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Hopkinson Smith +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Veiled Lady, 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 Veiled Lady + and Other Men and Women + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Posting Date: September 11, 2009 [EBook #4713] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 6, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VEILED LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Duncan Harrod. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE VEILED LADY +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +And Other Men And Women +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +F. Hopkinson Smith +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + <A HREF="#stamboul">THE VEILED LADY OF STAMBOUL</A><BR> + <A HREF="#loretta">LORETTA OF THE SHIPYARDS</A><BR> + <A HREF="#redlead">A COAT OF RED LEAD</A><BR> + <A HREF="#murdock">MISS MURDOCK,—"SPECIAL"</A><BR> + <A HREF="#peter">THE BEGUILING OF PETER GRIGGS</A><BR> + <A HREF="#jennings">MISS JENNINGS'S COMPANION</A><BR> + <A HREF="#joplin">SAM JOPLIN'S EPIGASTRIC NERVE</A><BR> + <A HREF="#buffum">MISS BUFFUM'S NEW BOARDER</A><BR> + <A HREF="#susieann">CAPTAIN JOE AND THE SUSIE ANN</A><BR> + <A HREF="#orders">"AGAINST ORDERS"</A><BR> + <A HREF="#muggles">MUGGLES'S SUPREME MOMENT</A><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +To my Readers: +</P> + +<P> +This collection of stories has been labelled "The Veiled Lady" as being +the easiest way out of a dilemma; and yet the title may be misleading. +While, beyond doubt, there is between these covers a most charming and +lovable Houri, to whom the nightingales sing lullabies, there can also +be found a surpassingly beautiful Venetian whose love affairs upset a +Quarter, a common-sense, motherly nurse whose heart warmed toward her +companion in the adjoining berth, a plucky New England girl with the +courage of her convictions, and a prim spinster whose only consolation +was the boarder who sat opposite. +</P> + +<P> +Nor does the list by any means end here. Rough sea-dogs, with friendly +feelings toward other dogs, crop up, as well as brave Titans who make +derricks of their arms and fender-piles of their bodies. Here, too, are +skinny, sun-dried Excellencies with a taste for revolutions, +well-groomed club swells with a taste for adventure and cocktails, not +to mention half a dozen gay, rollicking Bohemians with a taste for +everything that came their way. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it might have been best to enclose each story in a separate +cover, and then to dump the unassorted lot upon the table, where those +who wished could make their choice. And yet, as I turn the leaves, I +must admit that, after all, the present form is best, since each and +every incident, situation, and bit of local color has either passed +before or was poured into the wide-open eyes and willing ears of your +most humble and obedient servant +</P> + +<P> +A Staid Old Painter. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + 150 East 34th Street,<BR> + New York, March 13, 1907.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="stamboul"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE VEILED LADY OF STAMBOUL +</H3> + +<P> +Joe Hornstog told me this story—the first part of it; the last part of +it came to me in a way which proves how small the world is. +</P> + +<P> +Joe belongs to that conglomerate mass of heterogeneous nationalities +found around the Golden Horn, whose ancestry is as difficult to trace +as a gypsy's. He says he is a "Jew gentleman from Germany," but he +can't prove it, and he knows he can't. +</P> + +<P> +There is no question about his being part Jew, and there is a strong +probability of his being part German, and, strange to say, there is not +the slightest doubt of his being part gentleman—in his own estimation; +and I must say in mine, when I look back over an acquaintance covering +many years and remember how completely my bank account was at his +disposal and how little of its contents he appropriated. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, were I required to hold up my hand in open court, I would have +to affirm that Joe, whatever his other strains might be, was, after +all, ninety-nine per cent. Levantine—which is another way of saying +that he is part of every nationality about him. +</P> + +<P> +As to his honesty and loyalty, is he not the chosen dragoman of kings +and princes when they journey into far distant lands (he speaks seven +languages and many tribal dialects), and is he not today wearing in his +buttonhole the ribbon of the order of the Mejidieh, bestowed upon him +by his Imperial Highness the Sultan, in reward for his ability and +faithfulness? +</P> + +<P> +I must admit that I myself have been his debtor—not once, but many +times. It was this same quick-sighted, quick-witted Levantine who +lifted me from my sketching stool and stood me on my feet in the plaza +of the Hippodrome one morning just in time to prevent my being trodden +under foot by six Turks carrying the body of their friend to the +cemetery—in time, too, to save me from the unforgivable sin among +Orientals, of want of reverence for their dead. I had heard the tramp +of the pall-bearers, and supposing it to be that of the Turkish patrol, +had kept at work. They were prowling everywhere, day and night, and +during those days they passed every ten minutes—nine soldiers in +charge of an officer of police—all owing to the fact that some five +thousand Armenians, anxious to establish a new form of government, had +been wiped out of existence only the week before. +</P> + +<P> +Once on my feet (Joe accomplished his purpose with the help of my +suspenders) and the situation clear, I had sense enough left to uncover +my head and stand in an attitude of profound reverence until the +procession had passed. I can see them now—the coffin wrapped in a +camel's-hair shawl, the dead man's fez and turban resting on top. Then +I replaced my hat and finished the last of the six minarets of the +mosque gleaming like opals in the soft light of the morning. +</P> + +<P> +This act of courtesy, due so little to my own initiative, and so +largely to Joe's, gained for me many friends in and about the +mosque—not only those of the dead man, one of whom rowed a caique, but +among the priests who formed the funeral cortege—a fact unknown to me +until Joe imparted it. "Turk-man say you good man, effendi," was the +way he put it. "You stoop over yourselluf humble for their dead." +</P> + +<P> +On another occasion Joe again stood by my side when, with hat off and +with body in a half kotow, I sat before the Pasha, who was acting chief +of police after that stormy Armenian week—it was over really in five +days. +</P> + +<P> +"Most High Potentate," Joe began, translating my plain Anglo-Saxon +"Please, sir," into Eastern hyperbolics, "I again seek your +Excellency's presence to make my obeisance and to crave your permission +to transfer to cheap paper some of the glories of this City of +Turquoise and Ivory. This, if your Highness will deign to remember, is +not the first time I have trespassed. Twice before have I prostrated +myself, and twice has your Sublimity granted my request." +</P> + +<P> +"These be troublous times," puffed his Swarthiness through his +mustache, his tobacco-stained fingers meanwhile rolling a cigarette; a +dark-skinned, heavily-bearded Oriental, this Pasha, with an eye that +burned holes in you. "You should await a more peaceful season, effendi, +for your art." +</P> + +<P> +"On account of the Armenians, your Excellency?" I ventured to inquire +with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." This, in translation by Joe, came with a whistling sound, like +the escaping steam of a radiator. +</P> + +<P> +"But why should I fear these disturbers of the peace, your Supreme +Highness? The Turk is my friend, and has been for years. They know me +and my pure and unblemished life. They also know by this time that I +have been one of the chosen few among nations who have enjoyed your +Highness's confidence, and to whom you have given protection." Here my +spine took the form of a horseshoe curve—Moorish pattern. "As to these +dogs of Armenians" (this last was Joe's, given with a growl to show his +deep detestation of the race—part of his own, if he would but +acknowledge it), "your Excellency will look out for them." He WAS +looking out for them at the rate of one hundred a day and no questions +asked or answered so far as the poor fellows were concerned. +</P> + +<P> +At this the distinguished Oriental finished rolling his cigarette, +looked at me blandly—it is astonishing how sweet a smile can +overspread the face of a Turk when he is granting you a favor or +signing the death warrant of an infidel—clapped his hands, summoning +an attendant who came in on all fours, and whispered an order in the +left ear of the almost prostrate man. This done, the Pasha rose from +his seat, straightened his shoulders (no handsomer men the world over +than these high-class Turks), shook my hand warmly, gave me the Turkish +salute—heart, mouth, and forehead touched with the tips of flying +fingers—and bowed me out. +</P> + +<P> +Once through the flat leather curtain that hid the exit door of the +Pasha's office, and into the bare corridor, I led Joe to a corner out +of the hearing of the ever-present spy, and, nailing him to the wall, +propounded this query: +</P> + +<P> +"What did the High-Pan-Jam say, Joe?" +</P> + +<P> +Hornstog raised his shoulders level with his ears, fanned out his +fingers, crooked his elbows, and in his best conglomerate answered: +</P> + +<P> +"He say, effendi, that a guard of ein men, Yusuf, his name—I know +him—he is in the Secret Service—oh, we will have no trouble with +him—" Here Joe chafed his thumb and forefinger with the movement of a +paying teller counting a roll. "He come every morning to Galata Bridge +for you me. He say, too, if any trouble while you paint I go him—ah, +effendi, it is only Joe Hornstog can do these things. The Pasha, he +know me—all good Turk-men know me. Where we paint now, subito? In the +plaza, or in the patio of the Valedee, like last year?" +</P> + +<P> +"Neither. We go first to the Mosque of Suleiman. I want the view +through the gate of the court-yard, with the mosque in the background. +Best place is below the cafe. Pick up those traps and come along." +</P> + +<P> +Thus it was that on this particular summer afternoon Joe and I found +ourselves on the shadow side of a wall up a crooked, break-neck street +paved with rocks, each as big as a dress-suit case, from which I got a +full view of the wonderful mosque tossing its splendors into the still +air, its cresting of minarets so much frozen spray against the blue. +</P> + +<P> +The little comedy—or shall I say tragedy?—began a few minutes after I +had opened my easel—I sitting crouched in the shadow, my elbow +touching the plastered wall. Only Joe and I were present. Yusuf, the +guard, a skinny, half-fed Turk in fez and European dress, had as usual +betaken himself to the cafe fronting the same sidewalk on which I sat, +but half a block away; far enough to be out of hearing, but near enough +to miss my presence should I decamp suddenly without notifying him. +There he drank some fifty cups of coffee, each one the size of a +thimble, and smoked as many cigarettes, their burned stubs locating his +seat under the cafe awning as clearly as peanut-shells mark a boy's at +the circus. I, of course, paid for both. +</P> + +<P> +So absorbed was I in my work—the mosque never was so beautiful as on +that day—I gave no thought to the fact that in my eagerness to hide my +canvas from the prying sun I had really backed myself into a small +wooden gate, its lintel level with the sidewalk—a dry, dusty, +sun-blistered gate, without lock or hasp on the outside, and evidently +long closed. Even then I would not have noticed it, had not my ears +caught the sound of a voice—two voices, in fact—low, gurgling +voices—as if a fountain had just been turned on, spattering the leaves +about it. Then my eye lighted, not only on the gate, but upon a seam or +split in the wood, half-way up its height, showing where a panel was +sometimes pushed back, perhaps for surer identification, before the +inside wooden beam would be loosened. +</P> + +<P> +So potent was the spell of the mosque's witchery that the next instant +I should have forgotten both door and panel had not Joe touched the toe +of my boot with his own—he was sitting close to me—and in explanation +lifted his eyebrow a hair's breadth, his eyes fixed on the slowly +sliding panel—sliding noiselessly, an inch at a time. Only then did my +mind act. +</P> + +<P> +What I saw was first a glow of yellow green, then a mass of blossoms, +then a throat, chin and face, one after another, all veiled in a +gossamer thin as a spider's web, and last—and these I shall never +forget—a pair of eyes shining clear below and above the veil, and +which gazed into mine with the same steady, full, unfrightened look one +sometimes sees on the face of a summer moon when it bursts through a +rift in the clouds. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't move and don't look," whispered Joe in my ear, a tone in his +voice of one who had just seen a ghost. "Allah! Ekber! Yuleima!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who is she?" I answered, craning my neck to see the closer. +</P> + +<P> +"No speak now—keep still," he mumbled under his breath. +</P> + +<P> +It may have been the gossamer veil shading a rose skin, making pink +pearls of the cheeks and chin and lending its charm to the other +features; or it may have been the wonderful eyes that made me oblivious +of Joe's warning, for I did look—looked with all my eyes, and kept on +looking. +</P> + +<P> +Men have died for just such eyes. Even now, staid old painter as I am, +the very remembrance of their wondrous size—big as a young doe's and +as pleading, their lids fringed by long feathery lashes that opened and +shut with the movement of a tired butterfly—sends little thrills of +delight scampering up and down my spine. Bulbuls, timid gazelles, +perfumed narghilehs, anklets of beaten gold strung with turquoise, +tinkling cymbals, tiny turned-up slippers with silk tassels on their +toes—everything that told of the intoxicating life of the East were +mirrored in their unfathomed depths. +</P> + +<P> +Most of these qualities, I am aware, are found in many another pair of +lambent, dreamy eyes half-hidden by the soft folds of a yashmak—eyes +which these houris often flash on some poor devil of a giaour, knowing +how safe they are and how slim his chance for further acquaintance. +Strange tales are told of their seductive power and strange +disappearances take place because of them. And yet I saw at a glance +that there was nothing of all this in her wondering gaze. Her eyes, in +fact, were fixed neither on Joseph nor on me, nor did they linger for +one instant on the beautiful mosque. It was my canvas that held their +gaze. Men and mosques were old stories; pictures of either as +astounding as a glimpse into heaven. +</P> + +<P> +Again Joe bent his head and whispered to me, his glance this time on +the mosque, on the hill, on the cafe, where Yusuf sat sipping his +coffee, talking to me all the time out of the corner of his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"Remember, effendi, if Yusuf come we go way chabouk. You look at your +picture all time—paint—no look at her. If Yusuf come and catch us it +make trouble for her—make trouble for you—make more trouble for me. +Police Pasha don't know she come to this garden—I think somebody must +help her. You better stop now and go cafe. I find Yusuf. I no like this +place." +</P> + +<P> +With this Hornstog rose to his feet and began packing the trap, still +whispering, his eyes on the ground. Never once did he look in the +direction of the houri peering through the sliding panel. +</P> + +<P> +The clatter of a horse's hoofs now resounded through the still air. A +mounted officer was approaching. Joe looked up, turned a light +pea-green, backed his body into the gate with the movement of an eel, +put his cheek close to the sliding panel, and whispered some words in +Turkish. The girl leaned a little forward, glanced at the officer as if +in confirmation of Joseph's warning, and smothering a low cry, sprang +back from the opening. The next instant my eye caught the thumb and +forefinger of a black hand noiselessly closing the panel. Joe +straightened up, pulled himself into the position of a sentinel on +guard, saluted the officer, who passed without looking to the right or +left, drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and began mopping his head. +</P> + +<P> +"What the devil is it all about, Joe? Why, you look as if you had had +the wind knocked out of you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, awful close, awful close! I tell you—but not here. Come, we go +'way—we go now—not stay here any more. If that officer see the lady +with us the Pasha send me to black mosque for five year and you find +yourself board ship on way to Tripoli. Here come Yusuf—damn him! You +tell him you no like view of mosque from here—say you find another +place to-morrow—you do this quick. Hornstog never lie." +</P> + +<P> +On my way across the Galata Bridge to my quarters in Pera that same +afternoon Joe followed until Yusuf had made his kotow and we had made +ours, the three ending in a triple flight of fingers—waited until the +guard was well on his way back to the Pasha's office—it was but a +short way from the Stamboul end of the Galata—and drawing me into one +of the small cafes overlooking the waters of the Golden Horn, seated me +at the far end near a window where we could talk without being +overheard. Here Joe ordered coffee and laid a package of cigarettes on +the table. +</P> + +<P> +"My! but that was like the razor at the throat—not for all the hairs +on my head would I had her look out the small hole in the door when +Serim come along. Somebody must be take care of you, you Joe Hornstog, +that you don't make damn big fool of yourselluf. Ha! but it make me +creep like a spider crawl." +</P> + +<P> +I had pulled up a chair by this time and was facing him. +</P> + +<P> +"Now what is it? Who is the girl? Who was the chap on horseback?" +</P> + +<P> +"That man on the horse is Serim Pasha, chief of the palace police. He +has eyes around twice; one in the forehead, one in each ear, one in the +behind of his head. He did not see her—if he did—well, we would not +be talk now together—sure not after to-morrow night." +</P> + +<P> +"But what has he got to do with it? What did you say her name was? +Yuleima?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Yuleima. What has Serim to do with her? Well, I tell you. If she +get away off go Serim's head. Listen! I speak something you never hear +anywhere 'cept in Turk-man's land. I know it all—everything. I know +her prince—he knows me. I meet him Damascus once—he told me some +things then—the tears run his cheeks down like a baby's when he +talk—and Serim know I know somethings! Ah! that's why he not believe +me if he catch me talk to her. Afterward I find more out from my friend +in Yuleima's house—he is the gardener. Put your head close, effendi." +</P> + +<P> +I drew my chair nearer and listened. +</P> + +<P> +"Yuleima," began Joe, "is one womans like no other womans in all—" +</P> + +<P> +But I shall not attempt the dragoman's halting, broken jargon +interspersed with Italian and German words—it will grate on you as it +grated on me. I will assume for the moment—and Joe would be most +thankful to have me do so—that the learned Hornstog, the friend of +kings and princes, is as fluent in English as he is in Turkish, Arabic, +and Greek. +</P> + +<P> +It all began in a caique—or rather in two caiques. One was on its way +to a little white house that nestles among the firs at the foot of the +bare brown hill overlooking the village of Beicos. The other was bound +for the Fountain Beautiful, where the women and their slaves take the +air in the soft summer mornings. +</P> + +<P> +In the first caique, rowed by two caique-jis gorgeously dressed in +fluffy trousers and blouses embroidered in gold, sat the daughter of +the rich Bagdad merchant. +</P> + +<P> +In the second caique, cigarette in hand, lounged the nephew of the +Khedive, Mahmoud Bey; scarce twenty, slight, oval face with full lips, +hair black as sealskin and as soft, and eyes that smouldered under +heavy lids. Four rowers in blue and silver attended his Highness, the +amber-colored boat skimming the waters as a tropical bird skims a +lagoon. +</P> + +<P> +The two had passed each other the week before on the day of the +Selamlik (the Turkish holiday) while paddling up the Sweet Waters of +Asia—a little brook running into the Bosphorus and deep enough for +caiques to float, and every day since that blissful moment my lady had +spent the morning under the wide-spreading plane-trees shading the +Fountain Beautiful—the Chesmegazell—attended by her faithful slave +Multif, her beautiful body stretched on a Damascus rug of priceless +value, her eager eyes searching the blue waters of the Bosphorus. +</P> + +<P> +On this particular morning—my lady had just stepped into her boat—the +young man was seen to raise himself on his elbow, lift his eyelids, and +a slight flush suffused his swarthy cheeks. Then came an order in a low +voice, and the caique swerved in its course and headed for the dot of +white and gold in which sat Multif and my lady. The Spanish caballero +haunts the sidewalk and watches all day beneath his Dulcinea's balcony; +or he talks to her across the opera-house or bull-ring with cigarette, +fingers, and cane, she replying with studied movements of her fan. In +the empire of Mohammed, with a hundred eyes on watch—eyes of eunuchs, +spies, and parents—love-making is reduced to a passing glance, brief +as a flash of light, and sometimes as blinding. +</P> + +<P> +That was all that took place when the two caiques passed—just a +thinning of the silken veil, with only one fold of the yashmak slipped +over the eyes, softening the fire of their beauty; then a quick, +all-enfolding, all-absorbing look, as if she would drink into her very +soul the man she loved, and the two tiny boats kept each on its way. +</P> + +<P> +The second act of the comedy opens in a small cove, an indent of the +Bosphorus, out of sight of passing boat-patrols—out of sight, too, of +inquisitive wayfarers passing along the highroad from Beicos to +Danikeui. Above the cove, running from the very beach, sweeps a garden, +shaded by great trees and tangles of underbrush; one bunch smothering a +summer-house. This is connected by a sheltered path with the little +white house that nestles among the firs half-way up the steep brown +hill that overlooks the village of Beicos. +</P> + +<P> +The water-patrol may have been friendly, or my lady's favorite slave +resourceful, but almost every night for weeks the first caique and the +second caique had lain side by side in the boat-house in the cove, both +empty, except for one trusty man who loved Mahmoud and who did his +bidding without murmur or question, no matter what the danger. Higher +up, her loose white robes splashed with the molten silver of the moon +filtering through overhanging leaves, where even the nightingale +stopped to listen, could be heard the cooing of two voices. Then would +come a warning cry, and a figure closely veiled would speed up the +path. Next could be heard the splash of oars of the first caique +homeward bound. +</P> + +<P> +Locksmiths are bunglers in the East compared to patrols and eunuchs. +Lovers may smile, but they never laugh at them. There is always a day +of reckoning. A whisper goes around; some disgruntled servant shakes +his head; and an old fellow with baggy trousers and fez, says: "My +daughter, I am surprised" or "pained" or "outraged," or whatever he +does say in polite Turkish, Arabic, or Greek, and my lady is locked up +on bread and water, or fig-paste, or Turkish Delight, and all is over. +Sometimes the young Lothario is ordered back to his regiment, or sent +to Van or Trebizond or Egypt for the good of his morals, or his health +or the community in which he lives. Sometimes everybody accepts the +situation and the banns are called and they live happy ever after. +</P> + +<P> +What complicated this situation was that the girl, although as +beautiful as a dream—any number of dreams, for that matter, and all of +paradise—was a plebeian and the young man of royal blood. Furthermore, +any number of parents, her own two and twice as many uncles and aunts, +might get together and give, not only their blessing, but lands and +palaces—two on the Bosphorus, one in Bagdad and another at Smyrna, and +nothing would avail unless his Imperial Highness the Sultan gave his +consent. Fruthermore, again, should it come to the ears of his August +Presence that any such scandalous alliance was in contemplation, +several yards of additional bow-strings would be purchased and the +whole coterie experience a choking sensation which would last them the +balance of their lives. +</P> + +<P> +Thus it was that, after that most blissful night in the arbor—their +last—in which she had clung to him as if knowing he was about to slip +forever from her arms, both caiques were laid up for the season; the +first tight locked and guarded in the palace of the young man's father, +five miles along the blue Bosphorus as the bird flies, and the second +in the little boat-house in the small indent of a cove under the garden +holding the beloved arbor, the little white house, and My Lady of the +diaphanous veil and the all-absorbing eyes. +</P> + +<P> +With the lifting of the curtain on the third act, the scene shifts. No +more Sweet Waters, no more caiques nor stolen interviews, the music of +hot kisses drowned in the splash of the listening fountain. Instead, +there is seen a sumptuously furnished interior the walls wainscoted in +Moorish mosaics and lined by broad divans covered with silken rugs. +Small tables stand about holding trays of cigarettes and sweets. Over +against a window overlooking a garden lounges a group of women—some +young, some old, one or two of them black as coal. It is the harem of +the Pasha, the father of Mahmoud, Prince of the Rising Sun, Chosen of +the Faithful, Governor of a province, and of forty other things +beside—most of which Joe had forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +Months had passed since that night in the arbor. Yuleima had cried her +eyes out, and Mahmoud had shaken his fists and belabored his head, +swearing by the beard of the Prophet that come what might Yuleima +should be his. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the death of the paternal potentate, and the young lover was +free—free to come and go, to love, to hate; free to follow the +carriage of his imperial master in his race up the hill after the +ceremony of the Selamlik; free to choose any number of Yuleimas for his +solace; free to do whatever pleased him—except to make the beautiful +Yuleima his spouse. This the High-Mightinesses forbade. There were no +personal grounds for their objection. The daughter of the rich Bagdad +merchant was as gentle as a doe, beautiful as a star seen through the +soft mists of the morning, and of stainless virtue. Her father had ever +been a loyal subject, giving of his substance to both church and state, +but there were other things to consider, among them a spouse especially +selected by a council of High Pan-Jams, whose decision, having been +approved by their imperial master, was not only binding, but final—so +final that death awaited any one who would dare oppose it. At the feast +of Ramazan the two should wed. Yuleima might take second, third, or +fortieth place—but not first. +</P> + +<P> +The young prince gritted his row of white teeth and flashed his +slumbering eyes—and they could flash—blaze sometimes—with a fire +that scorched. Yuleima would be his, unsullied in his own eyes and the +world's, or she should remain in the little white house on the brown +hill and continue to blur her beautiful eyes with the tears of her +grief. +</P> + +<P> +Then the favorite slave and the faithful caique-ji—the one who found +the little cove even on the darkest night—put their heads +together—two very cunning and wise heads, one black and wrinkled and +the other sun-tanned and yellow—with the result that one night a new +odalisque, a dark-skinned, black-haired houri, the exact opposite of +the fair-skinned, fair-haired Yuleima, joined the coterie in the harem +of the palace of the prince. She had been bought with a great price and +smuggled into Stamboul, the story ran, a present from a distinguished +friend of his father, little courtesies like this being common in +Oriental countries, as one would send a bottle of old Madeira from his +cellar or a choice cut of venison from his estate, such customs as is +well known being purely a matter of geography. +</P> + +<P> +The chief blackamoor, a shambling, knock-kneed, round-shouldered, +swollen-paunched apology for a man, with blistered, cracked lips, +jaundiced pig eyes, and the skin of a terrapin, looked her all over, +grunted his approval, and with a side-lunge of his fat empty head, +indicated the divan which was to be hers during the years of her +imprisonment. +</P> + +<P> +One night some words passed between the two over the division of +bonbons, perhaps, or whose turn it was to take afternoon tea with the +prince—it had generally been the new houri's, resulting in +considerable jealousy and consequent discord—or some trifle of that +sort (Joe had never been in a harem, and was therefore indefinite), +when the blackamoor, to punctuate his remarks, slashed the odalisque +across her thinly covered shoulders with a knout—a not uncommon mode +of enforcing discipline, so Joe assured me. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the great scene of the third act—always the place for it, so +dramatists say. +</P> + +<P> +The dark-skinned houri sprang up, rose to her full height, her eyes +blazing, and facing her tormentor, cried: +</P> + +<P> +"You blackguard"—a true statement—"do you know who I am?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, perfectly; you are Yuleima, the daughter of the Bagdad merchant." +</P> + +<P> +The fourth act takes place on the outskirts of Stamboul, in a small +house surrounded by a high wall which connects with the garden of a +mosque. The exposure by the eunuch had resulted in an investigation by +the palace clique, which extended to the Bagdad merchant and his +family, who, in explanation, not only denounced her as an ungrateful +child, cursing her for her opposition to her sovereign's will, but +denied all knowledge of her whereabouts. They supposed, they pleaded, +that she had thrown herself into the Bosphorus at the loss of her +lover. Then followed the bundling up of Yuleima in the still watches of +the night; her bestowal at the bottom of a caique, her transfer to +Stamboul, and her incarceration in charge of an attendant in a deserted +house belonging to the mosque. The rumor was then set on foot that it +was unlawful to look steadily into the waters of the Bosphorus or to +attempt the salvage of any derelict body floating by. +</P> + +<P> +The prince made another assault on his hair and tightened his fingers, +this time with a movement as if he was twisting them round somebody's +throat, but he made no outcry. It is hard to kick against the pricks in +some lands. +</P> + +<P> +He did not believe the bow-string pillow-case and solid-shot story, but +he knew that he should never look upon her face again. What he did +believe was that she had been taken to some distant city and there sold. +</P> + +<P> +For days he shut himself up in his palace. Then, having overheard a +conversation in his garden between two eunuchs—placed there for that +purpose—he got together a few belongings, took his faithful caique-ji, +and travelled a-field. If what he had heard was true she was in or near +Damascus. Here would he go. If, after searching every nook and cranny, +he failed to find her, he would return and carry out his sovereign's +commands and marry the princess—a woman he had never laid his eyes on +and who might be as ugly as sin and as misshapen as Yuleima was +beautiful. It was while engaged in this fruitless search that he met +Joseph, to whom he had poured out his heart (so Joe assured me, with +his hand on his shirt-front), hoping to enlist his sympathies and thus +gain his assistance. +</P> + +<P> +All this time the heartbroken girl, rudely awakened from her dream of +bliss, was a prisoner in the deserted house next the mosque. As the +dreary months went by her skin regained its pinkness and her beautiful +hair its golden tint,—walnut shells and cosmetics not being found in +the private toilet of the priests and their companions. When the summer +came a greater privilege was given her. She could never speak to any +one and no one could speak to her—even the priests knew this—but a +gate opening into the high-walled garden was left unlocked now and then +by one of the kind-hearted Mohammedans, and often she would wander as +far as the end of the wall overlooking the Mosque of Suleiman, her +attendant always with her—a black woman appointed by Chief-of-Police +Selim, and responsible for her safety, and who would pay forfeit with +her head if Yuleima escaped. +</P> + +<P> +"And you think now, effendi," concluded Joe, as he drained his last cup +of coffee (Hornstog's limit was twenty cups at intervals of three +minutes each), "that Joe be big damn fool to put his foots in +this—what you call—steel trap? No, no, we keep away. To-morrow, don't +it, we take Yusuf and go Scutari? One beautiful fountain at Scutari +like you never see!" +</P> + +<P> +"But can't her father help?" I asked, ignoring his suggestion. His +caution did not interest me. It was the imprisoned girl and her +suffering that occupied my thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, perhaps, but not yet. I somethings hear one day from the gardener +who live with her father, but maybe it all lie. He say Serim come and +say—" Again Joe chafed his thumb and forefinger, after the manner of +the paying teller. "Maybe ten thousand piastres—maybe twenty. Her +father would pay, of course, only the Sultan might not like—then worse +trouble—nothing will be done anyhow until the wedding is over. Then, +perhaps, some time." +</P> + +<P> +I did not go to Scutari the next day. I opened my easel in the patio of +the Pigeon Mosque and started in to paint the plaza with Cleopatra's +Needle in the distance. This would occupy the morning. In the afternoon +I would finish my sketch of Suleiman. Should Joe have a fresh attack of +ague he could join Yusuf at the cafe and forget it in the thimbleful +that cheers but does not inebriate. +</P> + +<P> +With the setting up of my tripod and umbrella and the opening of my +color-box a crowd began to gather—market people, fruit-sellers, +peddlers, scribes, and soldiers. Then a shrill voice rang out from one +of the minarets calling the people to prayer. A group of priests now +joined the throng about me watched me for a moment, consulted together, +and then one of them, an old man in a silken robe of corn-yellow bound +about with a broad sash of baby blue, a majestic old man, with a +certain rhythmic movement about him which was enchanting, laid his hand +on Joseph's shoulder and looking into his eyes, begged him to say to +his master that the making of pictures of any living or dead thing, +especially mosques, was contrary to their religion, and that the +effendi must fold his tent. +</P> + +<P> +All this time another priest, an old patriarch with a fez and green +turban and Nile-green robe overlaid with another of rose-pink, was +scrutinizing my face. Then the corn-yellow fellow and the rose-pink +patriarch put their heads together, consulted for a moment, made me a +low bow, performed the flying-fingers act, and floated off toward the +mosque. +</P> + +<P> +"You no go 'way, effendi," explained Joe. "The priest in green turban +say he remember you; he say you holy man who bow yourselluf humble when +dead man go by. No stop paint." +</P> + +<P> +The protests of the priests, followed by their consultation and quiet +withdrawal, packed the crowd the closer. One young man in citizen's +dress and fez stood on the edge of the throng trying to understand the +cause of the excitement. +</P> + +<P> +Joe, who was sitting by me assisting with the water-cup, gazed into the +intruder's face a moment, then closed upon my arm with a grip as if +he'd break it. +</P> + +<P> +"Allah! Mahmoud Bey!" he whispered. "Yuleima's prince. That's him with +the smooth face." +</P> + +<P> +The next instant the young man stood by my side. +</P> + +<P> +"The people are only curious, monsieur," he said in French. "If they +disturb you I will have them sent away. So few painters come—you are +the first I have seen in many years. If it will not annoy you, I'd like +to watch you a while." +</P> + +<P> +"Annoy me, my dear sir!" I was on my feet now, hat in hand. (If he had +been my long-lost brother, stolen by the Indians or left on a desert +island to starve—or any or all of those picturesque and dramatic +things—I could not have been more glad to see him. I fairly hugged +myself—it seemed too good to be true.) "I will be more than delighted +if you will take my dragoman's stool. Get up, Joe, and give—" +</P> + +<P> +The request had already been forestalled. Joe was not only up, but was +bowing with the regularity and precision of the arms of a windmill, his +fingers, with every rise, fluttering between his shirt-stud and his +eyebrows. On his second upsweep the young prince got a view of his +face—then his hand went out. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it is Hornstog! We know each other. We met in Damascus. You could +not, monsieur, find a better dragoman in all Constantinople." +</P> + +<P> +Only three pairs of eyes now followed the movements of my brush, the +crowd having fallen back out of respect for the young man's rank, Yusuf +having communicated that fact to those who had not recognized him. +</P> + +<P> +When the light changed—and it changed unusually early that morning, +about two hours ahead of time (I helped)—I said to the prince: +</P> + +<P> +"It may interest you to see me finish a sketch in color. Come with me +as far as Suleiman. We can sit quite out of the sun up a little back +street under a wall, and away from everybody. I began the drawing +yesterday. See!" and I uncovered the canvas. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Suleimanyeh! The most beautiful of all our mosques. Yes, certainly +I'll go." +</P> + +<P> +Joe dug his knuckles into my thigh, under pretence of steadying +himself—he was squatting beside me like a frog, helping with the +water-cups—and gasped: "No; don't take him—please, effendi! No—no—" +</P> + +<P> +I brushed Joe aside and continued: "We can send for coffee and spend +the afternoon. I'll have some chairs brought from the cafe. Pick up +everything, Joe, and come along." +</P> + +<P> +On the way to the crooked, break-neck street my thoughts went racing +through my head. On one side, perhaps, a tap on the shoulder in the +middle of the night; half a yard of catgut in the hands of a +Bashi-Bazouk; an appeal to our consul, with the consciousness of having +meddled with something that did not concern me. On the other a pair of +tear-stained, pleading eyes. Not my eyes—not the eyes of anybody that +I knew—but the kind that raise the devil even in the heart of a staid +old painter like myself. +</P> + +<P> +Joe followed, with downcast gaze. He, too, was scheming. He could not +protest before the prince, nor before Yusuf. That would imply previous +knowledge of the danger lurking in the vicinity of the old wall. His +was the devil and the deep sea. Not to tell the prince of Yuleima's +whereabouts, after their combined search for her, and the fees the +prince had paid him, would be as cruel as it was disloyal. To assist in +Mahmoud's finding her would bring down upon his own head—if it was +still on his shoulders—the wrath of the chief of police, as well as +the power behind him. +</P> + +<P> +Once under the shadow of the wall, the trap unpacked, easel and +umbrella up, and water-bottle filled, Joe started his windmill, paused +at the third kotow, looked me straight in the eye, and, with a tone in +his voice, as if he had at last come to some conclusion, made this +request: +</P> + +<P> +"I have no eat breakfast, effendi—very hungry—you please permit Joe +go cafe with Yusuf—we stay ONE hour, no more. Then I bring coffee. You +see me when I come—I bring the coffee myselluf." +</P> + +<P> +He could not have pleased me more. How to get rid of them both was what +had been bothering me. +</P> + +<P> +I painted on, both of us backed into the low gate with the sliding +panel, my eyes on the mosque, my ears open for the slightest sound. We +talked of the wonderful architecture of the East, of the taper of the +minarets, of the grace and dignity of the priests, of the social life +of the people, I leading and he following, until I had brought the +conversation down to the question: +</P> + +<P> +"And when you young men decide to marry are you free to choose, as we +Europeans are?" I was feeling about, wondering how much of his +confidence he would give me. +</P> + +<P> +"No; that's why, sometimes, I wish I was like one of the white gulls +that fly over the water." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand." +</P> + +<P> +"I would be out at sea with my mate—that's what I mean." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you a mate?" +</P> + +<P> +"I had. She is lost." +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse." +</P> + +<P> +I kept at work. White clouds sailed over the mosque; a flurry of +pigeons swept by; the air blew fresh. With the exception of my +companion and myself the street was deserted. I dared not go any +further in my inquiries. If I betrayed any more interest or previous +knowledge he might think I was in league against him. +</P> + +<P> +"The girl, then, suffers equally with the man?" I said, tightening one +of the legs of my easel. +</P> + +<P> +"More. He can keep his body clean; she must often barter hers in +exchange for her life. A woman doesn't count much in Turkey. This is +one of the things we young men who have seen something of the outside +world—I lived a year in Paris—will improve when we get the power," +and his eyes flashed. +</P> + +<P> +"And yet it is dangerous to help one of them to escape, is it not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +The hour was nearly up. Joe, I knew, had fixed it, consulting his watch +and comparing it with mine so that I might know the coast was clear +during that brief period should anything happen. +</P> + +<P> +"I was tempted to help one yesterday," I answered. "I saw a woman's +face that has haunted me ever since. She may not have been in trouble, +but she looked so." Then quietly, and as if it was only one of the many +incidents that cross a painter's path, I described in minute detail the +gate, the sliding panel, the veiled face and wondrous eyes, the +approach of the officer, the smothered cry of terror, the black finger +and thumb that reached out, and the noiseless closing of the panel. +What I omitted was all reference to Joe or his knowledge of the girl. +</P> + +<P> +Mahmoud was staring into my eyes now. +</P> + +<P> +"Where was this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just behind you. Lift your head—that seam marks the sliding panel. +She may come again when she sees the top of my umbrella over the wall. +Listen! That's her step. She has some one with her—crouch down close. +There's only room for her head. You may see her then without her +attendant knowing you are here. Quick! she is sliding the panel!" +</P> + +<P> +Outside of Paris, overlooking the Seine, high up on a hill, stands the +Bellevue—a restaurant known to half the world. Sweeping down from the +perfectly appointed tables lining the rail of the broad piazza; +skimming the tree-tops, the plain below, the twisting river, rose-gold +in the twilight, the dots of parks and villas, the eye is lost in the +distant city and the haze beyond—the whole a-twinkle with myriads of +electric lights. +</P> + +<P> +There, one night, from my seat against the opposite wall (I was dining +alone), I was amusing myself watching a table being set with more than +usual care; some rich American, perhaps, with the world in a sling, or +some young Russian running the gauntlet of the dressing-rooms. Staid +old painters like myself take an interest in these things. They serve +to fill his note-book, and sometimes help to keep him young. +</P> + +<P> +When I looked again the waiter was drawing out a chair for a woman with +her back to me. In the half-light, her figure, in silhouette against +the cluster of candles lighting the table, I could see that she was +young and, from the way she took her seat, wonderfully graceful. +Opposite her, drawing out his own chair, stood a young man in evening +dress, his head outlined against the low, twilight sky. It was Mahmoud! +</P> + +<P> +I sprang from my seat and walked straight toward them. There came a low +cry of joy, and then four outstretched arms—two of them tight-locked +about my neck. