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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10944-0.txt b/10944-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de6bf9e --- /dev/null +++ b/10944-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7752 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10944 *** + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + +BY + +Samuel Hopkins Adams + +1922 + + + + +_Contents_ + + +_A Patroness of Art_ + +_The House of Silvery Voices_ + +_Home-Seekers' Goal_ + +_The Guardian of God's Acre_ + +_For Mayme, Read Mary_ + +_Barbran_ + +_Plooie of Our Square_ + +_Triumph_ + + + + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + + + + +A PATRONESS OF ART + + +I + +Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue) +is the style whereby he is known to Our Square. + +Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest, +whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in +anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if +you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps +aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color +possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Élite +Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged +ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or, +if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be, +however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for +chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by +appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art. + +Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April +day, upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light +on it, when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding +him with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest. + +"What d'ye think of _that_?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in a +set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon the +butterfly. + +"Rotten," was the prompt response. + +"_What_!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees. + +"Punk." + +Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest +ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself +out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his +finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his +original critique, in a series of shrill roars: + +"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de--de--piffle!" +Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, +tainted by his French origin. + +He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly +and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon +overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned +temple of Art. + +"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you could +do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to +his critic! + +"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost +as time-honored as the challenge. + +Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible +murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks +had himself under control. + +"Try it," he said grimly. + +The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him. + +"You want me to draw a picture? There?" + +"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body." + +The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter +Quick Banta's creation. + +"What is that? A bool-rush?" + +"It's a laylock; that's what it is." + +"And the little bird that goes to light--" + +"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard. +"That's a butterfly." + +"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And +the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy +hands fluttered and sank. + +"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk." + +From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He +fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted +the traffic. Only once did he speak: + +"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up. + +Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the +last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but +with supreme confidence. + +"There!" said he. + +It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The +arrangements were false. + +_But_--the lilac bloomed. _And_--the butterfly hovered. The artist had +spoken through his ordained medium and the presentment of life stood +forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. But beneath his uncouth +exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul. + +"Son," said he, "you're a wonder. Wanta keep them crayons?" + +Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one +of the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like +eyes of gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta +proceeded to expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving +the youngster time to recover before the inevitable questioning began. + +"Where did you learn that?" + +"Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19." + +"Would you like to work for me?" + +"How?" + +Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk. + +"That?" The boy laughed happily. "That ain't work. That's fun." + +So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier +(soon simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta's +roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first +appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as +the local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and +practice of the "sand-dabs." Out of the joint takings grew a bank +account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy's +education. + +"He's a swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't care +if he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nize +aristocracy when I see it. And I want him brung up accordin'." + +So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an +old, half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie +came to Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes +(this was before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the +Gaunt), I took him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love +with her beauty and her genius alike, all of which was good for his +developing soul. She arranged for his art training. + +"But you know, Dominie," she used to say, wagging her head like a +profound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsighted +on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will be +doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor +little figurines." + +To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest +nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she +would help him just the same! + +But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines. + + +II + +Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She would +have objected to the latter classification, averring that, with the +rising cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keep +her head above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, she +scorned the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performed +prodigious feats of committee work, all of it meritorious and some of it +useful? She had. It had left her with a dangerous and destructive +appetite for doing good to people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was a +distracting young person. Few looked at her once without wanting to look +again, and not a few looked again to their undoing. + +Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus of +Fifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a large +and needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn't take to it. As +recipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss Holland +transferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner of the +world she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged one +with a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She came +to us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the upper +strata to our humbler domain, who--Pagan that she is!--indiscriminately +accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, +Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of +high-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident +wealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for women +whose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. She +formed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the +printer, who knows half the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the +tailor, to whom Carlyle is by way of being light reading. She delivered +some edifying exhortations upon the subject of Americanism to Polyglot +Elsa, of the Élite Restaurant (who had taken upon her sturdy young +shoulders the support of an old mother and a paralytic sister, so that +her two brothers might enlist for the war--a detail of patriotism which +the dispenser of platitudes might have learned by judicious inquiry). +And so forth and so on. Miss Roberta Holland meant well, but she had +many things to learn and no master to teach her. + +Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, +deft, and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she +clashed her lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel +of the Little Red Doctor's experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who +was pressed for time at the moment): "Take orders. Or get out. Which?" + +She straightened like a soldier. "Tell me what you want done." + +At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer +service, she turned shining eyes upon him. "I've never been so treated +in my life! You're a bully and a brute." + +"You're a brick," retorted the Little Red Doctor. "I'll send for you +next time Our Square needs help." + +"I'll come," said she, and they shook hands solemnly. + +Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her +ministrations, and even those of us who least approved her activities +felt the stir of radiance and color which she brought with her. + +On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland, +seated in the Bonnie Lassie's front window, was maturing some new and +benign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the sculptress +at work on a group: + +"There's a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk." + +"That's Peter Quick Banta. He's a fellow artist." + +"And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable lion; +quite a beautiful lion. He's making more marks." + +"Let him make all he wants." + +"They're waving their arms at each other. At least the queer man is. I +think they're going to fight." + +"They won't. It's only an academic discussion on technique." + +"Who is the young one?" + +"He's the ruin of what might have been a big artist." + +"No! Is he? What did it? Drink?" + +"Does he look it?" + +The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. "It's a +peculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He's quite poorly dressed. +Does he need money? Is that what's wrong?" + +"That's it, Bobbie," returned the Bonnie Lassie with a half-smile. "He +needs the money." + +The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland's fatally +well-meaning soul. "Would it be a case where I could help? I'd love to +put a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he's real?" + +On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincere +and direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesser +interests, such as life and love and human fate. + +"No; I'm not. If he were, I doubt whether he'd have let himself go so +wrong." + +"Perhaps it isn't too late," said the amateur missionary hopefully. "Is +he a man to whom one could offer money?" + +The Bonnie Lassie's smile broadened without change in its subtle +quality. "Julien Tenney isn't exactly a pauper. He just thinks he can't +afford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to." + +"What ought he to do?" + +"Paint--paint--paint!" said the Bonnie Lassie vehemently. "Five years +ago I believe he had the makings of a great painter in him. And now look +what he's doing!" + +"Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?" + +"Worse. Commercial art." + +"Designs and that sort of thing?" + +"Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and gloriously +dressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, riding +in super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth with +super-toothbrushes?" + +"I suppose so," said the girl vaguely. + +"He draws those." + +"Is that what you call pot-boiling?" + +"One kind." + +"And I suppose it pays just a pittance." + +"Well," replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, "he sticks to it, so it +must support him." + +"Then I'm going to help him." + +"'To fulfill his destiny,' is the accepted phrase," said the Bonnie +Lassie wickedly. "I'll call him in for you to look over. But you'd best +leave the arrangements for a later meeting." + +Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at home +despite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to Miss +Holland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departure +at once. + +"Who is she?" asked Julien, staring after her. + +"Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown." + +"What's she doing here?" + +"Good." + +"O Lord!" said he in pained tones. "Has she got a Cause?" + +"Naturally." + +"Philanthropist?" + +"Worse." + +"There ain't no sich a animile." + +"There is. She's a patron of art." + +"Wow!" + +"Yes. She's going to patronize you." + +"Not if I see her first. How do _I_ qualify as a subject?" + +"She considered you a wasted life." + +"Where does she get that idea?" + +The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of +a stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. + +"Do you think that's fair?" demanded the indignant youth. + +The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. "Do you +or do you not," she challenged, "invade our humble precincts in a +five-thousand-dollar automobile?" + +"It's my only extravagance." + +"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park, +when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest +working-man?" + +"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated. +"You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place +I can work in quietly--" + +"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you +left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress. + +Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell +all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked. + +"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely +sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning +to help you realize your destiny." + +"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows. + +"To be a great painter." + +The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've +saved enough--" + +"Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite +ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and +hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of a +pavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better." + +"Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly. + +If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was +busied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling +radiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it +from the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and +wonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she +had guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic +senses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--and +she said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, you +can't paint." + +"Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--" + +"Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?" + +"Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask." + +"Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly. + +"Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smile +he broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he said +professionally; "and--and--well, unusual." + +"Pooh! 'Dangerous' is the word. Remember it," warned the Bonnie Lassie. +"She's a devastating whirlwind, that child, and she comes down here +partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, if you play your part +cleverly--" + +"I'm not going to play any part." + +"Then it's all up. How is a patroness of Art going to patronize you, +unless you're a poor and struggling young artist, living from hand to +mouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won't have to play a part as far as +the pot-boiling goes," added his monitress viciously. "Only, don't let +her know that the rewards of your shame run to high-powered cars and +high-class apartments. Remember, you're poor but honest. Perhaps she'll +give you money." + +"Perhaps she won't," retorted the youth explosively. + +"Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I'll bring her around to see +you and you'll have to work the sittings yourself." + +As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien's attic +needed no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. He +worked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environment +where there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that Miss +Roberta Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanly +poverty. (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me along +to make up that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien dropped +into the background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board, +sketching eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of good +deeds in talk. Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers do +not pay to any but a master-draughtsman the prices which "J.T."--with +an arrow transfixing the initials--gets; and Julien was as deft and +rapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, the +visitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out her +hand for the cardboard. + +To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is an +adequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable little +gem in black-and-white with cool approbation. + +"Quite clever," she was pleased to say. "Would you care to sell it?" + +"I don't think it would be exactly--" A stern glance from the Bonnie +Lassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest of the sentence. + +"Would ten dollars be too little?" asked the visitor with bright +beneficence. + +"Too much," he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a little +crayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fifty +times that.) + +The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table. + +"Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?" he asked. + +"Does that take long?" she said doubtfully. "I'm very busy." + +"You really should try it, Bobbie," put in the crafty Bonnie Lassie. "It +might give him the start he needs." + +What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, but +she had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was +from time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland's youthful loveliness +and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly +foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only +if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to +keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there +are few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien +when he chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with a +passionate intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go; +tossing aside the most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened; +throwing himself intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise. +The fact is, he had long been starved for color and was now satiating +his soul with it. Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first. +The Bonnie Lassie, wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that could +not last. Men who are not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain a +neutral attitude toward such creatures of grace and splendor as +Bobbie Holland. + +Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be called +friendship; he was not, to Bobbie's recognition, a habitant of her +world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have +renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make +love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist +inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, +perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy +grew, he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above +the rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed +Peter Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, a +bath, and a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the more +surprising in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time for +sittings now. Between visits she took to going to the Metropolitan +Museum and conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a view +to helping her protégé form sound artistic tastes. (When the Bonnie +Lassie heard that, she all but choked.) As for Julien! + +"This is all very well," he said, one day in the sculptress's studio; +"but sooner or later she's going to catch me at it." + +"What then?" asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her work. + +"She'll go away." + +"Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won't it?" + +"Oh, yes. That'll be finished." + +This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked back +again. + +"In any case she'll have to go away some day--won't she?" + +"I suppose so," returned he in a gloomy growl. + +"I warned you at the outset, 'Dangerous,'" she pointed out. + +They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of Julien +Tenny's brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as I +saw them occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a budding +orchid, he in the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenely +unconscious of any incongruity. + +"Do you think," I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my bench one +afternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to where her +car waited, "that she is doing him as much good as she thinks she is, or +ought to?" + +"Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie +with dignity. + +"I'm quite serious," I protested. + +"And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you know +her." + +"Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evident +fact?" + +"Only," pursued my companion, ignoring the question, "she is bored and a +little spoiled." + +"So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more spoiled." + +"Julien won't spoil her." + +"He certainly doesn't appear to bore her." + +"She's having the tables turned on her without knowing it. Julien is +doing her a lot of good. Already she's far less beneficent and bountiful +and all that sort of stuff." + +"Lassie," said I, "what, if I may so express myself, is the big idea?" + +"Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar," she reproved. +"However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. And it's +_mine_, that big idea." + +"Mightn't it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect that the +experience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left when +Bobbie Holland goes?" + +"Pooh! Don't be an oracular sphinx," was all that I got for my pains. + +Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If the +painting seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not be +said of the fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourished +along, and one day a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element of +historical personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session, +displaced a hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script upon +the plastering Béranger's famous line: + + "Dans un grenier qu'on est bien á vingt ans!" + +"Did you write that there?" asked the girl. + +"Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word." + +"How did you come to know Béranger?" + +"I'm French born." + +"'In a garret how good is life at twenty,'" she translated freely. "I +wouldn't have thought"--she turned her softly brilliant regard upon +him--"that life had been so good to you." + +"It has," was the rejoinder. "But never so good as now." + +"I've often wondered--you seem to know so many things--where you got +your education?" + +"Here and there and everywhere. It's only a patchwork sort of thing." +(Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my two-hours-a-day of +brain-hammering, and the free run of my library.) + +"You're a very puzzling person," said she And when a woman says that to +a man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie Lassie, who knows +everything, is my authority for the statement.) + +To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien's "grenier" that +day. + +"Cecily," she said, in the most casual manner she could contrive, "who +_is_ Julien Tenney?" + +"Nobody." + +"You know what I mean," pleaded the girl. "_What_ is he?" + +"A brand snatched from the pot-boiling," returned the Bonnie Lassie, +quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her companion was. + +"Please don't be clever. Be nice and tell me--" + +"'Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,'" declaimed the +Bonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. "You want me to define +his social status for you and tell you whether you'd better invite him +to dinner. You'd better not. He might swallow his knife." + +"You know he wouldn't!" denied the girl in resentful tones. "I've never +known any one with more instinctive good manners. He seems to go right +naturally." + +"All due to my influence and training," bragged the Bonnie Lassie. "I +helped bring him up." + +"Then you must know something of his antecedents." + +"Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with the +manners of a _preux chevalier_. Anyway, he never swallowed any of _my_ +knives. Though he's had plenty of opportunity." + +"It's very puzzling," lamented Bobbie. + +"Why let it prey like a worm i' the bud of your mind? You're not going +to adopt him, perhaps?" + +For the moment Bobbie Holland's eyes were dreamy and her tongue +unguarded. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," said she with a +gesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble problem. + +"Umph!" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +And continued sculpting. + + +III + +As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would +be surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event +occurred as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs +from the hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when +Bobbie Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew +involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted +his costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the +similarity of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur's livery. + +"Oh!" she cried out, as if something had hurt her. + +Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and +looked at her apprehensively. + +Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, "Do you _have_ to do +that?" + +"Why--er--no," began the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment to +perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon of +golf. Her next words enlightened him. + +"I should think you might have let me help before taking a--servant's +position." + +"It's an honest occupation," he averred. + +"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort. + +"Off and on. There's good money in it." + +"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can afford +to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "It +isn't fair!" + +"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly. + +Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased +to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him +painful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big +theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable +columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at +the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of +the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a +glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's +exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of +four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw +that he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his +original intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. +He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that +functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a +twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a +black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the +patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was +performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus. + +Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable +appetite. + +Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of +shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, +stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or +drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an +expressive monosyllable. + +"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you +less harm." + +"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the +forks?" + +"Yes," said Bobbie faintly. + +"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, +it _is!_" + +"Do you think you know him?" + +"Know him! I _know_ him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpré. +He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out +that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a +hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!" + +"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was +hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, +is there?" + +"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to +get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into +partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--" + +"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him +frightfully." + +But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her +painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair +vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth +behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to +time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, +he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his +interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't. + +To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of +it who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult +and delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school. +Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both +the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither +answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme +gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding +that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was. + +The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable +unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon +Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, +Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a +composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of +Thornsen's Élite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to +observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the +corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of +sidewalks. + +"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?" + +"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes. + +"What is he doing?" + +"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-view +school of art." + +"Yes, but what does he do it for?" + +"His living." + +"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him +something?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on hands +and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a red +bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers. + +"I think he'd be tickled pink." + +She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her +companion's hand. + +"_You_ give it to him. I think he'd like it better." + +"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'd +take it from me." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimately +connected." He raised his voice. "Hello, Dad!" + +The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, +replied, "Hello, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think of +_that_?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayon +at the green-headed red-bird. + +"Some parrot!" enthused Julien. + +"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist +indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color." + +"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron who +wants to contribute to the cause." + +The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out +her quarter. + +"I--I--don't know," she began. "I was interested in your picture and I +thought--Mr. Tenney said--" + +Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. "Thank you," said +he. "There ain't much appreciation of art just at this season. But if +you'll come down to Coney about June, I'll show you some sand-modeling +that _is_ sand-modeling--'s much as five dollars a day I've taken +in there." + +Miss Holland recovered her social poise. + +"I'd like to very much," she said cheerfully. + +She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a little +jarringly. "Well," he said, "does that help you to place me?" + +"I'm not trying to place you," she answered. + +"Is that quite true?" he mocked. + +"No; it isn't. It's a downright lie," said Bobbie finding courage to +raise her eyes to his. + +"And now, I suppose, I shall be 'my good man' or something like that, to +you." + +"Do you think it likely?" + +"You called MacLachan that, you know," he reminded her. + +"Long ago. When I was--when I didn't understand Our Square." + +"And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book to +your penetrating vision." + +Her lip quivered. "I don't know why you should want to be so hateful to +me." + +For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look that +thrilled and daunted her. "To keep from being something else that I've +no right to be," he muttered. + +"How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the +picture?" she asked, striving to get on safer ground. + +"Only one or two, I suppose," he answered morosely. + +Such was Julien's condition of mind after the last sitting that he +actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the +door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening +in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in +the Bonnie Lassie's face as she studied it. + +"He's done it!" she exclaimed. "Flower and flame! Why did I ever take to +sculpture? One can't get that in the metal." + +"He's done it," I echoed. + +"Of course, technically, it's rather a sloppy picture." + +"It's a glorious picture!" I cried. + +"Naturally that," returned the exasperating critic. "It always will +be--when you paint with your heart's blood." + +"Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she's +presented?" + +"If she doesn't--which she probably does," said the Bonnie Lassie, "she +will find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I'm +going home to 'phone her." + +In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw +her from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly +lovely. At the door of the Bonnie Lassie's house she was met with the +challenge direct. + +"What have you been doing to my artistic ward?" + +"Nothing," replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove it +related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne +Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist. + +"That isn't Julien's father," said the sculptress. "He's only an +adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he ought to. The real father, +so I've heard, was a French gentleman--" + +"I don't care who his father was!" cried Bobbie. (The Bonnie Lassie's +face took on the expression of an exclamation point.) "I can't bear to +think of his having to do servant's work. And I told him so yesterday." + +"Did you look like that while you were telling him?" + +"Like what? I suppose so." + +"And what did he do?" + +"Do? He didn't do anything." + +"Then," pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, "he's a stick of +wood--hardwood--with a knot-hole for a heart." + +"He isn't! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last." + +"About what?" + +"About taking money." + +"I'm a prophetess! And you're a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. You +_did_ try to give him money." + +"Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. He +wouldn't even let me do that; so I--I--I offered to buy the picture of +me, and he said--he said--Cecily, do you think he's sometimes a little +queer in his head?" + +"Not in the head, necessarily. _What_ did he say?" + +"He said he'd bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And he +said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him that +I hoped I'd see him when I came back--" + +"Back from where? Are you going away?" + +"Yes; didn't I tell you? On a three months' cruise." + +"Had you told him that?" + +"Of course. That's when I tried to get him to take the money. Cecily--" +The girl's voice shook a little. "You'll tell him, won't you, that he +_must_ keep on painting?" + +"Why? Doesn't he intend to?" + +"He said he'd painted himself out and he didn't think he'd ever _look_ +at color again." + +"He will," said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. "Grief is just +as driving a taskmaster as lo--as other emotions." + +"Grief!" The girl's color ebbed. "Cecily! You don't think I've hurt +him?" + +The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug. + +"Bobbie, do you know what I'd do in your place?" + +"No. What?" + +"I'd go right--straight--back to Julien Tenney's studio." She paused +impressively. + +"Yes?" said the other faintly. + +"And I'd walk right--straight--up to Julien Tenney--" Another pause, +even more impressive. + +"I d-d-don't think I'd--he'd--" + +"And I'd say to him: 'Julien, will you marry me?' Like that." + +"Oh!" said Bobbie in outraged amazement. + +"And maybe--" continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: "maybe I'd kiss +him. Yes. I think I would." + +Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie's large eyes dissolved in +tears. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she sobbed. + +"You won't be ashamed of _yourself_," prophesied the other, "if you do +just as I say, quickly and naturally." + +"Oh, naturally," retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. "I suppose +you think that's natural. Anyway, he probably doesn't care about me at +all that way." + +"Roberta," said the sculptress sternly, "did you _see_ his portrait of +you?" + +"Y-y-yes." + +"And you have the presumption to say that he doesn't care? Why, that +picture doesn't simply tell his secret. It _yells_ it!" + +"I don't care," said the hard-pressed Bobbie. "It hasn't yelled it to +me. _Nobody's_ yelled it to me. And I c-c-can't ask a m-m-man to--to--" + +"Perhaps you can't," allowed her adviser magnanimously. "On second +thought, it won't be necessary. You just go back--after powdering your +nose a little--and say that you've come to see the picture once more, or +that it's a fine day, or that competition is the life of trade, or +that--oh, anything! And, if he doesn't do the rest, I'll kill and +eat him." + +"But, Cecily--" + +"You _would_ be a patroness of Art. Now I've given you something real to +patronize. Don't you dare fail me." Suddenly the speaker gave herself +over to an access of mirth. "Heaven help that young man when he comes +to own up." + +"Own up to what?" + +"Never mind." + +Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her +query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was +curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her +to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to +the attic. + +A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the +studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted. + +"And you're actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year slip +through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?" + +To which Julien's equable accents replied: + +"That's it, Merrill. I'm going to paint." + +The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door +upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an +energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed +expression. At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness +to her aid. + +"Would you think me inexcusably rude," she said softly, "if I asked who +you are?" + +The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of +whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: "I'm George +Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company." + +"And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?" + +"He has. For several years." + +"So that," said the girl, half to herself, "is his pot-boiling." + +"Not a very complimentary term," commented Mr. Merrill, "for the best +black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. Between my concern +and two others he makes a railroad president's income out of it." + +"Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much." + +"In return, may I ask you something?" + +"Certainly." + +"Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing away +his career?" + +"Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?" + +Mr. Merrill's face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle +appeared at the corner of his glasses. "I've seen the portrait," he +replied, and with a bow, went on his way. + +Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with +bright, inscrutable eyes. + +"Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?" she demanded. + +"D---n Merrill!" said Julien with fervor. + +"It's true that your 'pot-boiling' brings you a big income?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?" + +"I don't. That car belongs to me." + +"And your being a waiter? I don't suppose the Taverne Splendide belongs +to you?" + +"An impromptu bit of acting," confessed the abashed Julien. + +"And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?" + +"No. This is mine, really." + +"I don't understand. Why have you done it all?" + +"If you want to know the truth," he said defiantly, "so that I could +keep on seeing you." + +"That's a very poor excuse," she retorted. + +"The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible +interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young +painter--that was the Bonnie Lassie's fault, for I never lied to you +about it--and after we'd started on that track I didn't--well, I didn't +have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade." + +"How you must have laughed at me all the time!" + +He flushed to his angry eyes. "Do you think that is fair?" he retorted. +"Or kind? Or true?" + +"I--I don't know," she faltered. "You let me offer you money. And you've +probably got as much as I have." + +"I won't have from now on, then. I'm going to paint. I thought, when you +told me you were going away, that I couldn't look at a canvas again. But +now I know I was wrong. I've got to paint. You'll have left me that, +at least." + +"Mr. Merrill thinks you're ruining your career. And if you do, it'll be +my fault. I'll never, never, never," said the patroness of Art +desolately, "try to do any one good again!" + +She turned toward the door. + +"At least," said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of +control, "you'll know that it wasn't all masquerade. You'll know why +I'll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another." + +She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the +passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking. + +"Suppose," she said, "I asked you to give it up." + +"You wouldn't," he retorted quickly. + +"No, I wouldn't. But--but--" Her glance, wandering away from him, fell +on the joyous line of Béranger bold above the door. + +"'How good is life in an attic at twenty,'" she murmured. Then, turning +to him, she held out her hands. + +"I could find it good," she said with a soft little falter in her voice, +"even at twenty-two." + +Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, +going by with transfigured faces, stopped. + +"Let's tell Dominie," said Julien. + +I waved a jaunty hand. "I know already," said I, "even if it hadn't been +announced to a waiting world." + +"Wh-wh-why," stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man's waiting a +lifetime to see, "it--it only just happened." + +"Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It's been happening for +weeks. Come with me." + +I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen's Élite Restaurant. There +stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative +symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its +powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of +orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. +"J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, +"Cupid's Token." + +"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic +feet. "How long has this been there?" + +"What're you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It's been +there since noon." + +"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it's very pretty and tasteful even +though it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely and +puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?" + +"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency. +"_I'm_ an artist." + + + +THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES + +Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 +and wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them. +"Kleam, kleam, kleam, kleam," it would pipe pleasantly. + +"BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!" solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its own levity. + +"Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_!" +That was a duet in the middle register. + +Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin +silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny: + +"Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!" + +We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our +remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of +his art. + +Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the +Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the +ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, "For Rental to Suitable +Tenant," invited inspection. "Suitable" is the catch in that +innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no estate +at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant proclivities +named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of prejudice +rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an applicant as +unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for breakfast, or +a glass eye. + +How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr. +Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name +rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He +encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in +painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether +twenty-five dollars a month would be considered. + +"Maybe," returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger introduced himself, +with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale. + +Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing +aristocratic implications. + +"The name," he pronounced, "is satisfactory. The sum is satisfactory. It +is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up in character +and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate." This he had adapted +from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which had come to him +through the mail, very genteelly worded. "Family man?" he added briskly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"How many of you?" + +"Two." + +"Wife?" + +"No, sir," said the little man, very low. + +"Son? Daughter? What age?" + +"I have never been blessed with a child." + +"Then who--" + +"Willy Woolly would share the house with me, sir." + +For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, +with an important expression, seated behind the railing. + +"I don't like dogs," said the Mordaunt Estate curtly. + +"Willy Woolly"--Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his companion--"this +gentleman does not like dogs." + +The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling +deepened when Willy Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising +eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his +hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, +droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip +to finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the +Maiden's Prayer. + +The Estate promptly capitulated. + +"Some pup!" he exclaimed. "When did you want to move in?" + +"At once, if you please." + +Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front +door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and +penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in +the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of +the half-dozen succeeding trips was homogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, +little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn +clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of +white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, +clocks that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, +the owner established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted +them, and wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their +meticulous busy-ness, that place which had for so long been muffled in +quiet and deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting +mechanism and the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the +House of Silvery Voices. + + * * * * * + +Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr. +Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie +Lassie gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up +his charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and +irresponsible, though through no fault of their own. When they were +wound they went. When they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more +than half of them simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion +as to the hour were radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic +eight-day, opposite the front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, +only to be at once contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor +mantel, which announced that it was six, thereby starting up the +cathedral case on the stairway and the Grandfather in the dining-room, +who held out respectively for eight and two, while all the time it was +really half-past one. Thence arose in the early days painful +misunderstandings on the part of Our Square, for we are a simple people +and deem it the duty of a timepiece to keep time. In particular we were +befooled by Grandfather, the solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a +long-range stroke and a most convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the +note-shaver, on his way to a profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard +the hour strike (thirty-five minutes in advance of the best professional +opinion) from the House of Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the +recklessness of hiring a passing taxi, thereby reaching his destination +with half an hour to spare and half a dollar to lack, for which latter +he threatened to sue the Mordaunt Estate's tenant. To the credit side of +the house's account it must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, +having started one of his disastrous drunks within the precincts of his +Home of Fashion, was on his way to finish it in the gutter via the +zigzag route from corner saloon to corner saloon, when the Twelve +Apostles clock in the basement window lifted up its voice and +(presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice denied the hour, +which was actually a quarter before midnight. "Losh!" said MacLachan, +who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch whiskey, +"they'll a' be closed. Hame an' to bed wi' ye, waster of the priceless +hours!" And back he staggered to sleep it off. + +Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out +to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing +Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had +spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was +really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, +only to find it all over and the patient dead. + +"It's an outrage," declared the Little Red Doctor fiercely, "that an old +lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where in a pushcart and play +merry hell with a hard-working practitioner's professional duties. And +you're the one to tell him so, Dominie. You're the diplomat of +the Square." + +He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this +preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of +Silvery Voices. + +"It isn't the way it plays tricks on time alone," said she. "There's one +clock in there that's worse than conscience." + +And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was +wont to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary +clack-and-whirr, alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping +early because the clay was obdurate and wouldn't come right, and had +gone for a walk to clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these +unjustifiable terms: + +"Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr _wrong! +wrong! wrong! wrong!"_ + +"Wherefore," said the Bonnie Lassie, "your appellant prays that you be a +dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to Number 37 and ask +him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he's got to stop it." + +Now, the Bonnie Lassie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the +low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and +kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a +self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time +himself opened the door to me. + +"What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?" he inquired with timid +courtesy. + +"They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do." + +"I have heard of you." He motioned me to a seat in the bare little room, +alive with tickings and clickings. "You have lived long here, sir?" + +"Long." + +From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle +and solemn mockery: "_Long. Long. Long_." + +My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I +afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom. + +"I, too, am an old man," he murmured. + +"A hardy sixty, I should guess." + +"A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,' as to the folk in this +Square?" He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. "Are they, as one +might say, friendly? Neighborly?" + +I was a little taken aback. "We are not an intrusive people." + +"No one," he said, "has been to see my clocks." + +I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my +errand. "You live here quite alone?" I asked. + +"Oh, no!" said he quickly. "You see, I have Willy Woolly. Pardon me. I +have not yet presented him." + +At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended +hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee. + +"He greets you as a friend," said my new acquaintance in a tone which +indicated that I had been signally honored. "I trust that we shall see +you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my +collection now?" + +Here was my opening. "The fact is--" I began, and stopped from sheer +cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle pride in +his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular being +before me--I couldn't do it. "The fact is," I repeated, "I--I have a +friend outside waiting for me. The Little Red Doctor--er--Dr. Smith, +you know." + +"A physician?" he said eagerly. "Would he come in, do you think? Willy +Woolly has been quite feverish to-day." + +"I'll ask him," I replied, and escaped with that excuse. + +When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to +me was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet! + +Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my +turn to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices. +Happily for me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before +my substitute reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me. +Balked in this cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional +expression and observed that it was an obscure case. + +"For a man of sixty," I began, "Mr. Merivale--" + +"_Who_?" interrupted the Little Red Doctor; "I'm speaking of the dog." + +"Have you, then," I inquired in insinuating accents, "become a +dash-binged vet?" + +"A man can't be a brute, can he!" he retorted angrily. "When that +animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out like a child--" + +"I know," I said. "You took on a new patient. Probably gratis," I added, +with malice, for this was one of the Little Red Doctor's notoriously +weak points. + +"Just the same, he's a fool dog." + +"On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice social +discrimination," I asserted, recalling Willy Woolly's flattering +acceptance of myself. + +"A faker," asseverated my friend. "He pretends to see things." + +I sat up straight on my bench. "Things? What kind of things?" + +"Things that aren't there," returned the Little Red Doctor, and fell to +musing. "They couldn't be," he added presently and argumentatively. + +Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked +whether he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies +of his clocks. He shook his head. + +"I didn't have time," said he doggedly. + +"Time? Why, there's nothing but time in that house." + +The Little Red Doctor chose to take my feeble joke at par. "No time at +all. None of the clocks keep it." + +"How does he manage his life, then?" + +"Willy Woolly does that for him. Barks him up in the morning. Jogs his +elbow at mealtimes. Tucks him in bed at night, for all I know." + +Thus abortively ended Our Square's protest against Stepfather Time and +his House of Silvery Voices. The Little Red Doctor's obscure suggestion +stuck in my mind, and a few nights later I made a second call. Curiosity +rather than neighborliness was the inciting cause. Therefore I ought to +have been embarrassed at the quiet warmth of my reception by both of the +tenants. Interrupting himself in the work of adjusting a new +acquisition's mechanism, Stepfather Time settled me into the most +comfortable chair and immediately began to talk of clocks. + +Good talk, it was; quaint and flavorous and erudite. But my attention +kept wandering to Willy Woolly, who, after politely kissing my hand, had +settled down behind his master's chair. Willy Woolly was seeing things. +No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and thither, +following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than darkness, more +ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, measured thumping +sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it took me an +appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle's tail, +beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. And +still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. It was rather more +than old nerves could stand. + +"The dog," I broke in upon the stream of erudition. "Surely, Mr. +Merivale--" + +"Willy Woolly?" He looked down, and the faithful one withdrew himself +from his vision long enough to lick the master hand. "Does he +disturb you?" + +"Oh, no," I answered, a little confused. "I only thought--it seemed that +he is uneasy about something." + +"There are finer sensibilities than we poor humans have," said my host +gravely. + +"Then you have noticed how he watches and follows?" + +"He is always like that. Always, since." + +His "since" was one of the strangest syllables that ever came to my +ears. It implied nothing to follow. It was finality's self. + +"It is"--I sought a word--"interesting and curious," I concluded lamely, +feeling how insufficient the word was. + +"She comes back to him," said my host simply. + +No need to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive +as his "since." Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave to its +utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when he added: + +"She never comes back to me." + +That evening he spoke no more of her. Yet I felt that I had been +admitted to an intimacy. And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of +dropping in to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of +his philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline +of the tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of +quiet. She whom he had cherished since they were boy and girl together, +had died in the previous winter. She had formed the whole circle of his +existence within which he moved, attended by Willy Woolly, happily +gathering his troves. Her death had left him not so much alone as alien +in the world. He was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, +without interest except that of his timepieces, and without hope except +that of rejoining her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to +say in a tone of indescribable conviction: + +"I suppose I was the happiest man in the world." + +Any chance incident or remark might turn his thought and speech, +unconscious of the transition, from his favorite technicalities back to +the past. Some comment of mine upon a specimen of that dismal songster, +the cuckoo clock, which stood on his mantel, had started him into one of +his learned expositions. + +"The first cuckoo clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir"--he was always +scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how +abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent +courtesy--"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. +It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' and +a single--" + +His voice trailed into silence as the mechanical bird of his own +collection popped forth and piped its wooden lay. Willy Woolly pattered +over, sat down before it, and, gazing through and beyond the meaningless +face with eyes of adoration whose purport there was no mistaking, +whined lovingly. + +"When the cuckoo sounded," continued the collector without the slightest +change of intonation, "she used to imitate it to puzzle Willy Woolly. A +merry heart! ... All was so still after it stopped beating. The clocks +forgot to strike." + +The poodle, turning his absorbed regard from the Presence that moves +beyond time and its perishing voices, trotted to his master and nuzzled +the frail hand. + +The hand fondled him. "Yes, little dog," murmured the man. His eyes, sad +as those of the animal, quested the dimness. + +"Why does she come to him and not to me? He loved her dearly, didn't +you, little dog? But not as I did." There was a quivering note of +jealousy in his voice. "Why is my vision blinded to what he sees?" + +"You have said yourself that there are finer sensibilities than ours," I +suggested. + +He shook his head. "It lies deeper than that. I think he is drawing near +her. He used to have a little bark that he kept for her alone. In the +dead of night I have heard him give that bark--since. And I knew that +she was speaking to him. I think that he will go first. Perhaps he will +tell her that I am coming.... But I should be very lonely." + +"Willy's a stout young thing," I asserted, "with years of life before +him." + +"Perhaps," he returned doubtfully. A gleam of rare fun lit up his pale, +vague eyes. "Can't you see him dodging past Saint Peter through the +pearly gates" ("I was brought up a Methodist," he added in apologetic +explanation), "trotting along the alabaster streets sniffing about for +her among all the Shining Ones, listening for her voice amid the sound +of the harps, and when he finds her, hallelujahing with that little bark +that was for her alone: 'Here I am, mistress! Here I am! And _he's_ +coming soon, mistress. Your Old Boy is coming soon.'" + +When I retailed that conversation to the Little Red Doctor, he snorted +and said that Stepfather Time was one degree crazier than Willy Woolly +and that I wasn't much better than a higher moron myself. Well, if I've +got to be called a fool by my best friends, I'd rather be called it in +Greek than in English. It's more euphonious. + + * * * * * + +The pair in Number 37 soon settled down to a routine life. Every morning +Stepfather Time got out his big pushcart and set forth in search of +treasure, accompanied by Willy Woolly. Sometimes the dog trotted beneath +the cart; sometimes he rode in it. He was always on the job. Never did +he indulge in those divagations so dear to the normal canine heart. +Other dogs and their ways interested him not. Cats simply did not exist +in his circumscribed life. Even to the shining mark of a boy on a +bicycle he was indifferent, and when a dog has reached that stage one +may safely say of him that he has renounced the world and all its +vanities. Willy Woolly's one concern in life was his master and their +joint business. + +Soon they became accepted familiars of Our Square. Despite the general +conviction that they were slightly touched, we even became proud of +them. They lent distinction to the locality by getting written up in a +Sunday supplement, Willy Woolly being specially photographed therefor, a +gleam of transient glory, which, however it may have gratified our local +pride, left both of the subjects quite indifferent. Stepfather Time +might have paid more heed to it had he not, at the time, been wholly +preoccupied in a difficult quest. + +In a basement window, far over on Avenue D, stood an old and battered +timepiece of which Stepfather Time had heard the voice but never seen +the face. Each of three attempts to investigate with a view to +negotiations had been frustrated by a crabbed and violent-looking man +with a repellent club. Nevertheless, the voice alone had ensnared the +connoisseur; it was, by the test of the pipe which he carried on all his +quests, D in alt, and would thus complete the major chord of a chime +which he had long been building up. (She had loved, best of all, +harmonic combinations of the clock bells.) Every day he would halt in +front of the place and wait to hear it strike, and its owner would peer +out from behind it and shake a wasted fist and curse him with strange, +hoarse foreign oaths, while Willy Woolly tugged at his trouser leg and +urged him to pass on from that unchancy spot. All that he could learn +about the basement dweller was that his name was Lukisch and he owed +for his rent. + +Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made +sheep's eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as +he hated everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, +and a grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his +heart. Also he had definite ideas of reprisal, which were focused by a +dispossess notice, and directed particularly upon the person and +property of his landlord. The clock he needed as the instrument of his +vengeance; therefore he would not have sold it at any price to the +sheep-eyed old lunatic of the pushcart, who now, on the eve of his +eviction, stood gazing in with wistful contemplation. Presently he +passed on and Mr. Lukisch resumed his tinkering with the clock's +insides. He was very delicate and careful about it, for these were the +final touches, preparatory to his leaving the timepiece as a memento +when he should quietly depart that evening, shortly before nine. What +might happen after nine, or, rather, on the stroke of nine, was no worry +of his, though it might be and probably would be of the landlord's, +provided that heartless extortioner survived it. + +Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair +and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction. +Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those +two physiognomies. The clock's face, benign and bland, would have +deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man's +face might have warned him. + +Something within the clock's mechanism clicked and checked and went on +again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start. Could +something have gone wrong with the combination? Suppose a premature +release.... At that panic thought something within Mr. Lukisch's bad +heart clicked and checked and did not go on again. The fear in his eyes +faded and was succeeded by an expression of surprise and inquiry. +Whether the inquiry was answered, nobody could have guessed from the +still, unwinking regard on the face of the victim of heart failure. + +By and by a crowd gathered on the sidewalk, drawn by that mysterious +instinct for sensation which attracts the casual and the idle. Two bold +spirits entered the door and stood, hesitant, just inside, awed because +the clock seemed so startlingly alive in that place. Some one sent +upstairs for the landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which +had not only mulcted him of two months' rent with nothing to show for it +but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly superfluous +corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock because +it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it that +Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered. + +"And who"--the landlord addressed high Heaven with a gesture at once +pious and pessimistic--"is to pay me fourteen dollars back rent this +dirty beggar owes?" + +"The man," said Stepfather Time gently, "is dead." + +"He is." The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with objurgations. +"Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and expense. And what +have I who run my property honest and respectable got to pay for it? +Some rags and a bum clock." + +Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, +this was not Willy Woolly's kind of man. "Now, now, Willy Woolly!" +reproved his master. "Who are we that we should judge him?" + +"But I don't _like_ him," declared Willy Woolly in unequivocal dog +language. + +"I think from his face that he has suffered much," said the gentle +collector, wise in human pain. + +"Me; I suppose I don't suffer!" pointed out the landlord vehemently. +"Fourteen dollars out. Two months' rent. A bum clock." + +He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The +voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D +in alt. + +"My dear sir," said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath +his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, "I will buy +your clock." + +A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word +"nut" floated in the air, and was followed by "Verrichter." The landlord +took thought and hope. + +"It is a very fine clock," he declared. + +"It is a bum clock," Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. + +"Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it." + +"I will pay you much money for it." + +"How much?" + +"Seven dollars. That is one month's rent that he owed." + +"Two months' rent I must have." + +"One," said Stepfather Time firmly. + +"Two," said the landlord insistently. + +"Urff! Grr--rr--rr--rrff!" said Willy Woolly in emphatic dissuasion. + +Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of +Willy Woolly's province. Only once in the course of their years together +had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to +recall that the subject of Willy's protests on that occasion had +subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in +the woodwork (artificially blown in with powder) would have led the +unsuspecting to suppose. But about the present legacy there could be no +such question. It was genuine. It was old. It was valuable. It possessed +a seraphic note pitched true to the long-desired chord. + +Extracting a ten-dollar note from his wallet, Stepfather Time waved it +beneath the landlord's wrinkled and covetous nose. The landlord +capitulated. Willy Woolly, sniffing at the clock with fur abristle, +lifted up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already +detected the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He +stubbornly refused to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, +and was accused of being sulky and childish. + + * * * * * + +The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a +high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. +There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland +and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the +passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke +of nine. Meantime Willy Woolly settled down to keep watch on it and +could not be moved from that duty. Every time it struck the half he +growled. At the hour he barked and raged. When Stepfather Time sought to +draw him away to dinner he committed the unpardonable sin of dog-dom, he +snarled at his master. Turning this strange manifestation over in his +troubled mind, the collector decided that Willy Woolly must be ill, and +therefore that evening went to seek the Little Red Doctor and +his wisdom. + +Together they came across the park space opposite the House of Silvery +Voices in time to witness the final scene. + +The new clock struck the half after eight as they reached the turn in +the path. A long, quavering howl, mingled of rage and desperation, +answered in Willy Woolly's voice. + +"You hear?" said Stepfather Time anxiously to the Little Red Doctor. +"The dog is not himself." + +They saw him rear up against the clock case. He seemed to be trying to +tear it open with his teeth. + +"Willy!" cried his master in a tone such as, I suppose, the well-loved +companion had not heard twice before in his life. "Down, Willy!" + +The dog drooped back. But it was not in obedience. For once he +disregarded the master's command. Perhaps he did not even hear it in the +absorption of his dread and rage. Step by step he withdrew, then rushed +and launched himself straight at the timepiece. Slight though his bulk +was, the impetus of the charge did the work. The clock reeled, toppled, +and fell outward through the window; then-- + +From the House of Silvery Voices rose a roar that smote the heavens. A +roar and a belch of flame and a spreading, poisonous stench that struck +the two men in the park to earth. When they struggled to their feet +again, the smoke had parted and the House of Silvery Voices gaped open, +its front wall stripped bodily away. But within, the sound of the busy +industry of time went on uninterrupted. + +Weaving and wobbling on his feet, Stepfather Time staggered toward the +pot calling on the name of Willy Woolly. At the gate he stopped, put +forth his hand, and lifted from the railing a wopsy, woolly fragment, no +bigger than a sheet of note paper. It was red and warm and wet. + +"He's gone," said Stepfather Time. + +The Clock of Conscience took up the tale. "Gone. Gone. Gone," it pealed. + +As the collector would not leave the shattered house, they sent for me +to stay the night with him. A strange vigil! For now it was the man who +followed with intent, unworldly eyes that which I, with my lesser +vision, could not discern. And the Unseen moved swiftly about the +desolate room, low to the floor, and seemed finally to stop, motionless +beneath a caressing hand. I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping +of a grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready +to strike. + +Only once that night did Stepfather Time speak, and then not to me. + +"Tell her," he said in an assured murmur, "that I shan't be long." + +"Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long," confirmed +Grandfather from his stance on the stairway. + +In that assurance Stepfather Time fell asleep. He did not go out again +with his pushcart, but sat in the rear room while the Mordaunt Estate in +person superintended the job of putting a new front on the house. + +The night after it was finished I received an urgent telephone call to +come there at once. At the entrance I met the Little Red Doctor +coming out. + +"The clocks have stopped," said he gently. + +So I turned to cross the park with him. + +"I shall certify," said he, "heart disease." + +"You may certify what you please," said I. "But what do you believe?" + +The Little Red Doctor, who prides himself on being a hard-bitted +materialist, glared at me as injuriously as if my innocent question had +been an insult. + +"I don't believe it!" he averred violently. "Do you take me for a +sentimental idiot that I should pin silly labels on my old friend, +Death?" His expression underwent a curious change. "But I never saw such +joy on any living face," he muttered under his breath. + + * * * * * + +The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and +makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time's +clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower +facing Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The +Bonnie Lassie designed the tower, and because there is love and +understanding in all that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand +to, it is as beautiful as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the +Tower of the Two Faithful Hearts. + +The silvery voice within it is the product of a paragon among +timepieces, a most superior instrument, of unimpeachable construction +and great cost. But it has one invincible peculiarity, the despair of +the best consulting experts who have been called in to remedy it and, +one and all, have failed for reasons which they cannot fathom. How +should they! + +It never keeps time. + + + +HOME-SEEKERS' GOAL + +Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general head +of statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square, +looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grown +up in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you for +information, and they will frequently give more than they get of it. +Such, I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves a +satisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorful +splendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with a +taste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that float +and bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I can +follow a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorous +bloom. And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in a +receptive mood for such flies of information as might come to me +concerning two large invading vans which had rumbled into our quiet +precincts and, after a pause for inquiry, stopped before the Mordaunt +Estate's newly repaired property at Number 37. + +The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The design +which he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of art +than upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors. + +The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviously +unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, +reverting to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in +approaching the Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was +sure that the newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. + +Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I mused +upon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found useful +in such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon. +With an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I dragged +myself back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes upon +them. It is possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal, +for they fell at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, a +butterfly of the most vivid and delightful appearance. + +"Is the house with the 'To Let' sign on it really to let, do you know, +sir?" she inquired, adding music to color with her voice. + +"So I understand," said I, rising. + +"And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front," put +in the butterfly's companion. "Is he a lunatic or a designer of +barber poles?" + +"He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing a +limited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate." + +"He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could get +out of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name." + +"Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he should be +addressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. Wagboom +is an irritant to a haughty property-owner's soul." + +"Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?" asked the young man of +his companion. + +"With a view to renting?" I inquired. + +"Yes." + +"Do you keep dogs?" + +"No," said the young man. + +"Or clocks by the hundred?" + +"Certainly not," answered the butterfly. + +"Or bombs?" + +Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other with +a wild surmise which said plainly: "Are they _all_ crazy down here?" + +"If you do," I explained kindly, "you might have trouble in dealing. The +latest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed one of two +hundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew away the +front wall." And I outlined the history of that canine clairvoyant, +Willy Woolly. "The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about his tenants, +anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps it would be +well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of house +painting." + +Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the +charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and +delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry. + +"That," said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on his knees +with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to them, "is +after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he's a bear for +color. Are you artists?" + +"We're house-hunters," explained the young man. + +"As for tenants," said the Mordaunt Estate, "I take 'em or leave 'em as +I like 'em or don't. I like you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of +colorin'. Eight rooms, bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don't +suit each other. Very choice and classy for a young married couple. +Eight dollars, in advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz." + +"We're not married," said the young man. + +"Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?" demanded that highly respectable +institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression mollified as +he turned to the butterfly. "Aimin' to be, I s'pose." + +"We only met this morning; so we haven't decided yet," answered the +young man. "At least," he added blandly, as his companion seemed to be +struggling for utterance, "she hasn't informed me of her decision, if +she has made it." + +Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the +Mordaunt Estate. "Nothin' doin'," he began, "until--" + +"Don't decide hastily," adjured the young man. "Take this coin." He +forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the decorator. + +"Nothin' doin' on account, either. Pay as you enter." + +"Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your +call," he said to the butterfly. + +"Heads," cried the butterfly. + +"Tails," proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into silence on +the flagging. + +"Then the house is yours," said the butterfly. "Good luck go with it." +She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment. + +"I don't want it," returned the young man. + +"Play fair," she exhorted him. "We both agreed solemnly to stand by the +toss. Didn't we?" + +"What did we agree?" + +"That the winner should have the choice." + +"Very well. I won, didn't I?" + +"You certainly did." + +"And I choose not to take the house," he declared triumphantly. "It's a +very nice house, but"--he shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the +proud-pied façade, blinking significantly--"I'd have to wear smoked +glasses if I lived in it, and they don't suit my style of beauty." + +"You'd not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on your knees +with a thousand dollars in each hand," asserted the offended Estate. + +"See!" said the young man to the butterfly. "Fate decides for you." + +"But what will you do?" she asked solicitously. + +"Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square." + +She held out her hand. "You've been very nice and helpful, but--I think +not. Good-bye." + +He regarded the hand blankly. "Not--what?" + +"Not here in this Square, if you don't mind." + +"But where else is there?" he asked piteously. "You know yourself there +are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating around on this +teeming island in vans, with no place to land." + +"Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn," was her hopeful suggestion. + + + "'And bade betwixt their shores to be + The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea,'" + + +he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: "Matthew Arnold. +Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places are," +he pleaded. "From you!" he concluded. + +A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. "I've accepted you as +a gentleman on trust," she began, when he broke in: + +"Don't do it. It's a fearfully depressing thing to be reminded that +you're a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how it +cramps one's style, not to mention limiting one's choice of real estate. +A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on the +toss of a coin, but he mustn't presume to want to see the other party to +the gamble again, even if she's the only thing in the whole sweep of his +horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask you, +when such things--" + +"Oh, do stop!" she implored. "I don't think you're sane." + +"No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses to +complete loss of mental equilibrium since--let me see--since 11.15 A.M." + +Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on his +own behalf, interposed. + +"I'd rather rent to two than one," he said insinuatingly. "More reliable +and steady with the rent. Settin' aside the young feller's weak eyes, +you're a nice-matched pair. Gittin' a license is easy, if you know the +ropes. I'd even be glad to go with you to--" + +"As to not being married," broke in the butterfly, with the light of a +great resolve in her eye, "this gentleman may speak for himself. I am." + +"Am what?" queried the Estate. + +"Married." + +"Damn!" exploded the young man. "I mean, congratulations and all that +sort of thing. I--I'm really awfully sorry. You'll forgive my making +such an ass of myself, won't you?" + +To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turned +rather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed on +them, she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a +sudden alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping +regard had fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding +ring may be put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has +been once worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness +of the third finger. The butterfly's gloves were not new, yet there +showed not the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. +While admitting to himself that the evidence fell short of +conclusiveness, the young man decided to accept it as a working theory +and to act, win or lose, do or die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that his +delightful but elusive companion was a li--that is to say, an inventor. +He would give that invention the run of its young life! + +"We--ell," the Mordaunt Estate was saying, "that's too bad. Ain't a +widdah lady are you?" + +"My husband is in France." + +With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in where +many an angel might have feared to tread. "Maybe he'll stay there," +he surmised. + +"What!" + +In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of +"The Girl I Left Behind Me." + + "'The maids of France are fond and free.' + +"Besides," he added, "it's quite unhealthy there at this season. I +wouldn't be surprised"--he halted--"at anything," he finished darkly. + +Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally +hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she +could find them-- + +"I'll wait around--in hopes," he decided calmly. + +So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and +ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She +had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, +an interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now--how dared +he! She put it to him at once: "How dare you!" + +"Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of +loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse," prescribed +the unimpressed subject of her retort. "As a wife, you are, of course, +unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or only +prospective"--he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar through the +public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the suffering--"there +is H-O-P-E!" he intoned solemnly, wagging a benignant forefinger at her. + +The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into +unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with +foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means +unattractive young suitor--for he could be relegated to no lesser +category--might do next. She said coolly and crisply: + +"I wish nothing more to do with you whatever." + +"Then I needn't quit the Garden of Ed--I mean, Our Square?" + +"You may do as you see fit," she replied loftily. + +"Act the gent, can't chuh?" reproved the Mordaunt Estate. "You're makin' +the lady cry." + +"He isn't," denied the lady, with ferocity. "He couldn't." + +"He'll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma'am," the polite +Estate assured her. + +"If he wants to stay, he'll have to live in his van." + +"Grand little idea! I'll do it. I'll be a van hermit and fast and watch +and pray beneath your windows." + +"You may live in your van forever," retorted the justly incensed +butterfly, "but I'll never speak to you as long as I live in this house. +Never, never, _never_!" + +She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The Mordaunt +Estate took down the "To Let" sign, and went in search of a helper to +unload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled into his +own van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on the +collected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. But +his immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shot +through as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitive +smile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell to +dreams. As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to Our +Square, it had come about in this wise: + +Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink of +a maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name by +remaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right of +way, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective drivers +inflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recesses +of the larger van said: "Don't give an inch." + +Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what +sounded like "Give an ell," but probably was not, as there was no +corresponding movement of the wheels. + +What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they did +upon descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action, +and as such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunder +and led them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the deserted +equipages emerged from amid their lares and penates, and met face to +face. The effect upon the occupant of the smaller van was electric, not +to say paralytic. + +"Oh, glory!" he murmured faintly, with staring eyes. + +"Would you kindly move?" said the girl, in much the same tone that one +would employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one ever +addressed a beetle with freezing dignity. + +The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. "I've done nothing +else for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and I'll bless +you as a benefactress of the homeless." + +"Anywhere out of my way," she replied with a severity which the corners +of her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to. + +"Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged," he declared humbly. "But +first let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to give +'em--that is, to hold his ground, I didn't know who you were." + +She wrinkled dainty brows at him. "Well, you don't know who I am now, do +you?" + +"I don't have to," he responded with fervor. "Just on sight you may have +all of this street and as many of the adjoining avenues as you can use. +By the way, who _are_ you?" The question was put with an expression of +sweet and innocent simplicity. + +The girl looked at him hard and straight. "I don't think that +introductions are necessary." + +He sighed outrageously. "They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; +twenty-fourth large edition," he murmured. "And I was just about to +present myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very much at +your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my move. +May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intend +driving yourself." + +"I'll have to, if I'm to get anywhere." A look of dismay overspread her +piquant face. "Oh, dear! I don't in the least understand this machinery. +I can't drive this kind of car." + +"Glory be!" exclaimed Mr. Dyke. "I mean, that's too bad," he amended +gracefully. "Won't you let me take you where you want to go?" + +"What'll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven't any idea where I +want to go." + +"What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the face of +an overpopulated earth, Miss?" + +The "Miss" surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of this +extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of +the servant class? + +"Yes, I am," she admitted. + +"A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood," he announced +sonorously, "are wandering about, lost and homeless on this melancholy +and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to come and +bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain't it harrowing, Miss! +Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge sung over me by a +quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did you breakfast, +Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen." + +The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. "You ask the +most personal questions as if they were a matter of course." + +"By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining +individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived +from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks +of steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for +reading, Miss? I've got a neat little library inside, besides an +automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that +policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? _I_ +think he is." + +"But I can't move on," she said pathetically. + +"Couldn't you work my van, Miss? It's quite simple." + +She gave it a swift examination. "Yes," said she. "It's almost like my +own car." + +"Then I'll lead, and you follow, Miss." + +"But I can't--I don't know who--I don't _want_ your van. Where shall +we--" + +"Go?" he supplied. "To jail, I judge, unless we go somewhere else and do +it _now_. Come on! We're off!" + +Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the +approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved +but triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from +the path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore +downtownward. Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the +girl in the trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of +a side street, her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke's +engaging and confident face appeared below her. + +"Within," he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispense +the succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincing +near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat and +drink. May I help you down, Miss?" + +"No," said the girl dolefully. "I want to go home." + +"But on your own showing, you haven't any home." + +"I've got to find one. Immediately." + +"You'll need help, Miss. It'll take some finding." + +"I wish you wouldn't call me Miss," she said with evidences of +petulance. + +"Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson +says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while +we discuss the housing problem--" + +"Why are you calling me Lady, now?" + +He shook a discouraged head. "You seem very hard to please, Sister. I've +tried you with Miss and I've tried you with Lady--" + +"Are you a gentleman or are you a--a--" + +"Don't say it, Duchess. Don't! Remember what Tennyson says: 'One hasty +line may blast a budding hope.' Or was it Burleson? When you deny to the +companion of your wanderings the privilege of knowing your name, what +can he do but fall back for guidance upon that infallible chapter in the +Gents' Handbook of Classy Behavior, entitled, 'From Introduction's +Uncertainties to Friendship's Fascinations'?" + +"We haven't even been introduced," she pointed out. + +"Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, Old +Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to," he added piously. "Now, +Miss--or Lady--or Sister, as the case may be; or even Sis (I believe +that form is given in the Gents' Handbook), if you will put your lily +hand in mine--" + +"Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during +luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends." + +"A test! I'm on. We're off." + +Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast +from an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled +their real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there +was no available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town. +She had explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and +without success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward +for anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a +discovery they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the +approved method of the tossed coin: "The winner has the choice." + +Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort's manner and +bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied +intimacy of the tête-à -tête across a table than a subtle change +manifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his +talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the +end, when he had paid the bill and she asked: + +"What's my share, please?" + +"Two-ten," he replied promptly and without protest. + +"My name," said she, "is Anne Leffingwell." + +"Thank you," he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eye +as he added: "Of course, that was rudimentary about the check." + +Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk +again. In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, +he suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering +contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of +tea-store art. + +"Suffering Raphael!" he exclaimed at length. "What's the lady in the +pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch in the +nightie? What's it all about, anyway?" + +"The title," replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of +insignificant lettering, "is 'Swedish Wedding Feast.'" + +"Wedding feast," he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the picture to +his companion. "Well," he raised an imaginary glass high, "prosit omen!" + +The meaning was not to be mistaken. "Well, really," she began +indignantly. "If you are going to take advantage--" + +"You're not supposed to understand Latin," interposed Mr. Dyke hastily. +He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For some subtle reason +her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would have done to his +over-enterprising adroitness. + +"We must be going on," she said. + +He gave her a grateful glance. "I was afraid I'd spilled the apple cart +and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time," he murmured. Having +helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded for a moment, +turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: + +"Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?" + +"No. Cousin." + +"I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve somewhere," +he declared with profound and joyous conviction. + +"Are you a friend of Budge's?" + +"Friend doesn't half express it! He made the touchdown that won me a +clean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn't know him from +Henry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together." + +"Will you tell me one thing, please?" pleaded Anne Leffingwell +desperately. "Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?" + +"Not yet. But then, you see, I'm only a beginner. This is my first +attempt. I'll get better as I go on." + +"Will you please crank my car?" requested Anne Leffingwell faintly. + +Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again. + + * * * * * + +All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid's part, +vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne +Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably +touching at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke--and lingering there. She +was solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke's reason. Came +also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, +ouija, the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. +Leffingwell. He was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. +Leffingwell's existence. Now when two young persons come separately to +an old person to discuss each other's affairs, it is a bad sign. Or +perhaps a good sign. Just as you choose. + +Adopting the Mordaunt Estate's sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke had +settled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. Anne +Leffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a van +must be prodigious. ("Tell her not to worry; my family own the storage +and moving plant," was one of his many messages that I neglected to +deliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and simplicity of +her establishment--one small but neat maid--which he deemed incongruous +with her general effect of luxury and ease of life, and wondered whether +she had split with her family. (She hadn't; "I've always been brought up +like a--a--an artichoke," she confided to me. "So when father went West +for six months, I just moved, and I'm going to be a potato and see how I +like it. Besides, I've got some research work to do.") + +Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and every +afternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37. +Dyke's hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, for +he slept by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electrical +experiments which he was conducting over on the river front, and which +were to send his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapers +have already caught an echo or two.) On his way back from his +experiments, he daily stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist, +where, besides chaste and elegant set pieces inscribed "Gates Ajar" and +"Gone But Not Forgotten," one may, if expert and insistent, obtain +really fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinal +arrival of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but delivered +regularly at the door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not though +a base attempt was made to incriminate me in the transaction. + +Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly and +promising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She was +steadfastly adhering to that "Never. Never. _Never_!" What less, indeed, +could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent hopes of her +husband's early demise from a young man whom she had known but four +hours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but for a +manifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The Mordaunt +Estate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon when +Martin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss his +favorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty brows +over the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully that +this thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terry +the Cop.) + +"That lady in Number 37," said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, "ain't the +lady I thought she was." + +Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked up +hopefully. "You mean that she isn't really _Mrs._ Leffingwell?" + +"I mean I'm disappointed in her; that's what I mean. She wants the house +front painted over." + +"No!" I protested with polite incredulity. + +"Where's her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work so deeply." + +"She does, too," confirmed the Estate. "But she says it's liable to be +misunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and men ask the +hired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird with whiskers +wanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told fortunes there. +So she wants I should tone it down. I guess," pursued the Mordaunt +Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of finding the Perfect +Tenant in an imperfect world, "I'll have to notice her to quit." + +"No; don't do that!" cried the young man. "Here! I'll repaint the whole +wall for you free of charge." + +"What do _you_ know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost money." + +"I'll furnish the paint, too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazy +about art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he added +cunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone down +that design of yours without affecting its beauty and originality +at all." + +Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his +frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the +following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on +a plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the +house came home at four-thirty and caught him at it. + +"That's going to be ever so much nicer," she called graciously, not +recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing back. + +"Thank you for those few kind words." + +"You!" she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and benevolent beam +of the eye upon her. "What are you doing to my house?" + +"Art. High art." + +"How did you get up there?" + +"Ladder. High ladder." + +"You know that isn't what I mean at all." + +"Oh! Well, I've taken a contract to tone down the Midway aspect of your +highly respectable residence. One hour per day." + +"If you think that this performance is going to do you any good--" she +began with withering intonation. + +"It's done that already," he hastened to assert. "You've recognized my +existence again." + +"Only through trickery." + +"On the contrary, it's no trick at all to improve on the Mordaunt +Estate's art. Now that we've made up again, Miss or Mrs. Leffingwell, as +the case may be--" + +"We haven't made up. There's nothing to make up." + +"Amended to 'Now that we're on speaking terms once more.' Accepted? +Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you've been +sending me. You can't imagine how they brighten and sweeten my simple +and unlovely van life, with their--" + +"Mr. Dyke!" Her eyes were flashing now and her color was deeper than the +pink of the roses which she had rejected. "You must know that you had no +right to send me flowers and that in returning them--" + +"Returning? But, dear lady--or girl, as the case may be [here she +stamped a violent foot]--if you feel it your duty to return them, why +not return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though my +attentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am, +so to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There's the Dominie, +for instance. He's notoriously your admirer, and I've seen him at +Eberling's quite lately." (Mendacious young scoundrel!) + +For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner. + +"How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?" she said +uncertainly. + +"How should _I_, for that matter?" he retorted at once. "Though any +idiot could see at a glance that you're at least half sister to the +whole rose tribe." + +"Now you're beginning again," she complained. "You see, it's impossible +to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance." + +"But what do you think of me as a painter-man?" inquired the bewildering +youth. + +Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now +one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. "The question +is," said she, "wasn't it really you that sent the roses, and don't you +realize that you mustn't?" + +"The question is," he repeated, "whether, being denied the ordinary +avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping the fence +with one's votive offerings. Now I hold--" + +Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager +eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness +was gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent the +roses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Do +you mind if I finish this job?" + +Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell +expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a +thing as triumph being too complete. + +"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply. + +Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on +my bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague +truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn't +necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain +gold band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one +who strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to +offer to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at +first sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of the +consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her +eyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive +of serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous +orchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible +orchid expectant of continued patronage should do. + +There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke's color scheme on the +following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an +impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there +discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The +motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the +house front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask: + +"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?" + +The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all +but precipitated into the area. "_Who_?" he said. + +"Miss Leffingwell." + +"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in a +strained tone. + +"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell." + +The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the +immaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled. + +"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival. + +"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifying +satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect." + +"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflected +the stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?" + +"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of +doubt and despair. That," he added, splashing in a prodigal streak of +whooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the misty +mountain-tops of--" + +The opening door below him cut short the disquisition. + +"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man's +ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the +dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't you +come before?" + +To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "You +little idiot!" + +The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, +continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant +hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed +minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching +him as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist +descended from his plank to face her. + +"Are you going?" he demanded. + +A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have +been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke's +face which hurt the girl to see. