his knee within reach of his hand.
+From where I stood I could catch the red glint of the forelight flashing
+down its barrel. The men must have seen it too.
+
+"'We're goin' to chuck some wood in this 'ere stove. Got any
+objections?' asked the tall man, pulling his wet slouch hat from his
+head and beating the water out of it against the pile of firewood. The
+tone was a little less brutal.
+
+"'No,' answered my brother curtly.
+
+"The tall one reached over the pile, picked up a log and shoved it in
+the stove. Then the two stretched themselves out at full length and
+looked steadily at the blaze, the steam from their wet clothes filling
+the room. No other word was passed, either by the men or by my brother
+or myself, nor did we change our positions. I sat on one of the stools
+and my brother sat in the corner where he could draw a bead if either of
+the men showed fight. Three o'clock came, then four, then five, and then
+the cold gray light which tells of the coming dawn stole in between the
+cracks of the cabin and the broken window. At the first streak of light
+the tall man lifted himself to his feet, the short man followed, and
+swinging wide the door the two stalked out to the farthest edge of the
+pile of boulders overlooking the plain, where they squatted on their
+haunches, their eyes toward the east. We took our positions on a rock
+behind them, a little higher up. Any move they made would come under the
+fire of my brother's toy gun. The sun's disk rose slowly--first a peep
+of the old fellow's eye, then half his cheek, and then his round, jolly
+face wreathed in smiles. When the bottom edge of his chin had swung
+clear of the crest of the distant mountain range the tall man leaned
+over his companion and said in a decisive tone:
+
+"'Well, Bill, she's up,' and without a word to either of us they swung
+themselves through the opening in the boulders and disappeared."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The coterie had listened in their usual absorbed way whenever Marny had
+the floor. His experience, like Mac's, covered half the world. Boggs
+had not taken his eyes from Marny's face during the entire recital.
+
+"And that's all you know about them?" asked Lonnegan in a serious tone.
+
+"Except what the landlord told us," continued Marny in answer, turning
+to Lonnegan. "The two men, he said, had stopped at the tavern about nine
+o'clock that night, had asked who was on top, and had hurried on; all
+they wanted was a stable lantern, which he lent them, and which they
+didn't return. He had never seen either of them before, and they didn't
+pass the tavern on their way back."
+
+"What did you think of the affair?" asked Pitkin in a serious tone of
+voice.
+
+"We had only two conclusions. They had either come to rob us, and were
+scared off by the toy pistol, or they were carrying out a wager of some
+kind."
+
+"And it took you all night and the next day to find that out?"
+exclaimed Boggs in a tone of assumed contempt. "Really, gentlemen, this
+whole afternoon should go on record as the proceedings of a
+kindergarten. Just think what rot we've had: Lonnegan promises a poor
+workingman a job and takes to his heels to cheat him out of his pay;
+Marny, who, like Mac, poses as a philanthropist, and claims to feed the
+hungry and clothe the naked, refuses shelter to two half-drowned
+tourists who come up to see the sunrise, and instead of hustling round
+to get 'em hot tea and grub, he posts his big brother in a corner with a
+gun where he can blow the tops of their heads off. Rot--all of it! But
+what I object to most is the 'let-down' at the tag-end of each of these
+yarns. You work up to a climax, and nothing happens. Just like one of
+these half-baked modern plays we've been having--all the climax in the
+first act, and a dreary drivel from that on till the curtain drops. I
+expected Marny's yarn would taper off in a hand-to-hand death struggle;
+both men thrown over the cliff; the finding of their mangled bodies,
+impaled on the trees, by the sheriff, who had tracked them for years,
+and who promptly identified both scoundrels, one as 'Dead House Dick'
+and the other as 'Murder Pete'; a vote of thanks to the two heroes by
+the State legislature, one of whom, thank God! is still with us"--and he
+bowed grandiloquently at Marny--"and a ring-down with a beautiful,
+unknown woman, supposed to be an heiress, creeping in at twilight to
+weep over their graves, all the stage lights turned down and a low
+tremolo going on in the orchestra. Tamest, deadest lot of twaddle I've
+heard around this fire! Now let me tell you a yarn that _means_
+something. Blood this time--red blood. None of your dress-suit and
+warmed-up tea and toy-pistol adventures."
+
+Everybody straightened up in his chair to get a better view of Boggs.
+The Chronic Interrupter was about to appear in a new role. The speaker
+opened his coat, tossed back the lapels as if to give his plump body
+more room, and rose slowly to his feet, his black diamond-pointed eyes
+glistening, his lips quivering with suppressed merriment. It was evident
+that Boggs was loaded to the muzzle; it was also evident, from the
+unusual earnestness of his manner, that he was about to fire off
+something of more than usual importance.
+
+"No preliminaries, mind you. Right to the spot in a jump. This happened
+in Stamboul the winter I made those sketches of the mosques."
+
+Mac looked up, an expression of surprise in his face. He thought he knew
+every act of Boggs's life from his cradle up--they being bosom chums.
+That Boggs had even been in the East was news to him. Boggs caught the
+look and repeated his opening in a louder voice.
+
+"In Stamboul, remember, across the Galata from Pera. I had finished the
+flight of marble steps and entrance of the Valedee, and was looking
+around for another subject, when a Turk with a green scarf around his
+fez (that showed he'd been to Mecca), who had been keeping off the crowd
+while I painted, offered to carry my trap to the Mosque of the Six
+Minarets up in the Plaza of the Hippodrome. A man who has been to Mecca
+is generally to be trusted, so I handed him my kit and followed his
+lead. On the way to the plaza he stopped beside a low wall and pointed
+to an opening in the ground. I looked down and saw a flight of stone
+steps.
+
+"'This is not for the Effendi to paint,' he said, 'but it is something
+for him to see. It is the great underground cistern where the water was
+kept during the sieges.'
+
+"That suited me to a dot--caverns always appeal to me--and down I went,
+followed by the green fez. Down, down, down, into a big vaulted chamber,
+the roof supported on marble columns running back into the gloom, only
+the nearby ones in relief where the light from the opening above fell
+upon their white shafts, very much as a forest looks at night when a
+torch is lighted. Stretching away was a dirt floor, uneven in places,
+and away back in the half-gloom I could make out the surface of a great
+pool. Now and then something would strike the water, the splash
+reverberating through the cavern.
+
+"When my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness I could see men
+moving about, dragging ropes, and beyond these a dull light, like that
+from a grimy cellar window. This, the Turk said, was the other exit, the
+one nearest to the Mosque of the Six Minarets; the men, he added, were
+rope-makers; some of them lived here and only left the cisterns at
+night, as the daylight blinded them. So I followed on, the Turk ahead,
+my kit in his hand.
+
+"In the centre of the enormous cavern, half-way between the light of the
+street opening above the steps and the distant cellar-window light, I
+came to a circle of big stone columns standing close together, enclosing
+a space not much bigger than this room of Mac's. They were of marble and
+rather large for their height, although it was so dark that I could not
+see the roof distinctly. At this instant one of those indefinable
+chills, which with me always foretells danger, crept over me. I called
+to the Turk. There was no answer; only the sound of his feet, but
+quicker, as if he were running. Then a feeling took possession of me of
+someone following me--that's another one of my safeguards. I turned my
+head quickly and caught the edge of a man's body as it dodged behind the
+column I had just passed. Then a head was thrust from around the column
+in front, then another on the side--rough looking brutes, bareheaded and
+frowzy. There was no question now--the Turk was their accomplice and had
+led me into this trap. These fellows meant business. Not backsheesh, but
+murder, and your body in the pool!" Here Boggs's manner became more
+serious. The suppressed smile had vanished.
+
+"I was better built in those days than I am now," he continued in a
+graver tone; "not so fat, and could run like a sand-snipe, and it didn't
+take me long to decide what to do. To reach the staircase was my only
+hope.
+
+"I whirled suddenly, struck the brute behind the rear column full in the
+face before he could raise his hands, sprang over his body, and ran with
+all my might toward the light at the foot of the staircase. If you
+thought you were running, Lonnegan, up that long street, you should have
+seen me light out. It was a race for life over an uneven pavement, where
+I might stumble any moment, four men pursuing me, then three, then one.
+I could tell this from their footfalls. The light grew stronger; I
+turned my head for a second to size up my opponent. He was younger than
+the others, was naked to the waist, and wore only a pair of trunks. His
+bare feet made hardly a sound. I was within fifty yards now of the
+lower step, running like a deer, my wind almost gone. If I could reach
+that and bound up into the daylight, he would be afraid to follow. The
+light footfalls came closer; he was within twenty feet of me; I could
+hear his heavy breathing and smothered curses. My foot was now within a
+few feet of the steps; one spring and I would be safe. I put forth all
+my strength, miscalculated the bottom step, and fell headlong on the
+steps! The next instant his body struck mine with the impact of a tiger
+falling upon his prey, flattening me to the steps and grinding my lips
+into the sand covering the stones--I can taste it now. His fingers
+tightened about my throat. In my agony I braced myself and rolled over,
+partly throwing him off. Then my eyes lighted on a long curved knife
+with a turquoise-studded handle. A man notes these things in a moment
+like this. I minded even a spot of rust on the blade.
+
+"Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going. That peculiar
+swelling of the tongue and dryness which sometimes comes with fever
+filled my mouth. The knife was now tightly gripped in his right hand,
+his fingers twisting my shirt collar into a tourniquet. I straightened
+my back, gathered all my strength, and lunged forward. The knife
+flashed, and then a horrible thing happened!"
+
+[Illustration: Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going.]
+
+Boggs stopped and began mopping his face with his handkerchief. The
+memory of the fight for his life seemed to have strangely affected him.
+No one of the coterie had ever seen him so stirred, and no one had ever
+dreamed that he could tell a story with so much real dramatic power. In
+the few moments in which he had been speaking the room was almost
+breathless except for the tones of his voice.
+
+"Go on, Boggs, don't stop!" said Lonnegan.
+
+"In the struggle for mastery the point of the dagger pressed against my
+heart. There came a sudden lunge--Oh, I guess, boys, I won't go any
+further; I never like to think of the affair. I'd no business to tell
+it; always affects me this way."
+
+"Yes, go on; served the brute right," spoke up Mac.
+
+"I tried, of course, to avoid it, but I was powerless. The knife went
+straight through my own heart, and I fell dead at his feet. That
+afternoon they threw my body in the pool. I have lain there ever since."
+
+The listeners, one and all, glared at Boggs. The surprise had been so
+great that for an instant no one found his tongue. Then the fireside
+rang with shouts of laughter.
+
+Lonnegan got his breath first.
+
+"Boggs," he cried, "you are the most picturesque liar I know."
+
+"Yes, Lonny, I guess that's so; but I gave you fellows a _thrill_, and
+that's what none of you gave me!"
+
+
+
+
+PART VI
+
+_Wherein Mac Dilates on the Human Side of "His Worship, the Chief
+Justice," and his Fellow Dogs._
+
+
+The group about the blazing logs was enriched this afternoon by a new
+member. Lonnegan had brought his dog, a big white and yellow St.
+Bernard, fluffy as a girl's muff, a huge, splendid fellow, who answered
+with great dignity and with considerable condescension to the name of
+"Chief," an abbreviation of "His Worship, the Chief Justice."
+
+No other name would have suited him. Grave, dignified, wide-browed, with
+deep, thoughtful eyes; ponderous of form, slow in his movements, keeping
+perfectly still minutes at a time, he needed only a wig and a pair of
+big-bowed spectacles to make him the fitting occupant of any bench.
+
+Mac put his arm around Chief's neck before His Worship had fully made up
+his mind as to where on the Daghestan rug he would place his august
+person.
+
+The salutation over, and the dog's soft, fur-tippet ears having been
+duly rubbed, and his finely modelled cheeks pressed close between Mac's
+two warm hands--their two noses were but an inch apart--His Worship
+stretched himself out at full length before the fire, his nose resting
+on his extended paws, his kindly, human eyes fixed on the crackling
+logs.
+
+"Lonnegan," said Mac in a thoughtful tone, "do you know I think a good
+deal more of you since you got this dog? I didn't know you were that
+human," and Mac changed his seat so that he could rest his hand on
+Chief's head.
+
+"Lonnegan hasn't anything human about him," broke in Boggs, tugging at
+his collar to give his fat throat the more room; "not in your sense,
+Mac. If you will study the Great Architect as closely as I have done,
+you will see that his humanity is to always keep one point ahead of the
+social game." Here Boggs got up and moved his chair to the other side of
+the fireplace, so as to be out of reach of Lonnegan's long arms.
+
+"Let me explain, gentlemen, for I don't want to do this distinguished
+man any injustice. You and I, Mac, being common-sense people, without
+any frills about us, wear just an ordinary plain scarf-pin--a horseshoe
+or a gold ball, or some such trifle. Lonnegan must have a scarab, or a
+coin two thousand years old; same thing in his dress, if you study him.
+You will note that his collars are an inch higher than ours, his scarfs
+twice as puffy, his coat-tails longer, his trouserloons more baggy--not
+offensively baggy, gentlemen," and he waved his hand to the coterie;
+"perhaps more unique in cut, so to put it. So it is with his dogs. This
+big St. Bernard, hulking along after the Great Architect when he takes
+his afternoon walks up and down the Avenue, is quite on a par with all
+Lonnegan's other frills. You and I would affect an inconspicuous
+canine--a poodle, a terrier, or a bull pup. Not so Lonnegan. He wants a
+dog as big as a mule. It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper. 'My dear,' says a stout lady, built in two movements, to
+her husband at a theatre" (Boggs's imitation of a society woman's drawl
+was now inimitable), "'I saw such a magnificent St. Bernard coming up
+the Avenue. Belongs to Mr. Lonnegan, the architect. He certainly is a
+man of very exquisite taste. I think it would be a good idea for you to
+consult him about the plans for our----'"
+
+[Illustration: "It's a better advertisement than two columns in a
+morning paper."]