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me," I asked, when we had seated ourselves, Yuleima's hands still +clinging to mine. "After I left you that last night in the garden, was +the boat where we hid it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Who rowed you to the steamer?" +</P> + +<P> +"My old caique-ji." +</P> + +<P> +"And who got the tickets and passports?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hornstog." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="loretta"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LORETTA OF THE SHIPYARDS +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +For centuries the painters of Venice have seized and made their own the +objects they loved most in this wondrous City by the Sea. Canaletto, +ignoring every other beautiful thing, laid hold of quays backed by +lines of palaces bordering the Grand Canal, dotted with queer gondolas +rowed by gondoliers, in queerer hoods of red or black, depending on the +guild to which they belonged. Turner stamped his ownership on sunset +skies, silver dawns, illuminations, fetes, and once in a while on a +sweep down the canal past the Salute, its dome a huge incandescent +pearl. Ziem tied up to the long wall and water steps of the Public +Garden, aflame with sails of red and gold: he is still there—was the +last I heard of him, octogenarian as he is. Rico tacks his card to +garden walls splashed with the cool shadows of rose-pink oleanders +dropping their blossoms into white and green ripples, melting into +blue. As for me—I have laid hands on a canal—the Rio Giuseppe—all of +it—from the beginning of the red wall where the sailors land, along +its crookednesses to the side entrance of the Public Garden, and so +past the rookeries to the lagoon, where the tower of Castello is ready +to topple into the sea. +</P> + +<P> +Not much of a canal—not much of a painting ground really, to the +masters who have gone before and are still at work, but a truly +lovable, lovely, and most enchanting possession to me their humble +disciple. Once you get into it you never want to get out, and, once +out, you are miserable until you get back again. On one side stretches +a row of rookeries—a maze of hanging clothes, fish-nets, balconies +hooded by awnings and topped by nondescript chimneys of all sizes and +patterns, with here and there a dab of vermilion and light red, the +whole brilliant against a china-blue sky. On the other runs the long +brick wall of the garden,—soggy, begrimed; streaked with moss and +lichen in bands of black-green and yellow ochre, over which mass and +sway the great sycamores that Ziem loves, their lower branches +interwoven with zinnober cedars gleaming in spots where the prying sun +drips gold. +</P> + +<P> +Only wide enough for a barca and two gondolas to pass—this canal of +mine. Only deep enough to let a wine barge through; so narrow you must +go all the way back to the lagoon if you would turn your gondola; so +short you can row through it in five minutes; every inch of its water +surface part of everything about it, so clear are the reflections; full +of moods, whims, and fancies, this wave space—one moment in a broad +laugh coquetting with a bit of blue sky peeping from behind a cloud, +its cheeks dimpled with sly undercurrents, the next swept by flurries +of little winds, soft as the breath of a child on a mirror; then, when +aroused by a passing boat, breaking out into ribbons of color—swirls +of twisted doorways, flags, awnings, flower-laden balconies, +black-shawled Venetian beauties all upside down, interwoven with strips +of turquoise sky and green waters—a bewildering, intoxicating jumble +of tatters and tangles, maddening in detail, brilliant in color, +harmonious in tone: the whole scintillating with a picturesqueness +beyond the ken or brush of any painter living or dead. +</P> + +<P> +On summer days—none other for me in Venice (the other fellow can have +it in winter)—everybody living in the rookeries camps out on the quay, +the women sitting in groups stringing beads, the men flat on the +pavement mending their nets. On its edge, hanging over the water, +reaching down, holding on by a foot or an arm to the iron rail, are +massed the children—millions of children—I never counted them, but +still I say millions of children. This has gone on since I first staked +out my claim—was a part of the inducement, in fact, that decided me to +move in and take possession—boats, children, still water, and +rookeries being the ingredients from which I concoct color combinations +that some misguided people take home and say they feel better for. +</P> + +<P> +If you ask me for how many years I have been sole owner of this stretch +of water I must refer you to Loretta, who had lived just five summers +when my big gondolier, Luigi, pulled her dripping wet from the canal, +and who had lived eleven more—sixteen, in all—when what I have to +tell you happened. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, Loretta's little mishap, now I come to think of it, does not +go back far enough. My claim was really staked out before she was born +(I am still in possession—that is—I was last year, and hope to be +this), and her becoming part of its record is but the sticking of two +pins along a chart,—the first marking her entrance at five and the +second her exit at sixteen. All the other years of my occupation—those +before her coming and since her going—were, of course, full of the +kind of joy that comes to a painter, but these eleven years—well, +these had all of this joy and then, too, they had—Loretta. +</P> + +<P> +I was in the bow of the gondola when the first of these two pins found +its place on the chart, working away like mad, trying to get the exact +shadow tones on a sun-flecked wall. Luigi was aft, fast asleep, his +elbow under his head: I never object, for then he doesn't shake the +boat. Suddenly from out the hum of the children's voices there came a +scream vibrant with terror. Then a splash! Then the gondola swayed as +if a barca had bumped it, and the next thing I knew Luigi's body made a +curve through the air, struck the water, with an enormous souse, and up +came Loretta, her plump, wet little body resting as easily on Luigi's +hand, as a tray rests on a waiter's. Another sweep with his free arm, +and he passed me the dripping child and clambered up beside her. The +whole affair had not occupied two minutes. +</P> + +<P> +That was a great day for me! +</P> + +<P> +Heretofore I had been looked upon as a squatter: possessing certain +rights, of course, and more or less welcome because of sundry lire +expended for the temporary use of fishing boats with sails up,—but +still an interloper. Now I became one of the thousand families and the +million children. These were all in evidence in less than ten seconds; +the peculiar quality of that scream had done it; not only from the top +story of the highest rookery did they swarm, but from every near-by +campo, and way back to the shipyards. +</P> + +<P> +Luigi pushed the gondola to the quay and I lifted out the water-soaked, +blue-lipped little tot, her hair flattened against her cheeks (she was +laughing now,—"It was nothing," she said, "my foot slipped,") and +placed her in the hands of the longest-armed fishwife; and then Luigi +disappeared into a door, level with the quay, from which he reappeared +ten minutes later in a suit of dry clothes, the property of a +fisherman, and of so grotesque a fit, the trousers reaching to his +knees and the cuffs of the coat to his elbows, that he set the +population in a roar. My Luigi, you might as well know, is six feet and +an inch, with the torso of a Greek god and a face that is twin to +Colleone's, and, furthermore, is quite as distinguished looking as that +gentleman on horseback, even if he does wear a straw hat instead of a +copper helmet. After this Loretta became part of my establishment, +especially at luncheon time, Luigi hunting her up and bringing her +aboard in his arms, she clinging to his grizzled, sunburned neck. Often +she would spend the rest of the day watching me paint. +</P> + +<P> +All I knew of her antecedents and life outside of these visits was what +Luigi told me. She was born, he said, in the shipyards, and at the +moment lived in the top of the rookery nearest the bridge. She had an +only sister, who was ten years older; the mother was the wife of a crab +fisherman who had died some years before; the two children and mother +were cared for by a brother crab fisherman. His son Francesco, if +report were true, was to marry the sister when she turned fifteen, +Francesco being four years older. This last reference to Francesco came +with a shake of the head and a certain expression in Luigi's eyes which +told me at once that his opinion of the prospective groom was not for +publication—a way he has when he dislikes somebody and is too polite +to express it. +</P> + +<P> +"Fishes for crabs, like his father?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, crabs and young girls," he answered with a frown. "A poor lot, +these crab catchers, Signore. Was it the charcoal or a brush you +wanted?" +</P> + +<P> +Francesco did not interest me,—nor did the grownup sister; nor the +mother, over whom Luigi also shrugged his shoulders. It was Loretta's +chubbiness that delighted my soul. +</P> + +<P> +Even at five she was a delightful little body, and full of entrancing +possibilities. One can always tell what the blossom will be from the +bud. In her case, all the essentials of beauty were in evidence: dark, +lustrous velvety eyes; dazzling teeth—not one missing; jet-black +hair—and such a wealth of it, almost to her shoulders; a slender +figure, small hands and feet; neat, well-turned ankles and wrists, and +rounded plump arms above the elbows. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you intend to do, little one, when you grow up?" I asked her +one morning. She was sitting beside me, her eyes following every +movement of my brush. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what everybody does. I shall string beads and then when I get big +like my sister I shall go to the priest and get married, and have a +ring and new shoes and a beautiful, beautiful veil all over my hair." +</P> + +<P> +"So! And have you picked him out yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, Signore! Why, I am only a little girl. But he will surely +come,—they always come." +</P> + +<P> +These mornings in the gondola continued until she was ten years old. +Sometimes it was a melon held high in the air that tempted her; or a +basket of figs, or some huge bunches of grapes; or a roll and a broiled +fish from a passing cook-boat: but the bait always sufficed. With a +little cry of joy the beads would be dropped, or the neighbor's child +passed to another or whatever else occupied her busy head and small +hands, and away she would run to the water steps and hold out her arms +until Luigi rowed over and lifted her in. She had changed, of course, +in these five years, and was still changing, but only as an expanding +bud changes. The eyes were the same and so were the teeth—if any had +dropped out, newer and better ones had taken their places; the hair +though was richer, fuller, longer, more like coils of liquid jet, with +a blue sheen where the sky lights touched its folds. The tight, trim +little figure, too, had loosened out in certain places—especially +about the chest and hips. Before many years she would flower into the +purest type of the Venetian—the most beautiful woman the world knows. +</P> + +<P> +At sixteen she burst into bloom. +</P> + +<P> +I have never seen a black tulip, not a real velvet-black, but if inside +its shroud of glossy enfoldings—so like Loretta's hair—there lies +enshrined a mouth red as a pomegranate and as enticing, and if above it +there burn two eyes that would make a holy man clutch his rosary; and +if the flower sways on its stalk with the movement of a sapling +caressed by a summer breeze;—then the black tulip is precisely the +kind of flower that Loretta bloomed into. +</P> + +<P> +And here the real trouble began,—just as it begins for every other +pretty Venetian, and here, too, must I place the second pin in my chart. +</P> + +<P> +It all came through Francesco. The older sister had died with the first +child, and this crab catcher had begun to stretch out his claws for +Loretta. She and her mother still lived with Francesco's father, who +was a widower. The mother kept the house for all,—had done so for +Francesco and her daughter during their brief married life. +</P> + +<P> +In her persecution Loretta would pour out her heart to Luigi, telling +how they bothered her,—her mother the most of all. She hated +Francesco,—hated his father,—hated everybody who wanted her to marry +the fisherman. (Luigi, poor fellow, had lost his only daughter when she +was five years of age, which accounted, I always thought, for his +interest in the girl.) +</P> + +<P> +One morning she called to him and waited on the quay until he could +hail a passing barca and step from the gondola to its deck and so +ashore. Then the two disappeared through the gate of the garden. +</P> + +<P> +"She is too pretty to go alone," he explained on his return. "Every day +she must pay a boy two soldi, Signore, to escort her to the lace +factory—the boy is sick today and so I went with her. But their +foolishness will stop after this;—these rats know Luigi." +</P> + +<P> +From this day on Loretta had the Riva to herself. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +So far there has been introduced into this story the bad man, +Francesco, with crab-like tendencies, who has just lost his wife; the +ravishingly beautiful Loretta; the girl's mother, of whom all sorts of +stories were told—none to her credit; big tender-hearted Luigi +Zanaletto, prince of gondoliers, and last, and this time least, a staid +old painter who works in a gondola up a crooked canal which is +smothered in trees, choked by patched-up boats and flanked by tattered +rookeries so shaky that the slightest earth quiver would tumble them +into kindling wood. +</P> + +<P> +There enters now another and much more important character,—one +infinitely more interesting to my beautiful Lady of the Shipyards than +any grandfather gondolier or staid old painter who ever lived. This +young gentleman is twenty-one; has a head like the Hermes, a body like +the fauns, and winsome, languishing eyes with a light in their depths +which have set the heart of every girl along his native Giudecca +pitapatting morning, noon, and night. He enjoys the distinguished name +of Vittorio Borodini, and is the descendant of a family of +gondoliers—of the guild of the Castellani—who can trace their +ancestral calling back some two hundred years (so can Luigi; but then +Luigi never speaks of it, and the Borodinis always do). Being +aristocrats, the Zanalettos and Borodinis naturally fraternize, and as +they live in the same quarter—away up on the Giudecca—two miles from +my canal—the fathers of Vittorio and Luigi have become intimate +friends. Anything, therefore, touching the welfare of any one of the +descendants of so honorable a guild is more or less vital to the +members of both families. +</P> + +<P> +At the moment something HAD touched a Borodino—and in the most vital +of spots. This was nothing less than the heart of young Vittorio, the +pride and hope of his father. He had seen the "Rose of the Shipyards," +as she was now called, pass the traghetto of the Molo, off which lay +his gondola awaiting custom,—it was on one of the days when the +two-soldi boy acted as chaperon,—and his end had come. +</P> + +<P> +It had only been a flash from out the lower corner of the left eye of +Loretta as she floated along past the big columns of the Palazzo of the +Doges, but it had gone through the young gondolier and out on the other +side, leaving a wound that nothing would heal. She had not intended to +hurt him, or even to attract him;—he only happened to be in the way +when her search-light illumined his path. +</P> + +<P> +Vittorio knew at a glance that she came from the rookeries and that he, +the scion of a noble family, should look higher for his mate, but that +made no difference. She was built for him and he was built for her, and +that was the end of it: not for an intrigue—he was not constructed +along those lines—but with a ring and a priest and all the rest of it. +The main difficulty was to find some one who knew her. He would +not,—could not, confront her; nor would he follow her home; but +something must be done, and at once: a conclusion, it will be admitted, +than an incalculable number of young Vittorios have reached, sooner or +later, the world over. +</P> + +<P> +When, therefore, a rumor came to his ears that Luigi the Primo was +protecting her—the kind of protection that could never be +misunderstood in Luigi's case—a piece of news which his informer was +convinced would end the projected intrigue of the young gondolier, then +and there and for all time, Vittorio laughed so loud and so long, and +so merrily, that he lost, in consequence, two fares to San Giorgio, and +came near being reprimanded by the Gastaldo for his carelessness. +</P> + +<P> +That was why late one afternoon (I was painting the sunset glow) just +as Loretta reached the edge of the quay on her way home, a young +fellow, in white duck with a sash of dark red silk binding and hanging +from his waist and a rakish straw hat tipped over his handsome face, +shot his gondola alongside mine and leaned over to whisper something in +Luigi's ear. And that was why the girl in her long black shawl stopped, +and why Luigi immediately changed gondolas and made for the quay, and +why they all talked together for a moment, the girl flashing and the +boy beaming, and that was why, too, they all three disappeared a moment +later in the direction of the high rookery where lived the baffled, +love-sick Francesco, his anxious father, the much-talked-about mother, +and the Rose of the Shipyards. +</P> + +<P> +In a garden where the soil is so rich that a seedling of five—a mere +slip—blooms into flower before a foolish old painter can exhaust the +subjects along the canal, it is not surprising that a love affair +reaches its full growth between two suns. Not since the day she had +tumbled into the canal had she gone so headover-heels—both of them. +Nor did Luigi pull them out. He helped in the drowning, really. +</P> + +<P> +He was talking to himself when he came back—a soft light in his eyes, +a smile lingering around the corners of his up-turned, grizzled +mustache. +</P> + +<P> +"It is good to be young, Signore, is it not?" was all he said, and at +once began bundling up my traps. +</P> + +<P> +Before the week was out,—nay, before the setting of two suns—every +gossip along the Riva—and they about covered the population—had +become convinced that Loretta was lost to the Quarter. Unless a wedding +ring was to end it all Vittorio would never be so bold in his +attentions to Loretta, as to walk home with her nights and wait for her +mornings. +</P> + +<P> +Luigi shook his head, but he did not help the gossips solve the +problem. He had had trouble enough already with Vittorio's father. +</P> + +<P> +"A common wench from the yards, I hear, Luigi!" he had blazed out—"and +you, I understand, brought them together—you,—who have been my friend +for—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop, Borodini! Not another word! You are angry, and when you are +angry you are stupid. I carried that girl in my arms when she was a +baby! I have watched over her ever since. A wench! Not one of your own +daughters has a heart so white. If Vittorio is so great a coward as to +listen to their talk I'll keep her for his betters." +</P> + +<P> +All this snapped out of Luigi's eyes and rolled from under his crisp +mustache as he repeated the outbreak to me. What the end might be +neither the Giudecca nor San Giuseppe could decide. The Borodinis were +proud; Vittorio's father was one of the gondoliers belonging to the +palace and always rowed the good Queen Margherita when she came +incognito to Venice,—a post which greatly enhanced his social station. +Vittorio was the only son, and already a member of the traghetto, young +as he was. But then, were there any girls better than Loretta, or as +good? She helped her mother; she paid her share of the rent to +Francesco's father; she gave to the poor box. That she was the sunshine +of the Quarter every one knew who heard her sweet, cheery voice. As to +her family, it was true that her mother was a Sicilian who boiled over +sometimes in a tempest of rage, like Vesuvius,—but her father had been +one of them. And then again, was she not the chosen friend of Luigi, +the Primo, and of the crazy painter who haunted the canal? The boy and +his father might be glad, etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +The only persons who were oblivious to the talk were the two lovers. +Their minds were made up. Father Garola had promised, and they knew +exactly what to do, and when and where to do it. In the meantime the +Riva was a pathway of rose-tinted clouds constructed for the especial +use of two angels, one of whom wore a straw hat with a red ribbon +canted over his sunburnt face, and the other a black shawl with silken +fringe, whose every movement suggested a caress. +</P> + +<P> +The one disgruntled person was Francesco. +</P> + +<P> +He had supposed at first that, like the others, Vittorio would find out +his mistake;—certainly when he looked closely into the pure eyes of +the girl, and that then, like the others, he would give up the +chase;—he not being the first gay Lothario who had been taught just +such a lesson. +</P> + +<P> +Loretta's answer to the schemer, given with a toss of her head and a +curl of her lips, closed Francesco's mouth and set his brain in a +whirl. In his astonishment he had long talks with his father, the two +seated in their boat against the Garden wall so no one could overhear. +</P> + +<P> +Once he approached Luigi and began a tale, first about Vittorio and his +escapades and then about Loretta and her coquetry, which Luigi +strangled with a look, and which he did not discuss or repeat to me, +except to remark—"They have started in to bite, Signore," the meaning +of which I could but guess at. At another time he and his associates +concocted a scheme by which Vittorio's foot was to slip as he was +leaving Loretta at the door, and he be fished out of the canal with his +pretty clothes begrimed with mud;—a scheme which was checked when they +began to examine the young gondolier the closer, and which was entirely +abandoned when they learned that his father was often employed about +the palace of the king. In these projected attacks, strange to say, the +girl's mother took part. Her hope in keeping her home was in Loretta's +marrying Francesco. +</P> + +<P> +Then, dog as he was, he tried the other plan—all this I got from +Luigi, he sitting beside me, sharpening charcoal points, handing me a +fresh brush, squeezing out a tube of color on my palette: nothing like +a romance to a staid old painter; and then, were not both of us in the +conspiracy as abettors, and up to our eyes in the plot? +</P> + +<P> +This other plan was to traduce the girl. So the gondoliers on the +traghetto began to talk,—behind their hands, at first: She had lived +in Francesco's house; she had had a dozen young fishermen trapesing +after her; her mother, too, was none too good. Then again, you could +never trust these Neapolitans,—the kitten might be like the cat, etc., +etc. +</P> + +<P> +Still the lovers floated up and down the Riva, their feet on clouds, +their heads in the heavens. Never a day did he miss, and always with a +wave of her hand to me as they passed: down to Malamocco on Sundays +with another girl as chaperon, or over to Mestre by boat for the festa, +coming home in the moonlight, the tip of his cigarette alone lighting +her face. +</P> + +<P> +One morning—the lovers had only been waiting for their month's +pay—Luigi came sailing down the canal to my lodgings, his gondola in +gala attire,—bunches of flowers tied at each corner of the tenda; a +mass of blossoms in the lamp socket; he himself in his best white suit, +a new red sash around his waist—his own colors—and off we went to San +Rosario up the Giudecca. And the Borodinis turned out in great force, +and so did all the other 'inis, and 'olas, and 'ninos—dozens of +them—and in came Loretta, so beautiful that everybody held his breath; +and we all gathered about the altar, and good Father Garola stepped +down and took their hands; and two candles were lighted and a little +bell rang; and then somebody signed a book—somebody with the bearing +of a prince—Borodini, I think—and then Luigi, his rich, sunburned +face and throat in contrast with his white shirt, moved up and affixed +his name to the register; and then a door opened on the side and they +all went out into the sunlight. +</P> + +<P> +I followed and watched the gay procession on its way to the waiting +boats. As I neared the corner of the church a heavily-built young +fellow ran past me, crouched to the pavement, and hid himself behind +one of the tall columns. Something in his dress and movement made me +stop. Not being sure, I edged nearer and waited until he turned his +head. It was Francesco. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +The skies were never more beautiful that May, the blossoms of the +oleanders and the almond trees never more lovely. Not only was my own +canal alive with the stir and fragrance of the coming summer, but all +Venice bore the look of a bride who had risen from her bath, drawn +aside the misty curtain of the morning, and stood revealed in all her +loveliness. +</P> + +<P> +The sun shone everywhere, I say, but to me its brightest rays fell on a +garden full of fig trees and flat arbors interwoven with grapevines, +running down to the water where there was a dock and a gondola—two, +sometimes,—our own and Vittorio's—and particularly on a low, +two-story, flat-roofed house,—a kaleidoscope of color—pink, yellow, +and green, with three rooms and a portico, in which lived Vittorio, a +bird in a cage, a kitten-cat and the Rose of the Shipyards. +</P> + +<P> +It is a long way round to my canal through San Trovaso to the Zattere +and across the Giudecca to Ponte Lungo, and then along the edge of the +lagoon to this garden and dovecote, but that is the precise route +Luigi, who lived within a stone's throw of the couple, selected morning +after morning. He always had an excuse:—he had forgotten the big +bucket for my water cups, or the sail, or the extra chair; and would +the Signore mind going back for his other oar? Then again the tide was +bad, and after all we might as well row down the lagoon; it was easier +and really shorter with the wind against us—all nonsense, of course, +but I never objected. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, the Signore and dear Luigi!" she would cry when she caught sight +of our gondola rounding into the landing. Then down the path she would +skip, the joyous embodiment of beauty and grace, and help me out, Luigi +following; and we would stroll up under the fig trees, and she would +begin showing me this and that new piece of furniture, or pot, or +kettle, or new bread knife, or scissors, or spoon, which Vittorio had +added to their store since my last visit. Or I would find them both +busy over the gondola,—he polishing his brasses and ferro, and she +rehanging the curtains of the tenda which she had washed and ironed +with her own hands. +</P> + +<P> +In truth it was a very happy little nest that was tucked away in one +corner of that old abandoned garden with its outlook on the broad water +and its connecting link with the row of neighbors' houses flanking the +side canal,—and no birds in or out of any nest in all Venice ever sang +so long and so continuously nor were there any others so genuinely +happy the livelong day and night as these two. +</P> + +<P> +Did I not know something of the curious mixture of love, jealousy, and +suspicion which goes into the making-up of an Italian, it would be hard +for me to believe that so lovely a structure as this dovecote, one +built with so much hope and alight with so much real happiness, could +ever come tumbling to the ground. We Anglo-Saxons flame up indignantly +when those we love are attacked, and we demand proofs. "Critica," that +bane of Venetian life—what this, that, or the other neighbor tattles +to this, that, and the other listener, we dismiss with a wave of the +hand, or with fingers tight clenched close to the offender's lips, or +by a blow in the face. Not so the Italian. He also blazes, but he will +stop and wonder when his anger has cooled; think of this and that; put +two and two together, and make ten of what is really only four. This is +what happened to the nest under the grapevines. +</P> + +<P> +I was in my own garden at the Britannia leaning over the marble +balcony, wondering what kept Luigi—it was past ten o'clock—when the +news reached me. I had caught sight of his white shirt and straw hat as +he swung out behind the Salute and headed straight toward me, and saw +from the way he gripped his oar and stretched his long body flat with +the force of each thrust, that he had a message of importance, even +before I saw his face. +</P> + +<P> +"A Dio, Signore!" he cried. "What do you think? Vittorio has cursed +Loretta, torn her wedding ring from her finger, and thrown it in her +face!" +</P> + +<P> +"Vittorio!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—he will listen to nothing! He is a crazy fool and I have done +all I could. He believes every one of the lies that crab-catching brute +of a Francesco is telling. It would be over by to-night, but Loretta +does not take it like the others: she says nothing. You know her +eyes—they are not like our Giudecca girls. They are burning now like +two coals of fire, and her cheeks are like chalk." +</P> + +<P> +I had stepped into the gondola by this time, my first thought being how +best to straighten out the quarrel. +</P> + +<P> +"Now tell me, Luigi—speak slowly, so I do not miss a word. First, +where is Loretta?" +</P> + +<P> +"She was putting on her best clothes when I left—those she bought +herself. She will touch nothing Vittorio gave her. She is going back to +her mother in an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"But what happened? Has Francesco—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Francesco has not stopped one minute since the wedding. He has been +talking to the fish-people,—to everybody on the side street, saying +that Loretta was his old shoes that he left at his door, and the fool +Vittorio found them and put them on—that sort of talk." +</P> + +<P> +"And Vittorio believes it?" +</P> + +<P> +"He did not at first,—but twice Francesco came to see Loretta with +messages from her mother, and went sneaking off when Vittorio came up +in his boat, and then that night some one would tell him—'that fellow +meets Loretta every day;' that he was her old lover. These people on +the Giudecca do not like the San Giuseppe people, and there is always +jealousy. If Vittorio had married any one from his own quarter it would +have been different. You don't know these people, Signore,—how +devilish they can be and how stupid." +</P> + +<P> +"That was why he threw the ring in her face?" +</P> + +<P> +"No and yes. Yesterday was Sunday, and some people came to see her from +San Giuseppe, and they began to talk. I was not there; I did not get +there until it was all over, but my wife heard it. They were all in the +garden, and one word led to another, and he taunted her with seeing +Francesco, and she laughed, and that made him furious; and then he said +he had heard her mother was a nobody; and then some one spoke up and +said that was true—fools all. And then Loretta, she drew herself up +straight and asked who it was had said so, and a woman's voice +came—'Francesco,—he told me—' and then Vittorio cried—'And you meet +him here. Don't deny it! And you love him, too!—' and then the fool +sprang at her and caught her hand and tore the ring from her finger and +spat on it and threw it on the ground. He is now at his father's house." +</P> + +<P> +"And she said nothing, Luigi?" The story seemed like some horrible +dream. +</P> + +<P> +"No, nor shed a tear. All she did was to keep repeating—'Francesco! +Francesco! Francesco!' I got there at daylight this morning and have +been there ever since. I told her I was coming for you. She was sitting +in a chair when I went in,—bolt up; she had not been in her bed. She +seems like one in a trance—looked at me and held out her hand. I tried +to talk to her and tell her it was all a lie, but she only +answered—'Ask Francesco,—it is all Francesco,—ask Francesco.' Hurry, +Signore,—we will miss her if we go to her house. We will go at once to +our canal and wait for her. They have heard nothing down there at San +Giuseppe, and you can talk to her without being interrupted, and then +I'll get hold of Vittorio. This way, Signore." +</P> + +<P> +I had hardly reached the water landing of my canal ten minutes later +when I caught sight of her, coming directly toward me, head up, her +lips tight-set, her black shawl curving and floating with every +movement of her body—(nothing so wonderfully graceful and nothing so +expressive of the wearer's moods as these black shawls of the +Venetians). She wore her gala dress—the one in which she was +married—white muslin with ribbons of scarlet, her wonderful hair in a +heap above her forehead, her long gold earrings glinting in the +sunshine. All the lovelight had died out of her eyes. In its place were +two deep hollows rimmed about by dark lines, from out which flashed two +points of cold steel light. +</P> + +<P> +I sprang from my gondola and held out my hand: +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down, Loretta, and let me talk to you." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped, looked at me in a dazed sort of way, as if she was trying +to focus my face so as to recall me to her memory, and said in a +determined way: +</P> + +<P> +"No, let me pass. It's too late for all that, Signore. I am—" +</P> + +<P> +"But wait until you hear me." +</P> + +<P> +"I will hear nothing until I find Francesco." +</P> + +<P> +"You must not go near him. Get into the gondola and let Luigi and me +take you home." +</P> + +<P> +A dry laugh rose to her lips. "Home! There is no home any more. See! My +ring is gone! Francesco is the one I want—now—-NOW! He knows I am +coming,—I sent him word. Don't hold me, Signore,—don't touch me!" +</P> + +<P> +She was gone before I could stop her, her long, striding walk +increasing almost to a run, her black shawl swaying about her limbs as +she hurried toward her old home at the end of the quay. Luigi started +after her, but I called him back. Nothing could be done until her fury, +or her agony, had spent itself. These volcanoes are often short-lived. +We looked after her until she had reached the door and had flung +herself across the threshold. Then I sent Luigi for my easel and began +work. +</P> + +<P> +The events that have made the greatest impression upon me all my life +have been those which have dropped out of the sky,—the unexpected, the +incomprehensible,—the unnecessary—the fool things—the damnably +idiotic things. +</P> + +<P> +First we heard a cry that caused Luigi to drop canvas and easel, and +sent us both flying down the quay toward the rookery. It came from +Loretta's mother;—she was out on the sidewalk tearing her hair; +calling on God; uttering shriek after shriek. The quay and bridge were +a mass of people—some looking with staring eyes, the children hugging +their mothers' skirts. Two brawny fishermen were clearing the way to +the door. Luigi and I sprang in behind them, and entered the house. +</P> + +<P> +On the stone floor of the room lay the body of Francesco, his head +stretched back, one hand clutching the bosom of his shirt. Against the +wall stood Loretta; not a quiver on her lips; ghastly white; calm,—the +least excited person in the room. +</P> + +<P> +"And you killed him!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—he thought I came to kiss him—I did, WITH THIS!" and she tossed +a knife on the table. +</P> + +<P> +The days that followed were gray days for Luigi and me. All the light +and loveliness were gone from my canal. +</P> + +<P> +They took Loretta to the prison next the Bridge of Sighs and locked her +up in one of the mouldy cells below the water line—dark, dismal +pockets where, in the old days, men died of terror. +</P> + +<P> +Vittorio, Luigi, and I met there the next morning. I knew the chief +officer, and he had promised me an interview. Vittorio was +crying,—rubbing his knuckles in his eyes,—utterly broken up and +exhausted. He and Luigi had spent the night together. An hour before, +the two had stood at Francesco's bedside in the hospital of San Paulo. +Francesco was still alive, and with Father Garola bending over him had +repeated his confession to them both. He was madly in love with her, he +moaned, and had spread the report hoping that Vittorio would cast her +off, and, having no other place to go, Loretta would come back to him. +At this Vittorio broke into a rage and would have strangled the dying +man had not the attendant interfered. All this I learned from Luigi as +we waited for the official. +</P> + +<P> +"This is a frightful ending to a happy life—" I began when the officer +appeared. "Let them talk to each other for just a few moments. It can +do no harm." +</P> + +<P> +The official shook his head. "It is against orders, Signore, I cannot. +He can see her when she is brought up for examination." +</P> + +<P> +"They will both have lost their senses by that time," I pleaded. "Can't +you think of some way? I have known her from a child. Perhaps an order +from headquarters might be of some use." We were standing, at the time, +in a long corridor ending in a door protected by an iron grating. This +led to the underground cells. +</P> + +<P> +The chief fastened his eyes on me for an instant, turned abruptly, +called to an attendant, gave an order in a low voice and, with the +words to Vittorio—"You are not to speak to her, remember," motioned +the sobbing man toward the grating. Luigi and I followed. +</P> + +<P> +She came slowly out of the shadows, first the drawn face peering ahead, +as if wondering why she had been sent for, then the white crumpled +dress, and then the dark eyes searching the gloom of the corridor. +Vittorio had caught sight of her and was clinging to the grating, his +body shaking, his tears blinding him. +</P> + +<P> +The girl gave a half-smothered cry, darted forward and covered +Vittorio's hands with her own. Some whispered word must have followed, +for the old light broke over her face and she would have cried out for +joy had not Luigi cautioned her. For a moment the two stood with +fingers intertwined, their bowed foreheads kept apart by the cold +grating. Then the boy, straining his face between the bars, as if to +reach her lips, loosened one hand, took something from his pocket and +slipped it over her finger. +</P> + +<P> +It was her wedding ring. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +Summer has faded, the gold of autumn has turned to brown, and the raw, +cold winds of winter have whirled the dead leaves over rookeries, quay, +and garden. The boats rock at their tethers and now and then a sea gull +darts through the canal and sweeps on to the lagoon. In the narrow +opening fronting the broad waters lawless waves quarrel and clash, +forcing their way among the frightened ripples of San Giuseppe, ashy +gray under the lowering sky. +</P> + +<P> +All these months a girl has clung to an iron grating or has lain on a +pallet in one corner of her cell. Once in a while she presses her lips +to a ring on her left hand, her face lighting up. Sometimes she breaks +out into a song, continuing until the keeper checks her. +</P> + +<P> +Then spring comes. +</P> + +<P> +And with it the painter from over the sea. +</P> + +<P> +All the way from Milan as far as Verona, and beyond, there have been +nothing but blossoms,—masses of blossoms,—oleander, peach, and almond. +</P> + +<P> +When the train reaches Mestre and the cool salt air fans his cheek, he +can no longer keep his seat, so eager is he to catch the first glimpse +of his beloved city,—now a string of pearls on the bosom of the lagoon. +</P> + +<P> +Luigi has the painter's hand before his feet can touch the platform. +</P> + +<P> +"Good news, Signore!" he laughs, patting my shoulder. "She is free!" +</P> + +<P> +"Loretta!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—she and Vittorio are back in their garden. Borodini told the +whole story to the good Queen Mother when she came at Easter, and the +king pardoned her." +</P> + +<P> +"Pardoned her! And Francesco dead!" +</P> + +<P> +"Dead! No such good luck, Signore,—that brute of a crab-fisher got +well!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="redlead"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A COAT OF RED LEAD +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +My offices are on the top floor of a high building overlooking the East +River and the harbor beyond—not one of those skyscrapers punctured +with windows all of the same size, looking from a distance like huge +waffles set up on end—note the water-line of New York the next time +you cross the ferry and see if you don't find the waffles—but an +old-fashioned sort of a high building of twenty years ago—old as the +Pyramids now, with a friendly janitor who comes to me when I send for +him instead of my going to his "Office" when he sends for me; friendly +elevator boys who poke their heads from out their iron cages and wait +five seconds until I reach them, and an obliging landlord who lets me +use his telephone. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum, my chief draftsman—when you have only one it is best to label +him "Chief" to your clients; they think the others are off building +bridges for foreign governments, or lunching at Delmonico's with +railroad presidents—my chief draftsman, I say, occupies the room +opening into mine. His outlook is a brick wall decorated with windows, +behind which can be seen various clerks poring over huge ledgers, a +section of the roof topped with a chimney, and in the blue perspective +the square, squat tower of the Produce Exchange in which hangs a clock. +Both of these connecting rooms open on the same corridor, a convenient +arrangement when clients wish to escape without being seen, or for the +concealing of bidders who are getting plans and specifications for the +same tenders, especially when two of them happen to turn up at the same +moment. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum manages this, and with such adroitness that I have often seen +clients, under the impression that the drafting-room was full, sit +patiently in my office and take their turn while he quietly munches his +sandwich behind closed panels—an illusion sustained by a loud +"Good-morning" from my chief addressed to the circumambient air, +followed by the slamming of the corridor door. When I remonstrate with +Mawkum, insisting that such subterfuges are beneath the dignity of the +office, he contends that they help business, and in proof quotes the +old story of the unknown dentist who compelled a suffering prince to +call the next day at noon, claiming that his list was full, when +neither man, woman nor child had been in his chair for over a +week—fame and fortune being his ever after. +</P> + +<P> +When Mawkum gets tired of inspecting the brick wall and the industrious +clerks and the face of the clock, he strolls leisurely into my room, +plants himself at my window—this occurs during one of those calms that +so often come to an office between contracts—and spends hours in +contemplating the view. +</P> + +<P> +To me the stretch of sky and water, with its dividing band of roof, +tower and wharf, stretching from the loop of steel—that spider-web of +the mighty—to the straight line of the sea, is a never-ending delight. +In the early morning its broken outline is softened by a veil of silver +mist embroidered with puffs of steam; at midday the glare of light +flashing from the river's surface makes silhouettes of the +ferry-shuttles threading back and forth weaving the city's life; at +twilight the background of purple is bathed in the glory of the sunset, +while at night myriads of fireflies swarm and settle, tracing in +pencillings of fire the plan of the distant town. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum, being commercially disposed, sees none of these things; his +gaze is fixed on the panting tugs towing chains of canal boats; on the +great floats loaded with cars and the stately steamers slowing down +opposite their docks. Today he develops an especial interest. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the Tampico in from Caracas and the Coast," he says, leaning +across my desk, his fat hand resting on my letter file. "She's loaded +pretty deep. Hides and tallow, I guess. 'Bout time we heard from that +Moccador Lighthouse, isn't it? Lawton's last letter said we could look +for his friend in a month—about due now. Wish he'd come." And he +yawned wearily. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum's yawn indicated the state of his mind. He had spent the +previous three weeks in elaborating the plans and specifications for a +caisson to be used under a bridge pier—our client assuring him that he +had, to use his own words, "a dead sure thing on the award." When the +bids were opened, Mawkum congratulated him on his foresight and offered +to attend the funeral in a body, the client's bid being some thirty per +cent too high. Little episodes like this add a touch of gayety to the +hours spent in the top of the high building. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum's yawn over—it is generally in three sections, but can +sometimes be curtailed—I interrupted hurriedly with: +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of a structure is it?" I knew, but I wanted some other +employment for his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"First order, screw pile, about a hundred and twenty feet high, stuck +on a coral reef at the mouth of the harbor. 'Bout like our Fowey Rocks, +off the Florida coast. She's backing in." His eyes were still on the +Tampico, the floes of North River ice hemming her in on all sides. +"Passengers'll be off in an hour. Wonder how they like our +climate—little chilly for pajamas." +</P> + +<P> +Here Mawkum strolled into his room and began overhauling the contents +of a rack of drawings piled one on top of the other like cordwood, +labelled: "Screw Pile Structures." +</P> + +<P> +The next morning there came a timid knock at Mawkum's door—the knock +of a child with matches to sell, or of one of those dear sisters who +collect for the poor. At a second summons, a little louder than the +first, the chief, with an impatient air, slid from the high stool +facing his drawing board, and threw wide the door. +</P> + +<P> +I craned my head and discovered a small, ivory-tinted individual in a +Panama hat, duck trousers and patent-leather shoes. Wrapped about his +shrivelled frame, one red-lined end tossed gallantly over his shoulder, +was an enormous Spanish capa. This hid every part of his body from his +chin to the knees of his cotton ducks. From where I sat he looked like +a conspirator in the play, or the assassin who lies in wait up the dark +alley. Once inside he wrinkled his shoulders with the shivering +movement of a horse dislocating a fly, dropped the red-lined end of the +capa, removed his Panama and began a series of genuflections which +showed me at once that he had been born among a people who imbibed +courtesy with their mother's, or their cocoanut's, milk. +</P> + +<P> +"I am look' for the Grandioso Engineer," said the visitor. "I am Senor +Garlicho—" Then a shade of uncertainty crossed his face: Mawkum was +still staring at him. "It is a mistake then, perhaps? I have a letter +from Senor Law-TON. Is it not to the great designer of lighthouse which +I speak?" This came with more bows—one almost to the floor. +</P> + +<P> +The mention of Lawton's name brought Mawkum to his senses. He placed +his fat hand on his vest, crooked his back, and without the slightest +allusion to the fact that the original and only Grandioso occupied the +adjoining room, motioned the visitor to a seat and opened the letter. +</P> + +<P> +I thought now it was about time I should assert my rights. Pushing back +my chair, I walked rapidly through my own and Mawkum's room and held +out my hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Senor, I am delighted to meet you," I broke out in Spanish. (Here +I had Mawkum—he did not understand a word.) "We have been expecting +you; our mutual friend, Mr. Lawton, has given me notice of your +coming—and how is the Senor and his family?" And in a few minutes we +three were seated at my desk with Mawkum unrolling plans, making +sketches on a pad, figuring the cost of this and that and the other +thing; I translating for Mawkum such statements as I thought he ought +to know, thus restoring the discipline and dignity of the office—it +never being wise to have more than one head to a concern. +</P> + +<P> +This partial victory was made complete when his ivory-tinted Excellency +loosened his waistcoat, dived into his inside pocket and, producing a +package of letters tied with a string, the envelopes emblazoned with +the arms and seal of the Republic of Moccador, asked if we might be +alone. I immediately answered, both in Spanish and English, that I had +no secrets from Senor Mawkum, but this did not prove satisfactory and +so Mawkum, with a wink to me, withdrew. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum gone, the little man—it is inconceivable how small and withered +he was; how yellow, how spidery in many of his motions, especially with +his fingers stained with cigarettes, how punctilious, how polite, how +soft and insinuating his voice, and how treacherous his smile—a smile +that smiled all alone by itself, while the cunning, glittering eyes +recorded an entirely different brain suggestion—Mawkum gone, I say, +the little man examined the door to see that it was tight shut, glanced +furtively about the room, resumed his seat, slowly opened the largest +and most flaringly decorated envelope and produced a document signed +with a name and titles that covered half the page. Then he began to +talk at the rate of fifty words to the second; like the rattle of a +ticker in a panic: of Alvarez, the saviour of his country—his +friend!—his partner; of the future of Moccador under his wise and +beneficent influence, the Lighthouse being one of the first +improvements; of its being given to him to erect because of his loyalty +to the cause, and to the part he had taken in overturning that despot, +the Tyrant Paramba, who had ruled the republic with a rod of iron. Now +it was all over—Paramba was living in the swamps, hunted like a dog. +When he was caught—and they expected it every day—he would be brought +to the capital, San Juan, in chains—yes, Senor, in chains—and put to +work on the roads, so that everybody could spit upon him—traitor! +Beast, that he was! And there would be other lighthouses—the whole +coast was to be as light as day. Senor Law-TON had said he could speak +with perfect confidence—he was doing so, trusting to the honor of the +Grandiose—the most distinguished—etc., etc. And now—this in a +summing-up voice with a slower movement, about twenty words to the +second—would the Grandioso go in as a partner in these ventures? The +income he could assure me would be so fixed that the light dues alone +would pay for the structure in two years—think of it, Senor, in two +years—perhaps less!—and forever after we could both sit down and +receive a small fortune, I by the Tampico in drafts signed by his +Excellency, and he in his own hacienda surrounded by the patriots who +honored him and the wife and children he adored. +</P> + +<P> +At mention of the partnership a vague, cloudy expression crossed my +face; my companion caught it, and continued: +</P> + +<P> +Or (again the voice slowed down) I would be paid for the structure on +its erection by me on the reef. +</P> + +<P> +Again my eyes wandered, and again he took the cue: +</P> + +<P> +Or—if that was not satisfactory—he would be willing to pay for the +ironwork alone as soon as it arrived in the harbor of San Juan. +</P> + +<P> +My Spanish is more like an old uniform that is rubbed up for a parade +and then put away in camphor. Much of his talk was therefore lost on +me; but the last sentences were as clear as if they had dropped from +the lips of my old teacher, Senor Morales. +</P> + +<P> +Half-rising from my chair, I placed my hand over my shirt-front and +thanked his Excellency for his confidence—really one of the greatest +compliments that had ever been paid me in all my professional career. +To be at once the partner of two such distinguished caballeros as +General Alvarez, the saviour of his country, and my distinguished +guest, was an honor that few men could resist, but—BUT—here I picked +up a lead pencil and a pad—BUT—the only way I could permit myself to +rob him of his just desserts would be—here I traced a few lines on the +pad—would be—my voice now became impressive—to receive one-third +when it was erected in the yard in Brooklyn, and the balance on +delivery of the bills of lading to his agent; payments to be made by +his distinguished Excellency's bankers in New York. +</P> + +<P> +If the modification of terms in any way disappointed the gentleman from +San Juan, my closest observation of his smile and glance failed to +detect it. He merely quivered his shoulders—a sort of plural +shrug—rolled his cigarette tighter between his thumb and forefinger, +remarked that the memoranda were entirely satisfactory, and folding the +paper slid it carefully into his pocket; then with a series of salaams +that reminded me of a Mohammedan spreading a prayer rug, and an "A +Dios, Senor," the ivory-tinted individual withdrew. +</P> + +<P> +A week later Mawkum, carrying a tin case addressed to his sun-dried +Excellency, passed up the gangplank of the Tampico; this he placed in +that gentleman's hands. Inside its soldered top were the plans and +specifications of a First Order Light, to be made of iron, to be +properly packed, and to have three coats of red lead before +shipment—together with a cross-section of foundation to be placed on +the reef known as "La Garra de Lobo"—The Claw of the Wolf—outside the +harbor of San Juan—all at the risk of his Supreme Excellency, Senor +Tomas Correntes Garlicho, of the Republic of Moccador, South +America—the price of the ironwork to hold good for three months. +</P> + +<P> +On his return to the office Mawkum took up his position once more at my +window, waited until the Tampico, the case and his Excellency were well +on their way to Sandy Hook and started in on other work. The next day +the incident, like so many similar ventures—his racks were full of +just such estimates—was forgotten. If any of the bread thus cast upon +the waters came back, the chief would be glad, and so would the +Grandioso; if not, we were both willing to cut a fresh slice to keep it +company. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Four months passed. The ice was out of the river; the steam heat had +been turned off in the high building and the two time-worn awnings had +been fixed to my windows by the obliging janitor. The Tampico had come +and gone, and had come again. Its arrivals, and departures were, as +usual, always commented upon by Mawkum, generally in connection with +"That Bunch of Dried Garlic," that being the irreverent way in which he +spoke of his ivory-tinted Excellency. Otherwise the lighthouse, and all +that pertained to it, had become ancient history. +</P> + +<P> +One lovely spring morning—one of those warm mornings when every window +and door is wide open to get the breeze from Sandy Hook and +beyond—another visitor stepped into Mawkum's room. He brought no +letters of introduction, nor did he confine himself to his mother +tongue, although his nationality was as apparent as that of his +predecessor. Neither did he possess a trace of Garlicho's affability or +polish. On the contrary, he conducted himself like a muleteer, and +spoke with the same sort of brutal authority. +</P> + +<P> +And the differences did not stop here. Garlicho was shrivelled and +sun-dried. This man was round and plump—plump as a stuffed olive +fished from a jar of oil, and as shiny; dark-skinned, with a pair of +heavy eyebrows that met over a stub of a nose ending in a knob; two +keen rat eyes, a mouth hidden by a lump of a mustache black as tar, and +a sagging, flabby chin which slunk into his collar. Next came a +shirt-front soiled and crumpled, and then the rest of him in a suit of +bombazine. +</P> + +<P> +"You designed a lighthouse some months ago for Mr. Garlicho, of San +Juan," he blurted out with hardly an accent. "I arrived this morning by +the Tampico. My name is Carlos Onativia." And he laid a thin, elongated +piece of cardboard on Mawkum's desk. +</P> + +<P> +Only the arrival of a South American fresh from the Republic of +Moccador, with a spade designed to dig up a long-buried treasure could +have robbed Mawkum of his habitual caution of always guarding plans and +estimates from outsiders—a custom which was really one of the +fundamental laws of the office. The indiscretion was no doubt helped by +the discovery that the owner of the spade spoke English, a fact which +freed him at once of all dependence on the superior lingual attainments +possessed by the Grandioso in the adjoining room. +</P> + +<P> +Down came the duplicate blue-prints without a word of protest or any +further inquiry, and before I could reach the inquirer's side and be +properly introduced—I did not want to interfere too abruptly—Mawkum +had not only unrolled the elevation and cross-sections, but had handed +out a memorandum showing the estimate of cost. +</P> + +<P> +Onativia acknowledged my presence with a slight bob of his head, +loosened the upper button of his coat, fished up a pair of glasses, +stuck them on the knob end of his nose, and began devouring the plans +in a way that showed both of us that it was not the first time he had +looked over a set of blue-prints. +</P> + +<P> +"This estimate is for the ironwork alone," the stranger said, "and is, +as you see, good for three months. The time, as you will note, has +expired. Do you now ask for an additional sum, or will the price +stand?" All this in the tone of a Tombs lawyer cross-examining a +witness. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum murmured that, as there had been no advance in the cost of the +raw material, the price would stand. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. And now, what, in your judgment, should be added for the +cost of erection?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't say," answered Mawkum; "don't know the coast or kind of labor, +or the bottom of the reef—may be coral, may be hard-pan, may be sand. +Do YOU know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—the coast is an ugly one, except four months in the year. Site is +twelve miles from San Juan, exposed to the rake of the sea; bottom +coral, I understand; labor cheap and good for nothing, and appliances +none—except what can be shipped from here." This came with the air of +one who knew. +</P> + +<P> +I now took charge of the negotiations: +</P> + +<P> +"We have refused to erect the structure or be responsible for it after +it leaves our dock. We told Senor Garlicho so." +</P> + +<P> +Onativia lowered his chin, arched his eyebrows and looked at me over +his glasses. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want you to erect it," he said in a purring tone with a +patronizing strain through it. "I'll do that. What I want to know is +what it would cost HERE? That's what I came to New York to find out." +</P> + +<P> +"Has Senor Garlicho been awarded the contract?" I asked. It was useless +to distribute any more bread upon the waters; certainly not on the +ripples washing the shores of Moccador. If there were any business in +sight I could very easily give either one of them an approximate cost; +if there were none the bakery was closed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Senor Garlicho has NOT been awarded the contract. I am here to +keep the affair alive. If I had thought it necessary I would have +brought a certified check with me drawn to your order, which I would +have handed you with my card. The standing of your firm prevented my +doing so. This is business, and I want to get back home as quick as +possible. Our coast is a dangerous one and the loss of life increases +every year. Do you want this matter hung up for six weeks until we can +communicate with Mr. Garlicho? Every hour's delay in putting the light +on the Lobo means that many more deaths." As he spoke a peculiar smile +struggled from under his black dab of a mustache, got as far as the +base of his nose and there collapsed. +</P> + +<P> +My duty was now clear. Senor Garlicho, for some reason unknown to me, +had waited until his option had expired and had then sent Onativia in +his place. This wiped out the past and made a new deal necessary—one +which included the price of erection on the reef, a point which had not +been raised in the former negotiation. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," I said, "you shall have the estimate. What you want is the +cost of erecting a structure like the one here in the plans. Well, if +it was to be put on our Florida coast, where I think the conditions are +somewhat similar to those you describe, I would advise you to add about +one hundred thousand dollars to the cost of the ironwork." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that safe?" Again the smile worked itself loose. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I replied, "if you don't lose your plant too often by bad +weather. We have warnings of our coast storms and can provide against +them. I don't know anything about yours—what are they like?" +</P> + +<P> +"They come suddenly and without warning," he rejoined; "typhoons, +generally, with the tiles rattling off the roofs and the natives +hugging the cocoanut trees." With this he turned to the plans again. +"Better add another twenty thousand—I want to be safe," he said, in a +tone that showed me he had at last made up his mind. +</P> + +<P> +I added it, marking the sum on the memorandum which Mawkum had given +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, please put that in writing over your signature. I'll call +to-morrow at ten for the document. Good-day." +</P> + +<P> +When he was well down the corridor—we waited really until we heard the +down-chug of the elevator—Mawkum looked at me and gave a low whistle. +</P> + +<P> +"Add another twenty! What do you think is up? That Bunch of Garlic is +working some funny business, or he wouldn't have sent that brigand up +here." +</P> + +<P> +I ruminated for a moment, walked to the window and took in the brick +wall, the clerks and the clock tower. Frankly, I did not know what +Garlicho was up to. It was the first time that any passenger by the +Tampico, or any other steamer, from any quarter of the globe, had asked +either Mawkum or myself to add one penny to the cost of anything. The +effort heretofore had been to cut down each item to the last cent. Was +the ivory-tinted gentleman going to build the lighthouse at his own +expense out of loyalty to President Alvarez, the saviour of his +country, and then donate it to the Government, using our estimate to +prove the extent of his generosity? Or was there a trick somewhere? I +decided to sound Senor Onativia the next morning, and find out. +</P> + +<P> +I had not long to wait. He arrived on the minute, bobbed to Mawkum, +drew a chair to my desk and squared, or rather rounded, his body in +front of me. +</P> + +<P> +"I will now tell you what I omitted to say yesterday," he began. "When +an order comes for this lighthouse—and it will arrive by the next +steamer—it will not be signed by Senor Garlicho, but by me. I have +reasons for this which I cannot explain, and which are not necessary +for you to know. The ironwork—all you will have to furnish—will also +be shipped in my name. With the order will be sent a letter introducing +my bankers, who will call upon you at your convenience, and who will +pay the amounts in the way you desire—one-third on the signing of the +contract (one of the firm will act as my agent), one-third on erection +and inspection of the ironwork properly put together in the yard, and +the balance on delivery to them of the bills of lading. Is that quite +satisfactory?" +</P> + +<P> +I bowed my head in answer. +</P> + +<P> +"And have you signed your estimate showing what you consider to be a +fair price for both the lighthouse itself and for the cost of its +erection on the Lobo Reef?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; there it is," and I pointed to the document lying on my desk. +"And now one word, please. When did you last see Mr. Lawton? He's our +agent, you know, and you must have met him in connection with this +matter. When Senor Garlicho arrived he brought us a letter from him." +</P> + +<P> +Onativia's lips curled slightly as he recognized the hidden meaning of +the inquiry, but his expression never changed. +</P> + +<P> +"I have never seen him. If I had I should not have wasted my time in +getting a letter from him or from anybody else. As to Senor Garlicho, +his time has expired; he has not asked for its renewal, and so far as +this deal is concerned he does not count. I am here, as I told you, to +keep the affair alive. I would have come sooner, but I have been away +from the city of San Juan for months. Most of us who have opinions of +our own have been away from San Juan—some for years. San Juan has not +been a healthy place for men who believe in Paramba." +</P> + +<P> +"And do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely. So do thousands of our citizens." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't seem to agree with Senor Garlicho, then. He thought your +former president, Paramba, a tyrant. As for President Alvarez, he +looked upon him as the saviour of his country." +</P> + +<P> +The lips had full play now, the smile of contempt wrinkling up to his +eyelids. +</P> + +<P> +"Saviour of his country! Saviour of his pocket! Pardon me; I am not +here to discuss the polities of our people. Is this your estimate?" And +he reached over and picked it from my desk. "Ah, yes: forty thousand +dollars for the ironwork; one hundred and twenty thousand for the +erection on the Lobo Reef; one hundred and sixty thousand in all. Thank +you." Here he tucked the paper in his pocket and rose from his seat. +"You will hear from me in a month, perhaps earlier. Good-day." And he +waddled out. +</P> + +<P> +The return of the Tampico six weeks later brought another South +American consignment. This was a roll of plans concealed in a tin +case—the identical package which Mawkum had handed the "Bunch of Dried +Garlic" months before, together with a document stamped, restamped and +stamped again, containing an order in due form, signed "Carlos +Onativia," for a lighthouse to be erected on the "Garra de Lobo"—this +last was in red ink—with shipping directions, etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +With it came the clerk of the bankers (he had the case under his arm), +a reputable concern within a stone's throw of my office, who signed the +contract and paid the first instalment. +</P> + +<P> +Then followed the erection of the ironwork in the Brooklyn yard; its +inspection by the engineer appointed by the bankers; its dismemberment +and final coat of red lead—each tie-rod and beam red as sticks of +sealing-wax—its delivery, properly bundled and packed, aboard a +sailing vessel bound for San Juan, and the payment of the last +instalment. +</P> + +<P> +This closed the transaction, so far as we were concerned. +</P> + +<P> +A year passed—two of them, in fact—during which time no news of any +kind reached us of the lighthouse. Mawkum kept the duplicate blue-print +of the elevation tacked on the wall over his desk to show our clients +the wide range of our business, and I would now and then try to +translate the newspapers which Lawton sent by every mail. These would +generally refer to the dissatisfaction felt by many of the Moccadorians +over the present government, one editorial, as near as I could make +out, going so far as to hint that a secret movement was on foot to oust +the "Usurper" Alvarez and restore the old government under Paramba. No +reference was ever made to the lighthouse. We knew, of course, that it +had arrived, for the freight had been paid: this we learned from the +brokers who shipped it; but whether it was still in storage at San Juan +or was flashing red and white—a credit to Onativia's energy and a +godsend to incoming shipping—was still a mystery. +</P> + +<P> +Mawkum would often laugh whenever Garlicho's or Onativia's name was +mentioned, and once in a while we would discuss the difficulties they +must have encountered in the erection of the structure in the open sea. +One part of the transaction we could never understand, and that was why +Garlicho had allowed the matter to lapse if the lighthouse was needed +so badly, and what were his reasons for sending Onativia to renew the +negotiations instead of coming himself. +</P> + +<P> +All doubts on this and every other point were set at rest one fine +morning by the arrival of a sunburned gentleman with gray +side-whiskers, a man I had not seen for years. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Lawton!" I cried, grasping his hand. "This is a surprise. Came by +the Tampico, did you? Oh, but I am glad to see you! Here, draw up a +chair. But stop—not a word until I ask you some questions about that +lighthouse." +</P> + +<P> +The genial Scotchman broke out into a loud laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't laugh! Listen!" I said to him. "Tell me, why didn't Garlicho go +on with the work, and what do you know about Onativia?" +</P> + +<P> +Lawton leaned back in his chair and closed one eye in merriment. +</P> + +<P> +"Garlicho did not go on with the work, my dear friend, because he was +breaking stone in the streets of San Juan with a ball and chain around +his ankle. When Paramba came back to power he was tried for high +treason and condemned to be shot. He saved his neck by turning over the +lighthouse papers to Onativia. As to Carlos Onativia, he is a product +of the soil. Started life as a coolie boss in a copper mine, became +manager and owner, built the bridge over the Quitos River and the +railroad up the Andes; is the brightest man in Moccador and the brains +of the Paramba Government. One part of his duty is to keep the people +satisfied, and he does it every single time; another is to divide with +Paramba every dollar he makes." +</P> + +<P> +"But the lighthouse!" I interrupted. "Is it up? You must have passed it +on your way out of the harbor." +</P> + +<P> +"Up? Yes, and lighted every night—up in the public garden in San Juan +among the palms and bananas. The people eat ice-cream on the first +platform and the band plays Sundays in the balcony under the boat +davits. The people are wild about it—especially the women. It was the +last coat of red lead that did it." +</P> + +<P> +And again the office rang with Lawton's laugh. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="murdock"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MISS MURDOCK,—"SPECIAL" +</H3> + +<P> +A row of gas jets hooded by green paper shades lighting a long table at +which sit half a dozen men in their shirt sleeves writing like mad; +against the wall other men,—one drawing Easter lilies, another +blocking in the background around a photograph, a third pasting +clippings on sheets of brown paper. Every few minutes a bare-headed boy +in a dirty apron, with smudged face and ink-stained fingers, bounds +into the stifling, smoke-laden room, skirts the long table, dives +through a door labelled "City Editor," remains an instant and bounds +out again, his hands filled with long streamers of proof. +</P> + +<P> +In the opening and shutting of the swinging door a round-bodied, +round-headed man in his shirt sleeves comes into view. Covering his +forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare of the overhead gas jet, is +a half-moon of green leather held in place by strings tied behind his +ears. The line of shadow caused by this shade makes a blank space about +his eyes and brings into relief his pale, flabby cheeks, hard, straight +mouth, and coarse chin. Only when he lifts his head to give some order, +or holds the receiver of the telephone to his ear, can his eyes be +exactly located. Then they shine like a cat's in a cellar,—gray, +white, gray again, with a glint of metallic green,—always the same +distance apart, never wavering, never blinking. Overstrung, overworked, +nervous men, working at high pressure, spurred by the merciless lash of +passing minutes, have these eyes. So do cornered beasts fighting for +air and space. Eleven-thirty had just been tolled by the neighboring +clock; deliverance would come when the last form of the morning edition +was made up. Until then safety could only be found in constant attack. +</P> + +<P> +Outside the city editor's office, sprawled over a pile of mail sacks, +between the long table and the swinging door, lay Joe Quinn, +man-of-all-work,—boy, in fact, for he was but nineteen, big for his +age, with arms and legs like cordwood and a back straight and hard as a +plank. Joe's duty was to keep his eyes peeled, his ears open, and his +legs in working order. If a reporter wanted a fresh pad, a cup of +water, or a file of papers, Joe brought them; sometimes he foraged for +sandwiches and beer,—down four pair of stairs, across the street into +a cellar and up again; sometimes he carried messages; oftener he made +an elevator of himself, running between the presses in the basement and +the desk behind the swinging door. Fifty trips in a single night had +not been an unusual tally. +</P> + +<P> +To the inmates of the room the boy was known as "Joe" or "Quinn" or +"Sonny." To the man with the half-moon shade over his eyes he was "Say" +or "That Damned Kid." High-strung, high-pressure editors omit the +unnecessary, condensation being part of their creed. +</P> + +<P> +Up in the Franconia Notch, in a little hollow under White Face and +below Bog Eddy, Joe had been known as "Jonathan's boy," Jonathan being +the name his father went by, the last half never being used,—there +being but one "Jonathan"—the one whom everybody loved. +</P> + +<P> +The cabin was still standing, where Joe was born,—a slant of logs with +a stone chimney and some out-buildings; and his old father was still +alive, and so was his mother and his little "Sis." Summer mornings the +smoke would curl straight up from the rude stone chimney, catch a +current of air from the valley, and stretch its blue arms toward the +tall hemlocks covering the slope of the mountain. Winter mornings it +lay flat, buffeted by the winds, hiding itself later on among the +trees. Joe knew these hemlocks,—loved them,—had hugged them many a +time, laying his plump, ruddy cheek against the patches of cool moss +velveting their sides. "Nothin' like trees," his old father had told +him,—"real human when ye know 'em." +</P> + +<P> +To-night, as he lay stretched out on the mail sacks, his ears +unlatched, listening for the sound of the night city editor's bell, or +his gruff "Say, you!" his mind kept reverting to their bigness and +wide, all embracing, protecting arms. A letter from Jonathan received +that morning, and still tucked away in his inside pocket, had revived +these memories. +</P> + +<P> +"They've started to cut roads, son," it read. "I was out gummin' +yesterday and got up under White Face. Won't be nothing left if they +keep on. Cy Hawkins sold his timber land to them last winter and +they've histed up a biler on wheels and a succular saw, and hev cleared +off purty nigh every tree clean from the big windslash down to the East +Branch. It ain't going into building stuff; they're sending it down to +Plymouth to a pulp mill and grinding it up to print newspapers on, so +the head man told me. Guess you know all about it, but it was news to +me. I told him it was a gol-darn-shame to serve a tree so, being as how +trees had feelings same as men, but he laughed and said it warn't none +of my bizness, and I guess it ain't. Beats all what some folks will do +for money." +</P> + +<P> +Joe thought so too,—had been thinking so ever since he broke the seal +of the letter that the postmaster at Woodstock had directed for his +father. "Dad's right; trees have feelings," he kept repeating to +himself. And, as to being human, he could recall a dozen that he had +talked to and that had talked back to him ever since he could remember. +His father had taught him their language on the long days when he had +trailed behind carrying the gum bag or had hidden in the bushes while +the old man wormed himself along, his rifle in the hollow of his arm, +or when the two lay stretched out before their camp fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Dogs and trees, my son, will never go back on ye like some folks I've +hearn tell of. Allers find 'em the same. See that yaller birch over +thar?—Well, I've knowed that birch over forty-two year and he ain't +altered a mite, 'cept his clothes ain't as decent as they was, and his +shoes is give out 'round the roots. You kin see whar the bark's busted +'long 'round his toes,—but his heart's all right and he's alive and +peart, too. You'll find him fust tree out in the spring,—sometimes +'fore the sugar sap's done runnin'. Purty soon, if you watch him same's +me, ye'll see him begin to shake all over,—kind o' shivery with some +inside fun; then comes the buds and, fust thing ye know, he gives a +little see-saw or two in the warm air and out busts the leaves, and he +a laughin' fit to kill. Maybe the birds ain't glad, and maybe them +squirrels that's been snowed up all winter with their noses out o' that +crotch, ain't jes' holdin' their sides, and maybe, too, them little +sunbeams don't like to sneak in and go to sleep on the bark all silvery +and shinin' like the ribbons on Sis's hat! They're human, them trees +is, I tell ye, son,—real human! +</P> + +<P> +"And ye want to treat 'em with some perliteness, too they're older'n +anything 'round here 'cept the rocks; and they've been holdin' up the +dignity of this valley, too,—kind o' 'sponsible for things. That's +another thing ye mustn't forgit. The fust folks that come travellin' +through this notch—'bout time the Injins quit,—took notice on 'em, I +tell ye. That's what they come for. Bald Top and White Face was all +right, but it was the trees that knocked 'em silly. That's what you kin +read in the book school-teacher has, and that's true. And see how they +treat their brothers that git toppled over,—by a windslash, maybe, or +lightnin' or a landslide, or some such cussed thing, givin' 'em a +shoulder to lean on same as you would help a cripple. When they're +clean down and done for it ain't more'n a year or two 'fore they got +'em kivered all over with leaves, and then they git tergether and hev a +quiltin' party and purty soon they're all over blankets o' green moss, +and the others jes stand 'round solemn and straight like's if they was +mountin' guard over their graves. +</P> + +<P> +"It's wicked to kill most anything 'less ye got some use—and a good +one, too,—for the meat, but it's a durned sight meaner to cut down a +tree that took so long to grow and that's been so decent all its life, +'less ye can't do without the stuff ye git out'n it." +</P> + +<P> +Joe had listened and had drunk it all in, and his love for the tall +giants away back in the deep wilderness had never left him. It was +these dear old friends more than anything else that had kept him at +home, under plea of helping his father, months after he knew he ought +to be up and doing if he would ever be of any use to the old man in his +later years. +</P> + +<P> +It was Plymouth first, as stable boy, and then down to Nashua and +Boston as teamster and freight handler, and then, by what he considered +at the time a lucky chance—(Katie Murdock, from his own town, and now +a reporter in the same newspaper office with himself, had helped), man +of all work in this whirl where he felt like a fly clinging to a +driving wheel. +</P> + +<P> +Stretching out his stout saw-log legs and settling his big shoulders +into the soft cushions made by the sacks, his mind went back to the old +sawmill,—Baker's Mill,—and the dam backed up alongside the East +Branch. An old kingfisher used to sit on a limb over the still water +and watch for minnows,—a blue and white fellow with a sharp beak. He +had frightened him away many a time. And there was a hole where two big +trout lived. He remembered the willows, too, and the bunch of logs +piled as high as the mill. These would be rolled down and cant-hooked +under its saw when the spring opened, but Baker never ground any one of +them up into wood pulp. It went into clapboards to keep out the cold, +and shingles to keep off the rain, and the "waste" went under the +kettles of the neighbors, the light of the jolly flames dancing round +the room. He had carried many a bundle home himself that the old man +had sent to Jonathan. Most everybody sent Jonathan something, +especially if they thought he needed it. +</P> + +<P> +Then his mind reverted to his own share in the whirl about him. It +wasn't a job he liked, but there wasn't anything else offering, and +then Katie might want somebody to look after her, and so it was just as +well he had the job. He and Katie had been schoolmates together not so +long ago, in the wooden schoolhouse near the crossroads. She had gone +to college, and had come home with a diploma. She was two or three +years older than he was, but that didn't make any difference to a boy +and girl from the same village when they had grown up alongside of each +other. He wondered how long it was to July, when he was promised a +week,—and so was Katie. He knew just what they'd do; he could get two +passes to Plymouth,—his old friend the freight boss had promised him +that,—then about daylight, the time the train arrived, he'd find +Marvin, who drove the stage up the valley and past his old home, and +help him curry his team and hitch up, and Marvin would give them a ride +free. He could feel the fresh air on his cheeks as he rattled out of +the village, across the railroad track and out into the open. Tim +Shekles, the blacksmith, would be at work, and old Mother Crawport +would be digging in her garden, early as it was; and out in the fields +the crows would be hunting corn; and pretty soon down would go the +wheels into the soft, clean gravel of the brook that crossed the +turnpike and out again on the other side dripping puddles in the dirt; +and soon the big trees would begin, and keep on and on and on,—away up +to the tops of the mountains, the morning sun silvering the mists +sweeping up their sides,—and— +</P> + +<P> +"Say! you! Wake up! He's been hollering at you for five minutes. GIT!" +</P> + +<P> +Joe sat up and rubbed his eyes. The fresh air of the morning had +vanished. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." He was on his feet now, alert as a terrier that had sniffed +a rat. +</P> + +<P> +"YES, SIR, eh! How many times do you want me to call you? Go and find +Miss Murdock, and send her here on the run. Tell her to get her hat and +cloak and show up in two minutes. I've got an assignment for her on the +East Side,—just come over the 'phone. Hurry now! That damned kid ought +to be—" +</P> + +<P> +But Joe was already out of the room and down two pair of stairs. Before +the minutes were up he was back again, Katie Murdock with him. She was +sliding her arm into the sleeve of her jacket as she entered. +</P> + +<P> +"Forty-third and First Avenue, Miss Murdock," said the night city +editor, lifting his head so that the cat eyes had full play. "Girl +overboard from one of the ferry boats,—lives at 117.—Drowned, they +say,—some fellow mixed up in it. Take your snapshot along and get +everything. Find the mother if she's got one and—" +</P> + +<P> +But the girl had gone. She knew the value of time,—especially at that +hour, even if she had been but a week in her new department of +"Special." Her chief knew it, too, or he wouldn't have sent her at that +hour. There was time—plenty of time if everything went right,—thirty +minutes, perhaps an hour,—to spare, but they were not hers to waste. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait for me, Joe," she said, as she hurried past him. "We'll go up +town together, soon as the presses start." +</P> + +<P> +Joe threw himself again on the pile of sacks and kept his ears open for +orders. It was a bad night for Katie to go out. She was plucky and +could hold her own,—had done so a dozen times,—once in a street car +when some fellow tried to be familiar,—but he didn't like her to go, +all the same. Nobody who looked into her face and then down into her +blue eyes would ever make any mistake, but then some men mightn't take +the trouble to look. He'd wait for her, no matter how late it might be. +When she came in she would be out of breath, and perhaps hungry,—then +he'd take her over to Cobb's for a cup of coffee. +</P> + +<P> +During the interim Joe's legs had been kept busy. Not only had he +rushed downstairs and up again half a dozen times, springing to the +night city editor's curse, or pound, or shout, whichever had come +handiest, but he had also been twice to the corner for frankfurters for +reporters who hadn't had a crumb to eat for hours. He was unwrapping +the second one when Katie burst in. +</P> + +<P> +Her hat and coat were dripping wet and her hair hung in disorder about +her pale face. Her notes were nearly completed; she had worked them out +on the elevated on her way downtown. Joe absorbed her with a look, and +slid to her side. Something in her face told him of her errand; +something of the suffering, and perhaps horror,—and he wanted to get +close to her. The girl had reached the editor's desk now, and was +waiting until he had finished the paragraph his pen was inditing. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, laying down his pen,—"What have you got?" He was +running his cat eyes over the girl's notes as he spoke,—taking in at a +glance the "meat" of her report. Then he added,—"Get any snaps?