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"With him?" + +"Ye--es." + +"He isn't your husband." + +"No." + +"You haven't any husband." + +She hung her head guiltily. + +"Why did you invent one?" + +Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the +roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication +with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face. + +"I see. The invention was for my special benefit." + +"Safety first," she murmured. + +"I never really believed it--except when you took me by surprise," he +pursued. "That's why I--I went ahead." + +"You certainly went ahead," she confirmed. "What are speed laws to you!" + +"You're telling me that I haven't played the game according to the +rules. I know I haven't. One has to make his own rules when Fate is in +the game against him." He seemed to be reviewing something in his mind. +"Fate," he observed sententiously, "is a cheap thimble-rigger." + +"Fate," she said, "is the ghost around the corner." + +"A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinée hero, a +movie close-up, a tailor's model--" + +"If you mean Reg, it's just as well for you he isn't here." + +"Pooh!" retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. "I could wreck his +loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush." + +"Doubtless," she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now bleeding +from every pore. "It's a fearful weapon. Spare my poor Reg." + +"I suppose," said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt of hope, +"you'd like me to believe that he's your long-lost brother." + +She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. "No," she +returned hesitantly and consciously. "He isn't--exactly my brother." + +He recalled the initials, "R.B.W.," on the car's door. Hope sank for the +third time without a bubble. "Good-bye," said Martin Dyke. + +"Surely you're not going to quit your job unfinished," she protested. + +Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job. + +"What will the Mordaunt Estate think?" + +Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate. + +"Perhaps you'd like to take the house, now that it's vacant." + +Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of +residence, went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and +red on the other. + +Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to my +window and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly's memorial +clock was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking +sight afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the +measured footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked +for a swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. +Nothing is worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into my +clothes, I made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I was +wont to pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur +desecrator of other men's houses, challenger of the wayward fates, +fanatic of a will-o'-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the +uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the +polychromatic abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all +the pathos and all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth. + +Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusable +only on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous +guide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless +phantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, +and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, deserving of +nothing kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise--which is +doubtless why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked +voices and withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious and +fraudulent litany for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on the +bench stirred. A shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon his +face, bewitched him to unguarded speech: + +"Dominie, I have been dreaming." + +Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent. + +"A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, so +softly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?" + +"Always." + +"I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world, +Dominie?" + +"There has been." + +"Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she went +away so quickly." + +"Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?" + +"So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms." + +"Did she leave nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then what is this?" I lifted from the ground at his feet a single petal +of pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his hand. + +"The fairy's kiss," he said dreamily. "That's for farewell." + +The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightened +up brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes. + +"Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?" + +"Possibly." + +"What kind of talk? Nonsense?" + +"Nonsense--or wisdom. How should I know?" + +"Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?" + +"Look in your hand." + +He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously. +"I must go now," he said vaguely. "May I come back to see you +sometimes, Dominie?" + +"Perhaps you'll bring Happiness with you," I said. + +But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from the +alley and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House of +Silvery Voices, was voiceless again. + + * * * * * + +Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square. +I missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion, +the fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should see +them both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square--it has held me +these sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himself +can break it--which draws back the hearts that have once known the +place. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back. +More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave November +sun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinably +wistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakened +appetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered and +violent frontage of Number 37. + +"Empty," said I. + +"Then he didn't take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I mean." + +"He's gone." + +"Where?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"Doesn't he ever come back?" + +"You must not assume," said I with severity, "that you are the only +devotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to that of +another whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds and +gained ten years--" + +"Dominie! Has he?" + +"Has he what?" + +"G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years." + +"I haven't said so." + +"Dominie, you are a cruel old man," accused the butterfly. + +"And you are a wicked woman." + +"I'm not. I'm only twenty," was her irrelevant but natural defense. + +"Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening or +night before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving us +desolate--were you, I say, abroad in the park? + +"Y-y-yes, your Honor." + +"In the immediate vicinity of this bench?" + +"Benches are very alike in the dark." + +"But occupants of them are not. Don't fence with the court. Were you +wearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those now +displayed in your cheeks?" + +"The honorable court has nothing to do with my face," said the witness +defiantly. + +"On the contrary, your face is the _corpus delicti._ Did you, taking +advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my +client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberately +imprint a--" + +"No! No! No! No! _No_!" cried the butterfly with great and unconvincing +fervor. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing?" + +"On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse is +coming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder." + +Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concerned +over the latter than the former accusation. "Of whom?" she inquired. + +"You have killed a budding poet." Here I violated a sacred if implied +confidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had said +under the spell of the moon. + +The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me with +indignation that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoying +her for days: _that_ was what made her eyes act so, and I was a +suspicious and malevolent old gentleman--and--and--and perhaps some day +she and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet. + +"Is that a message?" I asked. + +"No," answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her eyes. + +"Then?" I queried. + +"He's so--so awfully go-aheadish," she complained. + +"I'll drop him a hint," I offered kindly. + +"It might do some good. I'm afraid of him," she confessed. + +"And a little bit of yourself?" I suggested. + +The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have withered +incontinently anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. It +passed and thoughtfulness supplanted it. "If you really think that he +could be influenced to be more--well, more conventional--" + +"I guarantee nothing; but I'm a pedagogue by profession and have taught +some hard subjects in my time." + +"Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for word as +I give it to you?" + +"Senile decay," I admitted, "may have paralyzed most of my faculties, +but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a phonograph." + +"Tell him this, then." She ticked the message off on her fingers. "A +half is not exactly the same as a whole. Don't forget the 'exactly.'" + +"Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?" I demanded. But she had +already gone, with a parting injunction to be precise. + +When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke, +it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect. + +"I've got it!" he shouted. + +"Don't scare me off my bench! What is it you've got?" + +"The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother." + +"Who?" + +"That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away." He +delivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinion +without a quiver. "Now she says a half isn't exactly the same as a +whole. He wasn't exactly her brother, she said; he's her half brother. +'Toora-loora-loo,' as we say in Patagonia." + +"For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?" + +"Next and immediately," said Mr. Dyke, "I am obtaining an address from +the Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening off." + +"Take some advice also, my boy," said I, mindful of the butterfly's +alarms. "Go slow." + +"Slow! Haven't I lost time enough already?" + +"Perhaps. But now you've got all there is. Don't force the game. You've +frightened that poor child so that she never can feel sure what you're +going to do next." + +"Neither can I, Dominie," confessed the candid youth. "But you're quite +right. I'll clamp on the brakes. I'll be as cool and conventional as a +slice of lemon on an iced clam. 'How well you're looking to-night, Miss +Leffingwell'--that'll be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. +Trust me, Dominie, and thank you for the tip." + +The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of +the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my +astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully +though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in +his coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare. + +"What have you been doing here all night?" I asked. + +"Thinking." + +I pointed to the flower. "Where did you get that?" + +"A fairy gift." + +"Martin," said I, "did you abide by my well-meant and inspired advice?" + +"Dominie," replied the youth with a guilty flush, "I did my best. I--I +tried to. You mustn't think--Nothing is settled. It's only that--" + +"It's only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I expect you +to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the dominant +fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: 'Go slow!' and the avalanche--" + +"Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!" broke in young Mr. Dyke, shouting. "I +beg your pardon, Dominie, I've got to see the Estate for a minute." + +Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentleman +in the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, touch that front!" implored the improver of +it. + +"Why not?" demanded the Estate. + +"I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day." + +The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him. +"Nope," said he. "I've had enough of short rentals. It don't pay. I'm +going to paint her up and lease her for good." + +"I'll take your lease," insisted Martin Dyke. + +"For how long a period?" inquired the other, in terms of the Estate +again. + +The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprised +on the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed in +Martin Dyke's eyes. + +"Say a million years," he answered softly. + + + +THE GUARDIAN OF GOD'S ACRE + +As far as the eye could apprehend him, he was palpably an outlander. No +such pink of perfection ever sprung from the simple soil of Our Square. +A hard pink it was, suggestive less of the flower than of enameled +metal. He was freshly shaved, freshly pressed, freshly anointed, and, as +he paced gallantly across my vision, I perceived him to be slightly +grizzled at the temples, but nevertheless of a vigorous and grim +youthfulness that was almost daunting. Not until he returned and stood +before me with his feet planted a little apart, giving an impression of +purposeful immovability to his wiry figure, did I note that his eyes +belied the general jauntiness of his personality. They were cold, direct +eyes, with a filmy appearance, rather like those of a morose and +self-centered turtle which had lived in our fountain until the day the +Rosser twins fell in, when it crawled out and emigrated. + +"Nice day," said the stranger, shifting a patent-leathered foot out of a +puddle. + +"Very," I agreed. Finical over-accuracy about the weather is likely to +discourage a budding acquaintanceship. + +"Have one?" He extended a gemmed cigarette-case, and when, removing my +pipe, I had declined in suitable terms, lighted up, himself. He then sat +down upon the dryest portion of the bench not occupied by my person. + +"Whiplash win in the fi'th," he volunteered presently. + +"Yes?" said I with a polite but spurious show of interest. + +"Under a pull. Spread-eagled his field." + +"Who is Whiplash, may I ask?" + +"Oh, Gaw!" said the pink man, appalled. He searched my face +suspiciously. "A hoss," he stated at length, satisfied of my ignorance. + +After several reflective puffs, the smoke of which insufficiently veiled +his furtive appraisal of myself, he tried again: + +"They give O'Dowd a shade, last night." + +"Indeed? Who did?" + +"The sporting writers." + +"As a testimonial?" I inquired, adding that a shade, whether of the lamp +or sun species seemed an unusual sort of gift. + +My interlocutor groaned. He drew from the pocket of his gray-check +cutaway, purple and fine linen, the purple being an ornate and +indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan +Gluck's Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and +with a beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its +repository, the pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. + +"The Reds copped again yesterday." + +"If you are referring to the raid on Anarchist Headquarters in Avenue C, +I should have inferred that the Reds _were_ copped, to use your term." + +Curt and contemptuous laughter was his response. "Don't you ever read +the papers, down here?" + +"Certainly," I retorted with some spirit, for the implied slur upon Our +Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications +when you inter--when you arrived. It contains some very +interesting poetry." + +"Yeh?" said the hard, pink man politely. + +"For example, in this issue I find the following apostrophe." I +proceeded to read aloud: + + "Farewell, our dear one, we must part, + For thou hast gone to heavenly home, + While we below with aching heart + Must long for thee and ever moan." + +"Swell stuff," commented the sharer of my bench, with determined +interest. "Poetry's a little out of my line, but I'm _for_ it. Who +wrote that?" + +"It is signed 'Loving Father and 3 Sisters.' But the actual authorship +rests with the long gentleman in black whom you see leaning on the park +fence yonder. His name is Bartholomew Storrs and he is the elegiac or +mortuary or memorial laureate of Our Square." + +This was said with intent to mortify the soul of my new acquaintance in +revenge for his previous display of erudition. The bewilderment in his +face told me that I had scored heavily. But he quickly rallied. + +"Do I get you right?" he queried. "Does he write those hymns for other +folks to sign?" + +"He does." + +"What does he do that for?" + +"Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza." + +"Some salesman!" My hard-faced companion regarded the lank figure +overhanging the fence with new respect. "Looks to me like the original +Gloom," he observed. "What's _his_ grouch?" + +"Conscience." + +"He must have a bum one!" + +"He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow +repenting of our sins." + +"Whose sins?" asked the other, opening wider his dull and weary eyes. + +"Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square." + +My interlocutor promptly and fitly put into words the feeling which had +long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a +monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. "He's got a nerve!" +he asserted. + +Warming to him for his pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my +theme. "He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for +Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a +usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he'll never +do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, to +account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against +the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little +house near the corner"--I waved an illustrative hand--"he can quote +Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect and hate him. +He's coming this way now." + +"Good day, Dominie," said Bartholomew Storrs, as he passed, in such a +tone as a very superior angel might employ toward a particularly +damned soul. + +"That frown," I explained to my companion, after returning the +salutation, "means that I failed to attend church yesterday." + +But the hard, pink man had lost interest in Bartholomew. "Called you +'Dominie,' didn't he?" he remarked. "I thought I had you right. Heard of +you from a little red-headed ginger-box named Smith." + +"You know the Little Red Doctor?" + +"I met him," he replied evasively. "He told me to look you up. 'You talk +to the Dominie,' he says." + +"About what?" + +"I'm coming to that." He leaned forward to place a muscular and +confidential hand on my knee. "First, I'd like to do you a little +favor," he continued in his husky and intimate voice. "If you're looking +for some quick and easy money, I got a little tip that I'd like to pass +on to you." + +"Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a tottering +ruin, which may be quite true; but if it's a matter of investing in the +Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion Concession, I'm +reluctantly compelled--" + +"Forget it!" adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which secured my +silence and almost my confidence. "This is a hoss. Seven to one, and a +sure cop. I _know_ hosses. I've owned 'em." + +"Thank you, but I can't afford such luxuries as betting." + +"You can't afford _not_ to have something down on this if it's only a +shoestring. No? Oh--well!" + +Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray +derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow. Catching the scent hot and +fresh, Susan Gluck's Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or +rather, nose, voluptuously. + +"Mm-m-m! Snmmff!" inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic nostrils. +"Mister, lemme smell it some more!" + +Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief. +"Like it, kiddie?" he said. + +"Oh, it's _grand_!" She stretched out her little grimy paws. "Please, +Mister," she entreated, "would you flop it over 'em, just once?" + +The pink man tossed it to her. "Take it along and, when you get it all +snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me." + +"Oh, gracious!" said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty. "Can I have +it till _to-morrah_?" + +"Sure! What's the big idea for to-morrow?" + +"I'm goin' to a funeral. I want it to cry in," said the Orphan +importantly. + +"A funeral?" I asked. "In Our Square? Whose?" + +"My cousin Minnie. She's goin' to be buried in God's Acre, an' I'm +invited 'cause I'm a r'lation. She married a sporting gentleman named +Hines an' she died yesterday," said the precocious Orphan. + +So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt +us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. +She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, +defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait +and not worry. There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are +buried just such letters as Minnie's farewell to her parents; +rebellious, passionate, yearning, pitiful. Ah, well! The moth must break +its chrysalis. The flower must rend its bonds toward the light. Little +Minnie was "going on the stage." A garish and perilous stage it was, +whereon Innocence plays a part as sorry as it is brief. And now she was +making her exit, without applause. Memory brought back a picture of +Minnie as I had first seen her, a wee thing, blinking and smiling in the +arms of her Madonna-faced mother, on a bench in Our Square, and the +mother (who could not wait for the promised return--she has lain in +God's Acre these three years) crooning to her an unforgettable song, +mournfully prophetic: + + "Why did I bring thee, Sweet + Into a world of sin?-- + Into a world of wonder and doubt + With sorrows and snares for the little white feet-- + Into a world whence the going out + Is as dark as the coming in!" + +Old lips readily lend themselves to memory; I suppose I must have +repeated the final lines aloud, for the pink man said, wearily +but politely: + +"Very pretty. Something more in the local line?" + +"Hardly." I smiled. Between Bartholomew Storr's elegies and William +Young's "Wish-makers' Town" stretches an infinite chasm. + +"What's this--now--God's Acre the kid was talking about?" was his next +question. + +"An old local graveyard." + +"Anything interesting?" he asked carelessly. + +"If you're interested in that sort of thing. Are you an antiquary?" + +"Sure!" he replied with such offhand promptitude that I was certain the +answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a dromedary. + +"Come along, then. I'll take you there." + +To reach that little green space of peace amidst our turmoil of the +crowded, encroaching slums, we must pass the Bonnie Lassie's house, +where her tiny figurines, touched with the fire of her love and her +genius, which are perhaps one and the same, stand ever on guard, looking +out over Our Square from her windows. Judging by his appearance and +conversation, I should have supposed my companion to be as little +concerned with art as with, let us say, poetry or local antiquities. But +he stopped dead in his tracks, before the first window. Fingers that +were like steel claws buried themselves in my arm. The other +hand pointed. + +"What's that?" he muttered fiercely. + +"That," to which he was pointing, was a pictorial bronze, the figure of +a girl, upright in a cockleshell boat, made of a rose-petal, her arms +outspread to the breeze that was bearing her out across sunlit ripples. +Beneath was the legend: "Far Ports." The face, eager, laughing, +passionate, adventurous, was the face of Minnie Munn. Therein the Bonnie +Lassie had been prophetess as well as poet and sculptress, for she had +finished the bronze before Minnie left us. + +"That," I answered the strong, pink man, trying to shake loose his grip, +"is a sculpture by Cecily Willard, otherwise Mrs. Cyrus Staten." + +"What'll she take for it?" + +"It can't be bought." I spoke with authority, for the figurines that the +Bonnie Lassie sets in her window are not for sale, but for us of Our +Square, who love them. + +"Anything can be bought," he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse +persuasiveness, "at a price. I've got the price, no matter what it is." + +Suddenly I understood my pink and hard acquaintance. I understood that +stale look in his eyes. Tears do not bring that. Nothing brings it but +sleepless thoughts beyond the assuagement of tears. Behind such eyes the +heart is aching cold and the brain searing hot. Who should know better +than I, though the kindly years have brought their healing! But here was +a wound, raw and fresh and savage. I put my hand on his shoulder. + +"What was little Minnie to you?" I asked, and answered myself. "You're +Hines. You're the man she married." + +"Yes. I'm Chris Hines." + +"You've brought her back to us," I said stupidly. + +"She made me promise." + +Strange how Our Square binds the heartstrings of those who have once +lived in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the +hour of death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God's Acre, +shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the +encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few +more of the returning. Laws have been invoked and high and learned +courts appealed to for the jealously guarded right to sleep there, as +Minnie Munn was so soon to sleep beside her mother. + +I told Hines that I would see the Bonnie Lassie about the statuette, and +led him on, through the nagged and echoing passage and the iron gate, to +the white-studded space of graves. The new excavation showed, brown +against the bright verdure. Above it stood the headstone of the Munns, +solemn and proud, the cost of a quarter-year's salary, at the pitiful +wage which little, broken Mr. Munn drew from his municipal clerkship. +Hines's elegant coat rippled on his chest, above what may have been a +shudder, as he looked about him. + +"It's crowded," he muttered. + +"We lie close, as we lived close, in Our Square. I am glad for her +father's sake that Minnie wished to come back." + +"She said she couldn't rest peaceful anywhere else. She said she had +some sort of right to be here." + +"The Munns belong to what we call the Inalienables in Our Square," said +I, and told him of the high court decision which secured to the +descendants of the original "churchyard membership," and to them alone, +the inalienable right to lie in God's Acre, provided, as in the ancient +charter, they had "died in honorable estate." I added: "Bartholomew +Storrs, as sexton, has constituted himself watchdog of our graves and +censor of our dead. He carried one case to the Supreme Court in an +attempt to keep an unhappy woman from sleeping in that pious company." + +"That sour-faced prohibitionist?" growled Mr. Hines, employing what I +suspect to be the blackest anathema in his lexicon. "Is he the sexton?" + +"The same. Our mortuary genius," I confirmed. + +"She was a good girl, Min was," said Mr. Hines firmly, though, it might +appear, a trifle inconsequentially: "I don't care what they say. Anyway, +after I met up with her"; in which qualifying afterthought lay a whole +sorrowful and veiled history. + +I waited. + +"What did they say about her, down here?" he asked jealously. + +"Oh, there were rumors. They didn't reach her father." + +"No: tell me," he persisted. "I gotta know." + +Because Mr. Hines had already impressed himself upon me as one with whom +straight talk would serve best, I acceded. + +"Bartholomew Storrs said that her feet took hold on hell." + +Mr. Hines's face remained impassive. Only his hands worked slightly, +perhaps kneading an imaginary throat. I perceived him to be a person of +considerable and perhaps formidable self-control. + +"Not that she hadn't her friends. The Bonnie Lassie would have stood by +her if she had come back, and little Mrs. Morse, and our Dr. Smith, and +MacLachan, who thought he had lost his own girl the same way, and--and +others, plenty." + +"And you, Dominie," said the hard, pink Mr. Hines. + +"My dear sir, old men cannot afford harsh judgments. They are too near +their own time." + +"Yeh?" said Mr. Hines absently. "I guess that's right." But his mind was +plainly elsewhere. "When would you say would be the best time to do +business with old Funeral-Clothes?" he asked after a thoughtful pause. + +"You want to see Bartholomew Storrs?" I interpreted. + +"Sure. I gotta deliver the death certificate to him if he runs the +graveyard, haven't I?" + +"Such is the procedure, I believe." + +"Besides," he added with a leer, "I want to get some of that weepy +poetry of his." + +"Well; he'll sell it to you readily." + +"I'll say he'll sell it to me," returned Mr. Hines with a grimness which +I failed to comprehend. + +"Now is as good a time as any to catch him in his office." I pointed to +a sign at the farther end of the yard. + +Mr. Hines seemed in no hurry to go. With his elegantly lacquered cane, +he picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about +the open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a +handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the +May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they +descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. +Hines's nerves were not all that they should be. + +"Perhaps you'd like me to introduce you to Mr. Storrs," I hazarded. + +The cold and filmy eyes gleamed with an instant's dim warmth. "Dominie, +you're a good guy," responded Mr. Hines. "If a dead cinch at ten to one, +all fruited up for next week, the kind of thing you don't hand on to +your own brother, would be any use to you--No? I'm off again," he +apologized. "Well--let's go." + +We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs's office he paused. + +"This sexton-guy," he said anxiously, "he don't play the ponies, ever, I +wouldn't suppose?" + +"No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church," I +smiled. + +"Yeh?" he answered, disheartened. "I gotta get to him some other way. On +the poetry--and that's out of my line." + +"I don't quite see what your difficulty is." + +"By what you tell me, it's easier to break into a swell Fifth Avenue +Club than into this place." + +"Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has." + +"And this sexton-guy handles the concession for--he's got the say-so," +he corrected himself hastily--"on who goes in and who stays out. Is +that right?" + +"Substantially." + +"And he'd rather keep 'em out than let 'em in?" + +"Bartholomew," I explained, "considers that the honor of God's Acre is +in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about it, as if he had +a proprietary interest in the place." + +"I get you!" Mr. Hines's corded throat worked painfully. "You don't +suppose the old goat would slip Min a blackball?" he gulped. + +"How can he? As an 'Inalienable'--" + +"Yeh; I know. But wasn't there something about a clean record? I'll tell +_you_, Dominie"--Mr. Hines's husky but assured voice trailed away into +a miserable, thick whisper--"as to what he said--about her feet taking +hold on hell--I guess there was a time--I guess about one more slip--I +guess I didn't run across her any too quick. But there never was a +straighter, truer girl than Min was with me. I gotta get her planted +_right_, Dominie. I gotta do it," he concluded with pathetic +earnestness. + +"I see no difficulty," I assured him. "The charter specifies '_died_ in +honorable estate.' Matrimony is an honorable estate. How she lived +before that is between her and a gentler Judge than Bartholomew Storrs." + +"Give her a straight course and a fair judge and I'll back Min to the +limit," said Mr. Hines so simply and loyally that no suggestion of +irreverence could attach to him. + +Nevertheless, doubt was mingled with determination in his florid face as +he rang the bell. Bartholomew Storrs opened to us, himself. When he saw +me, he hastily pocketed a Rhyming Dictionary. I introduced my companion, +stating, by way of a favorable opening, that he was interested in +memorial poetry. + +"Very pleased," said Bartholomew Storrs in his deep, lugubrious tones. +"Bereaved husband?" + +Mr. Hines nodded. + +"Here's a tasty thing I just completed," continued the poet, and, +extending a benignant hand toward the visitor he intoned nasally: + + "Together we have lived our life + Till thou hast gone on high. + But I will come to thee, dear Wife, + In the sweet bye-and-bye." + +"That style five dollars," he said. + +"You're on," barked Mr. Hines. "I'll take it." + +"To be published, I suppose, on the first anniversary of death. Shall I +look after the insertion in the papers?" queried the obliging poet, who +split an advertising agent's percentage on memorial notices placed +by him. + +"Sure. Got any more? I'd spend a hundred to do this right." + +With a smile of astounded gratification, Bartholomew accepted the roll +of bills, fresh and crisp as the visitor himself. To do him justice, I +believe that his pleasure was due as much to the recognition of his +genius as to the stipend it had earned. + +"Perhaps you'd like a special elegy to be read at the grave," he rumbled +eagerly. "When and where did the interment take place?" + +The other glared at him in stony surprise. "It ain't taken place. It's +to-morrow. Ain't you on? I'm Hines." + +A frown darkened the sexton's heavy features. He shook a reprehensive +head. "An unfortunate case," he boomed; "most unfortunate. I will not +conceal from you, Mr. Hines, that I have consulted our attorneys upon +this case, and unhappily--unhappily, I say--they hold that there is no +basis for exclusion provided the certificate is in form. You have it +with you?" + +Impassive and inscrutable, Mr. Hines tapped his breast-pocket. + +The conscience of a responsible sexton being assuaged, Bartholomew's +expression mollified into that of the flattered poet. + +"Such being the case," he pursued, "there can be no objection to the +reading of an elegy as part of the service. Who is to officiate?" + +"The Reverend Doctor Hackett." + +"He has retired these two years," said the sexton doubtfully. "He is +very old. His mind sometimes wanders." + +"She wouldn't have any one else," asserted the hard, pink Mr. Hines. +"She was as particular about that as about being buried yonder." He +jerked his head toward the window. + +"Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide the +reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a moment +while I look up my elegies." + +"Say," said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as the +poet-sexton retired, "this is dead easy. Why, the guy's on the make. For +sale. He'll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff for other folks +to sign! He's a crook!" + +"Make no such mistake," I advised. "Bartholomew is as honest a man as +lives, in his own belief." + +"Very likely. That's the worst kind," pronounced the expert Mr. Hines. + +Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. "If you +will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented," +said he. + +"What becomes of it after I deliver it?" asked Mr. Hines. + +"Read, attested, and filed officially." + +"Any one else but you see it?" + +"Not necessarily." + +"That's all right, then." + +Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. +Hines than he lifted a stiffening face. + +"What is this?" he challenged. + +"What's what?" + +The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. "'Minna Merivale, +aged twenty-five,'" he read. + +"That's the name she went by." + +"_Unmarried_" read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom. + +"Well?" + +In the sexton's eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. "Take +her away." + +"_What_?" + +"Bury her somewhere else. Do not think that you can pollute the +ground--" + +"Bartholomew!" I broke in, stepping hastily in front of Mr. Hines, for I +had seen all the pink ebb out of his face, leaving it a dreadful sort of +gray; and I had no desire to be witness of a murder, however much I +might deem it justified. + +"I'll handle him," said Mr. Hines steadily. "Now; you! You got my +hundred in your jeans, ain't you!" + +"Bribery!" boomed the sexton. He drew out the roll of bills and let it +fall from his contaminated fingers. + +"Sure! Bribery," railed the other. "What'd you think? Ain't it enough +for what I'm asking?" The two men glared at each other. + +I broke the silence. "Exactly what are you asking, Mr. Hines?" + +"File that"--he touched the document--"and forget it. Let Min rest out +there as my wife, like she ought to have been." + +"Why didn't you make her your wife?" thundered the accuser. + +Some invisible thing gripped the corded throat of Mr. Hines. "Couldn't," +he gulped. "There was--another. She wouldn't divorce me." + +"Your sin has found you out," declared the self-constituted judge of the +dead with a dismal sort of relish. + +"Yeh? That's all right. _I'll_ pay for it. But she's paid already." + +"As she lived so she has died, in sin," the inexorable voice answered. +"Let her seek burial elsewhere." + +Mr. Hines leaned forward. His expression and tone were passionless as +those of a statistician proffering a tabulation: his words were fit to +wring the heart of a stone. + +"She's dead, ain't she?" he argued gently. "She can't hurt any one, can +she? 'Specially if they don't know." + +Bartholomew Storrs made a gesture of repulsion. + +"Well, who'll she hurt?" pursued the other, in his form of pure and +abstract reasoning. "Not her mother, I guess. Her mother's waiting for +her; that's what Min said when she was--was going. And her father'll be +on the other side of her. And that's all. Min never harmed anybody but +herself when she was alive. How's she going to do 'em any damage now, +just lying there, resting? Be reasonable, man!" + +Be pitiful, oh, man! For there was a time not so long past when you, +with all your stern probity and your unwinking conscience, needed pity; +yes, and pleaded for it when the mind was out of control. Think back, +Bartholomew Storrs, to the day when you stood by another grave, close to +that which waits to-day for the weary sleeper--Bartholomew Storrs +rested, opened the door and stood by it, grimly waiting. Mr. Hines +turned to me. + +"What is this thing, Dominie; a man or a snake? Will I kill it?" + +"Bartholomew," I began. "When we--" + +"Not a word from you, Dominie. My mind is made up." + +"The girl is Isabel Munn's daughter." + +I saw a tremor shake the gaunt frame. + +"When we buried Isabel Munn, you came back in the night to weep at her +grave." + +He thrust out a warding hand toward me. + +"Why did you weep over Isabel Munn's grave, Bartholomew?" + +"Speak no evil of the dead," he cried wildly. + +"It is not in my mind. She was a good and pure woman. What would she +have been if she had listened to you?" + +"What do you know? Who betrayed me?" + +"You, yourself. When you came down with pneumonia after the burial, I +sat with you through a night of delirium." + +Bartholomew Storrs bowed his head. + +"My sin hath found me out," he groaned. "God knows I loved her, and--and +I hadn't the strength not to tell her. I'd have given up everything for +her, my hope of heaven, my--my--I 'd have given up my office and gone +away from God's Acre! And that was twenty years ago. I--I don't sleep o' +nights yet, for thinking." + +"Well, you ain't the only one," said the dull voice of Mr. Hines. + +"You're tempting me!" Bartholomew Storrs snarled at him. "You're trying +to make me false to my trust." + +"Just to let her lie by her mother, like her mother would ask you if she +could." + +"Don't say it to me!" He beat his head with his clenched hand. +Recovering command of himself, he straightened up, taking a deep breath: +"I must be guided by my conscience and my God," he said professionally, +and I noted a more reverent intonation given to the former than to the +latter. A bad sign. + +"Isabel Munn's daughter, Bartholomew," I reminded him. + +Instead of replying he staggered out of the door. Through the window we +saw him, a moment later, posting down the street, bareheaded and +stony-eyed, like one spurred by tormenting thoughts. + +"Will he do it, do you think?" queried the anxious-visaged Mr. Hines. + +I shook my head in doubt. With a man like Bartholomew Storrs, one can +never tell. + +Old memories are restless companions for the old. So I found them that +night. But there is balm for sleeplessness in the leafy quiet of Our +Square. I went out to my bench, seeking it, and found an occupant +already there. + +"We ain't the only ones that need a jab of dope, Dominie," said Mr. +Hines, hard and pink and hoarsely confidential as when I first saw him. + +"No? Who else?" Though I suspected, of course. + +"Old Gloom. He's over in the Acre." + +"Did you meet him there? What did he say?" + +"I ducked him. He never saw me. He was--well, I guess he was praying," +said Mr. Hines shamefacedly. + +"Praying? At the Munn grave?" + +"That's it. Groaning and saying, 'A sign, O Lord! Vouchsafe thy servant +a sign!' Kept saying it over and over." + +"For guidance to-morrow," I murmured. "Mr. Hines, I'm not sure that I +know Bartholomew Storrs's God. Nor can I tell what manner of sign he +might give, or with what meaning. But if I know my God, whom I believe +to be the true God, your Minnie is safe with him." + +"Yeh? You're a good guy, Dominie," said Mr. Hines in his emotionless +voice. + +I took him home with me to sleep. But we did not sleep. We smoked. + +Minnie Munn's funeral morning dawned clear and fresh. No word came from +Bartholomew Storrs. I tried to find him, but without avail. + +"We'll go through with it," said Mr. Hines quietly. + +How small and insignificant seemed our tiny God's Acre, as the few +mourners crept into it behind Minnie Munn's body; the gravestones like +petty dots upon the teeming earth, dwarfed by the overshadowing +tenements, as if death were but an incident in the vast, unhasting, +continuous sweep of life, as indeed perhaps it is. Then the grandeur of +the funeral service, which links death to immortality, was bodied forth +in the aged minister's trembling voice, and by it the things which are +of life were dwarfed to nothingness. But my uneasy mind refused to be +bound by the words; it was concerned with Bartholomew Storrs, standing +grim, haggard, inscrutable, beside the grave, his eyes upturned and +waiting. Too well I knew for what he was waiting; his sign. So, too, did +Mr. Hines, still hard, still pink, still impeccably tailored, and still +clinging to his elegant lacquered cane, as he supported little, broken +Mr. Munn, very pathetic and decorous in full black, even to the gloves. + +The sonorous beauty and simplicity of the rite suddenly checked, +faltered. Bartholomew Storrs leaned over anxiously to the minister. The +poor, gentle, worn-out old brain was groping now in semi-darkness, +through which shot a cross-ray of memory. The tremulous voice took on +new confidence, but the marrow of my spine turned icy as I heard the +fatally misplaced and confused words that followed: + +"If any man know--know just and good cause why this woman--why this +woman--should not--" + +Bartholomew Storrs's gaunt hand shot upward, high in air, outspread in +the gesture of forbiddance. His deep voice rang, overbearing the +stumbling accents of the clergyman. + +"A sign! A sign from on High! O God, thou hast spoken through thy +servant to forefend a sore offense. Listen, ye people. This woman--" + +He stopped as there rose, on the opposite side of the open grave another +figure, with hands and voice lifted to heaven in what must surely have +been the most ingenuous supplication that ever ascended to the throne of +Pity and Understanding. All the passion which, through the bitter hours, +had been repressed in the self-commanding soul of the hard and pink Mr. +Hines, swelled and cried aloud in his plea: + +"O God! have a heart!" + +Bartholomew Storrs's hand fell. His eyes faltered. His lips trembled. He +stood once more, agonized with doubt. And in that moment the old +minister came to his rightful senses. + +"Peace, my friends," he commanded with authority. "Let no man disturb +the peace of the dead." + +And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service. + +So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No +ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her +comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are +fresh flowers on Minnie's mound, below the headstone reading: "Beloved +Wife of Christopher Hines." But the elegiac verse has never appeared. I +must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze cockleshell, +outward bound for "Far Ports," from the Bonnie Lassie's window, though +Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it could be bought--like all else +--"at a price." By the way, I believe that he has modified that theory. + +As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the +Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as +grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight +of our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he +has a crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of +an official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But +even that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into +heaven on the strength of it. + +I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o' nights now. + + + +FOR MAYME, READ MARY + +I + +Mayme Mccartney was a bad little good girl. She inspired (I trust) +esteem for her goodness. But it was for her hardy and happy impudence, +her bent for ingenious mischief, her broad and catholic disrespect for +law, conventions, proprieties and persons, and the glint of the devil in +her black eyes that we really loved her. Such is the perversity of human +nature in Our Square. I am told that it is much the same elsewhere. + +She first came into public notice by giving (unsolicited) a most +scandalous and spirited imitation of old Madame Tallafferr, aforetime of +the Southern aristocracy, in the act of rebuking her landlord, the +insecticidal Boggs ("Boggs Kills Bugs" in his patent of nobility), for +eating peanuts on his own front steps. She then (earnestly solicited by +a growing audience) put on impromptu sketches of the Little Red Doctor +diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan (drunk) +singing "The Cork Leg" and MacLachan (sober) repenting thereof; of +Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a bereaved +second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten whiskers +(limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious +admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a +bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a +shrub had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew +nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. +He suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he +fought an interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn't +quite fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon +indicated by the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and +floating, and her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of +the mature and self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her +experienced years. + +"Hello," greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque +informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't +know you, do I?" + +Mayme lifted her eyes. "If you don't," she drawled, "it ain't for lack +of tryin'. Is your hat glued on?" + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. "Do you think +I'm trying to flirt with you? Why, you're only a kid." + +"Get up to date," advised Mayme. "I'm old enough to be your steady. +Only, I'm too lucky." + +"That's a bad cough you've got," said the Little Red Doctor hastily. + +"I've got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?" + +"Bring it over to my office and let's look at the thing," suggested the +Little Red Doctor, smiling. + +As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men +which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the +suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful. + +"D'you think it means anything?" she asked. + +"Any cough means something. I couldn't tell without examination." + +"How much?" inquired the cautious Mayme. + +The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. "No charge for +first consultation. Come over to my office." + +When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally +non-committal. "Live with your parents?" he asked. + +"No. With my aunt. 'Round in the Avenue." + +"Where do you work?" + +"The Emporium," answered the girl, naming the great and still +fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward. + +"You ought to quit. As soon as possible." + +"And spoil my delicate digestion?" + +"Who said anything about your digestion?" + +"I did. If I quit workin', I quit eatin'. And that's bad for me. I tried +it once." + +"I see," said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition by no means +unprecedented in local practice. "Couldn't you get a job in some +better climate?" + +"Where, for instance?" + +"Well, if you knew any one in California." + +"How's the walkin'?" asked Mayme. + +"It's long," replied the Little Red Doctor, "seeing" again. "Anyway, +you've got to have fresh air." + +"They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square," Mayme +pointed out. + +"Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour +every day." He gave some further instructions. + +Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel. + +"Take it away," said the Little Red Doctor. "Didn't I tell you--" + +"Go-wan!" said Mayme. "Whadda you think you are; Bellevue Hospital? I +pay as I go, Doc." + +The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely. + +"What's the matter? Face hurt you?" asked the solicitous Mayme. + +"People don't call me 'Doc,'" began the offended practitioner in +dignified tones. + +"Oh, that's because they ain't on to you," she assured him. "I wouldn't +call you 'Doc' myself if I didn't know you was a good sport back of +your bluff." + +The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the +dollar. "You aren't such a bad sport yourself," he admitted. "Well, +we'll call this a deal. But if I see you in the Square and give you a +tip about yourself now and again, that doesn't count. That's on the +side. Understand?" + +She considered it gravely. "All right," she agreed at length. "Between +pals, yes? Shake, Doc." + +So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, +knightly-hearted practitioner, and the impish and lovable little +store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his +old friend, Death. + +"He's got the jump on me, Dominie," complained the Little Red Doctor to +me. "But, at that, we're going to give him a fight. She's clear grit, +that youngster is. She's got a philosophy of life, too. I don't know +where she got it, or just what it is, but it's there. Oh, she's worth +saving, Dominie." + +"If I hadn't reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend," said I, +"I'd give you solemn warning." + +"Why, she's an infant!" returned the Little Red Doctor scornfully. "A +poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides--" He stopped and sighed. + +"Yes; I know," I assented. There was at that time a "Besides" in the +Little Red Doctor's sorrowful heart which bulked too large to admit of +any rivalry. "Nevertheless," I added, "you needn't be so scornful about +the simian type in woman. It's a concentrated peril to mankind. I've +seen trouble caused in this world by kitten faces, by pure, classic +faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic +faces, by passionate Southern faces, but for real power of catastrophe, +for earthquake and eclipse, for red ruin and the breaking up of laws, +commend me to the humanized, feminized monkey face. I'll wager that when +Antony first set eyes on Cleopatra, he said, 'And which cocoa palm did +she fall out of?' Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, +and as for Helen of Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief +that the face that launched a thousand ships and fired the topless +towers of Ilium was a reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is +born of woman cannot resist it. Give little Mayme three more years--" + +"I wish to God I could," said the Little Red Doctor. + +"Can't you?" I asked, startled. "Is it as bad as that?" + +"It isn't much better. How's your insomnia, Dominie?" + +"Insomnia," said I, "is a scientific quibble for unlaid memories. I take +mine out for the early morning air at times, if that's what you mean." + +"It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that busy +little mind of hers from brooding." + +In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She +adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac +near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung +back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a +call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions +and argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair +exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and +adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder? + +On the morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being +discouraged by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it +occupied by an individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part +in the general lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite +exquisite of raiment, which alone would have marked him for an +outlander. His elbows were propped on his knees, his fists supported his +cheekbones, his whole figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him +with surprise, Mayme was shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from +his drooping countenance, fall to the pavement, followed by another. At +the same time she heard an unmistakable and melancholic sound. + +The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have +cradled weariness of body and spirit; they have assuaged grief and given +refuge to shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered +to the passion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had +any of their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme +McCartney. It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of +which was a desire to laugh. + +Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one +vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing. +She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders. + +"Cheer up, Buddy," she said. "It ain't as bad as you think it is." + +"It's worse," gulped a choky voice. Then the head lifted again. "Who are +you?" it demanded. + +"I'm your big sister," said Mayme reassuringly. "Tell a feller about +it." + +The response was neither polite nor explanatory. "D---n sisters!" said +the bencher. + +"Oh, tutt-_tutt_ and naughty-naughty!" rebuked Mayme. "Somebody's sister +been puttin' somethin' over on poor little Willy?" + +"My own sister has." He was in that state of semi-hysterical exhaustion +in which revelation of one's intimate troubles to the first comer seems +natural. "She's gone and got arrested," he wailed. + +Mayme's face became grave and practical. + +"That's different," said she. "What's her lay?" + +"Lay? I don't know--" + +"What's her line? What's she done to get pinched?" + +"Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium." + +"You're tellin' me! In the silks, huh?" + +"What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?" + +"Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that pinch. +Swell young married lady. Say," she added, after a thoughtful pause: +"has she got somethin' comin'?" + +"Something coming? How? What?" + +"Don't be dumb. A kid." + +He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who +live in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false +shame about the major facts of life. + +"Suppose she has?" queried the youth sulkily. + +"Why, that'll be all right, you poor boob," returned the kindly Mayme. +"The judge'll let her off with a warning." + +"How do you know?" + +"They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned for +makin' a pinch of a lady in the fam'ly way." + +"What if they do let her off?" lamented the youth. "It'll be in all the +papers and I'll be ruined. My life's spoiled. I might as well leave +the city." + +"Ah, don't do a mean trick like that to the old town!" besought the +sardonic Mayme. "Where do you come in to get hurt?" + +He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. +His family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy +emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their +new, precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant +grief he did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the +local society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the +Shining Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, +her daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as +"the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented financier." + +Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of +society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American +democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for +their names to appear.) She perceived--not knowing that the advertising +leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those insecure portals +of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny--that she was +in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme's +independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a +career worth saving! + +"Let's go over to the station-house," said she. "I know some of the +cops." + +To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting +case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything +would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store +itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David +Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. +She was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and +piquant and quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. +From the opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking +the insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that +she was a "fly kid." On that theory he invited her to breakfast with +him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson's Élite Restaurant, on the +corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast of +Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured +her by declining it. + +Thus began an acquaintanceship which swiftly ripened into a queer sort +of intimacy, more than a little disturbing to us of Our Square who were +interested in Mayme. Young Berthelin's over-ornate roadster lingered in +our quiet precincts more often than appeared to us suitable or safe, and +black-eyed Mayme, looking demure and a little exalted, was whirled away +to unknown worlds, always returning, however, at respectable hours. When +the Little Red Doctor remonstrated with her ostensibly on the score of +her health, she reminded him in one breath that he hadn't been invited +to censor her behavior which was entirely her own affair, and in the +next--with his hand caught between hers and her voice low and +caressing--declared that he was the best little old Doc in the world and +there was nothing to worry about, either as to health or conduct. +Indeed, her condition seemed to be improving. I dare say young Mr. +Berthelin's expensive food was one of the things she needed. +Furthermore, she ceased to be the raggle-taggle, hoydenishly clad Mayme +of the cash department, and, having been promoted to saleswoman, quite +went in for dress. On this point she sought the advice of the Bonnie +Lassie. The result went far to justify my prophecy that Mayme's queer +little face might yet make its share of trouble in an impressionable +world. But the Bonnie Lassie shook her bonnie head privately and said +that the fine-feathers development was a bad sign, and that if young +Berthelin would obligingly run his seventeen-jeweled roadster off the +Williamsburgh Bridge, with himself in it, much trouble might be saved +for all concerned. + +If little Mayme were headed for trouble, she went to meet it with a +smiling face. Never had she seemed so joyous, so filled with the desire +of life. This much was to be counted on the credit side, the Little Red +Doctor said. On the debit side--well, to me was deputed the unwelcome +task of conveying the solemn, and, as it were, official protest and +warning of Our Square. Of course I did it at the worst possible moment. +It was early one morning, when Mayme, on her bench, was looking a little +hollow-eyed and disillusioned. I essayed the light and jocular approach +to the subject: + +"Well, Mayme; how is the ardent swain?" + +She turned to me with the old flash in her big, shadowed eyes: "Did you +say swain or swine, Dominie?" + +"Ah!" said I. "Has he changed his rôle?" + +"He's given himself away, if that's what you mean." + +"I thought that would come." + +"He--he wanted me to take a trip to Boston with him." + +I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or +unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. "Have you told the Little +Red Doctor?" + +"Doc'd kill him," said Mayme simply. + +"What better reason for telling?" + +"Oh, the poor kid: he don't know any better." + +"Doesn't he? In any case I trust that you know better, after this, than +to have anything more to do with him." + +"Yep. I've cut him out," replied Mayme listlessly. "I figured you and +Doc were right, Dominie. It's no good, his kind of game. Not for girls +like me." She looked up at me with limpid eyes, in which there was +courage and determination and suffering. + +"My dear," I murmured, "I hope it isn't going to be too hard." + +"He's so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + +So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color, +his wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful +figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any +inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when, +a few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had +vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret +from him), and, addressing me as "you white-whiskered old goat," accused +me of having come between him and the girl upon whom he had deigned to +bestow his lordly favor. Unfortunately for him, the Little Red Doctor +chanced along just then and inquired, none too deferentially, what the +Scion of Wealth and Position was doing in that quarter. + +"What business is it of yours, Red-Head?" countered the offended +visitor. + +He then listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do +in the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and +convincing summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch +of his personal and sartorial appearance. + +"I didn't mean the kid any harm," argued the Scion suavely. "I--I came +back to apologize." + +"Let me catch you snooping around here again and I'll break every bone +in your body," the Little Red Doctor answered him. + +"I guess this Square's free to everybody. I guess you don't own it," +said the youth, retreating to his car. + +Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exactitude of this surmise, he was +seen no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at +learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme's, that +she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a +cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized +upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two +consisting of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that +it was all right; we didn't understand. This is, I believe, the usual +formula. The last half of it at least, was true. + +About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that +upon our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney's love +affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the +fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its +military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had +drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded. + +She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic +limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative +Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the +ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that +she had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his +woe-begone and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a +spoiled and pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She +suggested a vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied +our forces to meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie Lassie, and +myself. Mrs. Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, +not even awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted +upon these, and she learned that the Bonnie Lassie was Mrs. Cyrus +Staten, she cringed. Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns +quite as genuine as that of Mrs. Berthelin's to get in, the Cyrus +Statens frequently figure among the Shining Ones, a fact almost +painfully appreciated by our visitor. After that it was easy to get her +into the Bonnie Lassie's house, where her eloquence could not draw a +crowd. To get young David there was not quite so easy. He made one +well-timed and almost successful effort to bolt, and even evinced signs +of balking on the steps. + +His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the +Bonnie Lassie's studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a +history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant +lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, +marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, +he squirmed. + +"Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma'am?" inquired +the Little Red Doctor suavely. + +It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission +as Captain in the Quartermaster's Department was arranged for, and she +expected to have the young officer assigned to New York so that he could +live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and +condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no +designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David's +future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate +of Mayme McCartney's character, manners, and morals, in the midst of +which I heard a gasp. + +It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The +front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins' monogrammed +car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared. + +"That's a lie," said Mayme McCartney steadily. "I'm as straight a girl +as your own daughter. Ask him." + +She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it +can be extremely effective. David's head dropped into his hands. + +"Oh, Ma!" he groaned. + +"Don't call me 'Ma,'" snapped the goaded Mrs. Berthelin. "And this is +the girl?" She looked Mayme up and down. Mayme did the same by her and +did it better. + +"I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare trick," +said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel which ended +in her favor. + +The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie's eyelids quiver, +but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor. + +"Mrs. Berthelin," said she, "you have made some very damaging +statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney's character. What +proof have you?" + +"Why, he wants to _marry_ her!" almost yelled the mother. "She's trapped +him." + +"That's another lie," said Mayme. + +"He told me himself that he was going to marry you." + +"Did he? Then he's wrong. I wouldn't marry him with a brass ring," +asserted Mayme. + +"You wouldn't mar--You wouldn't _what_?" demanded the mother, outraged +and incredulous. + +"You heard me. He knows it, too. I don't like the family--what I've seen +of them," observed Mayme judicially. "Besides, he's yellow." + +David's shamed face emerged into view. "I'm not," he gulped. "She--she +made me." + +"Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. +"Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little +fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their +fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the +fightin' is." + +David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly +expression. + +"Let me out of here," he growled. + +"David!" said his mother. "Where are you going?" + +"To enlist." + +"Davey!" It was a shriek. "You shan't." + +"I will." + +"I won't let you." + +"You can go to--" + +"Buddy!" Mayme's voice, magically softened, broke in. "Cut out the rough +stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no +pink-silk picnic." + +"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs. +Berthelin. + +The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she +said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to +betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities." + +Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and +aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I +come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry." + +"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out +of his fingertips this time to-morrow." + +"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he +added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?" + +"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take +me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along." + +They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by +an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with +the rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine. + +We waited at the Bonnie Lassie's for the Little Red Doctor's return. He +came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little gleam of +disappointment in Mayme's deep eyes. + +"He's done it," said the Little Red Doctor. And I was sorry for him, so +much was there of tragic envy in his face. + +"Did you give him your blessing?" I asked. + +"I did. He shook hands like a man. There's maybe something in that boy, +if it weren't for the old hell-cat of a mother. However, she won't have +much chance. He's off to-morrow." + +"Will he write?" said Mayme in a curious, strained voice. + +"He will. He'll report to me from time to time." + +"Didn't he--wasn't there any message?" + +"Just good-bye and good luck," answered the Little Red Doctor, censoring +ruthlessly. + +The Bonnie Lassie went over and put her arms around Mayme McCartney. + +"My dear," she said softly. "It wouldn't do. It really wouldn't. He +isn't worth it. You're going to forget him." + +"All right." Suddenly Mayme looked like a very helpless and sorrowful +little girl. "Only, it--it isn't goin' to be as easy as you think. He +was so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + + +II + +Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from +which one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of +parched shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my +bench with a fell and purposeful smile. + +"Dominie, you're a dear old thing," she began in her most insinuating +tones. + +"I won't do it," I said determinedly, foreboding something serious. + +The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved +innocence. "Won't do what?" she inquired. + +"Whatever it is that you're trying to wheedle me into." + +The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the +corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. "Oh, +but you've already done it," she said. + +"Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with." + +"It must be lovely to be rich," said the Bonnie Lassie meditatively. +"And so generous!" + +"How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven't got that much," I +hastily remarked. + +"And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme +herself." + +"Go on. Don't mind me," I murmured. + +"The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It's in New Mexico. And in +the fall she's going on to the Coast. He's almost willing to guarantee +that a year of it will make her as strong as ever. And the hundred +dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling expenses will be +plenty. You _are_ a good old thing, Dominie!" + +"What you mean is that I'm an old good-thing. How shall I look," I +demanded bitterly, "when Mayme comes to thank me?" + +"No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable objections +to our perfectly good plans," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "Besides, she +won't. She knows that your way is to do good by stealth and blush to +find it fame, and she's under pledge to pretend to know nothing +about it." + +"Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?" I queried. + +"There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative power. +Think it over." + +"The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!" I cried. "Did our medical +friend blackmail him?" + +"Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme's chance here was +rather poorer than a soldier's going to war, unless something could be +done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed to do it. 'Do you +think she'd take it from you?' said the Little Red Doctor, 'after what +your mother called her?' 'Don't let her know,' says our ornamental young +weeper. 'Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it's from that +white-whiskered old--from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the +benevolent expres--'" + +"Yes: I know," I broke in. "Very good. I'm the goat. Lying, hypocrisy, +false pretense, fake charity; it's all one to a sin-seared old reprobate +like me. After it's over I'll go around the corner and steal what +pennies I can find in Blind Simon's cup, just to make me feel +comparatively respectable and decent again." + +It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, +having come to say good-bye, put her lips close to my ear and tried to +whisper something, and cried and kissed me instead. + +Our Square was a dimmer and duller place after she left. But her letters +helped. They were so exactly like herself! Even at the first, when +things seemed to be going ill with her, they were all courage, and +quaint humor and determination to get well and come back to Our Square, +which was the dearest and best place in the world with the dearest and +best people in it. Homesickness! Poor little, lonely Mayme. She was +reading--she wrote the Bonnie Lassie--all the books that the Dominie had +listed for her, and she was being tutored by a school-teacher with blue +goggles and a weak heart who lived at the same resort. "Why grow up a +Boob," wrote the philosophic Mayme, "when the lil old world is full of +wise guys just aking to spill their wiseness?" + +Contemporaneously the Weeping Scion of Wealth was writing back his views +on life and the emptiness thereof, in better orthography, but with +distinctly less of spirit. + +"It appears," reported the Little Red Doctor, "that every man in his own +company has licked our young friend and now the other companies of the +regiment are beginning to show interest, and he doesn't like it. I +believe he'd desert if it weren't that he's afraid of what Mayme +would think." + +"Still on his mind, is she?" I asked. + +The Little Red Doctor produced a letter with a camp postmark from the +South and read a passage: + +"You were right when you guessed that I never wanted anything very much +before, without having it handed to me. Perhaps you are right about its +being good for me. But it comes hard. The promise goes, of course. I'm +going to show you and her that I'm not yellow. [So that was still +rankling; salutary, if bitter dose!] But if this war ever finishes, all +bets are off and I'm coming back to find her. And don't you forget your +part of the bargain, to write and let me know how she is getting on." +The Little Red Doctor was able to send progressively encouraging news. +When the cold weather came, Mayme moved westward to Southern California, +and found herself on the edge of one of the strange, tumultuous, +semi-insane moving-picture colonies of that region. Thence issued, +presently, stirring tidings. + +"What do you think?" wrote our exile. "They've got my funny little +monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The director likes +me and says he will give me a real chance one of these days. But, as the +Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless imp!] I would +not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to be, out +here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh little +frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure calls +herself Mayme or Daisye or Tootsye. Not for me! I am keeping up my +lessons and trying to make my head good for something besides carrying a +switch. Tell the Little Red Doctor that it is so long since I coughed I +have forgotten how. And I love you all so hard that it _hurts_. + +"Your loving + +"MARY MCCARTNEY + +"P.S. I am going to be Marie Courtenay when I get my name up in the +pictures. Put that in the Directory and see how it looks. + +"P.S.2. How is my soldier boy getting along? Poor kid! I expect he is +finding it a lot different from Broadway with money in your pocket." + +About this time the Weeping Scion was finding things very different, +indeed, from Broadway, having been shifted to a specially wet and muddy +section of France; and was taking them as he found them. That is to say, +he had learned the prime lesson of war. + +"And he's been made corporal," announced the Little Red Doctor with +satisfaction. + +"That sounds encouraging," remarked the Bonnie Lassie. "How did it +happen?" + +"He went over on one of the 'flu ships,' and when the epidemic began to +mow 'em down there was a kind of panic. From what I can make out, the +Scion kept his head and his nerve, and made good. A corporal's stripes +aren't much, but they're something." + +Better was to come. There was high triumph in the Little Red Doctor's +expression when he came to my bench with the glad tidings of young +David's promotion to a sergeantcy. + +"While it's very gratifying," I remarked, "it doesn't seem to me an +epoch-making event." + +"Doesn't it!" retorted my friend. "That's because of your abysmal +military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how it is in our army. A +fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a major by luck, or a +colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine martial figure, but +to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you've got to show the +_stuff_. You've got to be a _man_. You've got to have--" + +"Are you going to tell her?" interrupted the Bonnie Lassie who had been +sent for to share the news. + +The Little Red Doctor fell suddenly grave. "She's another matter," he +said. "I don't think I shall." + +Matters were going forward with Mayme--beg her pardon, Mary McCartney, +too. + +"Better and more of it," she wrote the Bonnie Lassie. "They rang me in +on one of their local Red Cross shows to do a monologue. Was I a hit? +Say, I got more flowers than a hearse! You've got to remember, though, +that they deliver flowers by the car-load out here. And the local stock +company has made me an offer. Ingenue parts. There is not the money that +I might get in the pictures, but the chance is better. So Marie +Courtenay moves on to the legit.--I mean the spoken drama. Look out for +me on Broadway later!" + +In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus +followed by a curt bit of official information: "Seriously wounded." The +Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on +his face. + +"It doesn't look good, Dominie," he said. "You know, my old friend, +Death, is a shrewd picker. He's got an eye for men." He mused, rubbing +his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous hand. "I was getting to kind +of like that young pup," he muttered moodily. + +The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one +who never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does +not come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the +Weeping Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it +would be a long time--months, perhaps--before he could get back to the +front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly +metallic, out of various parts of his system. + +"I'm one of the guys you read about that came over here to collect +souvenirs," he commented. "Well, I've got all I need of 'em. They can +have the rest. All I want now is to get back and present a few to +Fritzie before the show is over." + +Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small +parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became +known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With +her answer came the solution. + +"Some of the 'Grass and Asphalt' sketches are wonders; some not so good. +I am going to try out 'Doggy' if I can find a poodle with enough +intelligence to support me. But you need not have been so mysterious, +Doc, about your 'young amateur writer who seems to have some talent.' +Did you think I would not know it was David? Why, bless your dear, silly +heart, I told him some of those stories myself. But how does he get a +chance to write them? Is he back on this side? Or is he invalided? Or +what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You do not have to worry about +my--well, my infatuation for him, any more. He was a pretty boy, though, +wasn't he? But I have seen too many of that kind in the picture game. +I'm spoiled for them. How I would love to smear some of their pretty, +smirky faces! They give me a queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I +forgot I was a lady. But don't say 'pretty' to me any more. I'm through. +At that, you were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you +thought: only he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to +another. I hope he don't come back a He-ro. I'm offen he-roes, too. +Excuse again!" + +Wars and exiles alike come to an end in time. And in time our two +wanderers returned, but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany +with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical +columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie +Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in +the latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the +production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new +actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. +Not that she was in any way a great genius, but she had a certain +indefinable and winningly individual quality. The critics discussed it +gravely and at length, differing argumentatively as to its nature and +constitution. I could have given them a hint. My predictions regarding +the ancestral potencies of the monkey-face were being abundantly +justified. + +No announcements, even of the most modest description, heralded the +arrival of Sergeant Major (if you please!) David Berthelin upon his +native shores. He came at once to Our Square and tackled the Little +Red Doctor. + +"Where is she?" he asked. + +The Little Red Doctor assumed an air of incredulous surprise. "Have you +still got _that_ bee in your bonnet?" said he. + +"Where is she?" repeated the Weeping Scion. + +Maneuvering for time and counsel, the Little Red Doctor took him to see +the Bonnie Lassie and they sent for me. We beheld a new and +reconstituted David. He was no longer pretty. The soft brown eyes were +less soft and more alert, and there were little wrinkles at their +corners. He had broadened a foot or so. That pinky-delicate complexion +by which he had, in earlier and easier days, set obvious store, was +brownish and looked hardened. The Cupid's-bow of his mouth had +straightened out. High on one cheekbone was a not unsightly scar. His +manner was unassertive, but eminently self-respecting, and me, whom +aforetime he had stigmatized as a "white-whiskered old goat," he now +addressed as "Sir." + +"Perhaps _you'll_ tell me where she is, sir," said he patiently. + +"Leave it to me," said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an unquenchable thirst +for the dramatic in real life. "And keep next Sunday night open." + +She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at +her studio, of David's "Doggy" from the "Grass and Asphalt" sketches +which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, pathetic little +conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the streets, as +expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we borrowed +Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he played +it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right +places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and +only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a +check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the +time to settle accounts, but she never could repay--and so forth and so +on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might +accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out +the truth. + +"Oh, _Dominie_!" said the girl, with such reproach that my heart sank +within me. "Do you think that was fair? Don't you know that I never +could have taken the money?" + +"Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn't +have you dying on the premises," I argued with a feeble attempt at +jocularity. + +"But from _him_!" she said. "After what had happened--And his mother. +How could you let me do it!" + +"I thought you would have gotten over that feeling by this time," I +ventured. + +"Oh, there's none of the old feeling left," she answered, so simply that +I knew she believed her own statement. "But to have lived on his +money--Where is he?" she asked abruptly. + +I told her that also and about Sunday night; the whole thing. The Bonnie +Lassie would have slain me. But I couldn't help it. I was feeling +rather abject. + +Sunday night came, and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an +"ace" covered with decorations, whose name is a household word and who +was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been hints +of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no small +discomposure at the sight of the girl's face when she first saw the +changed and matured Weeping Scion of three years before. After the first +flash of recognition she had developed on that expressive face of hers a +look of wonder and almost pathetic questioning, and, I thought, who knew +and loved the child, already something deeper and sweeter. Young David, +after greeting the star of the evening, took a modest rear seat as +befitted his rank. But when the Bonnie Lassie announced "Doggy," it was +his face that was the study. + +Of that performance I shall say nothing. It is now famous and familiar +to thousands of theater-goers. But if ever mortal man spent twenty +minutes in fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of +his fancy. At the close, he disappeared. I suppose he did not dare trust +himself to join in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed. I +found him, as I rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when +Mayme McCartney first found him. And when the crowd had departed from +the studio, I told the girl. Without even stopping to put on her hat she +went out to him. + +He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his +cheekbones. But this time he was not weeping. He was thinking. Just as +of old she put a hand on his humped shoulder. Startled, he looked up, +and jumped to his feet. She was holding something out to him. + +"What's that?" he said. + +"A check. For what I owe you." + +"Who told you? The Little Red Doctor promised--" + +"He's kept his promise. The Dominie told me." + +"Oh! I suppose," he said slowly, "I've got to take this. You +wouldn't--no, of course you wouldn't," he sighed. + +"I've tried to keep strict account," she said. + +David adopted a matter-of-fact tone. "I can't deny that it'll come in +handy, just now," he remarked. "At the present price of clothing, and +with my personal exchequer in its depleted state--" + +"Why," she broke in, "has anything happened? Your mother--?" + +"Cut off," said David briefly. + +"She's cut you off? On my account? Oh--" + +"No. I've cut her off. Temporarily. She doesn't want me to work. I'm +working. On a newspaper." + +"That's good," said the girl warmly. "Let's sit down." + +They sat down. Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again. +Mary was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried +to, she would cry. She didn't want to cry. She had a feeling that crying +would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming +developments. Why didn't David say something? Finally he did make a +beginning. + +"Mayme." + +"No: not 'Mayme' any more." + +He flushed to his temples. "I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay." + +"Nonsense!" she said softly. "Mary. I've discarded the 'Mayme' long +ago." + +"Mary," he repeated in a tone of musing content. + +"Buddy." + +He caught his breath. "A few thousand of the best guys in the world," he +said, "call a fellow that. And every time they said it, it made my heart +ache with longing to hear it in your voice." + +"You're a queer Buddy," returned the girl, not quite steadily. "Did you +bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?" + +He shook his head. "I didn't bring home much of anything, except some +experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to stand on my +own feet, I wasn't much." + +"You got your stripes, didn't you?" suggested the girl. + +"That's all I did get," he returned jealously. "I didn't get any medal, +or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I didn't get anything except +an occasional calling down and a few scratches. If I'd had the luck to +get into aviation or some of the fancy branches--" David checked +himself. "There I go," he said in self-disgust. "Beefing again." + +It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible +personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to +Mary's swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob +tangled itself in the laughter, and she choked and said: + +"Buddy." + +He turned toward her. + +"Don't be dumb, Buddy," she said, in the words of their unforgotten +first talk. "You've--you've got me--if you still want me." + +She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder +and around his neck, and she was drawn close into his arms. + +"The Little Red Doctor," remarked David after an interlude, in the +shaken tone of one who has had undeserved miracles thrust upon him, +"said that to want something more than anything in the world and not get +it was good for my soul, besides serving me right." + +"The Little Red Doctor," retorted Mary McCartney, with the reckless +ingratitude of a woman in love, "is a dear little red idiot. What does +he know about _Us!_" + + + +BARBRAN + +Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a +visit of protest to my bench. + +"Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?" + +"What do you hear, MacLachan?" + +"That ye're to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?" + +"Perfectly true," said I, passing over the uncomplimentary adjective. + +"'Tis a feckless waste of time." + +"Very likely." + +"'Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and influence in Our +Square should be dissuadin' them." + +"Perhaps they need a friendly word." + +MacLachan frowned. "Ye're determined?" + +"Oh, quite!" + +"Then I'll give ye a title for yer romance." + +"That's very kind of you. Give it." + +"The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One," said MacLachan +witheringly, and turned to depart. + +"Mac!" + +"What?" + +"Wait a moment." + +I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be +inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle. + +"I'll waste na time from the tailorin'," began the Scot disdainfully, +but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. "Well?" he said, +showing a guilty inclination to flinch. + +"Mac, was _I_ an original accomplice in this affair?" + +"Will ye purtend to deny--" + +"Did _I_ scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?" + +MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence. + +"Did _I_ get arrested?" + +MacLachan grunted. + +"In a cellar?" + +MacLachan snorted. + +"With my nose painted green?" + +MacLachan groaned. "There was others," he pleaded. + +"A man of your age and influence in Our Square," I interrupted sternly, +"should have been dissuading them." + +"Arr ye designin' to put all that in yer sil--in yer interestin' +account?" + +"Every detail." + +MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as +mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and +retired to his Home of Fashion. + + * * * * * + +That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, +Leon Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young +Phil Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with +modifications and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses +green and frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The +explanation is Barbran. + +Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington +Square. + +Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude +toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. +Our Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when +the foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow +whose wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich +Village. Our Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, +whereas Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with +paint and its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its +inconsiderable laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at +life; Our Square has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little +in common. + +Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not +wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the +Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman +architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by +street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense +urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her +far afield, met Barbran. + +They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving +sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the +Bonnie Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive +and shrewd little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was +thinking of improving on the Mole's Hole idea if she could find a +suitable location, not so much for the money, of course--her tone +implied a lordly indifference to such considerations--as for the fun of +the thing. + +The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her +about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult +thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her +wonderful little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. + +Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination +compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she +has marked down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to +the Bonnie Lassie's house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and +stayed. She rented a room from the Angel of Death ("Boggs Kills Bugs" is +the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local +interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr's +apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked +at me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes. + +"The Bonnie Lassie sent you," said I. + +She nodded. + +"You've come here to live--Heaven only knows why--but we're glad to see +you. And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, +'Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.' Didn't she?" + +Barbran sat down and smiled at me. + +"Having sought information," I pursued, "on my own account, I learn that +you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does +it feel to revel in millions?" + +"Romantic," said she. + +"Of course you have designs upon us." + +"Yes." + +"Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?" + +"Oh, nothing long and clever like that." + +"You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless wish +my advice." + +"No," she answered softly: "I've done it already." + +"Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?" + +"Started my designs. I've rented the basement of Number 26." + +"Are you a rag-picker in disguise?" + +"I'm going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling it 'The +Coffee Pot.' What do you think?" + +"So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that +plumber's shop next to the corner saloon?" I pointed to the Avenue whose +ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without ever sweeping +us into its current. "That was once a tea-shop. It was started by a dear +little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run by Tough Bill +Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and hung it up +outside her place, 'The Teacup.' Tough Bill took a board and painted a +sign and hung it up outside _his_ place; 'The Hiccup.' The dear little, +prim little old maiden lady took down her sign and went away. Yet there +are those who say that competition is the life of trade." + +"Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?" + +"Take it or leave it," said I amiably. + +"I will not call my cellar 'The Coffee Pot' lest a worse thing befall +it." + +"You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury." + +"It is true that my parents named me that," said she, "but my friends +call me 'Barbran' because I always used to call myself that when I was +little, and I want to be called Barbran here." + +"That's very friendly of you," I observed. + +She gave me a swift, suspicious look. "You think I'm a fool," she +observed calmly. "But I'm not. I'm going to become a local institution. +A local institution can't be called Barbara Ann Waterbury, unless it's a +crêche or a drinking-fountain or something like that, can it?" + +"It cannot, Barbran." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dominie," said Barbran gratefully. She then proceeded to +sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and herself a +Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia from +the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms of +darkness as New Haven and Cohoes. + +"That's what I intend to do," said Barbran, "as soon as I get my Great +Idea worked out." + +What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In +fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather +elaborately loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new +friend had departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and +friendly face. Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than +that he represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie +Lassie, who has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal +lack of success. There is something untransferable in the boy's face; +perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to +any woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or +sentimental predilections, "Isn't he a homely cub!" that she didn't +reply indignantly: "He's _sweet_!" Now when women--wonderful women like +the Bonnie Lassie and stupid women like Mrs. Rosser, the twins' aunt, +and fastidious women like Madame Tallafferr--unite in terming a smiling +human freckle "_sweet_," there is nothing more to be said. Adonis may as +well take a back seat and the Apollo Belvedere seek the helpful +resources of a beauty parlor. Said young Phil carelessly: + +"Dominie, who's the newcomer?" + +"That," said I, "is Barbran." + +"Barbran," he repeated with a rising inflection. "It sounds like a +breakfast food." + +"As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music," said I. + +"What's the rest of her name?" + +"I am not officially authorized to communicate that." + +"Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?" + +"On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?" I asked +austerely. + +"Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the +cross-town car; and I--well, I just happened to notice her, you know. +That's all." + +"Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her appearance +is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express myself, to +the discriminating eye." + +"Who's the fool--" began Mr. Stacey hotly. + +"Tut-tut, my young friend," said I. "Certain ladies whom we both esteem +can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, that none of +the young person's features is exactly what it should be or precisely +where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is surprising and +even gratifying." + +"She's a peach!" asseverated my companion. + +"Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you need no +introduction to Barbran. Nobody does." + +"_What_?" Phil Stacey's plain face became ugly; a hostile light +glittered in his eyes. "What do you mean by that?" he growled. + +"Simply that she's about to become a local institution. She's plotting +against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of starting +a coffee-house at Number 26." + +"No!" cried Phil joyously. "Good news!" + +"As a fad. She's a budding millionairess from the West." + +"No!" growled Phil, his face falling. + +"Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some decorations, +and that you might be the one to do them." In his leisure hours, my +young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the term "expert" +appears to be rather an empty compliment, since his stipend is only +twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates impressionistic decorations and +scenery for such minor theaters as will endure them. + +"You're a grand old man, Dominie!" said he. "Let's go." + +We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left +them--without any strenuous protests on the part of either--they were +deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, the +high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, +aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? +Dangerous is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young +Phil Stacey and in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who +is as far from homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each +other's opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, +lighted by will-o'-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually +they smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. +I may have smiled myself. + +Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey's normally cheerful face when, +some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms. + +"Dominie," said he, "I want to tap your library. Have you got any of the +works of Harvey Wheelwright?" + +"God forbid!" said I. + +Phil looked surprised. "Is it as bad as that? I didn't suppose there was +anything wrong with the stuff." + +"Don't you imperil your decent young soul with it," I advised earnestly. +"It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints is so full of +nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather live in +hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of the +Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a +righteously enraged populace would have killed 'em in early childhood. +He's the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United States. +Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to +weak-minded--" + +"Whew! Help! I didn't know what I was starting," protested my visitor. +"As a literary critic you're some Big Bertha, Dominie. I begin to +suspect that you don't care an awful lot about Mr. Wheelwright's style +of composition. Just the same, I've got to read him. All of him. Do you +think I'll find his stuff in the Penny Circulator?" + +"My poor, lost boy! Probably not. It is doubtless all out in the hands +of eager readers." + +However, Phil contrived to round it up somewhere. The awful and +unsuspected results I beheld on my first visit of patronage to Barbran's +cellar, the occasion being the formal opening. A large and curious crowd +of five persons, including myself and Phil Stacey, were there. Outside, +an old English design of a signboard with a wheel on it creaked +despairingly in the wind. Below was a legend: "_At the Sign of the +Wheel_--_The Wrightery_." The interior of the cellar was decorated with +scenes from the novels of Harvey Wheelwright, triumphant virtue, +discomfited villains, benignant blessings, chaste embraces, edifying +death-beds, and orange-blossoms. They were unsigned; but well I knew +whose was the shame. Over the fireplace hung a framed letter from the +Great Soul. It began, "Dear Young Friend and Admirer," and ended, "Yours +for the Light. Harvey Wheelwright." + +The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank +everything in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. +Finally Phil departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner +had the door slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was +looking discouraged. + +"Well, what have you to say in your defense?" + +The way Barbran's eyebrows went up constituted in itself a defense fit +to move any jury to acquittal. + +"For what?" she asked. + +"For corrupting my young friend Stacey. You made him paint those +pictures." + +"They're very nice," returned Barbran demurely. "Quite true to the +subject." + +"They're awful. They're an offense to civilization. They're an insult to +Our Square. Of all subjects in the world, Harvey Wheelwright! Why, +Barbran? Why? Why? Why?" + +"Business," said Barbran. + +"Explain, please," said I. + +"I got the idea from a friend of mine in Washington Square. She got up a +little cellar café built around Alice. Alice in Wonderland, you know, +and the Looking Glass. Though I don't suppose a learned and serious +person like you would ever have read such nonsense." + +"It happened to be Friday and there wasn't a hippopotamus in the house," +I murmured. + +"Oh," said Barbran, brightening. "Well, I thought if she could do it +with Alice, I could do it with Harvey Wheelwright." + +"In the name of Hatta and the March Hare, _why_?" + +"Because, for every one person who reads Alice nowadays, ten read the +author of 'Reborn Through Righteousness' and 'Called by the Cause.' +Isn't it so?" + +"Mathematically unimpeachable." + +"Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other place. +Don't you think so?" she inquired wistfully. + +Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul. +"Undoubtedly," I agreed. "But do you love him?" + +"Who?" said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up her +cheeks. + +"Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?" + +"He is a very estimable writer," returned Barbran primly, quite ignoring +my other query. + +"Good-night, Barbran," said I sadly. "I'm going out to mourn your lost +soul." + +One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of +one's own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all +on this occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once. + +"What did you do it for?" + +To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. "Pay," +said he. + +"Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?" + +"Not exactly. I'm taking it out in trade. I'm going to eat there." + +"You'll starve to death." + +"I haven't got much of an appetite." + +"The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted diet +of Harvey Wheelwright--" + +"Don't speak the swine's name," implored Phil, "or I'll be sick." + +"You've sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, probably +indigestible at that." + +"I don't care," he averred stoutly. "I don't care for anything +except--Dominie, who told you her father was a millionaire?" + +"It's well known," I said vaguely. "He's a cattle king or an emperor of +sheep or the sultan of the piggery or something. A good thing for +Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her cellar going. The kind of +people who read Har--our unmentionable author, don't frequent Bohemian +coffee cellars. They would regard it as reckless and abandoned +debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark." + +"The place has got to be a success," declared Phil between his teeth, +his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. + +"Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West," I suggested. The boy +winced. + +What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically. +Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the +highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid +for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means. + +Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward +innovations. Thornsen's Élite Restaurant has always sufficed for our +inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey +Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little +millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone. +She advertised feebly in the "Where to Eat" columns, catching a few +stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn't come. Until the +first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought their +bills with them. + +Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost +or quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of +patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late +comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say +indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once, +as she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank +terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire's +daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that +look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it, +preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our +Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran's sunny face? Puzzling +over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of +fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?" + +At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of +Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers. + +"I know whom you mean," said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to the +little dormer window which was Barbran's outlook on life. "Interpret me +a signal. What do you see up there?" + +"It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window," said I adjusting +my glasses. + +"Upside down," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"How can a handkerchief be upside down?" I inquired, in what was +intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. + +Contempt was all that it brought me. "Metaphorically, of course! It's a +signal of distress." + +"In what distress can Barbran be?" + +"In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the roof +in Our Square?" + +"She's doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me so +herself. A millionaire's daughter--" + +"Do millionaires' daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and paste them +on windows to dry? Does any woman in or out of Our Square _ever_ soak +her own handkerchiefs in her own washbowl except when she's desperately +saving pennies? Did you ever wash one single handkerchief in your +rooms, Dominie?" + +"Certainly not. It isn't manly. Then you think she isn't a +millionairess?" + +"Look at her shoes when next you see her," answered the Bonnie Lassie +conclusively. "_I_ think the poor little thing has put her every cent in +the world into her senseless cellar, and she's going under." + +"But, good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "Something has got to be done." + +"It's going to be." + +"Who's going to do it?" + +"Me," returned the Bonnie Lassie, who is least grammatical when most +purposeful. + +"Then," said I, "the Fates may as well shut up shop and Providence take +a day off; the universe has temporarily changed its management. Can +I help?" + +The Bonnie Lassie focused her gaze in a peculiar manner upon the exact +center of my countenance. A sort of fairy grin played about her lips. "I +wonder if--No," she sighed. "No. I don't think it would do, Dominie. +Anyway, I've got six without you." + +"Including Phil Stacey?" + +"Of course," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "It was he who came to me for +help. I'm really doing this for him." + +"I thought you were doing it for Barbran." + +"Oh; she's just a transposed Washington Squarer," answered the tyrant of +Our Square. "Though she's a dear kiddie, too, underneath the nonsense." + +"Do I understand--" + +"I don't see," interrupted the Bonnie Lassie sweetly, "how you could. I +haven't told you. And the rest are bound to secrecy. But don't be unduly +alarmed at anything queer you may see in Our Square within the next +few days." + +Only by virtue of that warning was I able to command the emotions +aroused by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was +hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a +shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to +sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering +and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of +nonchalance in this world. + +"Good-evening, Cyrus," I said. + +"Good-evening, Dominie." + +"Beautiful weather we're having." + +"Couldn't be finer." + +"Do you think it will hold?" + +"The paper says rain to-morrow." + +"Why is the tip of your nose painted green?" + +"Is it green?" inquired Cyrus, as if he hadn't given the matter any +special consideration, but thought it quite possible. + +"Emerald," said I. "It looks as if it were mortifying." + +"It would be mortifying," admitted Cyrus the Gaunt, "if it weren't in a +good cause." + +"What cause?" I asked. + +"Come out of there!" said Cyrus the Gaunt, not to me, but to a figure +lurking in the shrubbery. + +The Little Red Doctor emerged. I took one look at his most distinctive +feature. + +"You, too!" I said. "What do you mean by it?" + +"Ask Cyrus," returned the Little Red Doctor glumly. + +"It's a cult," said Cyrus. "The credit of the notion belongs not to me, +but to my esteemed better half. A few chosen souls--" + +"Here comes another of them," I conjectured, as a bowed form approached. +"Who is it? MacLachan!" + +The old Scot appeared to be suffering from a severe cold. His +handkerchief was pressed to his face. + +"Take it down, Mac," I ordered. "It's useless." He did so, and my worst +suspicions were confirmed. + +"He bullied me into it," declared the tailor, glowering at Cyrus the +Gaunt. + +"It'll do your nose good," declared Cyrus jauntily. "Give it a change. +Complementary colors, you know. What ho! Our leader." + +Phil Stacey appeared. He appeared serious; that is, as serious as one +can appear when his central feature glows like the starboard light of an +incoming steamship. Following him were Leon Coventry, huge and shy, and +the lethal Boggs looking unhappy. + +"Where are you all going?" I demanded. + +"To the Wrightery," said Phil. + +"Is it a party?" + +"It's a gathering." + +"Am I included?" + +"If you'll--" + +"Not on any account," I declared firmly. It had just occurred to me why +the Bonnie Lassie had centered her gaze upon my features. "Follow your +indecent noses as far as you like. I stay." + +Still lost in meditation, I may have dozed on my bench, when heavy, +measured footsteps aroused me. I looked up to see Terry the Cop, +guardian of our peace, arbiter of differences, conservator of our +morals. I peered at him with anxiety. + +"Terry," I inquired, "how is your nose?" + +"Keen, Dominie," said Terry. He sniffed the air. "Don't you detect the +smell of illegal alcohol?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"It's very plain," declared the officer wriggling his nasal organ which, +I was vastly relieved to observe, retained its original hue. "Wouldn't +you say, Dominie, it comes from yonder cellar?" + +"Barbran's cellar? + +"I am informed that a circle of dangerous char-_ack_ters with green +noses gather there and drink cider containing more than two-seventy-five +per cent of apple juice. I'm about to pull the place." + +"For Heaven's sake, Terry; don't do that! You'll scare--" + +"Whisht, Dominie!" interrupted Terry with an elaborate wink. "There'll +be no surprise, except maybe to the Judge in the morning. You better +drop in at the court." + +Of the round-up I have no details, except that it seemed to be quietly +conducted. The case was called the next day, before Magistrate Wolf Tone +Hanrahan, known as the "Human Judge." Besides being human, his Honor is, +as may be inferred from his name, somewhat Irish. He heard the evidence, +tested the sample, announced his intention of coming around that evening +for some more, and honorably discharged Barbran. + +"And what about these min?" he inquired, gazing upon the dauntless six. + +"Dangerous suspects, Yeronner," said Terry the Cop. + +"They look mild as goat's milk to me," returned the Magistrate, "though +now I get me eye on the rid-hidded wan [with a friendly wink at the +Little Red Doctor] I reckonize him as a desprit charackter that'd save +your life as soon as look at ye. What way are they dang'rous?" + +"When apprehended," replied Terry, looking covertly about to see that +the reporters were within hearing distance, "their noses were +painted green." + +"Is this true?" asked the Magistrate of the six. + +"It is, your Honor," they replied. + +"An', why not!" demanded the Human Judge hotly. "'Tis a glorious color! +Erin go bragh! Off'cer, ye've exceeded yer jooty. D' ye think this is +downtrodden an' sufferin' Oireland an' yerself the tyrant Gineral +French? Let 'em paint their noses anny color they loike; but green for +preference. I'm tellin' ye, this is the land of freedom an' equality, +an' ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, liberty, and the purshoot +of happiness, an' a man's nose is his castle, an' don't ye fergit it. +Dis-charrrrged! Go an' sin no more. I mane, let the good worruk go awn!" + +"Now watch for the evening papers," said young Phil Stacey exultantly. +"The Wrightery will get some free advertising that'll crowd it +for months." + +Alas for youth's golden hopes! The evening papers ignored the carefully +prepared event. One morning paper published a paragraph, attributing the +green noses to a masquerade party. The conspirators, gathered at the +cellar with their war-paints on (in case of reporters), discussed the +fiasco in embittered tones. Young Stacey raged against a stupid and +corrupt press. MacLachan expressed the acidulous hope that thereafter +Cyrus the Gaunt would be content with making a fool of himself without +implicating innocent and confiding friends. The Bonnie Lassie was not +present, but sent word (characteristically) that they must have done it +all wrong; men had no sense, anyway. The party then sent out for +turpentine and broke up to reassemble no more. Only Phil Stacey, +inventor of the great idea, was still faithful to and hopeful of it. +Each evening he conscientiously greened himself and went to eat +with Barbran. + +Time justified his faith. One evening there dropped in a plump man who +exhaled a mild and comforting benevolence, like a gentle country parson. +He smiled sweetly at Phil, and introduced himself as a reporter for the +"Sunday World Magazine"--and where was the rest of the circle? In a +flurry of excitement, the pair sent for Cyrus the Gaunt to do the +talking. Cyrus arrived, breathless and a trifle off color (the Bonnie +Lassie had unfortunately got a touch of bronze scenic paint mixed with +the green, so that he smelled like an over-ripe banana), and proceeded +to exposition. + +"This," he explained, "is a new cult. It is based on the +back-to-the-spring idea. The well-spring of life, you know. +The--er--spring of eternal youth, and--and so forth. You understand?" + +"I hope to," said the reporter politely. "Why on the nose?" + +"I will explain that," returned Cyrus, getting his second wind; "but +first let me get the central idea in your mind. It's a nature movement; +a readjustment of art to nature. All nature is green. Look about you." +Here he paused for effect, which was unfortunate. + +"Quite so," agreed the reporter. "The cable-car, for instance, and the +dollar bill, not to mention the croton bug and the polar bear. But, +pardon me, I interrupt the flow of your eloquence." + +"You do," said Cyrus severely. "Inanimate nature I speak of. All +inanimate nature is green. But we poor fellow creatures have gotten away +from the universal mother-color. We must get back to it. We must learn +to think greenly. But first we must learn to see greenly. How shall we +accomplish this? Put green in our eyes? Impossible, unfortunately. But, +our noses--there is the solution. In direct proximity to the eye, the +color, properly applied, tints one's vision of all things. Green shadows +in a green world," mooned Cyrus the Gaunt poetically. "As the bard +puts it: + + "'Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade.'" + +"Wait a minute," said the visitor, and made a note on an envelope-back. + +"Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a millionaire +cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second note], has +established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our souls." + +"Good!" said the benevolent reporter. "Fine! Of course it's all bunk--" + +"Bunk!" echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with his lank +jaw drooping. + +"You don't see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?" inquired +the visitor pleasantly. "Just what you're putting over I don't know. +Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don't tell me. It's good enough, +anyway. I'll fall for it. It's worth a page story. Of course I'll want +some photographs of the mural paintings. They're almost painfully +beautiful.... What's wrong with our young friend; is he sick?" he added, +looking with astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting +sub-nauseous symptoms. + +"He painted 'em," explained Cyrus, grinning. + +"And he's sorry," supplemented Barbran. + +"Yes; I wouldn't wonder. Well, I won't give him away," said the kindly +journalist. "Now, as to the membership of your circle...." + +The Sunday "story" covered a full page. The "millionairess" feature was +played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations did what +little the text failed to do. It was a "josh-story" from beginning +to end. + +"I'll kill that pious fraud of a reporter," declared Phil. + +"Now the place _is_ ruined," mourned Barbran. + +"Wait and see," advised the wiser Cyrus. + +Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom +on the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that +week and the succeeding week. + +"I never was good at figures," said the transported Barbran to Phil +Stacey at the close of the month, "but as near as I can make out, I've a +clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My fortune is made. And +it's all due to you." + +Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, +the owner's golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had +other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim +cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was +the first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he +knew he was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to +the pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that +a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then +Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important +engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut +country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow +does not make a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis +convince a skeptical public that it is enjoying the fearful +companionship of a subversive and revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed +out as fast as it had flooded in. Barbran's eyes were as soft and happy +as ever in the evenings, when she and Phil sat in a less and less +interrupted solitude. But in the mornings palpable fear stalked her. +Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied with a dread of his own. + +One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and +home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up +to facing the facts. + +"It's going to be a failure," she said dismally. + +"Then you're going away?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from +quaking. + +She set her little chin quite firmly. "Not while there's a chance left +of pulling it out." + +"Well; it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned," he muttered. "I'm +going away myself." + +"You?" She sat up very straight and startled. "Where?" + +"Kansas City." + +"Oh! What for?" + +"Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came back +to ask about the decorations?" + +"Yes." + +"He's built him a new house--he calls it a mansion--and he wants me to +paint the music-room. He likes"--Phil gulped a little--"my style +of art." + +"Isn't that great!" said Barbran in the voice of one giving three cheers +for a funeral. "How does he want his music-room decorated?" + +Young Phil put his head in his hands. "Scenes from Moody and Sankey," he +said in a muffled voice. + +"Good gracious! You aren't going to do it?" + +"I am," retorted the other gloomily. "It's good money." Almost +immediately he added, "Damn the money!" + +"No; no; you mustn't do that. You must go, of course. Would--will it +take long?" + +"I'm not coming back." + +"I don't _want_ you not to come back," said Barbran, in a queer, +frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and hastily withdrew it. + +He said desperately: "What's the use? I can't sit here forever looking +at you and--and dreaming of--of impossible things, and eating my heart +out with my nose painted green." + +"The poor nose!" murmured Barbran. + +With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she +gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble +attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and +pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable. + +So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed. + +It was not Barbran's nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that matter, +was it young Phil's. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, for the +untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded of +Barbran and the fates: + +"What's the use?" + +"What's the use of what?" returned Barbran tremulously. + +"Of all this? Your father's a millionaire, and I won't--I can't--" + +"He isn't!" cried Barbran. "And you can--you will." + +"He isn't?" ejaculated Phil. "What is he?" + +"He's a school-teacher, and I haven't got a thing but debts." + +Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy +bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an +interlude he said: + +"But, why--" + +"Because," said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: "I thought it +would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it +would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil! +Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a--a--a--dumbbell?" + +For he had thrust her away from him at arm's-length again. + +"There's one other thing between us, Barbran." + +"If there is, it's your fault. What is it?" + +"Harvey Wheelwright," he said solemnly. "Do you really like that +sickening slush-slinger?" + +She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. "I loathe +him. I've always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with and +the paper it's printed on." + +When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the +"Dear Friend and Admirer" letter in a slow candle-flame, and Harvey +Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, was +writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their +little romance. + +"And he's not going to Kansas City," said Barbran defiantly. + +"I'm not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And he's going to paint what he wants to." + +"Pictures of Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And we're going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe off the +walls and _make_ the place a success," said Barbran. + +"And we're going to be married right away," said Phil. + +"Next week," said Barbran. + +"What do you think?" said both. + +Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. +I should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on +twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached +prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out--The wind blew the +door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little +burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my +withered heart. + +"Bless you, my children!" said I. + +It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their +reckless, feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the +tailor, reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions +regarding the pair. + +"What'll they be marryin' on?" demanded Mac Wisdom--that is to say, +MacLachan. + +"Spring and youth," I said. "The fragrance of lilac in the air, the glow +of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?" + +"A bit of prudence," said MacLachan. + +"Prudence!" I retorted scornfully. "The miser of the virtues. It may pay +its own way through the world. But when did it ever take Happiness along +for a jaunt?" + +I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon +me with his observation about two young fools and an old one. + +Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that +headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, +and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at +the window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be +justified of his forebodings, and yet--and yet--who am I, old and lonely +and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and the +sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of +MacLachan and that ilk? + +Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and +flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried--and I let +the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the song +endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its +echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two +young fools. + +As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment +and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his +nose green! + + + +PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE + +Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an old +and melancholy song that my grandfather sang: + + "And his skin was so thin + You could almost see his bones + As he ran, hobble--hobble--hobble + Over the stones." + +Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts would +invariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which had +forever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!" He would then recapitulate +in English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was his +substitute for it. "Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for mend?" + +So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute +intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly +built, stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, +with a face which would have been totally insignificant but for an +obstinate chin and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning +eyes; and he was incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived +among us, occupying a cubbyhole in Schepstein's basement full of ribs, +handles, crooks, patches, and springs, without appreciably improving his +speech or his position. It was said that his name was Garin--nobody +really knew or cared--and it was assumed from his speech that he +was French. + +Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain such +non-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation. +Why Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, though +by no means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the Bonnie +Lassie, to whom any variety of want or helplessness is its own +sufficient recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptown +friends. Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariably +took off his frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she was +there to see, and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent of +declaring that she was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I ever +heard him make upon any one in Our Square, which in turn completely +ignored him until the development of his love affair stimulated our +condescending and contemptuous interest. + +The object of Plooie's addresses was a little Swiss of unknown +derivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from the +surrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bit +of a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, soft +hazel eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those who +scrub other people's doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour. + +For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran an +uneventful course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell +where is fancy bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the +drabbled little worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open +the conversation according to an invariable formula. + +"Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?" Thereby the little Swiss +became known as, and ever will be called locally, "Annie Oombrella." +Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a fatal penchant +for nicknames in Our Square. + +She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed, +should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended! + +Then would he say--I shall not attempt to torture the good English +alphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: "It makes fine +to-day, it do!" + +And she would reply "Yes, a fine day"; and look as if the sun were a +little warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie's greeting, as, +perhaps, indeed, it was. + +After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious, +venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming his +unproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered that +she spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. On +Christmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year's he took +her walking among the tombstones in God's Acre, which is a serious and +sentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in the +following week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in the +glowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand, +on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other's eyes, +and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the rest of +the world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not to +understand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed. +It was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said: + +"If one marries themselves?" + +And she replied: "I believe it well." + +They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric +light which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless +activity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor +of them. + +But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles she +mistrusts that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts as +earthly agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken little +creatures to marry on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Square +in general and to the two people most concerned in particular. Courts of +law might have rejected their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however, +they were convincing enough. + +Said Plooie: "Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?" + +Said Annie Oombrella: "He is so lonely!" + +So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happiness +came of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What disposition +the pair would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficult +to conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, and +fabrics was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for Annie +Oombrella to squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as a +bird, with an odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up at +an auction and resold to them at not more than two hundred per cent +profit, plus a kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of the +Bonnie Lassie and her husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they had +meat. They were rising in the social scale. + +Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to +Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we +endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say +that we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him +professionally. Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie +Oombrella must have lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders +broadened perceptibly. His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew +noticeably brisker. There was even a heartier note in his lamentable +trade cry: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!" + +As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformed +her. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow, +though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabbling +and splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porches +of her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up to +twenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savings +account. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth and +peaceful and sunny with companionship. + +Then came the war. + +The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to so +many helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame and +humiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, Our +Square was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant France +and prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons +of Gaul who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How +sourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence +arose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time +of wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liège. Liège, that city of +fire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the +world were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry +on the marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my +bench with a little furrow between her bright eyes. + +"Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?" + +"Not at all," I replied, failing to identify the rickety Plooie by his +rightful name. + +"Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and asks +if you have an umbrella to mend." + +"I never have. What of him?" + +"Have you any influence with him?" + +"Not compared with yours." + +The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. "I can't find him. +And Annie Oombrella won't tell me where he is. She only cries." + +"That's bad. You think he--he is--" + +"Why don't you say it outright, Dominie? _You_ think he's hiding." + +"Really!" I expostulated. "You come to me with accusations against the +poor fellow and then undertake to make me responsible for them." + +"I don't believe it's true at all," averred the Bonnie Lassie loyally. +"I don't believe Plooie is a coward. There's some reason why he doesn't +go over and help! I want to know what it is." + +Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, I +did my best. "Over age," I suggested. + +"He's only thirty-two." + +"Bless me! He looks sixty. Well--physical infirmity." + +"He can carry a load all day." + +"He won't leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won't let him." + +"When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her mother +was French and she would go and fight herself, if they'd have her." + +"Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?" + +"I don't know. But I'm afraid the Garins are going to have trouble." + +Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal for +trade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once. +Small boys booed at him, called him "yellow," and advised him to go +carefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, our +little old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and claw +with his German Jonathan in Thornsen's Élite Restaurant, stung him with +that most insulting word in any known tongue--"Lâche!"--and threatened +him with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think it was +the fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had set a +picture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that most +exasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grew +quavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matters +looked ill for the Garins. + +The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off all +relations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterward +rejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got on +our nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped a +barrel down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But the +chase took him into the midst of a group of the younger and more +boisterous element, returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen's +Sons of Avenue B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him. + +"Here's our little 'ee-ro!" "Looka the Frenchy that won't fight!" +"Safety first, hey, Plooie?" "Charge umbrellas--backward, march!" + +Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst +thing he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became +their captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, +once in the hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an +inspirational thought: "Ride him on a rail!" + +Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was +hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, +wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore +him with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park. + +When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was being +augmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry the +Cop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonable +probability that he had absented himself on purpose. "God hates a +coward" is a tenet of Terry's creed. I confess to a certain sympathy +with it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for Plooie, +the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I leaned +back on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality. + +Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. +From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, +which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their +concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, +delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his +voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the +supervening heads: + +"Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, +little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear." + +From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in +his face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His +voice, steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to +entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice. + +Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the +more hopelessly against the barrier of bodies. + +Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The +many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation. + +"Le's tar-and-feather him." + +"White feathers!" + +"Where'll we gettum?" + +"Satkins's kosher shop on the Av'noo." + +"Where's yer tar?" + +This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical +expedient now evolved from the collective brain. + +"Duck'm in the fountain!" + +"_Drown_ him in the fountain!" amended an enthusiast. + +Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming +dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate +umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob +impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the +playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. +Plainly the time was ripe for intervention. + +Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, +the scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. +Now, if ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion. + +For the heroic rôle of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by +temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the +imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason. + +The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed. + +"Never mind the Dominie," yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail by +an end and hauling it around. "He don't mean nothin'." + +Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate +brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as +I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous +urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted +aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out +reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a +frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened +for the splash. + +It did not come. + +A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my +unsuccessful rôle of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had +succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney +Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia. + +Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously +anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most +peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing. + +I like to think--the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself +thereby--that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to +hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to +intervene. + +Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the +Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black +Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance +grated upon her sensitive ear. + +"What is that rabble about, Sally?" she inquired. + +The aged negress reconnoitered. "Reckon dey's ridin' a gentmun on a +rail," she reported. + +"A _gentleman_, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an +affront. Look again." + +"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrella +oncet." + +"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkered +for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the high +protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once." + +Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the +advancing mob was "no place foh a niggah." + +With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist +'em, mist'ess." + +Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelled +by her mistress's confidence in herself. + +Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified +servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the +brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed +MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before. +Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to +her locally. + +She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like +steel. The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the +proper moment, she raised it. + +"What are you doing?" + +The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon +humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in +Macaulay's immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, "those behind cried +'Forward' and those before cried 'Back'!" That single hale and fiery old +lady held them. No more could those two hundred ruffians have defied the +challenge of her contemptuous eyes than they could have advanced into +the flaming doors of a furnace. + +A cautious voice from the rear inquired: "Who's the dame?" + +"She's a witch," conjectured some one. + +"It's the Duchess," said another, giving her the local title of +veneration. + +"It's the lady that shot the tailor," proclaimed an awe-stricken +bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.) +Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a +malevolent squeak: + +"T'row 'er in the drink." + +"Who spoke?" said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear. + +Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically +resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. +Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a +glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveled +a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, +who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl into +his own pocket. + +"Michael," said the Duchess. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe Sapperstein. + +"What are you doing to that unfortunate person?" + +"J-j-just a little j-j-joke," replied the other in what was doubtless +intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone. + +"Let him down." Inky Mike hesitated. "At once!" snapped the Duchess and +stamped her foot. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike meekly. + +Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those +behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame +Tallafferr's bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative +diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and +significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A +subtle suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her. +Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to. + +"Go about your business," she said. "Rabble!" she added in precisely the +tone which one might expect of a well-bred but particularly +deadly snake. + +The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd +disintegrated into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what +they were doing there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away. +Plooie was triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, +and (less triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which +chanced to be the Bonnie Lassie's house. Annie Oombrella pattered along +beside him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry. + +But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, _she_ cried, as +much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies +and cowards and imbeciles--and why hadn't her Cyrus been at home to stop +it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus +Staten had not been needed: the _canaille_ would always respect a proper +show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling and +sparkling. + +After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than +anything else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our +Square for his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the +following Sunday. Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the Bonnie +Lassie reasons with her heart instead of her head, we accept her +theories with habitual and smiling indulgence rather than respect--until +the facts bear them out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to +inquire as to their proposed course, and had rather more than hinted +that if the head of the house wished to respond to his country's call, +Our Square would look after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a +stubborn and somber silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that he +seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the +Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather +markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his +departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your +neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiency +of data. + +So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant, +with only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window +as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But +Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year +after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office +far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which +she had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful +and haggard. + +Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs +nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie. +Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head. + +"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence of +iniquity. + +"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice that +Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her +eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as +they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to +observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily +unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, +he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, +on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) +She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head. + +"Well, if you ever need a home, the basement's vacant and there ain't a +better basement in Our Square." + +Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his +business. + +Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, +according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had +known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom +of Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a +bulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until there +sped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales. +Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the +simple memorials in Our Square. + +Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its +ancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to +be. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the +year of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, +vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our +lilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the +air, my ears were smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths. + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees," it cried on a faint and cluttering note. +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder." + +Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual +range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like +Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie's and emitted again the familiar +though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it _was_ Plooie. +He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who never +wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma. + +As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, +and walked over to Schepstein's. There in the basement, amid the +familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie. + +"Bonjour, Dominie," said she wistfully. + +"Good-morning, Annie. So you are back." + +"Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?" + +"There is need that one explain one's self. What have you been doing +these three years?" + +"I work. I work hard." + +"And your husband? What has he been doing?" I asked sternly. + +Annie Oombrella's soft face drooped. "Soyez gentil, Dominie," she +implored. "Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so +triste--so sad." + +"He doesn't look well, Annie." + +"He have been ver' seeck. Now we come home he is already weller." + +"But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?" I demanded, +feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella's reply did not +make me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around that +unspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home to +Plooie and her. + +"We have loved each other so much here," said she. + +Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed or +thought. War's resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was Plooie +in danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he made +his rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella's +prodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple in +Schepstein's basement would have fared ill. + +Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face. + +To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discovery +about Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and +shouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was _you_ doing in the war?" his jaw would +drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave his +burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and +sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly +developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first +and last. + +Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This +didn't help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing +point anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not +to deal with a poltroon, as she put it. + +On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He was +in no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone up +to line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians. +So had such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place was +practically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his +cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie +to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, +the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my +unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been +on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not +misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as +little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for +the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of +God within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still +glossy silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and it +was well for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained at +home for reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrus +the Gaunt, should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up. +Said the Bonnie Lassie: + +"I wonder why Plooie didn't go to see his king." + +"Sense of shame," I suggested acidly. + +"Yes?" said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted. + +"It is no use," I assured her, "for you to favor me with that pitying +and contemptuous smile of yours, for I can't see it. Mendel has my +nearer range of vision locked in his shop." + +"I was just thinking," said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant accents, "how +nice it must be to look back on a long life of unspotted correctness +with not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives one such a comfortable +basis for sitting in judgment." + +"Her lips drip honey," I observed, "and the poison of asps is under her +tongue." + +"Your quotations are fatally mixed," retorted my companion. + +From across the park sounded Plooie's patient falsetto: +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-" The +call broke off in a kind of choke. + +"What's happened to Plooie?" I asked. "The youngsters can't have got +back from the parade already, have they?" + +"A very tall man has stopped him," said the Bonnie Lassie. "Plooie has +dropped his kit.... He's trying to salute.... It must be one of the +Belgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!" + +"Well, what?" I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant Mendel in +my heart. + +"It can't be ... you don't think they can be arresting poor Plooie at +this late day for evading service?" + +"Serve him right if they did," said I. + +"I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is leading +him along. Poor Plooie! He's all wilted down. It's a shame!" cried the +Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. "It ought not to be allowed." + +"Probably they're taking him away. Do you see an official-looking +automobile anywhere about?" + +"There's a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor Annie +Oombrella! But--but they're not going there. They're going into +Schepstein's basement." + +I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment I +endured it. Then I said: + +"Well, Lassie, why don't you?" + +"Why don't I what?" + +"Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. Opposite +Schepstein's." + +"That isn't my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie," said the +Bonnie Lassie with dignity. + +"Isn't it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know." + +"How shamelessly you garble! It was--" + +"Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be: +_suppressed_ curiosity killed a cat." + +The Bonnie Lassie sniffed. + +"Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench," I +pursued, "through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to the +back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should almost +prefer that you would go--and peek." + +"Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie, "you are a despicable old man.... +I'll be back in a minute." + +"Don't stay long," I pleaded. "Pity the blind." + +Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her +voice when she returned. + +"It's so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is sitting on a +pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella's face is all +swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute." + +Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could +best meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we did +not note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces of +the bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very tall +and straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassie +of his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She got +up from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling. +Where, I wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that the +mere sight of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusually +self-controlled wife of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deep +and curiously melancholy voice: + +"Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?" + +"I--I--I--" began the Bonnie Lassie. + +"The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several years +since?" + +"Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville." + +(Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been at +Trouville, which did not assuage my suspicions.) + +"You are friends of my--countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?" he +pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint +echo of an accent. + +"Who?" I said. "Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, acquaintances would +be more accurate." + +"He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great need +of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you." + +"You are interested in Plooie?" I asked. + +"Plooie?" he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he laughed +gently. "Profoundly interested," he said. "I have here one of his finest +umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. There was also a lady of +whom he speaks, a _grande dame_, of very great authority." For all the +sadness of the deep voice, I felt that his eyes were twinkling. + +"Madame Tallafferr," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. "She is away on a +visit." + +"I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be +knighted." + +"Knighthood would add nothing to her status," said I, dryly. "She is a +Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with two _f_s, two +_l_s, and two _r_s." + +"Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders of +merit," said the big sad-voiced man courteously. "But I should have been +proud to meet her." + +"May I tell her that?" asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly. + +"By all means--when I am gone." Again I felt the smile that must be in +the eyes. "But there were others here, not so friendly to the little +Garin. That is true, is it not?" + +"Yes," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving case," +I pointed out defensively. + +"Then it is only because he does not explain himself well," returned the +Belgian quickly. + +"He does not explain himself at all," I corrected. "Nor does Annie +Oom--his wife." + +"Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear with +me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those +who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?" + +The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, +the big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might +have taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so +straightly the expression of a great and generous personality. + +"Emile Garin," he said, "was a son of Belgium. He was poor and his +people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. So +he came to your great country to make his living. When our enemies +invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, the +little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit +for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings +they must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps here +because otherwise he would not--You spoke, Monsieur?" + +"Nothing. I only said, 'God forgive us!'" + +"Amen," said the narrator gravely. "Everywhere they rejected him as +unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not so?" + +"That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously," confirmed the Bonnie +Lassie. + +"After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled into +the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He +was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. +Nothing mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach +my country at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, +no matter who he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, +because he was unable to march. He had weak legs." + +At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. +"I _told_ you there was something," she murmured triumphantly. + +"Hush!" said I. + +"I am glad to find that he had one true defender here," pursued the +biographer of Plooie. "Though he could not fight in the ranks there was +use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in those black +days. He was made driver of a--a charette; I do not know if you have +them in your great city?" He paused, and I guessed that the rumble of +heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come opportunely. "Ah, +yes; there is one." + +"A dump-cart," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious +thing to drive a dump-cart for one's country--unless one makes it so. +But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what you +call quaint--I have already told you. He was faithful and hard-working. +They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and his +big cart." + +"Not precisely safety-first," whispered the Bonnie Lassie to me, +maliciously. + +"You are interrupting the story," said I with dignity. + +"One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here on +this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down +the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type +of grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little +lever--so. One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the +grenade, and at the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is +of terrible power. The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the +middle of the road between the two hospitals full of the helplessly +wounded. For what? Perhaps to sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. +Heaven only knows, for the sergeant has the luck to be killed next day +by a German shell, before he can be court-martialed. As he sets down the +grenade, the little lever is moved. The sergeant loses his head. He +runs, shouting to everybody to run also. + +"But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot run. +They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a +visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady." The sad voice +deepened and softened. + +"I know," whispered the Bonnie Lassie; "I can guess." + +"Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does not +know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people +escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, 'Turn +your cart, you fool, and save yourself.' Oh, yes; he can save himself. +That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can save +them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big +dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The +mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade +explodes, nevertheless. + +"One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. Everything +near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the floor, but she +is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms the terrified. +The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have driven a +dump-cart for one's country--so." + +"But what became of our Plooie?" besought the Bonnie Lassie. + +The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. "They looked for +him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large piece +of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was that +large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital +which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he +cannot speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got +out of hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did +not care. Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records +were lost in the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The +great lady wished very much to see him. But we could find nothing except +that he had come back to this country. Official inquiry was made here +and he was traced to Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot +speak for himself and will not allow his wife to tell his story--it is +part of the shell-shock which will wear off in time--I came to speak +for him." + +"Does your--do you do this sort of thing often?" asked the Bonnie Lassie +with a queer sort of resonance in her voice. + +The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: +"One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But there +is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved lady +whom the little Garin saved." + +"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly. + +After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. +Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. + +"Plooie!" she said, and that was all. + +"You are crying," I said. + +"I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For your +injustice." + +"If we all bewept our injustices," said I oracularly, "Noah would have +to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his." + +"What do you think of him?" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder, +his selections were at times ill-advised." + +"Don't be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I'm not interested in Noah." + +"As to our romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gaunt +would better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus to +produce such an emotional effect upon you." + +"Don't be school-girlish!" admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. "Poor +old Dominie! He doesn't know what's going on under his very nose. Where +are your eyes?" + +"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we going +to make it up to Plooie?" + +"I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassie +loftily. + +Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an +irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their +pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was +subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city's +reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his +important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and +disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign +across the front of Plooie's basement, was the magnet that drew them: + + Emile Garin & Wife + Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser + + to + + His Majesty + + The King of the Belgians + (By Royal Warranty) + +No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their +well-deserved fortune is made. + + + +TRIUMPH + + The months go by--bleak March and May-day heat-- + Harvest is over--winter well-nigh done-- + And still I say, "To-morrow we shall meet." + + MAY PROBYN + +The Little Red Doctor sat on the far end of my bench. Snow fringed the +bristling curve of his mustache. He shivered. + +"Dominie," said he, "it's a wild day." + +I assented. + +"Dominie," said the Little Red Doctor, "it is no kind of a day for an +old man to be sitting on a bench." + +I dissented. + +"Dominie," persisted the Little Red Doctor, "you can't deny that you're +old." + +"Whose fault is that but yours?" I retorted. + +"Don't try to flatter me," said the Little Red Doctor. "You'd have +licked my old friend, Death, in that bout you had with him, without any +help of mine. And, anyway, you were already old, then. You're a tough +old bird, Dominie. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here in a March +blizzard staring at the Worth mansion and wondering what really happened +there three years ago." + +"Your old friend, Death, beat you that time," said I maliciously. + +The Little Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. "Look your fill, +Dominie," he advised. "You won't have much more chance." + +"Why?" I asked, startled. + +"The wreckers begin on it next month. Also a nice, new building is going +up next door to it on that little, secret, walled jungle that Ely Crouch +used to misname his garden. I'm glad of it, too. I don't like +anachronisms." + +"I'm an anachronism," I returned. "You'll be one pretty soon. Our Square +is one solid anachronism." + +"It won't be much longer. The tide is undermining us. Other houses will +go as the Worth place is going. You'll miss it, Dominie. You love houses +as if they were people." + +It is true. To me houses are the only fabrications of man's hands that +are personalities. Enterprise builds the factory, Greed the tenement, +but Love alone builds the house, and by Love alone is it maintained +against the city's relentless encroachments. Once hallowed by +habitation, what warm and vivid influences impregnate it! Ambition, +pride, hope, joys happily shared; suffering, sorrow, and loss bravely +endured--the walls outlive them all, gathering with age, from grief and +joy alike, kind memories and stanch traditions. Yes, I love the old +houses. Yet I should not be sorry to see the Worth mansion razed. It has +outlived all the lives that once cherished it and become a dead, +unhuman thing. + +That solid square of brown, gray-trimmed stone had grown old honorably +with the honorable generations of the Worths. Then it had died. In one +smiting stroke of tragedy the life had gone out of it. Now it stood +staring bleakly out from its corner with filmed eyes, across the busy +square. Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm +of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still +harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret. + +The Little Red Doctor broke in upon my reverie. + +"Yes; you're old, Dominie. But you're not wise. You're very foolish. +Foolish and obstinate." + +Knowing well what he meant, I nevertheless pampered him by asking: "Why +am I foolish and obstinate?" + +"Because you refuse to believe that Ned Worth murdered Ely Crouch. Don't +you?" + +"I do." + +"Then why did Ned commit suicide?" + +"I don't know." + +"How do you explain away his written confession?" + +"I don't. I only know that it was not in Ned Worth's character willfully +to kill an old man. You were his friend; you ought to know it as well +as I do." + +"Ah, that's different," said the Little Red Doctor, giving me one of his +queer looks. "Yes; you're a pig-headed old man, Dominie." + +"I'm a believer in character." + +"I don't know of any other man equally pig-headed, except possibly one. +He's old, too." + +"Gale Sheldon," said I, naming the gentle, withered librarian of a +branch library a few blocks to the westward, the only other resident of +Our Square who had unfailingly supported me in my loyalty to the memory +of the last of the Worths. + +"Yes. He's waiting for us now in his rooms. Will you come?" + +Perceiving that there was something back of this--there usually is, in +the Little Red Doctor's maneuvers--I rose and we set out. As we passed +the Worth house it seemed grimmer and bleaker than ever before. There +was something savage and desperate in its desolation. The cold curse of +abandonment lay upon it. At the turn of the corner the Little Red Doctor +said abruptly. + +"She's dead." + +"Who?" I demanded. + +"The girl. The woman in the case." + +"In the Ely Crouch case? A woman? There was never any woman hinted at." + +"No. And there never would have been as long as she was alive. +Now--Well, I'll leave Sheldon to explain her. He loved her, too, in +his way." + +In Gale Sheldon's big, still room, crowded with the friendly ghosts of +mighty books, a clear fire was burning. One shaded lamp at the desk was +turned on, for though it was afternoon the blizzard cast a gloom like +dusk. The Little Red Doctor retired to a far corner where he was all but +merged in the shadows. + +"Have you seen this?" Sheldon asked me, pointing to the table. + +Thereon was spread strange literature for the scholarly taste of our +local book-worm, a section from the most sensational of New York's +Sunday newspapers. From the front page, surrounded by a barbarous +conglomeration of headlines and uproarious type, there smiled happily +forth a face of such appealing loveliness as no journalistic vulgarity +could taint or profane. I recognized it at once, as any one must have +done who had ever seen the unforgettable original. It was Virginia +Kingsley, who, two years before, had been Sheldon's assistant. The +picture was labeled, "Death Ends Wanderlust of Mysterious Heiress," and +the article was couched in a like style of curiosity-piquing +sensationalism. Stripped of its fulsome verbiage, it told of the girl's +recent death in Italy, after traveling about Europe with an invalid +sister; during which progress, the article gloated, she was "vainly +wooed by the Old World's proudest nobility for her beauty and wealth," +the latter having been unexpectedly left her by an aged relative. Her +inexorable refusals were set down, by the romantic journalist, as due to +some secret and prior attachment. (He termed it an "affair de court"!) + +Out of the welter of words there stood forth one sentence to tempt the +imagination: "She met death as a tryst." For that brief flash the +reporter had been lifted out of his bathos and tawdriness into a clearer +element. One could well believe that she had "met death as a tryst." For +if ever I have beheld unfaltering hope and unflagging courage glorified +and spiritualized into unearthly beauty, it was there in that pictured +face, fixed by the imperishable magic of the camera. + +"No; I hadn't seen it," I said after reading. "Is it true?" + +"In part." Then, after a pause, "You knew her, didn't you, Dominie?" + +"Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn't +she?" + +"Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of all +that the singers of springtime and youth have sung." He sighed, shaking +his grizzled head mournfully. "'And all that glory now lies dimmed in +death.' It doesn't seem believable." + +He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be +vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He +stared at it musing. + +"I've often wondered if she cared for him," he murmured. + +"For him? For Worth!" I exclaimed in amazement. "Were they friends?" + +"Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very strangely +the day of his death and never came back." + +From the physician's corner there came an indeterminate grunt. + +"If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say that on +the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only in the +line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century poets. +But even that interest died out. It was months before the--the tragedy +that he stopped coming to the Library." + +"It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, wasn't +it?" I asked. + +"Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard it +hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain." He turned +inquiringly to the far, dim corner. + +Out of it the Little Red Doctor barked: "Death had him by the throat." + +"Death? In what form?" + +"Slow, sure fingers, shutting off his breath. Do you need further +details or will the dry, scientific term, epithelioma, be enough?" The +voice came grim out of the gloom. No answer being returned, it +continued: "I've had easier jobs than telling Ned Worth. It was hopeless +from the first. My old friend, Death, had too long a start on me." + +"Was it something that affected his mind?" + +"No. His mind was perfectly clear. Vividly clear. May I take my last +verdict, when it comes, with a spirit as clear and as noble." + +Silence fell, and in the stillness we heard the Little Red Doctor +communing with memories. Now and then came a muttered word. "Suicide!" +in a snarl of scornful rejection. "Fool-made definitions!" Presently, +"Story for a romancer, not a physician." He seemed to be canvassing an +inadequacy in himself with dissatisfaction. Then, more clearly: "Love +from the first. At a glance, perhaps. The contagion of flame for powder. +But in that abyss together they saw each other's soul." + +"The Little Red Doctor is turning poet," said Sheldon to me in an +incredulous whisper. + +There was the snap and crackle of a match from the shadowed corner. The +keen, gnarled young face sprang from the darkness, vivid and softened +with a strange triumph, then receded behind an imperfect circle, clouded +the next instant by a nimbus of smoke. The Little Red Doctor spoke. + +Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men, +who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don't suppose any one ever came +in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without +loving him for it. "Immortal hilarity!" The phrase might have been +coined for him. + +It wasn't as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing +sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn't want him to be alone that +first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would +have thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as +steady as a rock. + +"No danger of my being a miser of life," he said. "You've given me leave +to spend freely what's left of it." Well, he spent. Freely and +splendidly! + +The spacious old library on the second floor--you know it, Dominie, +smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned's servant bringing up the rear with +a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over +everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the +corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house +into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since +the others of the family died, Ned hadn't stayed there long enough at a +time to humanize it. + +Ned's man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some +late purchases, and left to execute them. I went over to open the two +deep-set windows on the farther side of the room. It was a still, close +October night, and the late scent of warmed-over earth came up to me out +of Ely Crouch's garden next door. From where I stood in the broad +embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I +could see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his +desk sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon +his face, without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry the +picture in my mind. + +"What's become of you, Chris?" he demanded presently. I came out into +the main part of the room. "Oh, there you are! You'll look after a few +little matters for me, won't you?" He indicated a sheaf of papers. + +"You needn't be in such a hurry," said I with illogical resentment. "It +isn't going to be to-morrow or next week." + +"Isn't it?" Something in his tone made me look at him sharply. "Six +months or three months or to-morrow," he added, more lightly; "what does +it matter as long as it's sure! You know, what I appreciate is that you +gave me the truth straight." + +"It's a luxury few of my patients get. Their constitutions won't stand +it." + +"It's a compliment to my nerve. Strangely enough I don't feel nervous +about it." + +"I do. Damnably! About something, anyway. There's something wrong with +this room, Ned. What is it?" + +"Don't you know?" he laughed. "It's the sepulchral silence of Old +Grandfather Clock, over there. You're looking right at him and wondering +subconsciously why he doesn't make a noise like Time." + +"That's easily remedied." Consulting my watch I set and wound the +ancient timepiece. Its comfortable iteration made the place at once more +livable. Immediately it struck the hour. + +"Ten o'clock," I said, and parted the draperies at the lower window to +look out again. "Ten o'clock of a still, cloudy night and--and the devil +is on a prowl in his garden." + +"Meaning my highly respected neighbor and ornament to the local bar, the +Honorable Ely Crouch?" + +"Exactly. Preceded by a familiar spirit in animal form." + +"Oh, that's his pet ferret and boon companion." + +"Not his only companion. There's some one with him," I said. "A woman." + +"I don't admire her taste in romance," said Ned. + +"Nor her discretion. You know what they say: 'A dollar or a woman never +safe alone with Ely Crouch.'" + +"My dollars certainly weren't," observed Ned. + +"How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?" I asked. + +"Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my +neighbor's flirtations and look here." + +I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded +by a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. + +"Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me," he added. + +"Is it enough to go on with, Ned?" I asked. + +He smiled at me. "Plenty for my time. You forget." + +For the moment I had forgotten. "But what on earth are you going to do +with all that ready cash?" + +"Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed down +your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I've +planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think +of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day +I've struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the +simple medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, +Chris, and come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we'll +work wonders." + +"And after?" I asked. + +"Oh, after! Well, there'll be no further reason for the 'permanent +possibility of sensation' on my part. That's your precious science's +best definition of life, I believe. It doesn't appeal to one as alluring +when the sensation promises to become--well, increasingly unpleasant." + +There was no mistaking his meaning. "I can't have that, my son," I +protested. + +"No? That's a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at it from my +point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, rather +than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no meaning +for a man in my condition. If you'll tell me there's a chance, one mere, +remote human chance--" He paused, turning to me with what was almost +appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! But Ned Worth was the +kind that you can't lie to. I looked at him standing there so strong and +fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in his veins, sentenced +beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of another man +under doom: + + "I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day." + +We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like +the veil over the eagle's eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I +could not trust my voice to answer him. + +"You see," he said; "you can't." His hand fell on my arm. "I'm sorry, +Chris," he said in that winning voice of his; "I shouldn't plague you +for something that you can't give me." + +"I can tell you this, anyway," said I: "that it's something less than +courage to give up until the time comes. You didn't give your life. You +haven't the right to take it; anyway, not until its last usefulness +is over." + +He made a movement of impatience. + +"Oh, I'm not asking you to endure torture. I'd release you myself from +that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But how can you tell +that being alive instead of dead next week or next month may not make an +eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn't played out yet. +Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the curtain is +rung down?" + +"Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down into +that garden and kill Ely Crouch," he suggested, smiling. "That would be +a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and peaceful death, +wouldn't it?" + +"Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable," I answered, +relieved at his change of tone. + +"I suppose it is." He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. "Chris, +what do you believe comes after?" + +"Justice." + +"A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, in +being sport enough to play the game through. You're right, old +hard-shell. I'll stick it out. It will only mean spending _this_"--he +swept the money back into its repository--"a little more slowly." + +"I was sure I could count on you," I said. "Now I can give you the +talisman." I set on the desk before him a small pasteboard box. "Pay +strict attention. You see that label? That's to remind you. One tablet +if you can't sleep." + +"I couldn't last night." + +"Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand." + +He nodded. + +"But three at one time and you'll sleep so sound that nothing will ever +awaken you." + +"Good old Chris!" Opening the box, he fingered the pellets curiously. "A +blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep." + +"On trust, Ned." + +"On honor," he agreed. "Then I mustn't expunge old Crouch? It's a +disappointment," he added gayly. + +He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. +His voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains. + +"Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for it. +I'll stay here and breathe it." + +"Good!" said I. "I've five minutes of telephoning to do. Then I'll be +back." + +Nobody can ever tell me again that there's an instinct which feels the +presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within +arm's-length of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate +emotions. I could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she +crouched, hidden in the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as +if the whole atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the +terrific passion of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt--nothing. +No sense, as I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will +which nerved and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. +Afterward she was unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must +have been for some minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of +terror was the word "Suicide." It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at +first; and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what +followed, my instructions about the poison took on the voice of a +ministering providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor +had she recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of +the disease. But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass +on my way to the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what +she told me later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my +return, I piece together the events which so swiftly followed. + +A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner. +As it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper +window those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure +had almost reached the desk. The face was turned from him. Even in that +moment of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to +her body, with a curious awkwardness. + +"Hello!" he challenged. + +She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush. +Her hand fell upon the box of pellets. She turned, clutching that little +box of desperate hopes to her bosom. + +"Good God! Virginia!" he exclaimed. "Miss Kingsley!" + +"Mr. Worth! Was it you I heard? Why--how are you here?" + +"This is my house." + +"I didn't know." Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a watchful animal, +she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself and a possible +interference. Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, impeded her +fumbling efforts to open the box. Presently, however, the cover yielded. + +He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope. His +brain hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering +upon her obvious and preposterous purpose. Suddenly, as her fingers +trembled among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem +was formed. + +"What do you want with my tonic?" he asked coolly. + +"Tonic? I--I thought--" + +"You thought it was the poison. Well, you've got the wrong box. The +poison box is in the drawer." + +"In the drawer," she repeated. She spoke in the mechanical voice of one +desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital project. Her +nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk. + +He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, +and dropped it into his pocket. + +"Oh!" she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing eyes. +"Then it _was_ the poison!" + +"Yes." + +"Give it back to me!" she implored, like a bereft child. "Oh, give it to +me!" + +"Why do you want to kill yourself?" + +She looked at him in dumb despair. + +"How did you get here?" he demanded. + +"Your fire escape." + +"And to that from the garden wall, I suppose? So _you_ were Ely Crouch's +companion," he cried with a changed voice. + +"Don't," she shuddered, throwing her right arm over her face. + +"I beg your pardon," he said gently. "Take a swallow of this water. +What's the matter with your arm? Are you hurt?" + +"No." Her eyes would not meet his. They were fixed obstinately upon the +pocket into which he had dropped the poison. + +"It's incredible!" he burst out. "You with your youth and loveliness! +With everything that makes life sweet for yourself and others. What +madness--" He broke off and his voice softened into persuasion. "We were +almost friends, once. Can't I--won't you let me help? Don't you think +you can trust me?" + +She raised her eyes to his, and he read in them hopeless terror. "Yes, I +could trust you. But there is only one help for me now. And you've taken +it from me." + +"Who can tell? You've been badly frightened," he said in as soothing a +tone as he could command. "Try to believe that no harm can come to you +here, and that I--I would give the blood of my heart to save you from +harm or danger. You said you could trust me. What was your errand with +Ely Crouch?" + +"Money." + +"Money!" he repeated, drawing back. + +"It was our own; my sister's and mine. Mr. Crouch had it. He had managed +our affairs since my father's death. I could never get an accounting +from him. To-day the doctor told me that Alice must go away at once for +an operation. And to-day Mr. Crouch made this appointment for to-night." + +"Didn't you know his reputation? Weren't you afraid?" + +"I didn't think of fear. When I told him how matters stood, he offered +me money, but--but--Oh, I can't tell you!" + +"No need," he said quickly. "I know what he is. I was joking when I +spoke of killing him, a little while ago. By God, I wish I had killed +him! It isn't too late now." + +"It _is_ too late." + +Her eyes, dilated, were fixed upon his. + +"Why? How--too late?" he stammered. + +"I killed him." + +"_You_! You--killed--Ely--Crouch?" + +"He had a cane," she said, in a hurried, flat, half-whisper. "When he +caught at me, I tried to get it to defend myself. The handle pulled out. +There was a dagger on it. He came at me again. I didn't realize what I +was doing. All I could see was that hateful face drawing nearer. Then it +changed and he seemed to dissolve into a hideous heap. I didn't mean to +kill him." Her voice rose in the struggle against hysteria. "God knows, +I didn't mean to kill him." + +"Hush!" + +His hands fell on her shoulders and held her against the onset. Energy +and resolution quickened in his eyes. "Who knows of your being in +the garden?" + +"No one." + +"Any one see you climb the wall and come here?" + +"No." + +"Or know that you had an appointment with him?" + +"No." + +"Will you do exactly as I tell you?" + +"What is the use?" she said dully. + +"I'm going to get you out of here." + +"I should have to face it later. I couldn't face it--the horror and +shame of it. I'd rather die a thousand times." She lifted her arms, the +coat opened, and the cane-handled blade dropped to the floor, and +rolled. She shuddered away from it. "I kept that for myself, but I +couldn't do it. It's got his blood on it. When I heard the doctor speak +of the poison, it seemed like a miracle of Providence sent to guide me. +Oh, give it to me! Is it"--she faltered--"is it quick?" + +"Steady!" Stooping he picked up the weapon. "It needn't come to that, if +you can play your part. Have you got the courage to walk out of this +house and go home to safety? Absolute safety!" + +She searched his face in bewilderment. "I--don't know." + +"If I give you my word of honor that it depends only on yourself?" + +"How?" + +"Pull yourself together. Go downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. +You'll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head up, +and go home. You're as safe as though you'd never seen Ely Crouch. +There's no clue to you." + +"No clue! Look down the fire escape!" + +He crossed the room at a bound. Beneath him, its evil snout pointed +upwards, sat the dead man's familiar spirit. + +"Good God! The ferret!" + +"It's been sitting there, watching, watching, watching." + +"The more reason for haste. Pull yourself together. Forward, _march_!" +he cried, pressing his will upon her. + +"But you? When they come what will you say to them?" + +"I'll fix up something." He drew back from the window, lowering his +voice. "Men in the garden. A policeman." + +"They've found him!" She fell into Ned's chair, dropping her head in her +hands. For an instant he studied her. Then he took his great and tender +resolution. His hand fell warm and firm on her shoulder. + +"Listen; suppose they suspect some one else?" + +"Who?" + +"Me." + +"You? Why should they?" + +"Circumstances. The place. The weapon here in my possession. My known +trouble with Ely Crouch. Don't you see how it all fits in?" + +She recovered from the stupor of surprise into which his suggestion had +plunged her. "Are you mad? Do you think that I'd let you sacrifice +yourself? What am I to you that you should do this for me?" + +"The woman I love," he said quietly. "I have loved you from the first +day that I saw you." + +It was at this moment that I returned and halted at the door, an +unwilling witness to the rest, only half understanding, not daring to +move. I saw the splendid color mount and glorify her beauty. I saw her +hands go out to him half in appeal, half in rejection. + +"Oh, it's madness!" she cried. "It's your life you're offering me." + +"What else should I offer you--you who have given life its real meaning +for me?" + +He caught her hands in his and held them. He caught her eyes in his and +held them. Then he began speaking, evenly, soothingly, persuasively, +binding her to his will. + +"What does my life amount to? Think how little it means. A few more +weeks of waiting. Then the suffering: then the release. You heard Dr. +Smith. You know. You understand. Didn't you understand?" + +"Yes," she breathed. + +"Then you must see what a splendid way out this is for me. No more +waiting. No pain. Death never came to any one so kindly before. It's my +chance, if only you'll make it worth while. Will you?" he pleaded. + +"Oh, the wonder of it!" she whispered, gazing on him with parted lips. +But he did not understand, yet. He pressed what he thought to be his +advantage. + +"Here," he cried, suddenly dropping her hands and catching up the bills +from the valise. "Here's safety. Here's life. For you and your sister, +both. You spoke of Providence a moment ago. Here's Providence for you! +Quick! Take it." + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing away as he sought to thrust the money +into her hands. + +"Twenty thousand dollars. More. It doesn't matter. It's life for both of +you. Have you the right to refuse it? Take it and go." + +She let the bank-notes fall from her hands unnoticed. + +"Do you think I would leave you _now_?" she cried in a voice of thrilled +music. "Even if they weren't sure to trace me, as they would be." + +This last she uttered as an unimportant matter dismissed with +indifference. + +"There will be nothing to trace. My confession will cover the ground." + +"Confession? To what?" + +"To the murder of Ely Crouch." + +Some sort of sound I was conscious of making. I suppose I gasped. But +they were too engrossed to hear. + +"You would do even that? But the penalty--the shame--" + +"What do they matter to a dying man?" he retorted impatiently. + +She had fallen back from him, in the shock of his suggestion, but now +she came forward again slowly, her glorious eyes fixed on his. So they +stood face to face, soul to soul, deep answering unto deep, and, as I +sit here speaking, I saw the wonder and the miracle flower in her face. +When she spoke again, her words seemed the inevitable expression of that +which had passed silently between them. + +"Do you love me?" + +"Before God I do," he answered. + +"Take me away! There's time yet. I'll go with you anywhere, anywhere! +I'm all yours. I've loved you from the first, I think, as you have loved +me. All I ask is to live for you, and when you die, to die with you." + +Fire flashed from his face at the call. He took a step toward her. A +shout, half-muffled, sounded from outside the window. Instantly the +light and passion died in his eyes. I have never seen a face at once so +stern and so gentle as his was when he caught the outreaching hands +in his own. + +"You forget that they must find one of us, or it's all no use. Listen +carefully, dear one. If you truly love me, you must do as I bid you. +Give me my chance of fooling fate; of making my death worth while. It +won't be hard." He took the little box from his pocket. "It will be +very easy." + +"Give it to me, too," she pleaded like a child. "Ah, Ned, we can't part +now! Both of us together." + +He shook his head, smiling. The man's face was as beautiful as a god's +at that moment or an angel's. "You must go back to your sister," he said +simply. "You haven't the right to die." + +He turned to the table, drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote four +words. You all know what they were; his confession. Then his hand went +up, a swift movement, and a moment later he was setting back the glass +of water upon the desk whence he had taken it. + +"Love and glory of my life, will you go?" he said. + +"Yes," she whispered. + +Not until then did the paralysis, which had gripped me when I saw Ned +turn the pellets into his hand, relax. I ran forward. The girl cried +out. Ned met me with his hand against my breast. + +"How much have you heard?" he said quickly. + +"Enough." + +"Then you'll understand." His faith was more irresistible than a +thousand arguments. "Take her home, Chris." + +I held out my hand. "Come," I said. + +She turned and faced him. "Must I? Alone?" What a depth of desolation in +that word! + +"There is no other way, dearest one." + +"Good-bye, then, until we meet," she said in the passionate music of her +voice. "Every beat of my heart will bring me nearer to you. There will +be no other life for me. Soon or late I'll come to you. You believe it. +Say you believe it!" + +"I believe it." He bent and kissed her lips. Then his form slackened +away from the arms that clasped it, and sank into the chair. A +policeman's whistle shrilled outside the window. The faintest flicker of +a smile passed over the face of the sleeper. + +I took her away, still with that unearthly ecstasy on her face. + + * * * * * + +The glow of the narrator's cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a world +of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. +When I found my voice, it was hardly more than a whisper. + +"Good God! What a tragedy!" + +"Tragedy? You think it so?" The Little Red Doctor's gnarled face gleamed +strangely behind the tiny radiance. "Dominie, you have a queer notion of +this life and little faith in the next." + +"'She met death as a tryst,'" murmured the old librarian. "And he! +'Trailing clouds of glory!' The triumph of that victory over fate! One +would like to have seen the meeting between them, after the waiting." + +The Little Red Doctor rose. "When some brutal and needless tragedy of +the sort that we medical men witness so often shakes my faith in my +kind, I turn to think of those two in the splendor of their last meeting +on earth, the man with the courage to face death, the woman with the +courage to face life." + +He strode over to the table and lifted the newspaper, which had slipped +to the floor unnoticed. The girlish face turned toward us its +irresistible appeal, yearning out from amidst the lurid indignities +of print. + +"You heard from her afterward?" I asked. + +"Often. The sister died and left her nothing to live for but her +promise. Always in her letters sounded the note of courage and of +waiting. It was in the last word I had from her--received since her +death--set to the song of some poet, I don't know who. You ought to +know, Mr. Sheldon." + +His deep voice rose to the rhythm. + + "Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat + Measure the length of every moment gone. + Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet + And light the letters on a churchyard stone.