+
+Lonnegan sprang from his seat and made a lunge at his tormentor with a
+look in his eyes as if he intended to throttle Boggs on the spot. At the
+same instant the great dog drew in his paws and rose to his feet, his
+eyes fixed on his master's movements--rose as an athlete rises, using
+the muscles of his knees and ankles to pull his body erect. If his
+master was in danger he was ready. Only smothered laughter, however,
+came from both Boggs and Lonnegan.
+
+"I take it all back, Lonny," sputtered Boggs, trying to release himself
+from Lonnegan's grip. "The woman's husband wanted two country houses,
+not one. Call off your dog, I can't fight two brutes at once."
+
+Pitkin sprang to his feet, his partly bald head and forehead rose-pink
+in the excitement of the moment.
+
+"Don't call your dog off, Lonny! Don't move. Keep on choking Boggs. Just
+look at the pose of that dog. Isn't that stunning. By Jove, fellows!
+wouldn't he be a corker in bronze, life size. Just see the line of the
+back and lift of the head!" And the sculptor, after the manner of his
+guild, held the edge of his hand against his eye as a guide by which to
+measure the proportions of the noble beast.
+
+Lonnegan loosened his hold, and Boggs, now purple in the face from loss
+of breath and laughter, shook himself free and rearranged his collar
+with his fat fingers. The attention of the whole fireside was now
+centred on the dog. His pose was now less tense and his legs less rigid,
+but his paws had kept their original position on the rug. As he stood,
+trying to comprehend the situation, he had the bearing of a charger
+overlooking a battle-field.
+
+"No, you're wrong, Pitkin," cried Marny; "Chief would be lumpy and
+inexpressive in bronze. He's too woolly. You want clear-cut anatomy when
+you're going to put a dog or any other animal in bronze. Color is better
+for Chief. I'd use him as a foil to a half-nude, life-size scheme of
+brown, yellow, and white; old Chinese jar on her left, filled with
+chrysanthemums, some stuffs in the background--this kind of thing. I can
+see it now," and Marny picked up a bit of charcoal and blocked in on a
+fresh canvas resting on Mac's easel the position of the figure, the men
+crowding about him to watch the result.
+
+"Won't do, old man," cried Woods, as soon as Marny's rapid outline
+became clear. "Out of scale; all dog and no girl. I'd have him stretched
+out as he is now" (Chief had regained his position), "with a fellow in a
+chair reading--lamplight on book for high light, dog in half shadow."
+
+"You're quite right, Woods," said Mac, who was still caressing Chiefs
+silky ears. "Marny's missed it this time; girl scheme won't do. This is
+a gentleman's dog, and he has always moved among his kind."
+
+"Careful, Mac; careful," remarked Boggs in a reproving tone. "You said
+'_has_ moved.' You don't mean to reflect on his present owner, do you?"
+
+Mac waved Boggs away with the same gesture with which he would have
+brushed off a fly, and continued:
+
+"When I say that he has always lived among _gentlemen_, I state the
+exact fact. You can see that in his manners and in the way in which he
+retains not only his self-respect, but his courage and loyalty. You
+noticed, did you not, that it took him but an instant to get on his feet
+when Lonnegan seized Boggs? You will also agree with me that no one has
+entered this room this winter more gracefully, or with more ease and
+composure, nor one who has known better what to do with his arms and
+legs. And as for his well-bred reticence, he has yet to open his
+mouth--certainly a great rebuke to Boggs, if he did but know it," and he
+nodded in the direction of the Chronic Interrupter. "Great study, these
+dogs. Chief has had a gentleman for a master, I tell you, and has lived
+in a gentleman's house, accustomed all his life to oriental rugs, wood
+fires, four-in-hands, two-wheeled carts, golden-haired children in black
+velvet suits, servants in livery--regular thoroughbred. That is, _bred
+thorough_, by somebody who never insulted him, who never misunderstood
+him, and who never mortified him. Offending a dog is as bad as offending
+a child, and ten times worse than offending a woman. A dozen men would
+spring to a woman's assistance; no one ever interferes in a quarrel
+between a dog and his master. When they do they generally take the
+master's side."
+
+Mac reached over, tapped the bowl of his pipe against the brick of the
+fireplace, emptied it of its ashes, and laying it on the mantel resumed
+his seat.
+
+"It's pathetic to me," he continued, "to see how hard some dogs try to
+understand their masters. All they can do is to take their cue from the
+men who own them. It isn't astonishing, really, that they should
+sometimes copy them. It only takes a few months for a butcher to make
+his dog as bloody and as brutal as the toughest hand in his shop."
+
+"What a responsibility," sighed Boggs, turning toward Lonnegan. "You
+won't corrupt His Worship with any of your Murray Hill swaggerdoms, will
+you, Lonny?"
+
+Lonnegan closed one eye at Boggs and wagged his chin in denial. Mac went
+on:
+
+"Dogs can just as well be educated up as educated down. There is no
+question of their ability to learn--not the slightest. I am not speaking
+of the things they are expected to know--hunting, rat catching, and so
+on; I mean the things they are _not_ expected to know. If you'd like to
+hear how they can understand each other, get the Colonel to tell you
+about those two dogs he saw in Constantinople some two years ago," and
+he turned to me.
+
+"It wasn't in Constantinople, Mac," I answered, "it was in Stamboul, on
+the Plaza of the Hippodrome."
+
+"Near where I was murdered, and where I still lie buried?" Boggs asked
+gravely, with a sly wink at Marny.
+
+"Yes, within a stone's throw of your present tomb, old man, up near the
+Obelisk. That plaza is the home of four or five packs of street curs,
+who divide up the territory among themselves, and no dog dares cross the
+imaginary line without getting into trouble. Every day or so there is a
+pitched battle directed by their leaders--always the biggest dogs in the
+pack. What Mac refers to occurred some years ago, when, looking over my
+easel one morning, I saw a lame dog skulking along by the side of a low
+wall that forms the boundary of one side of the plaza. He was on three
+legs, the other held up in the air. A big shaggy brute, the leader of
+another pack, made straight for him, followed by three others. The
+cripple saw them coming, and at once lay down on his back, his injured
+paw thrust up. The big dog stood over him and heard what he had to say.
+I was not ten feet from them, and I understood every word.
+
+"'I am lame, gentlemen, as you see,' he pleaded, 'and I am on my way
+home. I am in too much pain to walk around the side of the plaza where I
+belong, and I therefore humbly beg your permission to cross this small
+part of your territory.'
+
+"The big leader listened, snarled at his companions who were standing by
+ready to help tear the intruder to pieces, sent them back to their
+quarters with a commanding toss of his head, and walked by the side of
+the cripple until he had cleared the corner; then he slowly returned to
+his pack. There was no question about it; if the cripple had spoken
+English I could not have understood him better."
+
+"I can beat that yarn," chimed in Woods, "so far as sympathy is
+concerned. I was in an omnibus once going up the Boulevard des
+Italiennes when a man on the seat opposite me whistled out of the end
+window--his two dogs were following behind the 'bus. One was a white
+bull terrier, the other a French poodle, black as tar. Whenever anything
+got in the way--and it was pretty crowded along there--the dogs fell
+behind. When they appeared again the owner would whistle to let them
+know where he was. All of a sudden I heard a yell. The poodle had been
+run over. I could see him lying flat on the asphalt, kicking. The man
+stopped the omnibus and sprang out, and a crowd gathered. In that short
+space of time the terrier had fastened his teeth in the poodle's collar,
+had dragged him clear of the traffic to the sidewalk, and was bending
+over him licking the hurt. Four or five people got out of the stage, I
+among them, and a cheer went up for the owner when he picked up the
+injured dog in his arms and took him clear of the crowd, the terrier
+following behind, as anxious as a mother over her child. I have believed
+in the sympathy of dogs for each other ever since."
+
+"My turn now," said Boggs. "My uncle's got a poodle, answers to the name
+of Mirza. Got more common sense than anything that walks on four legs.
+They keep a bowl in one corner of the dining-room, which is always
+filled with water so the dog can get a drink when she wants it. My uncle
+says that's one thing half the people who own dogs never think of--dogs
+not being able to turn faucets. Well, they shifted servants one day and
+forgot to tell the new one about the bowl. Mirza did her best to make
+her understand--pulled her dress, got up on her hind legs and sniffed
+around the empty tea-cups. No use. Then an idea struck the dog. She made
+a spring for the empty bowl and rolled it over with her four paws from
+the dining-room into the butler's pantry. By that time the wooden-headed
+idiot understood, and Mirza got her drink."
+
+During the discussion Mac had sat with the great head of the St. Bernard
+resting on his knee. It was evident that His Worship had found an
+acquaintance whom he could trust, one whom he considered his equal. For
+some minutes the painter looked into the dog's face, his hands smoothing
+the dog's ears, the St. Bernard's eyes growing sleepy under the caress.
+Then Mac said in a half-audible tone, speaking to the dog, not to us:
+
+"You've got a great head, old fellow--full of sense. All your bumps are
+in the right place. You know a lot of things that are too much for us
+humans. I wish you'd tell me one thing. You know what we all think of
+you, but what do you think of us--of your master Lonnegan, of this
+crowd, this fireplace? Speak out, old man; I'd like to know."
+
+Boggs shifted his fat body in his chair, jerked his head over his
+shoulder, and winking meaningly at Lonnegan, said in a low voice:
+
+"Mac is going to give us one of his reminuisances; I know the sign."
+
+"Make the dog begin on Boggs, Mac," cried Woods.
+
+"No, Chief's too much of a gentleman. He knows all about Boggs, but he's
+too polite to tell," replied Mac.
+
+"Get him to whisper it then in your off ear," suggested Boggs. "He'll
+surprise you with his estimate of one of nature's noblemen," and he
+thrust his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
+
+"No, keep it to yourself, Chief," remarked Mac. "But I'm not joking, I'm
+in dead earnest. Anybody can find out what a man thinks of a dog; but
+what does a dog think of a man, especially some of those two-legged
+brutes who by right of dollars claim to own them? I took the measure of
+a man once who----"
+
+Boggs sprang from his seat and struck one of his ring-master attitudes.
+
+"What did I tell you, gentlemen? Just as I expected, the semi-nuisance
+has arrived. Give him room! The great landscape painter is about to
+explode with another tale of his youth. You took the measure of a man
+once, I think you said, Mac; was it for a suit of clothes or a coffin?
+No, don't answer; keep right on."
+
+"Yes, I did take his measure," said Mac, in a low, earnest tone,
+ignoring Boggs's aside; "and I've never taken any stock in him since. I
+don't think any of you know him, and it's just as well that you don't. I
+may be a little Quixotic about these things--guess I am--but I'm going
+to stay so. I met this Quarterman--that's more than he deserves; he's
+nearer one-eighth of a man than a quarter--up at the club-house on Salt
+Beach. I was a guest; he was a member. Big, heavily built young fellow;
+weighed about two hundred pounds; rather good-looking; wore the best of
+English shooting togs; carried an English gun and carted around a lot of
+English leather cases, bound in brass, with his name plate on them. A
+regular out-and-out sport of the better type, I thought, when I first
+saw him. He had with him one of the most beautiful reddish-brown setters
+I ever laid my eyes on--what you'd get with burnt sienna and
+madder--with a coat as fine and silky as a camel's hair brush. One of
+those clean-mouthed, clean-toothed, agate-eyed, sweet-breathed dogs that
+every girl loves at first sight, and can no more help putting her hands
+on than she can help coddling a roly-poly kitten just out of a basket.
+He had the same well-bred manners that Chief has, the same grace of
+movement, same repose, only more gentle and more confiding. The only
+thing that struck me as peculiar about him was the way he watched his
+master; he seemed to love him and yet to be afraid of him; always ready
+to bound out of his way and yet equally ready to come when he was
+called--a manner which he never showed to anyone who tried to make
+friends with him.
+
+"I saw Quarterman that morning when he started out alone quail
+shooting, the setter bounding before him, running up and springing at
+him, and off again--doing all the things a human dog does to tell a man
+how happy he is to go along, and what a lot of fun the two are going to
+have together. I watched them until they got clear of the marshes and
+disappeared in the woods on the way to the open country beyond. All that
+day the picture of the well-equipped, alert young fellow and the spring
+of the joyous setter kept coming to my mind. I don't believe in killing
+things, as you know (so I don't shoot), but I thought if I did I'd just
+like to have a dog like that one to show me how.
+
+"About six o'clock that night the two returned. I was sitting by the
+wood fire--a good deal bigger than this one, the logs nearly six feet
+long--when the outer door was swung back and Quarterman came in, his
+boots covered with mud, his bird-bag over his shoulder. The setter
+followed close at his heels, his beautiful brown coat covered with
+burrs and dirt. Both man and dog had had a hard day's work and a poor
+one, judging from the bird-bag which hung almost flat against
+Quarterman's shoulder.
+
+"Everybody pushed back his chair to make room for the tired-out
+sportsman.
+
+"'What luck?' cried out half-a-dozen men at once.
+
+"Quarterman, without answering, stopped in the middle of the room some
+distance from the fire, laid his gun on the table, reached around for
+his bird-bag, thrust in his hand, drew out a small quail--all he had
+shot--and threw it with all his might against the wall of the fireplace,
+where it dropped into the ashes--threw it as a boy would throw a brick
+against a fence. Then with a vicious hind thrust of his boot he kicked
+the setter in the face. The dog gave a cry of pain and crawled under the
+table and out of the room.