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir, I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you I must have 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but I couldn't do it. The mother was half crazy and the two +little children would have broken your heart. She was the only one who +could earn anything—" +</P> + +<P> +"And you got into the house and had the whole bunch right in your fist +and never snapped a shutter! See here, Miss Murdock I ain't running a +Bible class and you're not working in the slums,—you can keep that +gush for some other place. You had your camera and flash,—I saw you go +out with them. I wanted everything: corpse of girl, the mother, +children; where she was hauled out,—who hauled her out,—her +lover,—she went overboard for some fellow, you remember,—I told you +all that. Well, you're the limit!" +</P> + +<P> +Joe had moved up closer, now. He was formulating in his mind what would +happen to Katie if he caught the night city editor under his chin and +slammed his head against the wall. He knew what would happen to the +editor and to himself, but it was Katie's fate that kept his hands flat +to his sides. +</P> + +<P> +"I would rather throw up my position than have done it, sir," Katie +pleaded. "There are some things never ought to be printed. This drowned +girl—" +</P> + +<P> +The night city editor sprang from his chair, brushed the pile of notes +aside with his hand, and shouted +</P> + +<P> +"Say, you! Find that damned boy, somebody, if he isn't asleep!" +</P> + +<P> +Joe, who was not ten feet away, stepped up and faced him,—stepped so +quickly that the man backed away as if for more room. +</P> + +<P> +"Get a move on and send Miss Parker here. Hunt for her,—if she isn't +downstairs she may be at Cobb's getting something to eat. Quick, now!" +Then he turned to Katie +</P> + +<P> +"You better go home, Miss Murdock. You're tired, maybe: anyhow, you're +way off. Miss Parker'll get what we want,—she isn't so thin-skinned. +Here, take that stuff with you,—it's no use to me." +</P> + +<P> +The girl reached across the desk, gathered up the scattered notes, and +without a word left the room. On the way downstairs she met Miss Parker +coming up, Joe at her heels. She was older than Katie,—and harder; a +woman of thirty-five, whose experience had ranged from nurse in a +reformatory to a night reporter on a "Yellow." The two women passed +each other without even a nod. Joe turned and followed Katie Murdock +downstairs and into the night air. Miss Parker kept on her way. As she +glided through the room to the city editor's office, she had the air of +a sleuth tracking a criminal. +</P> + +<P> +Once outside in the night air, Joe drew Katie from under the glare of +the street lamp. Her eyes were running tears,—at the man's cruelty and +injustice, she who had worked to any hour of the night to please him. +</P> + +<P> +Joe was boiling. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go back and punch him, if you'll let me. I heard it all." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it'll do no good,—both of us would get into trouble, then." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, I'll chuck my job. This ain't no place for any decent girl +nor man. Was it pretty bad where you went, Katie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bad! Oh, Joe, you don't know. I said, last week, when I forced my way +into the room of that poor mother whose son was arrested, that I'd +never report another case like it. But you ought to have seen what I +saw to-night. The poor girl worked in a box factory, they told me, and +this man hounded her, and in despair she threw herself overboard. The +room was full when I got there,—policemen,—one or two other +reporters,—no woman but me. They had brought her in dripping wet and I +found her on the floor,—just a child, Joe,—hardly sixteen,—her hair +filled with dirt from the water,—the old mother wringing her hands. +Oh, it was pitiful! I could have flashed a picture,—nobody would have +cared nor stopped me,—but I couldn't. Don't you see I couldn't, Joe? +He has no right to ask me to do these things,—nobody has,—it's awful. +It's horrible! What would that poor mother have said when she saw it in +the paper? I'll go home now. No, you needn't come,—they'll want you. +Go back upstairs. Good-night." +</P> + +<P> +Joe watched her until she caught an uptown car, and then turned into +the side door opening on the narrow street. A truck had arrived while +they were talking, and the men were unloading some great rolls of +paper,—enormous spools. "What would dad say if he saw what his trees +had come to?" Joe thought, as he stood for a moment looking them +over,—his mind going back to his father's letter. One roll of wood +pulp had already been jacked up and was now feeding the mighty press. +The world would be devouring it in the morning; the drowned girl would +have her place in its columns,—so would every other item that told of +the roar and crash, the crime, infamy, and cruelty of the preceding +hours. Then the issues would be thrown away to make room for a fresher +record;—some to stop a hole in a broken window; some to be trampled +under foot of horse and man; many to light the fires the city over. +</P> + +<P> +"My poor trees!" sighed Joe, as he slowly mounted the steps to the top +floor. "There ain't no common sense in it, I know. Got to make sumpin' +out o' the timber once they're cut down, but it gits me hot all the +same when I think what they've come to. Gol-darn-shame to serve ye so! +Trees has feelin's, same's men,—that's what dad says, and that's true!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Parker had done her work. Joe saw that when he opened the paper +the next morning: saw it at a glance, and with a big lump in his throat +and a tightening of his huge fists. Flaring headlines marked the first +page; under them was a picture of the girl in a sailor hat,—she had +found the original on the mantel and had slipped it in her pocket. Then +followed a flash photo of the dead girl lying on the floor,—her poor, +thin, battered and bruised body straight out, the knees and feet +stretching the wet drapery,—nothing had been left out. Most of the +details were untrue,—the story of the lover being a pure invention, +but the effect was all right. Then, again, no other morning journal had +more than a few lines. +</P> + +<P> +Everybody congratulated her. "Square beat," one man said, at which her +gray, cold face lightened up. +</P> + +<P> +"Glad you liked it," she answered with a nod of her head,—"I generally +'get there.'" +</P> + +<P> +When the night city editor arrived—the city editor was ill and he had +taken his place for the day—he reached out and caught her hand. Then +he drew her inside the office. When she passed Joe again on her way +out, her smile had broadened. +</P> + +<P> +"Got her pay shoved up," one of the younger men whispered to another. +</P> + +<P> +When Katie came in an hour later, no one in the room but Joe caught the +dark lines under her eyes and the reddened lids,—as if she had passed +a sleepless night,—one full of terror. She walked straight to where +the boy stood at work. +</P> + +<P> +"I've just seen that poor mother, Joe. I saw the paper and what Miss +Parker had said and I went straight to her. I did not want her to think +I had been so cruel. When I got to her house this morning there was a +patrol wagon at the door and all the neighbors outside. A woman told me +she was all right until somebody showed her the morning paper with the +picture of her drowned daughter; then she began to scream and went +stark mad, and they were getting ready to take her to Ward's Island +when I walked in. You've seen the picture, haven't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Joe nodded. He had seen the picture,—had it in his hand. He dare not +trust himself to speak,—everybody was around and he didn't want to +appear green and countrified. Then again, he didn't want to make it +harder for Katie. She had had nothing to do with it, thank God! +</P> + +<P> +The door of the office swung open. The editor this time caught sight of +Katie, called her by name, and, with a "Like to see you about a little +matter," beckoned her inside and shut the door upon them both. +</P> + +<P> +A moment later she was out again, a blue envelope in her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"He's got me discharged, Joe. Here's a note from the city editor," she +said. Her voice quivered and the tears stood in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Fired you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—he says I'm too thin-skinned." +</P> + +<P> +Joe stood for a moment with the front page of the paper still in his +hand. Something of Jonathan came into his face,—the same firm lines +about his mouth that his father had when he crawled under the floor +timbers of the mill to save Baker's girl, pinned down and drowning, the +night of the freshet. +</P> + +<P> +Crushing the sheet in his hand Joe walked straight into the city +editor's office, a swing in his movement and a look in his eye that +roused everybody in the room. +</P> + +<P> +"You've got Katie Murdock fired, she says," he hissed between his +teeth. "What fur?" He was standing over the night city editor now, his +eyes blazing, his fists tightly closed. +</P> + +<P> +"What business have you to ask?" growled the editor. +</P> + +<P> +"Every business!" There was something in the boy's face that made the +man move his hand toward a paper weight. +</P> + +<P> +"She's fired because she wouldn't do your dirty work. Look at +this!"—he had straightened out the crumpled sheet now: "Look at it! +That's your work!—ain't a dog would a-done it, let alone a man. Do you +know what's happened? That girl's mother went crazy when she saw that +picture! You sent that catamount, Miss Parker, to do it, and she done +it fine, and filled it full o' lies and dirt! Ye didn't care who ye +hurt, you—" +</P> + +<P> +The man sprang to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Here!—put yourself outside that door! Get out or I'll—" +</P> + +<P> +"Git out, will I!—ME!—I'll git out when you eat yer words,—and you +WILL eat 'em. Down they go—" +</P> + +<P> +Joe had him by the throat now, his fingers tight under his chin, his +head flattened against the wooden partition. In his powerful grasp the +man was as helpless as a child. +</P> + +<P> +"Eat it,—swallow it!—MORE—MORE—all of it! damn ye!" +</P> + +<P> +He was cramming the wad between the editor's lips, one hand forcing +open his teeth, the other holding his head firm against the wall. +</P> + +<P> +Then flinging the half strangled man from him he turned, and facing the +crowd of reporters and employes—Miss Parker among them,—shouted:— +</P> + +<P> +"And ye're no better,—none o' ye. Ye all hunt dirt,—live on dirt and +eat dirt. Ye're like a lot o' buzzards stuck up on a fence rail waitin' +fur an old horse to die. Ain't one o' you reporters wouldn't been glad +to do what that catamount over there done last night, and ain't one o' +ye wouldn't take pay fur it. Katie Murdock's fired? Yes,—two of us is +fired,—me and her. We'll go back whar we come from. We mayn't be so +almighty smart as some o' you city folks be, but we're a blamed sight +decenter. Up in my country dead girls is sumpin' to be sorry fur, not +sumpin' to make money out'er, and settin' a poor mother crazy is +worse'n murder. Git out o' my way thar, or I'll hurt some o' ye! Come, +Katie!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="peter"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BEGUILING OF PETER GRIGGS +</H3> + +<P> +Peter was in his room when I knocked—up two flights of stairs off +Washington Square—Eighth Street really—in one of those houses with a +past—of mahogany, open wood fires, old Madeira in silver coasters +pushed across hand-polished tables,—that kind of a past. +</P> + +<P> +None of all this could be seen in its present. The marble steps outside +were worn down like the teeth of an old horse, and as yellow; the iron +railings were bent and cankered by rust; the front door was in +blisters; the halls bare, steps uncarpeted, and the spindling mahogany +balusters showed here and there substitutes of pine. +</P> + +<P> +Nor did the occupants revive any of its old-time charm. The basement +held a grocery—a kindling-wood, ice and potato sort of grocery; the +parlor boasted a merchant tailor—much pressing and repairing, with now +and then a whole suit; the second floor front was given over to a +wig-maker and the second story back to a manicure. Here the tide of the +commercial and the commonplace stopped—stopped just short of the third +floor where old Peter Griggs lived. +</P> + +<P> +You would understand why if you knew the man. +</P> + +<P> +Just as this particular old house possessed two distinct +personalities—one of the past and the other of the present—so did the +occupant of the third floor. +</P> + +<P> +Downtown in the custom house, where he was employed (he had something +to do with invoices), he was just plain Mr. Griggs—a short, crisp, +"Yes and so" little man—exact, precise and absurdly correct: never, in +all his life, had he made a mistake. +</P> + +<P> +Up in these rooms on the third floor he was dear old Peter—or Pete—or +Griggsy—or whatever his many friends loved best to call him. Up here, +too, he was the merriest companion possible; giving out as much as he +absorbed, and always with his heart turned inside out. That he had been +for more than thirty years fastened to a high stool facing his desk +bespoke neither political influence nor the backing of rich friends. +Nobody, really, had ever wanted his place. If they did they never dared +ask for it—not above their breath. They would as soon have thought of +ousting the old clock from its perch in the rotunda, or moving one of +the great columns that faced the street. So he just stayed on ticking +away at his post, quite like the old clock itself, and getting stiffer +and stiffer in the line of his duty—quite like the columns—and +getting more and more covered with the dust of long habit—quite like +both of them. +</P> + +<P> +This dust, being outside dust, and never sinking the thousandth part of +an inch below the surface, left its mark on the man beneath as a live +coal fading and whitening leaves its covering of ashes on the spark. +</P> + +<P> +These two—the ashes and the spark—made up the sum of Peter's +individuality. The ash part was what he offered to the world of +routine—the world he hated. The spark part—cheery, warm, +enthusiastic, full of dreams, of imaginings, with an absorbing love for +little bits of beauty, such as old Satsuma, Cloisonne, quaint +miniatures and the like—all good, and yet within reach of his +purse—this part he gave to his friends. +</P> + +<P> +I am inside his room now, standing behind him taking in the glow of the +fire and the red damask curtains shielding the door that leads to his +bedroom; my eye roving over the bookcases crammed with books, the +tables littered with curios and the mantel covered with miniatures and +ivories. I invariably do this to discover his newest "find" before he +calls my attention to it. As he has not yet moved or given me any other +sign of recognition than a gruff "Draw up a chair," in a voice that +does not sound a bit like him—his eyes all the time on the smouldering +fire, there is yet a chance to look him over before he begins to talk. +(We shall all be busy enough listening when he does begin.) +</P> + +<P> +I say "ALL," for there is a second visitor close behind me, and the +sound of still another footstep can already be heard in the hall below. +</P> + +<P> +It is the back of Peter's head now that interests me, and the droop of +his shoulders. They always remind me of Leech's sketch of Old Scrooge +waiting for Marly's ghost, whenever I come upon him thus unobserved. +To-night he not only wears his calico dressing-gown—unheard-of garment +in these days—but a red velvet cap pulled over his scalp. Most bald +men would have the cap black—but then most bald men have not Peter's +eye for color. +</P> + +<P> +It's a queer head—this head of Peter Griggs. Not at all like any other +head I know. If I should attempt to describe it, I should merely have +to say bluntly that it was more like an enlarged hickory-nut than any +other object I can think of. It is of the same texture, too, and almost +as devoid of hair. Except on his temples, and close down where his +collar binds his thin neck, there is really very little hair left; and +this is so near the color of the shrivelled skin beneath that I never +know where one begins and the other ends. +</P> + +<P> +When I face him—and by this time I am facing him—I must admit that +the hickory-nut simile still holds. There are no particular features, +no decided bumps, no decided hollows; the nose is only an enlarged +ridge, the cheeks and eye-sockets only seams. But the eyes count—yes, +the eyes count—count so that you see at once that they are the live +points of the live coal smouldering beneath. +</P> + +<P> +Here the hickory-nut as a simile goes all to pieces. These eyes are the +flash from some distant lighthouse, burning dull when the commonplace +of life passes before him, and bursting into effulgence when something +touches his heart or stirs his imagination. Downtown in the Dismal Tomb +even the lighthouse goes to smash. Here the eyes set so far back in his +head that they look for all the world like two wary foxes peeping out +of a hole, losing nothing of what is going on outside—never being +fooled, never being wheedled or coaxed out of their retreat. "Can't +fool Mr. Griggs," some broker says, as he tries to get his papers +signed out of his turn. Uptown these same foxes are running around +loose in an abandonment of jollity, frisking here and there, all +restraint cast aside—trusting everybody—and glad to. That's why I +couldn't understand his tone of voice when I opened his door. +</P> + +<P> +"Not sick, old fellow?" I cried. He had not yet lifted his head or +vouchsafed a single word of welcome. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sick at heart. My old carcass is all right, but inside—way down +where a man lives—I'm sick unto death. Take a look at the mantelpiece. +You see my best miniature's gone, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not the Cosway?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, the Cosway!" +</P> + +<P> +"Stolen?" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse than stolen! Oh, my boy, such mean people live in the world! I +couldn't believe it possible. I've read in the papers something like +it, but that I should have been—oh, I can't get over it! It haunts me +like a ghost. It isn't the value—it's the way it was done; and I was +so helpless, and I meant only to be kind." +</P> + +<P> +The other men had arrived now and the three of us were ranged around +Peter in a circle, wondering with wide-opened eyes at his tone of +voice, his dismal expression, and especially at the air of dejection +which seemed to ooze through every square inch of his calico +dressing-gown. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down, all of you," he continued "and listen. And it's all your +fault. If only one of you had come up to see me! I waited and waited; I +knew most of you would be off somewhere eating your Thanksgiving +turkey, but that every mother's son of you should have forgotten +me—that's what I won't forgive you for." +</P> + +<P> +We, with one accord, began to make excuses, but he waved us into +silence. +</P> + +<P> +"After a while I got so lonely I couldn't stand it any longer. So about +six o'clock I started out to dine alone somewhere—some place where I +had no associations with any one of you. I hadn't gone as far as +Broadway when along came two men and a woman. You'd have said 'two +gentlemen and a lady'—I say two men and a woman. I looked at them and +they looked at me. I saw they were from out of town, and right away +came the thought, they must be lonely, too. Everybody is lonesome on +Thanksgiving if he's away from home, or, like me, has no place to go +to. The Large Man stopped and nudged the Small Man, and the Woman +turned and looked at me earnestly, then all three talked together for a +minute, then I heard the Small Man say, 'I'll go you a ten on it,' +which conveyed no meaning to me. Then all three of them walked back to +where I stood and the Large Man asked me where Foscari's restaurant was. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course, that was in the next street, so I volunteered to show +them the place. On the way over the Small Man and the Woman lagged +behind and I overheard them say that it would never do—that is, the +Woman said so; at which the Small Man laughed and said they couldn't +find a better. All this time the Large Man held me by the arm in a +friendly sort of way, as if he were afraid I would stub my toe and fall +if he didn't help me over the gutters; telling me all the time that he +didn't know the ropes around New York and how much obliged he was to me +for taking all this trouble to show him. Pretty soon we arrived at +Foscari's. I never dined there—never had been inside the place. Cheap +sort of a restaurant—down two steps from the sidewalk, but they asked +for Foscari's, and that's where I took them. +</P> + +<P> +"'Here's the place,' I said, and I lifted my hat to the Woman and +turned to go back. +</P> + +<P> +"'No, don't go,' said the Large Man, still holding on to my arm. +'You've been white and decent to us; we're all stranded here. This is +Thanksgiving—come in and have dinner with us.' +</P> + +<P> +"Then I began by thanking them and ended by saying I couldn't. Then the +Small Man began to urge me, saying that out in his country, near the +Rockies, everybody was willing to sit down at anybody's table when he +was invited; and the Large Man kept on squeezing my arm in a friendly +sort of way, so I finally said I didn't care if I did, and in we all +went. When we got inside the place was practically empty—only one +guest, really—and he was over by the wall in a corner. There were only +two waiters—one an Irishman who said his name was Mike, with a very +red head and an enormous mouth—a queer kind of a servant for that kind +of a restaurant, I thought—and the other a young Italian, who was +probably the cook. +</P> + +<P> +"'You order,' said the Large Man. 'You know what's good in New York.' +</P> + +<P> +"So I ordered. +</P> + +<P> +"And I want to tell you that the dinner was a particularly good +one—well cooked and well served. We had soup and fish and an Italian +ragout, macaroni, peppers and two bottles of red wine. Before the soup +was over I was glad I'd come; glad, not only because the dinner was all +right, but because the people were human kind of people—no foolishness +about them—no pretension. They were not our kind of people, of +course—couldn't find them in New York if you looked everywhere—not +born and brought up here. The Woman was gentle and kindly, saying very +little, but the Large Man was a hearty, breezy sort of fellow—even if +his language at times was rough and uncouth—at least I thought so. Big +bones and a well-fed body; quick in his movements, yet slow in his +talk, showing force and determination in everything he said. The Small +Man was as tough physically and as alert mentally, but there wasn't so +much of him. He talked, however, twice as fast as the Large Man, and +said less. +</P> + +<P> +"He talked of the city—how smart the people were, how stuck up some of +them, thinking they knew it all, and how, if they but thought about it, +they must see after all that the West was the only thing that kept the +country alive. That kind of talk—not in an offensive way—just as all +of us talk when we believe in our section of the country. +</P> + +<P> +"All this time the solitary guest sat against the wall listening. Near +as I could make out he only had one dish and a small bottle of wine. +Presently he made a remark—not to us—not to the room—more as if to +himself. +</P> + +<P> +"'West is the only thing, is it? And every man Jack of them from New +England stock!' +</P> + +<P> +"This, too, didn't come in any offensive spirit—just as an aside, as +if to keep himself company, being lonely, of course. +</P> + +<P> +"But the Large Man caught it before all the words were out of his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"'Dead right, pard,' he said—I only quote his words, gentlemen. 'My +father came from Boston, left there in '58. Where're you from?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Boston,' answered the man looking at him over the prongs of his fork. +</P> + +<P> +"'That so? Well, why ain't you eatin' your turkey with your folks? Got +any?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Yes, got a lot of them, but I was short of a ticket.' +</P> + +<P> +"Here the Large Man got up and went over to the Man from Boston. +</P> + +<P> +"'Shake for Boston,' he said, holding out his big hand. 'And now bring +that bottle over here and chip in with us.' Then he opened his +pocketbook and took out a square slip of paper. +</P> + +<P> +"'Here, tuck that in your clothes.' Again I must remark, gentlemen, +that I am only quoting their language so that you can get a better idea +of what sort of people I was with. 'That's a pass to your 'burg. I'm +going South and I won't use it.' +</P> + +<P> +"There were five of us at the table now, the Bostonian bringing over +his plate without a word except 'Thank you,' and taking his share of +the different dishes. +</P> + +<P> +"The talk now became very interesting. The Large Man told stories of +his early life on a farm and the Bostonian recited verses, and recited +them very well, and the Woman laughed in the right place, and when the +cigars were brought and the coffee and the cognac, I was sorry it was +all over. That, when I look back upon it, is the most extraordinary +thing of all. How a man of my experience could have—Well, I won't +stop, I'll just keep on. +</P> + +<P> +"With the coffee, and before the red-headed Irishman had brought the +bill—oh, you should go round to Foscari's and look at that Irishman +just to see how coarse and vulgar a man can be who spends his whole +life feeding animals who—no I WILL go on, for the most interesting +part is to come. When the coffee was served, I say, the Large Man asked +the waiter where he could send a telephone message to his hotel—wanted +the porter to get his trunks down. The Irishman answered: 'Out in the +hall, to the right o' where ye come in.' 'I'll go with you,' said the +Woman; so the two got up and I opened the door for her, and we three +sat down again—that is, the Small Man, the Bostonian and myself. +</P> + +<P> +"We talked on, not noticing the time; then the Small Man looked at his +watch, jumped up and called out to the waiter: 'Where did you say that +telephone place was?' +</P> + +<P> +"'In the hall—on the other side of that dure; ye kin see it from where +ye're sittin'.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Well, he's taking a devil of a time to do his telephoning' said the +Small Man. 'Hold on to my coffee till I go and punch him up.' +</P> + +<P> +"The Bostonian and I kept on talking. He was a draughtsman in an +architect's office, so he told me, and was promised a place the +following week, and I was very much interested in what he told me of +his walking the streets looking for work. +</P> + +<P> +"Mike, the waiter, now laid the bill on the table. I didn't want to +know the amount; my hosts wouldn't want me to see it, of course, and so +I didn't look at it. The Bostonian craned his head, but I forestalled +his glance and turned a plate over it before he could read the total. +</P> + +<P> +"Mike now approached. +</P> + +<P> +"'Ye'd better pay now,' he said, 'before any more o' ye skip. It's nine +dollars and sixty cints.' +</P> + +<P> +"'They'll all be back in a minute,' I said. 'Wait till they come. I'm +only an invited guest.' +</P> + +<P> +"'I'll wait nothin'. The boss is out and I'm in charge. H'ist out yer +money.' +</P> + +<P> +"The Bostonian had risen from the table now and was looking at me as if +I'd just been detected in picking his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"'But I'm an invited guest,' I protested. +</P> + +<P> +"'Invited guest, are ye?' continued the Irishman. 'And ye ordered the +grub yersilf! You heard him!' This to the Bostonian. 'Didn't he order +the stuff? Let's see yer wad. No more o' ye's goin' to l'ave this room +'till I gits nine dollars and sixty cints. Here, Macaroni'—and he +called the Italian—'ring up the station-house and till thim to sind +somebody 'round. Ye can't play that game on me!" +</P> + +<P> +"'My dear fellow,' I said—I had now to be as courteous as I could—'I +don't want to play anything on you. You may be right in your views that +these people have served me a scurvy trick, but I don't believe it.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Well, thin, pull yer wad out, or I'll call the perlice.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Don't do anything of the kind,' I urged. 'My name is Peter Griggs and +I live quite near here. Lived there for twenty years. You can find out +all about me from any of the neighbors; I haven't enough money with me, +but I'll go to my room and get it.' +</P> + +<P> +"'No ye don't; none o' that guff for me!' You can't think how coarse he +was. Then he walked deliberately over to the door and stood with his +back against it. +</P> + +<P> +"The Bostonian now joined in. +</P> + +<P> +"'It looks as if you had been buncoed, my friend,' he said. 'It's an +old dodge, this, of getting somebody to pay for your dinner, especially +on holidays, and yet I can't see how anybody would pick you out as a +greenhorn. I'd divide the bill with you, but really, as you know, I +haven't the money.' I saw from his tone that he was thinking better of +me. +</P> + +<P> +"'No, I'll pay it myself. You, certainly, were not to blame. Will you +go to my room with me, Mike?' I called him Mike because it seemed the +best way to conciliate the man. +</P> + +<P> +"'How far is it?' he asked, softening a little. +</P> + +<P> +"'Two blocks.' +</P> + +<P> +"'And ye'll pay if I go?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Of course I will pay. Do I look like a man who would cheat you?' +</P> + +<P> +"'All right, come on.' +</P> + +<P> +"I bade the Bostonian good-by, and we started. +</P> + +<P> +"Mike didn't speak a word on the way, nor did I. I felt like a +suspected thief that a policeman was taking to the station-house; I've +passed them many times in the street, and I've often wondered what was +passing in the thief's mind. I knew now. I knew, too, what the +Bostonian thought of me, and the Italian, and Mike. +</P> + +<P> +"Then a shiver went through me, and the next moment I broke out into a +cold sweat. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't any money in my room. I +had given every cent, except two dollars of the amount I had brought +uptown with me, to my washerwoman the night before. The bill was not +due, but Mrs. Jones wanted it for Thanksgiving and so I let her have +it. And yet, gentlemen—would you believe it!—I walked on, trying to +think if there mightn't be some bills in the vest I'd worn the day +before, or in the top drawer of my desk or in a china cup on the +mantel. Really, it was an awful, awful position! I couldn't run! I +couldn't explain. I just had to keep on. +</P> + +<P> +"When I got here I turned up the light and asked him to sit down while +I searched my clothes—you can see what disgrace does for a man—asked +a common, low, vulgar waiter to sit down in my room. He didn't sit +down—he just kept walking round and round, peering into the bookcases, +handling the little things on the mantel, feeling the quality of the +curtain that hangs there at the door—like a pawnbroker making up an +inventory. +</P> + +<P> +"Finally he said: 'Ye got a nice place here'—the first words that had +come from his lips since we left the restaurant. 'The boss likes these +jimcracks; he's got a lot o' thim up where he lives. I seen him pay +twinty dollars to a Jew-dago for one o' THIM.' And he pointed to my row +of miniatures. +</P> + +<P> +"By this time I was face to face with the awful truth. There was +nothing in the vest-pocket, nor in the cup, and there was nothing in +the drawer. The only money I had was the two-dollar bill which had been +left over after paying Mrs. Jones. I spread it out before him and +looked him straight in the eye—fearlessly—that he might know I wasn't +telling him an untruth. +</P> + +<P> +"'My good man,' I said in my kindest voice, 'I was mistaken. I find I +have no money. I have paid away every cent except these two dollars; +take this bill and let me come in to-morrow and pay the balance.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Good man be damned!' he said. 'I don't want yer two dollars. I'll +take this and call it square.' Then he put my precious Cosway in his +pocket and without another word walked out of the room." +</P> + +<P> +"But wouldn't they give it back to you when you went for it?" I blurted +out. +</P> + +<P> +Peter leaned back in his chair and drummed on the arm with his fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"To tell the truth, I have been ashamed to go. I suppose they will give +it back when I ask them. And every day I intended going and paying them +the money, and every day I shun the street as if a plague was there. I +will go some time, but not now. Please don't ask me." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen none of them since?" inquired another of his visitors. +</P> + +<P> +"Only the Bostonian. He walked up to me while I was having my lunch in +Nassau Street yesterday. +</P> + +<P> +"'I came out better than you did,' he said. 'The pass was good. I used +it the next day. Just home from the Hub.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Accomplice, maybe," remarked Peter's third visitor, "just fooling you +with that architect yarn." +</P> + +<P> +"Buncoed that pass out of somebody else," suggested the second visitor. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," Peter continued. "I give it up. It's one of the things that +can never be explained. The Bostonian was polite, but he still thinks +me a cheat. He let me down as easy as he could, being a gentleman, but +I can never forget that he saw me come in with them and order the +dinner, and that then I tried to sneak out of paying for it. Oh, it's +dreadful! Dreadful!" +</P> + +<P> +Peter settled in his seat until only the top of his red skull cap +showed above the back of his easy chair. For some minutes he did not +speak, then he said slowly, and as if talking to himself: +</P> + +<P> +"Mean, mean people to serve me so!" +</P> + +<P> +Some days later I again knocked at Peter's door. I had determined, with +or without his consent, to go myself to Foscari's, redeem the miniature +and explain the circumstances, and let them know exactly who Peter was. +My hand had hardly touched the panel when his cheery voice rang out: +</P> + +<P> +"Whoever you are, come in!" +</P> + +<P> +He had sprung from his chair now and had advanced to greet me. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is it you! So glad—come over here before you get your coat off. +Look!" +</P> + +<P> +"The Cosway! You paid the bill and redeemed it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't cost me a cent." +</P> + +<P> +"They sent it to you, then, and apologized?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of the kind. Give me your hat and coat and plump yourself down +on that chair by the fire. I've got the most extraordinary story to +tell you you've ever heard in your whole life." +</P> + +<P> +He was himself again—the same bubbling spirit, the same warmth in his +manner, foxes out frolicking, lighthouse flashing, everything let loose. +</P> + +<P> +"Last night I was sitting here at my desk writing, about nine o'clock, +as near as I can remember"—his voice dropped now to a tragic whisper, +as if an encounter with a burglar was to +follow—"WHEN-<I>I</I>-HEARD-A-HEAVY-TREAD-ON-THE-STAIRS, getting louder and +louder as it reached my door. Then came a knock strong enough to crack +the panels. I got up at once and turned the knob. In the corridor stood +the Large Man. He was inside before I could stop him—I couldn't have +stopped him. You have no idea, my dear friend, how big and strong that +man is. What he expected to see I don't know, but it evidently was not +what he found. +</P> + +<P> +"'I had a hell of a time finding you,' he began, looking about him in +astonishment. 'Been up and down everywhere inquiring. Only got your +number from that red-headed plate-shover half an hour ago.'" +</P> + +<P> +Peter's voice had now regained its customary volume: +</P> + +<P> +"I had backed to the fireplace by this time and had picked up the +poker, as if to punch the fire, but I really intended to strike him if +he advanced too close or tried to help himself to any of my things. He +never took the slightest notice of my movements, or waited for any +answer to his outburst—just kept right on talking. +</P> + +<P> +"'You were so dead easy there warn't no fun in it. I dropped to that +the first time you opened your head, but Sam had picked you out and it +had to go at that. My wife saw his mistake as soon as she got her eyes +on you, but Sam, like a fool, wouldn't listen. He was to do the +picking, and so I couldn't say a word. When we all got outside, clear, +we took a turn around Washington Square so I could have my laugh out on +Sam, and when we got back you were gone and so was the fellow from +Boston who chipped in, and so was that red-headed Irish waiter. That +knocked us silly—wife gave us rats, and I felt like a yellow dog. Been +a-feeling so ever since. The Dago couldn't or wouldn't understand. Said +we'd better come in when the boss was there. We had to take the eleven +o'clock to Boston that night and had only time to catch the train. When +I got back at six-ten to-night I drove to Foscari's, found the Irishman +and the boss, heard how he'd pulled your leg—paid the bill—$9.60, +wasn't it?—that's what he said it was, anyhow—and here's your +picture!' +</P> + +<P> +"I had dropped the poker now and was motioning him to a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"'No, thank you, I won't sit down; ain't got time. Got to take the +eleven forty-five for Chicago. Well, we had a lot of fun out of it, +anyhow, only I didn't intend it should end up the way it did. Just +wanted to get even with Sam and win my bet.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Bet? I asked. I was still in the dark as to what he meant. +</P> + +<P> +"'Yes—bet Sam I'd bunco any New York man he'd pick out, and you +happened to be the one. You see, wife and I and Sam were here for a few +days and we struck Thanksgiving and wanted some fun, and we HAD it. +You're white, old man all the way through—white as cotton and our +kind—never flunked once, or turned a hair. Sally took an awful shine +to you. Shake! Next time I'm in New York I'll look you up and if you +ever come out our way we'll open a keg o' nails, and make it red-hot +for you, and don't you forget it. Here's my card, so you can remember.'" +</P> + +<P> +Peter picked up the card from the table, threw up his chin, and broke +into one of his infectious laughs. I reached over and took it from his +hand. It bore this inscription: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + J. C. MURPHY<BR> + General Travelling Agent<BR> + C. S. & Q. R. R.<BR> +<BR> + OGDEN, UTAH<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="jennings"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MISS JENNINGS'S COMPANION +</H3> + +<P> +The big Liner slowed down and dropped anchor inside the Breakwater. +Sweeping toward her, pushing the white foam in long lines from her bow, +her flag of black smoke trailing behind, came the company's tender—out +from Cherbourg with passengers. +</P> + +<P> +Under the big Liner's upper deck, along its top rail, was strung a row +of heads watching the tender's approach—old heads—young +heads—middle-aged heads—Miss Jennings's among these last—their eyes +taking in the grim Breakwater with its beacon light, the frowning +casemates specked with sentinels, and the line of the distant city +blurred with masts and spent steam. They saw, too, from their height +(they could look down the tender's smokestack) the sturdy figure of her +Captain, his white cap in relief against the green sea, and below him +the flat mass of people, their upturned faces so many pats of color on +a dark canvas. +</P> + +<P> +With the hauling taut and making fast of the fore and aft hawsers, a +group of sailors broke away from the flat mass and began tugging at the +gangplank, lifting it into position, the boatswain's orders ringing +clear. Another group stripped off the tarpaulins from the piles of +luggage, and a third—the gangplank in place—swarmed about the heaps +of trunks, shouldering the separate pieces as ants shoulder grains of +sand, then scurrying toward the tender's rail, where other ants reached +down and relieved them of their loads. +</P> + +<P> +The mass of people below now took on the shape of a funnel, its spout +resting on the edge of the gangplank, from out which poured a steady +stream of people up and over the Liner's side. +</P> + +<P> +Two decks below where Miss Jennings and her fellow-travellers were +leaning over the steamer's rail craning their necks, other sights came +into view. Here not only the funnel-shaped mass could be seen, but the +faces of the individuals composing it, as well as their nationality and +class; whether first, second or steerage. There, too, was the line of +stewards reaching out with open hands, relieving the passengers of +their small belongings; here too stood the First Officer in white +gloves and gold lace bowing to those he knew and smiling at others; and +here too was a smooth-shaven, closely-knit young man in dark clothes +and derby hat, who had taken up his position just behind the First +Officer, and whose steady steel gray eyes followed the movements of +each and every one of the passengers from the moment their feet touched +the gangplank until they had disappeared in charge of the stewards. +</P> + +<P> +These passengers made a motley group: first came a stout American with +two pretty daughters; then a young Frenchman and his valet; then a +Sister of Charity draped in black, her close-fitting, white, starched +cap and broad white collar framing her face, one hand clutching the +rope rail as she stepped feebly toward the steamer, the other grasping +a bandbox, her only luggage; next wriggled some college boys in twos +and threes, and then the rest of the hurrying mass, followed close by a +herd of emigrants crowding and stumbling like sheep, the men with +pillow-case bundles over their backs, the women with babies muffled in +shawls. +</P> + +<P> +When the last passenger was aboard, the closely-knit young man with the +steel gray eyes leaned forward and said in a low voice to the First +Officer: +</P> + +<P> +"He's not in this bunch." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—dead sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Where will you look for him now, Hobson?" continued the officer. +</P> + +<P> +"Paris, maybe. I told the Chief we wouldn't get anywhere on this lead. +Well, so long"—and the closely-knit young man swung himself down the +gangplank and disappeared into the cabin of the tender. +</P> + +<P> +The scenes on the gangplank were now repeated on the steamer. The old +travellers, whose hand luggage had been properly numbered, gave +themselves no concern—the stewards would look after their belongings. +The new travellers—the Sister of Charity among them—wandered about +asking questions that for the moment no one had time to answer. She, +poor soul, had spent her life in restful places, and the in-rush of +passengers and their proper bestowal seemed to have completely dazed +her. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I help you?" asked the First Officer—everybody is ready to help a +Sister, no matter what his rank or how pressing his duties. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, please—I want to know where my room is. It is Number 49, so my +ticket says." +</P> + +<P> +Here the Purser came up—he, too, would help a Sister. +</P> + +<P> +"Sister Teresa, is it not—from the Convent of the Sacred Heart? Yes, +we knew you would get on at Cherbourg. You are on the lower deck in the +same stateroom with Miss Jennings. Steward—take the Sister to—" +</P> + +<P> +"With whom?" she cried, with a look of blank amazement "But I thought I +was alone! They told me so at the office. Oh, I cannot share my room +with anybody. Please let—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but we had to double up. We would willingly give you a room +alone, but there isn't an empty berth on board." He was telling the +truth and showed it in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"But I have the money to pay for a whole room. I would have paid for it +at the office in Paris, but they told me it was not necessary." +</P> + +<P> +"I know, Sister, and I'm very sorry, but it can't be helped now. +Steward, take Sister Teresa to Number 49." This last came as an order, +and ended the discussion. +</P> + +<P> +When the Steward pushed open the door Miss Jennings was sitting on the +sofa berth reading, a long gray cloak about her shoulders. She had a +quiet, calm face and steady eyes framed in gold spectacles. She looked +to be a woman of fifty who had seen life and understood it. +</P> + +<P> +"The officer says I am to share your room," began Sister Teresa in a +trembling voice. "Don't think me rude, please, but I don't want to +share your room. I want to be alone, and so do you. Can't you help me?" +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't mind it, and you won't after you get used to it." The +voice was poised and well modulated—evidently a woman without +nerves—a direct, masterful sort of woman, who looked you straight in +the eyes, was without guile, hated a lie and believed in human nature. +"And we ought to get on together," she continued simply, as if it were +a matter of course. "You are a Sister, and from one of the French +institutions—I recognize your dress. I'm a nurse from the London +Hospital. The First Officer told me you had the other berth and I was +looking for you aboard the Cherbourg tender, but I couldn't see you for +the smoke, you were so far below me. We'll get on together, never fear. +Which bed will you have—this one or the one curtained off?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do you take the one curtained off," she answered in a hopeless +tone, as if further resistance was useless. "The sofa is easier perhaps +for me, for I always undress in the dark." +</P> + +<P> +"No, turn on the light. It won't wake me—I'm used to sleeping +anywhere—sometimes bolt upright in my chair with my hand on my +patient." +</P> + +<P> +"But it is one of the rules of our order to dress and undress in the +dark," the Sister pleaded; "candles are luxuries only used for the +sick, and so we do without them." +</P> + +<P> +"All right—just as you say," rejoined Miss Jennings cheerily. "My only +desire was to make you comfortable." +</P> + +<P> +That night at dinner Sister Teresa and Nurse Jennings found themselves +seated next to each other, the Chief Steward, who had special orders +from the First Officer to show Miss Jennings and her companion every +courtesy, having conducted them to their seats. +</P> + +<P> +Before the repast was half over, the two had attracted the attention of +all about them. What was particularly noticed was the abstemious +self-denying life of the Sister so plainly shown in the lines of her +grave, almost hard, face, framed close in the tight bands of white +linen concealing every vestige of her hair, the whole in strong +contrast to the kind, sympathetic face of the Nurse, whose soft gray +locks hung loosely about her temples. Their history, gleaned at the +First Officer's table had also become public property. Nurse Jennings +had served two years in South Africa, where she had charge of a ward in +one of the largest field hospitals outside of Pretoria; on her return +to England, she had been placed over an important case in one of the +London hospitals—that of a gallant Canadian officer who had been +shipped home convalescent, and who had now sent for her to come to him +in Montreal. The good Sister was one of those unfortunate women who had +been expelled from France under the new law, and who was now on her way +to Quebec, there to take up her life-work again. This had been the +fifth refugee, the officer added, whom the Line had cared for. +</P> + +<P> +When the hour for retiring came, Sister Teresa, with the remark that +she would wait until Miss Jennings was in bed before she sought her own +berth, followed her companion to the stateroom, bade her good-night, +and then, with her hand on the knob, lingered for a moment as if there +was still some further word on her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" asked the Nurse, with one of her direct, searching +glances. "Speak out—I'm a woman like yourself, and can understand." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's about the Hour of Silence. I must have one hour every day +when I can be alone. It has been the custom of my life and I cannot +omit it. It will be many days before we reach the land, and there is no +other place for me to pray except in here. Would you object if I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Object! Of course not! I will help you to keep it, and I will see, +too, that the Stewardess does not disturb you. Now, is there anything +else? Tell me—I love people who speak right out what they mean." +</P> + +<P> +"No—except that I always rise at dawn, and will be gone when you wake. +Good-night." +</P> + +<P> +The morning after this first night the two lay in their steamer chairs +on the upper deck. The First Officer, noticing them together, paused +for a moment on his way to the bridge: +</P> + +<P> +"You knew, of course, Miss Jennings, that Hobson went back to Cherbourg +on the tender. He left good-by for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Hunting for somebody, as usual, I suppose?" she rejoined. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes"—and he passed on. +</P> + +<P> +"A wretched life, isn't it," said Nurse Jennings, "this hunting for +criminals? This same man, Mr. Hobson, after a hunt of months, found one +in my ward with a bullet through his chest." +</P> + +<P> +"You know him then?" asked Sister Teresa, with a tremor in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—he's a Scotland Yard man." +</P> + +<P> +"And you say he was looking for some one on board and didn't find him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, not yet, but he will find him, he always does; that's the pity of +it. Some of these poor hunted people would lead a different life if +they had another chance. I tried to save the one Hobson found in my +ward. He was quite frank with me, and told me everything. When people +trust me my heart always goes out to them—so much so that I often do +very foolish things that are apt to get me into trouble. It's when they +lie to me—and so many do—making one excuse after another for their +being in the ward—that I lose all interest in them. I pleaded with +Hobson to give the man another chance, but I could do nothing. Thief as +he was, he had told the truth. He had that quality left, and I liked +him for it. If I had known Hobson was on his track I'd have helped him +in some way to get off. He stole to help his old mother, and wasn't a +criminal in any sense—only weak-hearted. The law is cruel—it never +makes allowances—that's where it is wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Cruel!—it's brutal. It is more brutal often than the crime," answered +Sister Teresa in a voice full of emotion. "Do you think the man your +friend was looking for here on board will escape?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm afraid not. There is very little chance of any criminal +escaping when they once get on his track, so Mr. Hobson has told me. If +he is on this steamer he must run another gauntlet in New York, even if +he is among the emigrants. You know we have over a thousand on board. +If he is not aboard they will track him down. Dreadful, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Poor fellow," said Sister Teresa, a sob in her voice, "how sorry I am +for him. If men only knew how much wiser mercy is than justice in the +redemption of the world." Here she rose from her chair, and gathering +her black cloak about her crossed to the rail and looked out to sea. In +a few minutes she returned. "Let us walk out to the bow where we can +talk undisturbed," she said. "The constant movement of the passengers +on deck, passing backward and forward, disturbs my head. I see so few +people, you know." +</P> + +<P> +When they reached the bow, she made a place beside her for the Nurse. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't misunderstand what I said about the brutality of the law," she +began. "There must be laws, and brutal men who commit brutal crimes +must be punished. But there are so many men who are not brutal, +although the crimes may be. I knew of one once. We had educated his +little daughter—such a sweet child! The man himself was a +scene-painter and worked in the theatres in London. Sometimes he would +take part in the play himself, making up for the minor characters, +although most of his time was spent in painting scenery. He had married +a woman who was on the stage, and she had deserted him for one of the +actors, and left her child behind. Her faithlessness nearly broke his +heart. Through one of our own people in London he found us and sent the +child to the convent where we have a school for just such cases. When +the girl got to be seventeen years old he sent for her and she went to +London to see him. He remembered her mother's career, and guarded her +like a little plant. He never allowed her to come to the theatre except +in the middle of the day. Then she would come where he was at work up +on the top of the painting platform high above the stage. There he and +she would be alone. One morning while he was at work one of the +scene-shifters—a man with whom he had had some difficulty—met the +girl as she was crossing the high platform. He had never seen her +before and, thinking she was one of the chorus girls, threw his arm +about her. The girl screamed, the scene-painter dropped his brushes, +ran to her side, hit the man in the face—the scene-shifter lost his +balance and fell to the stage. Before he died in the hospital he told +who had struck him; he told why, too; that the scene-painter hated him; +and that the two had had an altercation the day before—about some +colors; which was not true, there only having been a difference of +opinion. The man fled to Paris with his daughter. The girl today is at +one of our institutions at Rouen. The detectives, suspecting that he +would try to see her, have been watching that place for the last five +months. All that time he has been employed in the garden of a convent +out of Paris. Last week we heard from a Sister in London that some one +had recognized him, although he had shaved off his beard—some visitor +or parent of one of the children, perhaps, who had come upon him +suddenly while at work in the garden beds. He is now a fugitive, hunted +like an animal. He never intended to harm this man—he only tried to +save his daughter—and yet he knew that because of the difficulty that +he had had with the dead man and the fact that his daughter's testimony +would not help him—she being an interested person—he would be made to +suffer for a crime he had not intended to commit. Now, would you hand +this poor father over to the police? In a year his daughter must leave +the convent. She then has no earthly protection." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Jennings gazed out over the sea, her brow knit in deep thought. +Her mind went back to the wounded criminal in the hospital cot and to +the look of fear and agony that came into his eyes when Hobson stood +over him and called him by name. Sister Teresa sat watching her +companion's face. Her whole life had been one of mercy and she never +lost an opportunity to plead its cause. +</P> + +<P> +The Nurse's answer came slowly: +</P> + +<P> +"No, I would not. There is misery enough in the world without my adding +to it." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you help him to escape?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, if what you tell me is true and he trusted me." +</P> + +<P> +Sister Teresa rose to her feet, crossed herself, and said in a voice +that seemed to come through pent-up tears: +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God! I go now to pray. It is my Hour of Silence." +</P> + +<P> +When she returned, Nurse Jennings was still in her seat in the bow. The +sun shone bright and warm, and the sea had become calm. +</P> + +<P> +"You look rested, Sister," she said, looking up into her face. "Your +color is fresher and the dark rings have gone from your eyes. Did you +sleep?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I wait for the night to sleep. It is hard enough then." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I prayed for you and for myself. Come to the stateroom—I have +something to tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell it here," said Nurse Jennings in a more positive tone. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it might hurt you, and others will notice. Come quick, please, or +my courage will fail." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't I hear it to-night—" She was comfortable where she was and +remembered the narrow, steep steps to the lower deck. +</P> + +<P> +"No! come now—and QUICK." +</P> + +<P> +At the tone of agony in the Sister's voice Miss Jennings scrutinized +her companion's face. Her trained ear had caught an indrawn, fluttering +sob which she recognized as belonging to a certain form of hysteria. +Brooding over her troubles, combined with the effects of the sea air, +had unstrung the dear Sister's nerves. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, certainly," assented Miss Jennings. "Let me take your arm—step +carefully, and lean on me." +</P> + +<P> +On reaching the stateroom, Sister Teresa waited until Miss Jennings had +entered, then she locked the door and pulled the curtains close. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, Miss Jennings, before you judge me. You remember yesterday how +I pleaded with you to help me find a bedroom where I could be alone. +You would not, and I could do nothing but let matters take their +course. Fate has placed me in your hands. When you said that you were +on the lookout for me and that you knew Hobson, the detective, I knew +that all was lost unless your heart went out to me. I know him, too. I +faced his eyes when I came aboard. I staggered with fright and caught +at the ropes, but he did not suspect—I saw in his face that he did +not. He may still trace me and arrest me when I land. If anybody comes +for me, say you met me in the hospital where you work." +</P> + +<P> +Nurse Jennings stood staring into the woman's eyes. Her first impulse +was to ring the bell for the Steward and send for the ship's doctor. +Sudden insanity, the result of acute hysteria, was not uncommon in +women leading sedentary lives who had gone through a heavy strain, and +the troubles of this poor Sister had, she saw, unseated her reason. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't talk so—calm yourself. No one is seeking you. You ought to lie +down. Come—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know you think I am crazy—I am crazy—crazy from a horrible +fear that stares me in the face—from a spectre that—" +</P> + +<P> +"Sister, you MUST lie down! I'll ring for the Doctor and he—" +</P> + +<P> +Sister Teresa sprang forward and caught the hand of the Nurse before it +touched the bell. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! STOP!—or all will be lost! I am not a Sister—I am the +scene-painter—the father of that girl! See!" He threw back his hood, +uncovering his head and exposed his short-cropped hair. +</P> + +<P> +Nurse Jennings turned quickly and looked her companion searchingly in +the face. The surprise had been so great that for an instant her breath +left her. Then slowly the whole situation rushed over and upon her. +This man had made use of her privacy—had imposed upon her—tricked her. +</P> + +<P> +"And you—you have dared to come into this room, making me believe you +were a woman—and lied to me about your Hour of Silence and all the—" +</P> + +<P> +"It was the only way I could be safe. You and everybody else would +detect me if I did not shave and fix up my face. You said a minute ago +the dark rings had gone from my eyes—it is this paint-box that did it. +Think of what it would mean to me to be taken—and my little girl! +Don't—don't judge me wrongly. When I get to New York I promise never +to see you again—no one will ever know. If you had been my own sister +I could not have treated you with more respect since I have been in the +room. I will do anything you wish—to-night I will sleep on the +floor—anything, if—" +</P> + +<P> +"To-night! Not another hour will you stay here. I will go to the Purser +at once and—" +</P> + +<P> +"You mean to turn me out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, merciful God! Don't! Listen—you MUST listen. Let me stay! What +difference should it make to you. You have nursed hundreds of men. You +have saved many lives. Save mine—give me back my little girl! She can +come to me in Quebec and then we can get away somewhere in America and +be safe. I can still pass as a Sister and she as a child in my charge +until I can find some place where I can throw off my disguise. See how +good the real Sisters are to me; they do not condemn me. Here is a +letter from the Mother Superior in Paris to the Mother Superior of a +convent in Quebec. It is not forged—it is genuine. If they believe in +me, why cannot you? Let me stay here, and you stay, too. You would if +you could see my child." +</P> + +<P> +The sound of a heavy step was heard outside in the corridor. +</P> + +<P> +Then came a quick, commanding voice: "Miss Jennings, open the door, +please." +</P> + +<P> +The Nurse turned quickly and made a step toward the door. The fugitive +sank upon the sofa and drew the hood over his face. +</P> + +<P> +Again her name rang out—this time in a way that showed them both that +further delay was out of the question. +</P> + +<P> +Nurse Jennings shot back the bolt. +</P> + +<P> +Outside stood the First Officer. +</P> + +<P> +"There has been a bad accident in the steerage. I hate to ask you, Miss +Jennings, knowing how tired you are—but one of the emigrants has +fallen down the forecastle hatch. The Doctor wants you to come at once." +</P> + +<P> +During the rest of the voyage Nurse Jennings slept in the steerage; she +would send to Number 49 during the day for her several belongings, but +she never passed the night there, nor did she see her companion. The +case was serious, she told the Stewardess, who came in search of her, +and she dared not leave. +</P> + +<P> +The fugitive rarely left the stateroom. Some days he pleaded illness +and had his meals brought to him; often he ate nothing. +</P> + +<P> +As the day approached for the vessel to arrive in New York a shivering +nervousness took possession of him. He would stand behind the door by +the hour listening for her lightest footfall, hoping against hope that, +after all, her heart would soften toward him. One thought absorbed him: +would she betray him, and if so, when and where? Would it be to the +First Officer—the friend of Hobson—or would she wait until they +reached New York and then hand him over to the authorities? +</P> + +<P> +Only one gleam of hope shone out illumining his doubt, and that was +that she never sent to the stateroom during the Hour of Silence, thus +giving him a chance to continue his disguise. Even this ray was dimmed +when he began to realize as they approached their destination that she +had steadily avoided him, even choosing another deck for a breath of +fresh air whenever she left her patient. That she had welcomed the +accident to the emigrant as an excuse for remaining away from her +stateroom was evident. What he could not understand was, if she really +pitied and justified him, as she had done his prototype, why she should +now treat him with such suspicion. At her request he had opened his +heart and had trusted her; why then could she not forgive him for the +deceit of that first night—one for which he was not responsible? +</P> + +<P> +Then a new thought chilled him like an icy wind: her avoidance of him +was only an evidence of her purpose! Thus far she had not exposed him, +because then it would be known aboard that they had shared the +stateroom together. He saw it all now. She was waiting until they +reached the dock. Then no one would be the wiser. +</P> + +<P> +When the steamer entered her New York slip and the gangplank was +hoisted aboard, another thick-set, closely-knit man pushed his way +through the crowd at the rail, walked straight to the Purser and +whispered something in his ear. The next moment he had glided to where +the Nurse and fugitive were standing. +</P> + +<P> +"This is Miss Jennings, isn't it? I'm from the Central Office," and he +opened his coat and displayed the gold shield. "We've just got a cable +from Hobson. He said you were on board and might help. I'm looking for +a man. We've got no clew—don't know that he's on board, but I thought +we'd look the list over. The Purser tells me that you helped the Doctor +in the steerage—says somebody had been smashed up. Got anything to +suggest?—anybody that would fit this description: 'Small man, only +five-feet-six; blue eyes'"—and he read from a paper in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't think so. I was in the steerage, of course, four or five +days, and helped on a bad case, but I didn't notice anybody but the few +people immediately about me." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps, then, among the first-class passengers? Anybody peculiar +there? He's a slick one, we hear, and may be working a stunt in +disguise." +</P> + +<P> +"No. To tell you the truth, I was so tired when I came aboard that I +hardly spoke to any one—no one, really, except my dear Sister Teresa +here, who shared my stateroom. They have driven her out of France and +she is on her way to a convent in Quebec. I go with her as far as +Montreal." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="joplin"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SAM JOPLIN'S EPIGASTRIC NERVE +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +"You eat too much, Marny." It was Joplin, of Boston, who was +speaking—Samuel Epigastric Joplin, his brother painters called him. +"You treat your stomach as if it were a scrap-basket and you dump into +it everything you—" +</P> + +<P> +"I do? You caricature of a codfish ball!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you do. You open your mouth, pin back your ears and in go +pickles, red cabbage, Dutch cheese. It's insanity, Marny, and it's +vulgar. No man's epigastric can stand it. It wouldn't make any +difference if you were a kangaroo with your pouch on the outside, but +you're a full-grown man and ought to have some common-sense." +</P> + +<P> +"And you think that if I followed your idiotic theory it would keep me +out of my coffin, do you? What you want, Joppy, is a square meal. You +never had one, so far as I can find out, since you were born. You drank +sterilized milk at blood temperature until you were five; chewed +patent, unhulled wheat bread until you were ten, and since that time +you've filled your stomach with husks—proteids, and carbohydrates, and +a lot of such truck—isn't that what he calls em, Pudfut?" +</P> + +<P> +The Englishman nodded in assent. +</P> + +<P> +"And now just look at you, Joppy, instead of a forty-inch chest—" +</P> + +<P> +"And a sixty-inch waist," interjected Joplin with a laugh, pointing at +Marny's waistcoat. +</P> + +<P> +"I acknowledge it, old man, and I'm proud of it," retorted Marny, +patting his rotundity. "Instead, I say, of a decent chest your +shoulders crowd your breast-bone; your epigastric, as you call it—it's +your solar plexus, Joppy—but that's a trifle to an anatomist like +you—your epigastric scrapes your back-bone, so lonely is it for +something warm and digestible to rub up against, and your— Why, Joppy, +do you know when I look at you and think over your wasted life, my eyes +fill with tears? Eat something solid, old man, and give your stomach a +surprise. Begin now. Dinner's coming up—I smell it. Open your port +nostril, you shrivelled New England bean, and take in the aroma of +beatific pork and greens. Doesn't that put new life into you? Puddy, +you and Schonholz help Joppy to his feet and one or two of you fellows +walk behind to pick up the pieces in case he falls apart before we can +feed him. There's Tine's dinner-bell!" +</P> + +<P> +White-capped, rosy-checked, bare-armed Tine had rung that bell for this +group of painters for two years past—ever since Mynheer Boudier of the +Bellevue over the way, who once claimed her services, had reproved +Johann, the porter, for blocking up with the hotel trunks that part of +the sidewalk over which the steamboat captain slid his gangplank. +Thereupon Tine slipped her pretty little feet into her white +sabots—she and Johann have been called in church since—and walked +straight over to the Holland Arms. Johann now fights the steamboat +captain, backed not only by the landlord of the Arms, who rubs his +hands in glee over the possession of two of his competitor's best +servants, but by the whole coterie of painters whose boots Johann +blacks, whose kits be packs and unpacks, whose errands he runs; while +Tine, no less loyal and obliging, darns their stockings, mends their +clothes, sews on buttons, washes brushes, stretches canvases, waits on +table, rings the dinner-bell, and with her own hands scrubs every +square inch of visible surface inside and out of this quaint old inn in +this sleepy old town of Dort-on-the-Maas—side-walks, windows, +cobbles—clear to the middle of the street, her ruddy arms bare to the +elbow, her sturdy, blue-yarn-stockinged legs thrust into snow-white +sabots to keep her trim feet from the wet and slop. +</P> + +<P> +Built in 1620, this inn of the Holland Arms—so the mildewed brick in +the keystone over the arch of the doorway says—and once the home of a +Dutchman made rich by the China trade, whose ships cast anchor where +Fop Smit's steamboats now tie up (I have no interest in the Line); a +grimy, green-moulded, lean-over front and moss-covered, sloping-roof +sort of an inn, with big beams supporting the ceilings of the bedrooms; +lumbering furniture blackened with the smoke of a thousand pipes +flanking the walls of the coffee-room; bits of Delft a century old +lining the mantel; tiny panes of glass with here and there a bull's-eye +illumining the squat windows; rows of mugs with pewter tops crowding +the narrow shelves beside the fireplace, and last, and by no means +least, a big, bulky sun-moon-and-stars clock, with one eye always open, +which strikes the hours as if it meant to beat the very life out of +them. +</P> + +<P> +But there is something more in this coffee-room—something that neither +Mynheer Boudier of the Bellevue nor any other landlord in any other +hostelry, great or small, up and down the Maas, can boast. This is the +coffee-room picture gallery—free to whoever comes. +</P> + +<P> +It began with a contribution from the first impecunious painter in +payment of an overdue board-bill, his painting being hung on a nail +beside the clock. Now; all over the walls—above the sideboard with its +pewter plates and queer mugs; over the mantel holding the Delft, and +between the squat windows—are pinned, tacked, pasted and hung—singly +and in groups—sketches in oil, pastel, water color, pencil and +charcoal, many without frames and most of them bearing the signature of +some poor, stranded painter, preceded by the suggestive line, "To my +dear friend, the landlord"—silent reminders all of a small cash +balance which circumstances quite beyond their control had prevented +their liquidating at the precise hour of their departure. +</P> + +<P> +Mynheer had bowed and smiled as each new contribution was handed him +and straightway had found a hammer and a nail and up it went beside its +fellows. He never made objection: the more the merrier. The ice wind +would soon blow across the Maas from Papendrecht, the tall grasses in +the marshes turn pale with fright, and the lace-frost with busy fingers +pattern the tiny panes, and then Johann would pack the kits one after +another, and the last good-byes take place. But the sketches would +remain. Oh! yes, the sketches would remain and tell the story of the +summer and every night new mugs would be filled around the coal-fire, +and new pipes lighted—mugs and pipes of the TOWNSPEOPLE this time, who +came to feast their eyes,—and, although the summer was gone, the long +winter would still be his. No, Mynheer never objected! +</P> + +<P> +And this simple form of settlement—a note of hand (in color), payable +in yearly patronage—has not been confined to modern times. Many an inn +owes its survival to a square of canvas—the head of a child, a copper +pot, or stretch of dune; and more than one collector now boasts of a +masterpiece which had hung for years on some taproom wall, a sure but +silent witness of the poverty of a Franz Hals, Wouverman or Van der +Helst. +</P> + +<P> +Each year had brought new additions to the impecunious group about +Mynheer's table. +</P> + +<P> +Dear old Marny, with his big boiler amidships, his round, sunburned +face shaded by a wide-brimmed, slouch hat—the one he wore when he +lived with the Sioux Indians—loose red tie tossed over one shoulder, +and rusty velveteen coat, was an old habitue. And so was dry, crusty +Malone, "the man from Dublin," rough outside as a potato and white +inside as its meal. And so, too, was Stebbins, the silent man of the +party, and the only listener in the group. All these came with the +earliest birds and stayed until the boys got out their skates. +</P> + +<P> +But there were others this year who were new. Pudfut, the Englishman, +first—in from Norway, where he had been sketching on board some lord's +yacht—he of the grizzly brown beard, brown ulster reaching to his +toes, gray-checked steamer-cap and brierwood pipe—an outfit which he +never changed—"slept in them," Marny insisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Me name's Pudfut," he began, holding out his hand to Marny. "I've got +a letter in my clothes for ye from a chap in Paris." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't pull it out," had come the answer. "Put it there!" and within an +hour the breezy fellow, his arm through the Englishman's, had trotted +him all over Dort from the Groote Kerk to the old Gate of William of +Orange, introducing him to every painter he met on the way, first as +Pudfut, then as Puddy, then as Pretty-foot, then as Tootsie-Wootsie, +and last as Toots—a name by which he is known in the Quartier to this +day. This done, he had taken him up to his own room and had dumped him +into an extra cot—his for the rest of the summer. +</P> + +<P> +Then Schonholz wandered in—five gulden a week board was the magnet—a +cheese-faced, good-natured German lad with forehead so high that when +he raised his hat Marny declared, with a cry of alarm, that his scalp +had slipped, and only regained his peace of mind when he had twisted +his fat fingers in the lad's forelock to make sure that it was still +fast. Schonholz had passed a year at Heidelberg and carried his diploma +on his cheek—two crisscross slashes that had never healed—spoke +battered English, wore a green flat-topped cap, and gray bobtailed coat +with two rows of horn buttons ("Come to shoot chamois, have you?" Marny +had asked when he presented his credentials.)—laughed three-quarters +of the time he was awake, and never opened his kit or set a palette +while he was in Dort. "Too vet and too fodgy all dime," was the way he +accounted for his laziness. +</P> + +<P> +Last came Joplin—a man of thirty-five; bald as an egg and as shiny. +("Dangerous to have a hen around," Marny would say, rubbing the pate +after the manner of a phrenologist.) Gaunt, wiry; jerky in his +movements as a Yankee clock and as regular in his habits: hot water +when he got up—two glasses, sipped slowly; cold water when he went to +bed, head first, feet next, then the rest of him; window open all night +no matter how hard it blew or rained; ate three meals a day and no +more; chewed every mouthful of food thirty times—coffee, soup, even +his drinking-water (Gladstone had taught him that, he boasted)—a +walking laboratory of a man, who knew it all, took no layman's advice, +and was as set in his ways as a chunk of concrete. +</P> + +<P> +And his fads did not stop with his food; they extended to his +clothes—everything he used, in fact. His baggy knickerbockers ended in +leather leggins to protect his pipe-stem shanks; his shirts buttoned +all the way down in front and went on like a coat; he wore health +flannels by day and a health shirt at night ("Just like my old Aunt +Margaret's wrapper," whispered Marny in a stage voice to Pudfut); +sported a ninety-nine-cent silver watch fastened to a leather strap +(sometimes to a piece of twine); stuck a five-hundred-dollar scarab pin +in his necktie—"Nothing finer in the Boston Museum," he maintained, +and told the truth—and ever and always enunciated an English so pure +and so undefiled that Stebbins, after listening to it for a few +minutes, proposed, with an irreverence born of good-fellowship, that a +subscription be started to have Joplin's dialect phonographed so that +it might be handed down to posterity as the only real and correct thing. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you noticing, gentlemen, the way in which Joplin handles his +mother tongue?" Stebbins had shouted across the table: "never drops his +'g's,' never slights his first syllable; says 'HUmor' with an accent on +the 'HU.' But for the fact that he pronounces 'bonnet' 'BUNNIT' and +'admires' a thing when he really ought only to 'like' it, you could +never discover his codfish bringing up. Out with your wallets—how much +do you chip in?" +</P> + +<P> +These peculiarities soon made Joplin the storm-centre of every +discussion. Not only were his views on nutrition ridiculed, but all his +fads were treated with equal disrespect. "Impressionism," "plein air," +the old "line engraving" in contrast to the modern "half-tone" +methods—any opinion of Joplin's, no matter how sane or logical, was +jostled, sat on, punched in the ribs and otherwise maltreated until +every man was breathless or black in the face with assumed rage—every +man except the man jostled, who never lost his temper no matter what +the provocation, and who always came up smiling with some such remark +as: "Smite away, you Pharisees; harmony is heavenly—but stupid. Keep +it up—here's the other cheek!" +</P> + +<P> +On this particular night Joplin, as I have said, had broken out on +diet. Some movement of Marny's connected with the temporary relief of +the lower button of his waistcoat had excited the great Bostonian's +wrath. The men were seated at dinner inside the coffee-room, Johann and +Tine serving. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Marny, I'm sorry to say it, but the fact is you eat too much and +you eat the wrong things. If you knew anything of the kinds of food +necessary to nourish the human body, you would know that it should +combine in proper proportions proteid, fats, carbohydrates and a small +percentage of inorganic salts—these are constantly undergoing +oxidation and at the same time are liberating energy in the form of +heat." +</P> + +<P> +"Hear the bloody bounder!" bawled Pudfut from the other end of the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"Silence!" called Marny, with his ear cupped in his fingers, an +expression of the farthest-away-boy-in-the-class on his face. +</P> + +<P> +Joplin waved his hand in protest and continued, without heeding the +interruption: "Now, if you're stupid enough to stuff your epigastrium +with pork, you, of course, get an excess of non-nitrogenous fats, and +in order to digest anything properly you must necessarily cram in an +additional quantity of carbohydrates—greens, potatoes, +cabbage—whatever Tine shoves under your nose. Consult any scientist +and see if I am not right—especially the German doctors who have made +a specialty of nutrition. Such men as Fugel, Beenheim and—" +</P> + +<P> +Here a slice of Tine's freshly-cut bread made a line-shot, struck the +top of Joplin's scalp, caromed on Schonholz's shirt-front and fell into +Stebbins's lap, followed instantly by "Order, gentlemen!" from Marny. +"Don't waste that slab of proteid. The learned Bean is most interesting +and should not be interrupted." +</P> + +<P> +"Better out than in," continued Joplin, brushing the crumbs from his +plate. "Bread—fresh bread particularly—is the very worst thing a man +can put into his stomach." +</P> + +<P> +"And how about pertaties?" shouted Malone. "I s'pose ye'd rob us of the +only thing that's kep' us alive as a nation, wouldn't ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly would, 'Loney, except in very small quantities. Raw +potatoes contain twenty-two per cent. of the worst form of +non-nitrogenous food, and seventy-eight per cent. of water. You, +Malone, with your sedentary habits, should never touch an ounce of +potato. It excites the epigastric nerve and induces dyspepsia. You're +as lazy as the devil and should only eat nitrogenous food and never in +excess. What you require is about one hundred grams of protein, giving +you a fuel value of twenty-seven hundred calories, and to produce this +fifty-five ounces of food a day is enough. When you exceed this you run +to flesh—unhealthy bloat really—and in the wrong places. You've only +to look at Marny's sixty-inch waist-line to prove the truth of this +theory. Now look at me—I keep my figure, don't I? Not a bad one for a +light-weight, is it? I'm in perfect health, can run, jump, eat, sleep, +paint, and but for a slight organic weakness with my heart, which is +hereditary in my family and which kills most of us off at about seventy +years of age, I'm as sound as a nut. And all—all, let me tell you, due +to my observing a few scientific laws regarding hygiene which you men +never seem to have heard of." +</P> + +<P> +Malone now rose to his feet, pewter mug in hand, and swept his eye +around the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Bedad, you're right, Joppy," he said with a wink at Marny—"food's the +ruination of us all; drink is what we want. On yer feet, +gintlemen—every mother's son of ye! Here's to the learned, livin' +skeleton from Boston! Five per cint. man and ninety-five per cint. +crank!" +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +The next morning the group of painters—all except Joplin, who was +doing a head in "smears" behind the Groote Kerk a mile away—were at +work in the old shipyard across the Maas at Papendrecht. Marny was +painting a Dutch lugger with a brown-madder hull and an emerald-green +stern, up on the ways for repairs. Pudfut had the children of the +Captain posed against a broken windlass rotting in the tall grass near +the dock, and Malone and Schonholz, pipe in mouth, were on their backs +smoking. "It wasn't their kind of a mornin'," Malone had said. +</P> + +<P> +Joplin's discourse the night before was evidently lingering in their +minds, for Pudfut broke out with: "Got to sit on Joppy some way or +we'll be talked to death," and he squeezed a tube of color on his +palette. "Getting to be a bloody nuisance." +</P> + +<P> +"Only one way to fix him," remarked Stebbins, picking up his mahlstick +from the grass beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"How?" came a chorus. +</P> + +<P> +"Scare him to death." +</P> + +<P> +The painters laid down their brushes. Stebbins rarely expressed an +opinion; any utterance from him, therefore, carried weight. +</P> + +<P> +"Go for him about his health, I tell you," continued Stebbins, dragging +a brush from the sheaf in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"But there's nothing the matter with him," answered Marny. "He's as +skinny as a coal-mine mule, but he's got plenty of kick in him yet." +</P> + +<P> +"You're dead right, Marny," answered Stebbins, "but he doesn't think +so. He's as big a fool over every little pain as he is over his +theories." +</P> + +<P> +"Niver cracked his jaw to me about it," sputtered Malone from between +the puffs of his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"No, and he won't. I don't jump on him as you fellows do and so I get +his confidence. He's in my room two or three times every night going +over his symptoms. When his foot's asleep he thinks he's got creeping +paralysis. Every time his breath comes short, his heart's giving out." +</P> + +<P> +"That's hereditary!" said Marny; "he said so." +</P> + +<P> +"Hereditary be hanged! Same with everything else. Last night he dug me +out of bed and wanted me to count his pulse—thought it intermitted. +He's hipped, I tell you, on his health!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's because he lives on nothing," rejoined Marny. "Tine puts the +toast in the oven over night so it will be dry enough for him in the +morning—she told me so yesterday. Now he's running on sour milk and +vinegar—'blood too alkaline,' he says—got a chalky taste in his +mouth!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, whatever it is, he's a rum-nuisance," said Pudfut, "and he ought +to be jumped on." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," retorted Stebbins, "but not about his food. Jump on him about +his health, then he'll kick back and in pure obstinacy begin to think +he's well—that's his nature." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you do anything of the kind," protested Marny. "Joppy's all +right—best lad I know. Let him talk; doesn't hurt anybody and keeps +everything alive. A little hot air now and then helps his epigastric." +</P> + +<P> +Malone and Schonholz had raised themselves on their elbows, twisted +their shoulders and had put their heads together—literally—without +lifting their lazy bodies from the warm, dry grass—so close that one +slouch hat instead of two might have covered their conspiring brains. +From under the rims of these thatches came smothered laughs and such +unintelligible mutterings as: +</P> + +<P> +"Dot's de vay, by chimminy, 'Loney! And den I—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, begorra! Let me have a crack at him fu'st!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I vill before go and you come—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a word to Marny, remimber; he'd give it away—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but we vill tell Poodfut und Sthebbins, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon the diabolical plot was put in motion. The men had +finished for the day; had crossed the ferry and had found Joplin +wandering around the dock looking for a new subject. The Groote Kerk +"smear" was under his arm. +</P> + +<P> +Pudfut, under pretence of inspecting the smear—a portrait of the old +Sacristan on a bench in front of the main entrance—started back in +surprise on seeing the Bostonian, and asked with an anxious tone in his +voice: +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you well, old man? Look awfully yellow about the gills. Worked +too hard, haven't you? No use overdoing it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well? Of course I'm well! Sound as a nut. Little bilious, maybe, but +that's nothing. Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing! Must say, though, you gave me a twist when I came on you +suddenly. Maybe it's your epigastric nerve; maybe it's your liver and +will pass off, but I'd knock off work for a day or two if I were you." +</P> + +<P> +Malone now took a hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me carry yer kit, Joppy, ye look done up. What's happened to ye, +man, since mornin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never felt better in my life," protested Joplin. "No, I'll carry +it—not heavy—" +</P> + +<P> +Then he quickened his pace—they were all on their way back to the +inn—and overtook Stebbins and Schonholz. +</P> + +<P> +"Stebbins, old man—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Joppy." +</P> + +<P> +"What I told you last night is turning out just as I expected. Heart's +been acting queer all morning and my epigastric nerve is very +sensitive. Puddy says I look awful. Do you see it?" +</P> + +<P> +Stebbins looked into the Bostonian's face, hesitated, and said with an +apologetic tone in his voice: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, everybody looks better one time than another. You've been +working too hard, maybe." +</P> + +<P> +"But do I look yellow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, to tell you the truth, Joppy, you do—yellow as a gourd—not +always, just now and then when you walk fast or run upstairs." +</P> + +<P> +"I've been afraid of that. Was my pulse all right when you counted it +last night?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, certainly—skipped a beat now and then, but that's nothing. I had +an uncle once who had a pulse that wobbled like that. He, of course, +went off suddenly; some said it was apoplexy; some said it was his +heart—these doctors never agree. I wouldn't worry about it, old man. +Hold on, Pudfut, don't walk so fast." +</P> + +<P> +Pudfut held on, and so did Schonholz and Malone, and then the four +slipped behind a pile of oil barrels and concentrated their slouch hats +and Schonholz slapped his thigh and said with a smothered laugh that it +was "sphlendeed!" and Malone and Pudfut agreed, and then the three +locked arms and went singing up the street, their eyes on Joplin's +pipe-stem legs as he trotted beside Marny on his way to the inn. +</P> + +<P> +When the party reached the coffee-room Marny called Tine to his side, +spread out the fingers and thumb of one hand, and that rosy-cheeked +lass without the loss of a second, clattered over to the little shelf, +gathered up five empty mugs and disappeared down the cellar steps. This +done the coterie drew their chairs to one of Tine's hand-scrubbed +tables and sat down, all but Joplin, who kept on his way to his room. +There the Bostonian remained, gazing out of the window until Johann had +banged twice on his door in announcement of dinner. Then he joined the +others. +</P> + +<P> +When all were seated Schonholz made a statement which was followed with +results more astounding to the peace of the coterie than anything which +had occurred since the men came together. +</P> + +<P> +"I haf bad news, boys," he began, "offle bad news. Mine fader has wrote +dat home I must. Nod anuder mark he say vill he gif me. Eef I could +sell somedings—but dat ees very seldom. No, Marny, you don't can lend +me noddings. What vill yourselluf do? Starve!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where do you live, Schonholz?" asked Joplin. +</P> + +<P> +"By Fizzenbad." +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of a place is it—baths?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"What are they good for?" continued Joplin in a subdued tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Noddings, but blenty peoples go." +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell you, Joppy," said Pudfut gravely, with a wink at Malone. +"There are two spas, both highly celebrated. Lord Ellenboro spent a +month there and came back looking like another man. One is for the +liver and the other for something or other, I can't recollect what." +</P> + +<P> +"Heart?" asked Joplin. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +He didn't,—had never heard the place mentioned until Schonholz had +called its name a moment before. +</P> + +<P> +Joplin played with his knife and made an attempt to nibble a slice of +Tine's toast, but he made no reply. All the fight of every kind seemed +to have been knocked out of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Better take Fizzenbad in, Joppy," remarked Pudfut in an undertone. +"May do you a lot of good." +</P> + +<P> +"How far is it, Schonholz?" asked Joplin, ignoring the Englishman's +suggestion. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you leafe in de morgen and you come by Fizzenbad in a day more as +do one you go oud mid." +</P> + +<P> +"No—can't afford it." +</P> + +<P> +Here Joplin pushed back his chair, and with the remark that he thought +he would go downtown for some colors, left the room. +</P> + +<P> +"It's working like a dose of salts," cried Pudfut when the Bostonian +was out of hearing. "Hasn't said 'epigastric nerve,' 'gram' or +'proteids' once. Got real human in an hour. Stebbins, you're a wonder." +</P> + +<P> +The next morning everybody was up bright and early to see Schonholz +off. One of Fop Smit's packets was to leave for Rotterdam at seven and +Schonholz was a passenger. He could go by rail, but the boat was +cheaper. No deceptions had been practised and no illusions indulged in +as to the cause of his departure. He had had his supplies cut off, was +flat broke and as helpless as a plant without water. They had all, at +one time or another, passed through a similar crisis and knew exactly +what it meant. A purse, of course, could have been made up—Marny even +insisted on sharing his last hundred francs with him—and Mynheer would +have allowed the board-bill to run on indefinitely with or without an +addition to his collection, but the lad was not built along those lines. +</P> + +<P> +"No—I go home and help mine fader once a leetle, den maybe I come +back, don't it?" was the way he put it. +</P> + +<P> +The next morning, when the procession formed to escort him through the +Old Gate, every man answered to his name except Joplin—he had either +overslept himself or was taking an extra soak in his portable tub. +</P> + +<P> +"Run, Tine, and call Mr. Joplin," cried Marny—"we'll go ahead. Tell +him to come to the dock." +</P> + +<P> +Away clattered the sabots up the steep stairs, and away they scurried +down the bare corridor to Joplin's room. There Tine knocked. Hearing no +response she pushed open the door and looked in. The room was empty! +Then she noticed that the bed had not been slept in, nor had anything +on the washstand been used. Stepping in softly for some explanation of +the unusual occurrence—no such thing had ever happened in her +experience, not unless she had been notified in advance—her eye rested +on a letter addressed to Stebbins propped up in full view against a +book on Joplin's table. Catching it up as offering the only explanation +of his unaccountable disappearance, she raced downstairs and, crossing +the cobbles on a run, laid the letter in Stebbins's hand. +</P> + +<P> +"For me, Tine?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl nodded, her eyes on the painter's. +</P> + +<P> +The painter broke the seal and his face grew serious. Then he beckoned +to Marny and read the contents aloud, the others crowding close: +</P> + +<P> +Dear Stebbins: +</P> + +<P> +Keep my things until I send for them. I take the night train for +Rotterdam. Tell Schonholz I'll join him there and go on with him to +Fizzenbad. Sorry to leave this way, but I could not bear to bid you all +good-by. Joplin. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +That night the table was one prolonged uproar. The conspirators had +owned up frankly to their share of the villany, and were hard at work +concocting plans for its undoing. Marny was the one man in the group +that would not be pacified; nothing that either Pudfut, Stebbins or +Malone had said or could say changed his mind—and the discussion, +which had lasted all day, brought him no peace. +</P> + +<P> +"Drove him out!—that's what you did, you bull-headed Englishman—you +and Malone and Stebbins ought to be ashamed of yourselves. If I had +known what you fellows were up to I'd have pitched you all over the +dike. Cost Joppy a lot of money and break up all his summer work! What +did you want to guy him like that for and send him off to be scalded +and squirted on in a damned Dutch—" +</P> + +<P> +"But we didn't think he'd take it as hard as that." +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't, didn't you! What DID you think he'd do? Didn't you see how +sensitive and nervous he was? The matter with you fellows is that Joppy +is a thoroughbred and you never saw one of his kind in your life. Ever +since he got here you've done nothing but jump all over him and try to +rile him, and he never squawked once—came up smiling every time. He's +a thoroughbred—that's what he is!" +</P> + +<P> +The days that followed were burdened with a sadness the coterie could +not shake off. Whatever they had laughed at and derided in Joplin they +now longed for. The Bostonian may have been a nuisance in one way, but +he had kept the ball of conversation rolling—had started it many +times—and none of the others could fill his place. Certain of his +views became respected. "As dear old Joppy used to say," was a common +expression, and "By Jove, he was right!" not an uncommon opinion. In +conformity with his teachings, Marny reduced his girth measure an inch +and his weight two pounds—not much for Marny, but extraordinary all +the same when his appetite was considered. +</P> + +<P> +Pudfut, in contrition of his offence, wrote his English friend Lord +Something-or-other, who owned the yacht, and who was at Carlsbad, +begging him to run up and see the "best ever" and "one of us"—and +Malone never lost an opportunity to say how quick he was in repartee, +or how he missed him. Stebbins kept his mouth shut. +</P> + +<P> +He had started the crusade, he knew, and was personally responsible for +the result. He had tried to arouse Joplin's obstinacy and had only +aroused his fears. All he could do in reparation was to keep in touch +with the exile and pave the way for his homecoming. If Joppy was ill, +which he doubted, some of the German experts in whom the Bostonian +believed would find the cause and the remedy. If he was "sound as a +nut," to quote Joplin's own words, certainty of that fact, after an +exhaustive examination by men he trusted, would relieve his nervous +mind and make him all the happier. +</P> + +<P> +The first letter came from Schonholz. Liberally translated, with the +assistance of Mynheer, who spoke a little German, it conveyed the +information that the Bostonian, after being put on a strict diet, had +been douched, pounded and rubbed; was then on his second week of +treatment; had one more to serve; was at the moment feeling like a +fighting-cock, and after a fifth week at Stuckbad, in the mountains, +where he was to take the after-cure, would be as strong as a +three-year-old, and as frisky. +</P> + +<P> +The second letter was from Joplin himself and was addressed to +Stebbins. This last was authentic, and greatly relieved the situation. +It read: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Nothing like a thoroughly trained expert, my dear Stebbins. These +German savants fill me with wonder. The moment Dr. Stuffen fixed his +eyes upon me he read my case like an open book. No nitrogenous food of +any kind, was his first verdict; hot douches and complete rest packed +in wet compresses, the next. I am losing flesh, of course, but it is +only the "deadwood" of the body, so to speak. This Dr. Stuffen expects +to replace with new shoots—predicts I will weigh forty pounds more—a +charming and, to me, a most sane theory. You will be delighted also to +hear that my epigastric nerve hasn't troubled me since I arrived. Love +to the boys, whom I expect to see before the month is out. Joppy. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Forty pounds heavier!" cried Marny from his end of the table. "He'll +look like a toy balloon in knee pants. Bully for Joppy! I wouldn't let +any Schweizerkase with a hot douche get within a hundred yards of me, +but then I'm not a bunch of nerves like Joppy. Anyhow, boys, we'll give +the lad a welcome that will raise the roof. Joppy thin was pretty good +fun, but Joppy fat will be a roaring farce." +</P> + +<P> +And so it was decided, and at once all sorts and kinds of welcomes were +discussed, modified, rearranged and discussed again. Pudfut suggested +meeting him in Rotterdam and having a night of it. Malone thought of +chartering a steam launch, hiring a band and bringing him past the +towns with flags flying. Stebbins and Marny favored some demonstration +nearer home, where everybody could join in. +</P> + +<P> +The programme finally agreed upon included a pathway of boughs strewn +with wild flowers from the steamboat landing, across the planking, over +the cobbles, under the old Gate of William of Orange, and so on to the +door of the inn; the appointment of Tine, dressed in a Zeeland costume +belonging to her grand-mother, as special envoy, to meet him with a +wreath of laurel, and Johann in short clothes—also heirlooms—was to +walk by his side as First Groom of the Bed Chamber. +</P> + +<P> +The real Reception Committee, consisting of Mynheer in a burgomaster +suit borrowed from a friend, and the four painters—Marny as a Dutch +Falstaff, Pudfut as a Spanish Cavalier, Stebbins got up as a Night +Watch, and Malone in the costume of a Man-at-Arms—all costumes loaned +for the occasion by the antiquary in the next street—were to await +Joplin's coming in the privacy of the Gate—almost a tunnel—and so +close to the door of the inn that it might have passed for a part of +the establishment itself. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime the four painters were to collect material for the decoration +of the coffee-room—wreaths of greens over the mantel and festoons of +ivy hanging down the back of Joplin's chair being prominent features; +while Mynheer, Tine and Johann were to concentrate their energies in +preparing a dinner the like of which had never been eaten since the +sluiceways in the dikes drowned out the Spanish duke. Not a word of all +this, of course, had reached the ears of the Bostonian. Half, +three-quarters, if not all, the enjoyment of the occasion would be +realized when they looked on Joplin's face and read his surprise. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +The eventful day at last arrived. Stebbins, as prearranged, had begged +the exile to telegraph the exact hour of his departure and mode of +travel from Rotterdam, suggesting the boat as being by far the best, +and Joplin had answered in return that Fop Smit's packet, due at +sundown the following day, would count him among its passengers. +</P> + +<P> +The deep tones of the whistle off Papendrecht sent every man to his +post, the villagers standing back in amazement at the extraordinary +spectacle, especially at Tine and Johann in their queer clothes, who, +being instantly recognized, were plied with questions. +</P> + +<P> +The boat slowed down; made fast; out came the gangplank; ashore went +the little two-wheel carts drawn by the sleepy, tired dogs; then the +baskets of onions were rolled off, and the few barrels of freight, and +then two or three passengers—among them a small, feeble man, in a long +coat reaching to his heels—made their way to the dock. +</P> + +<P> +NO JOPPY!! +</P> + +<P> +"That's the last man to come ashore here," said Marny. "What's become +of the lad?" +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe he's gone aft," cried Stebbins; "maybe—" +</P> + +<P> +Here Tine gave a little scream, dropped her wreath and running toward +the small, feeble man, threw her arms around his neck. Marny and the +others bounded over the cobbles, tossing the bystanders out of the way +as they forged ahead. When they reached Joplin he was still clinging to +Tine, his sunken cheeks and hollow deep-set eyes telling only too +plainly how great an effort he was making to keep on his legs. The four +painters formed a close bodyguard and escorted their long-lost brother +to the inn. +</P> + +<P> +Mynheer, in his burgomaster suit, met the party at the door, conducted +them inside and silently drew out the chairs at the coffee-room table. +He was too overcome to speak. +</P> + +<P> +Joplin dropped into the one hung with ivy and rested his hands on the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord! how good it is to get here!" he said, gazing about him, a +tremble in his voice. "You don't know what I've gone through, boys." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, we thought you were getting fat, Joppy," burst out Marny at last. +Up to this time his voice, like that of the others, seemed to have left +him, so great was his surprise and anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +Joplin waved his forefinger toward Marny in a deprecatory way, as if +the memory of his experience was too serious for discussion, played +with his fork a moment, and said slowly: +</P> + +<P> +"Will you lay it up against me, fellows, if I tell you the truth? I'm +not as strong as I was and a good deal of the old fight is out of me." +</P> + +<P> +"Lay up nothin'!" cried Malone. "And when it comes to fightin' ye kin +count on me every—" +</P> + +<P> +"Dry up!" broke in Marny. "You're way off, Malone. No, Joppy, not a man +here will open his head: say the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, listen," continued the Bostonian. "I did everything they +told me: got up at daylight; walked around the spring seven times; +sipped the water; ate what they prescribed; lay in wet sheets two hours +every day; was kneaded by a man with a chest as hairy as a satyr's and +arms like a blacksmith's; stood up and was squirted at; had everything +about me looked into—even stuck needles in my arm for a sample of my +blood; and at the end of three weeks was so thin that my trousers had +to be lapped over in the back under a leather strap to keep them above +my hips, and my coat hung down as if it were ashamed of me. Doctor +Stuffen then handed me a certificate and his bill. This done he stood +me up and repeated this formula—has it printed—all languages: +</P> + +<P> +"'You have now thrown from your system every particle of foul tissues, +Mr.—, ah, yes—Mr. Joblin, I believe.' And he looked at the paper. +'You thought you were reasonably fat, Mr. Joblin. You were not fat, you +were merely bloated. Go now to Stuckbad for two weeks. There you will +take the after-cure; keep strictly to the diet, a list of which I now +hand you. At the expiration of that time you will be a strong man. +Thank you—my secretary will send you a receipt.' +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I went to Stuckbad—crawled really—put up at the hotel and sent +for the resident doctor, Professor Ozzenbach, Member of the Board of +Pharmacy of Berlin, Specialist on Nutrition, Fellow of the Royal +Society of Bacteriologists, President of the Vienna Association of +Physiological Research—that kind of man. He looked me all over and +shook his head. He spoke broken English—badly. +</P> + +<P> +"'Who has dreated you, may I ask, Meester Boblin?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Doctor Stuffen, at Fizzenbad.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah, yes, a fery goot man, but a leedle de times behindt. Vat did you +eat?' +</P> + +<P> +"I handed him the list. +</P> + +<P> +"'No vonder dot you are thin, my frent—yoost as I oxpected—dis ees de +olt deory of broteids. Dot is all oxbloded now. Eef you haf stay anuder +mont you vould be dead. Everyting dot he has dold you vas yoost de +udder way; no bread, no meelk, no vegebubbles—noddings of dis, not von +leedle bit. I vill make von leest—come to-morrow.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you go, Joppy?" inquired Stebbins. +</P> + +<P> +"DID <I>I</I> GO? Yes, back to the depot and on to Cologne. That night I ate +two plates of sauerkraut, a slice of pork and a piece of cheese the +size of my hand; slept like a top." +</P> + +<P> +"So the proteids and carbohydrates didn't do your epigastric any good, +old chap," remarked Pudfut in an effort to relieve the gloom. +</P> + +<P> +"Proteids, carbohydrates and my epigastric be damned," exploded Joplin. +"On your feet, boys, all of you. Here's to the food of our fathers, +with every man a full plate. And here's to dear old Marny, the human +kangaroo. May his appetite never fail and his paunch never shrink!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="buffum"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MISS BUFFUM'S NEW BOARDER +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum's table when I first saw +his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and +broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour, +visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had +avoided that end, or had gradually shifted his seat, gravitating slowly +toward the bottom, where the bank clerk, the college professor and I +hobnobbed over our soup and boiled mutton. +</P> + +<P> +It was his laugh that attracted my attention—the first that had come +from the upper end of the table in the memory of the oldest boarder. +Men talk of the first kiss, the first baby, the first bluebird in the +spring, but to me, who have suffered and know, the first, sincere, +hearty laugh, untrammelled and unlimited, that rings down the +hide-bound table of a dismal boarding-house, carries with it a surprise +and charm that outclasses them all. The effect on this occasion was +like the opening of a window letting in a gust of pure air. Some of the +more sensitive shivered at its freshness, and one woman raised her +eyeglasses in astonishment, but all the rest craned their heads in the +new boarder's direction, their faces expressing their enjoyment. As for +Miss Buffum and the schoolmistress, they so far forgot themselves as to +join audibly in the merriment. +</P> + +<P> +What the secret of the man's power, or why the schoolteacher—who sat +on Miss Buffum's right—should have become suddenly hilarious, or how +Miss Buffum herself could be prodded or beguiled into smiles, no one at +my end of the table could understand; and yet, as the days went by, it +became more and more evident that not only were these two cold, brittle +exteriors being slowly thawed out, but that every one else within the +sound of his seductive voice was yielding to his influence. Stories +that had lain quiet in our minds for months for lack of a willing or +appreciative ear, or had been told behind our hands,—small pipings +most of them of club and social gossip, now became public property, +some being bowled along the table straight at the new boarder, who sent +his own rolling back in exchange, his big, sonorous voice filling the +room as he replied with accounts of his life in Poland among the +peasants; of his experiences in the desert; of a shipwreck off the +coast of Ceylon in which he was given up for lost; of a trip he made +across the Russian steppes in a sleigh—each adventure ending in some +strangely humorous situation which put the table in a roar. +</P> + +<P> +None of these narratives, however, solved the mystery of his identity +or of his occupation. All our good landlady knew was that he had driven +up in a hack one afternoon, bearing a short letter of introduction from +a former lodger—a man who had lived abroad for the previous ten +years—introducing Mr. Norvic Bing; that after its perusal she had +given him the second-story front room, at that moment empty—a fact +that had greatly influenced her—and that he had at once moved in. His +trunks—there were two of them—had, she remembered, been covered with +foreign labels (and still were)—all of which could be verified by any +one who had a right to know and who would take the trouble to inspect +his room when he was out, which occurred every day between ten in the +morning and six in the afternoon, and more often between six in the +afternoon and ten the next morning. The slight additional information +she possessed came from the former lodger's letter, which stated that +the bearer, Mr. Norvic Bing, was a native of Denmark, that he was +visiting America for the first time, and that, desiring a place where +he could live in complete retirement, the writer had recommended Miss +Buffum's house. +</P> + +<P> +As to who he was in his own country—and he certainly must have been +some one of importance, judging from his appearance—and what the +nature of his business, these things did not concern the dear lady in +the least. He was courteous, treated her with marked respect, was +exceedingly agreeable, and had insisted—and this she stated was the +one particular thing that endeared him to her—had insisted on paying +his board a MONTH IN ADVANCE, instead of waiting until the thirty days +had elapsed. His excuse for this unheard-of idiosyncrasy was that he +might some day be suddenly called away, too suddenly even to notify her +of his departure, and that he did not want either his belongings or his +landlady's mind disturbed during his absence. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Buffum's summing up of Bing's courtesy and affability was shared +by every one at my end of the table, although some of them differed as +regarded his origin and occupation. +</P> + +<P> +"Looks more like an Englishman than a Dane," said the bank clerk; +"although I don't know any Danes. But he's a daisy, anyhow, and ought +to have his salary raised for being so jolly." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't agree with you," rejoined the professor. "He is unquestionably +a Scandinavian—you can see that in the high cheekbones and flat nose. +He is evidently studying our people with a view of writing a book. +Nothing else would persuade a man of his parts to live here. I lived in +just such a place the winter I spent in Dresden. You want to get close +to the people when you study their peculiarities. But whoever he is, or +wherever he comes from, he is a most delightful gentleman—perfectly +simple, and so sincere that it is a pleasure to hear him talk." +</P> + +<P> +As for myself, I am ashamed to say that I did not agree with either the +bank clerk or the professor. Although I admitted Mr. Bing's wide +experience of men and affairs, and his marvellous powers of +conversation, I could not divest myself of the conviction that +underneath it all there lay something more than a mere desire to be +either kindly or entertaining; in fact, that his geniality, though +outwardly spontaneous, was really a cloak to hide another side of his +nature—a fog into which he retreated—and that some day the real man +would be revealed. +</P> + +<P> +I made no mention of my misgivings to any of my fellow-boarders. My +knowledge of men of his class—brilliant conversationalists with a +world-wide experience to draw upon—was slight, and my grounds for +doubting his sincerity were so devoid of proof that few persons would +have considered them anything but the product of a disordered mind. +</P> + +<P> +And yet I still held to my opinion. +</P> + +<P> +I had caught something, I fancied, that the others had missed. It +occurred one night after he had told a story and was waiting for the +laugh to subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his +face—the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been +hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps +his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face, +there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious, +so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the +moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the +painted spectacles of the family portrait while he watched his +unconscious victim counting his gold. +</P> + +<P> +This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after +peering into Bing's face, watching for its repetition—so much so that +the professor asked me with a laugh: +</P> + +<P> +"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang +on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't +it?" +</P> + +<P> +The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his +story—when his admonitory glance—his polite way of compelling +attention—was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an +instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from +their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my +brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes +sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled +force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? Had +he read my thoughts, or had he, from his place behind the painted +canvas, caught some expression on some victim's face which had roused +his fears? +</P> + +<P> +Then a delightful thing happened to me. I was but a young fellow trying +to get a foothold in literature, who had never been out of his own +country, and who spoke no tongue but his own; he was a man of the +world, a traveller over the globe and speaking five languages. +</P> + +<P> +"If you're not going out," he said, that same night, "come and have a +smoke with me." This in his heartiest manner, laying his hand on my +shoulder as he spoke. "You'll find me in my room. I've some books that +may interest you, and we can continue our talk by my coal-fire. Come +with me now." +</P> + +<P> +We had had no special talk—none that I could remember. I recalled that +I had asked him an irrelevant question after the flash had vanished, +and that he had answered me in return—but no talk followed. +</P> + +<P> +"I never invite any one up here," he began when we reached his room; +"the place is so small" Here he closed the door, drew up the only +armchair in the room and placed me in it—"but it is large enough for a +place to crawl into and sleep—much larger, I can tell you, than I have +had in many other parts of the world. I can write here, too, without +interruption. What else do we want, really?—To be warm, to be fed and +then to have some congenial spirits about us! I am quite happy, I +assure you, with all those dear, good people downstairs. They are so +kind, and they are so human, and they are all honest, each in his way, +which is always refreshing to me. Most people, you know, are not +honest." And he looked me over curiously. +</P> + +<P> +I made no answer except to nod my assent. My eyes were wandering over +the room in the endeavor to find something to confirm my +suspicions—over the two trunks with their labels; over a desk +littered, piled, crammed with papers; over the mantel, on which was +spread a row of photographs, among them the portrait of a +distinguished-looking woman with a child resting in her lap, and next +to it that of a man in uniform. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—some of my friends across the sea." I had not asked him—he had +read my mind. "This one you did not see—I keep it behind the +others—three of them, like a little pair of steps—all I have left. +The oldest is named Olga, and that little one in the middle, with the +cap on her head—that is Pauline." +</P> + +<P> +"Your children?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, many thousand miles from here! But we won't talk about it. They +are well and happy. And this one"—here he took down the photograph of +the man in full uniform—"is the Grand Duke Vladimir. Yes, a +soldierly-looking man—none of the others are like him. But come now, +tell me of yourself—you have some one at home, too?" +</P> + +<P> +I nodded my head and mentioned my mother and the others at home. +</P> + +<P> +"No sweetheart yet? No?—You needn't answer—we all have sweethearts at +your age—at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so +hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see—to make your bread. And how do you do +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I write." +</P> + +<P> +He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids. +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now +and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines." +</P> + +<P> +He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned +suddenly and again sought my eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as +a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream, +which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add +construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they +call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted +to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped +into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is +statistics, and so I will never be a genius." And a light laugh broke +from his lips. "Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look +at this—I have been all day correcting the proofs." +</P> + +<P> +With this he walked to his table—he had not yet taken a seat, although +a chair was next to my own—and laid in my lap a roll of galley-proofs. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the new encyclopaedia. I do the biographies, you +see—principally of men and the different towns and countries. I have +got down now to the R's—Richelieu—Rochambeau—" his fingers were now +tracing the lines. "Here is Romulus, and here is Russia—I gave that +half a column, and—dry work, isn't it? But I like it, for I can write +here by my fire if I please, and all my other time is my own. You see +they are signed 'Norvic Bing.' I insisted on that. These publishers are +selfish sometimes, and want to efface a writer's personality, but I +would not permit it, and so finally they gave in. But no more of +that—one must eat, and to eat one must work, so why quarrel with the +spade or the ground? See that you raise good crops—that is the best of +all." +</P> + +<P> +Then he branched off into a description of a ball he had attended some +years before at the Tuileries—of the splendor of the interior; the +rich costumes of the women; the blaze of decorations worn by the men; +the graciousness of the Empress and the charm of her beauty—then of a +visit he had made to the Exile a few months after he had reached +Chiselhurst. Throwing up his hands he said: "A feeble old man with +hollow eyes and a cracked voice. Oh, such a pity! For he was +royal—although all Europe laughed." +</P> + +<P> +When the time came for me to go—it was near midnight, to my +astonishment—he followed me to the door, bidding me good-night with +both hands over mine, saying I should come again when he was at +leisure, as he had been that night—which I promised to do, adding my +thanks for what I declared was the most delightful evening I had ever +spent in my life. +</P> + +<P> +And it had been—and with it there had oozed out of my mind every drop +of my former suspicion. There was another side that he was hiding from +us, but it was the side of tenderness for his children—for those he +loved and from whom he was parted. I had boasted to myself of my +intuition and had looked, as I supposed, deep into his heart, and all I +found were three little faces. With this came a certain feeling of +shame that I had been stupid enough to allow my imagination to run away +with my judgment. Hereafter I would have more sense. +</P> + +<P> +All that winter Bing was the life of the house. The days on which his +seat was empty—off getting statistics for the encyclopaedia, I +explained to my fellow-boarders, I being looked upon now as having +special information owing to my supposed intimacy, although I had never +entered his room since that night—on these days, I say, the table +relapsed into its old-time dullness. +</P> + +<P> +One night I found his card on my pin-cushion. I always locked my door +myself when I left my room—had done so that night, I thought, but I +must have forgotten it. Under his name was written: "Say good-by to the +others." +</P> + +<P> +I concluded, of course, that it was but for a few days and that he +would return as usual, and hold out his two big generous hands to each +one down the table, leaving a warmth behind him which they had not +known since he last pressed their palms—and so on down until he +reached Miss Buffum and the school-teacher, who would both rise in +their seats to welcome him. +</P> + +<P> +With the passing of the first week the good lady became uneasy; the +board, as usual, had been paid in advance, but it was the man she +missed. No one else could add the drop of oil to the machinery of the +house, nor would it run smoothly without him. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the second week she rapped at my door and with trembling +steps led me to Bing's room. She had opened it with her own pass-key—a +liberty she never allowed any one to take except herself, and never +then unless some emergency arose. It was empty of everything that +belonged to him—had been for days. The room had been set in order and +the bed had been made up by the maid the day he left and had not been +slept in since. Trunks, books, manuscripts, photographs—all were +gone—not a vestige of anything belonging to him was visible. +</P> + +<P> +I stooped down and examined the grate. On the top of the dead coals lay +a little heap of ashes—all that was left of a package of letters. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Five years passed. Times had changed with me. I had long since left my +humble quarters at Miss Buffum's and now had two rooms in an uptown +apartment-house. My field of work, too, had become enlarged. I had +ceased to write for the Sunday papers and was employed on special +articles for the magazines. This had widened my acquaintance with men +and with life. Heretofore I had known the dark alleys and slums, the +inside of station-houses, bringing me in contact with the police and +with some of the detectives, among them Alcorn of the Central Office, a +man who had sought me out of his own accord. Many of these trusted me +and from them I gathered much of my material. Now I explored other +fields. With the backing of the editor I often claimed seats at the +opening of important conventions—not so much political as social and +scientific; so, too, at many of the public dinners given to our own and +distinguished foreign guests, would a seat be reserved for me, my +object being the study of men when they were off their guard—reading +their minds, finding out the man behind the mask, a habit I had never +yet thrown off. Most men have some mental fad—this was mine. Sometimes +my articles found an echo in a note written to me by the guests +themselves; this would fill me with joy. Often I was criticised for the +absurdity of my views. +</P> + +<P> +On this occasion a great banquet was to be given to Prince Polinski, a +nephew of the Czar and possible heir to the throne. The press had been +filled with the detail of his daily life—of the dinners, teas and +functions given by society in his honor; of his reception by the mayor, +of his audience at the White House; of the men who guarded his person; +of his "opinions," "impressions" and "views" on this, that and the +other thing, but so far no one had dissected the man himself. +</P> + +<P> +What our editor wanted was a minute analysis of the mind of a young +Russian studied at close range. The occasion of the banquet was +selected because I could then examine him at my leisure. The results +were to be used by the editor in an article of his own, my memoranda +being only so much padding. +</P> + +<P> +When I entered and took up a position near the door where I could look +him over, Delmonico's largest reception-room was crowded with guests: +bankers, railroad presidents, politicians, officers of the army and +navy, judges, doctors, and the usual collection of white shirt-fronts +that fill the seats at a public dinner of this kind. The Prince was in +the uniform of an officer of the Imperial Navy. He was heavily built +and tall, with a swarthy face enlivened by a pointed mustache. The +Russian Ambassador at his side was in full dress and wore a number of +decorations: these two needed no pointing out. Some of the others were +less distinguishable-among them a heavily-built man in evening-dress, +with a full beard and mustache which covered his face almost to his +eyes—soft and bushy as the hair on a Spitz dog and as black. With a +leather apron and a broad-axe he would have passed at a masquerade for +an executioner of the olden time. Despite this big beard, there was a +certain bearing about the man—a certain elegance both of manner and +gesture—talking with his hands, accentuating his sentences with +outstretched fingers, lifting his shoulders in a shrug (I saw all this +from across the room where I stood)—that showed clearly not only his +high position, but his breeding. What position he held under the Prince +I was, of course, unaware, but it must have been very close, for the +big Russian kept him constantly at the royal side. I noted, too, that +the Prince was careful to introduce him to many who were brought up to +shake his hand. +</P> + +<P> +When the procession was formed to march into the dining-hall, Polinski +came first on the arm of the mayor; then followed a group of +dignitaries, including the Ambassadors, the black-bearded man walking +by the side of the Prince, who would now and then turn and address him. +</P> + +<P> +My seat was against the wall opposite the dais, and knowing that I +should have scant opportunity to study the Prince's face from where I +sat, I edged my way along the side of the corridor, the crowd making +progress difficult for him, but easy for me, as I crept close to the +wall. When I reached the door opening into the banquet hall I took up a +position just inside the jamb, so that I could get a full view of the +Prince as he passed. +</P> + +<P> +At this instant I became aware that a pair of broad shoulders were +touching mine. Turning quickly, I found myself looking into the face of +the bearded Russian. His eyes were fastened on mine, an inquiring, +rather surprised look on his face, as if he was wondering at the bad +manners of a man who would thrust himself ahead of a royal personage. +For an instant the features were calm and impassive, then as he +continued to look at me there flashed out of his eyes a search-light +glance that shot straight through me. +</P> + +<P> +It was Bing! +</P> + +<P> +Bearded like a Cossack; more heavily built, solemn, dignified, elegant +in carriage and demeanor, with not a trace of jollity about him—but +Bing all the same! I could have sworn to it! +</P> + +<P> +The flash burned for an instant; the eyes behind the canvas dodged +back, then with a graceful wave of the hand he turned to the Ambassador +who was now abreast of him and said in a voice so low that I caught the +words but not the full tone: +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it a charming sight, your Excellency? There is nothing like the +hospitality of these wonderful Americans." And the two passed into the +brilliantly-lighted hall. +</P> + +<P> +I made my way to my seat and sat thinking it over. That he had +recognized me was without question; that he had ignored me was equally +true—why, I could not tell. +</P> + +<P> +For years I had made him one of my heroes. He had stood for +cheerfulness, for contentment with one's lot, for consideration for +another—and always a weaker brother. When his abrupt departure had +been criticised by my fellow-boarders, I had stemmed the tide against +him, dilating on his love for his children, on his loneliness away from +them; on his simplicity, his common-sense, his desire to help even a +young fellow like me who had no claim upon him. In return he had seen +fit to treat me with contempt—I who would have been so proud to tell +him how his advice had helped me and what progress I had made by +following it. +</P> + +<P> +The incident took such hold upon me that I found myself dissecting his +mentality instead of that of the Great Personage in the public eye. As +I analyzed my feelings I found that he had hurt my heart more than my +pride. I would have been so glad to shake his hand—so glad to rejoice +with him over his changed conditions—once the occupant of a front room +in a cheap boarding-house, supporting himself by filling space in the +columns of an encyclopaedia, and now the bosom friend of Princes and +Ambassadors! +</P> + +<P> +Then a doubt arose in my mind. WAS it Bing? Had I not made a mistake? +How could a smooth-shaven Dane with blond hair transform himself into a +swarthy Russian with the beard of a Cossack? There was, it is true, no +change in the eyes or in the round head—in the whiteness and width of +the forehead, or the breadth of the shoulders. All these I went over +one by one as I watched him every now and then lean across the table +and speak to some of the distinguished guests that surrounded him. The +thing which puzzled me was his grave, sedate demeanor, dignified, +almost austere at times. A man, I thought, might grow a beard and dye +it, but how could he grow a different set of manners, how smother his +jollity, how wipe out his spontaneous buoyancy? +</P> + +<P> +No, it was not Bing! It was only my stupid self. I was always ready to +find the mysterious and unnatural. I turned to the guest next me. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know who that man is on the dais," I asked; "the one all black +and white, with the big beard?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, one of the Prince's suite; some jaw-breaking name with an +'-usski' on the end of it. He brought him with him; looks like a bull +pup chewing a muff, doesn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +I smiled at the comparison, but I was still in doubt. +</P> + +<P> +When the banquet broke up I hurried out ahead of the others and posted +myself at the top of the staircase leading down to the side door of the +street. The Prince's carriage—an ordinary cab—was ordered to this +door to escape the crowd and to avoid any delay. This I learned from my +old friend Alcorn of the Central Office, who was in charge of the +detectives at the dinner, and who in answer to my request said: +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly I'll let you through. Come alone, and don't speak to me as +you go by. I'll say you're one of us. The crowd thinks he's going out +by the other door, and you can get pretty close to him." +</P> + +<P> +The Prince came first, wrapped in furs—the black-bearded Russian at +his side in overcoat, silk hat and white gloves. The Ambassador and the +others had bidden them good-night at the top of the staircase. +</P> + +<P> +Under Alcorn's direction I had placed myself just inside the street +door where I could slip out behind the Prince and his black-bearded +companion. As a last resort I determined to walk straight up to him and +say: "You haven't forgotten me, Mr. Bing, have you?" If I had changed +so as to need proof of my identity Alcorn would furnish it. Whatever +his answer, his voice would solve my mystery. +</P> + +<P> +He walked down the stairs with an easy, swinging movement, keeping a +little behind the Prince; waited until Alcorn had opened the street +door and with a nod of thanks followed Polinski out into the night. +Once outside I shrank back into the shadow of the doorway and held my +breath to catch his first spoken word—to the coachman—to the +Prince—to any one who came in his way. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment a man in a slouch hat and poorly dressed, a light cane +under his arm, evidently a tramp, hurried across the street to hold the +cab door. I edged nearer, straining my ears. +</P> + +<P> +The Prince bent his head and stooped to enter the cab. The tramp leaned +forward, shot up his right arm; there came a flash of steel, and the +next instant the tramp lay writhing on the sidewalk, one hand twisted +under his back, the other held in the viselike grip of the +black-bearded man. Alcorn rushed past me, threw himself on the +prostrate tramp, slipped a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, dragged +him to his feet, and with one hand on his throat backed him into the +shadow of the side door. +</P> + +<P> +The Prince smiled and stepped into his carriage. The black-bearded man +dusted his white gloves one on the other, gave an order in a low tone +to the coachman, took his place beside his companion and the two drove +off. +</P> + +<P> +I stood out in the rain and tried to pull myself together. The rapidity +of the attack; the poise and strength of the black-bearded Russian; the +quickness with which Alcorn had risen to the occasion; the absence of +all outcry or noise of any kind—no one but ourselves witnessing the +occurrence—had taken my breath away. That an attack had been made on +the life of the Prince, and that it had been frustrated by his friend, +was evident. It was also evident that accosting a Prince on the +sidewalk at night without previous acquaintance was a dangerous +experiment. When I recovered my wits both Alcorn and the would-be +assassin had disappeared. So had the cab. +</P> + +<P> +Only two morning journals had an account of the affair; one dismissed +it with a fling at the police for not protecting our guests from +annoyance, and the other stated that a drunken tramp had demanded the +price of a night's lodging from the Prince as he was leaving +Delmonico's, and that a member of the Prince's suite had held the +fellow until a policeman came along and took him to the station-house. +Not a word of the murderous lunge, the flash of steel, the viselike +grip of the black-bearded man or the click of the handcuffs. +</P> + +<P> +That night I found Alcorn. +</P> + +<P> +"Did that fellow try to stab the Prince?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"With a knife?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, a sword cane." +</P> + +<P> +"The papers didn't say so." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I didn't intend they should. Wouldn't have been pleasant reading +for his folks in St. Petersburg. Besides, we haven't rounded up his +gang yet." +</P> + +<P> +"The Prince didn't seem to lose his nerve?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No, he isn't built that way." +</P> + +<P> +"You know him, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—been with him every day since he arrived." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is the black-bearded man with him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is his intimate friend, Count Lovusski. Been all over the world +together." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Lovusski his ONLY name?" This seemed to be my chance. +</P> + +<P> +Alcorn turned quickly and looked into my face. +</P> + +<P> +"On the dead quiet, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Alcorn, you can trust me." +</P> + +<P> +"No—he's got half a dozen of 'em. In Paris in '70 he was Baron +Germunde with estates in Hungary. Lived like a fighting-cock; knew +everybody at the Palace and everybody knew him—stayed there all +through the Franco-Prussian War. In London in '75 he was plain Mr. +Loring, trying to raise money for a mine somewhere in Portugal—knew +nobody but stockbrokers and bank presidents. In New York five years ago +he was Mr. Norvic Bing, and worked on some kind of a dictionary; lived +in a boarding-house on Union Square." +</P> + +<P> +I could not conceal my delight. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew I was right!" I cried, laying my hand on his arm. "I lived with +him there a whole winter." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he told me so. That's why I am telling you the rest of it." +Alcorn was smiling, a curious expression lighting his face. +</P> + +<P> +"And how came he to be such a friend of the Prince's?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He isn't his friend—isn't anybody's friend. He's a special agent of +the Russian Secret Service." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="susieann"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CAPTAIN JOE AND THE SUSIE ANN +</H3> + +<P> +Wide of beam, stout of mast, short-bowspritted, her boom clewed up to +clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet +for'ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; +at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially +eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper +named Baxter,—such was the sloop Susie Ann, and her outfit and her +commander, as she lay alongside the dock in New London Harbor, ready to +discharge her cargo at the site of Shark Ledge Lighthouse, eight miles +seaward. +</P> + +<P> +On the dock itself, over a wharf post sprawled her owner, old Abram +Marrows, a thin, long, badly put together man, awkward as a stepladder +and as rickety, who, after trying everything from farming to selling a +patent churn, had at last become a shipowner, the Susie Ann, comprising +his entire fleet. Marrows had come to see her off; this being the +sloop's first trip for the season. +</P> + +<P> +Lying outside the Susie Ann—her lines fast to an off-shore spile, was +the construction tug of the lighthouse gang, the deck strewn with +diving gear, water casks and the like,—all needed in the furthering of +the work at the ledge. On the tug's forward deck, hat off and jacket +swinging loose, stood Captain Joe Bell in charge of the submarine work +at the site, glorious old Captain Joe, with the body of a capstan, legs +stiff as wharf posts, arms and hands tough as cant hooks and heart +twice as big as all of them put together. +</P> + +<P> +Each and every piece of stone,—some of them weighed seven +tons,—stowed aboard the Susie Ann, was, when she arrived alongside the +foundation of the lighthouse, to be lowered over her side and sent down +to Captain Joe to place in thirty feet of water. This fact made him +particular both as to the kind of vessel engaged and the ability of the +skipper. Bad seamanship might not only endanger the security of the +work but his own life as well,—a diver not being as quick as a crab or +blackfish in getting from under a seven-ton stone dropped from tripdogs +at the signal to "lower away." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe's inspection of the Susie Ann's skipper was anything but +satisfactory, judging from the way he opened his battery of protest. +</P> + +<P> +"Baxter ain't fittin', I tell ye, Abram Marrows," he exploded. "He +ain't fittin' and never will be. Baxter don't know most nothin'. Set +him to grubbin' clams, Abram, but don't let him fool 'round the Ledge. +He'll git the sloop ashore, I tell ye, or drop a stone and hurt +somebody. Go and git a MAN som'ers and put him in charge,—not a +half-baked—" here he lowered his muzzle and fired point-blank at the +object of his wrath,—"Yes, and I'll say it to your face, Captain +Baxter. You take my advice and lay off for this v'yage,—it ain't no +picnic out to the Ledge. You ain't seen it since we got the stone 'bove +high water. Reg'lar mill tail! You go ashore, I tell ye,—or ye'll lose +the sloop." +</P> + +<P> +Many of the men ranged along the top of the cabin of the tug, or +perched on its rail, wondered at the vehemence of the captain's attack, +"Moon-faced Baxter," as he was called, having a fair reputation as a +seaman. They knew, too, that Captain Joe was aware of the condition of +Marrows's affairs, for it had been common talk that the bank had loaned +Abram several hundred dollars with the sloop as security on the +captain's own personal inspection. Some of them had even been present +when Mrs. Marrows,—a faded old woman with bleached eyes and a +pursed-up mouth, her shawl hooding her head and pinned close under her +chin with her thumb and forefinger,—had begged Captain Joe to try the +Susie Ann for a few loads until Abram could "ketch up," and had heard +his promise to help her. +</P> + +<P> +But they made no protest. Such outbursts on the captain's part were but +the escaping steam from the overcharged boiler of his indignation. +Underneath lay the firebox of his heart, chock full of red-hot coals +glowing with sympathy for every soul who needed his help. If his safety +valve let go once in a while it was to escape from greater danger. +</P> + +<P> +His long range ammunition exhausted, Captain Joe turned on his heel and +walked aft to where his diving gear was piled, venting his indignation +at every step. This time the outburst was directed to me,—(it was my +weekly inspection at the Ledge). +</P> + +<P> +"Can't jam nothin' into his head, sir. Stubbornest mule 'round this +harbor. Warn't for that wife o' his Abe Marrows would a-been high and +dry long ago. Every time he gits something purty good he goes and fools +it away;—sold his farm and bought that sloop; then he clapped a +plaster on it in the bank to start a cook shop. But the wife's all +right;—only last week she come to me lookin' like she'd bu'st out +cryin',—sayin' the sloop was all they had, and I promised her then I'd +use the Susie, but she never said nothin' 'bout Baxter being in charge, +or I'd stopped him 'fore he loaded her. Well, there ain't no tellin' +what nat'ral born fools like Abe Marrows'll do, but it's something +ornery and criss-cross if Abe Marrows does it. That woman's worked her +fingers off for him, but he'll git her in the poor-house yit,—see if +he don't." +</P> + +<P> +Marrows had heard every word of Captain Joe's outburst, but he made no +answer except to lift his thin elbows and spread his fingers in a +deprecatory way, as if in protest. Baxter maintained a dogged +silence;—the least said in answer the better. Captain Joe Bell was not +a man either to contradict or oppose;—better let him blow it all out. +Both owner and skipper determined to take the risk. The Susie Ann had +been laid up all winter awaiting the opening of the spring work, and +the successful carrying out of the present venture was Marrows's only +escape from financial ruin, and Baxter's only chance of getting his +back wages. There was an unpaid bill, too, for caulking, then a year +old, lying in Abram's bureau drawer, together with an account at Mike +Lavin's machine shop for a new set of grate bars, now almost worn out. +Worse than all the bank's lien on the sloop was due in a few weeks. +What money the sloop earned, therefore, must be earned quickly. +</P> + +<P> +And then again, Abram ruminated, Shark Ledge wasn't the worst place on +the coast,—despite Captain Joe's warning,—especially on this +particular morning, when a light wind was blowing off shore. Plenty of +other sloops had delivered stone over their rails to the divers below. +Marrows remembered that he had been out to the Ledge himself when the +Screamer came up into the wind and crawled slowly up until her forefoot +was within a biscuit toss of the stone pile. +</P> + +<P> +What Marrows forgot was that Captain Bob Brandt of Cape Ann had then +held the spokes of the Screamer's wheel,—a man who knew every twist +and turn of the treacherous tide. +</P> + +<P> +So Baxter shook out the sloop's jib and mainsail and started on his +journey eight miles seaward, with orders to make fast on arrival to the +spar buoy which lay within a few hundred yards of the Ledge, and there +wait until the tide turned, when she could drop into position to +unload. The tug with all of us on board would follow when we had taken +on fresh water and coal. +</P> + +<P> +On the run out Captain Joe watched the sloop until she had made her +first tack, then he turned to his work and again busied himself in +overhauling his diving dress; tightening the set-screws in his copper +collar, re-cording his breastplate and putting new leather thongs in +his leaden shoes. There was some stone on the sloop's deck which was +needed to complete a level down among the black fish and torn +cod,—twenty-two feet down,—where the sea kelp streamed up in long +blades above the top of his helmet and the rock crabs scurried out of +his way. If Baxter didn't make a "tarnel fool of himself and git into +one o' them swirl-holes," he intended to get these stones into place +before night. +</P> + +<P> +He knew these "holes," as he did every other swirl around the ledge and +what they could do and what they couldn't. They were his swirls, +really,—for he had placed every individual fragment of the +obstructions that caused them with his own hands, in thirty feet of +water. +</P> + +<P> +Some three years before the site had been marked by a spindle bearing +an iron cage and fastened to a huge boulder known as Shark Ledge Rock, +and covered at low water. The unloading of various sloops and schooners +under his orders had enlarged this submerged rock to a miniature +island, its ragged crest thrust above the sea. This obstruction to the +will of the wind and tide, and the ever-present six-mile current, +caused by the narrowing of Long Island Sound in its onrush to the sea, +acted as a fallen log that blocks a mountain stream, or a boulder that +plugs a torrent. That which for centuries had been a steady "set" every +six hours east and west, had now become a "back-and-in suck" fringed by +a series of swirling undercurrents dealing death and destruction to the +ignorant and unwary. +</P> + +<P> +Not been long since a schooner loaded with concrete had been saved from +destruction by the merest chance, and later on a big scow caught in the +swirl had parted her buoy lines and would have landed high and dry on +the stone pile had not Captain Joe run a hawser to her, twisted its +bight around the drum of his engine and warped her off just in time to +save her bones from sea worms. +</P> + +<P> +As the tug approached, the Ledge, looming up on the dim horizon line, +looked like a huge whale spouting derricks, a barnacle of a shanty +clinging to its back. Soon there rose into relief the little knot of +men gathered about one of the whale's fins—our landing stage,—and +then, as we came alongside, the welcome curl of the smoke, telling of +fried pork and saleratus biscuit. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe's orders now came thick and fast. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurry dinner, Nichols,"—this to the shanty cook, who was leaning out +of the galley window,—"And here,—three or four o' ye, git this divin' +stuff ashore, and then all hands to dinner. The wind's ag'in +Baxter,—he won't git here for an hour. Startin' on one o' them long +legs o' his'n now,"—and the captain's eye rested on the sloop beating +up Fisher's Island way. +</P> + +<P> +"And, Billy,—'fore ye go ashore, jump into the yawl and take a look at +that snatch block on the spar buoy,—that clam digger may want it 'fore +night." +</P> + +<P> +This spar buoy lay a few hundred yards off the Whale's Snout. Loaded +vessels were moored to this quill bob, held in place by a five-ton +sinker, until they were ready to drop into the eddy and there discharge +their stone. +</P> + +<P> +Dinner over the men fell to work, each to his job. The derrick gang was +set to shifting a boom on to the larger derrick, the concrete mixers +picked up their shovels, and I went to work on the pay-roll of the +week. This I always figured up in the little dry-goods box of a room +opening out of the galley in the end of our board shanty, its window +looking toward Montauk. +</P> + +<P> +As I leaned my arms on the sill for a glimpse of the wide expanse of +blue and silver, the cotton rag that served as a curtain flapped in my +face. I pushed it aside and craned my neck north and south. The curtain +had acted as a weather vane,—the wind had hauled to the east. +</P> + +<P> +The sky, too, had dulled. Little lumpy clouds showed near the horizon +line, and, sailing above these, hung a dirt spot of vapor, while aloft +glowed some prismatic sundogs, shimmering like opals. Etched against +the distance, with a tether line fastened to the spar buoy, lay the +Susie Ann. She had that moment arrived and had made fast. Her sails +were furled, her boom swinging loose and ready, the smoke from her +hoister curling from the end of her smoke pipe thrust up out of the +forward hatch. +</P> + +<P> +Then I looked closer in. +</P> + +<P> +Below me, on the concrete platform, rested our big air pump, and beside +it stood Captain Joe. He had slipped into his diving dress and was at +the moment adjusting the breastplates of lead, weighing twenty-five +pounds each, to his chest and back. His leaden shoes were already on +his feet. With the exception of his copper helmet, the signal line +around his wrist, and the life line about his waist, he was ready to go +under water. +</P> + +<P> +Pretty soon he would don his helmet, and, with a last word to Jimmy, +his tender, would tuck his chin whisker inside the round opening, wait +until the face plate was screwed on, and then, with a cheerful nod +behind the glass, denoting that his air was coming all right, would +step down his rude ladder into the sea,—down,—down,—down to his +place among the crabs and the seaweed. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly my ears became conscious of a conversation carried on in a low +tone around the corner of the shanty. +</P> + +<P> +"Old Moon-face'll have to git up and git in a minute," said a derrick +man to a shoveller,—born sailors, these,—"there'll be a red-hot time +'round here 'fore night." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there ain't no wind." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't no wind,—ain't there? See that bobble waltzin' in?" +</P> + +<P> +I looked seaward, and my eyes rested on a ragged line of silver edging +the horizon toward Montauk. +</P> + +<P> +"Does look soapy, don't it?" answered the shoveller. "Wonder if Cap'n +Joe sees it." +</P> + +<P> +Cap'n Joe had seen it—fifteen minutes ahead of anybody else,—had been +watching it to the exclusion of any other object. He knew the +sea,—knew every move of the merciless, cunning beast; had watched it +many a time, lying in wait for its chance to tear and strangle. More +than once had he held on to the rigging when, with a lash of its tail, +it had swept a deck clean, or had stuck to the pumps for days while it +sucked through opening seams the life-blood of his helpless craft. The +game here would be to lift its victim on the back of a smooth +under-roller and with mighty effort hurl it like a battering ram +against the shore rocks, shattering its timbers into drift wood. +</P> + +<P> +"Billy," said Captain Joe to the shoveller, "go down to the edge of the +stone pile and holler to the sloop to cast off and make for home. +Hurry, now! And, Jimmy,"—this to his pump tender,—"unhook this +breastplate,—there won't be no divin', today. I've been mistrustin' +the wind would haul ever since I got up this mornin'." +</P> + +<P> +The shoveller sprang from the platform and began clambering over the +slippery, slimy rocks like a crab, his red shirt marked with the white +"X" of his suspenders in relief against the blue water. When he reached +the outermost edge of the stone pile, where the ten-ton blocks lay, he +made a megaphone of his fingers and repeated the captain's orders to +the Susie Ann. +</P> + +<P> +Baxter listened with his hands cupped to his ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Who says so?" came back the reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Cap'n Joe." +</P> + +<P> +"What fur?" +</P> + +<P> +"Goin' to blow,—don't ye see it?" +</P> + +<P> +Baxter stepped gingerly along the sloop's rail. Obeying the order meant +twenty-four hour's delay in making sure of his wages,—perhaps a week, +spring weather being uncertain. He didn't "see no blow." Besides, if +there was one coming, it wasn't his sloop or his stone. When he reached +the foot of the bowsprit Moon-face sent this answer over the water: +</P> + +<P> +"Let her blow and be d—! This sloop's chartered to deliver this stone. +We've got steam up and the stuff's goin' over outside. Get your divers +ready. I ain't shovin' no baby carriage and don't you forgit it. I'm +comin' on! Cast off that buoy line, you,"—this to one of his men. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe continued stripping off his leaden breastplate. He had +heard his order repeated and knew that it had been given +correctly,—Baxter's subsequent proceedings did not interest him. If he +had anything to say in answer it was of no moment to him. His word was +law on the Ledge; first, because the men daily trusted their lives to +his guidance, and, second, because they all loved him with a love hard +for a landsman to understand, especially today, when the boss and the +gang never, by any possibility, pull together. +</P> + +<P> +"Baxter says he's comin' on, sir," said Billy, when he reached the +captain's side, the grin on his sunburnt face widening until its two +ends hooked over his ears. Billy had heard nothing so funny for weeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Comin' on?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what he hollered. Wants you to git ready to take his stuff, +sir." +</P> + +<P> +I was out of the shanty now. I came in two jumps. With that squall +rushing from the eastward and the tide making flood, any man who would +leave the protection of the spar buoy for the purpose of unloading was +fit for a lunatic asylum. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe had straightened up and was screening his eyes with his +hand when I reached his side, his gaze rivetted on the loosened sloop, +which had now hauled in her tether line and was drifting clear of the +buoy. The captain was still incredulous. +</P> + +<P> +"No, he ain't comin'," he said to me. "He's all right,—he'll port his +helm in a minute,—but he'd better send up his jib"—and he swept his +eye around,—"and that quick, too." +</P> + +<P> +At this instant the sloop wavered and lurched heavily. The outer edge +of the insuck had caught her bow. +</P> + +<P> +Men's minds work quickly in times of great danger,—minds like Captain +Joe's. In a flash he had taken in the fast-approaching roller, +froth-capped by the sudden squall; the surging vessel and the scared +face of Baxter, who, having realized his mistake was now clutching +wildly at the tiller and shouting orders to his men, none of which +could be carried out. Captain Joe knew what would happen,—what had +happened before, and what would happen again with fools like +Baxter,—now,—in a minute,—before he could reach the edge of the +stone pile, hampered as he was in a rubber suit that bound his arms and +tied his great legs together. And he understood too the sea's game, and +that the only way to outwit it would be to use the beast's own tactics. +When it gathered itself for the thrust and started in to hurl the +doomed vessel the full length of its mighty arms, the sloop's only +safety lay in widening the space. A cushion of backwater would then +receive the sloop's forefoot in place of the snarling teeth of low +crunching rocks. +</P> + +<P> +He had kicked off both shoes by this time and was shouting out +directions to Baxter, who was slowly and surely being sucked into the +swirl:— +</P> + +<P> +"Up with your jib! No,—NO! Let that mainsail alone! UP! Do ye want to +git her on the stone pile, you? Port your helm! PORT! O GOD!—Look at +him!!" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe had slid from the platform now and was flopping his great +body over the slimy, slippery rocks like a seal, falling into water +holes every other step, crawling out on his belly, rolling from one +slanting stone to another, shouting to his men, every time he had the +breath:— +</P> + +<P> +"Man that yawl and run a line as quick as God'll let ye—out to the +buoy! Do ye hear? Pull that fall off the drum of the h'ister and git +the end of a line on it! She'll be on top of us in a minute and the +mast out of her! QUICK!" +</P> + +<P> +Jimmy sprang for a coil of rope; Billy and the others threw themselves +after him; while half a dozen men working around the small eddy in the +lee of the diminutive island caught up the oars and made a dash for the +yawl. +</P> + +<P> +All this time the sloop, under the uplift of the first big Montauk +roller,—the skirmish line of the attack,—surged, bow on, to +destruction. Baxter, although shaking with fear, had sense enough left +to keep her nose pointed to the stone pile. The mast might come out of +her, but that was better than being gashed amidships and sunk in thirty +feet of water. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe, his rubber suit wet and glistening as a shiny porpoise, +his hair matted to his head, had now reached the outermost rock +opposite the doomed craft, and stood near enough to catch every +expression that crossed Baxter's face, who, white as chalk, was holding +the tiller with all his strength, cap off, his blousy hair flying in +the increasing gale, his mouth tight shut. Go ashore she must. It would +be every man for himself then. No help would come,—no help COULD come. +Captain Joe and his men would run for shelter as soon as the blow fell, +and leave them to their fate. Men like Baxter are built to think this +way. +</P> + +<P> +All these minutes—seconds, really,—Captain Joe stood bending forward, +watching where the sloop would strike, his hands outstretched in the +attitude of a ball-player awaiting a ball. If her nose should hit the +sharp, square edges of one of the ten-ton blocks, God help her! She +would split wide open like a melon. If by any chance her forefoot +should be thrust into one of the many gaps between the enrockment +blocks,—spaces from two to three feet wide,—and her bow timbers thus +take the shock, there was a living chance to save her. +</P> + +<P> +A cry from Baxter, who had dropped the tiller and was scrambling over +the stone-covered deck to the bowsprit, reached the captain's ears, but +he never altered his position. What he was to do must be done surely. +Baxter didn't count,—wasn't in the back of his head. There were plenty +of willing hands to pick up Baxter and his men. +</P> + +<P> +Then a thing happened which, if I had not seen it, I would never have +believed possible. The water cushion of the outsuck helped,—so did the +huge roller which, in its blind rage, had underestimated the distance +between its lift and the wide-open jaws of the rock,—as a maddened +bull often underestimates the length of its thrust, its horns falling +short of the matador. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever the cause, Captain Joe watched his chance, sprang to the +outermost rock, and, bracing his great snubbing posts of legs against +its edge, reversed his body, caught the wavering sloop on his broad +shoulders, close under her bowsprit chains, and pushed back with all +his might. +</P> + +<P> +Then began a struggle between the strength of the man and the lunge of +the sea. With every succeeding onslaught, and before the savage roller +could fully lift the staggering craft to hurl her to destruction, +Captain Joe, with the help of the outsuck, would shove her back from +the waiting rocks. This was repeated again and again,—the men in the +rescuing yawl meanwhile bending every muscle to carry out the captain's +commands. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes his head was free enough to shout his orders, and sometimes +both man and bow were smothered in suds. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep that fall clear!" would come his order "Stand ready to catch the +yawl! Shut that—" here a souse would stop his breath,—"shut that +furnace door! Do ye want the steam out of the b'iler?"—etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +That the slightest misstep on the slimy rocks on which his feet were +braced meant sending him under the sloop's bow where he would be caught +between her forefoot and the rocks and ground into pulp concerned him +as little as did the fact that Baxter and his men had crawled along the +bowsprit over his head and had dropped to the island without wetting +their shoes. That his diving suit was full of water and he soaking wet +to the skin, made not the slightest difference to him—no more than it +would to a Newfoundland dog saving a child. His thoughts were on other +things,—on the rescuing yawl speeding toward the spar buoy, on the +stout hands and knowing ones who were pulling for all they were worth +to that anchor of safety;—on two of his own men who, seeing Baxter's +cowardly desertion, had sprung like cats at the bowsprit of the sloop +in one of her dives, and were then on the stern ready to pay out a line +to the yawl when she reached the goal. No,—he'd hold on "till hell +froze over." +</P> + +<P> +A hawser now ripped itself clear from out the crest of a roller. This +meant that the two cats, despite the increasing gale and thrash of the +onrushing sea had succeeded in paying out a stern line to the men in +the yawl, who had slipped it through the snatch block fastened in the +buoy. It meant, too, that this line had been connected with the line +they had brought with them from the island, its far end being around +the drum of our hoister. +</P> + +<P> +A shrill cry now came from one of the crew in the yawl alongside the +spar buoy, followed instantly by the clear, ringing order, "GO AHEAD!" +</P> + +<P> +Now a burst of feathery steam plumed skyward, and then the slow +"chuggity-chug" of our drum cogs rose in the air. The stern line +straightened until it was as rigid as a bar of iron, sagged for an +instant under the slump of the staggering sloop, straightened again, +and remained rigid. The sloop, held by the stern line, crept slowly +back to safety. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Joe looked over his shoulder, noted the widening distance, and +leaped back to the inshore rocks. +</P> + +<P> +Late that afternoon, when the tug, with Captain Joe and me on board, +reached the tug's moorings in New London harbor, the dock was crowded +with anxious faces,—Abram Marrows and his wife among them. It had been +an anxious day along the shore road. The squall, which had blown for +half an hour and had then slunk away toward Little Gull, grumbling as +it went, had sent everything that could seek shelter bowling into New +London Harbor under close reefs. It had also started Marrows and his +wife on a run to the dock, where they had stood for hours straining +their eyes seaward, each incoming vessel, as she swooped past the dock +into the inner basin, adding to their anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't give a keg o' sp'ilt fish for her. Ain't a livin' chance o' +savin' her," had bellowed the captain of a fishing smack, as he swept +by, within biscuit-toss of the dock, his boom submerged, the water +curling over the rail. +</P> + +<P> +"She went slap ag'in them chunks o' cut stone!" shouted the mate of a +tug through the window of a pilot house. +</P> + +<P> +"Got her off with her bow split open, but they can't keep her free! +Sunk by now, I guess," had yelled one of the crew of a dory making for +the shipyard. +</P> + +<P> +As each bulletin was shouted back over the water in answer to the +anxious inquiries of Marrows, the wife would clasp her fingers the +tighter. She made no moan or outburst. Abram would blame her and say it +was her fault,—everything was her fault that went wrong. +</P> + +<P> +When the tug had made fast to a wharf spile Captain Joe cleared the +stringpiece, and walked straight to Marrows. He was still soaking wet +underneath his clothes, only his outer garments being dry,—a condition +which never affected him in the least, "salt water bein' healthy," he +would say. +</P> + +<P> +"What did I tell ye, Abram Marrows?" he exploded, in a voice that could +be heard to the turnpike. "Didn't I say Baxter warn't fittin', and that +he ought ter be grubbin' clams? Go and dig a hole some'er's and cover +him up head and ears,—and dig it quick, too, and I'll lend ye a +shovel." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but, Captain Joe,"—protested Marrows. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you 'well' me. Well, nothin'. You're bad as him. Go and dig a +hole and BOTH on ye git in it!"—and he pushed through the crowd on his +way to his house, I close at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +The wife, who but that moment had heard the glad news of the rescue +from the lips of a deck hand, now hurried after the captain and laid +her hand on his arm. Her eyes were red from weeping; strands of gray +hair strayed over her forehead and cheeks; her lips were tightly drawn; +the anxiety of the last few hours had left its mark. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't go, Captain Joe, till I kin speak to ye," she pleaded, in a +trembling voice,—speaking through fingers pressed close to her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"No,—I don't want to hear nothin'. She's all right, I tell +ye,—tighter 'n a drum and not a drop of water in her. Got some of my +men aboard and we'll unload her to-morrow. You go home, old woman; you +needn't worry." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but you must listen,—PLEASE listen." +</P> + +<P> +She had followed him up the dock and the two stood apart from the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to thank ye,—and I want—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you don't want to thank nothin'. She's all right, I tell ye." +</P> + +<P> +She had tight hold of his arm now and was looking up into his face, all +her gratitude in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"But I do,—I must,—please listen. You've helped us so. It's all we +have. If we'd lost the sloop I'd 'a' give up." +</P> + +<P> +The captain's rough, hard hand went out and caught the woman's thin +fingers. A peculiar cadence came into his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"All ye have? Do you think I don't know it? That's why I was under her +bowsprit." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="orders"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"AGAINST ORDERS" +</H3> + +<P> +"Here comes Captain Bogart—we'll ask him," said the talkative man. +</P> + +<P> +His listeners were grouped about one of the small tables in the +smoking-room of the Moldavia, five days out. The question was when the +master of a vessel should leave his ship. In the incident discussed +every man had gone ashore—even the life-saving crew had given her up: +the master had stuck to his post. +</P> + +<P> +The captain listened gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—if there's one chance in a thousand of saving her. Regulations +are pretty plain; can't forget 'em unless you want to," and he walked +on. +</P> + +<P> +That night at dinner I received a message to come to the captain's +cabin. He had some coffee that an old Brazilian had sent him. His +steward hailed from Rio, and knew how to grind and boil it. +</P> + +<P> +Over the making the talk veered to the inquiry in the smoking-room. +</P> + +<P> +"When ought a commander to abandon his ship, Captain?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"When his passengers need him. Passengers first, ship next, are the +orders. They're clear and exact—can't mistake 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"You speak as if you had had some experience." A leaf from out the +note-book of a live man doing live things is as refreshing as a bucket +of cool water from a deep well. +</P> + +<P> +"Experience! Been forty years at sea." +</P> + +<P> +"Some of them pretty exciting, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Half a dozen of 'em." +</P> + +<P> +He emptied his cup, rose from his seat, and pushing back his chair, +began pacing the floor, stepping into the connecting chart-room, +bending for an instant over the map, and stepping back again, peering +through the small window a-grime with the spray of a north-easter. +</P> + +<P> +My question, I could see, had either revived some unpleasant memory or +the anxiety due to the sudden shift of wind—it had been blowing +south-west all day—had made him restless. +</P> + +<P> +As my eyes followed his movements I began to realize the enormous size +of the man. Walking the deck, head up, body erect, his broad shoulders +pulled back, his round, solid girth tightly confined in his simple +uniform, he looked the brawny, dominant, forceful commander that he +was—big among the biggest passengers. Here, pacing the small cabin, +his head almost touching the ceiling, his great frame filled the small +narrow room as an elephant would fill a boudoir. Everything seemed too +small for him—the table, even the chair which he had now regained, the +tiny egg-shell cup which he was still grasping. +</P> + +<P> +Looking closer—his head in full profile against the glow of the +electric light—I caught the straight line of the ruddy, seamed neck—a +bull's neck in strength, a Greek athlete's in refinement of +line—sweeping up into the close-cropped, iron-gray hair. Then came the +round of the head; the massive forehead, strong, straight nose; thin, +compressed lips, moulded thin and kept compressed by a life of +determined effort; square-cut chin and the iron jaw that held the lips +and chin in place. +</P> + +<P> +When he rose to his feet again I had another surprise. To my +astonishment he was not a Colossus at all—not in pounds and inches. On +the contrary, he was but little above the average size. What had +impressed me had not been his bulk, but his reserve force. Tigers +stretched out in cages produce this effect; so do powerful machines +that dig, crunch, or pound—dormant until their life-steam sets them +going. +</P> + +<P> +The gale increased in violence. We got now the lift of the steamer's +bow, staggering under tons of water, and the whir of the screw in +mid-air. The captain glanced at the barometer, drew his body to its +full height, reached for his storm-coat, slipped it on, and was about +to swing back the door opening on the deck, when the chirp of a canary +rang through the room. At the sound he turned quickly and walked back +to where the cage hung. +</P> + +<P> +"Ho, little man!" he cried in the same tone of voice in which he would +have addressed a child; "woke you up, did we? Sorry, old fellow; tuck +your head down again and take another nap." +</P> + +<P> +The bird stretched out its bill, fluttered its wings, pecked at the +captain's outstretched finger, and burst into song. +</P> + +<P> +"Yours, captain?" I had not noticed the bird before. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; had him for years." +</P> + +<P> +Instantly the absurdity of the companionship broke upon me. What +possible comfort, I thought, could a man like the captain take in so +tiny a creature? It was the lion and the mouse over again—the eagle +and the tom-tit—the bear and the rabbit. He must have noticed my +surprise and amusement, for he added with a smile: +</P> + +<P> +"Must have something. Gets pretty lonesome sometimes when you have no +wife nor children, and there are none anywheres for me." He had +withdrawn his fingers now, and was buttoning his coat close about his +broad chest, his eyes still on the bird that was splitting its little +throat in a burst of song. +</P> + +<P> +"But he's so small," I laughed. "I should think you'd have a dog—seems +nearer your size." +</P> + +<P> +I once saw a man struck by a spent bullet. I remember the sudden +pallor, the half gasp, and the expression of pain that followed. Then +the man uttered a cry. The same expression crossed the captain's face, +but there was no gasp and no cry; only a straightening of the lips and +a tightening-up of the iron jaw. Then, without a word of any kind in +answer, he caught up his cap, swung back the door, and with the wind +full on his chest, breasted his way to the bridge. +</P> + +<P> +When the door swung open a moment later it closed on the first +officer—a square, thick-set, round-headed man, with mild blue eyes set +in a face framed by a half-circle of reddish-brown whiskers, the face +tanned by twenty-five years of sea service, fifteen of them with +Captain Bogart. +</P> + +<P> +"Getting soapy," he said; "wind haulin' to the east'ard. Goin' to have +a nasty night." As he spoke he stripped off his tarpaulins, hung them +to a hook in the chart-room, and wiping the salt grime from his face +with his coat cuff, took the captain's empty seat at the table. +</P> + +<P> +I knew by the captain's silent departure that I had made a break of +some kind, but I could not locate it. Perhaps the first officer might +explain. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain lost his wife, didn't he?" I asked, moving my chair to make +room. +</P> + +<P> +"No—never had one." He leaned forward and filled one of the empty +cups. "Why did you think so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, more from the tone of his voice than anything else. Some trouble +about it, wasn't there?" +</P> + +<P> +"There was. His sweetheart was burned to death ten years ago—lamp got +upset." These men are direct in their speech. It comes from their +life-long habit of giving short, crisp, meaning orders. He had reached +for the sugar now, and was dropping the lumps slowly into his cup. +</P> + +<P> +"That explains it, then," I answered. "We were talking about the bird +over there, and he said a man must have something to love, being +without wife or children, and then I told him a big man like himself, I +should think, would rather have a dog—" +</P> + +<P> +The first officer put down his cup, jerked his body around, and said, +his blue eyes looking into mine: +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't say that, did you?" +</P> + +<P> +I nodded my head. +</P> + +<P> +"Mighty sorry. Don't any of us talk to him of his dog. What did he say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing. Turned a little pale, got up, and went out." +</P> + +<P> +"Too bad! You didn't know, of course—wish I'd posted you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then he DID have a dog?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, belonged to that poor girl." +</P> + +<P> +"What became of him?" +</P> + +<P> +The first officer leaned over the table and rested his elbows on the +cloth, his chin in the palms of his hands. For some time he did not +speak. Outside I could hear the thrash of the sea and the slosh of +spent waves coursing through the deck gutters. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to hear about that dog, do you?" he asked, straightening up. +"Well, I can tell you if any man can, but you're to keep mum about it +to the captain." +</P> + +<P> +Again I nodded. +</P> + +<P> +He fumbled in his outside pocket, drew forth a short pipe, rapped out +the dead ashes, refilled it slowly from a pouch on the table, lighted +it, and settled himself in his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll begin at the beginning, for then you'll understand how I came to +be mixed up in it. I saw that dog when he first came aboard, and I want +to say right here that the sight of him raised a lump in my throat big +as your fist, for he was just the mate of the one I owned when I used +to look after my father's sheep on the hills where we lived. Then, +again, I took to him because he wasn't the kind of a pet I'd ever seen +at sea before—we'd had monkeys and parrots and a bobtail cat, but +never a dog—not a real, human dog. +</P> + +<P> +"He was one of those brown-and-white combed-out collies we have up in +my country, with a long, pointed nose that could smell a mile and eyes +like your mother's—they were so soft and tender. One of those dogs +that when he put his cold nose alongside your cheek and snuffed around +your whiskers you loved him—you couldn't help it—and you knew he +loved you. As for the captain—the dog was never three feet from his +heels. Night or day, it was just the same—up on the bridge, followin' +him with his eyes every time he turned, or stretched out beside his +berth when he was asleep. Hard to understand how such a man can love a +dog until you saw that one. Then, again, this dog had another hold upon +the captain, for the girl had loved him just the same way. +</P> + +<P> +"And he had the best nose in a fog—seemed as if he could sniff things +as they went by or came on dead ahead. After a while the captain would +send him out with the bow-watch in thick weather, and there he'd +crouch, his nose restin' on the rail, his eyes peerin' ahead. Once he +got on to a brigantine comin' bow on minutes before the lookout could +see her—smelt her, the men said, just as he used to smell the sheep +lost on the hillside at home. It was thick as mud—one of those pasty +fogs that choke you like hot steam. We had three men in the cro'nest +and two for'ard hangin' over her bow-rail. The dog began to grow +restless. Then his ears went up and his tail straightened out, and he +began to growl as if he had seen another dog. The captain was listenin' +from the bridge, and he suspected somethin' was wrong and rang 'Slow +down!' just in time to save us from smashing bow on into that +brigantine. Another time he rose on his hind legs and 'let out' a yelp +that peeled everybody's eyes. Then the slippery, barnacle-covered +bottom of a water-logged derelict went scootin' by a few yards off our +starboard quarter. After that the men got to dependin' on him—'Ought +to have a first mate's pay,' I used to tell the captain, at which he +would laugh and pat the dog on the head. +</P> + +<P> +"One morning about eight bells, some two hundred miles off Rio—we were +'board the Zampa, one of our South American line, with eighteen +first-class passengers, half of 'em women, and ten or twelve +emigrants—when word came to the bridge that a fire had started in the +cargo. We had a lot of light freight on board and some explosives which +were to be used in the mines in the mountains off the coast, so fire +was the last thing we wanted. Bayard—did I tell you the dog's name was +Bayard?—that's what the girl called him—was on the bridge with +Captain Bogart. I was asleep in my bunk. First thing I knew I felt the +dog's cold nose in my face, and the next thing I was on the dead run +for the after-hatch. I've had it big and ugly a good many times in my +life; was washed upon a pile of rocks once stickin' up about a cable's +length off our coast, and hung to the cracks until I dropped into a +lifeboat; and another time I was picked up for dead off Natal and +rolled on a barrel till I came to. But that racket aboard the Zampa was +the worst yet. +</P> + +<P> +"When I jumped in among the men the smoke was creepin' out between the +lids of the hatch. We ripped that off and began diggin' up the +cargo—crates of chairs, rolls of mattin', some spruce +scantling—runnin' the nozzle of the hose down as far as we could get +it. There were no water-tight compartments which we could have flooded +in those days as there are now, or we could have smothered it first +off. What we had to do was to fight it inch by inch. I knew where the +explosives were, and so did the captain and purser, but the crew +didn't—didn't even know they were aboard, and I was glad they didn't. +We had picked most of 'em up at Rio—or they'd made a rush maybe for +the boats, and then we'd had to shoot one or two of 'em to teach the +others manners. In addition to every foot of hose we had 'board I +started a line of buckets and then rushed a gang below to cut through +the bulkhead to see if we could get at the stuff better. +</P> + +<P> +"The men fell to with a will. Fire ain't so bad when you take hold of +it in time, and as long as there is plenty of steam pressure—and there +was—you can almost always get on top of it, unless something turns up +you don't count on. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what happened here. I was standin' on the coamings of the hatch +at the time, peerin' down into the smoke and steam, thinking the fire +was nearly out, directing the men what to h'ist out and what to leave, +when first thing I knew there came a dull, heavy thump, as if we'd +struck a rock amidships, and up puffed a cloud of smoke and sparks that +keeled me over on my back and nearly blinded me. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew then that the fire had just begun to take hold; that thump +might have been a cask of rum or it might have been a box of +nitro-glycerine. Whatever it was, there was no time to waste in +stoppin' the blaze before it reached the rest of the cargo. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Bogart had felt the shock and now came runnin' down the deck +with the dog at his heels. He knew I'd take care of the fire and he +hadn't left the bridge, but the way she shook and heaved under the +explosion was another thing. +</P> + +<P> +"By this time the passengers were huddled together on the upper deck, +frightened to death, as they always are, the women the coolest in the +crowd. All except two little old women, sisters, who lived out of Rio +and who had been with us before. Fire was one of the things that scared +them to death, and they certainly were scared. They hung to the rail, +their arms around each other—the two together didn't weigh a hundred +and fifty pounds; always reminded me of two shiverin' little monkeys, +these two old women, although maybe it ain't nice for me to say it—and +looked down over the rail into the sea, and said they never could go +down the ladder, and did all the things badly scared women do, short of +pitching themselves overboard, which sometimes occurs. The captain +stopped and talked to 'em—told 'em there was no danger—his ears open +all the time for another let-go, and the dog nosed round and put out +his paw as if to make good what the captain had promised. +</P> + +<P> +"The water was goin' in now pretty lively—all the pumps at work—the +light stuff bein' heaved overboard as fast as it came out. By dark we'd +got the fire under so that we had steam where before we'd had smoke and +flame. The passengers had quieted down and some of 'em had gone back to +their staterooms to get their things together, and everything was going +quiet and peaceable—this was about nine o'clock—when there came +another half-smothered explosion and the stokers began crawlin' up like +rats. Then the chief engineer stumbled out—no hat nor coat, his head +all blood where a flying bolt had gashed him. Some of her bilge plates +was loose, he said, and the water half up to the fire-boxes. Next a +column of flame came pouring out of her companionway, which crisped up +four of our boats and drove everybody for'ard. We knew then it was all +up with us. +</P> + +<P> +"The captain now sent every man to the boats—those that would +float—and we began to get the passengers and crew together—about +sixty, all told. That's pretty nasty business at any time. They're like +a flock of sheep, huddlin' together, some wantin' to stay and some +crazy to go; or they are shiverin' with fright and ready to knife each +other—anything to get ahead or back or wherever they think it is +safest. This time most of 'em had got on to the explosives; they knew +something was up, either with the boilers or the cargo, and every one +of them expected to be blown up any minute. +</P> + +<P> +"I stood by the rail, of course, and had told off the men I could +trust, puttin' 'em in two lines to let 'em through one at a time, women +first, then the old men, and so on—same old story; you've seen it, no +doubt—and had got four boats overboard and filled—the sea was pretty +calm—and three of 'em away and out of range of fallin' pieces if she +did take a notion to let go suddenly, when the dog sprang out of the +door at the top of the stairs leading down to the main deck, barkin' +like mad, runnin' up to the captain, who stood just behind me, pullin' +at his trousers, and runnin' back again. Then a yell came from the boat +below that one of the old women was missing: it was her sister. One +half-crazy man said she'd jumped overboard—he was crowdin' up to the +rail and didn't want to stop for anything—and another said she had +gone off in the first boat, which I knew was a lie. +</P> + +<P> +"'Have you sent them both down?' asked Captain Bogart. +</P> + +<P> +"'No, sir; only one,' I said—and I hadn't. +</P> + +<P> +"Just then a steward stepped up with a bundle of clothing in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"'I tried to get her out, but she'd locked herself in the stateroom, +sir. It was all afire when I come up.' +</P> + +<P> +"It took about two seconds for Captain Bogart to jump clear of the +crowd, run half the length of the deck and plunge through the door +leadin' to the main deck, the dog boundin' after him. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been through a good many anxious minutes in my life, but those +were the worst I'd had up to date. He and I had been pretty close ever +since I went to sea. He's ten years older than I am, but he gave me my +first chance. Yes; that kind of thing takes the heart out of you, and +they were both in it. Hadn't been for the dog we wouldn't have missed +her, maybe, although the captain was keeping tally of the passengers +and crew. +</P> + +<P> +"Three minutes, they said it was—more like three hours to me—I held +the crowd back, wondering how long I ought to wait if he didn't come +up, knowing my duty was to stay where I was, when the dog sprang out of +the door, half his hair singed off him, barkin' and jumpin' as if he +had been let out for a romp; and then came the captain staggerin' +along, his face scorched, his coat half burned off him, the woman in +his arms in a dead faint and pretty nigh smothered. The old fool had +locked herself in her stateroom—he had to break down the door to get +at her—cryin' she'd rather die there than be separated from her sister. +</P> + +<P> +"We made room for the two—the half-crazy man fallin' back—and the +captain lowered her himself into the boat alongside her sister, and +then he sent me down the ladder behind her to catch the others when +they came down and see that everything was ready to cast off. +</P> + +<P> +"I could see the captain now from my position in the boat, up against +the sky—he was the last man on the ship—holding the dog close to him. +Once I thought he was going to bring him down in his arms, he held him +so tight. +</P> + +<P> +"Next time I looked he was coming down the ladder slowly, one foot at a +time, the dog looking down at him, his big, human eyes peering into the +captain's face, his long, pointed nose thrust out, his ears bent +forward. If he could have spoken—and he looked as if he was +speaking—he would be telling him how glad he felt at savin' the old +woman, and how happy he was that they'd all three got clear. My own +collie used to talk to me like that—had a kind of low whine when he'd +get that way; tell me about his sheep stuck in the snow, and the way +the—" +</P> + +<P> +The first officer stopped, cleared his throat, shook the ashes from his +pipe and laid it on the table. After a while he went on. His words came +slower now, as if they hurt him. +</P> + +<P> +"When the captain got half-way down the ladder I saw him stand still +for a moment and look straight tip into the dog's eyes. Then I heard +him say: +</P> + +<P> +"'Down, Bayard! Stay where you are.' +</P> + +<P> +"The dog crouched and lay with his paws on the edge of the rail. That's +what he'd done all his life—just obeyed orders without question. Again +I saw the captain stop. This time he slipped his hand into his +side-pocket, half drew out his revolver, put it back again, and kept on +his way down the ladder to the boat. +</P> + +<P> +"Then the captain's order rang out: +</P> + +<P> +"'Get ready to shove off!' +</P> + +<P> +"Hardly had the words left his lips when there came another dull, +muffled roar, and a sheet of flame licked the whole length of the deck. +Then she fell over on her beam. +</P> + +<P> +"'My God!' I cried; 'left that dog to die!'" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment the first officer did not answer. Then he raised his eyes +to mine and said in a voice full of emotion: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; there was nothin' else to do. It's against orders to take animals +into life-boats. They take room and must be fed, and we hadn't a foot +of space or an ounce of grub and water to spare, and we had two hundred +miles to go. I begged the captain. 'I'll give Bayard my place,' I said. +I knew he was right; but I couldn't help it. 'Let me go back and get +him.' I know now it would have been foolish; but I'd have done it all +the same. So would you, maybe, if you'd known that dog and seen his +trusting eyes lookin' out of his scorched face and remembered what he'd +just done. +</P> + +<P> +"The captain never looked at me when he answered. He couldn't; his eyes +were too full. +</P> + +<P> +"'Your place is where you are, sir,' he said, short and crisp. 'Shove +off, men.' +</P> + +<P> +"He will never get over it. That dog stood for the girl he'd lost, +somehow. That's the captain's bell. I'm wanted on the bridge. +Good-night." +</P> + +<P> +Again the cabin door swung free, letting in a blast of raw ice-house +air, the kind that chills you to the bone. The gale had increased. +Through the opening I could hear the combers sweeping the bow and the +down-swash of the overflow striking the deck below. +</P> + +<P> +With the outside roar came the captain, his tarpaulins glistening with +spray, his cap pulled tight down to his ears, his storm-beaten face +ruddy with the dash and cut of the wind. He looked like a sea Titan +that had stepped aboard from the crest of a wave. +</P> + +<P> +If he saw me—I was stretched out on the sofa by this time—he gave no +sign. Opening his tarpaulins and thrashing the water from his cap, he +walked straight to the cage, peered in, and said softly: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, my little man! Asleep, are you? I just came down to take a look at +the chart and see how you were getting on. We're having some weather on +the bridge." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="muggles"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MUGGLES'S SUPREME MOMENT +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +A most estimable young man was Muggles: a clean-shaven, spick-and-span, +well-mannered young man—particular as to the brushing of his hat, the +tying of his scarf and the cut of his clothes; more than particular as +to their puttings-on and puttings-off—sack-coat and derby for +mornings; top hat and frock for afternoons; bobtail and black tie for +stags, and full regalia of white choker, white waistcoat and +swallowtail for smart dinners and the opera. +</P> + +<P> +He knew, too, all the little niceties of social life—which arm to give +to his hostess in escorting her out to dinner; on which side of a +hansom to place a lady; the proper hours for calling; the correct thing +in canes, umbrellas, stick-pins and cigar-cases; the way to balance a +cup of afternoon tea on one knee while he toyed with a lettuce sandwich +teetering on the other—all the delicate observances so vital to the +initiated and so unimportant to the untutored and ignorant. Then +Muggles was a kind and considerate young man—extremely kind and +intrusively considerate; always interesting himself in everybody's +affairs and taking no end of trouble to straighten them out whether +importuned or not—and he seldom was. +</P> + +<P> +This idiosyncrasy had gained for him during his college days the title +of "Mixey." This in succeeding years had been merged into "Muddles" and +finally to "Muggles," as being more euphonious and less insulting. Of +late among his intimates he had been known as "The Goat," due to his +constant habit of butting in at any and all times, a sobriquet which +clings to him to this day. +</P> + +<P> +His real name—the one he inherited from his progenitors and now borne +by his family—was one that stood high in the fashionable world: a +family that answered to the more dignified and aristocratic patronymic +of Maxwell—a name dating back to the time of Cromwell, with direct +lineage from the Earl of Clanworthy—john, Duke of Essex, Lord +Beverston—that sort of lineage. No one of the later Maxwells, it is +true, had ever been able to fill the gap of a hundred years or more +between the Clanworthys and the Maxwells, but a little thing like that +never made any difference to Muggles or his immediate connections. Was +not the family note-paper emblazoned with the counterfeit presentment +of a Stork Rampant caught by the legs and flopping its wings over a +flattened fish-basket; and did not Muggles's cigarette-case, +cuff-buttons and seal ring bear a similar design? And the wooden mantel +in the great locked library, and which was opened and dusted twice a +year—the books, not the mantel—did it not support a life-sized +portrait of the family bird done in wood, with three diminutive +storklets clamoring to be fed, their open mouths out-thrust between +their mother's breast and the top edge of the fish-basket, enwreathed +by a more than graceful ribbon bearing the inscription, "We feed the +hungry"—or words to that effect? +</P> + +<P> +None of these evidences of wealth and ancestry, it must be said, ever +impressed the group of scoffers gathered about the wood fire of the +"Ivy" in his college days, or about the smart tables at the "Magnolia +Club" in his post-graduate life. To them he was still "Mixey," or +"Muddles," or "Muggles," or "The Goat," depending entirely upon the +peculiar circumstances connected with the mixing up or the butting in. +</P> + +<P> +To his credit be it said the descendant of earls and high-daddies never +lost his temper at these onslaughts. If Bender, or Podvine, or little +Billy Salters pitched into him for some act of stupidity—due entirely +to his misguided efforts to serve some mutual friend—Muggles would +argue, defend and protest, but the discussion would always end with a +laugh and his signing the waiter's check and ordering another one for +everybody. +</P> + +<P> +"Why the devil, Muggles, did you insist last night on that Boston +girl's riding home from the theatre in the omnibus, you goat?" +thundered Podvine one morning at the club, "instead of letting her—" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear fellow," protested Muggles, "it was much more comfortable in +the omnibus, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"—And broke up her walk home with Bobby, you idiot! He had to take the +owl train home, and she won't see him for a month. Didn't you know they +were engaged?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you didn't, Muggles, but you could have seen it in her face +if you'd looked. You always put your foot in it clean up to your pants' +pocket!" +</P> + +<P> +"You've been at it again, have you, Muggles?" burst out Bender that +same night "Listen to the Goat's last, boys. Jerry wanted to buy that +swamp meadow next his place on Long Island and had been dickering with +the old fellow who owns it all winter, telling him it would be a good +place to raise cranberries if it was dug out and drained, and they had +almost agreed on the price—about twice what it was worth—when down +goes Muggles to spend the night and Jerry blabs it all out, and just +why he wanted it, and the next morning Muggles, to clinch the deal and +help Jerry, slips over to the hayseed and tells him how the Sunnybrook +Club are going to buy Jerry's place, and how they wanted the swamp for +a hatchery—all true—and that the hayseed oughtn't to wait a moment, +but send word by HIM that the deal was closed, because the club-house +being near by would make all the rest of his land twice as valuable; +and the old Skeezicks winked his eye and shifted his tobacco and said +he'd think about it, and now you can't buy that sink-hole for twenty +times what it's worth, and the Sunnybrook is looking for another site +nearer Woodvale. Regular clown you are, Muggles. Exactly like that +fellow at the circus who holds up one end of the tent and then, before +the supes can reach it, drops it for the other end." +</P> + +<P> +When the results of this last well-intentioned effort with its +disastrous consequences became clear to the Goat, that spotless +gentleman leaned back in his chair, threw hick his shoulders, shot out +his cuffs, readjusted his scarfpin and replied in an offended tone: +</P> + +<P> +"All owing, my dear fellow, to the stupidity of the agricultural class. +I told the farmer he would regret it, and he will. As for myself, I was +awfully disappointed. I had planned to run all the way back to Jerry's +and tell him the good news before he went to sleep that night, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Disappointed, were you? How do you think Jerry felt? Made a lot of +difference to him, I tell you, not selling his place to the club. Been +a whole year working it up. It's smothered now under a blanket—about +ninety per cent of its value—and the Sunnybrook scheme would have +pulled him out with a margin! Now it's deader than last year's shad. +What the club wanted was a hatchery built over a spring, and that's why +that swamp was necessary to the deal. Oh, you're the limit, Muggles!" +</P> + +<P> +It was while smarting under these criticisms that the steward one +morning in June brought him his letters. One was from Monteith—Class +of '9l—a senior when Muggles was a freshman—and was postmarked +"Wabacog, Canada," where Monteith owned a lumber mill—and where he ran +it himself and everything connected with it from stumpage to scantling. +"There is a broad stream that runs into the lake, ... and above the +mill there are bass weighing ten pounds, ... and back in the primeval +forest bears, ... and now and then a moose—" So ran the letter. +Muggles had spread it wide open by this time and was reading it +aloud—everybody knowing Monteith—and the group never having any +secrets of this kind from each other. +</P> + +<P> +"Come up, old chap," the letter continued, "and stay a week—two, if +you can work it—and bring Bender, and little Billy and Poddy, and +three or four more. The bungalow holds ten. Wire when—I'm now putting +things on ice." +</P> + +<P> +Muggles looked around the circle and sent interrogatory Marconigrams +with his eyebrows. In response Podvine said he'd go, and so did Billy +Salters. Bender thought he could come a day or two later—the earning +of their daily bread was not an absorbing task with these young +gentlemen—their fathers had done that years before. +</P> + +<P> +Muggles ran over in his mind the list of his engagements: he was due at +Gravesend on the tenth for a week, to play golf; at his aunt's +country-seat in Westchester on the eleventh for the same length of +time, and on the twelfth he was expected to meet a yacht at Cold Spring +Harbor for a cruise up the coast. He had accepted these invitations and +had fully intended to keep each and every one. Monteith's letter, +however, seemed to come at a time when he really needed a more virile +and bracing life than was offered by the others. Here was a chance to +redeem his reputation. Lumber camps meant big men doing big +things—things reeking with danger, such as falling trees, forest fires +and log jams. There might also be hair-breadth escapes in the hunting +of big game and the tramping of the vast wilderness. This dressing +three times a day and spending the intermediate hours hitting wooden +balls, or lounging in a straw chair under a deck awning, had become +tiresome. What he needed was to get down to Nature and hug the sod, and +if there wasn't any sod then he would grapple with whatever took its +place. +</P> + +<P> +Muggles dropped his legs to the floor, straightened his back, beckoned +to a servant, motioned for a telegraph blank—exertion is tabooed at +the Magnolia—untelescoped a gold pencil hooked to his watch-chain and +wrote as follows: +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks. Coming Tuesday." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Wabacog covers a shaved place in a primeval forest which slopes to a +lake of the same name. Covering this bare spot are huge piles of sawed +lumber—Monteith's axe-razors did the shaving—surrounding an enormous +mill surmounted by a smokestack of wrought iron topped with a bird-cage +spark arrester, the whole flanked by a runway emerging from the lake, +up which climb in mournful procession the stately bodies of fallen +monarchs awaiting the cutting irony of the saw. Farther along, on +another clearing, stands a square building labelled "Office," and still +farther on, guarded by sentinel trees and encircled by wide piazzas, +sprawls a low-roofed bungalow, its main entrance level with a boardwalk +ending in the lake. This was Monteith's home. Here during the winter's +logging he housed himself in complete seclusion, and here in summer he +kept open house for whoever would answer in person his welcoming +letters. +</P> + +<P> +Anything so rude and primeval, or so comforting and inviting, was +beyond the experience of Muggles and his friends. This became apparent +before they had shed their coats and unpacked their bags. There was a +darky who answered to the name of Jackson who could not only crisp +trout to a turn, but who could compound cocktails, rub down muscular +backs shivering from morning plunges in the lake, make beds, clean +guns, wait on the table, and in an emergency row a canoe. There were +easy chairs and low-pitched divans overspread with Turkey rugs and +heaped with piles of silk cushions; there were wooden lockers, all +open, and each one filled with drinkables and smokables—drinkables +with white labels, and smokables six inches long with cuffs halfway +down their length; there was an ice-chest sampling a larger house in +the rear; there was a big, wide, all-embracing fireplace that burst its +sides laughing over the good time it was having (the air was cool at +night), and outside, redolent with perfume and glistening in the +sunshine, there was a bed of mint protected by a curbing of plank which +rivalled in its sweet freshness those covering the last resting-places +of the most hospitable of Virginians. +</P> + +<P> +And there was Monteith! +</P> + +<P> +Some men are born rich; some inherit a pair of scissors fitted to +strong thumbs and forefingers, some have to lie awake nights wondering +what they will do next to help their surplus run to waste, and some +pass sleepless hours devising plans by which they can catch in their +empty pockets the clippings and drippings of all three. Muggles's host +was none of these. What he possessed he had worked for—early, late and +all the time. His father had stood by and seen the old homestead in his +native Southern State topple into ashes, Only the gaunt chimney left; +the son had worked his way through college, and then with diploma in +one hand and his courage in the other—all he owned—had shaken the +dust of civilization from his shoes and had struck out for the Northern +wilds: Wabacog was the result. +</P> + +<P> +All these years he had kept in touch with his college chums, and when +the day of his success arrived, and he was his own master, with the +inborn good-fellowship that marked his race, he had unbuttoned his +pocket, shaken out his heart and let loose a hospitality that not only +revived the memories of his childhood, but created a new kind of joy in +the hearts of his guests. Hence the bungalow—hence Jackson—hence the +lockers and the ice-chest, and hence the bed quilt of mint. +</P> + +<P> +"This is your room, Muggles—and, Bender, old man, yours is next +Podvine, you are across the hall," was his welcome. "Breakfast is any +time you want it; dinner at six. Now come here! See that line of +lockers and that ice-chest? Don't forget 'em, please! Step up, +Jackson—take a look at him, boys. That darky can mix anything known to +man. He never sleeps, and he's never tired. If you don't call on him +for every blessed thing you want day or night, there'll be trouble." +</P> + +<P> +They fished and canoed; they hunted bears—a fact known to the bear, +who kept out of their way—never was in it, Bender insisted; they went +overboard every morning, one after another, in the almost ice-cold +water of the lake, out again red as lobsters, back on a run, whooping +with the cold to the blazing fire of the bungalow which Jackson had +replenished with bundles of dried balsam that cracked and snapped with +a roar while it toasted the bare backs and scorched the bare legs of +each one in turn (the balsam was gathered the year before for this very +purpose). They roamed the woods, getting a crack once in a while at a +partridge or a squirrel; they strolled about the mill, listening to the +whir of the saws and watching the "cut" as it was rolled away and was +made to feed the huge piles of lumber and timber flanking the runway +and far enough away from the huge stack to be out of the way of +treacherous sparks; and at night they sat around Jackson's constantly +replenished fire and told stories of their college days or revived the +current gossip of the club and the Street. +</P> + +<P> +Muggles ruminated over each and every experience—all new to him—and +kept his eyes open for the psychological moment when he would burst +asunder the bonds of conventionality and rise to the full measure of +his abilities. The Clanworthys had swung battle-axes and ridden +milk-white chargers into the thickest of the fray. His turn would come; +he felt it in his knee: then these unbelievers would be silenced. +</P> + +<P> +His host interested him enormously, especially his masterful way of +handling his men. He himself had been elected foreman of Hose Carriage +No. 1 in the village near his father's country seat, and still held +that important office. His cape and fire-boots fitted him to a nicety, +and so did his helmet. No. 1 had been called out but once in its +history, and then to the relief of a barn which, having lost heart +before the rescuers reached it, had sunk to the ground in despair and +there covered itself with ashes. He had been criticised, he remembered, +much to his chagrin, for the way he had conducted the rescue party; but +it would never happen again. After this he would pattern his conduct +after Monteith, who seemed to accomplish by a nod and a wave of the +hand what he had split his throat in trying to enforce. He did not put +these thoughts into words; neither did he whisper them even in the ears +of Podvine or Monteith—the two men who understood him best and who +guyed him the least—especially Monteith, who never forgot that his +college chum was his guest. He confided them instead to Monteith's big, +red-faced foreman—half Canadian, part French, and the rest of him +Irish—who was another source of wonder. Muggles's inherent good humor +and willingness to oblige had made an impression on the lumber-boss and +he was always willing to answer any fool question the young New Yorker +asked—a privilege which he never extended to his comrades. +</P> + +<P> +"What do I do when somepin' catches fire?" the boss replied to one of +Muggles's inquiries—they were sitting in the office alone, Bender and +little Billy having gone fishing with Jackson. "I'd blow that big +whistle ye see hooked to the safety, first. Ye never heard it?—well, +don't! It'll scare the life out o' ye. If the mill catches before we +can get the pumps to work it's all up with us. If the piles of lumber +git afire we kin save some of 'em if the wind's right; that's why we +stack up the sawed stuff in separate piles." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you do first—squirt water on it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, we ain't got no squirts that'll reach. Best way to handle the +piles o' lumber is to start a line of bucket-men from the lake and +cover the piles with anything you can catch up—blankets, old carpets, +quilts; keep 'em soaked and ye kin fight it for a while; that's when +one pile's afire, and ye're tryin' to save the pile next t'it. Light +stuff is all over in half an hour—no matter how big the pile is—keep +the rags soaked—that's my way." +</P> + +<P> +That night before the blazing coals Muggles broke out on some theories +of putting out a conflagration that made Bender sit up straight and +little Billy Salters cup his ears in attention. Monteith also craned +his neck to listen. +</P> + +<P> +"Who the devil taught you that, Mixey?" asked Bender. "You talk as if +you were Chief of the Big Six." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, any fireman knows that. I've been running with a machine for +years." The calm way with which Muggles said this, shaking the ashes +from his cigar as he spoke, showed a certain self-reliance. "Out in our +village I'm foreman of the Hose Company." +</P> + +<P> +The sudden roar that followed this announcement shook the big glasses +and bottles on the low table. +</P> + +<P> +"So you'd keep the blankets soaked, would you?" remarked Billy, winking +at the others. +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly would." This came with a certain triumphant tone in his +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Learned that practising on his head," whispered Podvine. +</P> + +<P> +"Right you are, Poddy; but Muggles, suppose the mill caught first," +chipped in Monteith. The mill was the apple of his eye. Fire was what +he dreaded—he never could insure the mill fully against fire. "What +would you protect first—the mill or the piles of lumber?" +</P> + +<P> +"The lumber, of course—the mill can use its pumps if the engine-room +escapes." +</P> + +<P> +"Better save the mill," rejoined Monteith thoughtfully. "Trade is +pretty dull." Then he rose from his seat, reached for his hat and +strolled out on the portico to take a look around before he turned in. +</P> + +<P> +Muggles's masterful grasp of a science of which his companions knew as +little as they did of the Patagonian dialects came as a distinct +surprise. What else had the beggar been picking up in the way of +knowledge? Maybe Muggles wasn't such a goat, after all. That Monteith +had approved of his tactics only increased their respect for their +companion. Muggles caught the meaning of the look in their faces and +his waistcoat began to pinch him across his chest. This life was what +he needed, he said to himself. Here were big men—the lumber-boss was +one—and he was another—doing big things. Nothing like getting down to +primeval Nature for an inspiration! "Hugging the sod," as he named it, +had had its effect not only on himself, but on his fellows. They would +never have felt that way toward him at the Magnolia. The week at +Wabacog had widened their horizon—widened everybody's horizon—as for +himself he felt like a Western prairie with limitless possibilities +ending in mountains of accomplishment. +</P> + +<P> +That night, an hour after midnight, Muggles found himself sitting bolt +upright in bed. Outside, filling the air of the wilderness, bellowed +and roared the deep tones of the steam siren. Then came a babel of +voices gaining in distinctness and volume: +</P> + +<P> +"Fire, FIRE, FIRE!" +</P> + +<P> +Muggles sprang through the door and ran full tilt into Jackson and +Bender, who had vaulted from their beds but a second before. The next +instant every man in the bungalow, Monteith at their head, came +tumbling out, one after the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Fire! Fire! Fire!" rang the cry, repeated by a hundred mill hands +rushing toward the mill. A spark had worked its way through the +arrester, some one said, had fallen into the sawed stuff, been nursed +into a blaze by the night wind, and a roaring flame was in full charge +of one pile of lumber and likely to take possession of another. +</P> + +<P> +Muggles looked about him. +</P> + +<P> +HIS SUPREME MOMENT HAD COME! +</P> + +<P> +The blood of the Clanworthys rose in his veins. The Pass lay before +him—so did the Bridge. A full suit of dove-colored pajamas and a pair +of turned-up Turkish slippers was not exactly the kind of uniform that +either Leonidas or Horatius would have chosen to fight his way to +glory, but there was no time to change them. +</P> + +<P> +With a whoop to Bender, who had really begun to believe in him, and a +commanding order to Jackson, the three stripped the costly Turkish rugs +from the lounges, and blankets from the beds, and, following his lead, +dashed through the woods to the relief of the endangered pile of +lumber. On the way they passed a gang of Canucks, carrying buckets. It +was but the work of a moment to arrange these into a posse of relays +with Bender on the lake end of the line and Jackson next the pile, the +gang passing the buckets from hand to hand. +</P> + +<P> +This done Muggles snatched a ladder from an adjacent building, threw it +against the threatened lumber, skipped up its rungs like a squirrel and +stood in silhouette against the flaring blaze, his dove-gray flannels +flapping about his thin legs, his attenuated arms gyrating orders to +the relief party, who had spread the rugs and blankets on the +fire-endangered side of the pile of lumber and who were now soaking +them with water under Muggles's direction. Now and then, as some part +of the burning mass would collapse, a shower of sparks and smoke would +obscure Muggles; then he could be seen brushing the live coals from his +pajamas, darting here and there, shouting: "More water! More water! +Here, on this end! All together now!" fighting his way with hand raised +to keep the heat from blistering his face, a very Casabianca on the +burning deck. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the tongues of flame mounting skyward grew less in number; columns +of black smoke took the place of the shower of sparks; the light +flickering on the frightened tree-trunks began to pale; from the rugs +and blankets the hot steam no longer rose in clouds. The crisis had +passed! The pile was saved! Muggles had won! +</P> + +<P> +During all this time neither Monteith nor the big lumber-boss had put +in an appearance; nor had Podvine nor little Billy Salters lent a hand. +Bender had stuck to his post and so had Jackson, oblivious of the +whereabouts of any other member of the coterie except Muggles, whose +clothespin of a figure came into relief now and then against the flare +of the flames. Then Bender made his way back to the bungalow. +</P> + +<P> +The last man to leave the deck was Muggles. +</P> + +<P> +Backing slowly down the ladder one rung at a time, his face blistered, +his pajamas burnt into holes, he examined the surrounding lumber; saw +that all his orders had been carried out, gave some parting +instructions to the men to watch out for sparks, especially those +around the edge of the saved pile, and then slowly, and with great +dignity, made his way to the bungalow—his destiny fulfilled, his honor +maintained and his position assured among his fellows. He had now only +to await the plaudits of his comrades! +</P> + +<P> +As he pushed open the door and looked about him the color rose in his +cheeks and a kind of a hotness came from inside his pajamas. Grouped +about the low table, heaped with specimens of cut glass, a squatty +bottle, a siphon and a bowl of cracked ice, sat every member of the +coterie—Bender among them—Monteith in the easy chair at their head. +If any other occupation had engrossed their attention since the alarm +sounded there was no evidence of it either in their appearance or in +the tones of their voices. +</P> + +<P> +"Lo, the Conquering Hero," broke out Podvine. "Get up Billy and put a +wreath of laurel over his scorched and blistered brow." +</P> + +<P> +Muggles, for a moment, did not reply. The shock had taken his breath +away. He supposed every man had worked himself into exhaustion. The +only thing that had really dimmed his own triumph was the fear that on +reaching the bungalow he might find the blackened remains of one or +more of his comrades stretched out on the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you fellows try to save anything?" he exploded. +</P> + +<P> +"Wasn't anything to save—mill was in no danger." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, the whole place would have gone if I hadn't—" +</P> + +<P> +"You're quite right, Muggles," said Monteith. "Let up on him, boys. You +worked like a beaver, old man. Sorry about the rugs—one was an old +Bokhara—but that's all right—of course you didn't stop to think." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but, Monteith—what's a rug or two when you have to save a pile +of—what's the lumber worth, anyhow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well, never mind—let it go, old man." +</P> + +<P> +Bender, who was still soaking wet from splashing buckets, and since his +return to the bungalow had been boiling mad clear through, sprang to +his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you—I've just found out. As the pile now stands it's worth +four thousand dollars. If it had burned up it would have been worth +six. It's insured, you goat!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +The End +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Veiled Lady, by F. 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