-- + And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet!'" + +"May Probyn," the librarian identified. "Too few people know her. A +wonderful poem!" + +Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. +Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging +wind had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western +cloud shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the +ancient house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, +gleamed, through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. +Behind me in the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and +death repeated once more the message of imperishable hope: + + "And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet.'" + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10944 *** diff --git a/10944-h/10944-h.htm b/10944-h/10944-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fee53e --- /dev/null +++ b/10944-h/10944-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10249 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title>From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams</title> + <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" /> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + body { margin:5%; 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margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10944 ***</div> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + </h1> + <h2> + By Samuel Hopkins Adams + </h2> + <h3> + 1922 + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> A PATRONESS OF ART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> HOME-SEEKERS’ GOAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE GUARDIAN OF GOD’S ACRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> FOR MAYME, READ MARY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> BARBRAN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> TRIUMPH </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A PATRONESS OF ART + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue) + is the style whereby he is known to Our Square. + </p> + <p> + Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest, + whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in + anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if + you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps + aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color + possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen’s Élite + Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged + ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or, + if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be, + however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for chaste + floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by + appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art. + </p> + <p> + Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April day, + upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light on it, + when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding him with + a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest. + </p> + <p> + “What d’ye think of <i>that</i>?” he said triumphantly, + as he sketched in a set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for + antennae) upon the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Rotten,” was the prompt response. + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>!” said the astounded artist, rising from his + knees. + </p> + <p> + “Punk.” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin’s + nearest ear. It was now that connoisseur’s turn to be affronted. + Picking himself out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and + wiggled his finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging + upon his original critique, in a series of shrill roars: + </p> + <p> + “Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de—de—piffle!” + Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, + tainted by his French origin. + </p> + <p> + He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly + and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon + overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned temple + of Art. + </p> + <p> + “Now, young feller,” said Peter Quick Banta. “Maybe you + think you could do it better.” The world-old retort of the creative + artist to his critic! + </p> + <p> + “Any fool could,” retorted the boy, which, in various forms, + is almost as time-honored as the challenge. + </p> + <p> + Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible murder, + I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks had himself + under control. + </p> + <p> + “Try it,” he said grimly. + </p> + <p> + The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him. + </p> + <p> + “You want me to draw a picture? There?” + </p> + <p> + “If you don’t, I’ll break every bone in your body.” + </p> + <p> + The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter + Quick Banta’s creation. + </p> + <p> + “What is that? A bool-rush?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a laylock; that’s what it is.” + </p> + <p> + “And the little bird that goes to light—” + </p> + <p> + “That ain’t a bird and you know it.” Peter Quick Banta + breathed hard. “That’s a butterfly.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop—so!” The gesture was + inimitable. “And the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She + float—so!” The grimy hands fluttered and sank. + </p> + <p> + “They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk.” + </p> + <p> + From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He fell + to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted the + traffic. Only once did he speak: + </p> + <p> + “Yellow,” he said, reaching, but not looking up. + </p> + <p> + Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the + last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but with + supreme confidence. + </p> + <p> + “There!” said he. + </p> + <p> + It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The + arrangements were false. + </p> + <p> + <i>But</i>—the lilac bloomed. <i>And</i>—the butterfly + hovered. The artist had spoken through his ordained medium and the + presentment of life stood forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. + But beneath his uncouth exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul. + </p> + <p> + “Son,” said he, “you’re a wonder. Wanta keep them + crayons?” + </p> + <p> + Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one of + the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like eyes of + gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta proceeded to + expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving the youngster + time to recover before the inevitable questioning began. + </p> + <p> + “Where did you learn that?” + </p> + <p> + “Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you like to work for me?” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk. + </p> + <p> + “That?” The boy laughed happily. “That ain’t work. + That’s fun.” + </p> + <p> + So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier (soon + simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta’s + roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first + appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as the + local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and practice + of the “sand-dabs.” Out of the joint takings grew a bank + account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy’s + education. + </p> + <p> + “He’s a swell,” said Peter Quick Banta. “Look at + that face! I don’t care if he did crawl outa the gutter. I’m + an artist and I reco’nize aristocracy when I see it. And I want him + brung up accordin’.” + </p> + <p> + So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an old, + half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie came to + Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes (this was + before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the Gaunt), I took + him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love with her beauty and + her genius alike, all of which was good for his developing soul. She + arranged for his art training. + </p> + <p> + “But you know, Dominie,” she used to say, wagging her head + like a profound and thoughtful bird; “this is all very foolish and + shortsighted on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours + will be doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor + little figurines.” + </p> + <p> + To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest + nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she + would help him just the same! + </p> + <p> + But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She would + have objected to the latter classification, averring that, with the rising + cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keep her head + above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, she scorned + the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performed prodigious feats of + committee work, all of it meritorious and some of it useful? She had. It + had left her with a dangerous and destructive appetite for doing good to + people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was a distracting young person. Few + looked at her once without wanting to look again, and not a few looked + again to their undoing. + </p> + <p> + Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus of + Fifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a large + and needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn’t take to + it. As recipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss + Holland transferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner + of the world she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged + one with a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She + came to us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the + upper strata to our humbler domain, who—Pagan that she is!—indiscriminately + accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, Miss + Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of high-blooded + sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident wealth and beauty. + She organized an evening sewing-circle for women whose eyelids would not + stay open after their long day’s work. She formed cultural + improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the printer, who knows half + the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the tailor, to whom Carlyle + is by way of being light reading. She delivered some edifying exhortations + upon the subject of Americanism to Polyglot Elsa, of the Élite Restaurant + (who had taken upon her sturdy young shoulders the support of an old + mother and a paralytic sister, so that her two brothers might enlist for + the war—a detail of patriotism which the dispenser of platitudes + might have learned by judicious inquiry). And so forth and so on. Miss + Roberta Holland meant well, but she had many things to learn and no master + to teach her. + </p> + <p> + Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, deft, + and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she clashed her + lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel of the Little + Red Doctor’s experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who was pressed + for time at the moment): “Take orders. Or get out. Which?” + </p> + <p> + She straightened like a soldier. “Tell me what you want done.” + </p> + <p> + At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer + service, she turned shining eyes upon him. “I’ve never been so + treated in my life! You’re a bully and a brute.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a brick,” retorted the Little Red Doctor. + “I’ll send for you next time Our Square needs help.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll come,” said she, and they shook hands solemnly. + </p> + <p> + Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her ministrations, + and even those of us who least approved her activities felt the stir of + radiance and color which she brought with her. + </p> + <p> + On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland, + seated in the Bonnie Lassie’s front window, was maturing some new + and benign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the + sculptress at work on a group: + </p> + <p> + “There’s a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s Peter Quick Banta. He’s a fellow artist.” + </p> + <p> + “And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable + lion; quite a beautiful lion. He’s making more marks.” + </p> + <p> + “Let him make all he wants.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re waving their arms at each other. At least the queer + man is. I think they’re going to fight.” + </p> + <p> + “They won’t. It’s only an academic discussion on + technique.” + </p> + <p> + “Who is the young one?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s the ruin of what might have been a big artist.” + </p> + <p> + “No! Is he? What did it? Drink?” + </p> + <p> + “Does he look it?” + </p> + <p> + The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. “It’s + a peculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He’s quite poorly + dressed. Does he need money? Is that what’s wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it, Bobbie,” returned the Bonnie Lassie with a + half-smile. “He needs the money.” + </p> + <p> + The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland’s + fatally well-meaning soul. “Would it be a case where I could help? I’d + love to put a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he’s real?” + </p> + <p> + On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincere and + direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesser interests, + such as life and love and human fate. + </p> + <p> + “No; I’m not. If he were, I doubt whether he’d have let + himself go so wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps it isn’t too late,” said the amateur missionary + hopefully. “Is he a man to whom one could offer money?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie’s smile broadened without change in its subtle + quality. “Julien Tenney isn’t exactly a pauper. He just thinks + he can’t afford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to.” + </p> + <p> + “What ought he to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Paint—paint—paint!” said the Bonnie Lassie + vehemently. “Five years ago I believe he had the makings of a great + painter in him. And now look what he’s doing!” + </p> + <p> + “Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Worse. Commercial art.” + </p> + <p> + “Designs and that sort of thing?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and + gloriously dressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, + riding in super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth with + super-toothbrushes?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” said the girl vaguely. + </p> + <p> + “He draws those.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that what you call pot-boiling?” + </p> + <p> + “One kind.” + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose it pays just a pittance.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, “he sticks + to it, so it must support him.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’m going to help him.” + </p> + <p> + “‘To fulfill his destiny,’ is the accepted phrase,” + said the Bonnie Lassie wickedly. “I’ll call him in for you to + look over. But you’d best leave the arrangements for a later + meeting.” + </p> + <p> + Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at home + despite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to Miss + Holland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departure at once. + </p> + <p> + “Who is she?” asked Julien, staring after her. + </p> + <p> + “Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s she doing here?” + </p> + <p> + “Good.” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” said he in pained tones. “Has she got a Cause?” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “Philanthropist?” + </p> + <p> + “Worse.” + </p> + <p> + “There ain’t no sich a animile.” + </p> + <p> + “There is. She’s a patron of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Wow!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She’s going to patronize you.” + </p> + <p> + “Not if I see her first. How do <i>I</i> qualify as a subject?” + </p> + <p> + “She considered you a wasted life.” + </p> + <p> + “Where does she get that idea?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of a + stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that’s fair?” demanded the indignant + youth. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. “Do + you or do you not,” she challenged, “invade our humble + precincts in a five-thousand-dollar automobile?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s my only extravagance.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy + Park, when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest + working-man?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won’t stand for that!” he + expostulated. “You know perfectly well I keep my room here because + it’s the only place I can work in quietly—” + </p> + <p> + “And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if + you left him entirely,” supplemented the sculptress. + </p> + <p> + Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. “Did you + tell all this stuff to Miss Holland?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely + sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning to + help you realize your destiny.” + </p> + <p> + “Which is?” he queried with lifted brows. + </p> + <p> + “To be a great painter.” + </p> + <p> + The other winced. “As you know, I’ve meant all along, as soon + as I’ve saved enough—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes; <i>I</i> know,” broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can + be quite ruthless where Art is concerned, “and <i>you</i> know; but + time flies and hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be + that kind of a pavement artist—well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a + better.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you suppose she’d let me paint her?” he asked + abruptly. + </p> + <p> + If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was busied + would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling radiance of + her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it from the moment + when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and wonder in his eyes, + as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she had guessed, might be + the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic senses; and even so it + was now working out. But all she said was—and she said it with a + sort of venomous blandness—“My dear boy, you can’t + paint.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t I! Just because I’m a little out of practice—” + </p> + <p> + “Two years, isn’t it, since you’ve touched a palette?” + </p> + <p> + “Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That’s all I ask.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think her so pretty?” inquired the sculptress + disparagingly. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty? She’s the loveliest thing that—” Catching + his hostess’s smile he broke off. “You’ll admit it’s + a well-modeled face,” he said professionally; “and—and—well, + unusual.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! ‘Dangerous’ is the word. Remember it,” + warned the Bonnie Lassie. “She’s a devastating whirlwind, that + child, and she comes down here partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, + if you play your part cleverly—” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not going to play any part.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it’s all up. How is a patroness of Art going to + patronize you, unless you’re a poor and struggling young artist, + living from hand to mouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won’t have to + play a part as far as the pot-boiling goes,” added his monitress + viciously. “Only, don’t let her know that the rewards of your + shame run to high-powered cars and high-class apartments. Remember, you’re + poor but honest. Perhaps she’ll give you money.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps she won’t,” retorted the youth explosively. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I’ll bring her + around to see you and you’ll have to work the sittings yourself.” + </p> + <p> + As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien’s attic + needed no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. He + worked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environment where + there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that Miss Roberta + Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanly poverty. + (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me along to make up + that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien dropped into the + background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board, sketching + eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of good deeds in talk. + Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers do not pay to any + but a master-draughtsman the prices which “J.T.”—with an + arrow transfixing the initials—gets; and Julien was as deft and + rapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, the + visitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out her + hand for the cardboard. + </p> + <p> + To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is an + adequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable little gem + in black-and-white with cool approbation. + </p> + <p> + “Quite clever,” she was pleased to say. “Would you care + to sell it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think it would be exactly—” A stern + glance from the Bonnie Lassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest + of the sentence. + </p> + <p> + “Would ten dollars be too little?” asked the visitor with + bright beneficence. + </p> + <p> + “Too much,” he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a + little crayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fifty + times that.) + </p> + <p> + The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table. + </p> + <p> + “Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?” he + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Does that take long?” she said doubtfully. “I’m + very busy.” + </p> + <p> + “You really should try it, Bobbie,” put in the crafty Bonnie + Lassie. “It might give him the start he needs.” + </p> + <p> + What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, but she + had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was from + time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland’s youthful loveliness + and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly + foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only + if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to + keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there are + few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien when he + chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with a passionate + intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go; tossing aside the + most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened; throwing himself + intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise. The fact is, he + had long been starved for color and was now satiating his soul with it. + Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first. The Bonnie Lassie, + wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that could not last. Men who are + not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain a neutral attitude toward + such creatures of grace and splendor as Bobbie Holland. + </p> + <p> + Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be called + friendship; he was not, to Bobbie’s recognition, a habitant of her + world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have + renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make + love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist + inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, + perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy grew, + he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above the + rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed Peter + Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, a bath, and + a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the more surprising + in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time for sittings now. + Between visits she took to going to the Metropolitan Museum and + conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a view to helping + her protégé form sound artistic tastes. (When the Bonnie Lassie heard + that, she all but choked.) As for Julien! + </p> + <p> + “This is all very well,” he said, one day in the sculptress’s + studio; “but sooner or later she’s going to catch me at it.” + </p> + <p> + “What then?” asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her + work. + </p> + <p> + “She’ll go away.” + </p> + <p> + “Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won’t + it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. That’ll be finished.” + </p> + <p> + This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked back + again. + </p> + <p> + “In any case she’ll have to go away some day—won’t + she?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” returned he in a gloomy growl. + </p> + <p> + “I warned you at the outset, ‘Dangerous,’” she + pointed out. + </p> + <p> + They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of Julien Tenny’s + brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as I saw them + occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a budding orchid, he in + the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenely unconscious of any + incongruity. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my + bench one afternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to + where her car waited, “that she is doing him as much good as she + thinks she is, or ought to?” + </p> + <p> + “Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie,” said the Bonnie + Lassie with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “I’m quite serious,” I protested. + </p> + <p> + “And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you know + her.” + </p> + <p> + “Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evident + fact?” + </p> + <p> + “Only,” pursued my companion, ignoring the question, “she + is bored and a little spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + “So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more + spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + “Julien won’t spoil her.” + </p> + <p> + “He certainly doesn’t appear to bore her.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s having the tables turned on her without knowing it. + Julien is doing her a lot of good. Already she’s far less beneficent + and bountiful and all that sort of stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “Lassie,” said I, “what, if I may so express myself, is + the big idea?” + </p> + <p> + “Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar,” she + reproved. “However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. + And it’s <i>mine</i>, that big idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Mightn’t it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect + that the experience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left + when Bobbie Holland goes?” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! Don’t be an oracular sphinx,” was all that I got + for my pains. + </p> + <p> + Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If the painting + seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not be said of the + fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourished along, and one day + a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element of historical + personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session, displaced a + hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script upon the + plastering Béranger’s famous line: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Dans un grenier qu’on est bien á vingt ans!” + </pre> + <p> + “Did you write that there?” asked the girl. + </p> + <p> + “Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word.” + </p> + <p> + “How did you come to know Béranger?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m French born.” + </p> + <p> + “‘In a garret how good is life at twenty,’” she + translated freely. “I wouldn’t have thought”—she + turned her softly brilliant regard upon him—“that life had + been so good to you.” + </p> + <p> + “It has,” was the rejoinder. “But never so good as now.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve often wondered—you seem to know so many things—where + you got your education?” + </p> + <p> + “Here and there and everywhere. It’s only a patchwork sort of + thing.” (Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my + two-hours-a-day of brain-hammering, and the free run of my library.) + </p> + <p> + “You’re a very puzzling person,” said she And when a + woman says that to a man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie + Lassie, who knows everything, is my authority for the statement.) + </p> + <p> + To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien’s “grenier” + that day. + </p> + <p> + “Cecily,” she said, in the most casual manner she could + contrive, “who <i>is</i> Julien Tenney?” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody.” + </p> + <p> + “You know what I mean,” pleaded the girl. “<i>What</i> + is he?” + </p> + <p> + “A brand snatched from the pot-boiling,” returned the Bonnie + Lassie, quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her + companion was. + </p> + <p> + “Please don’t be clever. Be nice and tell me—” + </p> + <p> + “‘Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,’” + declaimed the Bonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. “You + want me to define his social status for you and tell you whether you’d + better invite him to dinner. You’d better not. He might swallow his + knife.” + </p> + <p> + “You know he wouldn’t!” denied the girl in resentful + tones. “I’ve never known any one with more instinctive good + manners. He seems to go right naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “All due to my influence and training,” bragged the Bonnie + Lassie. “I helped bring him up.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you must know something of his antecedents.” + </p> + <p> + “Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with + the manners of a <i>preux chevalier</i>. Anyway, he never swallowed any of + <i>my</i> knives. Though he’s had plenty of opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very puzzling,” lamented Bobbie. + </p> + <p> + “Why let it prey like a worm i’ the bud of your mind? You’re + not going to adopt him, perhaps?” + </p> + <p> + For the moment Bobbie Holland’s eyes were dreamy and her tongue + unguarded. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” + said she with a gesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble + problem. + </p> + <p> + “Umph!” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + And continued sculpting. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would be + surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event occurred + as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs from the + hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when Bobbie + Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew + involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted his + costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the similarity + of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur’s livery. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she cried out, as if something had hurt her. + </p> + <p> + Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and + looked at her apprehensively. + </p> + <p> + Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, “Do you <i>have</i> + to do that?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—er—no,” began the puzzled Julien, who failed + for the moment to perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective + afternoon of golf. Her next words enlightened him. + </p> + <p> + “I should think you might have let me help before taking a—servant’s + position.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s an honest occupation,” he averred. + </p> + <p> + “Do you do this—regularly?” she pursued with an effort. + </p> + <p> + “Off and on. There’s good money in it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she mourned again. Then: “You’re doing this + so that you can afford to buy paints and canvas and—and things to + paint me,” she accused. “It isn’t fair!” + </p> + <p> + “I’d do worse than this for that,” he declared + valiantly. + </p> + <p> + Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased to + speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him painful + embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big theater + party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable columns + which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at the most + expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of the listed + guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a glimpse of an + unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter’s exit. And + Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of four (stag) + hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw that he was + recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his original intent. + Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. He appealed to the + head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that functionary, developing + a sense of humor under the stimulus of a twenty-dollar bill, procured him + on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a black string tie, and gave him + certain simple directions. When the patroness of Art next observed the + object of her patronage, he was performing the humble but useful duties of + an omnibus. + </p> + <p> + Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable + appetite. + </p> + <p> + Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of + shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, + stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or + drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an + expressive monosyllable. + </p> + <p> + “Why not swear out loud, Caspar?” asked Bobbie presently. + “It’ll do you less harm.” + </p> + <p> + “D’you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one + fixing the forks?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Bobbie faintly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s—No, by thunder, it can’t be!—Yes, + by the red-hot hinges, it <i>is!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you know him?” + </p> + <p> + “Know him! I <i>know</i> him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at + Grandpré. He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us + clean out that little wasp’s nest. His name’s Tenney, and if + ever there was a hellion in a fight! And see—what he’s come + to! My God!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, don’t cry about it,” advised the girl, serenely, + though it was hard for her to keep her voice steady. “There’s + nothing to do about it, is there?” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t there!” retorted the youth, rising purposefully. + “I’m going to get him and find him a job that’s fit for + him if I have to take him into partnership. Of all the + dash-blanked-dod-blizzened—” + </p> + <p> + “Caspar! What are you going to do? Don’t. You’ll + embarrass him frightfully.” + </p> + <p> + But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her + painter’s face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The + pair vanished beyond the watcher’s ken. On his return the gilded + youth behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to + time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, he + shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his + interest in his supper returned. Bobbie’s didn’t. + </p> + <p> + To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of it + who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult and + delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland’s school. + Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both + the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither + answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme + gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding that + he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was. + </p> + <p> + The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable unmasking + which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon Julien Tenney. + By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, Peter Quick Banta + had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a composite floral and + faunal scheme on the flagging in front of Thornsen’s Élite + Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to observe and wonder. + At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the corner, all but ran her + down. She nodded toward the decorator of sidewalks. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t he the funny man that you were with the first time I + saw you?” + </p> + <p> + “The very same,” responded Julien with twinkling eyes. + </p> + <p> + “What is he doing?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or + public-view school of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but what does he do it for?” + </p> + <p> + “His living.” + </p> + <p> + “Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him + something?” she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on + hands and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a + red bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers. + </p> + <p> + “I think he’d be tickled pink.” + </p> + <p> + She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her + companion’s hand. + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i> give it to him. I think he’d like it better.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no; I don’t think he’d like it at all. In fact, I + doubt if he’d take it from me.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you see,” explained Julien blandly, “we’re + rather intimately connected.” He raised his voice. “Hello, + Dad!” + </p> + <p> + The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, + replied, “Hello, Lad,” and continued his work. “What d’ + you think of <i>that</i>?” he added, after a moment, triumphantly + pointing a yellow crayon at the green-headed red-bird. + </p> + <p> + “Some parrot!” enthused Julien. + </p> + <p> + “‘T ain’t a parrot. It’s a nightingale,” + retorted the artist indignantly. “You black-and-white fellows never + do understand color.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a corker, anyway,” said Julien. “Dad here’s + a—an art patron who wants to contribute to the cause.” + </p> + <p> + The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out + her quarter. + </p> + <p> + “I—I—don’t know,” she began. “I was + interested in your picture and I thought—Mr. Tenney said—” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. “Thank you,” + said he. “There ain’t much appreciation of art just at this + season. But if you’ll come down to Coney about June, I’ll show + you some sand-modeling that <i>is</i> sand-modeling—‘s much as + five dollars a day I’ve taken in there.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Holland recovered her social poise. + </p> + <p> + “I’d like to very much,” she said cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a little + jarringly. “Well,” he said, “does that help you to place + me?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not trying to place you,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “Is that quite true?” he mocked. + </p> + <p> + “No; it isn’t. It’s a downright lie,” said Bobbie + finding courage to raise her eyes to his. + </p> + <p> + “And now, I suppose, I shall be ‘my good man’ or + something like that, to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it likely?” + </p> + <p> + “You called MacLachan that, you know,” he reminded her. + </p> + <p> + “Long ago. When I was—when I didn’t understand Our + Square.” + </p> + <p> + “And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book + to your penetrating vision.” + </p> + <p> + Her lip quivered. “I don’t know why you should want to be so + hateful to me.” + </p> + <p> + For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look that + thrilled and daunted her. “To keep from being something else that I’ve + no right to be,” he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the + picture?” she asked, striving to get on safer ground. + </p> + <p> + “Only one or two, I suppose,” he answered morosely. + </p> + <p> + Such was Julien’s condition of mind after the last sitting that he + actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the + door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening + in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in + the Bonnie Lassie’s face as she studied it. + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it!” she exclaimed. “Flower and flame! + Why did I ever take to sculpture? One can’t get that in the metal.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it,” I echoed. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, technically, it’s rather a sloppy picture.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a glorious picture!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “Naturally that,” returned the exasperating critic. “It + always will be—when you paint with your heart’s blood.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she’s + presented?” + </p> + <p> + “If she doesn’t—which she probably does,” said the + Bonnie Lassie, “she will find out something to her advantage when + she sees me to-morrow. I’m going home to ‘phone her.” + </p> + <p> + In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw her + from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly lovely. + At the door of the Bonnie Lassie’s house she was met with the + challenge direct. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing to my artistic ward?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove + it related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne + Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist. + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t Julien’s father,” said the sculptress. + “He’s only an adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he + ought to. The real father, so I’ve heard, was a French gentleman—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care who his father was!” cried Bobbie. (The + Bonnie Lassie’s face took on the expression of an exclamation + point.) “I can’t bear to think of his having to do servant’s + work. And I told him so yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you look like that while you were telling him?” + </p> + <p> + “Like what? I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “And what did he do?” + </p> + <p> + “Do? He didn’t do anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, “he’s a + stick of wood—hardwood—with a knot-hole for a heart.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the + last.” + </p> + <p> + “About what?” + </p> + <p> + “About taking money.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m a prophetess! And you’re a patroness. Born in us, I + suppose. You <i>did</i> try to give him money.” + </p> + <p> + “Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and + paint. He wouldn’t even let me do that; so I—I—I offered + to buy the picture of me, and he said—he said—Cecily, do you + think he’s sometimes a little queer in his head?” + </p> + <p> + “Not in the head, necessarily. <i>What</i> did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “He said he’d bought it himself at the highest price ever + paid. And he said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just + told him that I hoped I’d see him when I came back—” + </p> + <p> + “Back from where? Are you going away?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; didn’t I tell you? On a three months’ cruise.” + </p> + <p> + “Had you told him that?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. That’s when I tried to get him to take the money. + Cecily—” The girl’s voice shook a little. “You’ll + tell him, won’t you, that he <i>must</i> keep on painting?” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Doesn’t he intend to?” + </p> + <p> + “He said he’d painted himself out and he didn’t think he’d + ever <i>look</i> at color again.” + </p> + <p> + “He will,” said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. + “Grief is just as driving a taskmaster as lo—as other + emotions.” + </p> + <p> + “Grief!” The girl’s color ebbed. “Cecily! You don’t + think I’ve hurt him?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug. + </p> + <p> + “Bobbie, do you know what I’d do in your place?” + </p> + <p> + “No. What?” + </p> + <p> + “I’d go right—straight—back to Julien Tenney’s + studio.” She paused impressively. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said the other faintly. + </p> + <p> + “And I’d walk right—straight—up to Julien Tenney—” + Another pause, even more impressive. + </p> + <p> + “I d-d-don’t think I’d—he’d—” + </p> + <p> + “And I’d say to him: ‘Julien, will you marry me?’ + Like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Bobbie in outraged amazement. + </p> + <p> + “And maybe—” continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: + “maybe I’d kiss him. Yes. I think I would.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie’s large eyes dissolved in + tears. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she sobbed. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t be ashamed of <i>yourself</i>,” prophesied + the other, “if you do just as I say, quickly and naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, naturally,” retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. + “I suppose you think that’s natural. Anyway, he probably doesn’t + care about me at all that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Roberta,” said the sculptress sternly, “did you <i>see</i> + his portrait of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-y-yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And you have the presumption to say that he doesn’t care? + Why, that picture doesn’t simply tell his secret. It <i>yells</i> + it!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care,” said the hard-pressed Bobbie. “It + hasn’t yelled it to me. <i>Nobody’s</i> yelled it to me. And I + c-c-can’t ask a m-m-man to—to—” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you can’t,” allowed her adviser magnanimously. + “On second thought, it won’t be necessary. You just go back—after + powdering your nose a little—and say that you’ve come to see + the picture once more, or that it’s a fine day, or that competition + is the life of trade, or that—oh, anything! And, if he doesn’t + do the rest, I’ll kill and eat him.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Cecily—” + </p> + <p> + “You <i>would</i> be a patroness of Art. Now I’ve given you + something real to patronize. Don’t you dare fail me.” Suddenly + the speaker gave herself over to an access of mirth. “Heaven help + that young man when he comes to own up.” + </p> + <p> + “Own up to what?” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind.” + </p> + <p> + Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her + query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was + curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her + to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to the + attic. + </p> + <p> + A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the + studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted. + </p> + <p> + “And you’re actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year + slip through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?” + </p> + <p> + To which Julien’s equable accents replied: + </p> + <p> + “That’s it, Merrill. I’m going to paint.” + </p> + <p> + The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door + upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an + energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed expression. + At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness to her aid. + </p> + <p> + “Would you think me inexcusably rude,” she said softly, + “if I asked who you are?” + </p> + <p> + The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of + whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: “I’m + George Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?” + </p> + <p> + “He has. For several years.” + </p> + <p> + “So that,” said the girl, half to herself, “is his + pot-boiling.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a very complimentary term,” commented Mr. Merrill, + “for the best black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. + Between my concern and two others he makes a railroad president’s + income out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much.” + </p> + <p> + “In return, may I ask you something?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing + away his career?” + </p> + <p> + “Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Merrill’s face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle + appeared at the corner of his glasses. “I’ve seen the + portrait,” he replied, and with a bow, went on his way. + </p> + <p> + Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with + bright, inscrutable eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?” she + demanded. + </p> + <p> + “D—-n Merrill!” said Julien with fervor. + </p> + <p> + “It’s true that your ‘pot-boiling’ brings you a + big income?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t. That car belongs to me.” + </p> + <p> + “And your being a waiter? I don’t suppose the Taverne + Splendide belongs to you?” + </p> + <p> + “An impromptu bit of acting,” confessed the abashed Julien. + </p> + <p> + “And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?” + </p> + <p> + “No. This is mine, really.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand. Why have you done it all?” + </p> + <p> + “If you want to know the truth,” he said defiantly, “so + that I could keep on seeing you.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s a very poor excuse,” she retorted. + </p> + <p> + “The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what + possible interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling + young painter—that was the Bonnie Lassie’s fault, for I never + lied to you about it—and after we’d started on that track I + didn’t—well, I didn’t have the courage to risk losing + you by quitting the masquerade.” + </p> + <p> + “How you must have laughed at me all the time!” + </p> + <p> + He flushed to his angry eyes. “Do you think that is fair?” he + retorted. “Or kind? Or true?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “You let me + offer you money. And you’ve probably got as much as I have.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t have from now on, then. I’m going to paint. I + thought, when you told me you were going away, that I couldn’t look + at a canvas again. But now I know I was wrong. I’ve got to paint. + You’ll have left me that, at least.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Merrill thinks you’re ruining your career. And if you do, + it’ll be my fault. I’ll never, never, never,” said the + patroness of Art desolately, “try to do any one good again!” + </p> + <p> + She turned toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “At least,” said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out + of control, “you’ll know that it wasn’t all masquerade. + You’ll know why I’ll always keep the picture, even if I never + paint another.” + </p> + <p> + She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the + passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose,” she said, “I asked you to give it up.” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t,” he retorted quickly. + </p> + <p> + “No, I wouldn’t. But—but—” Her glance, + wandering away from him, fell on the joyous line of Béranger bold above + the door. + </p> + <p> + “‘How good is life in an attic at twenty,’” she + murmured. Then, turning to him, she held out her hands. + </p> + <p> + “I could find it good,” she said with a soft little falter in + her voice, “even at twenty-two.” + </p> + <p> + Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, + going by with transfigured faces, stopped. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s tell Dominie,” said Julien. + </p> + <p> + I waved a jaunty hand. “I know already,” said I, “even + if it hadn’t been announced to a waiting world.” + </p> + <p> + “Wh-wh-why,” stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man’s + waiting a lifetime to see, “it—it only just happened.” + </p> + <p> + “Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It’s been + happening for weeks. Come with me.” + </p> + <p> + I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant. + There stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of + imaginative symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in + its powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and + of orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. + “J.T.” and “R.H.” Below, in no less than four + colors, ran the legend, “Cupid’s Token.” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord! Dad!” cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out + with frantic feet. “How long has this been there?” + </p> + <p> + “What’re you doing? Leave it be!” cried the anguished + artist. “It’s been there since noon.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind,” put in Bobbie softly; “it’s very + pretty and tasteful even though it is a little precipitate. But how”—she + turned the lovely and puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist—“how + did you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Artistic intuition,” said Peter Quick Banta with profound + complacency. “<i>I’m</i> an artist.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES + </h2> + <p> + Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 and + wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them. “Kleam, + kleam, kleam, kleam,” it would pipe pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!” solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its + own levity. + </p> + <p> + “Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! + Kung-<i>glang</i>!” That was a duet in the middle register. + </p> + <p> + Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin + silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny: + </p> + <p> + “Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!” + </p> + <p> + We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our + remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of his + art. + </p> + <p> + Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the + Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the + ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, “For Rental to Suitable + Tenant,” invited inspection. “Suitable” is the catch in + that innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no + estate at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant + proclivities named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of + prejudice rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an + applicant as unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for + breakfast, or a glass eye. + </p> + <p> + How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr. + Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name + rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He + encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in + painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether + twenty-five dollars a month would be considered. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe,” returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger + introduced himself, with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing aristocratic + implications. + </p> + <p> + “The name,” he pronounced, “is satisfactory. The sum is + satisfactory. It is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up + in character and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate.” + This he had adapted from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which + had come to him through the mail, very genteelly worded. “Family + man?” he added briskly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “How many of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Two.” + </p> + <p> + “Wife?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir,” said the little man, very low. + </p> + <p> + “Son? Daughter? What age?” + </p> + <p> + “I have never been blessed with a child.” + </p> + <p> + “Then who—” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly would share the house with me, sir.” + </p> + <p> + For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, + with an important expression, seated behind the railing. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t like dogs,” said the Mordaunt Estate curtly. + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly”—Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his + companion—“this gentleman does not like dogs.” + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling + deepened when Willy Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising + eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his + hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, + droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip to + finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the Maiden’s + Prayer. + </p> + <p> + The Estate promptly capitulated. + </p> + <p> + “Some pup!” he exclaimed. “When did you want to move in?” + </p> + <p> + “At once, if you please.” + </p> + <p> + Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front + door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and + penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in + the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of + the half-dozen succeeding trips was homogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, + little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn + clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of + white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, clocks + that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, the owner + established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted them, and + wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their meticulous + busy-ness, that place which had for so long been muffled in quiet and + deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting mechanism and + the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the House of Silvery + Voices. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr. + Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie Lassie + gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up his + charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and irresponsible, + though through no fault of their own. When they were wound they went. When + they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more than half of them + simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion as to the hour were + radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic eight-day, opposite the + front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, only to be at once + contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor mantel, which announced + that it was six, thereby starting up the cathedral case on the stairway + and the Grandfather in the dining-room, who held out respectively for + eight and two, while all the time it was really half-past one. Thence + arose in the early days painful misunderstandings on the part of Our + Square, for we are a simple people and deem it the duty of a timepiece to + keep time. In particular we were befooled by Grandfather, the + solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a long-range stroke and a most + convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the note-shaver, on his way to a + profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard the hour strike (thirty-five + minutes in advance of the best professional opinion) from the House of + Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the recklessness of hiring a passing + taxi, thereby reaching his destination with half an hour to spare and half + a dollar to lack, for which latter he threatened to sue the Mordaunt + Estate’s tenant. To the credit side of the house’s account it + must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, having started one of his + disastrous drunks within the precincts of his Home of Fashion, was on his + way to finish it in the gutter via the zigzag route from corner saloon to + corner saloon, when the Twelve Apostles clock in the basement window + lifted up its voice and (presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice + denied the hour, which was actually a quarter before midnight. “Losh!” + said MacLachan, who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch + whiskey, “they’ll a’ be closed. Hame an’ to bed wi’ + ye, waster of the priceless hours!” And back he staggered to sleep + it off. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out + to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing + Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had spare + time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr’s gout (which was + really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, only + to find it all over and the patient dead. + </p> + <p> + “It’s an outrage,” declared the Little Red Doctor + fiercely, “that an old lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where + in a pushcart and play merry hell with a hard-working practitioner’s + professional duties. And you’re the one to tell him so, Dominie. You’re + the diplomat of the Square.” + </p> + <p> + He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this + preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of + Silvery Voices. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t the way it plays tricks on time alone,” said + she. “There’s one clock in there that’s worse than + conscience.” + </p> + <p> + And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was wont + to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary clack-and-whirr, + alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping early because the clay + was obdurate and wouldn’t come right, and had gone for a walk to + clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these unjustifiable terms: + </p> + <p> + “Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr <i>wrong! + wrong! wrong! wrong!”</i> + </p> + <p> + “Wherefore,” said the Bonnie Lassie, “your appellant + prays that you be a dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to + Number 37 and ask him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he’s + got to stop it.” + </p> + <p> + Now, the Bonnie Lassie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the + low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and + kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a + self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time + himself opened the door to me. + </p> + <p> + “What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?” he inquired + with timid courtesy. + </p> + <p> + “They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard of you.” He motioned me to a seat in the bare + little room, alive with tickings and clickings. “You have lived long + here, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Long.” + </p> + <p> + From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle + and solemn mockery: “<i>Long. Long. Long</i>.” + </p> + <p> + My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I + afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom. + </p> + <p> + “I, too, am an old man,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + “A hardy sixty, I should guess.” + </p> + <p> + “A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,’ as to the folk + in this Square?” He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. “Are + they, as one might say, friendly? Neighborly?” + </p> + <p> + I was a little taken aback. “We are not an intrusive people.” + </p> + <p> + “No one,” he said, “has been to see my clocks.” + </p> + <p> + I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my + errand. “You live here quite alone?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” said he quickly. “You see, I have Willy + Woolly. Pardon me. I have not yet presented him.” + </p> + <p> + At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended + hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee. + </p> + <p> + “He greets you as a friend,” said my new acquaintance in a + tone which indicated that I had been signally honored. “I trust that + we shall see you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my + collection now?” + </p> + <p> + Here was my opening. “The fact is—” I began, and stopped + from sheer cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle + pride in his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular + being before me—I couldn’t do it. “The fact is,” I + repeated, “I—I have a friend outside waiting for me. The + Little Red Doctor—er—Dr. Smith, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “A physician?” he said eagerly. “Would he come in, do + you think? Willy Woolly has been quite feverish to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll ask him,” I replied, and escaped with that excuse. + </p> + <p> + When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to me + was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet! + </p> + <p> + Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my turn + to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices. Happily for + me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before my substitute + reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me. Balked in this + cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional expression and observed + that it was an obscure case. + </p> + <p> + “For a man of sixty,” I began, “Mr. Merivale—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Who</i>?” interrupted the Little Red Doctor; “I’m + speaking of the dog.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you, then,” I inquired in insinuating accents, “become + a dash-binged vet?” + </p> + <p> + “A man can’t be a brute, can he!” he retorted angrily. + “When that animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out + like a child—” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” I said. “You took on a new patient. Probably + gratis,” I added, with malice, for this was one of the Little Red + Doctor’s notoriously weak points. + </p> + <p> + “Just the same, he’s a fool dog.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice + social discrimination,” I asserted, recalling Willy Woolly’s + flattering acceptance of myself. + </p> + <p> + “A faker,” asseverated my friend. “He pretends to see + things.” + </p> + <p> + I sat up straight on my bench. “Things? What kind of things?” + </p> + <p> + “Things that aren’t there,” returned the Little Red + Doctor, and fell to musing. “They couldn’t be,” he added + presently and argumentatively. + </p> + <p> + Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked whether + he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies of his + clocks. He shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t have time,” said he doggedly. + </p> + <p> + “Time? Why, there’s nothing but time in that house.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor chose to take my feeble joke at par. “No time + at all. None of the clocks keep it.” + </p> + <p> + “How does he manage his life, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly does that for him. Barks him up in the morning. Jogs + his elbow at mealtimes. Tucks him in bed at night, for all I know.” + </p> + <p> + Thus abortively ended Our Square’s protest against Stepfather Time + and his House of Silvery Voices. The Little Red Doctor’s obscure + suggestion stuck in my mind, and a few nights later I made a second call. + Curiosity rather than neighborliness was the inciting cause. Therefore I + ought to have been embarrassed at the quiet warmth of my reception by both + of the tenants. Interrupting himself in the work of adjusting a new + acquisition’s mechanism, Stepfather Time settled me into the most + comfortable chair and immediately began to talk of clocks. + </p> + <p> + Good talk, it was; quaint and flavorous and erudite. But my attention kept + wandering to Willy Woolly, who, after politely kissing my hand, had + settled down behind his master’s chair. Willy Woolly was seeing + things. No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and + thither, following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than + darkness, more ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, + measured thumping sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it + took me an appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle’s + tail, beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. + And still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. It was rather + more than old nerves could stand. + </p> + <p> + “The dog,” I broke in upon the stream of erudition. “Surely, + Mr. Merivale—” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly?” He looked down, and the faithful one withdrew + himself from his vision long enough to lick the master hand. “Does + he disturb you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” I answered, a little confused. “I only thought—it + seemed that he is uneasy about something.” + </p> + <p> + “There are finer sensibilities than we poor humans have,” said + my host gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Then you have noticed how he watches and follows?” + </p> + <p> + “He is always like that. Always, since.” + </p> + <p> + His “since” was one of the strangest syllables that ever came + to my ears. It implied nothing to follow. It was finality’s self. + </p> + <p> + “It is”—I sought a word—“interesting and + curious,” I concluded lamely, feeling how insufficient the word was. + </p> + <p> + “She comes back to him,” said my host simply. + </p> + <p> + No need to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive + as his “since.” Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave + to its utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when he added: + </p> + <p> + “She never comes back to me.” + </p> + <p> + That evening he spoke no more of her. Yet I felt that I had been admitted + to an intimacy. And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of dropping in + to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of his + philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline of the + tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of quiet. She + whom he had cherished since they were boy and girl together, had died in + the previous winter. She had formed the whole circle of his existence + within which he moved, attended by Willy Woolly, happily gathering his + troves. Her death had left him not so much alone as alien in the world. He + was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, without interest + except that of his timepieces, and without hope except that of rejoining + her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to say in a tone of + indescribable conviction: + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I was the happiest man in the world.” + </p> + <p> + Any chance incident or remark might turn his thought and speech, + unconscious of the transition, from his favorite technicalities back to + the past. Some comment of mine upon a specimen of that dismal songster, + the cuckoo clock, which stood on his mantel, had started him into one of + his learned expositions. + </p> + <p> + “The first cuckoo clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir”—he + was always scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no + matter how abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his + inherent courtesy—“was intended to represent not the cuckoo, + but the blackbird. It had a double pipe for the hours, ‘Pit-weep! + Pit-weep!’ and a single—” + </p> + <p> + His voice trailed into silence as the mechanical bird of his own + collection popped forth and piped its wooden lay. Willy Woolly pattered + over, sat down before it, and, gazing through and beyond the meaningless + face with eyes of adoration whose purport there was no mistaking, whined + lovingly. + </p> + <p> + “When the cuckoo sounded,” continued the collector without the + slightest change of intonation, “she used to imitate it to puzzle + Willy Woolly. A merry heart! ... All was so still after it stopped + beating. The clocks forgot to strike.” + </p> + <p> + The poodle, turning his absorbed regard from the Presence that moves + beyond time and its perishing voices, trotted to his master and nuzzled + the frail hand. + </p> + <p> + The hand fondled him. “Yes, little dog,” murmured the man. His + eyes, sad as those of the animal, quested the dimness. + </p> + <p> + “Why does she come to him and not to me? He loved her dearly, didn’t + you, little dog? But not as I did.” There was a quivering note of + jealousy in his voice. “Why is my vision blinded to what he sees?” + </p> + <p> + “You have said yourself that there are finer sensibilities than + ours,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “It lies deeper than that. I think he is drawing + near her. He used to have a little bark that he kept for her alone. In the + dead of night I have heard him give that bark—since. And I knew that + she was speaking to him. I think that he will go first. Perhaps he will + tell her that I am coming.... But I should be very lonely.” + </p> + <p> + “Willy’s a stout young thing,” I asserted, “with + years of life before him.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” he returned doubtfully. A gleam of rare fun lit up + his pale, vague eyes. “Can’t you see him dodging past Saint + Peter through the pearly gates” (“I was brought up a + Methodist,” he added in apologetic explanation), “trotting + along the alabaster streets sniffing about for her among all the Shining + Ones, listening for her voice amid the sound of the harps, and when he + finds her, hallelujahing with that little bark that was for her alone: + ‘Here I am, mistress! Here I am! And <i>he’s</i> coming soon, + mistress. Your Old Boy is coming soon.’” + </p> + <p> + When I retailed that conversation to the Little Red Doctor, he snorted and + said that Stepfather Time was one degree crazier than Willy Woolly and + that I wasn’t much better than a higher moron myself. Well, if I’ve + got to be called a fool by my best friends, I’d rather be called it + in Greek than in English. It’s more euphonious. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The pair in Number 37 soon settled down to a routine life. Every morning + Stepfather Time got out his big pushcart and set forth in search of + treasure, accompanied by Willy Woolly. Sometimes the dog trotted beneath + the cart; sometimes he rode in it. He was always on the job. Never did he + indulge in those divagations so dear to the normal canine heart. Other + dogs and their ways interested him not. Cats simply did not exist in his + circumscribed life. Even to the shining mark of a boy on a bicycle he was + indifferent, and when a dog has reached that stage one may safely say of + him that he has renounced the world and all its vanities. Willy Woolly’s + one concern in life was his master and their joint business. + </p> + <p> + Soon they became accepted familiars of Our Square. Despite the general + conviction that they were slightly touched, we even became proud of them. + They lent distinction to the locality by getting written up in a Sunday + supplement, Willy Woolly being specially photographed therefor, a gleam of + transient glory, which, however it may have gratified our local pride, + left both of the subjects quite indifferent. Stepfather Time might have + paid more heed to it had he not, at the time, been wholly preoccupied in a + difficult quest. + </p> + <p> + In a basement window, far over on Avenue D, stood an old and battered + timepiece of which Stepfather Time had heard the voice but never seen the + face. Each of three attempts to investigate with a view to negotiations + had been frustrated by a crabbed and violent-looking man with a repellent + club. Nevertheless, the voice alone had ensnared the connoisseur; it was, + by the test of the pipe which he carried on all his quests, D in alt, and + would thus complete the major chord of a chime which he had long been + building up. (She had loved, best of all, harmonic combinations of the + clock bells.) Every day he would halt in front of the place and wait to + hear it strike, and its owner would peer out from behind it and shake a + wasted fist and curse him with strange, hoarse foreign oaths, while Willy + Woolly tugged at his trouser leg and urged him to pass on from that + unchancy spot. All that he could learn about the basement dweller was that + his name was Lukisch and he owed for his rent. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made sheep’s + eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as he hated + everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, and a + grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his heart. + Also he had definite ideas of reprisal, which were focused by a dispossess + notice, and directed particularly upon the person and property of his + landlord. The clock he needed as the instrument of his vengeance; + therefore he would not have sold it at any price to the sheep-eyed old + lunatic of the pushcart, who now, on the eve of his eviction, stood gazing + in with wistful contemplation. Presently he passed on and Mr. Lukisch + resumed his tinkering with the clock’s insides. He was very delicate + and careful about it, for these were the final touches, preparatory to his + leaving the timepiece as a memento when he should quietly depart that + evening, shortly before nine. What might happen after nine, or, rather, on + the stroke of nine, was no worry of his, though it might be and probably + would be of the landlord’s, provided that heartless extortioner + survived it. + </p> + <p> + Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair + and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction. + Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those + two physiognomies. The clock’s face, benign and bland, would have + deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man’s + face might have warned him. + </p> + <p> + Something within the clock’s mechanism clicked and checked and went + on again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start. Could + something have gone wrong with the combination? Suppose a premature + release.... At that panic thought something within Mr. Lukisch’s bad + heart clicked and checked and did not go on again. The fear in his eyes + faded and was succeeded by an expression of surprise and inquiry. Whether + the inquiry was answered, nobody could have guessed from the still, + unwinking regard on the face of the victim of heart failure. + </p> + <p> + By and by a crowd gathered on the sidewalk, drawn by that mysterious + instinct for sensation which attracts the casual and the idle. Two bold + spirits entered the door and stood, hesitant, just inside, awed because + the clock seemed so startlingly alive in that place. Some one sent + upstairs for the landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which + had not only mulcted him of two months’ rent with nothing to show + for it but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly + superfluous corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock + because it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it + that Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered. + </p> + <p> + “And who”—the landlord addressed high Heaven with a + gesture at once pious and pessimistic—“is to pay me fourteen + dollars back rent this dirty beggar owes?” + </p> + <p> + “The man,” said Stepfather Time gently, “is dead.” + </p> + <p> + “He is.” The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with + objurgations. “Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and + expense. And what have I who run my property honest and respectable got to + pay for it? Some rags and a bum clock.” + </p> + <p> + Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, + this was not Willy Woolly’s kind of man. “Now, now, Willy + Woolly!” reproved his master. “Who are we that we should judge + him?” + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t <i>like</i> him,” declared Willy Woolly in + unequivocal dog language. + </p> + <p> + “I think from his face that he has suffered much,” said the + gentle collector, wise in human pain. + </p> + <p> + “Me; I suppose I don’t suffer!” pointed out the landlord + vehemently. “Fourteen dollars out. Two months’ rent. A bum + clock.” + </p> + <p> + He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The + voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D in + alt. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering + underneath his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, “I + will buy your clock.” + </p> + <p> + A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word + “nut” floated in the air, and was followed by “Verrichter.” + The landlord took thought and hope. + </p> + <p> + “It is a very fine clock,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “It is a bum clock,” Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. + </p> + <p> + “Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it.” + </p> + <p> + “I will pay you much money for it.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” + </p> + <p> + “Seven dollars. That is one month’s rent that he owed.” + </p> + <p> + “Two months’ rent I must have.” + </p> + <p> + “One,” said Stepfather Time firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Two,” said the landlord insistently. + </p> + <p> + “Urff! Grr—rr—rr—rrff!” said Willy Woolly in + emphatic dissuasion. + </p> + <p> + Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of Willy + Woolly’s province. Only once in the course of their years together + had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to + recall that the subject of Willy’s protests on that occasion had + subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in the + woodwork (artificially blown in with powder) would have led the + unsuspecting to suppose. But about the present legacy there could be no + such question. It was genuine. It was old. It was valuable. It possessed a + seraphic note pitched true to the long-desired chord. + </p> + <p> + Extracting a ten-dollar note from his wallet, Stepfather Time waved it + beneath the landlord’s wrinkled and covetous nose. The landlord + capitulated. Willy Woolly, sniffing at the clock with fur abristle, lifted + up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already detected + the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He stubbornly refused + to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, and was accused of + being sulky and childish. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a + high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. + There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland + and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the + passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke of + nine. Meantime Willy Woolly settled down to keep watch on it and could not + be moved from that duty. Every time it struck the half he growled. At the + hour he barked and raged. When Stepfather Time sought to draw him away to + dinner he committed the unpardonable sin of dog-dom, he snarled at his + master. Turning this strange manifestation over in his troubled mind, the + collector decided that Willy Woolly must be ill, and therefore that + evening went to seek the Little Red Doctor and his wisdom. + </p> + <p> + Together they came across the park space opposite the House of Silvery + Voices in time to witness the final scene. + </p> + <p> + The new clock struck the half after eight as they reached the turn in the + path. A long, quavering howl, mingled of rage and desperation, answered in + Willy Woolly’s voice. + </p> + <p> + “You hear?” said Stepfather Time anxiously to the Little Red + Doctor. “The dog is not himself.” + </p> + <p> + They saw him rear up against the clock case. He seemed to be trying to + tear it open with his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Willy!” cried his master in a tone such as, I suppose, the + well-loved companion had not heard twice before in his life. “Down, + Willy!” + </p> + <p> + The dog drooped back. But it was not in obedience. For once he disregarded + the master’s command. Perhaps he did not even hear it in the + absorption of his dread and rage. Step by step he withdrew, then rushed + and launched himself straight at the timepiece. Slight though his bulk + was, the impetus of the charge did the work. The clock reeled, toppled, + and fell outward through the window; then— + </p> + <p> + From the House of Silvery Voices rose a roar that smote the heavens. A + roar and a belch of flame and a spreading, poisonous stench that struck + the two men in the park to earth. When they struggled to their feet again, + the smoke had parted and the House of Silvery Voices gaped open, its front + wall stripped bodily away. But within, the sound of the busy industry of + time went on uninterrupted. + </p> + <p> + Weaving and wobbling on his feet, Stepfather Time staggered toward the pot + calling on the name of Willy Woolly. At the gate he stopped, put forth his + hand, and lifted from the railing a wopsy, woolly fragment, no bigger than + a sheet of note paper. It was red and warm and wet. + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone,” said Stepfather Time. + </p> + <p> + The Clock of Conscience took up the tale. “Gone. Gone. Gone,” + it pealed. + </p> + <p> + As the collector would not leave the shattered house, they sent for me to + stay the night with him. A strange vigil! For now it was the man who + followed with intent, unworldly eyes that which I, with my lesser vision, + could not discern. And the Unseen moved swiftly about the desolate room, + low to the floor, and seemed finally to stop, motionless beneath a + caressing hand. I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping of a + grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready to + strike. + </p> + <p> + Only once that night did Stepfather Time speak, and then not to me. + </p> + <p> + “Tell her,” he said in an assured murmur, “that I shan’t + be long.” + </p> + <p> + “Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long,” confirmed + Grandfather from his stance on the stairway. + </p> + <p> + In that assurance Stepfather Time fell asleep. He did not go out again + with his pushcart, but sat in the rear room while the Mordaunt Estate in + person superintended the job of putting a new front on the house. + </p> + <p> + The night after it was finished I received an urgent telephone call to + come there at once. At the entrance I met the Little Red Doctor coming + out. + </p> + <p> + “The clocks have stopped,” said he gently. + </p> + <p> + So I turned to cross the park with him. + </p> + <p> + “I shall certify,” said he, “heart disease.” + </p> + <p> + “You may certify what you please,” said I. “But what do + you believe?” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor, who prides himself on being a hard-bitted + materialist, glared at me as injuriously as if my innocent question had + been an insult. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it!” he averred violently. “Do + you take me for a sentimental idiot that I should pin silly labels on my + old friend, Death?” His expression underwent a curious change. + “But I never saw such joy on any living face,” he muttered + under his breath. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and + makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time’s + clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower facing + Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The Bonnie Lassie + designed the tower, and because there is love and understanding in all + that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand to, it is as beautiful + as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the Tower of the Two Faithful + Hearts. + </p> + <p> + The silvery voice within it is the product of a paragon among timepieces, + a most superior instrument, of unimpeachable construction and great cost. + But it has one invincible peculiarity, the despair of the best consulting + experts who have been called in to remedy it and, one and all, have failed + for reasons which they cannot fathom. How should they! + </p> + <p> + It never keeps time. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HOME-SEEKERS’ GOAL + </h2> + <p> + Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general head of + statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square, + looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grown up + in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you for + information, and they will frequently give more than they get of it. Such, + I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves a + satisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorful + splendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with a + taste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that float and + bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I can follow + a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorous bloom. + And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in a receptive + mood for such flies of information as might come to me concerning two + large invading vans which had rumbled into our quiet precincts and, after + a pause for inquiry, stopped before the Mordaunt Estate’s newly + repaired property at Number 37. + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The design + which he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of art than + upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors. + </p> + <p> + The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviously + unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, reverting + to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in approaching the + Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was sure that the + newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. + </p> + <p> + Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I mused + upon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found useful in + such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon. With + an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I dragged myself + back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes upon them. It is + possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal, for they fell + at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, a butterfly of the most + vivid and delightful appearance. + </p> + <p> + “Is the house with the ‘To Let’ sign on it really to + let, do you know, sir?” she inquired, adding music to color with her + voice. + </p> + <p> + “So I understand,” said I, rising. + </p> + <p> + “And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front,” + put in the butterfly’s companion. “Is he a lunatic or a + designer of barber poles?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing a + limited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate.” + </p> + <p> + “He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could + get out of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he + should be addressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. + Wagboom is an irritant to a haughty property-owner’s soul.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?” asked the young + man of his companion. + </p> + <p> + “With a view to renting?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you keep dogs?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Or clocks by the hundred?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” answered the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Or bombs?” + </p> + <p> + Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other with a + wild surmise which said plainly: “Are they <i>all</i> crazy down + here?” + </p> + <p> + “If you do,” I explained kindly, “you might have trouble + in dealing. The latest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed + one of two hundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew + away the front wall.” And I outlined the history of that canine + clairvoyant, Willy Woolly. “The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about + his tenants, anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps + it would be well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of + house painting.” + </p> + <p> + Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the + charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and + delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry. + </p> + <p> + “That,” said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on + his knees with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to + them, “is after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he’s + a bear for color. Are you artists?” + </p> + <p> + “We’re house-hunters,” explained the young man. + </p> + <p> + “As for tenants,” said the Mordaunt Estate, “I take + ’em or leave ’em as I like ’em or don’t. I like + you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of colorin’. Eight rooms, + bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don’t suit each other. + Very choice and classy for a young married couple. Eight dollars, in + advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz.” + </p> + <p> + “We’re not married,” said the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?” demanded that highly + respectable institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression + mollified as he turned to the butterfly. “Aimin’ to be, I s’pose.” + </p> + <p> + “We only met this morning; so we haven’t decided yet,” + answered the young man. “At least,” he added blandly, as his + companion seemed to be struggling for utterance, “she hasn’t + informed me of her decision, if she has made it.” + </p> + <p> + Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the + Mordaunt Estate. “Nothin’ doin’,” he began, + “until—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t decide hastily,” adjured the young man. “Take + this coin.” He forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the + decorator. + </p> + <p> + “Nothin’ doin’ on account, either. Pay as you enter.” + </p> + <p> + “Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your + call,” he said to the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Heads,” cried the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Tails,” proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into + silence on the flagging. + </p> + <p> + “Then the house is yours,” said the butterfly. “Good + luck go with it.” She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t want it,” returned the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Play fair,” she exhorted him. “We both agreed solemnly + to stand by the toss. Didn’t we?” + </p> + <p> + “What did we agree?” + </p> + <p> + “That the winner should have the choice.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. I won, didn’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “You certainly did.” + </p> + <p> + “And I choose not to take the house,” he declared + triumphantly. “It’s a very nice house, but”—he + shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the proud-pied façade, blinking + significantly—“I’d have to wear smoked glasses if I + lived in it, and they don’t suit my style of beauty.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on + your knees with a thousand dollars in each hand,” asserted the + offended Estate. + </p> + <p> + “See!” said the young man to the butterfly. “Fate + decides for you.” + </p> + <p> + “But what will you do?” she asked solicitously. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square.” + </p> + <p> + She held out her hand. “You’ve been very nice and helpful, but—I + think not. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + He regarded the hand blankly. “Not—what?” + </p> + <p> + “Not here in this Square, if you don’t mind.” + </p> + <p> + “But where else is there?” he asked piteously. “You know + yourself there are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating + around on this teeming island in vans, with no place to land.” + </p> + <p> + “Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn,” was her hopeful suggestion. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘And bade betwixt their shores to be + The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea,’” + </pre> + <p> + he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: “Matthew + Arnold. Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places + are,” he pleaded. “From you!” he concluded. + </p> + <p> + A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. “I’ve + accepted you as a gentleman on trust,” she began, when he broke in: + </p> + <p> + “Don’t do it. It’s a fearfully depressing thing to be + reminded that you’re a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to + it. Think how it cramps one’s style, not to mention limiting one’s + choice of real estate. A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his + hope of a home on the toss of a coin, but he mustn’t presume to want + to see the other party to the gamble again, even if she’s the only + thing in the whole sweep of his horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where + is Eternal Justice, I ask you, when such things—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do stop!” she implored. “I don’t think you’re + sane.” + </p> + <p> + “No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses + to complete loss of mental equilibrium since—let me see—since + 11.15 A.M.” + </p> + <p> + Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on his + own behalf, interposed. + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather rent to two than one,” he said + insinuatingly. “More reliable and steady with the rent. Settin’ + aside the young feller’s weak eyes, you’re a nice-matched + pair. Gittin’ a license is easy, if you know the ropes. I’d + even be glad to go with you to—” + </p> + <p> + “As to not being married,” broke in the butterfly, with the + light of a great resolve in her eye, “this gentleman may speak for + himself. I am.” + </p> + <p> + “Am what?” queried the Estate. + </p> + <p> + “Married.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn!” exploded the young man. “I mean, congratulations + and all that sort of thing. I—I’m really awfully sorry. You’ll + forgive my making such an ass of myself, won’t you?” + </p> + <p> + To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turned + rather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed on them, + she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a sudden + alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping regard had + fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding ring may be + put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has been once + worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness of the third + finger. The butterfly’s gloves were not new, yet there showed not + the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. While admitting + to himself that the evidence fell short of conclusiveness, the young man + decided to accept it as a working theory and to act, win or lose, do or + die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that his delightful but elusive companion + was a li—that is to say, an inventor. He would give that invention + the run of its young life! + </p> + <p> + “We—ell,” the Mordaunt Estate was saying, “that’s + too bad. Ain’t a widdah lady are you?” + </p> + <p> + “My husband is in France.” + </p> + <p> + With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in where + many an angel might have feared to tread. “Maybe he’ll stay + there,” he surmised. + </p> + <p> + “What!” + </p> + <p> + In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of + “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘The maids of France are fond and free.’ +</pre> + <p> + “Besides,” he added, “it’s quite unhealthy there + at this season. I wouldn’t be surprised”—he halted—“at + anything,” he finished darkly. + </p> + <p> + Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally + hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she + could find them— + </p> + <p> + “I’ll wait around—in hopes,” he decided calmly. + </p> + <p> + So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and + ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She + had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, an + interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now—how dared + he! She put it to him at once: “How dare you!” + </p> + <p> + “Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of + loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse,” + prescribed the unimpressed subject of her retort. “As a wife, you + are, of course, unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or + only prospective”—he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar + through the public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the + suffering—“there is H-O-P-E!” he intoned solemnly, + wagging a benignant forefinger at her. + </p> + <p> + The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into + unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with + foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means + unattractive young suitor—for he could be relegated to no lesser + category—might do next. She said coolly and crisply: + </p> + <p> + “I wish nothing more to do with you whatever.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I needn’t quit the Garden of Ed—I mean, Our + Square?” + </p> + <p> + “You may do as you see fit,” she replied loftily. + </p> + <p> + “Act the gent, can’t chuh?” reproved the Mordaunt + Estate. “You’re makin’ the lady cry.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t,” denied the lady, with ferocity. “He + couldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “He’ll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma’am,” + the polite Estate assured her. + </p> + <p> + “If he wants to stay, he’ll have to live in his van.” + </p> + <p> + “Grand little idea! I’ll do it. I’ll be a van hermit and + fast and watch and pray beneath your windows.” + </p> + <p> + “You may live in your van forever,” retorted the justly + incensed butterfly, “but I’ll never speak to you as long as I + live in this house. Never, never, <i>never</i>!” + </p> + <p> + She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The Mordaunt + Estate took down the “To Let” sign, and went in search of a + helper to unload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled + into his own van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on + the collected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. + But his immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shot + through as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitive + smile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell to dreams. + As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to Our Square, it + had come about in this wise: + </p> + <p> + Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink of a + maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name by + remaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right of + way, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective drivers + inflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recesses of + the larger van said: “Don’t give an inch.” + </p> + <p> + Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what + sounded like “Give an ell,” but probably was not, as there was + no corresponding movement of the wheels. + </p> + <p> + What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they did upon + descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action, and as + such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunder and led + them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the deserted equipages emerged + from amid their lares and penates, and met face to face. The effect upon + the occupant of the smaller van was electric, not to say paralytic. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, glory!” he murmured faintly, with staring eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Would you kindly move?” said the girl, in much the same tone + that one would employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one ever + addressed a beetle with freezing dignity. + </p> + <p> + The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. “I’ve + done nothing else for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and + I’ll bless you as a benefactress of the homeless.” + </p> + <p> + “Anywhere out of my way,” she replied with a severity which + the corners of her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to. + </p> + <p> + “Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged,” he declared humbly. + “But first let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to + give ‘em—that is, to hold his ground, I didn’t know who you + were.” + </p> + <p> + She wrinkled dainty brows at him. “Well, you don’t know who I + am now, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t have to,” he responded with fervor. “Just + on sight you may have all of this street and as many of the adjoining + avenues as you can use. By the way, who <i>are</i> you?” The + question was put with an expression of sweet and innocent simplicity. + </p> + <p> + The girl looked at him hard and straight. “I don’t think that + introductions are necessary.” + </p> + <p> + He sighed outrageously. “They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; + twenty-fourth large edition,” he murmured. “And I was just + about to present myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very + much at your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my + move. May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intend + driving yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll have to, if I’m to get anywhere.” A look of + dismay overspread her piquant face. “Oh, dear! I don’t in the + least understand this machinery. I can’t drive this kind of car.” + </p> + <p> + “Glory be!” exclaimed Mr. Dyke. “I mean, that’s + too bad,” he amended gracefully. “Won’t you let me take + you where you want to go?” + </p> + <p> + “What’ll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven’t + any idea where I want to go.” + </p> + <p> + “What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the + face of an overpopulated earth, Miss?” + </p> + <p> + The “Miss” surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of + this extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of + the servant class? + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am,” she admitted. + </p> + <p> + “A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood,” he announced + sonorously, “are wandering about, lost and homeless on this + melancholy and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to + come and bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain’t it + harrowing, Miss! Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge + sung over me by a quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did + you breakfast, Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen.” + </p> + <p> + The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. “You ask + the most personal questions as if they were a matter of course.” + </p> + <p> + “By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining + individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived + from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks of + steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for + reading, Miss? I’ve got a neat little library inside, besides an + automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that + policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? <i>I</i> + think he is.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t move on,” she said pathetically. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t you work my van, Miss? It’s quite simple.” + </p> + <p> + She gave it a swift examination. “Yes,” said she. “It’s + almost like my own car.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll lead, and you follow, Miss.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t—I don’t know who—I don’t + <i>want</i> your van. Where shall we—” + </p> + <p> + “Go?” he supplied. “To jail, I judge, unless we go + somewhere else and do it <i>now</i>. Come on! We’re off!” + </p> + <p> + Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the + approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved but + triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from the + path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore downtownward. + Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the girl in the + trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of a side street, + her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke’s engaging and + confident face appeared below her. + </p> + <p> + “Within,” he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, + “they dispense the succulent pig’s foot and the innocuous and + unconvincing near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something + to eat and drink. May I help you down, Miss?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the girl dolefully. “I want to go home.” + </p> + <p> + “But on your own showing, you haven’t any home.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got to find one. Immediately.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll need help, Miss. It’ll take some finding.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss,” she said with + evidences of petulance. + </p> + <p> + “Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson + says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while we + discuss the housing problem—” + </p> + <p> + “Why are you calling me Lady, now?” + </p> + <p> + He shook a discouraged head. “You seem very hard to please, Sister. + I’ve tried you with Miss and I’ve tried you with Lady—” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a gentleman or are you a—a—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t say it, Duchess. Don’t! Remember what Tennyson + says: ‘One hasty line may blast a budding hope.’ Or was it + Burleson? When you deny to the companion of your wanderings the privilege + of knowing your name, what can he do but fall back for guidance upon that + infallible chapter in the Gents’ Handbook of Classy Behavior, + entitled, ‘From Introduction’s Uncertainties to Friendship’s + Fascinations’?” + </p> + <p> + “We haven’t even been introduced,” she pointed out. + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, + Old Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to,” he added piously. + “Now, Miss—or Lady—or Sister, as the case may be; or + even Sis (I believe that form is given in the Gents’ Handbook), if + you will put your lily hand in mine—” + </p> + <p> + “Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during + luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends.” + </p> + <p> + “A test! I’m on. We’re off.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast from + an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled their + real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there was no + available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town. She had + explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and without + success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward for + anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a discovery + they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the approved method of + the tossed coin: “The winner has the choice.” + </p> + <p> + Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort’s manner and + bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied + intimacy of the tête-à -tête across a table than a subtle change manifested + itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his talk, but the + note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the end, when he had + paid the bill and she asked: + </p> + <p> + “What’s my share, please?” + </p> + <p> + “Two-ten,” he replied promptly and without protest. + </p> + <p> + “My name,” said she, “is Anne Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in + his eye as he added: “Of course, that was rudimentary about the + check.” + </p> + <p> + Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk again. + In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, he + suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering + contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of + tea-store art. + </p> + <p> + “Suffering Raphael!” he exclaimed at length. “What’s + the lady in the pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch + in the nightie? What’s it all about, anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “The title,” replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of + insignificant lettering, “is ‘Swedish Wedding Feast.’” + </p> + <p> + “Wedding feast,” he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the + picture to his companion. “Well,” he raised an imaginary glass + high, “prosit omen!” + </p> + <p> + The meaning was not to be mistaken. “Well, really,” she began + indignantly. “If you are going to take advantage—” + </p> + <p> + “You’re not supposed to understand Latin,” interposed + Mr. Dyke hastily. He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For + some subtle reason her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would + have done to his over-enterprising adroitness. + </p> + <p> + “We must be going on,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He gave her a grateful glance. “I was afraid I’d spilled the + apple cart and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time,” he + murmured. Having helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded + for a moment, turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: + </p> + <p> + “Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Cousin.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve + somewhere,” he declared with profound and joyous conviction. + </p> + <p> + “Are you a friend of Budge’s?” + </p> + <p> + “Friend doesn’t half express it! He made the touchdown that + won me a clean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn’t know + him from Henry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you tell me one thing, please?” pleaded Anne Leffingwell + desperately. “Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet. But then, you see, I’m only a beginner. This is my + first attempt. I’ll get better as I go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you please crank my car?” requested Anne Leffingwell + faintly. + </p> + <p> + Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid’s part, + vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne + Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably touching + at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke—and lingering there. She was + solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke’s reason. Came + also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, ouija, + the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. Leffingwell. He + was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. Leffingwell’s + existence. Now when two young persons come separately to an old person to + discuss each other’s affairs, it is a bad sign. Or perhaps a good + sign. Just as you choose. + </p> + <p> + Adopting the Mordaunt Estate’s sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke had + settled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. Anne + Leffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a van + must be prodigious. (“Tell her not to worry; my family own the + storage and moving plant,” was one of his many messages that I + neglected to deliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and + simplicity of her establishment—one small but neat maid—which + he deemed incongruous with her general effect of luxury and ease of life, + and wondered whether she had split with her family. (She hadn’t; + “I’ve always been brought up like a—a—an + artichoke,” she confided to me. “So when father went West for + six months, I just moved, and I’m going to be a potato and see how I + like it. Besides, I’ve got some research work to do.”) + </p> + <p> + Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and every + afternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37. Dyke’s + hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, for he slept + by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electrical experiments + which he was conducting over on the river front, and which were to send + his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapers have already + caught an echo or two.) On his way back from his experiments, he daily + stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist, where, besides chaste and + elegant set pieces inscribed “Gates Ajar” and “Gone But + Not Forgotten,” one may, if expert and insistent, obtain really + fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinal arrival + of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but delivered regularly at the + door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not though a base attempt was + made to incriminate me in the transaction. + </p> + <p> + Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly and + promising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She was + steadfastly adhering to that “Never. Never. <i>Never</i>!” + What less, indeed, could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent + hopes of her husband’s early demise from a young man whom she had + known but four hours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but + for a manifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The + Mordaunt Estate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon + when Martin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss + his favorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty + brows over the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully + that this thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terry the + Cop.) + </p> + <p> + “That lady in Number 37,” said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, + “ain’t the lady I thought she was.” + </p> + <p> + Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked up + hopefully. “You mean that she isn’t really <i>Mrs.</i> + Leffingwell?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean I’m disappointed in her; that’s what I mean. She + wants the house front painted over.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” I protested with polite incredulity. + </p> + <p> + “Where’s her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work + so deeply.” + </p> + <p> + “She does, too,” confirmed the Estate. “But she says it’s + liable to be misunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and + men ask the hired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird + with whiskers wanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told + fortunes there. So she wants I should tone it down. I guess,” + pursued the Mordaunt Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of + finding the Perfect Tenant in an imperfect world, “I’ll have + to notice her to quit.” + </p> + <p> + “No; don’t do that!” cried the young man. “Here! I’ll + repaint the whole wall for you free of charge.” + </p> + <p> + “What do <i>you</i> know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost + money.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll furnish the paint, too,” offered the reckless + youth. “I’m crazy about art. It’s the only solace of my + declining years. And,” he added cunningly and with evil intent to + flatter and cajole, “I can tone down that design of yours without + affecting its beauty and originality at all.” + </p> + <p> + Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his + frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the + following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on a + plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the house + came home at four-thirty and caught him at it. + </p> + <p> + “That’s going to be ever so much nicer,” she called + graciously, not recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing + back. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you for those few kind words.” + </p> + <p> + “You!” she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and + benevolent beam of the eye upon her. “What are you doing to my + house?” + </p> + <p> + “Art. High art.” + </p> + <p> + “How did you get up there?” + </p> + <p> + “Ladder. High ladder.” + </p> + <p> + “You know that isn’t what I mean at all.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Well, I’ve taken a contract to tone down the Midway + aspect of your highly respectable residence. One hour per day.” + </p> + <p> + “If you think that this performance is going to do you any good—” + she began with withering intonation. + </p> + <p> + “It’s done that already,” he hastened to assert. “You’ve + recognized my existence again.” + </p> + <p> + “Only through trickery.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, it’s no trick at all to improve on the + Mordaunt Estate’s art. Now that we’ve made up again, Miss or + Mrs. Leffingwell, as the case may be—” + </p> + <p> + “We haven’t made up. There’s nothing to make up.” + </p> + <p> + “Amended to ‘Now that we’re on speaking terms once more.’ + Accepted? Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you’ve + been sending me. You can’t imagine how they brighten and sweeten my + simple and unlovely van life, with their—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Dyke!” Her eyes were flashing now and her color was + deeper than the pink of the roses which she had rejected. “You must + know that you had no right to send me flowers and that in returning them—” + </p> + <p> + “Returning? But, dear lady—or girl, as the case may be [here + she stamped a violent foot]—if you feel it your duty to return them, + why not return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though my + attentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am, so + to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There’s the Dominie, + for instance. He’s notoriously your admirer, and I’ve seen him + at Eberling’s quite lately.” (Mendacious young scoundrel!) + </p> + <p> + For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner. + </p> + <p> + “How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?” she + said uncertainly. + </p> + <p> + “How should <i>I</i>, for that matter?” he retorted at once. + “Though any idiot could see at a glance that you’re at least + half sister to the whole rose tribe.” + </p> + <p> + “Now you’re beginning again,” she complained. “You + see, it’s impossible to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance.” + </p> + <p> + “But what do you think of me as a painter-man?” inquired the + bewildering youth. + </p> + <p> + Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now + one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. “The + question is,” said she, “wasn’t it really you that sent + the roses, and don’t you realize that you mustn’t?” + </p> + <p> + “The question is,” he repeated, “whether, being denied + the ordinary avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping + the fence with one’s votive offerings. Now I hold—” + </p> + <p> + Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager + eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness + was gone from his voice. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Yes; + I sent the roses. You shan’t be troubled again in that way—or + any other way. Do you mind if I finish this job?” + </p> + <p> + Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell + expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a + thing as triumph being too complete. + </p> + <p> + “I think you’re doing it very nicely,” was the demure + reply. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on my + bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague + truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn’t + necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain gold + band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one who + strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to offer + to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at first + sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of the + consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her eyes, + and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive of + serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous orchid + was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible orchid + expectant of continued patronage should do. + </p> + <p> + There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke’s color scheme on + the following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an + impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there + discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The + motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the house + front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask: + </p> + <p> + “Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?” + </p> + <p> + The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all + but precipitated into the area. “<i>Who</i>?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t mean Mrs. Leffingwell?” queried the aerial + operator in a strained tone. + </p> + <p> + “No; I don’t. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the + immaculate garments below. “Toora-loo!” he warbled. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” said the new arrival. + </p> + <p> + “I said ‘Toora-loo.’ It’s a Patagonian expression + signifying satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time + effect.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter,” + reflected the stalwart Adonis. “Is that Patagonian art?” + </p> + <p> + “Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression + of doubt and despair. That,” he added, splashing in a prodigal + streak of whooping scarlet, “is resurgent joy surmounting the misty + mountain-tops of—” + </p> + <p> + The opening door below him cut short the disquisition. + </p> + <p> + “Reg!” cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big + young man’s ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken + occupant of the dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: “Wh—wh—wh—why + didn’t you come before?” + </p> + <p> + To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: “You + little idiot!” + </p> + <p> + The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, continued + blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant hues. After + interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed minutes) the tenant + escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching him as the powerful + and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist descended from his + plank to face her. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have + been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke’s + face which hurt the girl to see. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “With him?” + </p> + <p> + “Ye—es.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t your husband.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven’t any husband.” + </p> + <p> + She hung her head guiltily. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you invent one?” + </p> + <p> + Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the + roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication + with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face. + </p> + <p> + “I see. The invention was for my special benefit.” + </p> + <p> + “Safety first,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “I never really believed it—except when you took me by + surprise,” he pursued. “That’s why I—I went ahead.” + </p> + <p> + “You certainly went ahead,” she confirmed. “What are + speed laws to you!” + </p> + <p> + “You’re telling me that I haven’t played the game + according to the rules. I know I haven’t. One has to make his own + rules when Fate is in the game against him.” He seemed to be + reviewing something in his mind. “Fate,” he observed + sententiously, “is a cheap thimble-rigger.” + </p> + <p> + “Fate,” she said, “is the ghost around the corner.” + </p> + <p> + “A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinée hero, + a movie close-up, a tailor’s model—” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean Reg, it’s just as well for you he isn’t + here.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh!” retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. “I + could wreck his loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush.” + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless,” she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now + bleeding from every pore. “It’s a fearful weapon. Spare my + poor Reg.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt + of hope, “you’d like me to believe that he’s your + long-lost brother.” + </p> + <p> + She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. “No,” + she returned hesitantly and consciously. “He isn’t—exactly + my brother.” + </p> + <p> + He recalled the initials, “R.B.W.,” on the car’s door. + Hope sank for the third time without a bubble. “Good-bye,” + said Martin Dyke. + </p> + <p> + “Surely you’re not going to quit your job unfinished,” + she protested. + </p> + <p> + Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job. + </p> + <p> + “What will the Mordaunt Estate think?” + </p> + <p> + Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like to take the house, now that it’s + vacant.” + </p> + <p> + Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of residence, + went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and red on the + other. + </p> + <p> + Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to my window + and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly’s memorial clock + was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking sight + afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the measured + footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked for a + swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. Nothing is + worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into my clothes, I + made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I was wont to + pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur + desecrator of other men’s houses, challenger of the wayward fates, + fanatic of a will-o’-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the + uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the polychromatic + abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all the pathos and + all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth. + </p> + <p> + Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusable only + on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous guide, + froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless phantasms, + dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, and the like), + butt of the High Gods’ stinging laughter, deserving of nothing + kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise—which is doubtless + why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked voices and + withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious and fraudulent litany + for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on the bench stirred. A + shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon his face, bewitched + him to unguarded speech: + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, I have been dreaming.” + </p> + <p> + Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent. + </p> + <p> + “A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, + so softly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Always.” + </p> + <p> + “I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world, + Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “There has been.” + </p> + <p> + “Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she + went away so quickly.” + </p> + <p> + “Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?” + </p> + <p> + “So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she leave nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what is this?” I lifted from the ground at his feet a + single petal of pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his + hand. + </p> + <p> + “The fairy’s kiss,” he said dreamily. “That’s + for farewell.” + </p> + <p> + The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightened + up brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Possibly.” + </p> + <p> + “What kind of talk? Nonsense?” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense—or wisdom. How should I know?” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?” + </p> + <p> + “Look in your hand.” + </p> + <p> + He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously. + “I must go now,” he said vaguely. “May I come back to + see you sometimes, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’ll bring Happiness with you,” I said. + </p> + <p> + But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from the alley + and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House of Silvery + Voices, was voiceless again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square. I + missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion, the + fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should see them + both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square—it has held me + these sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himself + can break it—which draws back the hearts that have once known the + place. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back. + More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave November + sun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinably + wistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakened + appetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered and + violent frontage of Number 37. + </p> + <p> + “Empty,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Then he didn’t take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I + mean.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t an idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t he ever come back?” + </p> + <p> + “You must not assume,” said I with severity, “that you + are the only devotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to + that of another whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds + and gained ten years—” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie! Has he?” + </p> + <p> + “Has he what?” + </p> + <p> + “G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t said so.” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you are a cruel old man,” accused the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “And you are a wicked woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not. I’m only twenty,” was her irrelevant but + natural defense. + </p> + <p> + “Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening + or night before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving us desolate—were + you, I say, abroad in the park? + </p> + <p> + “Y-y-yes, your Honor.” + </p> + <p> + “In the immediate vicinity of this bench?” + </p> + <p> + “Benches are very alike in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “But occupants of them are not. Don’t fence with the court. + Were you wearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those + now displayed in your cheeks?” + </p> + <p> + “The honorable court has nothing to do with my face,” said the + witness defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, your face is the <i>corpus delicti.</i> Did you, + taking advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my + client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberately + imprint a—” + </p> + <p> + “No! No! No! No! <i>No</i>!” cried the butterfly with great + and unconvincing fervor. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing?” + </p> + <p> + “On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse is + coming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder.” + </p> + <p> + Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concerned over + the latter than the former accusation. “Of whom?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “You have killed a budding poet.” Here I violated a sacred if + implied confidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had + said under the spell of the moon. + </p> + <p> + The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me with indignation + that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoying her for days: + <i>that</i> was what made her eyes act so, and I was a suspicious and + malevolent old gentleman—and—and—and perhaps some day + she and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet. + </p> + <p> + “Is that a message?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Then?” I queried. + </p> + <p> + “He’s so—so awfully go-aheadish,” she complained. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll drop him a hint,” I offered kindly. + </p> + <p> + “It might do some good. I’m afraid of him,” she + confessed. + </p> + <p> + “And a little bit of yourself?” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have withered incontinently + anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. It passed and + thoughtfulness supplanted it. “If you really think that he could be + influenced to be more—well, more conventional—” + </p> + <p> + “I guarantee nothing; but I’m a pedagogue by profession and + have taught some hard subjects in my time.” + </p> + <p> + “Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for + word as I give it to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Senile decay,” I admitted, “may have paralyzed most of + my faculties, but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a + phonograph.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell him this, then.” She ticked the message off on her + fingers. “A half is not exactly the same as a whole. Don’t + forget the ‘exactly.’” + </p> + <p> + “Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?” I demanded. But + she had already gone, with a parting injunction to be precise. + </p> + <p> + When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke, + it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got it!” he shouted. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t scare me off my bench! What is it you’ve got?” + </p> + <p> + “The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother.” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away.” + He delivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinion + without a quiver. “Now she says a half isn’t exactly the same + as a whole. He wasn’t exactly her brother, she said; he’s her + half brother. ‘Toora-loora-loo,’ as we say in Patagonia.” + </p> + <p> + “For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?” + </p> + <p> + “Next and immediately,” said Mr. Dyke, “I am obtaining + an address from the Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening + off.” + </p> + <p> + “Take some advice also, my boy,” said I, mindful of the + butterfly’s alarms. “Go slow.” + </p> + <p> + “Slow! Haven’t I lost time enough already?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. But now you’ve got all there is. Don’t force + the game. You’ve frightened that poor child so that she never can + feel sure what you’re going to do next.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither can I, Dominie,” confessed the candid youth. “But + you’re quite right. I’ll clamp on the brakes. I’ll be as + cool and conventional as a slice of lemon on an iced clam. ‘How well + you’re looking to-night, Miss Leffingwell’—that’ll + be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. Trust me, Dominie, and + thank you for the tip.” + </p> + <p> + The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of + the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my + astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully + though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in his + coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing here all night?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Thinking.” + </p> + <p> + I pointed to the flower. “Where did you get that?” + </p> + <p> + “A fairy gift.” + </p> + <p> + “Martin,” said I, “did you abide by my well-meant and + inspired advice?” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” replied the youth with a guilty flush, “I did + my best. I—I tried to. You mustn’t think—Nothing is + settled. It’s only that—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I + expect you to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the + dominant fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: ‘Go slow!’ + and the avalanche—” + </p> + <p> + “Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!” broke in young Mr. Dyke, + shouting. “I beg your pardon, Dominie, I’ve got to see the + Estate for a minute.” + </p> + <p> + Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentleman in + the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, touch that front!” + implored the improver of it. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” demanded the Estate. + </p> + <p> + “I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day.” + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him. + “Nope,” said he. “I’ve had enough of short + rentals. It don’t pay. I’m going to paint her up and lease her + for good.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take your lease,” insisted Martin Dyke. + </p> + <p> + “For how long a period?” inquired the other, in terms of the + Estate again. + </p> + <p> + The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprised on + the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed in Martin + Dyke’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Say a million years,” he answered softly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE GUARDIAN OF GOD’S ACRE + </h2> + <p> + As far as the eye could apprehend him, he was palpably an outlander. No + such pink of perfection ever sprung from the simple soil of Our Square. A + hard pink it was, suggestive less of the flower than of enameled metal. He + was freshly shaved, freshly pressed, freshly anointed, and, as he paced + gallantly across my vision, I perceived him to be slightly grizzled at the + temples, but nevertheless of a vigorous and grim youthfulness that was + almost daunting. Not until he returned and stood before me with his feet + planted a little apart, giving an impression of purposeful immovability to + his wiry figure, did I note that his eyes belied the general jauntiness of + his personality. They were cold, direct eyes, with a filmy appearance, + rather like those of a morose and self-centered turtle which had lived in + our fountain until the day the Rosser twins fell in, when it crawled out + and emigrated. + </p> + <p> + “Nice day,” said the stranger, shifting a patent-leathered + foot out of a puddle. + </p> + <p> + “Very,” I agreed. Finical over-accuracy about the weather is + likely to discourage a budding acquaintanceship. + </p> + <p> + “Have one?” He extended a gemmed cigarette-case, and when, + removing my pipe, I had declined in suitable terms, lighted up, himself. + He then sat down upon the dryest portion of the bench not occupied by my + person. + </p> + <p> + “Whiplash win in the fi’th,” he volunteered presently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said I with a polite but spurious show of interest. + </p> + <p> + “Under a pull. Spread-eagled his field.” + </p> + <p> + “Who is Whiplash, may I ask?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Gaw!” said the pink man, appalled. He searched my face + suspiciously. “A hoss,” he stated at length, satisfied of my + ignorance. + </p> + <p> + After several reflective puffs, the smoke of which insufficiently veiled + his furtive appraisal of myself, he tried again: + </p> + <p> + “They give O’Dowd a shade, last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed? Who did?” + </p> + <p> + “The sporting writers.” + </p> + <p> + “As a testimonial?” I inquired, adding that a shade, whether + of the lamp or sun species seemed an unusual sort of gift. + </p> + <p> + My interlocutor groaned. He drew from the pocket of his gray-check + cutaway, purple and fine linen, the purple being an ornate and + indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan Gluck’s + Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and with a + beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its repository, the + pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. + </p> + <p> + “The Reds copped again yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “If you are referring to the raid on Anarchist Headquarters in + Avenue C, I should have inferred that the Reds <i>were</i> copped, to use + your term.” + </p> + <p> + Curt and contemptuous laughter was his response. “Don’t you + ever read the papers, down here?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” I retorted with some spirit, for the implied slur + upon Our Square stung me. “In fact, I was reading one of our local + publications when you inter—when you arrived. It contains some very + interesting poetry.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” said the hard, pink man politely. + </p> + <p> + “For example, in this issue I find the following apostrophe.” + I proceeded to read aloud: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Farewell, our dear one, we must part, + For thou hast gone to heavenly home, + While we below with aching heart + Must long for thee and ever moan.” + </pre> + <p> + “Swell stuff,” commented the sharer of my bench, with + determined interest. “Poetry’s a little out of my line, but I’m + <i>for</i> it. Who wrote that?” + </p> + <p> + “It is signed ‘Loving Father and 3 Sisters.’ But the + actual authorship rests with the long gentleman in black whom you see + leaning on the park fence yonder. His name is Bartholomew Storrs and he is + the elegiac or mortuary or memorial laureate of Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + This was said with intent to mortify the soul of my new acquaintance in + revenge for his previous display of erudition. The bewilderment in his + face told me that I had scored heavily. But he quickly rallied. + </p> + <p> + “Do I get you right?” he queried. “Does he write those + hymns for other folks to sign?” + </p> + <p> + “He does.” + </p> + <p> + “What does he do that for?” + </p> + <p> + “Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza.” + </p> + <p> + “Some salesman!” My hard-faced companion regarded the lank + figure overhanging the fence with new respect. “Looks to me like the + original Gloom,” he observed. “What’s <i>his</i> grouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Conscience.” + </p> + <p> + “He must have a bum one!” + </p> + <p> + “He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow + repenting of our sins.” + </p> + <p> + “Whose sins?” asked the other, opening wider his dull and + weary eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + My interlocutor promptly and fitly put into words the feeling which had + long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a + monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. “He’s got + a nerve!” he asserted. + </p> + <p> + Warming to him for his pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my + theme. “He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for + Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a + usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he’ll + never do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, + to account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against + the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little house + near the corner”—I waved an illustrative hand—“he + can quote Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect and + hate him. He’s coming this way now.” + </p> + <p> + “Good day, Dominie,” said Bartholomew Storrs, as he passed, in + such a tone as a very superior angel might employ toward a particularly + damned soul. + </p> + <p> + “That frown,” I explained to my companion, after returning the + salutation, “means that I failed to attend church yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + But the hard, pink man had lost interest in Bartholomew. “Called you + ‘Dominie,’ didn’t he?” he remarked. “I thought I + had you right. Heard of you from a little red-headed ginger-box named + Smith.” + </p> + <p> + “You know the Little Red Doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “I met him,” he replied evasively. “He told me to look + you up. ‘You talk to the Dominie,’ he says.” + </p> + <p> + “About what?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m coming to that.” He leaned forward to place a + muscular and confidential hand on my knee. “First, I’d like to + do you a little favor,” he continued in his husky and intimate + voice. “If you’re looking for some quick and easy money, I got + a little tip that I’d like to pass on to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a + tottering ruin, which may be quite true; but if it’s a matter of + investing in the Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion + Concession, I’m reluctantly compelled—” + </p> + <p> + “Forget it!” adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which + secured my silence and almost my confidence. “This is a hoss. Seven + to one, and a sure cop. I <i>know</i> hosses. I’ve owned ’em.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, but I can’t afford such luxuries as betting.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t afford <i>not</i> to have something down on this if + it’s only a shoestring. No? Oh—well!” + </p> + <p> + Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray + derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow. Catching the scent hot and + fresh, Susan Gluck’s Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or + rather, nose, voluptuously. + </p> + <p> + “Mm-m-m! Snmmff!” inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic + nostrils. “Mister, lemme smell it some more!” + </p> + <p> + Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief. + “Like it, kiddie?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s <i>grand</i>!” She stretched out her little + grimy paws. “Please, Mister,” she entreated, “would you + flop it over ’em, just once?” + </p> + <p> + The pink man tossed it to her. “Take it along and, when you get it + all snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, gracious!” said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty. + “Can I have it till <i>to-morrah</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure! What’s the big idea for to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m goin’ to a funeral. I want it to cry in,” + said the Orphan importantly. + </p> + <p> + “A funeral?” I asked. “In Our Square? Whose?” + </p> + <p> + “My cousin Minnie. She’s goin’ to be buried in God’s + Acre, an’ I’m invited ‘cause I’m a r’lation. + She married a sporting gentleman named Hines an’ she died yesterday,” + said the precocious Orphan. + </p> + <p> + So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt + us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. + She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, + defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait and + not worry. There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are buried + just such letters as Minnie’s farewell to her parents; rebellious, + passionate, yearning, pitiful. Ah, well! The moth must break its + chrysalis. The flower must rend its bonds toward the light. Little Minnie + was “going on the stage.” A garish and perilous stage it was, + whereon Innocence plays a part as sorry as it is brief. And now she was + making her exit, without applause. Memory brought back a picture of Minnie + as I had first seen her, a wee thing, blinking and smiling in the arms of + her Madonna-faced mother, on a bench in Our Square, and the mother (who + could not wait for the promised return—she has lain in God’s + Acre these three years) crooning to her an unforgettable song, mournfully + prophetic: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Why did I bring thee, Sweet + Into a world of sin?— + Into a world of wonder and doubt + With sorrows and snares for the little white feet— + Into a world whence the going out + Is as dark as the coming in!” + </pre> + <p> + Old lips readily lend themselves to memory; I suppose I must have repeated + the final lines aloud, for the pink man said, wearily but politely: + </p> + <p> + “Very pretty. Something more in the local line?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly.” I smiled. Between Bartholomew Storr’s elegies + and William Young’s “Wish-makers’ Town” stretches + an infinite chasm. + </p> + <p> + “What’s this—now—God’s Acre the kid was + talking about?” was his next question. + </p> + <p> + “An old local graveyard.” + </p> + <p> + “Anything interesting?” he asked carelessly. + </p> + <p> + “If you’re interested in that sort of thing. Are you an + antiquary?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure!” he replied with such offhand promptitude that I was + certain the answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a + dromedary. + </p> + <p> + “Come along, then. I’ll take you there.” + </p> + <p> + To reach that little green space of peace amidst our turmoil of the + crowded, encroaching slums, we must pass the Bonnie Lassie’s house, + where her tiny figurines, touched with the fire of her love and her + genius, which are perhaps one and the same, stand ever on guard, looking + out over Our Square from her windows. Judging by his appearance and + conversation, I should have supposed my companion to be as little + concerned with art as with, let us say, poetry or local antiquities. But + he stopped dead in his tracks, before the first window. Fingers that were + like steel claws buried themselves in my arm. The other hand pointed. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” he muttered fiercely. + </p> + <p> + “That,” to which he was pointing, was a pictorial bronze, the + figure of a girl, upright in a cockleshell boat, made of a rose-petal, her + arms outspread to the breeze that was bearing her out across sunlit + ripples. Beneath was the legend: “Far Ports.” The face, eager, + laughing, passionate, adventurous, was the face of Minnie Munn. Therein + the Bonnie Lassie had been prophetess as well as poet and sculptress, for + she had finished the bronze before Minnie left us. + </p> + <p> + “That,” I answered the strong, pink man, trying to shake loose + his grip, “is a sculpture by Cecily Willard, otherwise Mrs. Cyrus + Staten.” + </p> + <p> + “What’ll she take for it?” + </p> + <p> + “It can’t be bought.” I spoke with authority, for the + figurines that the Bonnie Lassie sets in her window are not for sale, but + for us of Our Square, who love them. + </p> + <p> + “Anything can be bought,” he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse + persuasiveness, “at a price. I’ve got the price, no matter + what it is.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly I understood my pink and hard acquaintance. I understood that + stale look in his eyes. Tears do not bring that. Nothing brings it but + sleepless thoughts beyond the assuagement of tears. Behind such eyes the + heart is aching cold and the brain searing hot. Who should know better + than I, though the kindly years have brought their healing! But here was a + wound, raw and fresh and savage. I put my hand on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “What was little Minnie to you?” I asked, and answered myself. + “You’re Hines. You’re the man she married.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I’m Chris Hines.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve brought her back to us,” I said stupidly. + </p> + <p> + “She made me promise.” + </p> + <p> + Strange how Our Square binds the heartstrings of those who have once lived + in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the hour of + death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God’s Acre, + shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the + encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few + more of the returning. Laws have been invoked and high and learned courts + appealed to for the jealously guarded right to sleep there, as Minnie Munn + was so soon to sleep beside her mother. + </p> + <p> + I told Hines that I would see the Bonnie Lassie about the statuette, and + led him on, through the nagged and echoing passage and the iron gate, to + the white-studded space of graves. The new excavation showed, brown + against the bright verdure. Above it stood the headstone of the Munns, + solemn and proud, the cost of a quarter-year’s salary, at the + pitiful wage which little, broken Mr. Munn drew from his municipal + clerkship. Hines’s elegant coat rippled on his chest, above what may + have been a shudder, as he looked about him. + </p> + <p> + “It’s crowded,” he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “We lie close, as we lived close, in Our Square. I am glad for her + father’s sake that Minnie wished to come back.” + </p> + <p> + “She said she couldn’t rest peaceful anywhere else. She said + she had some sort of right to be here.” + </p> + <p> + “The Munns belong to what we call the Inalienables in Our Square,” + said I, and told him of the high court decision which secured to the + descendants of the original “churchyard membership,” and to + them alone, the inalienable right to lie in God’s Acre, provided, as + in the ancient charter, they had “died in honorable estate.” I + added: “Bartholomew Storrs, as sexton, has constituted himself + watchdog of our graves and censor of our dead. He carried one case to the + Supreme Court in an attempt to keep an unhappy woman from sleeping in that + pious company.” + </p> + <p> + “That sour-faced prohibitionist?” growled Mr. Hines, employing + what I suspect to be the blackest anathema in his lexicon. “Is he + the sexton?” + </p> + <p> + “The same. Our mortuary genius,” I confirmed. + </p> + <p> + “She was a good girl, Min was,” said Mr. Hines firmly, though, + it might appear, a trifle inconsequentially: “I don’t care + what they say. Anyway, after I met up with her”; in which qualifying + afterthought lay a whole sorrowful and veiled history. + </p> + <p> + I waited. + </p> + <p> + “What did they say about her, down here?” he asked jealously. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there were rumors. They didn’t reach her father.” + </p> + <p> + “No: tell me,” he persisted. “I gotta know.” + </p> + <p> + Because Mr. Hines had already impressed himself upon me as one with whom + straight talk would serve best, I acceded. + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew Storrs said that her feet took hold on hell.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines’s face remained impassive. Only his hands worked slightly, + perhaps kneading an imaginary throat. I perceived him to be a person of + considerable and perhaps formidable self-control. + </p> + <p> + “Not that she hadn’t her friends. The Bonnie Lassie would have + stood by her if she had come back, and little Mrs. Morse, and our Dr. + Smith, and MacLachan, who thought he had lost his own girl the same way, + and—and others, plenty.” + </p> + <p> + “And you, Dominie,” said the hard, pink Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir, old men cannot afford harsh judgments. They are too + near their own time.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” said Mr. Hines absently. “I guess that’s + right.” But his mind was plainly elsewhere. “When would you + say would be the best time to do business with old Funeral-Clothes?” + he asked after a thoughtful pause. + </p> + <p> + “You want to see Bartholomew Storrs?” I interpreted. + </p> + <p> + “Sure. I gotta deliver the death certificate to him if he runs the + graveyard, haven’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “Such is the procedure, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” he added with a leer, “I want to get some of + that weepy poetry of his.” + </p> + <p> + “Well; he’ll sell it to you readily.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll say he’ll sell it to me,” returned Mr. Hines + with a grimness which I failed to comprehend. + </p> + <p> + “Now is as good a time as any to catch him in his office.” I + pointed to a sign at the farther end of the yard. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines seemed in no hurry to go. With his elegantly lacquered cane, he + picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about the + open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a + handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the + May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they + descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. + Hines’s nerves were not all that they should be. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like me to introduce you to Mr. Storrs,” + I hazarded. + </p> + <p> + The cold and filmy eyes gleamed with an instant’s dim warmth. + “Dominie, you’re a good guy,” responded Mr. Hines. + “If a dead cinch at ten to one, all fruited up for next week, the + kind of thing you don’t hand on to your own brother, would be any + use to you—No? I’m off again,” he apologized. “Well—let’s + go.” + </p> + <p> + We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs’s office he paused. + </p> + <p> + “This sexton-guy,” he said anxiously, “he don’t + play the ponies, ever, I wouldn’t suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church,” + I smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” he answered, disheartened. “I gotta get to him + some other way. On the poetry—and that’s out of my line.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t quite see what your difficulty is.” + </p> + <p> + “By what you tell me, it’s easier to break into a swell Fifth + Avenue Club than into this place.” + </p> + <p> + “Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has.” + </p> + <p> + “And this sexton-guy handles the concession for—he’s got + the say-so,” he corrected himself hastily—“on who goes + in and who stays out. Is that right?” + </p> + <p> + “Substantially.” + </p> + <p> + “And he’d rather keep ’em out than let ’em in?” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew,” I explained, “considers that the honor of + God’s Acre is in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about + it, as if he had a proprietary interest in the place.” + </p> + <p> + “I get you!” Mr. Hines’s corded throat worked painfully. + “You don’t suppose the old goat would slip Min a blackball?” + he gulped. + </p> + <p> + “How can he? As an ‘Inalienable’—” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh; I know. But wasn’t there something about a clean record? + I’ll tell <i>you</i>, Dominie”—Mr. Hines’s husky + but assured voice trailed away into a miserable, thick whisper—“as + to what he said—about her feet taking hold on hell—I guess + there was a time—I guess about one more slip—I guess I didn’t + run across her any too quick. But there never was a straighter, truer girl + than Min was with me. I gotta get her planted <i>right</i>, Dominie. I + gotta do it,” he concluded with pathetic earnestness. + </p> + <p> + “I see no difficulty,” I assured him. “The charter + specifies ‘<i>died</i> in honorable estate.’ Matrimony is an + honorable estate. How she lived before that is between her and a gentler + Judge than Bartholomew Storrs.” + </p> + <p> + “Give her a straight course and a fair judge and I’ll back Min + to the limit,” said Mr. Hines so simply and loyally that no + suggestion of irreverence could attach to him. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, doubt was mingled with determination in his florid face as + he rang the bell. Bartholomew Storrs opened to us, himself. When he saw + me, he hastily pocketed a Rhyming Dictionary. I introduced my companion, + stating, by way of a favorable opening, that he was interested in memorial + poetry. + </p> + <p> + “Very pleased,” said Bartholomew Storrs in his deep, + lugubrious tones. “Bereaved husband?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s a tasty thing I just completed,” continued the + poet, and, extending a benignant hand toward the visitor he intoned + nasally: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Together we have lived our life + Till thou hast gone on high. + But I will come to thee, dear Wife, + In the sweet bye-and-bye.” + </pre> + <p> + “That style five dollars,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You’re on,” barked Mr. Hines. “I’ll take + it.” + </p> + <p> + “To be published, I suppose, on the first anniversary of death. + Shall I look after the insertion in the papers?” queried the + obliging poet, who split an advertising agent’s percentage on + memorial notices placed by him. + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Got any more? I’d spend a hundred to do this right.” + </p> + <p> + With a smile of astounded gratification, Bartholomew accepted the roll of + bills, fresh and crisp as the visitor himself. To do him justice, I + believe that his pleasure was due as much to the recognition of his genius + as to the stipend it had earned. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like a special elegy to be read at the grave,” + he rumbled eagerly. “When and where did the interment take place?” + </p> + <p> + The other glared at him in stony surprise. “It ain’t taken + place. It’s to-morrow. Ain’t you on? I’m Hines.” + </p> + <p> + A frown darkened the sexton’s heavy features. He shook a + reprehensive head. “An unfortunate case,” he boomed; “most + unfortunate. I will not conceal from you, Mr. Hines, that I have consulted + our attorneys upon this case, and unhappily—unhappily, I say—they + hold that there is no basis for exclusion provided the certificate is in + form. You have it with you?” + </p> + <p> + Impassive and inscrutable, Mr. Hines tapped his breast-pocket. + </p> + <p> + The conscience of a responsible sexton being assuaged, Bartholomew’s + expression mollified into that of the flattered poet. + </p> + <p> + “Such being the case,” he pursued, “there can be no + objection to the reading of an elegy as part of the service. Who is to + officiate?” + </p> + <p> + “The Reverend Doctor Hackett.” + </p> + <p> + “He has retired these two years,” said the sexton doubtfully. + “He is very old. His mind sometimes wanders.” + </p> + <p> + “She wouldn’t have any one else,” asserted the hard, + pink Mr. Hines. “She was as particular about that as about being + buried yonder.” He jerked his head toward the window. + </p> + <p> + “Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide + the reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a + moment while I look up my elegies.” + </p> + <p> + “Say,” said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as + the poet-sexton retired, “this is dead easy. Why, the guy’s on + the make. For sale. He’ll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff + for other folks to sign! He’s a crook!” + </p> + <p> + “Make no such mistake,” I advised. “Bartholomew is as + honest a man as lives, in his own belief.” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely. That’s the worst kind,” pronounced the + expert Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. “If + you will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented,” + said he. + </p> + <p> + “What becomes of it after I deliver it?” asked Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “Read, attested, and filed officially.” + </p> + <p> + “Any one else but you see it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessarily.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right, then.” + </p> + <p> + Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. + Hines than he lifted a stiffening face. + </p> + <p> + “What is this?” he challenged. + </p> + <p> + “What’s what?” + </p> + <p> + The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. “‘Minna + Merivale, aged twenty-five,’” he read. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the name she went by.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Unmarried</i>” read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + In the sexton’s eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. + “Take her away.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Bury her somewhere else. Do not think that you can pollute the + ground—” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew!” I broke in, stepping hastily in front of Mr. + Hines, for I had seen all the pink ebb out of his face, leaving it a + dreadful sort of gray; and I had no desire to be witness of a murder, + however much I might deem it justified. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll handle him,” said Mr. Hines steadily. “Now; + you! You got my hundred in your jeans, ain’t you!” + </p> + <p> + “Bribery!” boomed the sexton. He drew out the roll of bills + and let it fall from his contaminated fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Sure! Bribery,” railed the other. “What’d you + think? Ain’t it enough for what I’m asking?” The two men + glared at each other. + </p> + <p> + I broke the silence. “Exactly what are you asking, Mr. Hines?” + </p> + <p> + “File that”—he touched the document—“and + forget it. Let Min rest out there as my wife, like she ought to have been.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you make her your wife?” thundered the + accuser. + </p> + <p> + Some invisible thing gripped the corded throat of Mr. Hines. “Couldn’t,” + he gulped. “There was—another. She wouldn’t divorce me.” + </p> + <p> + “Your sin has found you out,” declared the self-constituted + judge of the dead with a dismal sort of relish. + </p> + <p> + “Yeh? That’s all right. <i>I’ll</i> pay for it. But she’s + paid already.” + </p> + <p> + “As she lived so she has died, in sin,” the inexorable voice + answered. “Let her seek burial elsewhere.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines leaned forward. His expression and tone were passionless as + those of a statistician proffering a tabulation: his words were fit to + wring the heart of a stone. + </p> + <p> + “She’s dead, ain’t she?” he argued gently. “She + can’t hurt any one, can she? ‘Specially if they don’t + know.” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs made a gesture of repulsion. + </p> + <p> + “Well, who’ll she hurt?” pursued the other, in his form + of pure and abstract reasoning. “Not her mother, I guess. Her mother’s + waiting for her; that’s what Min said when she was—was going. + And her father’ll be on the other side of her. And that’s all. + Min never harmed anybody but herself when she was alive. How’s she + going to do ’em any damage now, just lying there, resting? Be + reasonable, man!” + </p> + <p> + Be pitiful, oh, man! For there was a time not so long past when you, with + all your stern probity and your unwinking conscience, needed pity; yes, + and pleaded for it when the mind was out of control. Think back, + Bartholomew Storrs, to the day when you stood by another grave, close to + that which waits to-day for the weary sleeper—Bartholomew Storrs + rested, opened the door and stood by it, grimly waiting. Mr. Hines turned + to me. + </p> + <p> + “What is this thing, Dominie; a man or a snake? Will I kill it?” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew,” I began. “When we—” + </p> + <p> + “Not a word from you, Dominie. My mind is made up.” + </p> + <p> + “The girl is Isabel Munn’s daughter.” + </p> + <p> + I saw a tremor shake the gaunt frame. + </p> + <p> + “When we buried Isabel Munn, you came back in the night to weep at + her grave.” + </p> + <p> + He thrust out a warding hand toward me. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you weep over Isabel Munn’s grave, Bartholomew?” + </p> + <p> + “Speak no evil of the dead,” he cried wildly. + </p> + <p> + “It is not in my mind. She was a good and pure woman. What would she + have been if she had listened to you?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you know? Who betrayed me?” + </p> + <p> + “You, yourself. When you came down with pneumonia after the burial, + I sat with you through a night of delirium.” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs bowed his head. + </p> + <p> + “My sin hath found me out,” he groaned. “God knows I + loved her, and—and I hadn’t the strength not to tell her. I’d + have given up everything for her, my hope of heaven, my—my—I + ‘d have given up my office and gone away from God’s Acre! And + that was twenty years ago. I—I don’t sleep o’ nights + yet, for thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you ain’t the only one,” said the dull voice of + Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “You’re tempting me!” Bartholomew Storrs snarled at him. + “You’re trying to make me false to my trust.” + </p> + <p> + “Just to let her lie by her mother, like her mother would ask you if + she could.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t say it to me!” He beat his head with his clenched + hand. Recovering command of himself, he straightened up, taking a deep + breath: “I must be guided by my conscience and my God,” he + said professionally, and I noted a more reverent intonation given to the + former than to the latter. A bad sign. + </p> + <p> + “Isabel Munn’s daughter, Bartholomew,” I reminded him. + </p> + <p> + Instead of replying he staggered out of the door. Through the window we + saw him, a moment later, posting down the street, bareheaded and + stony-eyed, like one spurred by tormenting thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “Will he do it, do you think?” queried the anxious-visaged Mr. + Hines. + </p> + <p> + I shook my head in doubt. With a man like Bartholomew Storrs, one can + never tell. + </p> + <p> + Old memories are restless companions for the old. So I found them that + night. But there is balm for sleeplessness in the leafy quiet of Our + Square. I went out to my bench, seeking it, and found an occupant already + there. + </p> + <p> + “We ain’t the only ones that need a jab of dope, Dominie,” + said Mr. Hines, hard and pink and hoarsely confidential as when I first + saw him. + </p> + <p> + “No? Who else?” Though I suspected, of course. + </p> + <p> + “Old Gloom. He’s over in the Acre.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you meet him there? What did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “I ducked him. He never saw me. He was—well, I guess he was + praying,” said Mr. Hines shamefacedly. + </p> + <p> + “Praying? At the Munn grave?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it. Groaning and saying, ‘A sign, O Lord! + Vouchsafe thy servant a sign!’ Kept saying it over and over.” + </p> + <p> + “For guidance to-morrow,” I murmured. “Mr. Hines, I’m + not sure that I know Bartholomew Storrs’s God. Nor can I tell what + manner of sign he might give, or with what meaning. But if I know my God, + whom I believe to be the true God, your Minnie is safe with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh? You’re a good guy, Dominie,” said Mr. Hines in his + emotionless voice. + </p> + <p> + I took him home with me to sleep. But we did not sleep. We smoked. + </p> + <p> + Minnie Munn’s funeral morning dawned clear and fresh. No word came + from Bartholomew Storrs. I tried to find him, but without avail. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll go through with it,” said Mr. Hines quietly. + </p> + <p> + How small and insignificant seemed our tiny God’s Acre, as the few + mourners crept into it behind Minnie Munn’s body; the gravestones + like petty dots upon the teeming earth, dwarfed by the overshadowing + tenements, as if death were but an incident in the vast, unhasting, + continuous sweep of life, as indeed perhaps it is. Then the grandeur of + the funeral service, which links death to immortality, was bodied forth in + the aged minister’s trembling voice, and by it the things which are + of life were dwarfed to nothingness. But my uneasy mind refused to be + bound by the words; it was concerned with Bartholomew Storrs, standing + grim, haggard, inscrutable, beside the grave, his eyes upturned and + waiting. Too well I knew for what he was waiting; his sign. So, too, did + Mr. Hines, still hard, still pink, still impeccably tailored, and still + clinging to his elegant lacquered cane, as he supported little, broken Mr. + Munn, very pathetic and decorous in full black, even to the gloves. + </p> + <p> + The sonorous beauty and simplicity of the rite suddenly checked, faltered. + Bartholomew Storrs leaned over anxiously to the minister. The poor, + gentle, worn-out old brain was groping now in semi-darkness, through which + shot a cross-ray of memory. The tremulous voice took on new confidence, + but the marrow of my spine turned icy as I heard the fatally misplaced and + confused words that followed: + </p> + <p> + “If any man know—know just and good cause why this woman—why + this woman—should not—” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs’s gaunt hand shot upward, high in air, outspread + in the gesture of forbiddance. His deep voice rang, overbearing the + stumbling accents of the clergyman. + </p> + <p> + “A sign! A sign from on High! O God, thou hast spoken through thy + servant to forefend a sore offense. Listen, ye people. This woman—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped as there rose, on the opposite side of the open grave another + figure, with hands and voice lifted to heaven in what must surely have + been the most ingenuous supplication that ever ascended to the throne of + Pity and Understanding. All the passion which, through the bitter hours, + had been repressed in the self-commanding soul of the hard and pink Mr. + Hines, swelled and cried aloud in his plea: + </p> + <p> + “O God! have a heart!” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs’s hand fell. His eyes faltered. His lips + trembled. He stood once more, agonized with doubt. And in that moment the + old minister came to his rightful senses. + </p> + <p> + “Peace, my friends,” he commanded with authority. “Let + no man disturb the peace of the dead.” + </p> + <p> + And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service. + </p> + <p> + So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No + ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her + comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are fresh + flowers on Minnie’s mound, below the headstone reading: “Beloved + Wife of Christopher Hines.” But the elegiac verse has never + appeared. I must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze + cockleshell, outward bound for “Far Ports,” from the Bonnie + Lassie’s window, though Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it + could be bought—like all else —“at a price.” By + the way, I believe that he has modified that theory. + </p> + <p> + As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the + Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as + grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight of + our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he has a + crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of an + official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But even + that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into heaven + on the strength of it. + </p> + <p> + I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o’ nights now. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FOR MAYME, READ MARY + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Mayme Mccartney was a bad little good girl. She inspired (I trust) esteem + for her goodness. But it was for her hardy and happy impudence, her bent + for ingenious mischief, her broad and catholic disrespect for law, + conventions, proprieties and persons, and the glint of the devil in her + black eyes that we really loved her. Such is the perversity of human + nature in Our Square. I am told that it is much the same elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + She first came into public notice by giving (unsolicited) a most + scandalous and spirited imitation of old Madame Tallafferr, aforetime of + the Southern aristocracy, in the act of rebuking her landlord, the + insecticidal Boggs (“Boggs Kills Bugs” in his patent of + nobility), for eating peanuts on his own front steps. She then (earnestly + solicited by a growing audience) put on impromptu sketches of the Little + Red Doctor diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan + (drunk) singing “The Cork Leg” and MacLachan (sober) repenting + thereof; of Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a + bereaved second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten + whiskers (limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious + admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a + bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a + shrub had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew + nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. He + suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he fought an + interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn’t quite + fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon indicated by + the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and floating, and + her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of the mature and + self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her experienced years. + </p> + <p> + “Hello,” greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the + brusque informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. + “I don’t know you, do I?” + </p> + <p> + Mayme lifted her eyes. “If you don’t,” she drawled, + “it ain’t for lack of tryin’. Is your hat glued on?” + </p> + <p> + “Good Lord!” exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. + “Do you think I’m trying to flirt with you? Why, you’re + only a kid.” + </p> + <p> + “Get up to date,” advised Mayme. “I’m old enough + to be your steady. Only, I’m too lucky.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s a bad cough you’ve got,” said the Little + Red Doctor hastily. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?” + </p> + <p> + “Bring it over to my office and let’s look at the thing,” + suggested the Little Red Doctor, smiling. + </p> + <p> + As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men + which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the + suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful. + </p> + <p> + “D’you think it means anything?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Any cough means something. I couldn’t tell without + examination.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” inquired the cautious Mayme. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. “No charge + for first consultation. Come over to my office.” + </p> + <p> + When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally + non-committal. “Live with your parents?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. With my aunt. ‘Round in the Avenue.” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you work?” + </p> + <p> + “The Emporium,” answered the girl, naming the great and still + fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to quit. As soon as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “And spoil my delicate digestion?” + </p> + <p> + “Who said anything about your digestion?” + </p> + <p> + “I did. If I quit workin’, I quit eatin’. And that’s + bad for me. I tried it once.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition + by no means unprecedented in local practice. “Couldn’t you get + a job in some better climate?” + </p> + <p> + “Where, for instance?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you knew any one in California.” + </p> + <p> + “How’s the walkin’?” asked Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “It’s long,” replied the Little Red Doctor, “seeing” + again. “Anyway, you’ve got to have fresh air.” + </p> + <p> + “They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square,” + Mayme pointed out. + </p> + <p> + “Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour + every day.” He gave some further instructions. + </p> + <p> + Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “Take it away,” said the Little Red Doctor. “Didn’t + I tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “Go-wan!” said Mayme. “Whadda you think you are; + Bellevue Hospital? I pay as I go, Doc.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the matter? Face hurt you?” asked the solicitous + Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “People don’t call me ‘Doc,’” began the + offended practitioner in dignified tones. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s because they ain’t on to you,” she + assured him. “I wouldn’t call you ‘Doc’ myself if + I didn’t know you was a good sport back of your bluff.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the + dollar. “You aren’t such a bad sport yourself,” he + admitted. “Well, we’ll call this a deal. But if I see you in + the Square and give you a tip about yourself now and again, that doesn’t + count. That’s on the side. Understand?” + </p> + <p> + She considered it gravely. “All right,” she agreed at length. + “Between pals, yes? Shake, Doc.” + </p> + <p> + So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, + knightly-hearted practitioner, and the impish and lovable little + store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his old + friend, Death. + </p> + <p> + “He’s got the jump on me, Dominie,” complained the + Little Red Doctor to me. “But, at that, we’re going to give + him a fight. She’s clear grit, that youngster is. She’s got a + philosophy of life, too. I don’t know where she got it, or just what + it is, but it’s there. Oh, she’s worth saving, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “If I hadn’t reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend,” + said I, “I’d give you solemn warning.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, she’s an infant!” returned the Little Red Doctor + scornfully. “A poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides—” + He stopped and sighed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I know,” I assented. There was at that time a “Besides” + in the Little Red Doctor’s sorrowful heart which bulked too large to + admit of any rivalry. “Nevertheless,” I added, “you + needn’t be so scornful about the simian type in woman. It’s a + concentrated peril to mankind. I’ve seen trouble caused in this + world by kitten faces, by pure, classic faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by + vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic faces, by passionate Southern faces, + but for real power of catastrophe, for earthquake and eclipse, for red + ruin and the breaking up of laws, commend me to the humanized, feminized + monkey face. I’ll wager that when Antony first set eyes on + Cleopatra, he said, ‘And which cocoa palm did she fall out of?’ + Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, and as for Helen of + Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief that the face that + launched a thousand ships and fired the topless towers of Ilium was a + reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is born of woman cannot + resist it. Give little Mayme three more years—” + </p> + <p> + “I wish to God I could,” said the Little Red Doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you?” I asked, startled. “Is it as bad as + that?” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t much better. How’s your insomnia, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Insomnia,” said I, “is a scientific quibble for unlaid + memories. I take mine out for the early morning air at times, if that’s + what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that + busy little mind of hers from brooding.” + </p> + <p> + In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She + adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac + near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung + back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a + call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions and + argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair + exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and + adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder? + </p> + <p> + On the morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being discouraged + by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it occupied by an + individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part in the general + lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite exquisite of + raiment, which alone would have marked him for an outlander. His elbows + were propped on his knees, his fists supported his cheekbones, his whole + figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him with surprise, Mayme was + shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from his drooping countenance, + fall to the pavement, followed by another. At the same time she heard an + unmistakable and melancholic sound. + </p> + <p> + The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have cradled + weariness of body and spirit; they have assuaged grief and given refuge to + shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered to the + passion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had any of + their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme McCartney. + It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of which was a + desire to laugh. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one + vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing. + She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Cheer up, Buddy,” she said. “It ain’t as bad as + you think it is.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s worse,” gulped a choky voice. Then the head lifted + again. “Who are you?” it demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I’m your big sister,” said Mayme reassuringly. “Tell + a feller about it.” + </p> + <p> + The response was neither polite nor explanatory. “D—-n + sisters!” said the bencher. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, tutt-<i>tutt</i> and naughty-naughty!” rebuked Mayme. + “Somebody’s sister been puttin’ somethin’ over on + poor little Willy?” + </p> + <p> + “My own sister has.” He was in that state of semi-hysterical + exhaustion in which revelation of one’s intimate troubles to the + first comer seems natural. “She’s gone and got arrested,” + he wailed. + </p> + <p> + Mayme’s face became grave and practical. + </p> + <p> + “That’s different,” said she. “What’s her + lay?” + </p> + <p> + “Lay? I don’t know—” + </p> + <p> + “What’s her line? What’s she done to get pinched?” + </p> + <p> + “Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re tellin’ me! In the silks, huh?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?” + </p> + <p> + “Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that + pinch. Swell young married lady. Say,” she added, after a thoughtful + pause: “has she got somethin’ comin’?” + </p> + <p> + “Something coming? How? What?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be dumb. A kid.” + </p> + <p> + He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who live + in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false shame about + the major facts of life. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose she has?” queried the youth sulkily. + </p> + <p> + “Why, that’ll be all right, you poor boob,” returned the + kindly Mayme. “The judge’ll let her off with a warning.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned + for makin’ a pinch of a lady in the fam’ly way.” + </p> + <p> + “What if they do let her off?” lamented the youth. “It’ll + be in all the papers and I’ll be ruined. My life’s spoiled. I + might as well leave the city.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, don’t do a mean trick like that to the old town!” + besought the sardonic Mayme. “Where do you come in to get hurt?” + </p> + <p> + He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. His + family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy + emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their new, + precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant grief he + did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the local + society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the Shining + Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, her + daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as + “the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented + financier.” + </p> + <p> + Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of + society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American + democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for + their names to appear.) She perceived—not knowing that the + advertising leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those + insecure portals of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny—that + she was in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme’s + independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a + career worth saving! + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go over to the station-house,” said she. “I + know some of the cops.” + </p> + <p> + To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting + case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything + would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store + itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David + Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. She + was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and piquant and + quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. From the + opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking the + insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that she + was a “fly kid.” On that theory he invited her to breakfast + with him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson’s Élite Restaurant, + on the corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast + of Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured + her by declining it. + </p> + <p> + Thus began an acquaintanceship which swiftly ripened into a queer sort of + intimacy, more than a little disturbing to us of Our Square who were + interested in Mayme. Young Berthelin’s over-ornate roadster lingered + in our quiet precincts more often than appeared to us suitable or safe, + and black-eyed Mayme, looking demure and a little exalted, was whirled + away to unknown worlds, always returning, however, at respectable hours. + When the Little Red Doctor remonstrated with her ostensibly on the score + of her health, she reminded him in one breath that he hadn’t been + invited to censor her behavior which was entirely her own affair, and in + the next—with his hand caught between hers and her voice low and + caressing—declared that he was the best little old Doc in the world + and there was nothing to worry about, either as to health or conduct. + Indeed, her condition seemed to be improving. I dare say young Mr. + Berthelin’s expensive food was one of the things she needed. + Furthermore, she ceased to be the raggle-taggle, hoydenishly clad Mayme of + the cash department, and, having been promoted to saleswoman, quite went + in for dress. On this point she sought the advice of the Bonnie Lassie. + The result went far to justify my prophecy that Mayme’s queer little + face might yet make its share of trouble in an impressionable world. But + the Bonnie Lassie shook her bonnie head privately and said that the + fine-feathers development was a bad sign, and that if young Berthelin + would obligingly run his seventeen-jeweled roadster off the Williamsburgh + Bridge, with himself in it, much trouble might be saved for all concerned. + </p> + <p> + If little Mayme were headed for trouble, she went to meet it with a + smiling face. Never had she seemed so joyous, so filled with the desire of + life. This much was to be counted on the credit side, the Little Red + Doctor said. On the debit side—well, to me was deputed the unwelcome + task of conveying the solemn, and, as it were, official protest and + warning of Our Square. Of course I did it at the worst possible moment. It + was early one morning, when Mayme, on her bench, was looking a little + hollow-eyed and disillusioned. I essayed the light and jocular approach to + the subject: + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mayme; how is the ardent swain?” + </p> + <p> + She turned to me with the old flash in her big, shadowed eyes: “Did + you say swain or swine, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said I. “Has he changed his rôle?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s given himself away, if that’s what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought that would come.” + </p> + <p> + “He—he wanted me to take a trip to Boston with him.” + </p> + <p> + I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or + unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. “Have you told the Little + Red Doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “Doc’d kill him,” said Mayme simply. + </p> + <p> + “What better reason for telling?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the poor kid: he don’t know any better.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t he? In any case I trust that you know better, after + this, than to have anything more to do with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yep. I’ve cut him out,” replied Mayme listlessly. + “I figured you and Doc were right, Dominie. It’s no good, his + kind of game. Not for girls like me.” She looked up at me with + limpid eyes, in which there was courage and determination and suffering. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” I murmured, “I hope it isn’t going to + be too hard.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s so pretty,” said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + </p> + <p> + So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color, his + wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful + figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any + inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when, a + few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had + vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret from + him), and, addressing me as “you white-whiskered old goat,” + accused me of having come between him and the girl upon whom he had + deigned to bestow his lordly favor. Unfortunately for him, the Little Red + Doctor chanced along just then and inquired, none too deferentially, what + the Scion of Wealth and Position was doing in that quarter. + </p> + <p> + “What business is it of yours, Red-Head?” countered the + offended visitor. + </p> + <p> + He then listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do in + the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and convincing + summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch of his + personal and sartorial appearance. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t mean the kid any harm,” argued the Scion + suavely. “I—I came back to apologize.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me catch you snooping around here again and I’ll break + every bone in your body,” the Little Red Doctor answered him. + </p> + <p> + “I guess this Square’s free to everybody. I guess you don’t + own it,” said the youth, retreating to his car. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exactitude of this surmise, he was seen + no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at + learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme’s, + that she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a + cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized + upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two consisting + of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that it was all + right; we didn’t understand. This is, I believe, the usual formula. + The last half of it at least, was true. + </p> + <p> + About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that upon + our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney’s love + affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the + fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its + military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had + drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded. + </p> + <p> + She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic + limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative + Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the + ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that she + had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his woe-begone + and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a spoiled and + pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She suggested a + vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied our forces to + meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie Lassie, and myself. Mrs. + Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, not even + awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted upon these, + and she learned that the Bonnie Lassie was Mrs. Cyrus Staten, she cringed. + Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns quite as genuine as + that of Mrs. Berthelin’s to get in, the Cyrus Statens frequently + figure among the Shining Ones, a fact almost painfully appreciated by our + visitor. After that it was easy to get her into the Bonnie Lassie’s + house, where her eloquence could not draw a crowd. To get young David + there was not quite so easy. He made one well-timed and almost successful + effort to bolt, and even evinced signs of balking on the steps. + </p> + <p> + His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the + Bonnie Lassie’s studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a + history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant + lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, + marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, he + squirmed. + </p> + <p> + “Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma’am?” + inquired the Little Red Doctor suavely. + </p> + <p> + It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission + as Captain in the Quartermaster’s Department was arranged for, and + she expected to have the young officer assigned to New York so that he + could live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and + condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no + designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David’s + future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate + of Mayme McCartney’s character, manners, and morals, in the midst of + which I heard a gasp. + </p> + <p> + It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The + front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins’ + monogrammed car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared. + </p> + <p> + “That’s a lie,” said Mayme McCartney steadily. “I’m + as straight a girl as your own daughter. Ask him.” + </p> + <p> + She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it + can be extremely effective. David’s head dropped into his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Ma!” he groaned. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t call me ‘Ma,’” snapped the goaded + Mrs. Berthelin. “And this is the girl?” She looked Mayme up + and down. Mayme did the same by her and did it better. + </p> + <p> + “I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare + trick,” said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel + which ended in her favor. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie’s eyelids + quiver, but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Berthelin,” said she, “you have made some very + damaging statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney’s + character. What proof have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, he wants to <i>marry</i> her!” almost yelled the mother. + “She’s trapped him.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s another lie,” said Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “He told me himself that he was going to marry you.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he? Then he’s wrong. I wouldn’t marry him with a + brass ring,” asserted Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t mar—You wouldn’t <i>what</i>?” + demanded the mother, outraged and incredulous. + </p> + <p> + “You heard me. He knows it, too. I don’t like the family—what + I’ve seen of them,” observed Mayme judicially. “Besides, + he’s yellow.” + </p> + <p> + David’s shamed face emerged into view. “I’m not,” + he gulped. “She—she made me.” + </p> + <p> + “Captain!” said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. + “Quartermaster’s Department! Safety first! When half the + little fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin’ their + fourteen-inch necks volunteerin’ early and often to get where the + fightin’ is.” + </p> + <p> + David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly + expression. + </p> + <p> + “Let me out of here,” he growled. + </p> + <p> + “David!” said his mother. “Where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + “To enlist.” + </p> + <p> + “Davey!” It was a shriek. “You shan’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I will.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t let you.” + </p> + <p> + “You can go to—” + </p> + <p> + “Buddy!” Mayme’s voice, magically softened, broke in. + “Cut out the rough stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein’ + a private is no pink-silk picnic.” + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!” + cried Mrs. Berthelin. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. “You must leave this house,” + she said. “At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring + myself to betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the + authorities.” + </p> + <p> + Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and + aggrieved pet. “You think I’m no good. I’ll show you, + Mayme. Wait till I come back—if I ever do come back—and you’ll + be sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Hero stuff,” commented the Little Red Doctor. “It’ll + all have oozed out of his fingertips this time to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you show me a place to enlist?” challenged the boy. + “And,” he added with a malicious grin, “will you enlist + with me?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure!” said the Little Red Doctor. “I’ll show + you. But they won’t take me.” He bestowed a bitter glance on + his twisted foot. “Come along.” + </p> + <p> + They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by an + exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with the + rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine. + </p> + <p> + We waited at the Bonnie Lassie’s for the Little Red Doctor’s + return. He came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little + gleam of disappointment in Mayme’s deep eyes. + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it,” said the Little Red Doctor. And I was + sorry for him, so much was there of tragic envy in his face. + </p> + <p> + “Did you give him your blessing?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I did. He shook hands like a man. There’s maybe something in + that boy, if it weren’t for the old hell-cat of a mother. However, + she won’t have much chance. He’s off to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Will he write?” said Mayme in a curious, strained voice. + </p> + <p> + “He will. He’ll report to me from time to time.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t he—wasn’t there any message?” + </p> + <p> + “Just good-bye and good luck,” answered the Little Red Doctor, + censoring ruthlessly. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie went over and put her arms around Mayme McCartney. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” she said softly. “It wouldn’t do. It + really wouldn’t. He isn’t worth it. You’re going to + forget him.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” Suddenly Mayme looked like a very helpless and + sorrowful little girl. “Only, it—it isn’t goin’ to + be as easy as you think. He was so pretty,” said Mayme McCartney + wistfully. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from which + one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of parched + shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my bench with a + fell and purposeful smile. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you’re a dear old thing,” she began in her + most insinuating tones. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t do it,” I said determinedly, foreboding + something serious. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved + innocence. “Won’t do what?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Whatever it is that you’re trying to wheedle me into.” + </p> + <p> + The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the + corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. + “Oh, but you’ve already done it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be lovely to be rich,” said the Bonnie Lassie + meditatively. “And so generous!” + </p> + <p> + “How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven’t got that + much,” I hastily remarked. + </p> + <p> + “And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme + herself.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on. Don’t mind me,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It’s in New + Mexico. And in the fall she’s going on to the Coast. He’s + almost willing to guarantee that a year of it will make her as strong as + ever. And the hundred dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling + expenses will be plenty. You <i>are</i> a good old thing, Dominie!” + </p> + <p> + “What you mean is that I’m an old good-thing. How shall I + look,” I demanded bitterly, “when Mayme comes to thank me?” + </p> + <p> + “No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable + objections to our perfectly good plans,” retorted the Bonnie Lassie. + “Besides, she won’t. She knows that your way is to do good by + stealth and blush to find it fame, and she’s under pledge to pretend + to know nothing about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?” I queried. + </p> + <p> + “There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative + power. Think it over.” + </p> + <p> + “The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!” I cried. “Did + our medical friend blackmail him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme’s chance + here was rather poorer than a soldier’s going to war, unless + something could be done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed + to do it. ‘Do you think she’d take it from you?’ said + the Little Red Doctor, ‘after what your mother called her?’ + ‘Don’t let her know,’ says our ornamental young weeper. + ‘Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it’s from that + white-whiskered old—from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the + benevolent expres—‘” + </p> + <p> + “Yes: I know,” I broke in. “Very good. I’m the + goat. Lying, hypocrisy, false pretense, fake charity; it’s all one + to a sin-seared old reprobate like me. After it’s over I’ll go + around the corner and steal what pennies I can find in Blind Simon’s + cup, just to make me feel comparatively respectable and decent again.” + </p> + <p> + It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, + having come to say good-bye, put her lips close to my ear and tried to + whisper something, and cried and kissed me instead. + </p> + <p> + Our Square was a dimmer and duller place after she left. But her letters + helped. They were so exactly like herself! Even at the first, when things + seemed to be going ill with her, they were all courage, and quaint humor + and determination to get well and come back to Our Square, which was the + dearest and best place in the world with the dearest and best people in + it. Homesickness! Poor little, lonely Mayme. She was reading—she + wrote the Bonnie Lassie—all the books that the Dominie had listed + for her, and she was being tutored by a school-teacher with blue goggles + and a weak heart who lived at the same resort. “Why grow up a Boob,” + wrote the philosophic Mayme, “when the lil old world is full of wise + guys just aking to spill their wiseness?” + </p> + <p> + Contemporaneously the Weeping Scion of Wealth was writing back his views + on life and the emptiness thereof, in better orthography, but with + distinctly less of spirit. + </p> + <p> + “It appears,” reported the Little Red Doctor, “that + every man in his own company has licked our young friend and now the other + companies of the regiment are beginning to show interest, and he doesn’t + like it. I believe he’d desert if it weren’t that he’s + afraid of what Mayme would think.” + </p> + <p> + “Still on his mind, is she?