+
+"'What luck!' growled Quarterman. 'Footed it fifteen miles clear to
+Pottsburg, and that damned dog scared up every bird before I could get a
+shot at it!' and without another word he mounted the stairs to his room.
+
+"His opinion of the dog was now common property. If any man who had
+heard it disagreed with him, he kept his opinion to himself. But what I
+wanted to know was what the setter thought of Quarterman? He had
+followed him all day through swamps and briars; had run, jumped, crept
+on his belly, sniffed, scented, and nosed into every tuft of grass and
+brush-heap where a quail could hide itself; had walked miles to the
+man's one, leaped fences, scoured hills, raced down country roads and
+over ditches, had pointed and flushed a dozen birds the brute couldn't
+hit, and after doing his level best had come back to the club-house
+expecting to get a warm corner and a hot supper--his right as well as
+Quarterman's--and instead got a kick in the face.
+
+"I ask you now, what did the dog think of him? I was so mad I had to go
+outside and let off steam myself. I was half Quarterman's weight and ten
+years his senior, but if he had stayed five minutes longer by that fire
+I am quite sure I should have told him what I thought of him."
+
+"I bet you told the dog, didn't you, Mac?" remarked Lonnegan.
+
+"Yes, I did. Gave him a hug, and hunted up the cook and saw he was fed.
+He tried to tell me all about it, putting out his paw and drawing it in
+again, looking up into my face with his big eyes--tears in 'em, I tell
+you--real tears! Not so much from the hurt as from the mortification. I
+understood then his shrinking away from his master. It hadn't been the
+first time he had been humiliated and hurt. Dirty brute! If I knew where
+he was I think I'd go and thrash him now."
+
+The coterie broke out into a laugh over Mac's indignation, but a laugh
+in which there was more love than ridicule.
+
+"Yes, I would; I feel like it this minute. But I tell you the setter got
+his revenge; a revenge that showed his blood and breeding; the revenge
+of a gentleman.
+
+"Back of the club-house was a swampy place where some cranberry raisers
+had dug holes and squares trying to get something to grow, and back of
+this was another swamp perhaps a mile or two wide. Ugly place--full of
+suck-holes, twisted briars, and vines--where they told Quarterman he
+could get some woodcock or snipe or whatever you do get in a marsh. The
+setter rose to his feet to accompany him (this was two days later) but
+was met with, 'Go back, damn you!' Followed by an aside, 'What that fool
+dog wants is a dose of buckshot, and he'll get it if he ain't careful.'
+
+"That day I had been off sketching and did not get back until nearly
+dark. There were only two other men left besides myself and Quarterman,
+most of the others having gone to town. When dinner was served the
+steward went upstairs expecting to find Quarterman asleep on his bed. No
+Quarterman! Then he began to inquire around. He had not been back to
+luncheon, and no one had seen him since he went off in the morning
+heading for the cranberry swamp. The setter was still outside on the
+porch, where he had lain all day, foot-sore and worn out, the men said,
+with his hunt the day before. I made no reply to this, but I thought
+differently. Eight o'clock came, then nine, and still no sign of
+Quarterman. One of the club servants suggested that something must have
+happened to him. 'Never Mr. Quarterman's way,' he added, 'to be out
+after sundown, in all the five years he had been a member of the club.
+He certainly would not go to the city in his shooting clothes, and he
+hadn't changed them, for the suit he had worn down from town still hung
+in his closet.' At ten o'clock we got uneasy and started out to look for
+him, a party of three, the two servants carrying stable lanterns. The
+setter again rose to his feet, wondering what was up, and was again
+rebuffed, this time by the steward.
+
+"We soon found that fooling around a swamp of a dark night, with your
+eyes blinded by a lantern, was no joke. Every other step we took we fell
+into holes or got tripped up by briars. We stumbled on, skirting by the
+edge of the cranberry patch, hollering as loud as we could; stopping to
+listen; then going on again. We tried the other big swamp, but that was
+impossible in the dark. Then an idea popped into my head. I gave the
+lantern I was carrying to one of the men, hollered to the others to stay
+where they were till I got back, cleared the cranberry patch, struck out
+for the club-house on a run, sprang upstairs, grabbed Quarterman's coat
+hanging in the closet, ran downstairs again, and shoved it under the
+nose of the setter. Then I told him all about it, just as I'd tell you.
+Quarterman was lost--he was in the swamp, perhaps; where, we didn't
+know--and he was the only one who could find him. Would he go? _Go!_ You
+just ought to have seen him! He threw his nose up in the air, sniffed
+around as though he were looking for gnats to bite; made a spring from
+the porch and began circling the lawn, his nose to the ground and sand;
+then he made a bound over the fence and disappeared in the night.
+
+"I hollered for the others and we kept after the setter as best we
+could. Every now and then he would give a short bark--sometimes far
+away, sometimes nearer. All we could do was to skirt along the edge of
+the cranberry patch swinging the lanterns and hollering, 'Quarterman!
+Quarterman!' until our throats gave out.
+
+"Then I heard a quick, sharp bark, followed by a series of short yelps,
+not fifty yards away. Next there came a faint halloo, a man's voice. We
+pushed on, and there, about ten yards from hard ground, we found
+Quarterman stretched out, the setter squatting beside him. He had
+slipped into a hole some hours before, had broken his ankle, and had
+made up his mind to wait until daylight, the pain, every time he moved,
+almost making him faint. He was soaked to the skin and shivering with
+cold. We helped him up on one foot, carried him to dry land, and finally
+got him home; the dog following at a respectful distance.
+
+"After we had put Quarterman to bed and had sent a man off on horseback
+to Pottsburg for a doctor, I looked up the setter. He was in his old
+place on the porch, stretched out under one of the wooden benches, his
+nose resting on his paws--just as Chief lies here now--thinking the
+whole situation over. He raised his head for an instant, licked my hand
+and looked up inquiringly into my face as if expecting some further
+service might be required of him; then he dropped his head again and
+kept on thinking. Nobody had bothered himself about him; they hadn't
+even thanked him in their hearts. Nothing to thank him for. Childish to
+think of it! All the setter had done was just being plain dog. Hunting
+up things was what he was born for.
+
+"Next morning the dog turned up missing.
+
+"Quarterman raised himself up on his elbow when he heard the news and
+said he must be found at any cost; he was worth five hundred dollars.
+The men started out, of course; searched the stables, boat-houses,
+swamp, and fields clear down to the water's edge; whistled and called;
+did all the things you do when a dog is lost--but no setter. Everybody
+wondered why he ran away. Some said one thing, some another. I knew why.
+_He had gone off in search of a gentleman._"
+
+"Did Quarterman get well?" ventured Lonnegan.
+
+"I don't know and I don't care. I left the next morning."
+
+"Did Quarterman get his dog back?" asked Boggs.
+
+"Not while I was there. I could have told him where to look for him, but
+I didn't. I saw him on a porch with some children about a week after
+that, when I was driving through a neighboring village--but I didn't
+send word to Quarterman. I had too much respect for the dog.
+
+"Come here, old fellow," and Mac took the great head of the St. Bernard
+between his warm hands and the two snuggled their cheeks together.
+
+
+
+
+PART VII
+
+_Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
+Yancey, and their Kind._
+
+
+When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright
+piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of
+the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the
+screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by
+Mac's easel.
+
+This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment.
+The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with
+a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was
+stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous
+collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color,
+half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the
+table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the
+divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed
+up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in
+later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs--those of the regular
+members, and brand new ones for the invited guests--lined up on the
+cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being
+especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare
+nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle
+that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.
+
+These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the
+stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have
+logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter
+how late they stayed; the hearth swept--all its "dear gray hair combed
+back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the
+Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts;
+candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy
+Dutch lanterns; and last--and this he attended to himself--every vestige
+of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs
+could find one. There were strangers coming to-night--one a partner in
+a big banking house and a suspected buyer--and no canvas of his must be
+visible.
+
+With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders
+of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause,
+where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of
+kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its
+sill a paper box filled with smilax--his own touch in remembrance of his
+Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the
+enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a
+sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.
+
+Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from
+whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of
+the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted
+into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest.
+Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be
+debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The
+habitues of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac)
+the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.
+
+Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a
+stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods,
+who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from
+the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.
+
+Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented
+to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded
+according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's
+grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any
+financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a
+description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the
+proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a
+mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the
+etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass--dropping finally into
+one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which
+he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny,
+Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each
+guest feel at home--guests and hosts conducting themselves after the
+manner of humans.
+
+Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He
+walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an
+instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he
+returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his
+knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in
+turn--those he knew--waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and
+then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire,
+where he lay without moving during the entire evening.
+
+"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac--he had followed Chief's every
+movement since the dog entered the room--"see the way he lies down. Got
+royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his
+ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were
+entertaining a Prime Minister."
+
+The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker
+found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host
+increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing,
+hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings,
+and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might
+be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship,
+was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession
+of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward
+discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.
+
+Murphy, the journalist, being poor himself, had other views of life. To
+him MacWhirter and his intimates were men after his own heart. He and
+they had followed the same road, although with different aims. They
+understood each other. As to the rich banker, if the journalist
+considered him at all it was purely in the line of his own calling--just
+so much material for future columns of type, whenever he could utilize
+either his personality or his views.
+
+"No, I don't think American Bohemian life--which is a misnomer," said
+Murphy in answer to one of the banker's inquiries, "because no such
+thing exists--is any different from any other such life the world over.
+We are a class to ourselves, but we in no way differ from our brothers
+of the brush and quill abroad. I, of course, am only allowed to creep
+around the outside edges, but even that small privilege affords me more
+pleasure than any other I possess. Murray Hill and Belgravia may be
+necessary to our civilization, but neither one nor the other interests
+the man who has any purpose in life. Take, for instance, these men
+here," and he pointed to Mac, who was for the moment driving a wooden
+spigot into the keg of beer. "Look at MacWhirter. He doesn't want any
+liveried servant to wait on him; he would serve that beer himself if
+there was a line of flunkies extending from the door to the sidewalk."
+
+"That's what I like him for," cried the banker, jumping up, "and I'm
+going to help him," and he carried some of the mugs over to Mac's side.
+"Here, fill these, Mr. MacWhirter."
+
+"Bully for him!" muttered Pitkin, turning to me as if for confirmation.
+"Didn't know it was in him."
+
+"This mug's for you, Mr. MacWhirter," cried out the banker, with an
+enthusiasm he had not shown since his college days, as he handed the mug
+to Mac, who drank its contents, his merry eyes fixed on the banker.
+
+"See the monarch picking up the painter's brushes," whispered Boggs to
+Marny from behind his hand.
+
+And so the evening went on, the mugs being filled and emptied, the piano
+opened, Woods playing the accompaniment to all the songs the Irishman
+sang--and he had a dozen of them that no one had ever heard before--the
+banker and club man joining in the chorus. Then with pipes and mugs in
+hand the circle about the crackling logs was formed anew--this time
+twice its regular size to give Chief plenty of room--and the
+story-telling part of the evening began.
+
+The club man told of a supper he had been to after the theatre in an
+uptown back room, in which a mysterious man and a veiled lady figured.
+Woods supplemented it by an experience of his own, having special
+reference to a lost lace handkerchief which had been discovered in the
+outside pocket of one of the male guests, producing uncomfortable
+consequences. I gave the details of a dinner where I had met a titled
+individual who claimed to be a mighty hunter of big game, and about whom
+the prettiest woman in the room had gone wild, and who turned out later
+to be somebody's footman.
+
+Murphy, not to be outdone, and recognizing that his turn had come,
+remarked in a low voice that my story of big game reminded him "of
+something in his own experience," at which Boggs twisted his head to
+listen. It was evident to Boggs, and to the other habitues, that if the
+Irishman talked as well as he sang he would not only be a welcome guest
+at these "nights" but he might also attain to full membership in the
+charmed circle. Of one thing everybody was assured--there was no "water
+in his oil."
+
+"It's about a fellow countryman of Mr. MacWhirter's, a Scotchman by the
+name of MacDuff," the Irishman began.
+
+"Me a Scotchman!" cried Mac; "I'm only half Scotch--wish I was a whole
+one."
+
+"That's because you took to beer and left off drinking whiskey," laughed
+Murphy. "MacDuff stuck to his national beverage. That's what helped him
+to keep his end up. All this happened at an English country house."
+
+Here Boggs hitched his chair closer so that he might lead the applause
+if this new departure of his friend as a story-teller failed at first to
+make the expected hit, and thus needed his encouragement.
+
+"Up in Devonshire," continued Murphy, "a very noble lord (his ancestors
+were something in beer, I think) was giving a dinner to Lord Ponsonby,
+K.C.B., Y.Z., and maybe P.D.Q., for all I know. Ponsonby had just
+returned from India, where he had distinguished himself in Her Majesty's
+service; stamped out a mutiny, perhaps, by hanging the natives, or
+otherwise disporting himself after the manner of his kind.
+
+"Imagine the interior of the dining-room, if you please, gentlemen--the
+walls panelled in black oak; sideboards to match, covered with George
+the Third silver and bearing the new coat-of-arms; noiseless servants in
+knee breeches, except the head butler in funereal black--black as a
+raven and as awkward; old family portraits on the walls; big windows
+overlooking the lawn sweeping to the river, with rabbits and pheasants
+making free until the shooting season opened. At the head of the table
+sat the noble lord, presiding with a smile that was an inch deep on his
+face. On his right sat the distinguished diplomat with a bay window in
+front of him, resting on the edge of the table, and kept snugly in place
+by a white waistcoat; red face, burgundy red, with daily washings of
+champagne to lend some tone to the color; gray side-whiskers with gray
+standing hair, straight up like a shoe brush; big jowls of cheeks;
+flabby mouth; two little restless eyes like a terrier's, and a voice
+like a fog-horn with an attack of croup. When he glanced down the table
+everybody expected fifty lashes; he had learned that look in India and
+carried it with him; it was part of his stock in trade.
+
+"Next to Ponsonby sat two dudes from London, high-collared chaps, all
+shirt front and white tie, hair parted in the middle and slicked down on
+the sides like a lady's lap-dog. One had six hairs on each side of his
+upper lip and the other was smooth shaven. Then came a country parson,
+a fellow in a long-tailed coat, buttoned up to his chin, with an inch of
+collar showing above; a mild-mannered, girl-voiced, timid brother, with
+a face as round as a custard pie and about as expressive. When he was
+spoken to he rubbed his bleached, bony hands together, bent his
+shoulders, and answered with a humility that would have done credit to a
+Franciscan monk begging alms for a convent. He had eaten nothing for two
+days before the dinner--so nervous had he become over the great honor
+conferred upon him in being invited--and was so humble when he arrived,
+and so pale and washed-out looking, that after being presented to the
+great man his host inquired if he were not ill. Opposite these sat two
+or three country gentlemen, simple, straightforward men who make up the
+best of English life. Men of no pretence and men of great simplicity.
+These two, of course, were also in evening dress.
+
+"At the end of the table sat MacDuff, a little, red-headed, sawed-off
+Scotchman, about as high as Mr. Boggs's shoulder, chunkily built,
+square-chested; clean-shaven face, with bristling eyebrows, searching
+brown eyes that never winked, a determined jaw, and a mouth that came
+together like a trunk lid--even all along the lips. He was dressed in a
+suit of gray cloth, sack coat and all. His ancestors antedated all those
+on the wall by about two hundred years, and as a modern dress-suit was
+unknown in their day he selected one of his own. This was a fad of his
+and one everybody recognized. No dinner was complete without MacDuff.
+Very often he never spoke half a dozen words during the entire repast.
+He had friends, however, up at the castle, and that made up for all his
+other shortcomings. A nod of MacDuff's head got many a man his
+appointment.
+
+"When the port was served, the noble lord turned to his distinguished
+guest and said, with a glow on his face that made the candles pale with
+envy:
+
+"'Gentlemen, I am about to arsk Lord Ponsonby a great favor, and I know
+that you will add your voice to mine in urging him to comply. Only larst
+night he delighted a number of us at the club by giving us an account of
+a most ex_trawd_'nary adventure that befell him in the wilds of India--a
+most ex_trawd_'nary adventure. I have rarely seen, in all me
+expa-rience, so profound an impression made upon a group of men. I am
+now going to arsk our distinguished guest to repeat it.'
+
+"At this Ponsonby waved his hand in a deprecating way, just as he would
+have done had his retainers offered him the crown--such trifles being
+beneath his notice. Our host went on:
+
+"'Despite his reluctance, I feel sure that he will yield. May I arsk
+your Lordship to repeat it to me guests?'
+
+"Ponsonby bowed; settled himself slightly in his chair so that the curve
+in his waistcoat could have full play, toyed with his knife a moment,
+looked up at the ceiling as if to remember some of the most important
+details, cleared his throat, and shot a glance down the table to command
+attention. Everybody felt that the slightest sound from any lips but his
+own would be punished with instant death.
+
+"'Well, I don't care if I do. About four years ago His Royal Highness,
+as you know, came out to India, and it became part of me duty to attend
+upon his purson. He was good enough to remember that service in a way
+with which, of course, you are all familiar. One morning at daylight his
+equerry came to me quarters, routed me out of bed, and informed me that
+His Royal Highness desired me to join him in a tiger hunt, which had
+been arranged for the night before, and which, owing to me purfect
+knowledge of the country--I knowing every inch of the ground--His Royal
+Highness desired to have conducted under me supervision.'
+
+"The two dudes were now listening so intently that one of them came near
+sliding off the chair. The Curate sat with eyes and mouth open, his hand
+cupping his ear, drinking in each word with the same attention that he
+would have shown the Bishop of his diocese. The two country gentlemen
+leaned forward to hear the better. MacDuff kept perfectly still, his
+eyes on his plate, his finger around his glass of Scotch and soda.
+
+"'When we reached the jungle--I was mounted on an elephant with two of
+me retainers; His Royal Highness ahead on another elephant, an
+_enor_-mous beast accustomed to hunts of this ke-ind--I heard a plunge
+in the thicket to me left, the spring of a man-eater! There is no sound
+like it, gentlemen. The next instant he came head on, bounding like a
+great cat. When he reached the elephant of His Royal Highness he
+gathered his forepaws under him, hunched his hind legs, and made ready
+for the fatal spring. I knew what would happen. I realized in an instant
+the danger. There was one chawnce in a thousand, but that chawnce I must
+take. I caught up me forty-four! The beast was now in the air. The next
+instant his claws would be in the flank of the elephant, and the next
+His Royal Highness would be chewed to mince-meat. At that instant I
+fired; there came a yell; the brute fell back lifeless, and the Prince
+was saved! The ball had taken him over the left eye! I dismounted and
+hurried to his side. He was the largest beast of his ke-ind I had ever
+seen in all me expa'rience of twenty years. When we got him out upon the
+sward he measured twenty-nine feet from the end of his nose to the tip
+of his tail. If His Royal Highness, gentlemen, is with us to-day, it is
+due to that shot.'
+
+"A dead silence followed. Saving a future king's life was too grave a
+matter for applause. The silence was broken by one of the dudes cackling
+in a low whisper to his mate:
+
+"'Gus, old chap, you know that Ponsonby when he was in the
+Gyards--aw--was an awful man with a gun. He used to hit--aw--a
+bull's-eye every time, you know--aw--aw--aw----'
+
+"The country gentlemen held their peace. The Curate now piped up. This
+was his opportunity.
+
+"'Me Lawd,' he cooed--a dove could not have been more dulcet in its
+tones--'what I like in a sto-ory of that ke-ind is not so much the
+wonderful skill of the sportsman as the marvellous inflooence of the
+British character over the brute beasts of the field.'
+
+"Ponsonby nodded pompously in acknowledgment, and continued to play with
+his knife. The host beamed down the table; comments were still in
+order--that's what the story was told for. The country gentlemen
+passed, and MacDuff, reaching over, drew his glass of Scotch closer,
+leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, lowered his head, and fixed
+his gimlet eyes on Ponsonby's face.
+
+"'Well, I have listened with gr'at pl'asure to the story of Lord
+Ponsonby. It is veery interestin', and it was veery patriootic of him. I
+am not much of a hunter mesel', and I do not shoot tagers, but I am a
+wee bit of a fasherman, and last soommer up in the County of Dee I
+'ooked a veery pecooliar fash called a skat'--here MacDuff raised his
+glass to his lips, his eyes still glued to Ponsonby's face--'and when we
+got him oout upon th' bank he covered four acres.'
+
+"Ponsonby rose to his feet red as a lobster; swore that he had never
+been so insulted in his life, the host trying to pacify him. The dudes
+were stunned, while the country gentlemen and the Curate stood aghast.
+MacDuff never moved an inch from his seat. Ponsonby, purple with rage,
+stalked out of the room, flung himself into the library, followed by the
+host and all the guests except MacDuff. The dudes were so overcome that
+they were mopping their faces with their napkins, believing them to be
+their handkerchiefs. While Ponsonby was roaring for his carriage the
+host rushed back to MacDuff's side.
+
+"'You must apologize, sir, and at once,' he screamed; 'at once, Mr.
+MacDuff. How is it possible, sir, for a man raised as a gentleman to
+come into an Englishman's house and insult one of Her Majesty's most
+distinguished sarvants; a man who for fifty years has----'
+
+"MacDuff clapped one hand to his ear as if to protect it from rupture.
+
+"'Don't br'ak the drum of me ear,' he said in a low, deprecating tone.
+'I didn't mean to insoolt Lord Ponsonby. I can't apologize, for the
+story of the skat's true. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If Lord
+Ponsonby will tak' aboout eighteen feet off the length of that tager,
+I'll see what can be doon aboout the skat.' And he emptied the contents
+of his glass into his person."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The laughter that followed the conclusion of Murphy's story was so loud
+and continuous that the big St. Bernard dog rose to his feet and
+fastened his eyes on his master, only resuming his position on the rug
+when Lonnegan laid his hand reassuringly on his head.
+
+Boggs was so pleased at his friend's success that he could hardly keep
+from hugging him. All doubts as to Murphy's being asked to become a
+permanent member of the Select Circle were dissipated. What delighted
+Boggs most was the combination of English, Irish, and Scotch dialects
+twisted about the same tongue. He thought he knew something about
+dialects, but Murphy had beaten him at his own game.
+
+Every man present had some opinion to offer regarding Ponsonby's
+adventure, and they all differed. Marny thought the Scot served the old
+bag of wind right, even if he did have a numismatic collection
+decorating his chest. The banker was interested in the social side and
+what it expressed, and said so, winding up with the remark that the
+"Englishmen knew how to live." Mac, to the surprise of everybody, had no
+opinion to offer. Woods was more philosophical.
+
+"To me the story is much more than funny," said Woods, "it's
+instructive. Shows the whole national spirit of the English. They
+believe in rank and they love to kowtow. I say this in no offensive
+spirit; and being an Irishman, you, of course, know what I mean; and to
+tell you the truth I am English in that sense myself. I believe in an
+aristocracy and in class distinction. Here everybody is free and equal;
+free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon
+as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."
+
+"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you
+and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr.
+Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country.
+You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one
+hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings
+bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats.
+The son of the man who waits behind Lonnegan's chair at one of the swell
+affairs uptown, if he has his way, will be Minister to England, and wear
+knee-breeches at the Queen's receptions. Even the negroes are climbing;
+some of them even now are putting on more airs than a Harlem goat with a
+hoopskirt. When they get on top there won't be anything left of the
+white man. They are beginning in that way now down South. Now you,"
+turning to his friend Murphy, "have told us a story which illustrates a
+phase of English life in which the middle classes stand in awe of the
+higher ones. Now listen to one of mine, which illustrates a phase of
+American life, and quite the reverse of yours. I'll tell it to you just
+as Major Yancey told it to me, and I'll give you, as near as I can, his
+tones of voice. Wonderfully pathetic, that Southern dialect; it
+certainly was to me the day I heard him tell it. This Yancey was a
+fraud, so far as being a representative Virginia gentleman; didn't get
+within a thousand miles of the real thing; but that didn't rob his story
+of a certain meaning."
+
+Here Boggs rose to his feet. "I'll have to get up," he said, "for this
+is one of the stories I can't tell sitting down." Nobody ever heard
+Boggs tell any story sitting down. The restless little fellow was
+generally on his plump legs during most of his deliveries.
+
+"I had seen Yancey in the hotel corridor when I came in, and had stubbed
+my toe over his outstretched legs--out like a pair of skids on the tail
+of a dray; had apologized to the legs; had been apologized to most
+effusively in return, with the result that a few minutes later I found
+him at my elbow at the bar, where, after some protestations on his part,
+he concluded to accept my very 'co-tious' invitation, and 'take
+somethin'.'
+
+"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh--Thomas
+Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that
+po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have
+taken place, suh--not only in our section of the State, but in our
+people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later.
+The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash
+and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall
+have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an
+idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are
+creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with
+my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take
+a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper.
+'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's
+the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a
+Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of
+the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we
+Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still
+sufferin'.
+
+"'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically
+confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place
+immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other
+gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first
+stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my
+ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had
+arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could
+I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't
+taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want
+to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a
+groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin'
+over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I
+know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low,
+but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years
+and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company
+had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge
+Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents
+unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed
+it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two
+horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by
+a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of
+second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'--"Thomas Martin
+Yancey, Livery & Sale Stable."
+
+"'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam--free
+then, of co'se, suh--come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey,
+there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville----"
+
+"'"Is there, Sam?" I said. "You niggers seem to be gettin' up in the
+world."
+
+"'"Yes," he said, "and I want you to hook yo' rig and take eight of
+us----"
+
+"'"What! you infernal scoundrel! You come to me and ask me to----"
+
+"'"Now, don't get het up, Major! Eight niggers at fifty cents apiece is
+fo' dollars."
+
+"'"Yancey," I said to myself, "brace up! This is one of the great crises
+of yo' life. Sam, bring on yo' mokes!"
+
+"'There was fo' bucks and fo' wenches, all rigged out to kill. I put 'em
+in and started.
+
+"'It was a very cold night, coldest weather I'd seen in my State for
+years, with a light crust of snow on the ground. When we got to
+Barboursville--it was about eight miles--I found the ball was over a
+grocery store with a pair of steps goin' up on the outside to a little
+balcony. Well, suh, they got out and went up ahead, and I blanketed the
+horses and followed. When I opened the do'--you ain't familiar, suh, I
+reckon, with our part of the country, suh, but I tell you, suh, that
+with three fiddles, two red hot stoves, and eighty niggers, all dancin',
+the atmosphere was oppressive! I stood it as long as I could and then I
+went out on the balcony. Then I said to myself--"Yancey, this is a great
+crisis of yo' life, but you needn't get pneumonia. Go in and sit down
+inside."