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor produced a letter with a camp postmark from the + South and read a passage: + </p> + <p> + “You were right when you guessed that I never wanted anything very + much before, without having it handed to me. Perhaps you are right about + its being good for me. But it comes hard. The promise goes, of course. I’m + going to show you and her that I’m not yellow. [So that was still + rankling; salutary, if bitter dose!] But if this war ever finishes, all + bets are off and I’m coming back to find her. And don’t you + forget your part of the bargain, to write and let me know how she is + getting on.” The Little Red Doctor was able to send progressively + encouraging news. When the cold weather came, Mayme moved westward to + Southern California, and found herself on the edge of one of the strange, + tumultuous, semi-insane moving-picture colonies of that region. Thence + issued, presently, stirring tidings. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think?” wrote our exile. “They’ve got + my funny little monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The + director likes me and says he will give me a real chance one of these + days. But, as the Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless + imp!] I would not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to + be, out here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh + little frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure + calls herself Mayme or Daisye or Tootsye. Not for me! I am keeping up my + lessons and trying to make my head good for something besides carrying a + switch. Tell the Little Red Doctor that it is so long since I coughed I + have forgotten how. And I love you all so hard that it <i>hurts</i>. + </p> + <p> + “Your loving + </p> + <h3> + “MARY MCCARTNEY + </h3> + <p> + “P.S. I am going to be Marie Courtenay when I get my name up in the + pictures. Put that in the Directory and see how it looks. + </p> + <p> + “P.S.2. How is my soldier boy getting along? Poor kid! I expect he + is finding it a lot different from Broadway with money in your pocket.” + </p> + <p> + About this time the Weeping Scion was finding things very different, + indeed, from Broadway, having been shifted to a specially wet and muddy + section of France; and was taking them as he found them. That is to say, + he had learned the prime lesson of war. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s been made corporal,” announced the Little Red + Doctor with satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “That sounds encouraging,” remarked the Bonnie Lassie. “How + did it happen?” + </p> + <p> + “He went over on one of the ‘flu ships,’ and when the + epidemic began to mow ’em down there was a kind of panic. From what + I can make out, the Scion kept his head and his nerve, and made good. A + corporal’s stripes aren’t much, but they’re something.” + </p> + <p> + Better was to come. There was high triumph in the Little Red Doctor’s + expression when he came to my bench with the glad tidings of young David’s + promotion to a sergeantcy. + </p> + <p> + “While it’s very gratifying,” I remarked, “it + doesn’t seem to me an epoch-making event.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t it!” retorted my friend. “That’s + because of your abysmal military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how + it is in our army. A fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a + major by luck, or a colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine + martial figure, but to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you’ve + got to show the <i>stuff</i>. You’ve got to be a <i>man</i>. You’ve + got to have—” + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to tell her?” interrupted the Bonnie Lassie who + had been sent for to share the news. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor fell suddenly grave. “She’s another + matter,” he said. “I don’t think I shall.” + </p> + <p> + Matters were going forward with Mayme—beg her pardon, Mary + McCartney, too. + </p> + <p> + “Better and more of it,” she wrote the Bonnie Lassie. “They + rang me in on one of their local Red Cross shows to do a monologue. Was I + a hit? Say, I got more flowers than a hearse! You’ve got to + remember, though, that they deliver flowers by the car-load out here. And + the local stock company has made me an offer. Ingenue parts. There is not + the money that I might get in the pictures, but the chance is better. So + Marie Courtenay moves on to the legit.—I mean the spoken drama. Look + out for me on Broadway later!” + </p> + <p> + In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus + followed by a curt bit of official information: “Seriously wounded.” + The Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on + his face. + </p> + <p> + “It doesn’t look good, Dominie,” he said. “You + know, my old friend, Death, is a shrewd picker. He’s got an eye for + men.” He mused, rubbing his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous + hand. “I was getting to kind of like that young pup,” he + muttered moodily. + </p> + <p> + The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one who + never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does not + come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the Weeping + Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it would be + a long time—months, perhaps—before he could get back to the + front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly metallic, + out of various parts of his system. + </p> + <p> + “I’m one of the guys you read about that came over here to + collect souvenirs,” he commented. “Well, I’ve got all I + need of ’em. They can have the rest. All I want now is to get back + and present a few to Fritzie before the show is over.” + </p> + <p> + Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small + parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became + known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With her + answer came the solution. + </p> + <p> + “Some of the ‘Grass and Asphalt’ sketches are wonders; + some not so good. I am going to try out ‘Doggy’ if I can find + a poodle with enough intelligence to support me. But you need not have + been so mysterious, Doc, about your ‘young amateur writer who seems + to have some talent.’ Did you think I would not know it was David? + Why, bless your dear, silly heart, I told him some of those stories + myself. But how does he get a chance to write them? Is he back on this + side? Or is he invalided? Or what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You + do not have to worry about my—well, my infatuation for him, any + more. He was a pretty boy, though, wasn’t he? But I have seen too + many of that kind in the picture game. I’m spoiled for them. How I + would love to smear some of their pretty, smirky faces! They give me a + queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I forgot I was a lady. But don’t + say ‘pretty’ to me any more. I’m through. At that, you + were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you thought: only + he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to another. I hope he + don’t come back a He-ro. I’m offen he-roes, too. Excuse again!” + </p> + <p> + Wars and exiles alike come to an end in time. And in time our two + wanderers returned, but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany + with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical + columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie + Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in the + latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the + production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new + actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. + Not that she was in any way a great genius, but she had a certain + indefinable and winningly individual quality. The critics discussed it + gravely and at length, differing argumentatively as to its nature and + constitution. I could have given them a hint. My predictions regarding the + ancestral potencies of the monkey-face were being abundantly justified. + </p> + <p> + No announcements, even of the most modest description, heralded the + arrival of Sergeant Major (if you please!) David Berthelin upon his native + shores. He came at once to Our Square and tackled the Little Red Doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor assumed an air of incredulous surprise. “Have + you still got <i>that</i> bee in your bonnet?” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” repeated the Weeping Scion. + </p> + <p> + Maneuvering for time and counsel, the Little Red Doctor took him to see + the Bonnie Lassie and they sent for me. We beheld a new and reconstituted + David. He was no longer pretty. The soft brown eyes were less soft and + more alert, and there were little wrinkles at their corners. He had + broadened a foot or so. That pinky-delicate complexion by which he had, in + earlier and easier days, set obvious store, was brownish and looked + hardened. The Cupid’s-bow of his mouth had straightened out. High on + one cheekbone was a not unsightly scar. His manner was unassertive, but + eminently self-respecting, and me, whom aforetime he had stigmatized as a + “white-whiskered old goat,” he now addressed as “Sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps <i>you’ll</i> tell me where she is, sir,” said + he patiently. + </p> + <p> + “Leave it to me,” said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an + unquenchable thirst for the dramatic in real life. “And keep next + Sunday night open.” + </p> + <p> + She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at her + studio, of David’s “Doggy” from the “Grass and + Asphalt” sketches which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, + pathetic little conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the + streets, as expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we + borrowed Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he + played it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right + places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and + only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a + check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the + time to settle accounts, but she never could repay—and so forth and + so on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might + accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out the + truth. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, <i>Dominie</i>!” said the girl, with such reproach that + my heart sank within me. “Do you think that was fair? Don’t + you know that I never could have taken the money?” + </p> + <p> + “Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn’t + have you dying on the premises,” I argued with a feeble attempt at + jocularity. + </p> + <p> + “But from <i>him</i>!” she said. “After what had + happened—And his mother. How could you let me do it!” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you would have gotten over that feeling by this time,” + I ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there’s none of the old feeling left,” she + answered, so simply that I knew she believed her own statement. “But + to have lived on his money—Where is he?” she asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + I told her that also and about Sunday night; the whole thing. The Bonnie + Lassie would have slain me. But I couldn’t help it. I was feeling + rather abject. + </p> + <p> + Sunday night came, and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an + “ace” covered with decorations, whose name is a household word + and who was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been + hints of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no + small discomposure at the sight of the girl’s face when she first + saw the changed and matured Weeping Scion of three years before. After the + first flash of recognition she had developed on that expressive face of + hers a look of wonder and almost pathetic questioning, and, I thought, who + knew and loved the child, already something deeper and sweeter. Young + David, after greeting the star of the evening, took a modest rear seat as + befitted his rank. But when the Bonnie Lassie announced “Doggy,” + it was his face that was the study. + </p> + <p> + Of that performance I shall say nothing. It is now famous and familiar to + thousands of theater-goers. But if ever mortal man spent twenty minutes in + fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of his fancy. At + the close, he disappeared. I suppose he did not dare trust himself to join + in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed. I found him, as I + rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when Mayme McCartney first + found him. And when the crowd had departed from the studio, I told the + girl. Without even stopping to put on her hat she went out to him. + </p> + <p> + He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his + cheekbones. But this time he was not weeping. He was thinking. Just as of + old she put a hand on his humped shoulder. Startled, he looked up, and + jumped to his feet. She was holding something out to him. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “A check. For what I owe you.” + </p> + <p> + “Who told you? The Little Red Doctor promised—” + </p> + <p> + “He’s kept his promise. The Dominie told me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I suppose,” he said slowly, “I’ve got to take + this. You wouldn’t—no, of course you wouldn’t,” he + sighed. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve tried to keep strict account,” she said. + </p> + <p> + David adopted a matter-of-fact tone. “I can’t deny that it’ll + come in handy, just now,” he remarked. “At the present price + of clothing, and with my personal exchequer in its depleted state—” + </p> + <p> + “Why,” she broke in, “has anything happened? Your mother—?” + </p> + <p> + “Cut off,” said David briefly. + </p> + <p> + “She’s cut you off? On my account? Oh—” + </p> + <p> + “No. I’ve cut her off. Temporarily. She doesn’t want me + to work. I’m working. On a newspaper.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s good,” said the girl warmly. “Let’s + sit down.” + </p> + <p> + They sat down. Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again. Mary + was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried to, she + would cry. She didn’t want to cry. She had a feeling that crying + would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming + developments. Why didn’t David say something? Finally he did make a + beginning. + </p> + <p> + “Mayme.” + </p> + <p> + “No: not ‘Mayme’ any more.” + </p> + <p> + He flushed to his temples. “I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” she said softly. “Mary. I’ve discarded + the ‘Mayme’ long ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Mary,” he repeated in a tone of musing content. + </p> + <p> + “Buddy.” + </p> + <p> + He caught his breath. “A few thousand of the best guys in the world,” + he said, “call a fellow that. And every time they said it, it made + my heart ache with longing to hear it in your voice.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a queer Buddy,” returned the girl, not quite + steadily. “Did you bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “I didn’t bring home much of anything, + except some experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to + stand on my own feet, I wasn’t much.” + </p> + <p> + “You got your stripes, didn’t you?” suggested the girl. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all I did get,” he returned jealously. “I + didn’t get any medal, or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I + didn’t get anything except an occasional calling down and a few + scratches. If I’d had the luck to get into aviation or some of the + fancy branches—” David checked himself. “There I go,” + he said in self-disgust. “Beefing again.” + </p> + <p> + It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible + personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to Mary’s + swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob tangled + itself in the laughter, and she choked and said: + </p> + <p> + “Buddy.” + </p> + <p> + He turned toward her. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be dumb, Buddy,” she said, in the words of their + unforgotten first talk. “You’ve—you’ve got me—if + you still want me.” + </p> + <p> + She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder and + around his neck, and she was drawn close into his arms. + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor,” remarked David after an interlude, in + the shaken tone of one who has had undeserved miracles thrust upon him, + “said that to want something more than anything in the world and not + get it was good for my soul, besides serving me right.” + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor,” retorted Mary McCartney, with the + reckless ingratitude of a woman in love, “is a dear little red + idiot. What does he know about <i>Us!</i>” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BARBRAN + </h2> + <p> + Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a + visit of protest to my bench. + </p> + <p> + “Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you hear, MacLachan?” + </p> + <p> + “That ye’re to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly true,” said I, passing over the uncomplimentary + adjective. + </p> + <p> + “‘Tis a feckless waste of time.” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely.” + </p> + <p> + “‘Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and + influence in Our Square should be dissuadin’ them.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps they need a friendly word.” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan frowned. “Ye’re determined?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite!” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll give ye a title for yer romance.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very kind of you. Give it.” + </p> + <p> + “The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One,” said MacLachan + witheringly, and turned to depart. + </p> + <p> + “Mac!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment.” + </p> + <p> + I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be + inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll waste na time from the tailorin’,” began the + Scot disdainfully, but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. + “Well?” he said, showing a guilty inclination to flinch. + </p> + <p> + “Mac, was <i>I</i> an original accomplice in this affair?” + </p> + <p> + “Will ye purtend to deny—” + </p> + <p> + “Did <i>I</i> scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence. + </p> + <p> + “Did <i>I</i> get arrested?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan grunted. + </p> + <p> + “In a cellar?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan snorted. + </p> + <p> + “With my nose painted green?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan groaned. “There was others,” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “A man of your age and influence in Our Square,” I interrupted + sternly, “should have been dissuading them.” + </p> + <p> + “Arr ye designin’ to put all that in yer sil—in yer + interestin’ account?” + </p> + <p> + “Every detail.” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as + mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and + retired to his Home of Fashion. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, Leon + Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young Phil + Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with modifications + and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses green and + frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The explanation is + Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington + Square. + </p> + <p> + Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude + toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. Our + Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when the + foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow whose + wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich Village. Our + Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, whereas + Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with paint and + its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its inconsiderable + laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at life; Our Square + has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little in common. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not + wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the + Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman + architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by + street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense + urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her + far afield, met Barbran. + </p> + <p> + They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving + sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the Bonnie + Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive and shrewd + little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was thinking of + improving on the Mole’s Hole idea if she could find a suitable + location, not so much for the money, of course—her tone implied a + lordly indifference to such considerations—as for the fun of the + thing. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her about + Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult thing + that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her wonderful + little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination compared + to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she has marked + down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to the Bonnie + Lassie’s house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and stayed. + She rented a room from the Angel of Death (“Boggs Kills Bugs” + is the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local + interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr’s + apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked at + me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The Bonnie Lassie sent you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve come here to live—Heaven only knows why—but + we’re glad to see you. And you want to know about the people; so the + Bonnie Lassie said, ‘Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.’ + Didn’t she?” + </p> + <p> + Barbran sat down and smiled at me. + </p> + <p> + “Having sought information,” I pursued, “on my own + account, I learn that you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire + ranch-owner. How does it feel to revel in millions?” + </p> + <p> + “Romantic,” said she. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you have designs upon us.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothing long and clever like that.” + </p> + <p> + “You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless + wish my advice.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered softly: “I’ve done it already.” + </p> + <p> + “Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?” + </p> + <p> + “Started my designs. I’ve rented the basement of Number 26.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a rag-picker in disguise?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling + it ‘The Coffee Pot.’ What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that + plumber’s shop next to the corner saloon?” I pointed to the + Avenue whose ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without + ever sweeping us into its current. “That was once a tea-shop. It was + started by a dear little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run + by Tough Bill Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and + hung it up outside her place, ‘The Teacup.’ Tough Bill took a + board and painted a sign and hung it up outside <i>his</i> place; ‘The + Hiccup.’ The dear little, prim little old maiden lady took down her + sign and went away. Yet there are those who say that competition is the + life of trade.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Take it or leave it,” said I amiably. + </p> + <p> + “I will not call my cellar ‘The Coffee Pot’ lest a worse + thing befall it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury.” + </p> + <p> + “It is true that my parents named me that,” said she, “but + my friends call me ‘Barbran’ because I always used to call + myself that when I was little, and I want to be called Barbran here.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very friendly of you,” I observed. + </p> + <p> + She gave me a swift, suspicious look. “You think I’m a fool,” + she observed calmly. “But I’m not. I’m going to become a + local institution. A local institution can’t be called Barbara Ann + Waterbury, unless it’s a crêche or a drinking-fountain or something + like that, can it?” + </p> + <p> + “It cannot, Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, Mr. Dominie,” said Barbran gratefully. She then + proceeded to sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and + herself a Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia + from the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms + of darkness as New Haven and Cohoes. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what I intend to do,” said Barbran, “as + soon as I get my Great Idea worked out.” + </p> + <p> + What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In + fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather elaborately + loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new friend had + departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and friendly face. + Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than that he + represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie Lassie, who + has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal lack of + success. There is something untransferable in the boy’s face; + perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to any + woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or sentimental + predilections, “Isn’t he a homely cub!” that she didn’t + reply indignantly: “He’s <i>sweet</i>!” Now when women—wonderful + women like the Bonnie Lassie and stupid women like Mrs. Rosser, the twins’ + aunt, and fastidious women like Madame Tallafferr—unite in terming a + smiling human freckle “<i>sweet</i>,” there is nothing more to + be said. Adonis may as well take a back seat and the Apollo Belvedere seek + the helpful resources of a beauty parlor. Said young Phil carelessly: + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, who’s the newcomer?” + </p> + <p> + “That,” said I, “is Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Barbran,” he repeated with a rising inflection. “It + sounds like a breakfast food.” + </p> + <p> + “As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music,” said + I. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the rest of her name?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not officially authorized to communicate that.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?” + </p> + <p> + “On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?” + I asked austerely. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the + cross-town car; and I—well, I just happened to notice her, you know. + That’s all.” + </p> + <p> + “Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her + appearance is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express + myself, to the discriminating eye.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s the fool—” began Mr. Stacey hotly. + </p> + <p> + “Tut-tut, my young friend,” said I. “Certain ladies whom + we both esteem can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, + that none of the young person’s features is exactly what it should + be or precisely where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is + surprising and even gratifying.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s a peach!” asseverated my companion. + </p> + <p> + “Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you + need no introduction to Barbran. Nobody does.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>?” Phil Stacey’s plain face became ugly; a + hostile light glittered in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?” + he growled. + </p> + <p> + “Simply that she’s about to become a local institution. She’s + plotting against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of + starting a coffee-house at Number 26.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” cried Phil joyously. “Good news!” + </p> + <p> + “As a fad. She’s a budding millionairess from the West.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” growled Phil, his face falling. + </p> + <p> + “Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some + decorations, and that you might be the one to do them.” In his + leisure hours, my young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the + term “expert” appears to be rather an empty compliment, since + his stipend is only twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates + impressionistic decorations and scenery for such minor theaters as will + endure them. + </p> + <p> + “You’re a grand old man, Dominie!” said he. “Let’s + go.” + </p> + <p> + We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left + them—without any strenuous protests on the part of either—they + were deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, + the high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, + aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? Dangerous + is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young Phil Stacey and + in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who is as far from + homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each other’s + opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, lighted by + will-o’-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually they + smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. I may + have smiled myself. + </p> + <p> + Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey’s normally cheerful face + when, some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said he, “I want to tap your library. Have + you got any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?” + </p> + <p> + “God forbid!” said I. + </p> + <p> + Phil looked surprised. “Is it as bad as that? I didn’t suppose + there was anything wrong with the stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you imperil your decent young soul with it,” I + advised earnestly. “It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints + is so full of nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather + live in hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of + the Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a + righteously enraged populace would have killed ’em in early + childhood. He’s the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United + States. Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to + weak-minded—” + </p> + <p> + “Whew! Help! I didn’t know what I was starting,” + protested my visitor. “As a literary critic you’re some Big + Bertha, Dominie. I begin to suspect that you don’t care an awful lot + about Mr. Wheelwright’s style of composition. Just the same, I’ve + got to read him. All of him. Do you think I’ll find his stuff in the + Penny Circulator?” + </p> + <p> + “My poor, lost boy! Probably not. It is doubtless all out in the + hands of eager readers.” + </p> + <p> + However, Phil contrived to round it up somewhere. The awful and + unsuspected results I beheld on my first visit of patronage to Barbran’s + cellar, the occasion being the formal opening. A large and curious crowd + of five persons, including myself and Phil Stacey, were there. Outside, an + old English design of a signboard with a wheel on it creaked despairingly + in the wind. Below was a legend: “<i>At the Sign of the Wheel</i>—<i>The + Wrightery</i>.” The interior of the cellar was decorated with scenes + from the novels of Harvey Wheelwright, triumphant virtue, discomfited + villains, benignant blessings, chaste embraces, edifying death-beds, and + orange-blossoms. They were unsigned; but well I knew whose was the shame. + Over the fireplace hung a framed letter from the Great Soul. It began, + “Dear Young Friend and Admirer,” and ended, “Yours for + the Light. Harvey Wheelwright.” + </p> + <p> + The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank everything + in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. Finally Phil + departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner had the door + slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was looking discouraged. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what have you to say in your defense?” + </p> + <p> + The way Barbran’s eyebrows went up constituted in itself a defense + fit to move any jury to acquittal. + </p> + <p> + “For what?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “For corrupting my young friend Stacey. You made him paint those + pictures.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re very nice,” returned Barbran demurely. “Quite + true to the subject.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re awful. They’re an offense to civilization. They’re + an insult to Our Square. Of all subjects in the world, Harvey Wheelwright! + Why, Barbran? Why? Why? Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Business,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Explain, please,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I got the idea from a friend of mine in Washington Square. She got + up a little cellar café built around Alice. Alice in Wonderland, you know, + and the Looking Glass. Though I don’t suppose a learned and serious + person like you would ever have read such nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “It happened to be Friday and there wasn’t a hippopotamus in + the house,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Barbran, brightening. “Well, I thought if she + could do it with Alice, I could do it with Harvey Wheelwright.” + </p> + <p> + “In the name of Hatta and the March Hare, <i>why</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Because, for every one person who reads Alice nowadays, ten read + the author of ‘Reborn Through Righteousness’ and ‘Called + by the Cause.’ Isn’t it so?” + </p> + <p> + “Mathematically unimpeachable.” + </p> + <p> + “Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other + place. Don’t you think so?” she inquired wistfully. + </p> + <p> + Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul. “Undoubtedly,” + I agreed. “But do you love him?” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up + her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a very estimable writer,” returned Barbran primly, + quite ignoring my other query. + </p> + <p> + “Good-night, Barbran,” said I sadly. “I’m going + out to mourn your lost soul.” + </p> + <p> + One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of one’s + own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all on this + occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once. + </p> + <p> + “What did you do it for?” + </p> + <p> + To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. “Pay,” + said he. + </p> + <p> + “Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly. I’m taking it out in trade. I’m going to + eat there.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll starve to death.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t got much of an appetite.” + </p> + <p> + “The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted + diet of Harvey Wheelwright—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t speak the swine’s name,” implored Phil, + “or I’ll be sick.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, + probably indigestible at that.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care,” he averred stoutly. “I don’t + care for anything except—Dominie, who told you her father was a + millionaire?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s well known,” I said vaguely. “He’s a + cattle king or an emperor of sheep or the sultan of the piggery or + something. A good thing for Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her + cellar going. The kind of people who read Har—our unmentionable + author, don’t frequent Bohemian coffee cellars. They would regard it + as reckless and abandoned debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark.” + </p> + <p> + “The place has got to be a success,” declared Phil between his + teeth, his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. + </p> + <p> + “Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West,” I suggested. The + boy winced. + </p> + <p> + What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically. + Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the + highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid + for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means. + </p> + <p> + Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward + innovations. Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant has always sufficed for our + inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey + Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little + millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone. She + advertised feebly in the “Where to Eat” columns, catching a + few stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn’t come. + Until the first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought + their bills with them. + </p> + <p> + Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost or + quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of + patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late + comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say + indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once, as + she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank + terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire’s + daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that + look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it, + preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our + Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran’s sunny face? + Puzzling over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of + fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?” + </p> + <p> + At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of + Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers. + </p> + <p> + “I know whom you mean,” said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to + the little dormer window which was Barbran’s outlook on life. + “Interpret me a signal. What do you see up there?” + </p> + <p> + “It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window,” said I + adjusting my glasses. + </p> + <p> + “Upside down,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “How can a handkerchief be upside down?” I inquired, in what + was intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. + </p> + <p> + Contempt was all that it brought me. “Metaphorically, of course! It’s + a signal of distress.” + </p> + <p> + “In what distress can Barbran be?” + </p> + <p> + “In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the + roof in Our Square?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me + so herself. A millionaire’s daughter—” + </p> + <p> + “Do millionaires’ daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and + paste them on windows to dry? Does any woman in or out of Our Square <i>ever</i> + soak her own handkerchiefs in her own washbowl except when she’s + desperately saving pennies? Did you ever wash one single handkerchief in + your rooms, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not. It isn’t manly. Then you think she isn’t + a millionairess?” + </p> + <p> + “Look at her shoes when next you see her,” answered the Bonnie + Lassie conclusively. “<i>I</i> think the poor little thing has put + her every cent in the world into her senseless cellar, and she’s + going under.” + </p> + <p> + “But, good Heavens!” I exclaimed. “Something has got to + be done.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s going to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s going to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “Me,” returned the Bonnie Lassie, who is least grammatical + when most purposeful. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said I, “the Fates may as well shut up shop and + Providence take a day off; the universe has temporarily changed its + management. Can I help?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie focused her gaze in a peculiar manner upon the exact + center of my countenance. A sort of fairy grin played about her lips. + “I wonder if—No,” she sighed. “No. I don’t + think it would do, Dominie. Anyway, I’ve got six without you.” + </p> + <p> + “Including Phil Stacey?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” retorted the Bonnie Lassie. “It was he who + came to me for help. I’m really doing this for him.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were doing it for Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh; she’s just a transposed Washington Squarer,” + answered the tyrant of Our Square. “Though she’s a dear + kiddie, too, underneath the nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “Do I understand—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see,” interrupted the Bonnie Lassie sweetly, + “how you could. I haven’t told you. And the rest are bound to + secrecy. But don’t be unduly alarmed at anything queer you may see + in Our Square within the next few days.” + </p> + <p> + Only by virtue of that warning was I able to command the emotions aroused + by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was hurrying + across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a shameful + rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to sheer off. When + he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering and nonchalant + effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of nonchalance in + this world. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening, Cyrus,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful weather we’re having.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t be finer.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it will hold?” + </p> + <p> + “The paper says rain to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Why is the tip of your nose painted green?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it green?” inquired Cyrus, as if he hadn’t given the + matter any special consideration, but thought it quite possible. + </p> + <p> + “Emerald,” said I. “It looks as if it were mortifying.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be mortifying,” admitted Cyrus the Gaunt, “if + it weren’t in a good cause.” + </p> + <p> + “What cause?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Come out of there!” said Cyrus the Gaunt, not to me, but to a + figure lurking in the shrubbery. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor emerged. I took one look at his most distinctive + feature. + </p> + <p> + “You, too!” I said. “What do you mean by it?” + </p> + <p> + “Ask Cyrus,” returned the Little Red Doctor glumly. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a cult,” said Cyrus. “The credit of the + notion belongs not to me, but to my esteemed better half. A few chosen + souls—” + </p> + <p> + “Here comes another of them,” I conjectured, as a bowed form + approached. “Who is it? MacLachan!” + </p> + <p> + The old Scot appeared to be suffering from a severe cold. His handkerchief + was pressed to his face. + </p> + <p> + “Take it down, Mac,” I ordered. “It’s useless.” + He did so, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. + </p> + <p> + “He bullied me into it,” declared the tailor, glowering at + Cyrus the Gaunt. + </p> + <p> + “It’ll do your nose good,” declared Cyrus jauntily. + “Give it a change. Complementary colors, you know. What ho! Our + leader.” + </p> + <p> + Phil Stacey appeared. He appeared serious; that is, as serious as one can + appear when his central feature glows like the starboard light of an + incoming steamship. Following him were Leon Coventry, huge and shy, and + the lethal Boggs looking unhappy. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you all going?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “To the Wrightery,” said Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Is it a party?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a gathering.” + </p> + <p> + “Am I included?” + </p> + <p> + “If you’ll—” + </p> + <p> + “Not on any account,” I declared firmly. It had just occurred + to me why the Bonnie Lassie had centered her gaze upon my features. + “Follow your indecent noses as far as you like. I stay.” + </p> + <p> + Still lost in meditation, I may have dozed on my bench, when heavy, + measured footsteps aroused me. I looked up to see Terry the Cop, guardian + of our peace, arbiter of differences, conservator of our morals. I peered + at him with anxiety. + </p> + <p> + “Terry,” I inquired, “how is your nose?” + </p> + <p> + “Keen, Dominie,” said Terry. He sniffed the air. “Don’t + you detect the smell of illegal alcohol?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say I do.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very plain,” declared the officer wriggling his + nasal organ which, I was vastly relieved to observe, retained its original + hue. “Wouldn’t you say, Dominie, it comes from yonder cellar?” + </p> + <p> + “Barbran’s cellar? + </p> + <p> + “I am informed that a circle of dangerous char-<i>ack</i>ters with + green noses gather there and drink cider containing more than + two-seventy-five per cent of apple juice. I’m about to pull the + place.” + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven’s sake, Terry; don’t do that! You’ll + scare—” + </p> + <p> + “Whisht, Dominie!” interrupted Terry with an elaborate wink. + “There’ll be no surprise, except maybe to the Judge in the + morning. You better drop in at the court.” + </p> + <p> + Of the round-up I have no details, except that it seemed to be quietly + conducted. The case was called the next day, before Magistrate Wolf Tone + Hanrahan, known as the “Human Judge.” Besides being human, his + Honor is, as may be inferred from his name, somewhat Irish. He heard the + evidence, tested the sample, announced his intention of coming around that + evening for some more, and honorably discharged Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “And what about these min?” he inquired, gazing upon the + dauntless six. + </p> + <p> + “Dangerous suspects, Yeronner,” said Terry the Cop. + </p> + <p> + “They look mild as goat’s milk to me,” returned the + Magistrate, “though now I get me eye on the rid-hidded wan [with a + friendly wink at the Little Red Doctor] I reckonize him as a desprit + charackter that’d save your life as soon as look at ye. What way are + they dang’rous?” + </p> + <p> + “When apprehended,” replied Terry, looking covertly about to + see that the reporters were within hearing distance, “their noses + were painted green.” + </p> + <p> + “Is this true?” asked the Magistrate of the six. + </p> + <p> + “It is, your Honor,” they replied. + </p> + <p> + “An’, why not!” demanded the Human Judge hotly. “‘Tis + a glorious color! Erin go bragh! Off’cer, ye’ve exceeded yer + jooty. D’ ye think this is downtrodden an’ sufferin’ + Oireland an’ yerself the tyrant Gineral French? Let ’em paint + their noses anny color they loike; but green for preference. I’m + tellin’ ye, this is the land of freedom an’ equality, an’ + ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, liberty, and the purshoot of + happiness, an’ a man’s nose is his castle, an’ don’t + ye fergit it. Dis-charrrrged! Go an’ sin no more. I mane, let the + good worruk go awn!” + </p> + <p> + “Now watch for the evening papers,” said young Phil Stacey + exultantly. “The Wrightery will get some free advertising that’ll + crowd it for months.” + </p> + <p> + Alas for youth’s golden hopes! The evening papers ignored the + carefully prepared event. One morning paper published a paragraph, + attributing the green noses to a masquerade party. The conspirators, + gathered at the cellar with their war-paints on (in case of reporters), + discussed the fiasco in embittered tones. Young Stacey raged against a + stupid and corrupt press. MacLachan expressed the acidulous hope that + thereafter Cyrus the Gaunt would be content with making a fool of himself + without implicating innocent and confiding friends. The Bonnie Lassie was + not present, but sent word (characteristically) that they must have done + it all wrong; men had no sense, anyway. The party then sent out for + turpentine and broke up to reassemble no more. Only Phil Stacey, inventor + of the great idea, was still faithful to and hopeful of it. Each evening + he conscientiously greened himself and went to eat with Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Time justified his faith. One evening there dropped in a plump man who + exhaled a mild and comforting benevolence, like a gentle country parson. + He smiled sweetly at Phil, and introduced himself as a reporter for the + “Sunday World Magazine”—and where was the rest of the + circle? In a flurry of excitement, the pair sent for Cyrus the Gaunt to do + the talking. Cyrus arrived, breathless and a trifle off color (the Bonnie + Lassie had unfortunately got a touch of bronze scenic paint mixed with the + green, so that he smelled like an over-ripe banana), and proceeded to + exposition. + </p> + <p> + “This,” he explained, “is a new cult. It is based on the + back-to-the-spring idea. The well-spring of life, you know. The—er—spring + of eternal youth, and—and so forth. You understand?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope to,” said the reporter politely. “Why on the + nose?” + </p> + <p> + “I will explain that,” returned Cyrus, getting his second + wind; “but first let me get the central idea in your mind. It’s + a nature movement; a readjustment of art to nature. All nature is green. + Look about you.” Here he paused for effect, which was unfortunate. + </p> + <p> + “Quite so,” agreed the reporter. “The cable-car, for + instance, and the dollar bill, not to mention the croton bug and the polar + bear. But, pardon me, I interrupt the flow of your eloquence.” + </p> + <p> + “You do,” said Cyrus severely. “Inanimate nature I speak + of. All inanimate nature is green. But we poor fellow creatures have + gotten away from the universal mother-color. We must get back to it. We + must learn to think greenly. But first we must learn to see greenly. How + shall we accomplish this? Put green in our eyes? Impossible, + unfortunately. But, our noses—there is the solution. In direct + proximity to the eye, the color, properly applied, tints one’s + vision of all things. Green shadows in a green world,” mooned Cyrus + the Gaunt poetically. “As the bard puts it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘Annihilating all that’s made + To a green thought in a green shade.’” + </pre> + <p> + “Wait a minute,” said the visitor, and made a note on an + envelope-back. + </p> + <p> + “Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a + millionaire cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second + note], has established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our + souls.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said the benevolent reporter. “Fine! Of course + it’s all bunk—” + </p> + <p> + “Bunk!” echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with + his lank jaw drooping. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?” + inquired the visitor pleasantly. “Just what you’re putting + over I don’t know. Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don’t + tell me. It’s good enough, anyway. I’ll fall for it. It’s + worth a page story. Of course I’ll want some photographs of the + mural paintings. They’re almost painfully beautiful.... What’s + wrong with our young friend; is he sick?” he added, looking with + astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting sub-nauseous symptoms. + </p> + <p> + “He painted ’em,” explained Cyrus, grinning. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s sorry,” supplemented Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I wouldn’t wonder. Well, I won’t give him away,” + said the kindly journalist. “Now, as to the membership of your + circle....” + </p> + <p> + The Sunday “story” covered a full page. The “millionairess” + feature was played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations + did what little the text failed to do. It was a “josh-story” + from beginning to end. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll kill that pious fraud of a reporter,” declared + Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Now the place <i>is</i> ruined,” mourned Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Wait and see,” advised the wiser Cyrus. + </p> + <p> + Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom on + the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that week + and the succeeding week. + </p> + <p> + “I never was good at figures,” said the transported Barbran to + Phil Stacey at the close of the month, “but as near as I can make + out, I’ve a clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My + fortune is made. And it’s all due to you.” + </p> + <p> + Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, the + owner’s golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had + other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim + cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was the + first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he knew he + was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to the + pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that a + green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then + Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important + engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut country + house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow does not make + a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis convince a skeptical + public that it is enjoying the fearful companionship of a subversive and + revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed out as fast as it had flooded in. + Barbran’s eyes were as soft and happy as ever in the evenings, when + she and Phil sat in a less and less interrupted solitude. But in the + mornings palpable fear stalked her. Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied + with a dread of his own. + </p> + <p> + One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and + home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up + to facing the facts. + </p> + <p> + “It’s going to be a failure,” she said dismally. + </p> + <p> + “Then you’re going away?” he asked, trying to keep his + voice from quaking. + </p> + <p> + She set her little chin quite firmly. “Not while there’s a + chance left of pulling it out.” + </p> + <p> + “Well; it doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned,” + he muttered. “I’m going away myself.” + </p> + <p> + “You?” She sat up very straight and startled. “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “Kansas City.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! What for?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came + back to ask about the decorations?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s built him a new house—he calls it a mansion—and + he wants me to paint the music-room. He likes”—Phil gulped a + little—“my style of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t that great!” said Barbran in the voice of one + giving three cheers for a funeral. “How does he want his music-room + decorated?” + </p> + <p> + Young Phil put his head in his hands. “Scenes from Moody and Sankey,” + he said in a muffled voice. + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious! You aren’t going to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “I am,” retorted the other gloomily. “It’s good + money.” Almost immediately he added, “Damn the money!” + </p> + <p> + “No; no; you mustn’t do that. You must go, of course. Would—will + it take long?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not coming back.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t <i>want</i> you not to come back,” said + Barbran, in a queer, frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and + hastily withdrew it. + </p> + <p> + He said desperately: “What’s the use? I can’t sit here + forever looking at you and—and dreaming of—of impossible + things, and eating my heart out with my nose painted green.” + </p> + <p> + “The poor nose!” murmured Barbran. + </p> + <p> + With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she + gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble + attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and + pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable. + </p> + <p> + So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed. + </p> + <p> + It was not Barbran’s nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that + matter, was it young Phil’s. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, + for the untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded + of Barbran and the fates: + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use?” + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use of what?” returned Barbran tremulously. + </p> + <p> + “Of all this? Your father’s a millionaire, and I won’t—I + can’t—” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t!” cried Barbran. “And you can—you + will.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t?” ejaculated Phil. “What is he?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s a school-teacher, and I haven’t got a thing but + debts.” + </p> + <p> + Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy + bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an + interlude he said: + </p> + <p> + “But, why—” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: + “I thought it would be an asset. I thought people would consider it + romantic and it would help business. See how much that reporter made of + it! Phil! Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a—a—a—dumbbell?” + </p> + <p> + For he had thrust her away from him at arm’s-length again. + </p> + <p> + “There’s one other thing between us, Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “If there is, it’s your fault. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Harvey Wheelwright,” he said solemnly. “Do you really + like that sickening slush-slinger?” + </p> + <p> + She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. “I loathe + him. I’ve always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with + and the paper it’s printed on.” + </p> + <p> + When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the + “Dear Friend and Admirer” letter in a slow candle-flame, and + Harvey Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, + was writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their little + romance. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s not going to Kansas City,” said Barbran + defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran,” said + young Phil. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s going to paint what he wants to.” + </p> + <p> + “Pictures of Barbran,” said young Phil. + </p> + <p> + “And we’re going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe + off the walls and <i>make</i> the place a success,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “And we’re going to be married right away,” said Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Next week,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think?” said both. + </p> + <p> + Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. I + should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on + twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached + prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out—The wind blew + the door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little + burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my + withered heart. + </p> + <p> + “Bless you, my children!” said I. + </p> + <p> + It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their reckless, + feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the tailor, + reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions regarding the + pair. + </p> + <p> + “What’ll they be marryin’ on?” demanded Mac Wisdom—that + is to say, MacLachan. + </p> + <p> + “Spring and youth,” I said. “The fragrance of lilac in + the air, the glow of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?” + </p> + <p> + “A bit of prudence,” said MacLachan. + </p> + <p> + “Prudence!” I retorted scornfully. “The miser of the + virtues. It may pay its own way through the world. But when did it ever + take Happiness along for a jaunt?” + </p> + <p> + I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon + me with his observation about two young fools and an old one. + </p> + <p> + Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that + headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, + and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at the + window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be + justified of his forebodings, and yet—and yet—who am I, old + and lonely and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and + the sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of + MacLachan and that ilk? + </p> + <p> + Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and + flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried—and I + let the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the + song endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its + echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two young fools. + </p> + <p> + As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment + and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his nose green! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE + </h2> + <p> + Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an old and + melancholy song that my grandfather sang: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And his skin was so thin + You could almost see his bones + As he ran, hobble—hobble—hobble + Over the stones.” + </pre> + <p> + Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts would + invariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which had + forever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie: + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!” He would then + recapitulate in English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was + his substitute for it. “Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for + mend?” + </p> + <p> + So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute + intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly built, + stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, with a + face which would have been totally insignificant but for an obstinate chin + and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning eyes; and he was + incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived among us, occupying a + cubbyhole in Schepstein’s basement full of ribs, handles, crooks, + patches, and springs, without appreciably improving his speech or his + position. It was said that his name was Garin—nobody really knew or + cared—and it was assumed from his speech that he was French. + </p> + <p> + Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain such + non-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation. Why + Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, though by no + means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the Bonnie Lassie, to + whom any variety of want or helplessness is its own sufficient + recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptown friends. + Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariably took off his + frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she was there to see, + and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent of declaring that she + was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I ever heard him make upon + any one in Our Square, which in turn completely ignored him until the + development of his love affair stimulated our condescending and + contemptuous interest. + </p> + <p> + The object of Plooie’s addresses was a little Swiss of unknown + derivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from the + surrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bit of + a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, soft hazel + eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those who scrub other + people’s doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour. + </p> + <p> + For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran an uneventful + course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell where is fancy + bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the drabbled little + worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open the conversation + according to an invariable formula. + </p> + <p> + “Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?” Thereby the + little Swiss became known as, and ever will be called locally, “Annie + Oombrella.” Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a + fatal penchant for nicknames in Our Square. + </p> + <p> + She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed, + should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended! + </p> + <p> + Then would he say—I shall not attempt to torture the good English + alphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: “It makes + fine to-day, it do!” + </p> + <p> + And she would reply “Yes, a fine day”; and look as if the sun + were a little warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie’s + greeting, as, perhaps, indeed, it was. + </p> + <p> + After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious, + venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming his + unproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered that + she spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. On + Christmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year’s he + took her walking among the tombstones in God’s Acre, which is a + serious and sentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in + the following week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in the + glowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand, + on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other’s + eyes, and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the + rest of the world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not to + understand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed. It + was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said: + </p> + <p> + “If one marries themselves?” + </p> + <p> + And she replied: “I believe it well.” + </p> + <p> + They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric light + which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless activity, were + transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor of them. + </p> + <p> + But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles she mistrusts + that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts as earthly + agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken little creatures to marry + on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Square in general and to the + two people most concerned in particular. Courts of law might have rejected + their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however, they were convincing + enough. + </p> + <p> + Said Plooie: “Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?” + </p> + <p> + Said Annie Oombrella: “He is so lonely!” + </p> + <p> + So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happiness came + of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What disposition the pair + would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficult to + conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, and fabrics + was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for Annie Oombrella to + squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as a bird, with an + odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up at an auction and + resold to them at not more than two hundred per cent profit, plus a + kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of the Bonnie Lassie and her + husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they had meat. They were rising in + the social scale. + </p> + <p> + Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to + Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we + endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say that + we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him professionally. + Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie Oombrella must have + lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders broadened perceptibly. + His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew noticeably brisker. There was even + a heartier note in his lamentable trade cry: + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!” + </p> + <p> + As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformed + her. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow, + though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabbling + and splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porches of + her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up to + twenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savings + account. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth and peaceful + and sunny with companionship. + </p> + <p> + Then came the war. + </p> + <p> + The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to so + many helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame and + humiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, Our Square + was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant France and + prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons of Gaul + who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How sourly we + looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence arose the rumor, + I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time of wrath and + tension that Plooie was born in Liège. Liège, that city of fire and + slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the world were + turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry on the + marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my bench + with a little furrow between her bright eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” I replied, failing to identify the rickety + Plooie by his rightful name. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and + asks if you have an umbrella to mend.” + </p> + <p> + “I never have. What of him?” + </p> + <p> + “Have you any influence with him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not compared with yours.” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. “I can’t + find him. And Annie Oombrella won’t tell me where he is. She only + cries.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s bad. You think he—he is—” + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you say it outright, Dominie? <i>You</i> think he’s + hiding.” + </p> + <p> + “Really!” I expostulated. “You come to me with + accusations against the poor fellow and then undertake to make me + responsible for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it’s true at all,” averred the + Bonnie Lassie loyally. “I don’t believe Plooie is a coward. + There’s some reason why he doesn’t go over and help! I want to + know what it is.” + </p> + <p> + Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, I + did my best. “Over age,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “He’s only thirty-two.” + </p> + <p> + “Bless me! He looks sixty. Well—physical infirmity.” + </p> + <p> + “He can carry a load all day.” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won’t + let him.” + </p> + <p> + “When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her + mother was French and she would go and fight herself, if they’d have + her.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. But I’m afraid the Garins are going to + have trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal for + trade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once. + Small boys booed at him, called him “yellow,” and advised him + to go carefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, + our little old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and claw + with his German Jonathan in Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant, stung him + with that most insulting word in any known tongue—“Lâche!”—and + threatened him with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think + it was the fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had + set a picture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that + most exasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grew + quavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matters + looked ill for the Garins. + </p> + <p> + The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off all + relations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterward + rejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got on our + nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped a barrel + down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But the chase took + him into the midst of a group of the younger and more boisterous element, + returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen’s Sons of Avenue + B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s our little ‘ee-ro!” “Looka the + Frenchy that won’t fight!” “Safety first, hey, Plooie?” + “Charge umbrellas—backward, march!” + </p> + <p> + Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst thing + he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became their + captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, once in the + hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an inspirational + thought: “Ride him on a rail!” + </p> + <p> + Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was + hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, + wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore him + with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park. + </p> + <p> + When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was being + augmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry the + Cop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonable + probability that he had absented himself on purpose. “God hates a + coward” is a tenet of Terry’s creed. I confess to a certain + sympathy with it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for + Plooie, the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I + leaned back on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality. + </p> + <p> + Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. + From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, + which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their + concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, + delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his + voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the supervening + heads: + </p> + <p> + “Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, + little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear.” + </p> + <p> + From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in his + face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His voice, + steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to + entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice. + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the more + hopelessly against the barrier of bodies. + </p> + <p> + Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The + many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation. + </p> + <p> + “Le’s tar-and-feather him.” + </p> + <p> + “White feathers!” + </p> + <p> + “Where’ll we gettum?” + </p> + <p> + “Satkins’s kosher shop on the Av’noo.” + </p> + <p> + “Where’s yer tar?” + </p> + <p> + This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical + expedient now evolved from the collective brain. + </p> + <p> + “Duck’m in the fountain!” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Drown</i> him in the fountain!” amended an enthusiast. + </p> + <p> + Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming + dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate + umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob + impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the + playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. Plainly + the time was ripe for intervention. + </p> + <p> + Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, the + scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. Now, if + ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion. + </p> + <p> + For the heroic rôle of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by + temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the + imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason. + </p> + <p> + The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind the Dominie,” yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the + rail by an end and hauling it around. “He don’t mean nothin’.” + </p> + <p> + Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate + brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as I + leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous urchins, + the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted aloft, bleeding + but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out reassurances to his wife; + the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a frantic woman, clawing, + sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened for the splash. + </p> + <p> + It did not come. + </p> + <p> + A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my + unsuccessful rôle of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had + succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney + Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia. + </p> + <p> + Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously anticipative + rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most peremptory of + aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing. + </p> + <p> + I like to think—the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself + thereby—that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort + to hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to + intervene. + </p> + <p> + Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the + Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black + Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance + grated upon her sensitive ear. + </p> + <p> + “What is that rabble about, Sally?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + The aged negress reconnoitered. “Reckon dey’s ridin’ a + gentmun on a rail,” she reported. + </p> + <p> + “A <i>gentleman</i>, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure + such an affront. Look again.” + </p> + <p> + “Yessum. It’s dat po’ white trash dey call Plooie. + Mainded yo’ umbrella oncet.” + </p> + <p> + “My umbrella-mender!” (The mere fact that the victim had once + tinkered for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the + high protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) “Tell them to desist + at once.” + </p> + <p> + Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the + advancing mob was “no place foh a niggah.” + </p> + <p> + With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: “You + desist ‘em, mist’ess.” + </p> + <p> + Sally’s confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even + excelled by her mistress’s confidence in herself. + </p> + <p> + Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified + servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the + brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed + MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before. + Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to her + locally. + </p> + <p> + She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like steel. + The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the proper + moment, she raised it. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing?” + </p> + <p> + The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon + humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in + Macaulay’s immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, “those behind + cried ‘Forward’ and those before cried ‘Back’!” + That single hale and fiery old lady held them. No more could those two + hundred ruffians have defied the challenge of her contemptuous eyes than + they could have advanced into the flaming doors of a furnace. + </p> + <p> + A cautious voice from the rear inquired: “Who’s the dame?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s a witch,” conjectured some one. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the Duchess,” said another, giving her the local + title of veneration. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the lady that shot the tailor,” proclaimed an + awe-stricken bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as + elsewhere.) Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a + malevolent squeak: + </p> + <p> + “T’row ‘er in the drink.” + </p> + <p> + “Who spoke?” said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear. + </p> + <p> + Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically + resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. + Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob’s edge, followed + by a glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess + leveled a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to + her, who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl + into his own pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Michael,” said the Duchess. + </p> + <p> + “Yessum,” said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe + Sapperstein. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing to that unfortunate person?” + </p> + <p> + “J-j-just a little j-j-joke,” replied the other in what was + doubtless intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone. + </p> + <p> + “Let him down.” Inky Mike hesitated. “At once!” + snapped the Duchess and stamped her foot. + </p> + <p> + “Yessum,” said Inky Mike meekly. + </p> + <p> + Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those + behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame + Tallafferr’s bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative + diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and + significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A subtle + suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her. + Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to. + </p> + <p> + “Go about your business,” she said. “Rabble!” she + added in precisely the tone which one might expect of a well-bred but + particularly deadly snake. + </p> + <p> + The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd disintegrated + into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what they were doing + there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away. Plooie was + triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, and (less + triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which chanced to + be the Bonnie Lassie’s house. Annie Oombrella pattered along beside + him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry. + </p> + <p> + But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, <i>she</i> cried, as + much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies and + cowards and imbeciles—and why hadn’t her Cyrus been at home to + stop it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus + Staten had not been needed: the <i>canaille</i> would always respect a + proper show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling + and sparkling. + </p> + <p> + After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than anything + else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our Square for + his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the following Sunday. + Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the Bonnie Lassie reasons with + her heart instead of her head, we accept her theories with habitual and + smiling indulgence rather than respect—until the facts bear them + out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to inquire as to their + proposed course, and had rather more than hinted that if the head of the + house wished to respond to his country’s call, Our Square would look + after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a stubborn and somber + silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that he seemed ashamed. She + added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the Dominie would not + think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather markedly failed to + acknowledge his salute on the morning before his departure, I felt a qualm + of misgiving. After all, judging your neighbor’s soul is a kittle + business. There is such an insufficiency of data. + </p> + <p> + So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant, with + only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window as a + memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But Schepstein, + wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year after, + encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office far over + in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which she had + taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful and haggard. + </p> + <p> + Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs + nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie. Where + was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Left you, has he?” asked Schepstein, astonished at this + evidence of iniquity. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice + that Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her + eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as + they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to + observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily + unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, + he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, + on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) + She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you ever need a home, the basement’s vacant and + there ain’t a better basement in Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his + business. + </p> + <p> + Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, + according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had + known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom of + Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a bulwark + between the ravager of the world and his victory until there sped across + the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales. Our Square + gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the simple + memorials in Our Square. + </p> + <p> + Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its ancient + and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to be. In + their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the year of + grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, vagrant from + heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our lilac bush, and + other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the air, my ears were + smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths. + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees,” it cried on a faint and cluttering + note. “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder.” + </p> + <p> + Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual + range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like + Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie’s and emitted again the + familiar though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it <i>was</i> + Plooie. He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who + never wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma. + </p> + <p> + As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, + and walked over to Schepstein’s. There in the basement, amid the + familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie. + </p> + <p> + “Bonjour, Dominie,” said she wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “Good-morning, Annie. So you are back.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?” + </p> + <p> + “There is need that one explain one’s self. What have you been + doing these three years?” + </p> + <p> + “I work. I work hard.” + </p> + <p> + “And your husband? What has he been doing?” I asked sternly. + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella’s soft face drooped. “Soyez gentil, Dominie,” + she implored. “Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so + triste—so sad.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t look well, Annie.” + </p> + <p> + “He have been ver’ seeck. Now we come home he is already + weller.” + </p> + <p> + “But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?” I + demanded, feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella’s + reply did not make me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around + that unspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home to + Plooie and her. + </p> + <p> + “We have loved each other so much here,” said she. + </p> + <p> + Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed or + thought. War’s resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was + Plooie in danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he + made his rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella’s + prodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple in Schepstein’s + basement would have fared ill. + </p> + <p> + Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face. + </p> + <p> + To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discovery about + Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and shouted: + “Hey, Plooie! What was <i>you</i> doing in the war?” his jaw + would drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave + his burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and + sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly + developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first and + last. + </p> + <p> + Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This didn’t + help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing point + anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not to deal + with a poltroon, as she put it. + </p> + <p> + On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He was in + no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone up to + line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians. So had + such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place was + practically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his + cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie + to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, the + jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my + unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been + on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not + misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little + as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for the + divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of God + within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still glossy + silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and it was well + for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained at home for + reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrus the Gaunt, + should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up. Said the Bonnie + Lassie: + </p> + <p> + “I wonder why Plooie didn’t go to see his king.” + </p> + <p> + “Sense of shame,” I suggested acidly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted. + </p> + <p> + “It is no use,” I assured her, “for you to favor me with + that pitying and contemptuous smile of yours, for I can’t see it. + Mendel has my nearer range of vision locked in his shop.” + </p> + <p> + “I was just thinking,” said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant + accents, “how nice it must be to look back on a long life of + unspotted correctness with not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives + one such a comfortable basis for sitting in judgment.” + </p> + <p> + “Her lips drip honey,” I observed, “and the poison of + asps is under her tongue.” + </p> + <p> + “Your quotations are fatally mixed,” retorted my companion. + </p> + <p> + From across the park sounded Plooie’s patient falsetto: “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! + Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-” The call broke off in a + kind of choke. + </p> + <p> + “What’s happened to Plooie?” I asked. “The + youngsters can’t have got back from the parade already, have they?” + </p> + <p> + “A very tall man has stopped him,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + “Plooie has dropped his kit.... He’s trying to salute.... It + must be one of the Belgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what?” I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant + Mendel in my heart. + </p> + <p> + “It can’t be ... you don’t think they can be arresting + poor Plooie at this late day for evading service?” + </p> + <p> + “Serve him right if they did,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is + leading him along. Poor Plooie! He’s all wilted down. It’s a + shame!” cried the Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. “It ought + not to be allowed.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably they’re taking him away. Do you see an + official-looking automobile anywhere about?” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor + Annie Oombrella! But—but they’re not going there. They’re + going into Schepstein’s basement.” + </p> + <p> + I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment I + endured it. Then I said: + </p> + <p> + “Well, Lassie, why don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t I what?” + </p> + <p> + “Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. Opposite + Schepstein’s.” + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie,” + said the Bonnie Lassie with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “How shamelessly you garble! It was—” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be: <i>suppressed</i> + curiosity killed a cat.” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie sniffed. + </p> + <p> + “Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench,” + I pursued, “through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to + the back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should + almost prefer that you would go—and peek.” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said the Bonnie Lassie, “you are a despicable + old man.... I’ll be back in a minute.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t stay long,” I pleaded. “Pity the blind.” + </p> + <p> + Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her + voice when she returned. + </p> + <p> + “It’s so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is + sitting on a pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella’s + face is all swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute.” + </p> + <p> + Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could + best meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we did not + note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces of the + bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very tall and + straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassie of + his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She got up + from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling. Where, I + wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that the mere sight + of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusually self-controlled wife + of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deep and curiously melancholy + voice: + </p> + <p> + “Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I—I—” began the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several + years since?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville.” + </p> + <p> + (Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been at Trouville, + which did not assuage my suspicions.) + </p> + <p> + “You are friends of my—countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?” + he pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint + echo of an accent. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” I said. “Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, + acquaintances would be more accurate.” + </p> + <p> + “He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great + need of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you.” + </p> + <p> + “You are interested in Plooie?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Plooie?” he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he + laughed gently. “Profoundly interested,” he said. “I + have here one of his finest umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. + There was also a lady of whom he speaks, a <i>grande dame</i>, of very + great authority.” For all the sadness of the deep voice, I felt that + his eyes were twinkling. + </p> + <p> + “Madame Tallafferr,” supplied the Bonnie Lassie. “She is + away on a visit.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be + knighted.” + </p> + <p> + “Knighthood would add nothing to her status,” said I, dryly. + “She is a Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with + two <i>f</i>s, two <i>l</i>s, and two <i>r</i>s.” + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders + of merit,” said the big sad-voiced man courteously. “But I + should have been proud to meet her.” + </p> + <p> + “May I tell her that?” asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “By all means—when I am gone.” Again I felt the smile + that must be in the eyes. “But there were others here, not so + friendly to the little Garin. That is true, is it not?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving + case,” I pointed out defensively. + </p> + <p> + “Then it is only because he does not explain himself well,” + returned the Belgian quickly. + </p> + <p> + “He does not explain himself at all,” I corrected. “Nor + does Annie Oom—his wife.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear + with me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those + who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, the + big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might have + taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so straightly + the expression of a great and generous personality. + </p> + <p> + “Emile Garin,” he said, “was a son of Belgium. He was + poor and his people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they + were dead. So he came to your great country to make his living. When our + enemies invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, + the little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit + for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings + they must sweep him away from our Consul-General’s doorsteps here + because otherwise he would not—You spoke, Monsieur?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. I only said, ‘God forgive us!’” + </p> + <p> + “Amen,” said the narrator gravely. “Everywhere they + rejected him as unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not + so?” + </p> + <p> + “That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously,” confirmed + the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled + into the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He + was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. Nothing + mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach my country + at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, no matter who + he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, because he was + unable to march. He had weak legs.” + </p> + <p> + At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. + “I <i>told</i> you there was something,” she murmured + triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad to find that he had one true defender here,” + pursued the biographer of Plooie. “Though he could not fight in the + ranks there was use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in + those black days. He was made driver of a—a charette; I do not know + if you have them in your great city?” He paused, and I guessed that + the rumble of heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come + opportunely. “Ah, yes; there is one.” + </p> + <p> + “A dump-cart,” supplied the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious + thing to drive a dump-cart for one’s country—unless one makes + it so. But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what + you call quaint—I have already told you. He was faithful and + hard-working. They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and + his big cart.” + </p> + <p> + “Not precisely safety-first,” whispered the Bonnie Lassie to + me, maliciously. + </p> + <p> + “You are interrupting the story,” said I with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here + on this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down + the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type of + grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little lever—so. + One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the grenade, and at + the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is of terrible power. + The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the middle of the road between + the two hospitals full of the helplessly wounded. For what? Perhaps to + sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. Heaven only knows, for the sergeant + has the luck to be killed next day by a German shell, before he can be + court-martialed. As he sets down the grenade, the little lever is moved. + The sergeant loses his head. He runs, shouting to everybody to run also. + </p> + <p> + “But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot + run. They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a + visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady.” The sad + voice deepened and softened. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” whispered the Bonnie Lassie; “I can guess.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does + not know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people + escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, ‘Turn + your cart, you fool, and save yourself.’ Oh, yes; he can save + himself. That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can + save them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big + dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The + mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade + explodes, nevertheless. + </p> + <p> + “One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. + Everything near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the + floor, but she is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms + the terrified. The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have + driven a dump-cart for one’s country—so.” + </p> + <p> + “But what became of our Plooie?” besought the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. “They looked + for him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large + piece of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was + that large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital + which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he cannot + speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got out of + hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did not care. + Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records were lost in + the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The great lady wished + very much to see him. But we could find nothing except that he had come + back to this country. Official inquiry was made here and he was traced to + Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot speak for himself and + will not allow his wife to tell his story—it is part of the + shell-shock which will wear off in time—I came to speak for him.” + </p> + <p> + “Does your—do you do this sort of thing often?” asked + the Bonnie Lassie with a queer sort of resonance in her voice. + </p> + <p> + The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: + “One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But + there is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved + lady whom the little Garin saved.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said the Bonnie Lassie softly. + </p> + <p> + After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. + Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. + </p> + <p> + “Plooie!” she said, and that was all. + </p> + <p> + “You are crying,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not,” she retorted indignantly. “But you + ought to be. For your injustice.” + </p> + <p> + “If we all bewept our injustices,” said I oracularly, “Noah + would have to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of him?” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert + animal-breeder, his selections were at times ill-advised.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I’m not + interested in Noah.” + </p> + <p> + “As to our romantic visitant,” I said, “I think that + Cyrus the Gaunt would better be watchful. I’ve never known anyone + else except Cyrus to produce such an emotional effect upon you.