+
+"'I hadn't been there three minutes, suh, when black Sam came up to the
+bench on which I was sittin'--he had two wenches on his arm--and said,
+"Major Yancey; would you have any objection to steppin' outside?"
+
+"'"Why?" I asked.
+
+"'"Cause some of the ladies objects to the smell of horse in yo'
+clo'es."
+
+"'I left the livery business that night, suh, and I am what you see--a
+broken-down Southern gentleman.'"
+
+Another outburst of laughter followed. Everybody agreed that Boggs had
+never been so happy in his delineations. The banker, who knew something
+of the Southern dialects, was overjoyed. The allusion to the
+ungentlemanly foreclosure proceedings touched his funny-bone in a
+peculiar manner, and set him to laughing again whenever he thought of
+it. Everybody had expressed some opinion both of Murphy's story and of
+Boggs's yarn but MacWhirter, who, strange to say, had seen nothing
+humorous in either narrative. During the telling he had been bending
+over in his chair stroking the dog's ears.
+
+"What do you think of the two yarns, Mac?" asked Marny.
+
+"Think just what Mr. Murphy thinks--that the Englishman was a snob,
+Ponsonby a cad, and that MacDuff should have been shown the door. The
+group about that Englishman's table was not of the best English
+society--nowhere near it. Consideration for the other man's feelings,
+the one below you in rank, invariably distinguishes the true English
+gentleman. That old story about the sergeant who got the Victoria Cross
+for bringing a wounded officer out under fire illustrates what I mean,"
+continued Mac in a perfectly grave, sober voice.
+
+"Never heard it."
+
+"Then I'll tell you. He had crawled on all fours to a wounded officer,
+picked him up, and had carried him off the firing line under a hail of
+bullets, one of which broke his wrist. He was promoted on the field by
+his commanding officer, got the V.C., and took his place among his now
+brother officers at the company's mess, and, it being his first meal,
+sat on the Colonel's right. Ice was served, a little piece about the
+size of a lump of sugar--precious as gold in that climate. It was for
+the champagne, something he had never seen. The hero was served first.
+He hesitated a moment, and dropped it in his soup. The Colonel took his
+piece and dropped it in his soup; so did every other gentleman down both
+sides of the table drop his in the soup. As to Boggs's Virginian, he got
+what he deserved. He was trying to be something that he wasn't; I'm glad
+the darkey took the pride out of him. It's all a pretence and a sham.
+They are all trying to be something they are not. 'Tisn't democracy or
+aristocracy that is to blame with us--it's the growing power of riches;
+the crowding the poor from off the face of the earth. Nothing counts now
+but a bank account. Pretty soon we will have a clearing-house of titles,
+based on incomes. When the cashier certifies to the amount, the title is
+conferred. The man of one million will become a lord; the man with two
+millions a count; three millions a duke, and so on. To me all this
+climbing is idiotic."
+
+Roars of laughter followed Mac's outburst. When Boggs got his breath he
+declared between his gasps that Mac's criticisms were funnier than
+Murphy's story.
+
+"Takes it all seriously; not a ghost of a sense of humor in him! Isn't
+he delicious!"
+
+"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you,
+is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the
+top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up
+to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the
+other fellow, who couldn't climb so high. If it wasn't for our wood fire
+even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he's real
+mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell's
+drawing-room. But that's only Lonny's veneer; his heart's all right
+underneath, and it's solid hickory all the way through."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the
+habitues, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within
+a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs
+were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the
+andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely--the
+old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the
+evening was to come--that part when its incidents are talked over.
+
+"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, class distinctions, ambition. What
+would you want most if you had your wish?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.
+
+"What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog
+once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old
+man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder.
+
+"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.
+
+"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm
+turning out."
+
+"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes
+on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.
+
+"No--" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes--"What?"
+
+"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to
+hang it up in," laughed Boggs.
+
+Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire
+lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a
+half-smothered sigh escaped him.
+
+Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer
+chair, the roses in her lap.
+
+"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.
+
+
+
+
+PART VIII
+
+_In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters._
+
+
+The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the
+winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl
+standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows
+which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the
+Palisades.
+
+Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb
+stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another,
+the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end
+of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a
+fourth and fifth--all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming
+Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.
+
+Woods was having a tea!
+
+The portrait of Miss B. J.--in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on
+her chin, her pet dog in her lap--was finished, and the B. Js. were
+assisting Woods's aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event.
+The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There
+were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of
+twisted iron, china, and dingy brass, the grease running down the sides
+of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps
+of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell
+together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were
+combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels
+draped in stuffs; screens hung with Japanese and Chinese robes; divans
+covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last,
+but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the
+young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group
+of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others
+that it did not do her justice, and still another--this time an art
+critic--who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the
+canvas that looked alive.
+
+Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me
+to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn't believe in mixing
+with society.
+
+"Better shut the door, hadn't I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of
+Woods's smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen.
+"Hello, Lonnegan, that you?"
+
+"That's me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you
+moving house?"
+
+"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than
+that heathen punk Woods is burning?"
+
+"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan.
+"Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people.
+Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he
+continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince
+Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his button-hole. "You're
+going down, Mac, aren't you?"
+
+"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."
+
+"Woods won't like it."
+
+"Can't help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio
+upside down for a lot of people that don't know a Velasquez from an 'Old
+Oaken Bucket' chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show.
+Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his 'Night Watch' for
+the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or Titian
+making a night of it over his 'Ascension.' Sacrilege, I tell you, this
+mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a
+mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world
+it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they
+can't; not to turn clowns for their amusement."
+
+Boggs and Murphy--the Irish journalist had long since become a full
+member--had entered and stood listening to Mac's harangue.
+
+"Land o' Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What's the
+matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit
+up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don't know what's going
+on outside. Woods is all right. He's got his living to make and his
+studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old
+and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them
+out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let 'em do it.
+That doesn't make the picture any worse. You saw it. It's a bully good
+portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good
+things in it--shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown
+are way up in G. Don't you think so, Lonnegan?"
+
+"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam
+downstairs. Half of them didn't know Woods when they came in. One woman
+asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she
+said, 'What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that
+the picture? Why, I am surprised!'
+
+"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see
+was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."
+
+Jack Stirling's head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had
+been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a
+prolonged shout of welcome.
+
+"Yes, that's me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad
+to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown
+young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow!
+Hello, Boggs! you're fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you;
+heard you had been given a chair by Mac's fire. Oh, biggest joke on me,
+fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods's tea-party a few minutes
+ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it.
+Struck a pretty girl--French, I think--pretty as a picture; big hat,
+gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth--well! You remember
+Christine, don't you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same
+type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods's
+tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got
+her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady
+came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know
+that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes
+and----"
+
+"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That's something like! That's probably
+the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to
+her and did your prettiest to entertain her."
+
+"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows,
+but it's good to get back! You'll find this a haven of rest, Mr.
+Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman's knee.
+
+"It's the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow,"
+answered Murphy. "It's good of you to let me in. You live so fast over
+here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush,
+is a Godsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr.
+Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses
+last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."
+
+Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy's yarns
+were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone,
+"they are all brand-new and he tells 'em like a master. Nobody can touch
+him. Draw up, Pitkin--" the sculptor had just come in from Woods's tea.
+
+"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here.
+Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are
+never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to
+occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square,
+occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle--a dingy, smoky,
+grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in
+the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of
+the balcony above.
+
+"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that
+were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the
+miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her
+drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry
+jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or
+tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads,
+hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat
+composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes
+in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let
+loose at the Arbuckle's Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her
+mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked
+that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked.
+He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and
+immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally,
+when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the
+drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or
+stares of those he did not.
+
+"On this particular night there was to be an imposing list of guests,
+the dinner being served at eight-thirty sharp. Not only was the Prime
+Minister expected, but a special collection of social freaks had been
+invited to meet him, including Prince Pompernetski of the Imperial
+Guards--who turned out afterward to be a renegade Pole and a swindler;
+the Rajah of Bramapootah--a waddling Oriental who always brought his
+Cayenne pepper with him in the pocket of his embroidered pajamas; one or
+two noble lords and their wives, some officers, and a scattering of
+lesser lights--twenty-two in all.
+
+"At eight-twenty the carriages began to arrive, the Bobby on the beat
+regulating the traffic; the guests stepping out upon a carpet a little
+longer and wider than the one Mr. Woods has laid over the sidewalk
+downstairs.
+
+"Once inside, the guests were taken in charge by a line of flunkeys--the
+women to a cloak room on the right, the men to a basement room on the
+left--where 'Chawles' handed each man an envelope containing the name of
+the lady he was to take out to dinner and a diagram designating the
+location of his seat at his host's table.
+
+"By eight-twenty-five all the guests had arrived except General Sir John
+Catnall and Lady Catnall, who had passed thirty years of their life in
+India and who had arrived in London but the night before, where they
+were met by one of Lady Arbuckle's notes inviting them to dinner to meet
+the Prime Minister. That the dear woman had never laid eyes on the
+Indian exiles and would not know either of them had she met them on her
+sidewalk made no difference to her. The butler in announcing their names
+would help her over this difficulty, as he had done a hundred times
+before. That the short notice might prevent their putting in an
+appearance did not trouble her in the least. She knew her London. Prime
+Ministers were not met with every day, even in the best of houses.
+
+"At eight-thirty the two missing guests arrived, Sir John sun-baked to
+the color of a coolie, and Lady Catnall not much better off so far as
+complexion was concerned. The climate had evidently done its work. Their
+queerly cut clothes, too, showed how long they had been out of London.
+
+"With their announcement by the flunkey, who bawled out their names so
+indistinctly that nobody caught them--not even Lady Arbuckle--the guests
+marched out to dinner, Lord Arbuckle leading with the wife of the Prime
+Minister; Lady Arbuckle bringing up the rear with the Rajah, without
+that lady having the dimmest idea as to whether all her guests were
+present or not.
+
+"Sir John found himself next to a Roumanian woman who had spent
+three-quarters of her life in Persia, and Lady Catnall sat beside a
+bald-headed scientist from Berlin who spoke English as if he were
+cracking nuts. None of the four had ever heard of the others' existence.
+
+"The dinner was the usual deadly dull affair. The Prime Minister smiled
+and beamed over his high collar and emitted platitudes that anybody
+could print without getting the faintest idea of his meaning; and the
+Rajah peppered and ate with hardly a word of any kind to the lady next
+him, who talked incessantly; the Scientist jabbered German, completely
+ignorant of the fact that Lady Catnall could not understand a word of
+what he said, and the other great personages--especially the
+women--looked through their lorgnons and studied the menagerie.
+
+"When the port had been served and the ladies had risen to leave the men
+to their cigars, Sir John Catnall conducted the Roumanian-Persian
+combination to the drawing-room door, clicked his heels, bent his back
+in a salaam, and with a certain anxious look on his face hurried back to
+the dining-room, and seeing the seat next Lord Arbuckle temporarily
+empty slid into it, laid his bronzed hand on his host's thin, white,
+blue-veined wrist, and said in a voice trembling with suppressed
+emotion:
+
+"'We got your wife's note and came at once, although our boxes are still
+unpacked. I could hardly get through the dinner I have been so anxious,
+but we arrived so late I could not ask your wife--indeed you were
+already moving in to dinner when your man brought us in. I am in London,
+as you know, to consult an oculist, for my eyesight is greatly impaired,
+and he called professionally just as I was leaving my lodgings.' Then
+bending over Lord Arbuckle he said in a voice tremulous with emotion,
+'Tell me now about Eliza; is she really as badly off as your wife
+thinks?'
+
+"Arbuckle had learned one thing during his long life with Catherine,
+never, as you Americans say, to 'give her away.' The identity of the
+partly blind, sunburned man, with half a cataract over each eye, who was
+gazing at him so intently awaiting an answer from his lips, was as much
+of a mystery to him as was the particular malady with which the unknown
+Eliza was afflicted or the contents of his wife's letter. Instantly Lord
+Arbuckle's face took on a grave and serious expression.
+
+"'Yes,' he answered slowly; 'yes, I regret to say that it is all true.'
+
+"'Good God!' ejaculated the stranger, 'you don't say so. Terrible!
+Terrible!' and without another word he rose from his seat, tarried for a
+moment at the mantel gazing into the coals, and then slowly rejoined the
+ladies.
+
+"When the last guest had departed Arbuckle, who had been smothering a
+fire of indignation over the stranger's inquiry and at the uncomfortable
+position in which his wife had placed him, owing to her never consulting
+him about her guests or her correspondence, shut the door of the
+drawing-room so the servants could not hear and burst out with:
+
+"'What damned nonsense it is, Catherine, to invite people who bore you
+to death with questions you can't answer! Who the devil is Eliza, and
+what's the matter with her?'
+
+"'Who wanted to know, my dear?'
+
+"'That horribly dressed, red-faced person who sat half-way down the
+table, next to that frightful frump in a turban from Persia.'
+
+"'I don't know any Eliza!'
+
+"'But you said you did.'
+
+"'I said I did?'
+
+"'Yes; he told me so. You wrote him! Now be good enough, Catherine, to
+let me know in advance who you----'
+
+"'But I never told anybody about Eliza; never heard of her.'
+
+"'You did, I tell you. You told that fellow who winks all the time, with
+some beastly thing the matter with his eyes.'
+
+"'You mean Sir John Catnall? The man who came in just as we were going
+in to dinner? That is, I suppose it was he. Barton told me we were
+waiting for him.'
+
+"'Yes; the fellow said he was late.'
+
+"'And he told you--' Here the door opened and the butler entered for her
+Ladyship's orders for the night.
+
+"'Barton, whom did you announce last?'
+
+"'I didn't catch the name, your Ladyship, quite.'
+
+"'Was it Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall?'
+
+"'No, your Ladyship. Something that began with P.'
+
+"'Are you sure it was not "Catnall"?'
+
+"'Quite sure, your Ladyship. Sir John's man was here just after dinner
+was announced and left a message, your Ladyship--I forgot to give it to
+you. He said Sir John had been out of town, and had that moment
+received your Ladyship's note, and that it was impossible for him to
+come to dinner. I supposed your Ladyship had known of it and had invited
+the gentleman and his lady who came last to take their places, and I put
+them in Sir John's and Lady Catnall's seats as it was marked on the
+diagram you gave Chawles.'
+
+"'Just as I supposed, Catherine,' snorted Arbuckle, 'a couple of damned
+impostors; one passing himself off as a blind man. Serves you right.
+They've carried off half the plate by this time. Bingeley lost all of
+his spoons and forks that way last week; he told me so in the House
+yesterday.'
+
+"'Impostors! You don't think--Barton, go down instantly and see if
+anything has been taken out of the cloak-room. And, Barton, see if that
+miniature with the jewels around the frame is where I left it on the
+mantel--and the candlesticks--Oh! you don't think--It can't be--Oh,
+dear--dear--dear!'
+
+"Again the door opened and Barton appeared.
+
+"'The candlesticks are all right, your Ladyship; but the miniature is
+gone. I looked everywhere. Chawles said it was taken to your room by the
+maid.'
+
+"'Ring for Prodgers at once.'
+
+"'I have, your Ladyship. Here she comes with it in her hand,' and he
+handed the jeweled frame to his mistress.
+
+"'Oh, I'm so thankful! You're sure nothing else is missing?'
+
+"'No, your Ladyship; but Chawles found this note on the mantel, which he
+says he picked up from the table after they had left.'
+
+"Lord Arbuckle craned his head and his wife eagerly scanned the
+inscription.
+
+"On the envelope, scrawled in pencil, were the three words: 'For dear
+Eliza.'
+
+"Lady Arbuckle broke the seal.
+
+"Out dropped two twenty-pound Bank of England notes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Irishman rose to his feet, pushed back his chair, and taking a
+briarwood from his pocket and a small bag of tobacco proceeded to fill
+his pipe.
+
+Mac broke the silence first:
+
+"Case of wrong house, wasn't it? I wonder Catnall didn't find it out
+before dinner was over."
+
+"Put Arbuckle in a bad hole," remarked Boggs. "What excuse could he make
+when he returned the money?"
+
+"I'd have given that butler a dressing down," muttered Lonnegan. "He
+ought to have known that there was some mistake when the note arrived,"
+Lonnegan like Mac was born without the slightest sense of humor, Boggs
+always maintained.
+
+"Keep on guessing, gentlemen," exclaimed Murphy; "London guessed for a
+week, and gave it up."
+
+"Well, but is that all?" asked Stirling.
+
+"Every word and line. Nobody knows to this day who they were or where
+they came from. The flunkey on the curb said they arrived in a
+four-wheeler; that he had whistled to the rank at the end of the square
+for a hansom, and that they both stepped in and drove off."
+
+"And old Arbuckle still bags the money?" inquired Boggs.
+
+"Did, the last I heard."
+
+"Did he try to find out who the fellow was?"
+
+"No, Lady Arbuckle wouldn't let him; it would have given the whole thing
+away. Besides, it was Arbuckle's statement about Eliza that made the
+stranger give the money; rather a delicate situation; looked as if he
+and his wife had put up a job."
+
+"Poor devil!" muttered Mac. "Lied to his guest, insulted his wife, and
+robbed some poor woman of a charity that might have restored her to
+health, and all because of just the same kind of idiotic foolishness
+that is going on downstairs at Woods's this very minute. Damnable, the
+whole thing."
+
+"I know of a case," said Lonnegan without noticing Mac's outburst, as he
+reached for his pipe which he had laid on the mantel, "in which not a
+mysterious couple but a mysterious woman figured, and I know the man who
+was mixed up in the affair. He's a civil engineer now and lives in
+London; got quite a position. When I first met him he was a draughtsman
+in one of the downtown offices--this was some fifteen years ago. He was
+a good-looking fellow then, about twenty-seven or eight, I should say,
+with a smooth-shaven face and features like a girl's, they were so
+regular; a handsome chap, really, if he was about up to your shoulders,
+Mac."
+
+"What sort of a yarn is this, Lonny?" interrupted Boggs. "Got any point
+to it, or is it one of your long-winded things like the one you told us
+when you weren't murdered?"
+
+"It's one that will make your hair stand on end," retorted the
+architect. "Wonder I never told you before!"
+
+"Go on, Lonny," broke in Jack Stirling. "Dry up, Boggs. He was a
+good-looking chap, you said, Lonny, and about up to Mac's shoulders."
+
+"Yes, and half the size of Boggs around his waist," continued Lonnegan,
+with a look at MacWhirter.
+
+"The firm he was with sent him to Vienna with some plans and
+specifications of a big enterprise in which they were interested. He
+arrived in the evening, hungry, and late for dinner; left his trunk at
+the station, jumped into a fiacre and drove to a cafe on the Ring
+Strasse that he knew. After dining he made up his mind to go back to the
+station, pick up his baggage, and find rooms at the Metropole. When he
+entered the cafe and took a seat near the door a woman at the next table
+turned her head and fastened her eyes upon him in a way that attracted
+his attention. He saw that she was of rather distinguished presence,
+tall and well formed, broad shoulders--square for a woman--and with a
+strong nose and chin. She was dressed all in black, her veil almost
+hiding her face. Not a handsome woman and not young--certainly not under
+thirty.
+
+"With the serving of the soup he forgot her and went on with his dinner.
+That over he paid the waiter, strolled out to the street and called a
+cab. When it drove up the veiled woman stood beside him.
+
+"'I think this cab is mine, sir,' she said in excellent English.
+
+"The Engineer raised his hat, offered his hand to the woman and assisted
+her into her seat. When he withdrew his fingers they held a small card
+edged with black. The woman and the cab disappeared. He turned the card
+to the light of the street lamp. On it was written in pencil, 'Meet me
+at Cafe Ivanoff at ten to-night. You are in danger.'
+
+"The man read the card and strained his eyes after the cab; then he
+called another, drove down to the station, picked up his trunk, and
+started for the Hotel Metropole.
+
+"On the way to the hotel he kept thinking of the woman and the card. It
+had not been the first time that his fresh cheeks and clean-cut features
+had attracted the attention of some woman dining alone--especially in a
+city like Vienna; any continental city, in fact. Some of these
+adventures he had followed up with varying success; some he had
+forgotten. This one interested him. The proffered acquaintance had been
+cleverly managed. The warning at the end was, he knew, one of the many
+ruses to pique his curiosity; but that did not put the woman out of his
+mind.
+
+"When his baggage had been deposited in his rooms, a small salon,
+bedroom, and dressing-room, all opening on the corridor--he needed the
+salon in which to lay out his plans and maps--he gave his hat an extra
+brush, strolled downstairs, and stepped to the porter's desk.
+
+"'Porter.'
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"'Where is the Cafe Ivanoff?'
+
+"'Near the Opera, sir.'
+
+"'Is it a respectable place?'
+
+"'That depends on what your Excellency requires,' and the porter
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"'It sounds Russian.'
+
+"'No, sir; it is Polish. You have music and vodka, and sometimes you
+have trouble.'
+
+"'With whom?'
+
+"Again the porter shrugged his shoulders. 'With the police.'
+
+"'Are there rows?'
+
+"'No, there are refugees. Vienna is full of them. For you it is
+nothing--you are an American--am I not right?'
+
+"The Engineer touched his inside pocket, felt the bulge of his
+pocketbook containing his passport, turned down the Ring Strasse, and
+stopped at the Opera House. Then he began to look about him. Young,
+well-built, clear-headed, and imaginative, this sort of an adventure was
+just what he wanted. Soon his eyes fell upon a cafe ablaze with light.
+On a ground-glass globe over the door was the word 'Ivanoff.'
+
+"He passed through the front room, turned into another, and was stopped
+by a man at the door of the third.
+
+"'What do you want, Monsieur?' This in French.
+
+"'Some cognac and a cup of coffee.'
+
+"'Did Monsieur come in a cab?'
+
+"'No, on foot.'
+
+"'Perhaps, then, the lady came in a cab--and is waiting for you?'
+
+"'Perhaps.'
+
+"'This way, Monsieur.'
+
+"She sat in the far corner of the room, her face hidden in a file of
+newspapers. She must have known the attendant's step for she raised her
+head and fastened her eyes on the young man before he was half-way
+across the room.
+
+"'Sit here, sir,' she said in perfect English, drawing her dress aside
+so that he could pass to the chair next the wall. 'I am glad you came; I
+am glad you trusted me enough to come.' Her manner was as composed and
+her voice as low and gentle and as free from nervousness as if she had
+known him all her life. 'And now, before I tell you what I have to say
+to you, please tell me something about yourself. You are an American and
+have just arrived in Vienna?'
+
+"The Engineer nodded, his eyes still scanning her face, keeping his own
+composure as best he could, his astonishment increasing every moment. He
+had seen at the first glance that she was not the woman he had taken
+her to be. Her face, on closer inspection, showed her to be nearer forty
+than thirty, with certain lines about the mouth and eyes which could
+only have come from suffering. What she wanted of him, or why she had
+interested herself in his welfare, was what puzzled him.
+
+"'You have a mother, perhaps, at home, and some brothers, and you love
+them,' she continued.
+
+"Again the Engineer nodded.
+
+"'How many brothers have you?'
+
+"'One, Madame.'
+
+"'That is another bond of sympathy between us. I have one brother left.'
+All this time her eyes had been riveted on his, boring into his own as
+if she was trying to read his very thoughts.
+
+"'Is he in danger like me, Madame?' asked the Engineer with a smile.
+
+"'Yes, we all are; we live in danger. I have been brought up in it.'
+
+"'But why should I be?' and he handed her the card with the black edge.
+
+"'You are not,' she said, crumpling the card in her hand and slipping it
+into her dress. 'It was only a very cheap ruse of mine. I saw you at the
+next table and knew your nationality at once. You can help me, if you
+will, and you are the only one who can. You seemed to be sent to me. I
+thought it all out and determined what to do. You see how calm I am, and
+yet my hands have been icy cold waiting for you. I dared not hope you
+would really come until I saw you enter and speak to Polski. But you
+cannot stay here; you may be seen and I do not want you to be seen--not
+now. We Poles are watched night and day; someone may come in and you
+might have to tell who you are, and that must not be.' Then she added
+cautiously, her eyes fastened on his, 'Your passport--you have one, have
+you not?'
+
+"'Yes, for all over Europe.'
+
+"'Oh, yes; of course.' This came with a sigh of relief, as if she had
+dreaded another answer. 'That is the right way to travel while this
+revolution goes on. Yes, yes; a passport is quite necessary. Now give me
+your address. Metropole? Which room? Number thirty-nine? Very well; I'll
+be there at eight o'clock to-morrow night. Never mind the coffee, I will
+pay for it with mine. Go--now--out the other door; not the one you came
+in. There is somebody coming--quick!'
+
+"The tone of her voice and the look in her eye lifted him out of his
+seat and started him toward the door without another word. She was
+evidently accustomed to be obeyed.
+
+"The next night at eight precisely there came a rap at his door and a
+woman wrapped in a coarse shawl, and with a basket covered with a cloth
+on her arm, stood outside.
+
+"'I have brought Monsieur's laundry,' she said. 'Shall I lay it in the
+bedroom or here in the salon?' and she stepped inside.
+
+"The door shut, she laid the empty basket on the floor and threw back
+her shawl.
+
+"'Don't be worried,' she said, turning the key in the lock, 'and don't
+ask any questions. I will go as I came. Someone might have stopped me. I
+got this basket and shawl from my own laundress. There will be no one
+here? You are sure? Then let me sit beside you and tell you what I could
+not last night.
+
+"'Our people go to that cafe,' she continued, as she led him to the
+sofa, 'because, strange to say, the police think none of us would dare
+go there. That makes it the safest. Besides, every one of the servants
+is our friend.'
+
+"Then she unfolded a yarn that made his hair stand on end. She had been
+banished from a little town in central Poland where she had taken part
+in the revolution. Two brothers had died in exile, the other was in
+hiding in Vienna. It was absolutely necessary that this remaining
+brother should get back to Warsaw. Not only her own life depended on it
+but the lives of their compatriots. Some papers which had been hidden
+were in danger of being discovered; these must be found and destroyed.
+Her brother was now on his way to the hotel and the room in which they
+then sat; he would join them in an hour. At nine o'clock he would send
+his card up and must be received. His name was Matzoff--her own name
+before she was married. Would he lend him his clothes and his passport?
+She could not ask this of anyone but an American; when she saw him and
+looked into his face she knew God had sent him to her. Only Americans
+sympathized with her poor country. The passport would be handed back to
+him in three days by the same man--Polski--who conducted him to her
+table at the Cafe Ivanoff; so would the clothes. He would not need
+either in that time. Would he save her and her people?'
+
+"Well, you can imagine what happened. Like many other young fellows,
+carried off his feet by the picturesqueness of the whole affair--the
+appeal to his patriotism, to his love of justice, to all the things that
+count when you are twenty-five and have the world in a sling--he
+consented. It was agreed that she was to wait in the dressing-room,
+which also opened on the corridor, and show herself to the brother, and
+get him safely inside the dressing-room. The Engineer was not to see him
+come. If anything went wrong it was best that he could not identify him.
+She would then help him dress--he was about the same build as the
+Engineer and could easily wear his clothes. Moreover, he was dark like
+the Engineer; black hair and black eyes and just his age. Indeed one
+reason she picked him out at the cafe on the Ring Strasse was because he
+looked so much like her own brother.
+
+"The two began to get ready for the expected arrival--a shirt and
+collar, tie, gloves, travelling suit, overcoat, and the Engineer's bag
+with his initials on it were laid out in the dressing-room, together
+with an umbrella and walking-stick and the passport. He was to walk down
+the corridor and out of the hotel precisely as the young Engineer would
+walk out. If he could only see her brother he would know how complete
+the disguise would be; just his size--her own, really--her brother being
+small for a man and she being tall and broad for a woman.
+
+"At nine o'clock she put her head out of the dressing-room door, laid
+her fingers on her lips, pushed the Engineer into the salon and locked
+the door. The brother evidently was approaching. Next he heard the
+dressing-room door click. Then the sound of a man rapidly changing his
+clothes could be heard. Then a soft click of the latch and a heavy step.
+
+[Illustration: Pushed the engineer into the salon.]
+
+"Here his curiosity overcame him and he cautiously opened the salon door
+and peered down the corridor. A man carrying his bag, cane, and
+umbrella, an overcoat on his arm, was walking rapidly toward the
+staircase. He drew in his head and waited. Five minutes passed, then
+ten. He tried the dressing-room door. It was still locked. Stepping out
+into the corridor he turned the knob and walked into the dressing-room.
+It was empty. On the floor was a pair of corsets, some petticoats, and a
+dress!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Skipped! Well, by Jove!" cried Marny. "Nihilist, wasn't she?"
+
+"He never knew; doesn't to this day."
+
+"What was she then?" persisted Marny.
+
+"I don't know. My only solution was that she was herself in danger of
+her life and had cooked up the yarn about her brother to get out of
+Vienna."
+
+"Did he get his passport back?" asked Stirling.
+
+"Yes, three months afterward by mail to his bankers from the Hotel
+Metropole. She, or somebody else, had been half over Europe with it;
+twice to St. Petersburg and once to Warsaw. The clothes and bag he never
+heard of. The waiter at the Cafe Ivanoff--the one she called Polski--had
+disappeared and he dare not make any inquiries."
+
+"But I don't see why he was afraid, an American like him," broke in
+Marny.
+
+"Let up, Marny!" exclaimed Boggs. "Don't spoil a good yarn. What
+difference does it make who she was? You've got a first rate doll, don't
+pick it to pieces to find out what it's stuffed with; give your
+imagination play and enjoy it. She suggests a dozen things to me, but I
+don't want any one of them _proved_. She might have been chief of a band
+of poisoners with a private graveyard in her cellar; her smile,
+perdition; her glance, death. She could also have eluded the Secret
+Service of Russia for years in disguises that the mother who bore her
+wouldn't have known her in;--her exploits the talk of all Europe. Then
+her miraculous escapes--one for instance across the frontier in a sledge
+on forged passports, and the disguise of an officer, her maid dressed as
+an orderly, both of them smothered in priceless furs; her being trailed
+to her hotel by a sleuth; her lightning change of costume to low-neck
+gown and jewels given her by a Russian Grand Duke whose body was found
+in the Neva the morning after she left; the murder of the sleuth, with a
+card tied to the stiletto marked with a skull and crossbones. You
+fellows are going wild over this new French impressionistic craze--the
+vague, the mysterious, and the suggestive. Why not apply it to
+literature? If a man can paint a figure with three dabs of his brush,
+why can't a man draw a character or a situation with three strokes of
+his pen? You are too literal, old man!"
+
+"Anything else, you overstuffed, loquacious sausage?" cried Marny.
+
+"Yes," retorted Boggs. "That woman was no doubt a member of the----"
+
+"Stop, you beggar!" cried Jack Stirling. "Don't let him get loose again,
+Marny! Stuff a pipe in his mouth. Boggs, you are the only man I know who
+can start his mouth going and go away and leave it. Here, fellows, get
+on your feet and line up and receive the spoilt child of fashion. He's
+coming upstairs: I know his step."
+
+At this instant Woods's body was thrust around the jamb of the door. He
+still wore the rose in his button-hole, the one Miss B. J.--the original
+of the portrait--had pinned there.
+
+Mac sprang up and caught the intruder by the shoulders before he had
+time to open his mouth.
+
+"Been having a tea, have you, you gilt-edged fraud! A highly perfumed
+powder-puff tea, with lace on the edges and two flounces. 'Oh, how
+exquisite, dear Mr. Woods! And is it really all hand-painted? and did
+you do it all yourself? How enormously clever you are--How
+lovely--How--' Got pretty sick of that sort of taffy after they had
+gormed you up with it for three hours, didn't you, Woods? and you had to
+come up where you could breathe! Now rip off that undertaker's coat,
+throw away that rose, get into that sketching jacket, and sit down here
+and disinfect yourself with a pipe--" and Mac's hearty laugh rang
+through the room.
+
+
+
+
+PART IX
+
+_Around the Embers of the Dying Fire._
+
+
+Spring had come. The trees in the old Square were tuneful with impatient
+birds ready to move in and begin housekeeping as soon as the buds poked
+their yellow heads out of their nestings of bark. The eager sun, who had
+been trying all winter to gain the corner of Mac's studio window, had
+finally carried the sash and grimy pane by assault: its beams were now
+basking on the Daghestan rug in full defiance of the smouldering coals
+crouching half-dead in their bed of ashes.
+
+[Illustration: Around the embers of the dying fire.]
+
+From an open window--Mac had thrown it wide--came a breath of summer
+air, telling of green fields and fleecy clouds; of lappings about the
+bows of canoes; of balsam beds under bark slants; of white scoured decks
+and dancing waves; of queer cafes under cool arched trees and snowy
+peaks against the blue.
+
+The glorious old fire felt the sun's power and shuddered, trembling with
+an ill-defined fear. It knew its days were numbered, perhaps its hours.
+No more romping and sky-larking; no more outbursts of crackling
+laughter; no more scurrying up the ghostly chimney, the madcap sparks
+playing hide-and-seek in the soot; no more hugging close of the old
+logs, warming themselves and everybody about them; no more jolly nights
+with the hearth swept and the pipes lighted, the faces of the smokers
+aglow with the radiance of the cheery blaze.
+
+Its old enemy, the cold, had given up the fight and had crept away to
+hide in the North; so had the snow and the icy winds. No more! No more!
+Spring had come. Summer was already calling. Now for big bowls of
+blossoms, their fragrance mingling with the pungent odor of slanting
+lines of smoke. Now for half-closed blinds, through which sunbeams
+peeped and restless insects buzzed in and out. Now for long afternoons,
+soft twilights, and wide-open windows, their sashes framing the stars.
+
+Mac had noted the signs and was getting ready for the change. Already
+had he opened his dust-covered trunk and had hauled out, from a
+collection of tramping shoes, old straw hats, and summer clothes, a thin
+painting coat in place of his pet velveteen jacket. It was only at night
+that he raked out the coals hiding their faces in the ashes, gathered
+them together--the fire had never gone out since the day he lighted
+it--and encouraged them with a comforting log.
+
+Most of the members had formed their plans for the summer; one or two
+had already bidden good-by to the Circle. Lonnegan was off
+trout-fishing, and Jack Stirling was three days out--off the Banks
+really.
+
+"Gone to look up Christine and the old boys and girls," Marny said; at
+which Mac shook his head, knowing the bee, and knowing also the kinds
+and varieties of flowers which grew in the gardens most frequented by
+that happy-go-lucky fellow.
+
+Murphy was back in London; cabled for, and left without being able to
+bid anybody good-by. "Throw on another stick," he had written Mac by the
+pilot-boat, "and give the dear old logs a friendly punch and tell 'em it
+is from that wild Irishman, Murphy. I'd give you a tract of woodland if
+I had one, and build you a fireplace as big as the nave of a church. I
+shall never forget my afternoons around your fire, MacWhirter. You and
+your back-logs and the dear boys warmed me clear through to my heart.
+Keep my chair dusted, I'm coming back if I live."
+
+With the budding trees and soft air and all the delights of the
+out-of-doors, the attendance even of those members who still remained in
+town began to drop off. Only when a raw, chill wind blew from the east,
+reminding us of the winter and the welcome of Mac's fire, would the
+chairs about the hearth be filled. Boggs, Pitkin, Woods, Marny, and I
+were the only ones who came with any regularity.
+
+"Got to cover them up, Colonel," Mac said to me the last afternoon the
+fire was alight. I had arrived ahead of the others and had found him
+crooning over the smouldering logs, looking into the embers. "They've
+been mighty good to us all winter--never sulked, never backed out; start
+them going and give them a pat or two on their backs and away they
+went." He spoke as if the logs were alive. "Lots of comfort we've had
+out of them; going to have a lot more next year, too. I shall bury the
+embers of the last fire--perhaps this one, I can't tell--in its ashes
+and keep the whole till we start them up in the autumn. It will seem
+then like the same old fire. The flowers lie dead all winter but they
+bloom from the same old charred ember of a root. All the root needs is
+the sun and all the coals need is warmth. And the two never bloom in the
+same season--that's the best part of it."
+
+He had not once looked at me as he spoke; he knew me by my tread, and he
+knew my voice, but his eyes had not once turned my way, not even when I
+took the chair beside him.
+
+"And what are _you_ going to do, Mac, all summer? Got any plans?"
+
+"Got plenty of plans, but no money. Heard there was a man nibbling
+around my 'East River'--but you can't tell. Brown, the salesman, says
+it's as good as sold, but I've heard Brown say those things before.
+Exhibition closes this week. Guess the distinguished connoisseur, Mr. A.
+MacWhirter, will add that picture to his collection: that closet behind
+us is full of 'em."
+
+"Where would you like to go, old man?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, Colonel. I'd like to try Holland once more and get
+some new skies--and boats."
+
+"Nothing on this side, Mac?" I was not probing for subjects for Mac's
+brush.
+
+"No, don't seem so. Can't sell them anyhow. I thought my 'East River'
+was about the best I had done, but nobody wants it. Cook calls it a
+'Melancholy Monochrome,' and that other critic--I forget his name--says
+it lacks 'spontaneity,' whatever that is. I ought to have stayed at home
+and helped my Governor instead of roaming round the world deluding
+myself with the idea that I could paint. About everything I've tried has
+failed: Had to borrow the money to get me to Munich; took me three years
+to pay it back, doing pot-boilers; even painted signs one time. Been
+chasing these phantoms now for a good many years, but I haven't got
+anywhere. I'd rather paint than eat, but I've got to eat--that's the
+worst of it. A little encouragement, too, would help. I try not to mind
+what Cook says about my things, but it hurts all the same. And yet if he
+ever over-praised my work it would be just as offensive. What I want is
+somebody to come along and get underneath the paint and find something
+of myself and what I am trying to do with my brush. It may be monotonous
+to Cook; it isn't to me. I could crisp up my 'East River' with a lot of
+cheap color and a boat or two with figures in the foreground, but it was
+that vast silence of the morning that I was after, and the silvering
+quality of the dawn. Doesn't everybody see that? Some of them can't.
+Well, in she goes with the rest; you'll all have a fine bonfire when I'm
+gone. I'll keep out the one hanging over the lounge and maybe another
+back somewhere in that mausoleum of a closet. I'll give one to you, old
+man, if you'll promise to take care of it," and Mac took an unframed
+canvas from the wall and propped it up on a chair. There were dozens of
+others around it and so it had never attracted my attention.
+
+"Not much--just a garden wall and a bench--pretty black--too much
+bitumen, I guess," and he wet his finger and rubbed the canvas.
+
+I took the sketch in my hand and examined it carefully. It was dated
+"Lucerne," and signed with two initials, not Mac's.
+
+"Old sketch?"
+
+"Yes, about fifteen years ago."
+
+"Doesn't look like your work."
+
+"It isn't."
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+"A pupil of mine."
+
+"Girl?"
+
+Mac nodded, replaced the sketch on the wall and sank into his chair
+again.
+
+"Only pupil I ever had. She and her mother had spent the winter in
+Munich--that's where I met her."
+
+"It is signed 'Lucerne,'" I said.
+
+"Yes, I followed her there."
+
+"To teach?"
+
+"No; because I loved her."
+
+The announcement came so suddenly that for a moment I could not answer.
+He often gave me his confidence, and I thought I knew his life, but this
+was news to me. I had always suspected that some love affair had
+sweetened and mellowed his nature, but he always avoided the subject and
+I had, of course, never pressed my inquiries. If he was ready to tell me
+now I was willing to listen with open ears.
+
+"You loved her, Mac?" I said simply.
+
+"Yes, as a boy loves; without thought--crazily--only that one idea in
+his mind; ready to die for her; no sleep; sometimes a whole day without
+tasting a mouthful; floating on soap-bubbles. Ah! we never love that way
+but once. It was all burned out of me though, that summer. I've just
+lived on ever since--painting a little, nursing these old logs,
+hobnobbing with you boys; getting older--most forty now--getting
+poorer."
+
+"And did she love you, Mac?"
+
+"Yes, same way. Only she got over it and I didn't."
+
+"Some other fellow?"
+
+"No, her father. Oh, there's no use going into it! But sometimes when I
+do my level best and put my heart into a thing, as I have done into that
+picture at the Academy, or as I poured it out to that girl in that old
+garden at Lucerne, and it all comes to naught, I lose my grip for a time
+and feel like putting my foot through my canvases and hiring out
+somewhere for a dollar a day."
+
+I made no comment. My long years of intimacy with my friend had taught
+me never to interrupt him when he was in one of these moods, and never
+to ask him any question outside the trend of his thoughts.
+
+"Self-made, dominating man, her father; began life as a brass-moulder.
+'Worked with my hands, sir,' he would tell me, holding out his stubs of
+fingers. Didn't want any loafers and spongers around him. He didn't say
+that to me, of course, but he did to her. The mother was different, like
+the daughter; she believed in me. She believed in anything Nell liked.
+Behind in her music--that's what she came to Munich for; and when she
+wanted to paint, hunted me up to teach her. She was eighteen and I was
+twenty-three. Well, you can fill in the rest. Every day, you know;
+sometimes at my hole in the wall, sometimes at her apartment. Went on
+all winter. In May he came over and wired them to meet him in Lucerne.
+We tried parting; sat up half the night, we three, talking it over--the
+dear mother helping. She loved us both by that time! I tried it for two
+days and then locked up my place and started. That old garden was where
+we met and where we continued to meet. He came down one morning to see
+what we were doing; we were doing that sketch--had been doing it for two
+weeks. Some days it got a brushful of paint and some days it didn't. You
+know how hard you would work when the girl you loved best in the world
+sat beside you looking up into your face. Sometimes the dear mother
+would be with us, and sometimes she would make believe she was. In the
+intervals she was working on the old gentleman, trying to break it to
+him easy. 'You have worked all your life,' she would say to him, 'and
+you have, outside of me, only two things left--your money and your
+daughter. The money won't make her happy unless there is somebody to
+share it with her. This boy loves her; he is clean'--I'm just quoting
+her words, old man; I was in those days--'honest, has an honorable
+profession, and will succeed the better once he has Nellie to help him
+and your money to relieve his mind for the time of anxiety. When he
+becomes famous, as he is sure to be, he will return it to you with
+interest.' That was the sort of talk, and it occurred about every day.
+Nellie would hear it and add her voice, and we would talk it over in the
+garden.
+
+"One day he came down himself. The garden was up the hill behind the
+Schweitzerhoff--you remember it--in one of those smaller
+hotels--Lucerne was crowded.
+
+"'Let me see what you two are doing,' he said, with a sort of
+police-officer air.
+
+"I turned the easel toward him. The sketch was about as you see it--all
+except the signature and the word 'Lucerne'--that I added afterward.
+
+"'How long have you been at this?'
+
+"'About two weeks,' I said. I thought I'd give it its full time, so as
+to prove to him how carefully it had been painted.
+
+"'Two weeks, eh?' he repeated slowly. 'Done anything else?'
+
+"'No.'
+
+"'What's it worth?'
+
+"'Well, it's only a study, sir.'
+
+"'Well, but what's it worth?'
+
+"I thought for a moment, and then, knowing how he valued everything by
+his own standard, said:
+
+"'I should think, perhaps, fifty dollars, when it's finished.'
+
+"'That's at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week, isn't it? A little
+over three dollars a day. I earned more than that, young man, when I was
+younger than you, and I was making something that was _sold_ before I
+turned a hand to it. You've got to shop your things around till you sell
+'em. Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'
+
+"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money!
+Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the accumulation of
+dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in
+the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty
+and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind
+words to speak; famishing minds to educate; there is art, and science,
+and music--Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! I'm sick of it!"
+
+"And that ended it with the girl?" I asked, without moving my head from
+my hand.
+
+"Yes, practically. She went to Paris and I went back to Munich. I felt
+as if my heart had been torn out of me; like a plant twisted up by the
+roots. The letters came--first every day, then once or twice a week,
+then at long intervals. You won't believe it, old man, but do you know
+that wound never healed for years; hasn't yet, parts of it. Shams,
+flaunted wealth, society--all irritate it, and me. It seemed so cruel,
+so damned stupid. What counts but love, I would say to myself over and
+over again. If I had a million dollars, what better off would I be? If
+we were both on a desert island without a cent we could be happy
+together, and if we had a million apiece and didn't love each other we
+would be miserable. Quixotic, I know, indefensible, out of date with
+modern methods, but I'd give my career if more of that sort of doctrine
+saturated the air we breathe."
+
+"You saw her again?"
+
+"Yes, once in Paris, driving with her husband. This was about five years
+ago. She didn't see me, although I stood within ten feet of her. He was
+much older, older than I am now, I should think. Commonplace sort of
+fellow--see a dozen like him any morning on the Avenue going down to
+Wall Street. Only her eyes were left, and the fluff of hair about her
+forehead. She made no impression on me; she wasn't the woman I loved. My
+memories were of a girl in the garden, all in white, her hair about her
+shoulders, the molten sunlight splashed here and there, the cool shadow
+tones between the drippings of gold. And the sound of her voice, and the
+way she raised her eyes to mine! No, it never comes but once. It is the
+bloom on the peach, the flush of dawn, never repeated in any other sky;
+the thrill of the first kiss at the altar, the cry of the first child.
+Yours! Yours! for ever and ever!
+
+"Talking like a first-class idiot, am I not, old man? But I can't help
+it. And I get so lonely for it sometimes! Often when you fellows go home
+and I am left alone at night I draw up by this fire and build castles in
+the coals. And I see so many things: the figure of a woman, the uplifted
+hands of children, paths leading to low porticos, gardens with tall
+flowers along their paths, an arm about my neck and a warm cheek held
+close to mine. I know I am only half living tucked up here pegging away,
+and that I ought to shake myself loose and go out into the world more
+and see what it is made of. In a few years I'll be frozen fast into my
+habits like an old branch in a stream when the winter's cold strikes it.
+Only you and the other boys and the fire keep me young."
+
+"Have you never met anybody since, Mac, you cared for?" I had braced
+myself for that question, wondering how he would take it.
+
+"Yes, once, but she never knew it. I had nothing--why begin over again?
+It would have turned out like the other--worse. Then I was too young,
+now I'm too old. Besides, she's on the other side of the water; lives
+there."
+
+"She liked you?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Women are hard to understand. I never abuse their
+confidence when they trust me, and they generally do trust me when I get
+close to them. I seem always to be the big brother to them and so they
+let themselves go, knowing I won't misunderstand. Women _like_ me, they
+don't love me--great difference. A lot of men make this mistake,
+thinking a woman is in love with them when she only wants to be kind.
+She can't always be on the defensive and still be natural. The greatest
+relief that can come to one of them is to find that the man whom she
+wants only as a companion is contented to be that and nothing more and
+won't take advantage of her confidence. So I say I don't know. She was a
+human kind of a girl, this one--real human."
+
+Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers--as if
+he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. "Had a heart for
+things outside of her own affairs. Girl a man could tie up to. Human, I
+tell you--real human!"
+
+"Follow it up, Mac?" He had volunteered nothing about her personality,
+and I dared not ask.
+
+"No, let it go. I've been hoping I'd make a hit some time and then maybe
+I'd--no, don't talk about it any more. Listen! who's that coming
+upstairs? That's Woods, I know his step. Happy fellow! Hear his
+whistle--he must have got another order for a full-length; nothing like
+powder-puff teas for encouraging American art, my boy," and a smile
+crept over Mac's face, which broadened into a laugh when he added, "I'm
+beginning to think that a course in cooking is as necessary for a
+painter as a course in perspective."
+
+The expected arrival was by this time beating a rat-a-tat-too on the
+Chinese screen, his whistle more shrill than ever.
+
+"Come in, you pampered child of fashion!" cried Mac, the sound of
+Woods's joyous step having completely changed the current of his
+thoughts. "Stop that racket, I tell you. We know you've got another
+portrait, but don't split our ears over it."
+
+A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock
+of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs!
+
+"Thought you were Woods," cried Mac.
+
+"I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful
+painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently.
+
+"You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted
+back Mac.
+
+"I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more
+valuable. I carry priceless things about me. In fact I'm just chuck-full
+of priceless things. Shake me and I'll exude glad tidings. Marvellous
+events are happening at the Academy. I have just left there, and I
+_know_! The main stairway is in the hands of a mob of disappointed
+millionnaires pressing up toward the South Room. Every art critic in
+town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a
+collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are
+fastened--even Brown's glazed peepers--on a small yellow card slipped
+into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the
+south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in
+thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks,
+his----"
+
+"Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light
+breaking out on his face. "Do you mean----"
+
+"I do, most masterful painter--I mean just that! Toot the hewgag! Bang
+the lyre! The 'East River' is sold!"
+
+"Sold!"
+
+"SOLD! you duffer!"
+
+"Who to?" Mac's voice had an unsteady tremor in it.
+
+"To Pitkins's friend, the banker. He's wild about it. Says he's been
+looking for something of yours ever since the night he was here, and
+only knew you had a picture on exhibition when he read Cook's abuse of
+it in yesterday's paper. And that isn't all! No sooner had the 'Sold'
+card been slipped into the frame than Mr. Blodgett came in; swore he had
+been intending to buy the 'East River' for his gallery ever since the
+show opened; offered an advance of five hundred dollars to the banker,
+who laughed at him; and then in despair bought your other picture, 'The
+Storm,' hung on the top line. Both sold, O most masterful painter! All
+together now, gentlemen--
+
+"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot--'" and Boggs's voice rang out in
+the tune he knew Mac loved best.
+
+Mac dropped into his chair. The news thrilled him in more ways than one.
+Certain vague, hopeless plans could now, perhaps, be carried out; plans
+he had driven from his mind as soon as they had taken shape: Holland for
+one, which seemed nearer of realization now than ever. So did some
+others.
+
+"Millionaires have their uses, Mac, after all," laughed Marny.
+
+"Yes, but this fellow was an exception. He filled my mug and----"
+
+"--And your pocket," added Boggs; "don't forget that, you ingrate.
+Again--all together, gentlemen--
+
+"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot----'"
+
+This time Boggs sang the couplet to the end, Mac and all of us joining
+in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When all the others had gone I still kept my chair. There was one thing
+more I wanted to know. Mac was on his feet, restlessly pacing the room,
+a quickness in his step, a buoyant tone in his voice that I had not
+noticed all winter.
+
+"Sit down here, old man, and let me ask you a question."
+
+"No," answered Mac, "fire it at me here. I'm too happy to sit down. What
+is it?"
+
+"Was that human girl you spoke of, who lives abroad, the one in the
+steamer chair with the red roses in her lap?"
+
+Mac stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"Yes; I got a letter from her this morning."
+
+"And you are going over?"
+
+"By the first steamer, old man."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+
+THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN
+
+"It would be hard to find a more entertaining, piquant, and
+sweet-spirited companion in book-form."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+KENNEDY SQUARE
+
+"All that was best in the banished life of the old South has been
+touched into life and love, into humor and pathos, in this fine and
+memorable American novel."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+PETER
+
+"It is an old-fashioned love story."--_The Outlook._
+
+"Old Peter Grayson is a charming character, with his old-fashioned
+virtues, his warm sympathies, and his readiness to lend a
+hand."--_Springfield Republican._
+
+THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT
+
+"The story is one of strong dramatic power. Its style is direct and
+incisive, revealing a series of strongly drawn pictures."--_Philadelphia
+Record._
+
+FORTY MINUTES LATE AND OTHER STORIES
+
+"It overflows with friendliness and enjoyment of life, and it furnishes
+a capital example of impressionistic writing."--_The Outlook._
+
+THE VEILED LADY
+
+"These little stories are as entertaining as any he has written and we
+can recommend them confidently to his many admirers."--_New York Sun._
+
+"They are exceedingly agreeable stories with an atmospheric quality
+which the versatile author imparts to them."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+AT CLOSE RANGE
+
+"These simple tales contain more of the real art of character-drawing
+than a score of novels of the day."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+"He has set down with humorous compassion and wit the real life that we
+live every day."--_The Independent._
+
+THE UNDER DOG
+
+"Mr. Hopkinson Smith's genius for sympathy finds full expression in his
+stories of human under dogs of one sort and another ... each serves as a
+centre for an episode, rapid, vivid, story-telling."--_The Nation._
+
+THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN
+
+"It is in the character-drawing that the author has done his best work.
+No three finer examples of women can be found than Margaret Grant,
+Sallie Horn, Oliver's mother, and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old
+spinster."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
+
+THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN
+
+"A breath of pure and invigorating fragrance out of the fogs and
+tempests of the day's fiction."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3
+
+"None of Mr. Smith's writings have shown more delightfully his spirit of
+genial kindliness and sympathetic humor."--_Boston Herald._
+
+COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS
+
+"The dear old colonel claims our smiles and our love as simply and as
+whole-heartedly as ever."--_Life._
+
+THE NOVELS, STORIES AND SKETCHES OF F. HOPKINSON SMITH
+
+"He has always had unquestioning faith in the significance and interest
+of the simple, universal human experiences as they come to normal,
+brave, affectionate, gentle-mannered, or robust, untrained men and
+women.
+
+"As he looks at nature so he looks at man: with clear vision, with
+sympathy rather than curiosity; with an eye for the fine things in the
+rugged man and the vigorous, sinewy, self-sustaining woman, and for the
+natural virtues, the deep tenderness, the true-heartedness in the man of
+long descent and the woman of gentle breeding.
+
+"His style is singularly concise, exact, compact; possessed of a
+vitality which uses various arts of expression; his style is notable for
+concentration, solidity, reality."--HAMILTON W. MABIE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wood Fire in No. 3, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34284.txt or 34284.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/8/34284/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/34284.zip b/34284.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8eaef66
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34284.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b4a751
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #34284 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34284)