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be school-girlish!” admonished the Bonnie Lassie + severely. “Poor old Dominie! He doesn’t know what’s + going on under his very nose. Where are your eyes?” + </p> + <p> + “In Mendel’s top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are + we going to make it up to Plooie?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think you need worry about that,” returned the + Bonnie Lassie loftily. + </p> + <p> + Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an + irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their + pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was + subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city’s + reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his + important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and + disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign + across the front of Plooie’s basement, was the magnet that drew + them: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Emile Garin & Wife + Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser + + to + + His Majesty + + The King of the Belgians + (By Royal Warranty) +</pre> + <p> + No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their + well-deserved fortune is made. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TRIUMPH + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The months go by—bleak March and May-day heat— + Harvest is over—winter well-nigh done— + And still I say, “To-morrow we shall meet.” + + MAY PROBYN +</pre> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor sat on the far end of my bench. Snow fringed the + bristling curve of his mustache. He shivered. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said he, “it’s a wild day.” + </p> + <p> + I assented. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said the Little Red Doctor, “it is no kind of + a day for an old man to be sitting on a bench.” + </p> + <p> + I dissented. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” persisted the Little Red Doctor, “you can’t + deny that you’re old.” + </p> + <p> + “Whose fault is that but yours?” I retorted. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t try to flatter me,” said the Little Red Doctor. + “You’d have licked my old friend, Death, in that bout you had + with him, without any help of mine. And, anyway, you were already old, + then. You’re a tough old bird, Dominie. Otherwise you wouldn’t + be sitting here in a March blizzard staring at the Worth mansion and + wondering what really happened there three years ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Your old friend, Death, beat you that time,” said I + maliciously. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. “Look your fill, + Dominie,” he advised. “You won’t have much more chance.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked, startled. + </p> + <p> + “The wreckers begin on it next month. Also a nice, new building is + going up next door to it on that little, secret, walled jungle that Ely + Crouch used to misname his garden. I’m glad of it, too. I don’t + like anachronisms.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m an anachronism,” I returned. “You’ll be + one pretty soon. Our Square is one solid anachronism.” + </p> + <p> + “It won’t be much longer. The tide is undermining us. Other + houses will go as the Worth place is going. You’ll miss it, Dominie. + You love houses as if they were people.” + </p> + <p> + It is true. To me houses are the only fabrications of man’s hands + that are personalities. Enterprise builds the factory, Greed the tenement, + but Love alone builds the house, and by Love alone is it maintained + against the city’s relentless encroachments. Once hallowed by + habitation, what warm and vivid influences impregnate it! Ambition, pride, + hope, joys happily shared; suffering, sorrow, and loss bravely endured—the + walls outlive them all, gathering with age, from grief and joy alike, kind + memories and stanch traditions. Yes, I love the old houses. Yet I should + not be sorry to see the Worth mansion razed. It has outlived all the lives + that once cherished it and become a dead, unhuman thing. + </p> + <p> + That solid square of brown, gray-trimmed stone had grown old honorably + with the honorable generations of the Worths. Then it had died. In one + smiting stroke of tragedy the life had gone out of it. Now it stood + staring bleakly out from its corner with filmed eyes, across the busy + square. Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm + of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still + harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor broke in upon my reverie. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; you’re old, Dominie. But you’re not wise. You’re + very foolish. Foolish and obstinate.” + </p> + <p> + Knowing well what he meant, I nevertheless pampered him by asking: “Why + am I foolish and obstinate?” + </p> + <p> + “Because you refuse to believe that Ned Worth murdered Ely Crouch. + Don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why did Ned commit suicide?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you explain away his written confession?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t. I only know that it was not in Ned Worth’s + character willfully to kill an old man. You were his friend; you ought to + know it as well as I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s different,” said the Little Red Doctor, + giving me one of his queer looks. “Yes; you’re a pig-headed + old man, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m a believer in character.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know of any other man equally pig-headed, except + possibly one. He’s old, too.” + </p> + <p> + “Gale Sheldon,” said I, naming the gentle, withered librarian + of a branch library a few blocks to the westward, the only other resident + of Our Square who had unfailingly supported me in my loyalty to the memory + of the last of the Worths. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He’s waiting for us now in his rooms. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + Perceiving that there was something back of this—there usually is, + in the Little Red Doctor’s maneuvers—I rose and we set out. As + we passed the Worth house it seemed grimmer and bleaker than ever before. + There was something savage and desperate in its desolation. The cold curse + of abandonment lay upon it. At the turn of the corner the Little Red + Doctor said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “She’s dead.” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “The girl. The woman in the case.” + </p> + <p> + “In the Ely Crouch case? A woman? There was never any woman hinted + at.” + </p> + <p> + “No. And there never would have been as long as she was alive. Now—Well, + I’ll leave Sheldon to explain her. He loved her, too, in his way.” + </p> + <p> + In Gale Sheldon’s big, still room, crowded with the friendly ghosts + of mighty books, a clear fire was burning. One shaded lamp at the desk was + turned on, for though it was afternoon the blizzard cast a gloom like + dusk. The Little Red Doctor retired to a far corner where he was all but + merged in the shadows. + </p> + <p> + “Have you seen this?” Sheldon asked me, pointing to the table. + </p> + <p> + Thereon was spread strange literature for the scholarly taste of our local + book-worm, a section from the most sensational of New York’s Sunday + newspapers. From the front page, surrounded by a barbarous conglomeration + of headlines and uproarious type, there smiled happily forth a face of + such appealing loveliness as no journalistic vulgarity could taint or + profane. I recognized it at once, as any one must have done who had ever + seen the unforgettable original. It was Virginia Kingsley, who, two years + before, had been Sheldon’s assistant. The picture was labeled, + “Death Ends Wanderlust of Mysterious Heiress,” and the article + was couched in a like style of curiosity-piquing sensationalism. Stripped + of its fulsome verbiage, it told of the girl’s recent death in + Italy, after traveling about Europe with an invalid sister; during which + progress, the article gloated, she was “vainly wooed by the Old + World’s proudest nobility for her beauty and wealth,” the + latter having been unexpectedly left her by an aged relative. Her + inexorable refusals were set down, by the romantic journalist, as due to + some secret and prior attachment. (He termed it an “affair de court”!) + </p> + <p> + Out of the welter of words there stood forth one sentence to tempt the + imagination: “She met death as a tryst.” For that brief flash + the reporter had been lifted out of his bathos and tawdriness into a + clearer element. One could well believe that she had “met death as a + tryst.” For if ever I have beheld unfaltering hope and unflagging + courage glorified and spiritualized into unearthly beauty, it was there in + that pictured face, fixed by the imperishable magic of the camera. + </p> + <p> + “No; I hadn’t seen it,” I said after reading. “Is + it true?” + </p> + <p> + “In part.” Then, after a pause, “You knew her, didn’t + you, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn’t + she?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of + all that the singers of springtime and youth have sung.” He sighed, + shaking his grizzled head mournfully. “‘And all that glory now + lies dimmed in death.’ It doesn’t seem believable.” + </p> + <p> + He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be + vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He + stared at it musing. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve often wondered if she cared for him,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + “For him? For Worth!” I exclaimed in amazement. “Were + they friends?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very + strangely the day of his death and never came back.” + </p> + <p> + From the physician’s corner there came an indeterminate grunt. + </p> + <p> + “If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say + that on the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only + in the line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century + poets. But even that interest died out. It was months before the—the + tragedy that he stopped coming to the Library.” + </p> + <p> + “It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, + wasn’t it?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard + it hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain.” He + turned inquiringly to the far, dim corner. + </p> + <p> + Out of it the Little Red Doctor barked: “Death had him by the + throat.” + </p> + <p> + “Death? In what form?” + </p> + <p> + “Slow, sure fingers, shutting off his breath. Do you need further + details or will the dry, scientific term, epithelioma, be enough?” + The voice came grim out of the gloom. No answer being returned, it + continued: “I’ve had easier jobs than telling Ned Worth. It + was hopeless from the first. My old friend, Death, had too long a start on + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it something that affected his mind?” + </p> + <p> + “No. His mind was perfectly clear. Vividly clear. May I take my last + verdict, when it comes, with a spirit as clear and as noble.” + </p> + <p> + Silence fell, and in the stillness we heard the Little Red Doctor + communing with memories. Now and then came a muttered word. “Suicide!” + in a snarl of scornful rejection. “Fool-made definitions!” + Presently, “Story for a romancer, not a physician.” He seemed + to be canvassing an inadequacy in himself with dissatisfaction. Then, more + clearly: “Love from the first. At a glance, perhaps. The contagion + of flame for powder. But in that abyss together they saw each other’s + soul.” + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor is turning poet,” said Sheldon to me in + an incredulous whisper. + </p> + <p> + There was the snap and crackle of a match from the shadowed corner. The + keen, gnarled young face sprang from the darkness, vivid and softened with + a strange triumph, then receded behind an imperfect circle, clouded the + next instant by a nimbus of smoke. The Little Red Doctor spoke. + </p> + <p> + Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men, + who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don’t suppose any one ever + came in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without + loving him for it. “Immortal hilarity!” The phrase might have + been coined for him. + </p> + <p> + It wasn’t as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing + sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn’t want him to be alone that + first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would have + thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as steady + as a rock. + </p> + <p> + “No danger of my being a miser of life,” he said. “You’ve + given me leave to spend freely what’s left of it.” Well, he + spent. Freely and splendidly! + </p> + <p> + The spacious old library on the second floor—you know it, Dominie, + smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned’s servant bringing up the rear + with a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over + everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the + corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house + into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since + the others of the family died, Ned hadn’t stayed there long enough + at a time to humanize it. + </p> + <p> + Ned’s man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some + late purchases, and left to execute them. I went over to open the two + deep-set windows on the farther side of the room. It was a still, close + October night, and the late scent of warmed-over earth came up to me out + of Ely Crouch’s garden next door. From where I stood in the broad + embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I could + see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his desk + sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon his face, + without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry the picture in my + mind. + </p> + <p> + “What’s become of you, Chris?” he demanded presently. I + came out into the main part of the room. “Oh, there you are! You’ll + look after a few little matters for me, won’t you?” He + indicated a sheaf of papers. + </p> + <p> + “You needn’t be in such a hurry,” said I with illogical + resentment. “It isn’t going to be to-morrow or next week.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it?” Something in his tone made me look at him + sharply. “Six months or three months or to-morrow,” he added, + more lightly; “what does it matter as long as it’s sure! You + know, what I appreciate is that you gave me the truth straight.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a luxury few of my patients get. Their constitutions won’t + stand it.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a compliment to my nerve. Strangely enough I don’t + feel nervous about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I do. Damnably! About something, anyway. There’s something + wrong with this room, Ned. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you know?” he laughed. “It’s the + sepulchral silence of Old Grandfather Clock, over there. You’re + looking right at him and wondering subconsciously why he doesn’t + make a noise like Time.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s easily remedied.” Consulting my watch I set and + wound the ancient timepiece. Its comfortable iteration made the place at + once more livable. Immediately it struck the hour. + </p> + <p> + “Ten o’clock,” I said, and parted the draperies at the + lower window to look out again. “Ten o’clock of a still, + cloudy night and—and the devil is on a prowl in his garden.” + </p> + <p> + “Meaning my highly respected neighbor and ornament to the local bar, + the Honorable Ely Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly. Preceded by a familiar spirit in animal form.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s his pet ferret and boon companion.” + </p> + <p> + “Not his only companion. There’s some one with him,” I + said. “A woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t admire her taste in romance,” said Ned. + </p> + <p> + “Nor her discretion. You know what they say: ‘A dollar or a + woman never safe alone with Ely Crouch.’” + </p> + <p> + “My dollars certainly weren’t,” observed Ned. + </p> + <p> + “How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my + neighbor’s flirtations and look here.” + </p> + <p> + I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded by + a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me,” he + added. + </p> + <p> + “Is it enough to go on with, Ned?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + He smiled at me. “Plenty for my time. You forget.” + </p> + <p> + For the moment I had forgotten. “But what on earth are you going to + do with all that ready cash?” + </p> + <p> + “Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed + down your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I’ve + planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think + of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day I’ve + struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the simple + medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, Chris, and + come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we’ll work wonders.” + </p> + <p> + “And after?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, after! Well, there’ll be no further reason for the + ‘permanent possibility of sensation’ on my part. That’s + your precious science’s best definition of life, I believe. It doesn’t + appeal to one as alluring when the sensation promises to become—well, + increasingly unpleasant.” + </p> + <p> + There was no mistaking his meaning. “I can’t have that, my + son,” I protested. + </p> + <p> + “No? That’s a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at + it from my point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, + rather than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no + meaning for a man in my condition. If you’ll tell me there’s a + chance, one mere, remote human chance—” He paused, turning to + me with what was almost appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! + But Ned Worth was the kind that you can’t lie to. I looked at him + standing there so strong and fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in + his veins, sentenced beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of + another man under doom: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day.” + </pre> + <p> + We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like + the veil over the eagle’s eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I + could not trust my voice to answer him. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” he said; “you can’t.” His hand + fell on my arm. “I’m sorry, Chris,” he said in that + winning voice of his; “I shouldn’t plague you for something + that you can’t give me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you this, anyway,” said I: “that it’s + something less than courage to give up until the time comes. You didn’t + give your life. You haven’t the right to take it; anyway, not until + its last usefulness is over.” + </p> + <p> + He made a movement of impatience. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m not asking you to endure torture. I’d release + you myself from that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But + how can you tell that being alive instead of dead next week or next month + may not make an eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn’t + played out yet. Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the + curtain is rung down?” + </p> + <p> + “Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down + into that garden and kill Ely Crouch,” he suggested, smiling. + “That would be a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and + peaceful death, wouldn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable,” I + answered, relieved at his change of tone. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is.” He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. + “Chris, what do you believe comes after?” + </p> + <p> + “Justice.” + </p> + <p> + “A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, + in being sport enough to play the game through. You’re right, old + hard-shell. I’ll stick it out. It will only mean spending <i>this</i>”—he + swept the money back into its repository—“a little more + slowly.” + </p> + <p> + “I was sure I could count on you,” I said. “Now I can + give you the talisman.” I set on the desk before him a small + pasteboard box. “Pay strict attention. You see that label? That’s + to remind you. One tablet if you can’t sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded. + </p> + <p> + “But three at one time and you’ll sleep so sound that nothing + will ever awaken you.” + </p> + <p> + “Good old Chris!” Opening the box, he fingered the pellets + curiously. “A blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “On trust, Ned.” + </p> + <p> + “On honor,” he agreed. “Then I mustn’t expunge old + Crouch? It’s a disappointment,” he added gayly. + </p> + <p> + He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. His + voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains. + </p> + <p> + “Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for + it. I’ll stay here and breathe it.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said I. “I’ve five minutes of telephoning + to do. Then I’ll be back.” + </p> + <p> + Nobody can ever tell me again that there’s an instinct which feels + the presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within arm’s-length + of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate emotions. I + could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she crouched, hidden in + the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as if the whole + atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the terrific passion + of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt—nothing. No sense, as + I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will which nerved + and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. Afterward she was + unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must have been for some + minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of terror was the word + “Suicide.” It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at first; + and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what followed, my + instructions about the poison took on the voice of a ministering + providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor had she + recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of the disease. + But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass on my way to + the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what she told me + later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my return, I piece + together the events which so swiftly followed. + </p> + <p> + A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner. As + it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper window + those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure had + almost reached the desk. The face was turned from him. Even in that moment + of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to her + body, with a curious awkwardness. + </p> + <p> + “Hello!” he challenged. + </p> + <p> + She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush. Her + hand fell upon the box of pellets. She turned, clutching that little box + of desperate hopes to her bosom. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! Virginia!” he exclaimed. “Miss Kingsley!” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Worth! Was it you I heard? Why—how are you here?” + </p> + <p> + “This is my house.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know.” Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a + watchful animal, she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself + and a possible interference. Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, + impeded her fumbling efforts to open the box. Presently, however, the + cover yielded. + </p> + <p> + He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope. His brain + hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering upon + her obvious and preposterous purpose. Suddenly, as her fingers trembled + among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem was formed. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want with my tonic?” he asked coolly. + </p> + <p> + “Tonic? I—I thought—” + </p> + <p> + “You thought it was the poison. Well, you’ve got the wrong + box. The poison box is in the drawer.” + </p> + <p> + “In the drawer,” she repeated. She spoke in the mechanical + voice of one desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital + project. Her nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk. + </p> + <p> + He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, and + dropped it into his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing + eyes. “Then it <i>was</i> the poison!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Give it back to me!” she implored, like a bereft child. + “Oh, give it to me!” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you want to kill yourself?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him in dumb despair. + </p> + <p> + “How did you get here?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Your fire escape.” + </p> + <p> + “And to that from the garden wall, I suppose? So <i>you</i> were Ely + Crouch’s companion,” he cried with a changed voice. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t,” she shuddered, throwing her right arm over her + face. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” he said gently. “Take a swallow of + this water. What’s the matter with your arm? Are you hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” Her eyes would not meet his. They were fixed obstinately + upon the pocket into which he had dropped the poison. + </p> + <p> + “It’s incredible!” he burst out. “You with your + youth and loveliness! With everything that makes life sweet for yourself + and others. What madness—” He broke off and his voice softened + into persuasion. “We were almost friends, once. Can’t I—won’t + you let me help? Don’t you think you can trust me?” + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes to his, and he read in them hopeless terror. “Yes, + I could trust you. But there is only one help for me now. And you’ve + taken it from me.” + </p> + <p> + “Who can tell? You’ve been badly frightened,” he said in + as soothing a tone as he could command. “Try to believe that no harm + can come to you here, and that I—I would give the blood of my heart + to save you from harm or danger. You said you could trust me. What was + your errand with Ely Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Money.” + </p> + <p> + “Money!” he repeated, drawing back. + </p> + <p> + “It was our own; my sister’s and mine. Mr. Crouch had it. He + had managed our affairs since my father’s death. I could never get + an accounting from him. To-day the doctor told me that Alice must go away + at once for an operation. And to-day Mr. Crouch made this appointment for + to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you know his reputation? Weren’t you afraid?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t think of fear. When I told him how matters stood, he + offered me money, but—but—Oh, I can’t tell you!” + </p> + <p> + “No need,” he said quickly. “I know what he is. I was + joking when I spoke of killing him, a little while ago. By God, I wish I + had killed him! It isn’t too late now.” + </p> + <p> + “It <i>is</i> too late.” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes, dilated, were fixed upon his. + </p> + <p> + “Why? How—too late?” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + “I killed him.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i>! You—killed—Ely—Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “He had a cane,” she said, in a hurried, flat, half-whisper. + “When he caught at me, I tried to get it to defend myself. The + handle pulled out. There was a dagger on it. He came at me again. I didn’t + realize what I was doing. All I could see was that hateful face drawing + nearer. Then it changed and he seemed to dissolve into a hideous heap. I + didn’t mean to kill him.” Her voice rose in the struggle + against hysteria. “God knows, I didn’t mean to kill him.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” + </p> + <p> + His hands fell on her shoulders and held her against the onset. Energy and + resolution quickened in his eyes. “Who knows of your being in the + garden?” + </p> + <p> + “No one.” + </p> + <p> + “Any one see you climb the wall and come here?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Or know that you had an appointment with him?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you do exactly as I tell you?” + </p> + <p> + “What is the use?” she said dully. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to get you out of here.” + </p> + <p> + “I should have to face it later. I couldn’t face it—the + horror and shame of it. I’d rather die a thousand times.” She + lifted her arms, the coat opened, and the cane-handled blade dropped to + the floor, and rolled. She shuddered away from it. “I kept that for + myself, but I couldn’t do it. It’s got his blood on it. When I + heard the doctor speak of the poison, it seemed like a miracle of + Providence sent to guide me. Oh, give it to me! Is it”—she + faltered—“is it quick?” + </p> + <p> + “Steady!” Stooping he picked up the weapon. “It needn’t + come to that, if you can play your part. Have you got the courage to walk + out of this house and go home to safety? Absolute safety!” + </p> + <p> + She searched his face in bewilderment. “I—don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “If I give you my word of honor that it depends only on yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Pull yourself together. Go downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. + You’ll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head + up, and go home. You’re as safe as though you’d never seen Ely + Crouch. There’s no clue to you.” + </p> + <p> + “No clue! Look down the fire escape!” + </p> + <p> + He crossed the room at a bound. Beneath him, its evil snout pointed + upwards, sat the dead man’s familiar spirit. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! The ferret!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s been sitting there, watching, watching, watching.” + </p> + <p> + “The more reason for haste. Pull yourself together. Forward, <i>march</i>!” + he cried, pressing his will upon her. + </p> + <p> + “But you? When they come what will you say to them?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll fix up something.” He drew back from the window, + lowering his voice. “Men in the garden. A policeman.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ve found him!” She fell into Ned’s chair, + dropping her head in her hands. For an instant he studied her. Then he + took his great and tender resolution. His hand fell warm and firm on her + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Listen; suppose they suspect some one else?” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Me.” + </p> + <p> + “You? Why should they?” + </p> + <p> + “Circumstances. The place. The weapon here in my possession. My + known trouble with Ely Crouch. Don’t you see how it all fits in?” + </p> + <p> + She recovered from the stupor of surprise into which his suggestion had + plunged her. “Are you mad? Do you think that I’d let you + sacrifice yourself? What am I to you that you should do this for me?” + </p> + <p> + “The woman I love,” he said quietly. “I have loved you + from the first day that I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + It was at this moment that I returned and halted at the door, an unwilling + witness to the rest, only half understanding, not daring to move. I saw + the splendid color mount and glorify her beauty. I saw her hands go out to + him half in appeal, half in rejection. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s madness!” she cried. “It’s your + life you’re offering me.” + </p> + <p> + “What else should I offer you—you who have given life its real + meaning for me?” + </p> + <p> + He caught her hands in his and held them. He caught her eyes in his and + held them. Then he began speaking, evenly, soothingly, persuasively, + binding her to his will. + </p> + <p> + “What does my life amount to? Think how little it means. A few more + weeks of waiting. Then the suffering: then the release. You heard Dr. + Smith. You know. You understand. Didn’t you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she breathed. + </p> + <p> + “Then you must see what a splendid way out this is for me. No more + waiting. No pain. Death never came to any one so kindly before. It’s + my chance, if only you’ll make it worth while. Will you?” he + pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the wonder of it!” she whispered, gazing on him with + parted lips. But he did not understand, yet. He pressed what he thought to + be his advantage. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he cried, suddenly dropping her hands and catching up + the bills from the valise. “Here’s safety. Here’s life. + For you and your sister, both. You spoke of Providence a moment ago. Here’s + Providence for you! Quick! Take it.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she asked, drawing away as he sought to thrust + the money into her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Twenty thousand dollars. More. It doesn’t matter. It’s + life for both of you. Have you the right to refuse it? Take it and go.” + </p> + <p> + She let the bank-notes fall from her hands unnoticed. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I would leave you <i>now</i>?” she cried in a + voice of thrilled music. “Even if they weren’t sure to trace + me, as they would be.” + </p> + <p> + This last she uttered as an unimportant matter dismissed with + indifference. + </p> + <p> + “There will be nothing to trace. My confession will cover the + ground.” + </p> + <p> + “Confession? To what?” + </p> + <p> + “To the murder of Ely Crouch.” + </p> + <p> + Some sort of sound I was conscious of making. I suppose I gasped. But they + were too engrossed to hear. + </p> + <p> + “You would do even that? But the penalty—the shame—” + </p> + <p> + “What do they matter to a dying man?” he retorted impatiently. + </p> + <p> + She had fallen back from him, in the shock of his suggestion, but now she + came forward again slowly, her glorious eyes fixed on his. So they stood + face to face, soul to soul, deep answering unto deep, and, as I sit here + speaking, I saw the wonder and the miracle flower in her face. When she + spoke again, her words seemed the inevitable expression of that which had + passed silently between them. + </p> + <p> + “Do you love me?” + </p> + <p> + “Before God I do,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + “Take me away! There’s time yet. I’ll go with you + anywhere, anywhere! I’m all yours. I’ve loved you from the + first, I think, as you have loved me. All I ask is to live for you, and + when you die, to die with you.” + </p> + <p> + Fire flashed from his face at the call. He took a step toward her. A + shout, half-muffled, sounded from outside the window. Instantly the light + and passion died in his eyes. I have never seen a face at once so stern + and so gentle as his was when he caught the outreaching hands in his own. + </p> + <p> + “You forget that they must find one of us, or it’s all no use. + Listen carefully, dear one. If you truly love me, you must do as I bid + you. Give me my chance of fooling fate; of making my death worth while. It + won’t be hard.” He took the little box from his pocket. + “It will be very easy.” + </p> + <p> + “Give it to me, too,” she pleaded like a child. “Ah, + Ned, we can’t part now! Both of us together.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head, smiling. The man’s face was as beautiful as a god’s + at that moment or an angel’s. “You must go back to your + sister,” he said simply. “You haven’t the right to die.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to the table, drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote four words. + You all know what they were; his confession. Then his hand went up, a + swift movement, and a moment later he was setting back the glass of water + upon the desk whence he had taken it. + </p> + <p> + “Love and glory of my life, will you go?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Not until then did the paralysis, which had gripped me when I saw Ned turn + the pellets into his hand, relax. I ran forward. The girl cried out. Ned + met me with his hand against my breast. + </p> + <p> + “How much have you heard?” he said quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll understand.” His faith was more + irresistible than a thousand arguments. “Take her home, Chris.” + </p> + <p> + I held out my hand. “Come,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She turned and faced him. “Must I? Alone?” What a depth of + desolation in that word! + </p> + <p> + “There is no other way, dearest one.” + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye, then, until we meet,” she said in the passionate + music of her voice. “Every beat of my heart will bring me nearer to + you. There will be no other life for me. Soon or late I’ll come to + you. You believe it. Say you believe it!” + </p> + <p> + “I believe it.” He bent and kissed her lips. Then his form + slackened away from the arms that clasped it, and sank into the chair. A + policeman’s whistle shrilled outside the window. The faintest + flicker of a smile passed over the face of the sleeper. + </p> + <p> + I took her away, still with that unearthly ecstasy on her face. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The glow of the narrator’s cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a + world of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. + When I found my voice, it was hardly more than a whisper. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! What a tragedy!” + </p> + <p> + “Tragedy? You think it so?” The Little Red Doctor’s + gnarled face gleamed strangely behind the tiny radiance. “Dominie, + you have a queer notion of this life and little faith in the next.” + </p> + <p> + “‘She met death as a tryst,’” murmured the old + librarian. “And he! ‘Trailing clouds of glory!’ The triumph of + that victory over fate! One would like to have seen the meeting between + them, after the waiting.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor rose. “When some brutal and needless tragedy + of the sort that we medical men witness so often shakes my faith in my + kind, I turn to think of those two in the splendor of their last meeting + on earth, the man with the courage to face death, the woman with the + courage to face life.” + </p> + <p> + He strode over to the table and lifted the newspaper, which had slipped to + the floor unnoticed. The girlish face turned toward us its irresistible + appeal, yearning out from amidst the lurid indignities of print. + </p> + <p> + “You heard from her afterward?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Often. The sister died and left her nothing to live for but her + promise. Always in her letters sounded the note of courage and of waiting. + It was in the last word I had from her—received since her death—set + to the song of some poet, I don’t know who. You ought to know, Mr. + Sheldon.” + </p> + <p> + His deep voice rose to the rhythm. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat + Measure the length of every moment gone. + Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet + And light the letters on a churchyard stone.— + And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet!’” + </pre> + <p> + “May Probyn,” the librarian identified. “Too few people + know her. A wonderful poem!” + </p> + <p> + Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. + Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging wind + had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western cloud + shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the ancient + house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, gleamed, + through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. Behind me in + the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and death repeated + once more the message of imperishable hope: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet.’” + </pre> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10944 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56e5547 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10944 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10944) diff --git a/old/10944-8.txt b/old/10944-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f62446 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10944-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8170 @@ +Project Gutenberg's From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +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: From a Bench in Our Square + +Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams + +Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10944] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + + + + +Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + +BY + +Samuel Hopkins Adams + +1922 + + + + +_Contents_ + + +_A Patroness of Art_ + +_The House of Silvery Voices_ + +_Home-Seekers' Goal_ + +_The Guardian of God's Acre_ + +_For Mayme, Read Mary_ + +_Barbran_ + +_Plooie of Our Square_ + +_Triumph_ + + + + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + + + + +A PATRONESS OF ART + + +I + +Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue) +is the style whereby he is known to Our Square. + +Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest, +whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in +anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if +you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps +aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color +possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Élite +Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged +ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or, +if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be, +however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for +chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by +appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art. + +Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April +day, upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light +on it, when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding +him with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest. + +"What d'ye think of _that_?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in a +set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon the +butterfly. + +"Rotten," was the prompt response. + +"_What_!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees. + +"Punk." + +Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest +ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself +out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his +finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his +original critique, in a series of shrill roars: + +"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de--de--piffle!" +Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, +tainted by his French origin. + +He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly +and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon +overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned +temple of Art. + +"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you could +do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to +his critic! + +"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost +as time-honored as the challenge. + +Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible +murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks +had himself under control. + +"Try it," he said grimly. + +The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him. + +"You want me to draw a picture? There?" + +"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body." + +The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter +Quick Banta's creation. + +"What is that? A bool-rush?" + +"It's a laylock; that's what it is." + +"And the little bird that goes to light--" + +"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard. +"That's a butterfly." + +"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And +the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy +hands fluttered and sank. + +"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk." + +From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He +fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted +the traffic. Only once did he speak: + +"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up. + +Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the +last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but +with supreme confidence. + +"There!" said he. + +It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The +arrangements were false. + +_But_--the lilac bloomed. _And_--the butterfly hovered. The artist had +spoken through his ordained medium and the presentment of life stood +forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. But beneath his uncouth +exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul. + +"Son," said he, "you're a wonder. Wanta keep them crayons?" + +Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one +of the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like +eyes of gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta +proceeded to expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving +the youngster time to recover before the inevitable questioning began. + +"Where did you learn that?" + +"Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19." + +"Would you like to work for me?" + +"How?" + +Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk. + +"That?" The boy laughed happily. "That ain't work. That's fun." + +So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier +(soon simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta's +roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first +appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as +the local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and +practice of the "sand-dabs." Out of the joint takings grew a bank +account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy's +education. + +"He's a swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't care +if he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nize +aristocracy when I see it. And I want him brung up accordin'." + +So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an +old, half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie +came to Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes +(this was before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the +Gaunt), I took him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love +with her beauty and her genius alike, all of which was good for his +developing soul. She arranged for his art training. + +"But you know, Dominie," she used to say, wagging her head like a +profound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsighted +on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will be +doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor +little figurines." + +To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest +nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she +would help him just the same! + +But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines. + + +II + +Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She would +have objected to the latter classification, averring that, with the +rising cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keep +her head above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, she +scorned the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performed +prodigious feats of committee work, all of it meritorious and some of it +useful? She had. It had left her with a dangerous and destructive +appetite for doing good to people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was a +distracting young person. Few looked at her once without wanting to look +again, and not a few looked again to their undoing. + +Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus of +Fifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a large +and needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn't take to it. As +recipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss Holland +transferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner of the +world she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged one +with a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She came +to us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the upper +strata to our humbler domain, who--Pagan that she is!--indiscriminately +accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, +Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of +high-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident +wealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for women +whose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. She +formed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the +printer, who knows half the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the +tailor, to whom Carlyle is by way of being light reading. She delivered +some edifying exhortations upon the subject of Americanism to Polyglot +Elsa, of the Élite Restaurant (who had taken upon her sturdy young +shoulders the support of an old mother and a paralytic sister, so that +her two brothers might enlist for the war--a detail of patriotism which +the dispenser of platitudes might have learned by judicious inquiry). +And so forth and so on. Miss Roberta Holland meant well, but she had +many things to learn and no master to teach her. + +Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, +deft, and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she +clashed her lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel +of the Little Red Doctor's experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who +was pressed for time at the moment): "Take orders. Or get out. Which?" + +She straightened like a soldier. "Tell me what you want done." + +At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer +service, she turned shining eyes upon him. "I've never been so treated +in my life! You're a bully and a brute." + +"You're a brick," retorted the Little Red Doctor. "I'll send for you +next time Our Square needs help." + +"I'll come," said she, and they shook hands solemnly. + +Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her +ministrations, and even those of us who least approved her activities +felt the stir of radiance and color which she brought with her. + +On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland, +seated in the Bonnie Lassie's front window, was maturing some new and +benign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the sculptress +at work on a group: + +"There's a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk." + +"That's Peter Quick Banta. He's a fellow artist." + +"And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable lion; +quite a beautiful lion. He's making more marks." + +"Let him make all he wants." + +"They're waving their arms at each other. At least the queer man is. I +think they're going to fight." + +"They won't. It's only an academic discussion on technique." + +"Who is the young one?" + +"He's the ruin of what might have been a big artist." + +"No! Is he? What did it? Drink?" + +"Does he look it?" + +The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. "It's a +peculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He's quite poorly dressed. +Does he need money? Is that what's wrong?" + +"That's it, Bobbie," returned the Bonnie Lassie with a half-smile. "He +needs the money." + +The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland's fatally +well-meaning soul. "Would it be a case where I could help? I'd love to +put a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he's real?" + +On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincere +and direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesser +interests, such as life and love and human fate. + +"No; I'm not. If he were, I doubt whether he'd have let himself go so +wrong." + +"Perhaps it isn't too late," said the amateur missionary hopefully. "Is +he a man to whom one could offer money?" + +The Bonnie Lassie's smile broadened without change in its subtle +quality. "Julien Tenney isn't exactly a pauper. He just thinks he can't +afford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to." + +"What ought he to do?" + +"Paint--paint--paint!" said the Bonnie Lassie vehemently. "Five years +ago I believe he had the makings of a great painter in him. And now look +what he's doing!" + +"Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?" + +"Worse. Commercial art." + +"Designs and that sort of thing?" + +"Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and gloriously +dressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, riding +in super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth with +super-toothbrushes?" + +"I suppose so," said the girl vaguely. + +"He draws those." + +"Is that what you call pot-boiling?" + +"One kind." + +"And I suppose it pays just a pittance." + +"Well," replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, "he sticks to it, so it +must support him." + +"Then I'm going to help him." + +"'To fulfill his destiny,' is the accepted phrase," said the Bonnie +Lassie wickedly. "I'll call him in for you to look over. But you'd best +leave the arrangements for a later meeting." + +Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at home +despite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to Miss +Holland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departure +at once. + +"Who is she?" asked Julien, staring after her. + +"Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown." + +"What's she doing here?" + +"Good." + +"O Lord!" said he in pained tones. "Has she got a Cause?" + +"Naturally." + +"Philanthropist?" + +"Worse." + +"There ain't no sich a animile." + +"There is. She's a patron of art." + +"Wow!" + +"Yes. She's going to patronize you." + +"Not if I see her first. How do _I_ qualify as a subject?" + +"She considered you a wasted life." + +"Where does she get that idea?" + +The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of +a stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. + +"Do you think that's fair?" demanded the indignant youth. + +The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. "Do you +or do you not," she challenged, "invade our humble precincts in a +five-thousand-dollar automobile?" + +"It's my only extravagance." + +"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park, +when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest +working-man?" + +"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated. +"You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place +I can work in quietly--" + +"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you +left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress. + +Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell +all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked. + +"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely +sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning +to help you realize your destiny." + +"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows. + +"To be a great painter." + +The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've +saved enough--" + +"Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite +ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and +hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of a +pavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better." + +"Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly. + +If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was +busied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling +radiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it +from the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and +wonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she +had guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic +senses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--and +she said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, you +can't paint." + +"Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--" + +"Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?" + +"Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask." + +"Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly. + +"Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smile +he broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he said +professionally; "and--and--well, unusual." + +"Pooh! 'Dangerous' is the word. Remember it," warned the Bonnie Lassie. +"She's a devastating whirlwind, that child, and she comes down here +partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, if you play your part +cleverly--" + +"I'm not going to play any part." + +"Then it's all up. How is a patroness of Art going to patronize you, +unless you're a poor and struggling young artist, living from hand to +mouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won't have to play a part as far as +the pot-boiling goes," added his monitress viciously. "Only, don't let +her know that the rewards of your shame run to high-powered cars and +high-class apartments. Remember, you're poor but honest. Perhaps she'll +give you money." + +"Perhaps she won't," retorted the youth explosively. + +"Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I'll bring her around to see +you and you'll have to work the sittings yourself." + +As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien's attic +needed no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. He +worked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environment +where there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that Miss +Roberta Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanly +poverty. (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me along +to make up that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien dropped +into the background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board, +sketching eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of good +deeds in talk. Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers do +not pay to any but a master-draughtsman the prices which "J.T."--with +an arrow transfixing the initials--gets; and Julien was as deft and +rapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, the +visitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out her +hand for the cardboard. + +To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is an +adequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable little +gem in black-and-white with cool approbation. + +"Quite clever," she was pleased to say. "Would you care to sell it?" + +"I don't think it would be exactly--" A stern glance from the Bonnie +Lassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest of the sentence. + +"Would ten dollars be too little?" asked the visitor with bright +beneficence. + +"Too much," he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a little +crayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fifty +times that.) + +The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table. + +"Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?" he asked. + +"Does that take long?" she said doubtfully. "I'm very busy." + +"You really should try it, Bobbie," put in the crafty Bonnie Lassie. "It +might give him the start he needs." + +What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, but +she had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was +from time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland's youthful loveliness +and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly +foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only +if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to +keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there +are few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien +when he chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with a +passionate intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go; +tossing aside the most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened; +throwing himself intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise. +The fact is, he had long been starved for color and was now satiating +his soul with it. Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first. +The Bonnie Lassie, wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that could +not last. Men who are not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain a +neutral attitude toward such creatures of grace and splendor as +Bobbie Holland. + +Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be called +friendship; he was not, to Bobbie's recognition, a habitant of her +world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have +renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make +love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist +inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, +perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy +grew, he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above +the rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed +Peter Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, a +bath, and a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the more +surprising in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time for +sittings now. Between visits she took to going to the Metropolitan +Museum and conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a view +to helping her protégé form sound artistic tastes. (When the Bonnie +Lassie heard that, she all but choked.) As for Julien! + +"This is all very well," he said, one day in the sculptress's studio; +"but sooner or later she's going to catch me at it." + +"What then?" asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her work. + +"She'll go away." + +"Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won't it?" + +"Oh, yes. That'll be finished." + +This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked back +again. + +"In any case she'll have to go away some day--won't she?" + +"I suppose so," returned he in a gloomy growl. + +"I warned you at the outset, 'Dangerous,'" she pointed out. + +They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of Julien +Tenny's brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as I +saw them occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a budding +orchid, he in the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenely +unconscious of any incongruity. + +"Do you think," I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my bench one +afternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to where her +car waited, "that she is doing him as much good as she thinks she is, or +ought to?" + +"Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie +with dignity. + +"I'm quite serious," I protested. + +"And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you know +her." + +"Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evident +fact?" + +"Only," pursued my companion, ignoring the question, "she is bored and a +little spoiled." + +"So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more spoiled." + +"Julien won't spoil her." + +"He certainly doesn't appear to bore her." + +"She's having the tables turned on her without knowing it. Julien is +doing her a lot of good. Already she's far less beneficent and bountiful +and all that sort of stuff." + +"Lassie," said I, "what, if I may so express myself, is the big idea?" + +"Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar," she reproved. +"However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. And it's +_mine_, that big idea." + +"Mightn't it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect that the +experience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left when +Bobbie Holland goes?" + +"Pooh! Don't be an oracular sphinx," was all that I got for my pains. + +Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If the +painting seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not be +said of the fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourished +along, and one day a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element of +historical personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session, +displaced a hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script upon +the plastering Béranger's famous line: + + "Dans un grenier qu'on est bien á vingt ans!" + +"Did you write that there?" asked the girl. + +"Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word." + +"How did you come to know Béranger?" + +"I'm French born." + +"'In a garret how good is life at twenty,'" she translated freely. "I +wouldn't have thought"--she turned her softly brilliant regard upon +him--"that life had been so good to you." + +"It has," was the rejoinder. "But never so good as now." + +"I've often wondered--you seem to know so many things--where you got +your education?" + +"Here and there and everywhere. It's only a patchwork sort of thing." +(Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my two-hours-a-day of +brain-hammering, and the free run of my library.) + +"You're a very puzzling person," said she And when a woman says that to +a man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie Lassie, who knows +everything, is my authority for the statement.) + +To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien's "grenier" that +day. + +"Cecily," she said, in the most casual manner she could contrive, "who +_is_ Julien Tenney?" + +"Nobody." + +"You know what I mean," pleaded the girl. "_What_ is he?" + +"A brand snatched from the pot-boiling," returned the Bonnie Lassie, +quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her companion was. + +"Please don't be clever. Be nice and tell me--" + +"'Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,'" declaimed the +Bonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. "You want me to define +his social status for you and tell you whether you'd better invite him +to dinner. You'd better not. He might swallow his knife." + +"You know he wouldn't!" denied the girl in resentful tones. "I've never +known any one with more instinctive good manners. He seems to go right +naturally." + +"All due to my influence and training," bragged the Bonnie Lassie. "I +helped bring him up." + +"Then you must know something of his antecedents." + +"Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with the +manners of a _preux chevalier_. Anyway, he never swallowed any of _my_ +knives. Though he's had plenty of opportunity." + +"It's very puzzling," lamented Bobbie. + +"Why let it prey like a worm i' the bud of your mind? You're not going +to adopt him, perhaps?" + +For the moment Bobbie Holland's eyes were dreamy and her tongue +unguarded. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," said she with a +gesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble problem. + +"Umph!" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +And continued sculpting. + + +III + +As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would +be surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event +occurred as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs +from the hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when +Bobbie Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew +involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted +his costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the +similarity of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur's livery. + +"Oh!" she cried out, as if something had hurt her. + +Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and +looked at her apprehensively. + +Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, "Do you _have_ to do +that?" + +"Why--er--no," began the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment to +perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon of +golf. Her next words enlightened him. + +"I should think you might have let me help before taking a--servant's +position." + +"It's an honest occupation," he averred. + +"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort. + +"Off and on. There's good money in it." + +"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can afford +to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "It +isn't fair!" + +"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly. + +Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased +to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him +painful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big +theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable +columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at +the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of +the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a +glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's +exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of +four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw +that he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his +original intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. +He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that +functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a +twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a +black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the +patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was +performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus. + +Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable +appetite. + +Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of +shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, +stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or +drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an +expressive monosyllable. + +"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you +less harm." + +"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the +forks?" + +"Yes," said Bobbie faintly. + +"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, +it _is!_" + +"Do you think you know him?" + +"Know him! I _know_ him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpré. +He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out +that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a +hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!" + +"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was +hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, +is there?" + +"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to +get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into +partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--" + +"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him +frightfully." + +But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her +painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair +vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth +behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to +time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, +he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his +interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't. + +To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of +it who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult +and delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school. +Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both +the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither +answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme +gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding +that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was. + +The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable +unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon +Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, +Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a +composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of +Thornsen's Élite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to +observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the +corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of +sidewalks. + +"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?" + +"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes. + +"What is he doing?" + +"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-view +school of art." + +"Yes, but what does he do it for?" + +"His living." + +"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him +something?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on hands +and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a red +bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers. + +"I think he'd be tickled pink." + +She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her +companion's hand. + +"_You_ give it to him. I think he'd like it better." + +"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'd +take it from me." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimately +connected." He raised his voice. "Hello, Dad!" + +The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, +replied, "Hello, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think of +_that_?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayon +at the green-headed red-bird. + +"Some parrot!" enthused Julien. + +"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist +indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color." + +"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron who +wants to contribute to the cause." + +The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out +her quarter. + +"I--I--don't know," she began. "I was interested in your picture and I +thought--Mr. Tenney said--" + +Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. "Thank you," said +he. "There ain't much appreciation of art just at this season. But if +you'll come down to Coney about June, I'll show you some sand-modeling +that _is_ sand-modeling--'s much as five dollars a day I've taken +in there." + +Miss Holland recovered her social poise. + +"I'd like to very much," she said cheerfully. + +She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a little +jarringly. "Well," he said, "does that help you to place me?" + +"I'm not trying to place you," she answered. + +"Is that quite true?" he mocked. + +"No; it isn't. It's a downright lie," said Bobbie finding courage to +raise her eyes to his. + +"And now, I suppose, I shall be 'my good man' or something like that, to +you." + +"Do you think it likely?" + +"You called MacLachan that, you know," he reminded her. + +"Long ago. When I was--when I didn't understand Our Square." + +"And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book to +your penetrating vision." + +Her lip quivered. "I don't know why you should want to be so hateful to +me." + +For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look that +thrilled and daunted her. "To keep from being something else that I've +no right to be," he muttered. + +"How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the +picture?" she asked, striving to get on safer ground. + +"Only one or two, I suppose," he answered morosely. + +Such was Julien's condition of mind after the last sitting that he +actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the +door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening +in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in +the Bonnie Lassie's face as she studied it. + +"He's done it!" she exclaimed. "Flower and flame! Why did I ever take to +sculpture? One can't get that in the metal." + +"He's done it," I echoed. + +"Of course, technically, it's rather a sloppy picture." + +"It's a glorious picture!" I cried. + +"Naturally that," returned the exasperating critic. "It always will +be--when you paint with your heart's blood." + +"Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she's +presented?" + +"If she doesn't--which she probably does," said the Bonnie Lassie, "she +will find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I'm +going home to 'phone her." + +In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw +her from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly +lovely. At the door of the Bonnie Lassie's house she was met with the +challenge direct. + +"What have you been doing to my artistic ward?" + +"Nothing," replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove it +related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne +Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist. + +"That isn't Julien's father," said the sculptress. "He's only an +adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he ought to. The real father, +so I've heard, was a French gentleman--" + +"I don't care who his father was!" cried Bobbie. (The Bonnie Lassie's +face took on the expression of an exclamation point.) "I can't bear to +think of his having to do servant's work. And I told him so yesterday." + +"Did you look like that while you were telling him?" + +"Like what? I suppose so." + +"And what did he do?" + +"Do? He didn't do anything." + +"Then," pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, "he's a stick of +wood--hardwood--with a knot-hole for a heart." + +"He isn't! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last." + +"About what?" + +"About taking money." + +"I'm a prophetess! And you're a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. You +_did_ try to give him money." + +"Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. He +wouldn't even let me do that; so I--I--I offered to buy the picture of +me, and he said--he said--Cecily, do you think he's sometimes a little +queer in his head?" + +"Not in the head, necessarily. _What_ did he say?" + +"He said he'd bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And he +said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him that +I hoped I'd see him when I came back--" + +"Back from where? Are you going away?" + +"Yes; didn't I tell you? On a three months' cruise." + +"Had you told him that?" + +"Of course. That's when I tried to get him to take the money. Cecily--" +The girl's voice shook a little. "You'll tell him, won't you, that he +_must_ keep on painting?" + +"Why? Doesn't he intend to?" + +"He said he'd painted himself out and he didn't think he'd ever _look_ +at color again." + +"He will," said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. "Grief is just +as driving a taskmaster as lo--as other emotions." + +"Grief!" The girl's color ebbed. "Cecily! You don't think I've hurt +him?" + +The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug. + +"Bobbie, do you know what I'd do in your place?" + +"No. What?" + +"I'd go right--straight--back to Julien Tenney's studio." She paused +impressively. + +"Yes?" said the other faintly. + +"And I'd walk right--straight--up to Julien Tenney--" Another pause, +even more impressive. + +"I d-d-don't think I'd--he'd--" + +"And I'd say to him: 'Julien, will you marry me?' Like that." + +"Oh!" said Bobbie in outraged amazement. + +"And maybe--" continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: "maybe I'd kiss +him. Yes. I think I would." + +Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie's large eyes dissolved in +tears. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she sobbed. + +"You won't be ashamed of _yourself_," prophesied the other, "if you do +just as I say, quickly and naturally." + +"Oh, naturally," retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. "I suppose +you think that's natural. Anyway, he probably doesn't care about me at +all that way." + +"Roberta," said the sculptress sternly, "did you _see_ his portrait of +you?" + +"Y-y-yes." + +"And you have the presumption to say that he doesn't care? Why, that +picture doesn't simply tell his secret. It _yells_ it!" + +"I don't care," said the hard-pressed Bobbie. "It hasn't yelled it to +me. _Nobody's_ yelled it to me. And I c-c-can't ask a m-m-man to--to--" + +"Perhaps you can't," allowed her adviser magnanimously. "On second +thought, it won't be necessary. You just go back--after powdering your +nose a little--and say that you've come to see the picture once more, or +that it's a fine day, or that competition is the life of trade, or +that--oh, anything! And, if he doesn't do the rest, I'll kill and +eat him." + +"But, Cecily--" + +"You _would_ be a patroness of Art. Now I've given you something real to +patronize. Don't you dare fail me." Suddenly the speaker gave herself +over to an access of mirth. "Heaven help that young man when he comes +to own up." + +"Own up to what?" + +"Never mind." + +Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her +query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was +curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her +to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to +the attic. + +A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the +studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted. + +"And you're actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year slip +through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?" + +To which Julien's equable accents replied: + +"That's it, Merrill. I'm going to paint." + +The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door +upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an +energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed +expression. At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness +to her aid. + +"Would you think me inexcusably rude," she said softly, "if I asked who +you are?" + +The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of +whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: "I'm George +Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company." + +"And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?" + +"He has. For several years." + +"So that," said the girl, half to herself, "is his pot-boiling." + +"Not a very complimentary term," commented Mr. Merrill, "for the best +black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. Between my concern +and two others he makes a railroad president's income out of it." + +"Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much." + +"In return, may I ask you something?" + +"Certainly." + +"Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing away +his career?" + +"Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?" + +Mr. Merrill's face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle +appeared at the corner of his glasses. "I've seen the portrait," he +replied, and with a bow, went on his way. + +Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with +bright, inscrutable eyes. + +"Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?" she demanded. + +"D---n Merrill!" said Julien with fervor. + +"It's true that your 'pot-boiling' brings you a big income?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?" + +"I don't. That car belongs to me." + +"And your being a waiter? I don't suppose the Taverne Splendide belongs +to you?" + +"An impromptu bit of acting," confessed the abashed Julien. + +"And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?" + +"No. This is mine, really." + +"I don't understand. Why have you done it all?" + +"If you want to know the truth," he said defiantly, "so that I could +keep on seeing you." + +"That's a very poor excuse," she retorted. + +"The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible +interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young +painter--that was the Bonnie Lassie's fault, for I never lied to you +about it--and after we'd started on that track I didn't--well, I didn't +have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade." + +"How you must have laughed at me all the time!" + +He flushed to his angry eyes. "Do you think that is fair?" he retorted. +"Or kind? Or true?" + +"I--I don't know," she faltered. "You let me offer you money. And you've +probably got as much as I have." + +"I won't have from now on, then. I'm going to paint. I thought, when you +told me you were going away, that I couldn't look at a canvas again. But +now I know I was wrong. I've got to paint. You'll have left me that, +at least." + +"Mr. Merrill thinks you're ruining your career. And if you do, it'll be +my fault. I'll never, never, never," said the patroness of Art +desolately, "try to do any one good again!" + +She turned toward the door. + +"At least," said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of +control, "you'll know that it wasn't all masquerade. You'll know why +I'll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another." + +She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the +passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking. + +"Suppose," she said, "I asked you to give it up." + +"You wouldn't," he retorted quickly. + +"No, I wouldn't. But--but--" Her glance, wandering away from him, fell +on the joyous line of Béranger bold above the door. + +"'How good is life in an attic at twenty,'" she murmured. Then, turning +to him, she held out her hands. + +"I could find it good," she said with a soft little falter in her voice, +"even at twenty-two." + +Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, +going by with transfigured faces, stopped. + +"Let's tell Dominie," said Julien. + +I waved a jaunty hand. "I know already," said I, "even if it hadn't been +announced to a waiting world." + +"Wh-wh-why," stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man's waiting a +lifetime to see, "it--it only just happened." + +"Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It's been happening for +weeks. Come with me." + +I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen's Élite Restaurant. There +stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative +symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its +powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of +orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. +"J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, +"Cupid's Token." + +"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic +feet. "How long has this been there?" + +"What're you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It's been +there since noon." + +"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it's very pretty and tasteful even +though it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely and +puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?" + +"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency. +"_I'm_ an artist." + + + +THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES + +Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 +and wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them. +"Kleam, kleam, kleam, kleam," it would pipe pleasantly. + +"BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!" solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its own levity. + +"Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_!" +That was a duet in the middle register. + +Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin +silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny: + +"Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!" + +We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our +remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of +his art. + +Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the +Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the +ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, "For Rental to Suitable +Tenant," invited inspection. "Suitable" is the catch in that +innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no estate +at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant proclivities +named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of prejudice +rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an applicant as +unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for breakfast, or +a glass eye. + +How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr. +Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name +rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He +encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in +painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether +twenty-five dollars a month would be considered. + +"Maybe," returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger introduced himself, +with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale. + +Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing +aristocratic implications. + +"The name," he pronounced, "is satisfactory. The sum is satisfactory. It +is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up in character +and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate." This he had adapted +from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which had come to him +through the mail, very genteelly worded. "Family man?" he added briskly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"How many of you?" + +"Two." + +"Wife?" + +"No, sir," said the little man, very low. + +"Son? Daughter? What age?" + +"I have never been blessed with a child." + +"Then who--" + +"Willy Woolly would share the house with me, sir." + +For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, +with an important expression, seated behind the railing. + +"I don't like dogs," said the Mordaunt Estate curtly. + +"Willy Woolly"--Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his companion--"this +gentleman does not like dogs." + +The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling +deepened when Willy Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising +eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his +hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, +droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip +to finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the +Maiden's Prayer. + +The Estate promptly capitulated. + +"Some pup!" he exclaimed. "When did you want to move in?" + +"At once, if you please." + +Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front +door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and +penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in +the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of +the half-dozen succeeding trips was homogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, +little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn +clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of +white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, +clocks that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, +the owner established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted +them, and wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their +meticulous busy-ness, that place which had for so long been muffled in +quiet and deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting +mechanism and the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the +House of Silvery Voices. + + * * * * * + +Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr. +Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie +Lassie gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up +his charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and +irresponsible, though through no fault of their own. When they were +wound they went. When they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more +than half of them simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion +as to the hour were radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic +eight-day, opposite the front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, +only to be at once contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor +mantel, which announced that it was six, thereby starting up the +cathedral case on the stairway and the Grandfather in the dining-room, +who held out respectively for eight and two, while all the time it was +really half-past one. Thence arose in the early days painful +misunderstandings on the part of Our Square, for we are a simple people +and deem it the duty of a timepiece to keep time. In particular we were +befooled by Grandfather, the solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a +long-range stroke and a most convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the +note-shaver, on his way to a profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard +the hour strike (thirty-five minutes in advance of the best professional +opinion) from the House of Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the +recklessness of hiring a passing taxi, thereby reaching his destination +with half an hour to spare and half a dollar to lack, for which latter +he threatened to sue the Mordaunt Estate's tenant. To the credit side of +the house's account it must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, +having started one of his disastrous drunks within the precincts of his +Home of Fashion, was on his way to finish it in the gutter via the +zigzag route from corner saloon to corner saloon, when the Twelve +Apostles clock in the basement window lifted up its voice and +(presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice denied the hour, +which was actually a quarter before midnight. "Losh!" said MacLachan, +who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch whiskey, +"they'll a' be closed. Hame an' to bed wi' ye, waster of the priceless +hours!" And back he staggered to sleep it off. + +Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out +to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing +Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had +spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was +really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, +only to find it all over and the patient dead. + +"It's an outrage," declared the Little Red Doctor fiercely, "that an old +lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where in a pushcart and play +merry hell with a hard-working practitioner's professional duties. And +you're the one to tell him so, Dominie. You're the diplomat of +the Square." + +He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this +preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of +Silvery Voices. + +"It isn't the way it plays tricks on time alone," said she. "There's one +clock in there that's worse than conscience." + +And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was +wont to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary +clack-and-whirr, alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping +early because the clay was obdurate and wouldn't come right, and had +gone for a walk to clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these +unjustifiable terms: + +"Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr _wrong! +wrong! wrong! wrong!"_ + +"Wherefore," said the Bonnie Lassie, "your appellant prays that you be a +dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to Number 37 and ask +him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he's got to stop it." + +Now, the Bonnie Lassie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the +low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and +kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a +self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time +himself opened the door to me. + +"What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?" he inquired with timid +courtesy. + +"They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do." + +"I have heard of you." He motioned me to a seat in the bare little room, +alive with tickings and clickings. "You have lived long here, sir?" + +"Long." + +From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle +and solemn mockery: "_Long. Long. Long_." + +My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I +afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom. + +"I, too, am an old man," he murmured. + +"A hardy sixty, I should guess." + +"A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,' as to the folk in this +Square?" He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. "Are they, as one +might say, friendly? Neighborly?" + +I was a little taken aback. "We are not an intrusive people." + +"No one," he said, "has been to see my clocks." + +I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my +errand. "You live here quite alone?" I asked. + +"Oh, no!" said he quickly. "You see, I have Willy Woolly. Pardon me. I +have not yet presented him." + +At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended +hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee. + +"He greets you as a friend," said my new acquaintance in a tone which +indicated that I had been signally honored. "I trust that we shall see +you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my +collection now?" + +Here was my opening. "The fact is--" I began, and stopped from sheer +cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle pride in +his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular being +before me--I couldn't do it. "The fact is," I repeated, "I--I have a +friend outside waiting for me. The Little Red Doctor--er--Dr. Smith, +you know." + +"A physician?" he said eagerly. "Would he come in, do you think? Willy +Woolly has been quite feverish to-day." + +"I'll ask him," I replied, and escaped with that excuse. + +When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to +me was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet! + +Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my +turn to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices. +Happily for me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before +my substitute reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me. +Balked in this cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional +expression and observed that it was an obscure case. + +"For a man of sixty," I began, "Mr. Merivale--" + +"_Who_?" interrupted the Little Red Doctor; "I'm speaking of the dog." + +"Have you, then," I inquired in insinuating accents, "become a +dash-binged vet?" + +"A man can't be a brute, can he!" he retorted angrily. "When that +animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out like a child--" + +"I know," I said. "You took on a new patient. Probably gratis," I added, +with malice, for this was one of the Little Red Doctor's notoriously +weak points. + +"Just the same, he's a fool dog." + +"On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice social +discrimination," I asserted, recalling Willy Woolly's flattering +acceptance of myself. + +"A faker," asseverated my friend. "He pretends to see things." + +I sat up straight on my bench. "Things? What kind of things?" + +"Things that aren't there," returned the Little Red Doctor, and fell to +musing. "They couldn't be," he added presently and argumentatively. + +Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked +whether he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies +of his clocks. He shook his head. + +"I didn't have time," said he doggedly. + +"Time? Why, there's nothing but time in that house." + +The Little Red Doctor chose to take my feeble joke at par. "No time at +all. None of the clocks keep it." + +"How does he manage his life, then?" + +"Willy Woolly does that for him. Barks him up in the morning. Jogs his +elbow at mealtimes. Tucks him in bed at night, for all I know." + +Thus abortively ended Our Square's protest against Stepfather Time and +his House of Silvery Voices. The Little Red Doctor's obscure suggestion +stuck in my mind, and a few nights later I made a second call. Curiosity +rather than neighborliness was the inciting cause. Therefore I ought to +have been embarrassed at the quiet warmth of my reception by both of the +tenants. Interrupting himself in the work of adjusting a new +acquisition's mechanism, Stepfather Time settled me into the most +comfortable chair and immediately began to talk of clocks. + +Good talk, it was; quaint and flavorous and erudite. But my attention +kept wandering to Willy Woolly, who, after politely kissing my hand, had +settled down behind his master's chair. Willy Woolly was seeing things. +No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and thither, +following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than darkness, more +ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, measured thumping +sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it took me an +appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle's tail, +beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. And +still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. It was rather more +than old nerves could stand. + +"The dog," I broke in upon the stream of erudition. "Surely, Mr. +Merivale--" + +"Willy Woolly?" He looked down, and the faithful one withdrew himself +from his vision long enough to lick the master hand. "Does he +disturb you?" + +"Oh, no," I answered, a little confused. "I only thought--it seemed that +he is uneasy about something." + +"There are finer sensibilities than we poor humans have," said my host +gravely. + +"Then you have noticed how he watches and follows?" + +"He is always like that. Always, since." + +His "since" was one of the strangest syllables that ever came to my +ears. It implied nothing to follow. It was finality's self. + +"It is"--I sought a word--"interesting and curious," I concluded lamely, +feeling how insufficient the word was. + +"She comes back to him," said my host simply. + +No need to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive +as his "since." Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave to its +utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when he added: + +"She never comes back to me." + +That evening he spoke no more of her. Yet I felt that I had been +admitted to an intimacy. And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of +dropping in to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of +his philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline +of the tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of +quiet. She whom he had cherished since they were boy and girl together, +had died in the previous winter. She had formed the whole circle of his +existence within which he moved, attended by Willy Woolly, happily +gathering his troves. Her death had left him not so much alone as alien +in the world. He was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, +without interest except that of his timepieces, and without hope except +that of rejoining her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to +say in a tone of indescribable conviction: + +"I suppose I was the happiest man in the world." + +Any chance incident or remark might turn his thought and speech, +unconscious of the transition, from his favorite technicalities back to +the past. Some comment of mine upon a specimen of that dismal songster, +the cuckoo clock, which stood on his mantel, had started him into one of +his learned expositions. + +"The first cuckoo clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir"--he was always +scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how +abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent +courtesy--"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. +It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' and +a single--" + +His voice trailed into silence as the mechanical bird of his own +collection popped forth and piped its wooden lay. Willy Woolly pattered +over, sat down before it, and, gazing through and beyond the meaningless +face with eyes of adoration whose purport there was no mistaking, +whined lovingly. + +"When the cuckoo sounded," continued the collector without the slightest +change of intonation, "she used to imitate it to puzzle Willy Woolly. A +merry heart! ... All was so still after it stopped beating. The clocks +forgot to strike." + +The poodle, turning his absorbed regard from the Presence that moves +beyond time and its perishing voices, trotted to his master and nuzzled +the frail hand. + +The hand fondled him. "Yes, little dog," murmured the man. His eyes, sad +as those of the animal, quested the dimness. + +"Why does she come to him and not to me? He loved her dearly, didn't +you, little dog? But not as I did." There was a quivering note of +jealousy in his voice. "Why is my vision blinded to what he sees?" + +"You have said yourself that there are finer sensibilities than ours," I +suggested. + +He shook his head. "It lies deeper than that. I think he is drawing near +her. He used to have a little bark that he kept for her alone. In the +dead of night I have heard him give that bark--since. And I knew that +she was speaking to him. I think that he will go first. Perhaps he will +tell her that I am coming.... But I should be very lonely." + +"Willy's a stout young thing," I asserted, "with years of life before +him." + +"Perhaps," he returned doubtfully. A gleam of rare fun lit up his pale, +vague eyes. "Can't you see him dodging past Saint Peter through the +pearly gates" ("I was brought up a Methodist," he added in apologetic +explanation), "trotting along the alabaster streets sniffing about for +her among all the Shining Ones, listening for her voice amid the sound +of the harps, and when he finds her, hallelujahing with that little bark +that was for her alone: 'Here I am, mistress! Here I am! And _he's_ +coming soon, mistress. Your Old Boy is coming soon.'" + +When I retailed that conversation to the Little Red Doctor, he snorted +and said that Stepfather Time was one degree crazier than Willy Woolly +and that I wasn't much better than a higher moron myself. Well, if I've +got to be called a fool by my best friends, I'd rather be called it in +Greek than in English. It's more euphonious. + + * * * * * + +The pair in Number 37 soon settled down to a routine life. Every morning +Stepfather Time got out his big pushcart and set forth in search of +treasure, accompanied by Willy Woolly. Sometimes the dog trotted beneath +the cart; sometimes he rode in it. He was always on the job. Never did +he indulge in those divagations so dear to the normal canine heart. +Other dogs and their ways interested him not. Cats simply did not exist +in his circumscribed life. Even to the shining mark of a boy on a +bicycle he was indifferent, and when a dog has reached that stage one +may safely say of him that he has renounced the world and all its +vanities. Willy Woolly's one concern in life was his master and their +joint business. + +Soon they became accepted familiars of Our Square. Despite the general +conviction that they were slightly touched, we even became proud of +them. They lent distinction to the locality by getting written up in a +Sunday supplement, Willy Woolly being specially photographed therefor, a +gleam of transient glory, which, however it may have gratified our local +pride, left both of the subjects quite indifferent. Stepfather Time +might have paid more heed to it had he not, at the time, been wholly +preoccupied in a difficult quest. + +In a basement window, far over on Avenue D, stood an old and battered +timepiece of which Stepfather Time had heard the voice but never seen +the face. Each of three attempts to investigate with a view to +negotiations had been frustrated by a crabbed and violent-looking man +with a repellent club. Nevertheless, the voice alone had ensnared the +connoisseur; it was, by the test of the pipe which he carried on all his +quests, D in alt, and would thus complete the major chord of a chime +which he had long been building up. (She had loved, best of all, +harmonic combinations of the clock bells.) Every day he would halt in +front of the place and wait to hear it strike, and its owner would peer +out from behind it and shake a wasted fist and curse him with strange, +hoarse foreign oaths, while Willy Woolly tugged at his trouser leg and +urged him to pass on from that unchancy spot. All that he could learn +about the basement dweller was that his name was Lukisch and he owed +for his rent. + +Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made +sheep's eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as +he hated everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, +and a grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his +heart. Also he had definite ideas of reprisal, which were focused by a +dispossess notice, and directed particularly upon the person and +property of his landlord. The clock he needed as the instrument of his +vengeance; therefore he would not have sold it at any price to the +sheep-eyed old lunatic of the pushcart, who now, on the eve of his +eviction, stood gazing in with wistful contemplation. Presently he +passed on and Mr. Lukisch resumed his tinkering with the clock's +insides. He was very delicate and careful about it, for these were the +final touches, preparatory to his leaving the timepiece as a memento +when he should quietly depart that evening, shortly before nine. What +might happen after nine, or, rather, on the stroke of nine, was no worry +of his, though it might be and probably would be of the landlord's, +provided that heartless extortioner survived it. + +Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair +and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction. +Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those +two physiognomies. The clock's face, benign and bland, would have +deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man's +face might have warned him. + +Something within the clock's mechanism clicked and checked and went on +again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start. Could +something have gone wrong with the combination? Suppose a premature +release.... At that panic thought something within Mr. Lukisch's bad +heart clicked and checked and did not go on again. The fear in his eyes +faded and was succeeded by an expression of surprise and inquiry. +Whether the inquiry was answered, nobody could have guessed from the +still, unwinking regard on the face of the victim of heart failure. + +By and by a crowd gathered on the sidewalk, drawn by that mysterious +instinct for sensation which attracts the casual and the idle. Two bold +spirits entered the door and stood, hesitant, just inside, awed because +the clock seemed so startlingly alive in that place. Some one sent +upstairs for the landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which +had not only mulcted him of two months' rent with nothing to show for it +but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly superfluous +corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock because +it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it that +Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered. + +"And who"--the landlord addressed high Heaven with a gesture at once +pious and pessimistic--"is to pay me fourteen dollars back rent this +dirty beggar owes?" + +"The man," said Stepfather Time gently, "is dead." + +"He is." The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with objurgations. +"Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and expense. And what +have I who run my property honest and respectable got to pay for it? +Some rags and a bum clock." + +Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, +this was not Willy Woolly's kind of man. "Now, now, Willy Woolly!" +reproved his master. "Who are we that we should judge him?" + +"But I don't _like_ him," declared Willy Woolly in unequivocal dog +language. + +"I think from his face that he has suffered much," said the gentle +collector, wise in human pain. + +"Me; I suppose I don't suffer!" pointed out the landlord vehemently. +"Fourteen dollars out. Two months' rent. A bum clock." + +He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The +voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D +in alt. + +"My dear sir," said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath +his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, "I will buy +your clock." + +A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word +"nut" floated in the air, and was followed by "Verrichter." The landlord +took thought and hope. + +"It is a very fine clock," he declared. + +"It is a bum clock," Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. + +"Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it." + +"I will pay you much money for it." + +"How much?" + +"Seven dollars. That is one month's rent that he owed." + +"Two months' rent I must have." + +"One," said Stepfather Time firmly. + +"Two," said the landlord insistently. + +"Urff! Grr--rr--rr--rrff!" said Willy Woolly in emphatic dissuasion. + +Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of +Willy Woolly's province. Only once in the course of their years together +had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to +recall that the subject of Willy's protests on that occasion had +subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in +the woodwork (artificially blown in with powder) would have led the +unsuspecting to suppose. But about the present legacy there could be no +such question. It was genuine. It was old. It was valuable. It possessed +a seraphic note pitched true to the long-desired chord. + +Extracting a ten-dollar note from his wallet, Stepfather Time waved it +beneath the landlord's wrinkled and covetous nose. The landlord +capitulated. Willy Woolly, sniffing at the clock with fur abristle, +lifted up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already +detected the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He +stubbornly refused to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, +and was accused of being sulky and childish. + + * * * * * + +The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a +high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. +There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland +and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the +passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke +of nine. Meantime Willy Woolly settled down to keep watch on it and +could not be moved from that duty. Every time it struck the half he +growled. At the hour he barked and raged. When Stepfather Time sought to +draw him away to dinner he committed the unpardonable sin of dog-dom, he +snarled at his master. Turning this strange manifestation over in his +troubled mind, the collector decided that Willy Woolly must be ill, and +therefore that evening went to seek the Little Red Doctor and +his wisdom. + +Together they came across the park space opposite the House of Silvery +Voices in time to witness the final scene. + +The new clock struck the half after eight as they reached the turn in +the path. A long, quavering howl, mingled of rage and desperation, +answered in Willy Woolly's voice. + +"You hear?" said Stepfather Time anxiously to the Little Red Doctor. +"The dog is not himself." + +They saw him rear up against the clock case. He seemed to be trying to +tear it open with his teeth. + +"Willy!" cried his master in a tone such as, I suppose, the well-loved +companion had not heard twice before in his life. "Down, Willy!" + +The dog drooped back. But it was not in obedience. For once he +disregarded the master's command. Perhaps he did not even hear it in the +absorption of his dread and rage. Step by step he withdrew, then rushed +and launched himself straight at the timepiece. Slight though his bulk +was, the impetus of the charge did the work. The clock reeled, toppled, +and fell outward through the window; then-- + +From the House of Silvery Voices rose a roar that smote the heavens. A +roar and a belch of flame and a spreading, poisonous stench that struck +the two men in the park to earth. When they struggled to their feet +again, the smoke had parted and the House of Silvery Voices gaped open, +its front wall stripped bodily away. But within, the sound of the busy +industry of time went on uninterrupted. + +Weaving and wobbling on his feet, Stepfather Time staggered toward the +pot calling on the name of Willy Woolly. At the gate he stopped, put +forth his hand, and lifted from the railing a wopsy, woolly fragment, no +bigger than a sheet of note paper. It was red and warm and wet. + +"He's gone," said Stepfather Time. + +The Clock of Conscience took up the tale. "Gone. Gone. Gone," it pealed. + +As the collector would not leave the shattered house, they sent for me +to stay the night with him. A strange vigil! For now it was the man who +followed with intent, unworldly eyes that which I, with my lesser +vision, could not discern. And the Unseen moved swiftly about the +desolate room, low to the floor, and seemed finally to stop, motionless +beneath a caressing hand. I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping +of a grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready +to strike. + +Only once that night did Stepfather Time speak, and then not to me. + +"Tell her," he said in an assured murmur, "that I shan't be long." + +"Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long," confirmed +Grandfather from his stance on the stairway. + +In that assurance Stepfather Time fell asleep. He did not go out again +with his pushcart, but sat in the rear room while the Mordaunt Estate in +person superintended the job of putting a new front on the house. + +The night after it was finished I received an urgent telephone call to +come there at once. At the entrance I met the Little Red Doctor +coming out. + +"The clocks have stopped," said he gently. + +So I turned to cross the park with him. + +"I shall certify," said he, "heart disease." + +"You may certify what you please," said I. "But what do you believe?" + +The Little Red Doctor, who prides himself on being a hard-bitted +materialist, glared at me as injuriously as if my innocent question had +been an insult. + +"I don't believe it!" he averred violently. "Do you take me for a +sentimental idiot that I should pin silly labels on my old friend, +Death?" His expression underwent a curious change. "But I never saw such +joy on any living face," he muttered under his breath. + + * * * * * + +The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and +makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time's +clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower +facing Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The +Bonnie Lassie designed the tower, and because there is love and +understanding in all that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand +to, it is as beautiful as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the +Tower of the Two Faithful Hearts. + +The silvery voice within it is the product of a paragon among +timepieces, a most superior instrument, of unimpeachable construction +and great cost. But it has one invincible peculiarity, the despair of +the best consulting experts who have been called in to remedy it and, +one and all, have failed for reasons which they cannot fathom. How +should they! + +It never keeps time. + + + +HOME-SEEKERS' GOAL + +Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general head +of statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square, +looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grown +up in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you for +information, and they will frequently give more than they get of it. +Such, I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves a +satisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorful +splendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with a +taste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that float +and bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I can +follow a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorous +bloom. And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in a +receptive mood for such flies of information as might come to me +concerning two large invading vans which had rumbled into our quiet +precincts and, after a pause for inquiry, stopped before the Mordaunt +Estate's newly repaired property at Number 37. + +The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The design +which he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of art +than upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors. + +The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviously +unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, +reverting to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in +approaching the Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was +sure that the newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. + +Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I mused +upon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found useful +in such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon. +With an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I dragged +myself back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes upon +them. It is possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal, +for they fell at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, a +butterfly of the most vivid and delightful appearance. + +"Is the house with the 'To Let' sign on it really to let, do you know, +sir?" she inquired, adding music to color with her voice. + +"So I understand," said I, rising. + +"And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front," put +in the butterfly's companion. "Is he a lunatic or a designer of +barber poles?" + +"He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing a +limited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate." + +"He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could get +out of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name." + +"Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he should be +addressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. Wagboom +is an irritant to a haughty property-owner's soul." + +"Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?" asked the young man of +his companion. + +"With a view to renting?" I inquired. + +"Yes." + +"Do you keep dogs?" + +"No," said the young man. + +"Or clocks by the hundred?" + +"Certainly not," answered the butterfly. + +"Or bombs?" + +Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other with +a wild surmise which said plainly: "Are they _all_ crazy down here?" + +"If you do," I explained kindly, "you might have trouble in dealing. The +latest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed one of two +hundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew away the +front wall." And I outlined the history of that canine clairvoyant, +Willy Woolly. "The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about his tenants, +anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps it would be +well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of house +painting." + +Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the +charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and +delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry. + +"That," said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on his knees +with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to them, "is +after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he's a bear for +color. Are you artists?" + +"We're house-hunters," explained the young man. + +"As for tenants," said the Mordaunt Estate, "I take 'em or leave 'em as +I like 'em or don't. I like you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of +colorin'. Eight rooms, bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don't +suit each other. Very choice and classy for a young married couple. +Eight dollars, in advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz." + +"We're not married," said the young man. + +"Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?" demanded that highly respectable +institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression mollified as +he turned to the butterfly. "Aimin' to be, I s'pose." + +"We only met this morning; so we haven't decided yet," answered the +young man. "At least," he added blandly, as his companion seemed to be +struggling for utterance, "she hasn't informed me of her decision, if +she has made it." + +Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the +Mordaunt Estate. "Nothin' doin'," he began, "until--" + +"Don't decide hastily," adjured the young man. "Take this coin." He +forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the decorator. + +"Nothin' doin' on account, either. Pay as you enter." + +"Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your +call," he said to the butterfly. + +"Heads," cried the butterfly. + +"Tails," proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into silence on +the flagging. + +"Then the house is yours," said the butterfly. "Good luck go with it." +She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment. + +"I don't want it," returned the young man. + +"Play fair," she exhorted him. "We both agreed solemnly to stand by the +toss. Didn't we?" + +"What did we agree?" + +"That the winner should have the choice." + +"Very well. I won, didn't I?" + +"You certainly did." + +"And I choose not to take the house," he declared triumphantly. "It's a +very nice house, but"--he shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the +proud-pied façade, blinking significantly--"I'd have to wear smoked +glasses if I lived in it, and they don't suit my style of beauty." + +"You'd not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on your knees +with a thousand dollars in each hand," asserted the offended Estate. + +"See!" said the young man to the butterfly. "Fate decides for you." + +"But what will you do?" she asked solicitously. + +"Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square." + +She held out her hand. "You've been very nice and helpful, but--I think +not. Good-bye." + +He regarded the hand blankly. "Not--what?" + +"Not here in this Square, if you don't mind." + +"But where else is there?" he asked piteously. "You know yourself there +are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating around on this +teeming island in vans, with no place to land." + +"Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn," was her hopeful suggestion. + + + "'And bade betwixt their shores to be + The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea,'" + + +he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: "Matthew Arnold. +Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places are," +he pleaded. "From you!" he concluded. + +A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. "I've accepted you as +a gentleman on trust," she began, when he broke in: + +"Don't do it. It's a fearfully depressing thing to be reminded that +you're a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how it +cramps one's style, not to mention limiting one's choice of real estate. +A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on the +toss of a coin, but he mustn't presume to want to see the other party to +the gamble again, even if she's the only thing in the whole sweep of his +horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask you, +when such things--" + +"Oh, do stop!" she implored. "I don't think you're sane." + +"No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses to +complete loss of mental equilibrium since--let me see--since 11.15 A.M." + +Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on his +own behalf, interposed. + +"I'd rather rent to two than one," he said insinuatingly. "More reliable +and steady with the rent. Settin' aside the young feller's weak eyes, +you're a nice-matched pair. Gittin' a license is easy, if you know the +ropes. I'd even be glad to go with you to--" + +"As to not being married," broke in the butterfly, with the light of a +great resolve in her eye, "this gentleman may speak for himself. I am." + +"Am what?" queried the Estate. + +"Married." + +"Damn!" exploded the young man. "I mean, congratulations and all that +sort of thing. I--I'm really awfully sorry. You'll forgive my making +such an ass of myself, won't you?" + +To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turned +rather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed on +them, she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a +sudden alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping +regard had fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding +ring may be put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has +been once worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness +of the third finger. The butterfly's gloves were not new, yet there +showed not the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. +While admitting to himself that the evidence fell short of +conclusiveness, the young man decided to accept it as a working theory +and to act, win or lose, do or die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that his +delightful but elusive companion was a li--that is to say, an inventor. +He would give that invention the run of its young life! + +"We--ell," the Mordaunt Estate was saying, "that's too bad. Ain't a +widdah lady are you?" + +"My husband is in France." + +With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in where +many an angel might have feared to tread. "Maybe he'll stay there," +he surmised. + +"What!" + +In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of +"The Girl I Left Behind Me." + + "'The maids of France are fond and free.' + +"Besides," he added, "it's quite unhealthy there at this season. I +wouldn't be surprised"--he halted--"at anything," he finished darkly. + +Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally +hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she +could find them-- + +"I'll wait around--in hopes," he decided calmly. + +So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and +ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She +had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, +an interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now--how dared +he! She put it to him at once: "How dare you!" + +"Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of +loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse," prescribed +the unimpressed subject of her retort. "As a wife, you are, of course, +unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or only +prospective"--he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar through the +public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the suffering--"there +is H-O-P-E!" he intoned solemnly, wagging a benignant forefinger at her. + +The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into +unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with +foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means +unattractive young suitor--for he could be relegated to no lesser +category--might do next. She said coolly and crisply: + +"I wish nothing more to do with you whatever." + +"Then I needn't quit the Garden of Ed--I mean, Our Square?" + +"You may do as you see fit," she replied loftily. + +"Act the gent, can't chuh?" reproved the Mordaunt Estate. "You're makin' +the lady cry." + +"He isn't," denied the lady, with ferocity. "He couldn't." + +"He'll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma'am," the polite +Estate assured her. + +"If he wants to stay, he'll have to live in his van." + +"Grand little idea! I'll do it. I'll be a van hermit and fast and watch +and pray beneath your windows." + +"You may live in your van forever," retorted the justly incensed +butterfly, "but I'll never speak to you as long as I live in this house. +Never, never, _never_!" + +She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The Mordaunt +Estate took down the "To Let" sign, and went in search of a helper to +unload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled into his +own van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on the +collected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. But +his immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shot +through as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitive +smile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell to +dreams. As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to Our +Square, it had come about in this wise: + +Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink of +a maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name by +remaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right of +way, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective drivers +inflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recesses +of the larger van said: "Don't give an inch." + +Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what +sounded like "Give an ell," but probably was not, as there was no +corresponding movement of the wheels. + +What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they did +upon descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action, +and as such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunder +and led them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the deserted +equipages emerged from amid their lares and penates, and met face to +face. The effect upon the occupant of the smaller van was electric, not +to say paralytic. + +"Oh, glory!" he murmured faintly, with staring eyes. + +"Would you kindly move?" said the girl, in much the same tone that one +would employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one ever +addressed a beetle with freezing dignity. + +The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. "I've done nothing +else for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and I'll bless +you as a benefactress of the homeless." + +"Anywhere out of my way," she replied with a severity which the corners +of her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to. + +"Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged," he declared humbly. "But +first let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to give +'em--that is, to hold his ground, I didn't know who you were." + +She wrinkled dainty brows at him. "Well, you don't know who I am now, do +you?" + +"I don't have to," he responded with fervor. "Just on sight you may have +all of this street and as many of the adjoining avenues as you can use. +By the way, who _are_ you?" The question was put with an expression of +sweet and innocent simplicity. + +The girl looked at him hard and straight. "I don't think that +introductions are necessary." + +He sighed outrageously. "They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; +twenty-fourth large edition," he murmured. "And I was just about to +present myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very much at +your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my move. +May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intend +driving yourself." + +"I'll have to, if I'm to get anywhere." A look of dismay overspread her +piquant face. "Oh, dear! I don't in the least understand this machinery. +I can't drive this kind of car." + +"Glory be!" exclaimed Mr. Dyke. "I mean, that's too bad," he amended +gracefully. "Won't you let me take you where you want to go?" + +"What'll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven't any idea where I +want to go." + +"What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the face of +an overpopulated earth, Miss?" + +The "Miss" surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of this +extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of +the servant class? + +"Yes, I am," she admitted. + +"A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood," he announced +sonorously, "are wandering about, lost and homeless on this melancholy +and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to come and +bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain't it harrowing, Miss! +Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge sung over me by a +quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did you breakfast, +Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen." + +The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. "You ask the +most personal questions as if they were a matter of course." + +"By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining +individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived +from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks +of steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for +reading, Miss? I've got a neat little library inside, besides an +automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that +policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? _I_ +think he is." + +"But I can't move on," she said pathetically. + +"Couldn't you work my van, Miss? It's quite simple." + +She gave it a swift examination. "Yes," said she. "It's almost like my +own car." + +"Then I'll lead, and you follow, Miss." + +"But I can't--I don't know who--I don't _want_ your van. Where shall +we--" + +"Go?" he supplied. "To jail, I judge, unless we go somewhere else and do +it _now_. Come on! We're off!" + +Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the +approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved +but triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from +the path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore +downtownward. Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the +girl in the trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of +a side street, her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke's +engaging and confident face appeared below her. + +"Within," he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispense +the succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincing +near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat and +drink. May I help you down, Miss?" + +"No," said the girl dolefully. "I want to go home." + +"But on your own showing, you haven't any home." + +"I've got to find one. Immediately." + +"You'll need help, Miss. It'll take some finding." + +"I wish you wouldn't call me Miss," she said with evidences of +petulance. + +"Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson +says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while +we discuss the housing problem--" + +"Why are you calling me Lady, now?" + +He shook a discouraged head. "You seem very hard to please, Sister. I've +tried you with Miss and I've tried you with Lady--" + +"Are you a gentleman or are you a--a--" + +"Don't say it, Duchess. Don't! Remember what Tennyson says: 'One hasty +line may blast a budding hope.' Or was it Burleson? When you deny to the +companion of your wanderings the privilege of knowing your name, what +can he do but fall back for guidance upon that infallible chapter in the +Gents' Handbook of Classy Behavior, entitled, 'From Introduction's +Uncertainties to Friendship's Fascinations'?" + +"We haven't even been introduced," she pointed out. + +"Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, Old +Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to," he added piously. "Now, +Miss--or Lady--or Sister, as the case may be; or even Sis (I believe +that form is given in the Gents' Handbook), if you will put your lily +hand in mine--" + +"Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during +luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends." + +"A test! I'm on. We're off." + +Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast +from an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled +their real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there +was no available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town. +She had explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and +without success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward +for anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a +discovery they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the +approved method of the tossed coin: "The winner has the choice." + +Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort's manner and +bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied +intimacy of the tête-à-tête across a table than a subtle change +manifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his +talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the +end, when he had paid the bill and she asked: + +"What's my share, please?" + +"Two-ten," he replied promptly and without protest. + +"My name," said she, "is Anne Leffingwell." + +"Thank you," he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eye +as he added: "Of course, that was rudimentary about the check." + +Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk +again. In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, +he suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering +contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of +tea-store art. + +"Suffering Raphael!" he exclaimed at length. "What's the lady in the +pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch in the +nightie? What's it all about, anyway?" + +"The title," replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of +insignificant lettering, "is 'Swedish Wedding Feast.'" + +"Wedding feast," he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the picture to +his companion. "Well," he raised an imaginary glass high, "prosit omen!" + +The meaning was not to be mistaken. "Well, really," she began +indignantly. "If you are going to take advantage--" + +"You're not supposed to understand Latin," interposed Mr. Dyke hastily. +He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For some subtle reason +her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would have done to his +over-enterprising adroitness. + +"We must be going on," she said. + +He gave her a grateful glance. "I was afraid I'd spilled the apple cart +and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time," he murmured. Having +helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded for a moment, +turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: + +"Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?" + +"No. Cousin." + +"I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve somewhere," +he declared with profound and joyous conviction. + +"Are you a friend of Budge's?" + +"Friend doesn't half express it! He made the touchdown that won me a +clean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn't know him from +Henry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together." + +"Will you tell me one thing, please?" pleaded Anne Leffingwell +desperately. "Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?" + +"Not yet. But then, you see, I'm only a beginner. This is my first +attempt. I'll get better as I go on." + +"Will you please crank my car?" requested Anne Leffingwell faintly. + +Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again. + + * * * * * + +All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid's part, +vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne +Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably +touching at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke--and lingering there. She +was solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke's reason. Came +also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, +ouija, the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. +Leffingwell. He was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. +Leffingwell's existence. Now when two young persons come separately to +an old person to discuss each other's affairs, it is a bad sign. Or +perhaps a good sign. Just as you choose. + +Adopting the Mordaunt Estate's sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke had +settled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. Anne +Leffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a van +must be prodigious. ("Tell her not to worry; my family own the storage +and moving plant," was one of his many messages that I neglected to +deliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and simplicity of +her establishment--one small but neat maid--which he deemed incongruous +with her general effect of luxury and ease of life, and wondered whether +she had split with her family. (She hadn't; "I've always been brought up +like a--a--an artichoke," she confided to me. "So when father went West +for six months, I just moved, and I'm going to be a potato and see how I +like it. Besides, I've got some research work to do.") + +Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and every +afternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37. +Dyke's hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, for +he slept by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electrical +experiments which he was conducting over on the river front, and which +were to send his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapers +have already caught an echo or two.) On his way back from his +experiments, he daily stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist, +where, besides chaste and elegant set pieces inscribed "Gates Ajar" and +"Gone But Not Forgotten," one may, if expert and insistent, obtain +really fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinal +arrival of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but delivered +regularly at the door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not though +a base attempt was made to incriminate me in the transaction. + +Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly and +promising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She was +steadfastly adhering to that "Never. Never. _Never_!" What less, indeed, +could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent hopes of her +husband's early demise from a young man whom she had known but four +hours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but for a +manifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The Mordaunt +Estate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon when +Martin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss his +favorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty brows +over the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully that +this thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terry +the Cop.) + +"That lady in Number 37," said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, "ain't the +lady I thought she was." + +Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked up +hopefully. "You mean that she isn't really _Mrs._ Leffingwell?" + +"I mean I'm disappointed in her; that's what I mean. She wants the house +front painted over." + +"No!" I protested with polite incredulity. + +"Where's her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work so deeply." + +"She does, too," confirmed the Estate. "But she says it's liable to be +misunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and men ask the +hired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird with whiskers +wanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told fortunes there. +So she wants I should tone it down. I guess," pursued the Mordaunt +Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of finding the Perfect +Tenant in an imperfect world, "I'll have to notice her to quit." + +"No; don't do that!" cried the young man. "Here! I'll repaint the whole +wall for you free of charge." + +"What do _you_ know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost money." + +"I'll furnish the paint, too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazy +about art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he added +cunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone down +that design of yours without affecting its beauty and originality +at all." + +Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his +frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the +following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on +a plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the +house came home at four-thirty and caught him at it. + +"That's going to be ever so much nicer," she called graciously, not +recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing back. + +"Thank you for those few kind words." + +"You!" she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and benevolent beam +of the eye upon her. "What are you doing to my house?" + +"Art. High art." + +"How did you get up there?" + +"Ladder. High ladder." + +"You know that isn't what I mean at all." + +"Oh! Well, I've taken a contract to tone down the Midway aspect of your +highly respectable residence. One hour per day." + +"If you think that this performance is going to do you any good--" she +began with withering intonation. + +"It's done that already," he hastened to assert. "You've recognized my +existence again." + +"Only through trickery." + +"On the contrary, it's no trick at all to improve on the Mordaunt +Estate's art. Now that we've made up again, Miss or Mrs. Leffingwell, as +the case may be--" + +"We haven't made up. There's nothing to make up." + +"Amended to 'Now that we're on speaking terms once more.' Accepted? +Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you've been +sending me. You can't imagine how they brighten and sweeten my simple +and unlovely van life, with their--" + +"Mr. Dyke!" Her eyes were flashing now and her color was deeper than the +pink of the roses which she had rejected. "You must know that you had no +right to send me flowers and that in returning them--" + +"Returning? But, dear lady--or girl, as the case may be [here she +stamped a violent foot]--if you feel it your duty to return them, why +not return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though my +attentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am, +so to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There's the Dominie, +for instance. He's notoriously your admirer, and I've seen him at +Eberling's quite lately." (Mendacious young scoundrel!) + +For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner. + +"How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?" she said +uncertainly. + +"How should _I_, for that matter?" he retorted at once. "Though any +idiot could see at a glance that you're at least half sister to the +whole rose tribe." + +"Now you're beginning again," she complained. "You see, it's impossible +to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance." + +"But what do you think of me as a painter-man?" inquired the bewildering +youth. + +Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now +one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. "The question +is," said she, "wasn't it really you that sent the roses, and don't you +realize that you mustn't?" + +"The question is," he repeated, "whether, being denied the ordinary +avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping the fence +with one's votive offerings. Now I hold--" + +Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager +eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness +was gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent the +roses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Do +you mind if I finish this job?" + +Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell +expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a +thing as triumph being too complete. + +"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply. + +Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on +my bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague +truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn't +necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain +gold band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one +who strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to +offer to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at +first sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of the +consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her +eyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive +of serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous +orchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible +orchid expectant of continued patronage should do. + +There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke's color scheme on the +following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an +impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there +discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The +motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the +house front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask: + +"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?" + +The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all +but precipitated into the area. "_Who_?" he said. + +"Miss Leffingwell." + +"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in a +strained tone. + +"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell." + +The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the +immaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled. + +"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival. + +"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifying +satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect." + +"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflected +the stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?" + +"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of +doubt and despair. That," he added, splashing in a prodigal streak of +whooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the misty +mountain-tops of--" + +The opening door below him cut short the disquisition. + +"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man's +ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the +dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't you +come before?" + +To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "You +little idiot!" + +The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, +continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant +hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed +minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching +him as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist +descended from his plank to face her. + +"Are you going?" he demanded. + +A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have +been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke's +face which hurt the girl to see. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"With him?" + +"Ye--es." + +"He isn't your husband." + +"No." + +"You haven't any husband." + +She hung her head guiltily. + +"Why did you invent one?" + +Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the +roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication +with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face. + +"I see. The invention was for my special benefit." + +"Safety first," she murmured. + +"I never really believed it--except when you took me by surprise," he +pursued. "That's why I--I went ahead." + +"You certainly went ahead," she confirmed. "What are speed laws to you!" + +"You're telling me that I haven't played the game according to the +rules. I know I haven't. One has to make his own rules when Fate is in +the game against him." He seemed to be reviewing something in his mind. +"Fate," he observed sententiously, "is a cheap thimble-rigger." + +"Fate," she said, "is the ghost around the corner." + +"A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinée hero, a +movie close-up, a tailor's model--" + +"If you mean Reg, it's just as well for you he isn't here." + +"Pooh!" retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. "I could wreck his +loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush." + +"Doubtless," she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now bleeding +from every pore. "It's a fearful weapon. Spare my poor Reg." + +"I suppose," said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt of hope, +"you'd like me to believe that he's your long-lost brother." + +She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. "No," she +returned hesitantly and consciously. "He isn't--exactly my brother." + +He recalled the initials, "R.B.W.," on the car's door. Hope sank for the +third time without a bubble. "Good-bye," said Martin Dyke. + +"Surely you're not going to quit your job unfinished," she protested. + +Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job. + +"What will the Mordaunt Estate think?" + +Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate. + +"Perhaps you'd like to take the house, now that it's vacant." + +Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of +residence, went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and +red on the other. + +Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to my +window and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly's memorial +clock was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking +sight afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the +measured footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked +for a swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. +Nothing is worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into my +clothes, I made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I was +wont to pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur +desecrator of other men's houses, challenger of the wayward fates, +fanatic of a will-o'-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the +uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the +polychromatic abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all +the pathos and all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth. + +Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusable +only on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous +guide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless +phantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, +and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, deserving of +nothing kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise--which is +doubtless why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked +voices and withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious and +fraudulent litany for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on the +bench stirred. A shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon his +face, bewitched him to unguarded speech: + +"Dominie, I have been dreaming." + +Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent. + +"A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, so +softly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?" + +"Always." + +"I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world, +Dominie?" + +"There has been." + +"Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she went +away so quickly." + +"Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?" + +"So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms." + +"Did she leave nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then what is this?" I lifted from the ground at his feet a single petal +of pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his hand. + +"The fairy's kiss," he said dreamily. "That's for farewell." + +The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightened +up brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes. + +"Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?" + +"Possibly." + +"What kind of talk? Nonsense?" + +"Nonsense--or wisdom. How should I know?" + +"Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?" + +"Look in your hand." + +He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously. +"I must go now," he said vaguely. "May I come back to see you +sometimes, Dominie?" + +"Perhaps you'll bring Happiness with you," I said. + +But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from the +alley and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House of +Silvery Voices, was voiceless again. + + * * * * * + +Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square. +I missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion, +the fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should see +them both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square--it has held me +these sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himself +can break it--which draws back the hearts that have once known the +place. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back. +More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave November +sun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinably +wistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakened +appetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered and +violent frontage of Number 37. + +"Empty," said I. + +"Then he didn't take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I mean." + +"He's gone." + +"Where?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"Doesn't he ever come back?" + +"You must not assume," said I with severity, "that you are the only +devotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to that of +another whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds and +gained ten years--" + +"Dominie! Has he?" + +"Has he what?" + +"G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years." + +"I haven't said so." + +"Dominie, you are a cruel old man," accused the butterfly. + +"And you are a wicked woman." + +"I'm not. I'm only twenty," was her irrelevant but natural defense. + +"Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening or +night before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving us +desolate--were you, I say, abroad in the park? + +"Y-y-yes, your Honor." + +"In the immediate vicinity of this bench?" + +"Benches are very alike in the dark." + +"But occupants of them are not. Don't fence with the court. Were you +wearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those now +displayed in your cheeks?" + +"The honorable court has nothing to do with my face," said the witness +defiantly. + +"On the contrary, your face is the _corpus delicti._ Did you, taking +advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my +client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberately +imprint a--" + +"No! No! No! No! _No_!" cried the butterfly with great and unconvincing +fervor. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing?" + +"On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse is +coming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder." + +Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concerned +over the latter than the former accusation. "Of whom?" she inquired. + +"You have killed a budding poet." Here I violated a sacred if implied +confidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had said +under the spell of the moon. + +The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me with +indignation that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoying +her for days: _that_ was what made her eyes act so, and I was a +suspicious and malevolent old gentleman--and--and--and perhaps some day +she and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet. + +"Is that a message?" I asked. + +"No," answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her eyes. + +"Then?" I queried. + +"He's so--so awfully go-aheadish," she complained. + +"I'll drop him a hint," I offered kindly. + +"It might do some good. I'm afraid of him," she confessed. + +"And a little bit of yourself?" I suggested. + +The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have withered +incontinently anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. It +passed and thoughtfulness supplanted it. "If you really think that he +could be influenced to be more--well, more conventional--" + +"I guarantee nothing; but I'm a pedagogue by profession and have taught +some hard subjects in my time." + +"Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for word as +I give it to you?" + +"Senile decay," I admitted, "may have paralyzed most of my faculties, +but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a phonograph." + +"Tell him this, then." She ticked the message off on her fingers. "A +half is not exactly the same as a whole. Don't forget the 'exactly.'" + +"Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?" I demanded. But she had +already gone, with a parting injunction to be precise. + +When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke, +it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect. + +"I've got it!" he shouted. + +"Don't scare me off my bench! What is it you've got?" + +"The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother." + +"Who?" + +"That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away." He +delivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinion +without a quiver. "Now she says a half isn't exactly the same as a +whole. He wasn't exactly her brother, she said; he's her half brother. +'Toora-loora-loo,' as we say in Patagonia." + +"For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?" + +"Next and immediately," said Mr. Dyke, "I am obtaining an address from +the Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening off." + +"Take some advice also, my boy," said I, mindful of the butterfly's +alarms. "Go slow." + +"Slow! Haven't I lost time enough already?" + +"Perhaps. But now you've got all there is. Don't force the game. You've +frightened that poor child so that she never can feel sure what you're +going to do next." + +"Neither can I, Dominie," confessed the candid youth. "But you're quite +right. I'll clamp on the brakes. I'll be as cool and conventional as a +slice of lemon on an iced clam. 'How well you're looking to-night, Miss +Leffingwell'--that'll be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. +Trust me, Dominie, and thank you for the tip." + +The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of +the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my +astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully +though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in +his coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare. + +"What have you been doing here all night?" I asked. + +"Thinking." + +I pointed to the flower. "Where did you get that?" + +"A fairy gift." + +"Martin," said I, "did you abide by my well-meant and inspired advice?" + +"Dominie," replied the youth with a guilty flush, "I did my best. I--I +tried to. You mustn't think--Nothing is settled. It's only that--" + +"It's only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I expect you +to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the dominant +fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: 'Go slow!' and the avalanche--" + +"Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!" broke in young Mr. Dyke, shouting. "I +beg your pardon, Dominie, I've got to see the Estate for a minute." + +Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentleman +in the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, touch that front!" implored the improver of +it. + +"Why not?" demanded the Estate. + +"I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day." + +The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him. +"Nope," said he. "I've had enough of short rentals. It don't pay. I'm +going to paint her up and lease her for good." + +"I'll take your lease," insisted Martin Dyke. + +"For how long a period?" inquired the other, in terms of the Estate +again. + +The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprised +on the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed in +Martin Dyke's eyes. + +"Say a million years," he answered softly. + + + +THE GUARDIAN OF GOD'S ACRE + +As far as the eye could apprehend him, he was palpably an outlander. No +such pink of perfection ever sprung from the simple soil of Our Square. +A hard pink it was, suggestive less of the flower than of enameled +metal. He was freshly shaved, freshly pressed, freshly anointed, and, as +he paced gallantly across my vision, I perceived him to be slightly +grizzled at the temples, but nevertheless of a vigorous and grim +youthfulness that was almost daunting. Not until he returned and stood +before me with his feet planted a little apart, giving an impression of +purposeful immovability to his wiry figure, did I note that his eyes +belied the general jauntiness of his personality. They were cold, direct +eyes, with a filmy appearance, rather like those of a morose and +self-centered turtle which had lived in our fountain until the day the +Rosser twins fell in, when it crawled out and emigrated. + +"Nice day," said the stranger, shifting a patent-leathered foot out of a +puddle. + +"Very," I agreed. Finical over-accuracy about the weather is likely to +discourage a budding acquaintanceship. + +"Have one?" He extended a gemmed cigarette-case, and when, removing my +pipe, I had declined in suitable terms, lighted up, himself. He then sat +down upon the dryest portion of the bench not occupied by my person. + +"Whiplash win in the fi'th," he volunteered presently. + +"Yes?" said I with a polite but spurious show of interest. + +"Under a pull. Spread-eagled his field." + +"Who is Whiplash, may I ask?" + +"Oh, Gaw!" said the pink man, appalled. He searched my face +suspiciously. "A hoss," he stated at length, satisfied of my ignorance. + +After several reflective puffs, the smoke of which insufficiently veiled +his furtive appraisal of myself, he tried again: + +"They give O'Dowd a shade, last night." + +"Indeed? Who did?" + +"The sporting writers." + +"As a testimonial?" I inquired, adding that a shade, whether of the lamp +or sun species seemed an unusual sort of gift. + +My interlocutor groaned. He drew from the pocket of his gray-check +cutaway, purple and fine linen, the purple being an ornate and +indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan +Gluck's Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and +with a beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its +repository, the pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. + +"The Reds copped again yesterday." + +"If you are referring to the raid on Anarchist Headquarters in Avenue C, +I should have inferred that the Reds _were_ copped, to use your term." + +Curt and contemptuous laughter was his response. "Don't you ever read +the papers, down here?" + +"Certainly," I retorted with some spirit, for the implied slur upon Our +Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications +when you inter--when you arrived. It contains some very +interesting poetry." + +"Yeh?" said the hard, pink man politely. + +"For example, in this issue I find the following apostrophe." I +proceeded to read aloud: + + "Farewell, our dear one, we must part, + For thou hast gone to heavenly home, + While we below with aching heart + Must long for thee and ever moan." + +"Swell stuff," commented the sharer of my bench, with determined +interest. "Poetry's a little out of my line, but I'm _for_ it. Who +wrote that?" + +"It is signed 'Loving Father and 3 Sisters.' But the actual authorship +rests with the long gentleman in black whom you see leaning on the park +fence yonder. His name is Bartholomew Storrs and he is the elegiac or +mortuary or memorial laureate of Our Square." + +This was said with intent to mortify the soul of my new acquaintance in +revenge for his previous display of erudition. The bewilderment in his +face told me that I had scored heavily. But he quickly rallied. + +"Do I get you right?" he queried. "Does he write those hymns for other +folks to sign?" + +"He does." + +"What does he do that for?" + +"Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza." + +"Some salesman!" My hard-faced companion regarded the lank figure +overhanging the fence with new respect. "Looks to me like the original +Gloom," he observed. "What's _his_ grouch?" + +"Conscience." + +"He must have a bum one!" + +"He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow +repenting of our sins." + +"Whose sins?" asked the other, opening wider his dull and weary eyes. + +"Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square." + +My interlocutor promptly and fitly put into words the feeling which had +long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a +monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. "He's got a nerve!" +he asserted. + +Warming to him for his pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my +theme. "He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for +Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a +usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he'll never +do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, to +account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against +the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little +house near the corner"--I waved an illustrative hand--"he can quote +Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect and hate him. +He's coming this way now." + +"Good day, Dominie," said Bartholomew Storrs, as he passed, in such a +tone as a very superior angel might employ toward a particularly +damned soul. + +"That frown," I explained to my companion, after returning the +salutation, "means that I failed to attend church yesterday." + +But the hard, pink man had lost interest in Bartholomew. "Called you +'Dominie,' didn't he?" he remarked. "I thought I had you right. Heard of +you from a little red-headed ginger-box named Smith." + +"You know the Little Red Doctor?" + +"I met him," he replied evasively. "He told me to look you up. 'You talk +to the Dominie,' he says." + +"About what?" + +"I'm coming to that." He leaned forward to place a muscular and +confidential hand on my knee. "First, I'd like to do you a little +favor," he continued in his husky and intimate voice. "If you're looking +for some quick and easy money, I got a little tip that I'd like to pass +on to you." + +"Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a tottering +ruin, which may be quite true; but if it's a matter of investing in the +Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion Concession, I'm +reluctantly compelled--" + +"Forget it!" adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which secured my +silence and almost my confidence. "This is a hoss. Seven to one, and a +sure cop. I _know_ hosses. I've owned 'em." + +"Thank you, but I can't afford such luxuries as betting." + +"You can't afford _not_ to have something down on this if it's only a +shoestring. No? Oh--well!" + +Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray +derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow. Catching the scent hot and +fresh, Susan Gluck's Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or +rather, nose, voluptuously. + +"Mm-m-m! Snmmff!" inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic nostrils. +"Mister, lemme smell it some more!" + +Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief. +"Like it, kiddie?" he said. + +"Oh, it's _grand_!" She stretched out her little grimy paws. "Please, +Mister," she entreated, "would you flop it over 'em, just once?" + +The pink man tossed it to her. "Take it along and, when you get it all +snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me." + +"Oh, gracious!" said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty. "Can I have +it till _to-morrah_?" + +"Sure! What's the big idea for to-morrow?" + +"I'm goin' to a funeral. I want it to cry in," said the Orphan +importantly. + +"A funeral?" I asked. "In Our Square? Whose?" + +"My cousin Minnie. She's goin' to be buried in God's Acre, an' I'm +invited 'cause I'm a r'lation. She married a sporting gentleman named +Hines an' she died yesterday," said the precocious Orphan. + +So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt +us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. +She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, +defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait +and not worry. There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are +buried just such letters as Minnie's farewell to her parents; +rebellious, passionate, yearning, pitiful. Ah, well! The moth must break +its chrysalis. The flower must rend its bonds toward the light. Little +Minnie was "going on the stage." A garish and perilous stage it was, +whereon Innocence plays a part as sorry as it is brief. And now she was +making her exit, without applause. Memory brought back a picture of +Minnie as I had first seen her, a wee thing, blinking and smiling in the +arms of her Madonna-faced mother, on a bench in Our Square, and the +mother (who could not wait for the promised return--she has lain in +God's Acre these three years) crooning to her an unforgettable song, +mournfully prophetic: + + "Why did I bring thee, Sweet + Into a world of sin?-- + Into a world of wonder and doubt + With sorrows and snares for the little white feet-- + Into a world whence the going out + Is as dark as the coming in!" + +Old lips readily lend themselves to memory; I suppose I must have +repeated the final lines aloud, for the pink man said, wearily +but politely: + +"Very pretty. Something more in the local line?" + +"Hardly." I smiled. Between Bartholomew Storr's elegies and William +Young's "Wish-makers' Town" stretches an infinite chasm. + +"What's this--now--God's Acre the kid was talking about?" was his next +question. + +"An old local graveyard." + +"Anything interesting?" he asked carelessly. + +"If you're interested in that sort of thing. Are you an antiquary?" + +"Sure!" he replied with such offhand promptitude that I was certain the +answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a dromedary. + +"Come along, then. I'll take you there." + +To reach that little green space of peace amidst our turmoil of the +crowded, encroaching slums, we must pass the Bonnie Lassie's house, +where her tiny figurines, touched with the fire of her love and her +genius, which are perhaps one and the same, stand ever on guard, looking +out over Our Square from her windows. Judging by his appearance and +conversation, I should have supposed my companion to be as little +concerned with art as with, let us say, poetry or local antiquities. But +he stopped dead in his tracks, before the first window. Fingers that +were like steel claws buried themselves in my arm. The other +hand pointed. + +"What's that?" he muttered fiercely. + +"That," to which he was pointing, was a pictorial bronze, the figure of +a girl, upright in a cockleshell boat, made of a rose-petal, her arms +outspread to the breeze that was bearing her out across sunlit ripples. +Beneath was the legend: "Far Ports." The face, eager, laughing, +passionate, adventurous, was the face of Minnie Munn. Therein the Bonnie +Lassie had been prophetess as well as poet and sculptress, for she had +finished the bronze before Minnie left us. + +"That," I answered the strong, pink man, trying to shake loose his grip, +"is a sculpture by Cecily Willard, otherwise Mrs. Cyrus Staten." + +"What'll she take for it?" + +"It can't be bought." I spoke with authority, for the figurines that the +Bonnie Lassie sets in her window are not for sale, but for us of Our +Square, who love them. + +"Anything can be bought," he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse +persuasiveness, "at a price. I've got the price, no matter what it is." + +Suddenly I understood my pink and hard acquaintance. I understood that +stale look in his eyes. Tears do not bring that. Nothing brings it but +sleepless thoughts beyond the assuagement of tears. Behind such eyes the +heart is aching cold and the brain searing hot. Who should know better +than I, though the kindly years have brought their healing! But here was +a wound, raw and fresh and savage. I put my hand on his shoulder. + +"What was little Minnie to you?" I asked, and answered myself. "You're +Hines. You're the man she married." + +"Yes. I'm Chris Hines." + +"You've brought her back to us," I said stupidly. + +"She made me promise." + +Strange how Our Square binds the heartstrings of those who have once +lived in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the +hour of death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God's Acre, +shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the +encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few +more of the returning. Laws have been invoked and high and learned +courts appealed to for the jealously guarded right to sleep there, as +Minnie Munn was so soon to sleep beside her mother. + +I told Hines that I would see the Bonnie Lassie about the statuette, and +led him on, through the nagged and echoing passage and the iron gate, to +the white-studded space of graves. The new excavation showed, brown +against the bright verdure. Above it stood the headstone of the Munns, +solemn and proud, the cost of a quarter-year's salary, at the pitiful +wage which little, broken Mr. Munn drew from his municipal clerkship. +Hines's elegant coat rippled on his chest, above what may have been a +shudder, as he looked about him. + +"It's crowded," he muttered. + +"We lie close, as we lived close, in Our Square. I am glad for her +father's sake that Minnie wished to come back." + +"She said she couldn't rest peaceful anywhere else. She said she had +some sort of right to be here." + +"The Munns belong to what we call the Inalienables in Our Square," said +I, and told him of the high court decision which secured to the +descendants of the original "churchyard membership," and to them alone, +the inalienable right to lie in God's Acre, provided, as in the ancient +charter, they had "died in honorable estate." I added: "Bartholomew +Storrs, as sexton, has constituted himself watchdog of our graves and +censor of our dead. He carried one case to the Supreme Court in an +attempt to keep an unhappy woman from sleeping in that pious company." + +"That sour-faced prohibitionist?" growled Mr. Hines, employing what I +suspect to be the blackest anathema in his lexicon. "Is he the sexton?" + +"The same. Our mortuary genius," I confirmed. + +"She was a good girl, Min was," said Mr. Hines firmly, though, it might +appear, a trifle inconsequentially: "I don't care what they say. Anyway, +after I met up with her"; in which qualifying afterthought lay a whole +sorrowful and veiled history. + +I waited. + +"What did they say about her, down here?" he asked jealously. + +"Oh, there were rumors. They didn't reach her father." + +"No: tell me," he persisted. "I gotta know." + +Because Mr. Hines had already impressed himself upon me as one with whom +straight talk would serve best, I acceded. + +"Bartholomew Storrs said that her feet took hold on hell." + +Mr. Hines's face remained impassive. Only his hands worked slightly, +perhaps kneading an imaginary throat. I perceived him to be a person of +considerable and perhaps formidable self-control. + +"Not that she hadn't her friends. The Bonnie Lassie would have stood by +her if she had come back, and little Mrs. Morse, and our Dr. Smith, and +MacLachan, who thought he had lost his own girl the same way, and--and +others, plenty." + +"And you, Dominie," said the hard, pink Mr. Hines. + +"My dear sir, old men cannot afford harsh judgments. They are too near +their own time." + +"Yeh?" said Mr. Hines absently. "I guess that's right." But his mind was +plainly elsewhere. "When would you say would be the best time to do +business with old Funeral-Clothes?" he asked after a thoughtful pause. + +"You want to see Bartholomew Storrs?" I interpreted. + +"Sure. I gotta deliver the death certificate to him if he runs the +graveyard, haven't I?" + +"Such is the procedure, I believe." + +"Besides," he added with a leer, "I want to get some of that weepy +poetry of his." + +"Well; he'll sell it to you readily." + +"I'll say he'll sell it to me," returned Mr. Hines with a grimness which +I failed to comprehend. + +"Now is as good a time as any to catch him in his office." I pointed to +a sign at the farther end of the yard. + +Mr. Hines seemed in no hurry to go. With his elegantly lacquered cane, +he picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about +the open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a +handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the +May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they +descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. +Hines's nerves were not all that they should be. + +"Perhaps you'd like me to introduce you to Mr. Storrs," I hazarded. + +The cold and filmy eyes gleamed with an instant's dim warmth. "Dominie, +you're a good guy," responded Mr. Hines. "If a dead cinch at ten to one, +all fruited up for next week, the kind of thing you don't hand on to +your own brother, would be any use to you--No? I'm off again," he +apologized. "Well--let's go." + +We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs's office he paused. + +"This sexton-guy," he said anxiously, "he don't play the ponies, ever, I +wouldn't suppose?" + +"No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church," I +smiled. + +"Yeh?" he answered, disheartened. "I gotta get to him some other way. On +the poetry--and that's out of my line." + +"I don't quite see what your difficulty is." + +"By what you tell me, it's easier to break into a swell Fifth Avenue +Club than into this place." + +"Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has." + +"And this sexton-guy handles the concession for--he's got the say-so," +he corrected himself hastily--"on who goes in and who stays out. Is +that right?" + +"Substantially." + +"And he'd rather keep 'em out than let 'em in?" + +"Bartholomew," I explained, "considers that the honor of God's Acre is +in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about it, as if he had +a proprietary interest in the place." + +"I get you!" Mr. Hines's corded throat worked painfully. "You don't +suppose the old goat would slip Min a blackball?" he gulped. + +"How can he? As an 'Inalienable'--" + +"Yeh; I know. But wasn't there something about a clean record? I'll tell +_you_, Dominie"--Mr. Hines's husky but assured voice trailed away into +a miserable, thick whisper--"as to what he said--about her feet taking +hold on hell--I guess there was a time--I guess about one more slip--I +guess I didn't run across her any too quick. But there never was a +straighter, truer girl than Min was with me. I gotta get her planted +_right_, Dominie. I gotta do it," he concluded with pathetic +earnestness. + +"I see no difficulty," I assured him. "The charter specifies '_died_ in +honorable estate.' Matrimony is an honorable estate. How she lived +before that is between her and a gentler Judge than Bartholomew Storrs." + +"Give her a straight course and a fair judge and I'll back Min to the +limit," said Mr. Hines so simply and loyally that no suggestion of +irreverence could attach to him. + +Nevertheless, doubt was mingled with determination in his florid face as +he rang the bell. Bartholomew Storrs opened to us, himself. When he saw +me, he hastily pocketed a Rhyming Dictionary. I introduced my companion, +stating, by way of a favorable opening, that he was interested in +memorial poetry. + +"Very pleased," said Bartholomew Storrs in his deep, lugubrious tones. +"Bereaved husband?" + +Mr. Hines nodded. + +"Here's a tasty thing I just completed," continued the poet, and, +extending a benignant hand toward the visitor he intoned nasally: + + "Together we have lived our life + Till thou hast gone on high. + But I will come to thee, dear Wife, + In the sweet bye-and-bye." + +"That style five dollars," he said. + +"You're on," barked Mr. Hines. "I'll take it." + +"To be published, I suppose, on the first anniversary of death. Shall I +look after the insertion in the papers?" queried the obliging poet, who +split an advertising agent's percentage on memorial notices placed +by him. + +"Sure. Got any more? I'd spend a hundred to do this right." + +With a smile of astounded gratification, Bartholomew accepted the roll +of bills, fresh and crisp as the visitor himself. To do him justice, I +believe that his pleasure was due as much to the recognition of his +genius as to the stipend it had earned. + +"Perhaps you'd like a special elegy to be read at the grave," he rumbled +eagerly. "When and where did the interment take place?" + +The other glared at him in stony surprise. "It ain't taken place. It's +to-morrow. Ain't you on? I'm Hines." + +A frown darkened the sexton's heavy features. He shook a reprehensive +head. "An unfortunate case," he boomed; "most unfortunate. I will not +conceal from you, Mr. Hines, that I have consulted our attorneys upon +this case, and unhappily--unhappily, I say--they hold that there is no +basis for exclusion provided the certificate is in form. You have it +with you?" + +Impassive and inscrutable, Mr. Hines tapped his breast-pocket. + +The conscience of a responsible sexton being assuaged, Bartholomew's +expression mollified into that of the flattered poet. + +"Such being the case," he pursued, "there can be no objection to the +reading of an elegy as part of the service. Who is to officiate?" + +"The Reverend Doctor Hackett." + +"He has retired these two years," said the sexton doubtfully. "He is +very old. His mind sometimes wanders." + +"She wouldn't have any one else," asserted the hard, pink Mr. Hines. +"She was as particular about that as about being buried yonder." He +jerked his head toward the window. + +"Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide the +reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a moment +while I look up my elegies." + +"Say," said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as the +poet-sexton retired, "this is dead easy. Why, the guy's on the make. For +sale. He'll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff for other folks +to sign! He's a crook!" + +"Make no such mistake," I advised. "Bartholomew is as honest a man as +lives, in his own belief." + +"Very likely. That's the worst kind," pronounced the expert Mr. Hines. + +Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. "If you +will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented," +said he. + +"What becomes of it after I deliver it?" asked Mr. Hines. + +"Read, attested, and filed officially." + +"Any one else but you see it?" + +"Not necessarily." + +"That's all right, then." + +Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. +Hines than he lifted a stiffening face. + +"What is this?" he challenged. + +"What's what?" + +The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. "'Minna Merivale, +aged twenty-five,'" he read. + +"That's the name she went by." + +"_Unmarried_" read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom. + +"Well?" + +In the sexton's eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. "Take +her away." + +"_What_?" + +"Bury her somewhere else. Do not think that you can pollute the +ground--" + +"Bartholomew!" I broke in, stepping hastily in front of Mr. Hines, for I +had seen all the pink ebb out of his face, leaving it a dreadful sort of +gray; and I had no desire to be witness of a murder, however much I +might deem it justified. + +"I'll handle him," said Mr. Hines steadily. "Now; you! You got my +hundred in your jeans, ain't you!" + +"Bribery!" boomed the sexton. He drew out the roll of bills and let it +fall from his contaminated fingers. + +"Sure! Bribery," railed the other. "What'd you think? Ain't it enough +for what I'm asking?" The two men glared at each other. + +I broke the silence. "Exactly what are you asking, Mr. Hines?" + +"File that"--he touched the document--"and forget it. Let Min rest out +there as my wife, like she ought to have been." + +"Why didn't you make her your wife?" thundered the accuser. + +Some invisible thing gripped the corded throat of Mr. Hines. "Couldn't," +he gulped. "There was--another. She wouldn't divorce me." + +"Your sin has found you out," declared the self-constituted judge of the +dead with a dismal sort of relish. + +"Yeh? That's all right. _I'll_ pay for it. But she's paid already." + +"As she lived so she has died, in sin," the inexorable voice answered. +"Let her seek burial elsewhere." + +Mr. Hines leaned forward. His expression and tone were passionless as +those of a statistician proffering a tabulation: his words were fit to +wring the heart of a stone. + +"She's dead, ain't she?" he argued gently. "She can't hurt any one, can +she? 'Specially if they don't know." + +Bartholomew Storrs made a gesture of repulsion. + +"Well, who'll she hurt?" pursued the other, in his form of pure and +abstract reasoning. "Not her mother, I guess. Her mother's waiting for +her; that's what Min said when she was--was going. And her father'll be +on the other side of her. And that's all. Min never harmed anybody but +herself when she was alive. How's she going to do 'em any damage now, +just lying there, resting? Be reasonable, man!" + +Be pitiful, oh, man! For there was a time not so long past when you, +with all your stern probity and your unwinking conscience, needed pity; +yes, and pleaded for it when the mind was out of control. Think back, +Bartholomew Storrs, to the day when you stood by another grave, close to +that which waits to-day for the weary sleeper--Bartholomew Storrs +rested, opened the door and stood by it, grimly waiting. Mr. Hines +turned to me. + +"What is this thing, Dominie; a man or a snake? Will I kill it?" + +"Bartholomew," I began. "When we--" + +"Not a word from you, Dominie. My mind is made up." + +"The girl is Isabel Munn's daughter." + +I saw a tremor shake the gaunt frame. + +"When we buried Isabel Munn, you came back in the night to weep at her +grave." + +He thrust out a warding hand toward me. + +"Why did you weep over Isabel Munn's grave, Bartholomew?" + +"Speak no evil of the dead," he cried wildly. + +"It is not in my mind. She was a good and pure woman. What would she +have been if she had listened to you?" + +"What do you know? Who betrayed me?" + +"You, yourself. When you came down with pneumonia after the burial, I +sat with you through a night of delirium." + +Bartholomew Storrs bowed his head. + +"My sin hath found me out," he groaned. "God knows I loved her, and--and +I hadn't the strength not to tell her. I'd have given up everything for +her, my hope of heaven, my--my--I 'd have given up my office and gone +away from God's Acre! And that was twenty years ago. I--I don't sleep o' +nights yet, for thinking." + +"Well, you ain't the only one," said the dull voice of Mr. Hines. + +"You're tempting me!" Bartholomew Storrs snarled at him. "You're trying +to make me false to my trust." + +"Just to let her lie by her mother, like her mother would ask you if she +could." + +"Don't say it to me!" He beat his head with his clenched hand. +Recovering command of himself, he straightened up, taking a deep breath: +"I must be guided by my conscience and my God," he said professionally, +and I noted a more reverent intonation given to the former than to the +latter. A bad sign. + +"Isabel Munn's daughter, Bartholomew," I reminded him. + +Instead of replying he staggered out of the door. Through the window we +saw him, a moment later, posting down the street, bareheaded and +stony-eyed, like one spurred by tormenting thoughts. + +"Will he do it, do you think?" queried the anxious-visaged Mr. Hines. + +I shook my head in doubt. With a man like Bartholomew Storrs, one can +never tell. + +Old memories are restless companions for the old. So I found them that +night. But there is balm for sleeplessness in the leafy quiet of Our +Square. I went out to my bench, seeking it, and found an occupant +already there. + +"We ain't the only ones that need a jab of dope, Dominie," said Mr. +Hines, hard and pink and hoarsely confidential as when I first saw him. + +"No? Who else?" Though I suspected, of course. + +"Old Gloom. He's over in the Acre." + +"Did you meet him there? What did he say?" + +"I ducked him. He never saw me. He was--well, I guess he was praying," +said Mr. Hines shamefacedly. + +"Praying? At the Munn grave?" + +"That's it. Groaning and saying, 'A sign, O Lord! Vouchsafe thy servant +a sign!' Kept saying it over and over." + +"For guidance to-morrow," I murmured. "Mr. Hines, I'm not sure that I +know Bartholomew Storrs's God. Nor can I tell what manner of sign he +might give, or with what meaning. But if I know my God, whom I believe +to be the true God, your Minnie is safe with him." + +"Yeh? You're a good guy, Dominie," said Mr. Hines in his emotionless +voice. + +I took him home with me to sleep. But we did not sleep. We smoked. + +Minnie Munn's funeral morning dawned clear and fresh. No word came from +Bartholomew Storrs. I tried to find him, but without avail. + +"We'll go through with it," said Mr. Hines quietly. + +How small and insignificant seemed our tiny God's Acre, as the few +mourners crept into it behind Minnie Munn's body; the gravestones like +petty dots upon the teeming earth, dwarfed by the overshadowing +tenements, as if death were but an incident in the vast, unhasting, +continuous sweep of life, as indeed perhaps it is. Then the grandeur of +the funeral service, which links death to immortality, was bodied forth +in the aged minister's trembling voice, and by it the things which are +of life were dwarfed to nothingness. But my uneasy mind refused to be +bound by the words; it was concerned with Bartholomew Storrs, standing +grim, haggard, inscrutable, beside the grave, his eyes upturned and +waiting. Too well I knew for what he was waiting; his sign. So, too, did +Mr. Hines, still hard, still pink, still impeccably tailored, and still +clinging to his elegant lacquered cane, as he supported little, broken +Mr. Munn, very pathetic and decorous in full black, even to the gloves. + +The sonorous beauty and simplicity of the rite suddenly checked, +faltered. Bartholomew Storrs leaned over anxiously to the minister. The +poor, gentle, worn-out old brain was groping now in semi-darkness, +through which shot a cross-ray of memory. The tremulous voice took on +new confidence, but the marrow of my spine turned icy as I heard the +fatally misplaced and confused words that followed: + +"If any man know--know just and good cause why this woman--why this +woman--should not--" + +Bartholomew Storrs's gaunt hand shot upward, high in air, outspread in +the gesture of forbiddance. His deep voice rang, overbearing the +stumbling accents of the clergyman. + +"A sign! A sign from on High! O God, thou hast spoken through thy +servant to forefend a sore offense. Listen, ye people. This woman--" + +He stopped as there rose, on the opposite side of the open grave another +figure, with hands and voice lifted to heaven in what must surely have +been the most ingenuous supplication that ever ascended to the throne of +Pity and Understanding. All the passion which, through the bitter hours, +had been repressed in the self-commanding soul of the hard and pink Mr. +Hines, swelled and cried aloud in his plea: + +"O God! have a heart!" + +Bartholomew Storrs's hand fell. His eyes faltered. His lips trembled. He +stood once more, agonized with doubt. And in that moment the old +minister came to his rightful senses. + +"Peace, my friends," he commanded with authority. "Let no man disturb +the peace of the dead." + +And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service. + +So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No +ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her +comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are +fresh flowers on Minnie's mound, below the headstone reading: "Beloved +Wife of Christopher Hines." But the elegiac verse has never appeared. I +must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze cockleshell, +outward bound for "Far Ports," from the Bonnie Lassie's window, though +Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it could be bought--like all else +--"at a price." By the way, I believe that he has modified that theory. + +As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the +Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as +grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight +of our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he +has a crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of +an official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But +even that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into +heaven on the strength of it. + +I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o' nights now. + + + +FOR MAYME, READ MARY + +I + +Mayme Mccartney was a bad little good girl. She inspired (I trust) +esteem for her goodness. But it was for her hardy and happy impudence, +her bent for ingenious mischief, her broad and catholic disrespect for +law, conventions, proprieties and persons, and the glint of the devil in +her black eyes that we really loved her. Such is the perversity of human +nature in Our Square. I am told that it is much the same elsewhere. + +She first came into public notice by giving (unsolicited) a most +scandalous and spirited imitation of old Madame Tallafferr, aforetime of +the Southern aristocracy, in the act of rebuking her landlord, the +insecticidal Boggs ("Boggs Kills Bugs" in his patent of nobility), for +eating peanuts on his own front steps. She then (earnestly solicited by +a growing audience) put on impromptu sketches of the Little Red Doctor +diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan (drunk) +singing "The Cork Leg" and MacLachan (sober) repenting thereof; of +Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a bereaved +second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten whiskers +(limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious +admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a +bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a +shrub had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew +nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. +He suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he +fought an interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn't +quite fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon +indicated by the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and +floating, and her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of +the mature and self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her +experienced years. + +"Hello," greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque +informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't +know you, do I?" + +Mayme lifted her eyes. "If you don't," she drawled, "it ain't for lack +of tryin'. Is your hat glued on?" + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. "Do you think +I'm trying to flirt with you? Why, you're only a kid." + +"Get up to date," advised Mayme. "I'm old enough to be your steady. +Only, I'm too lucky." + +"That's a bad cough you've got," said the Little Red Doctor hastily. + +"I've got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?" + +"Bring it over to my office and let's look at the thing," suggested the +Little Red Doctor, smiling. + +As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men +which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the +suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful. + +"D'you think it means anything?" she asked. + +"Any cough means something. I couldn't tell without examination." + +"How much?" inquired the cautious Mayme. + +The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. "No charge for +first consultation. Come over to my office." + +When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally +non-committal. "Live with your parents?" he asked. + +"No. With my aunt. 'Round in the Avenue." + +"Where do you work?" + +"The Emporium," answered the girl, naming the great and still +fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward. + +"You ought to quit. As soon as possible." + +"And spoil my delicate digestion?" + +"Who said anything about your digestion?" + +"I did. If I quit workin', I quit eatin'. And that's bad for me. I tried +it once." + +"I see," said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition by no means +unprecedented in local practice. "Couldn't you get a job in some +better climate?" + +"Where, for instance?" + +"Well, if you knew any one in California." + +"How's the walkin'?" asked Mayme. + +"It's long," replied the Little Red Doctor, "seeing" again. "Anyway, +you've got to have fresh air." + +"They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square," Mayme +pointed out. + +"Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour +every day." He gave some further instructions. + +Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel. + +"Take it away," said the Little Red Doctor. "Didn't I tell you--" + +"Go-wan!" said Mayme. "Whadda you think you are; Bellevue Hospital? I +pay as I go, Doc." + +The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely. + +"What's the matter? Face hurt you?" asked the solicitous Mayme. + +"People don't call me 'Doc,'" began the offended practitioner in +dignified tones. + +"Oh, that's because they ain't on to you," she assured him. "I wouldn't +call you 'Doc' myself if I didn't know you was a good sport back of +your bluff." + +The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the +dollar. "You aren't such a bad sport yourself," he admitted. "Well, +we'll call this a deal. But if I see you in the Square and give you a +tip about yourself now and again, that doesn't count. That's on the +side. Understand?" + +She considered it gravely. "All right," she agreed at length. "Between +pals, yes? Shake, Doc." + +So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, +knightly-hearted practitioner, and the impish and lovable little +store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his +old friend, Death. + +"He's got the jump on me, Dominie," complained the Little Red Doctor to +me. "But, at that, we're going to give him a fight. She's clear grit, +that youngster is. She's got a philosophy of life, too. I don't know +where she got it, or just what it is, but it's there. Oh, she's worth +saving, Dominie." + +"If I hadn't reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend," said I, +"I'd give you solemn warning." + +"Why, she's an infant!" returned the Little Red Doctor scornfully. "A +poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides--" He stopped and sighed. + +"Yes; I know," I assented. There was at that time a "Besides" in the +Little Red Doctor's sorrowful heart which bulked too large to admit of +any rivalry. "Nevertheless," I added, "you needn't be so scornful about +the simian type in woman. It's a concentrated peril to mankind. I've +seen trouble caused in this world by kitten faces, by pure, classic +faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic +faces, by passionate Southern faces, but for real power of catastrophe, +for earthquake and eclipse, for red ruin and the breaking up of laws, +commend me to the humanized, feminized monkey face. I'll wager that when +Antony first set eyes on Cleopatra, he said, 'And which cocoa palm did +she fall out of?' Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, +and as for Helen of Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief +that the face that launched a thousand ships and fired the topless +towers of Ilium was a reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is +born of woman cannot resist it. Give little Mayme three more years--" + +"I wish to God I could," said the Little Red Doctor. + +"Can't you?" I asked, startled. "Is it as bad as that?" + +"It isn't much better. How's your insomnia, Dominie?" + +"Insomnia," said I, "is a scientific quibble for unlaid memories. I take +mine out for the early morning air at times, if that's what you mean." + +"It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that busy +little mind of hers from brooding." + +In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She +adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac +near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung +back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a +call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions +and argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair +exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and +adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder? + +On the morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being +discouraged by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it +occupied by an individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part +in the general lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite +exquisite of raiment, which alone would have marked him for an +outlander. His elbows were propped on his knees, his fists supported his +cheekbones, his whole figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him +with surprise, Mayme was shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from +his drooping countenance, fall to the pavement, followed by another. At +the same time she heard an unmistakable and melancholic sound. + +The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have +cradled weariness of body and spirit; they have assuaged grief and given +refuge to shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered +to the passion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had +any of their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme +McCartney. It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of +which was a desire to laugh. + +Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one +vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing. +She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders. + +"Cheer up, Buddy," she said. "It ain't as bad as you think it is." + +"It's worse," gulped a choky voice. Then the head lifted again. "Who are +you?" it demanded. + +"I'm your big sister," said Mayme reassuringly. "Tell a feller about +it." + +The response was neither polite nor explanatory. "D---n sisters!" said +the bencher. + +"Oh, tutt-_tutt_ and naughty-naughty!" rebuked Mayme. "Somebody's sister +been puttin' somethin' over on poor little Willy?" + +"My own sister has." He was in that state of semi-hysterical exhaustion +in which revelation of one's intimate troubles to the first comer seems +natural. "She's gone and got arrested," he wailed. + +Mayme's face became grave and practical. + +"That's different," said she. "What's her lay?" + +"Lay? I don't know--" + +"What's her line? What's she done to get pinched?" + +"Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium." + +"You're tellin' me! In the silks, huh?" + +"What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?" + +"Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that pinch. +Swell young married lady. Say," she added, after a thoughtful pause: +"has she got somethin' comin'?" + +"Something coming? How? What?" + +"Don't be dumb. A kid." + +He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who +live in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false +shame about the major facts of life. + +"Suppose she has?" queried the youth sulkily. + +"Why, that'll be all right, you poor boob," returned the kindly Mayme. +"The judge'll let her off with a warning." + +"How do you know?" + +"They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned for +makin' a pinch of a lady in the fam'ly way." + +"What if they do let her off?" lamented the youth. "It'll be in all the +papers and I'll be ruined. My life's spoiled. I might as well leave +the city." + +"Ah, don't do a mean trick like that to the old town!" besought the +sardonic Mayme. "Where do you come in to get hurt?" + +He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. +His family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy +emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their +new, precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant +grief he did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the +local society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the +Shining Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, +her daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as +"the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented financier." + +Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of +society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American +democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for +their names to appear.) She perceived--not knowing that the advertising +leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those insecure portals +of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny--that she was +in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme's +independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a +career worth saving! + +"Let's go over to the station-house," said she. "I know some of the +cops." + +To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting +case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything +would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store +itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David +Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. +She was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and +piquant and quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. +From the opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking +the insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that +she was a "fly kid." On that theory he invited her to breakfast with +him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson's Élite Restaurant, on the +corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast of +Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured +her by declining it. + +Thus began an acquaintanceship which swiftly ripened into a queer sort +of intimacy, more than a little disturbing to us of Our Square who were +interested in Mayme. Young Berthelin's over-ornate roadster lingered in +our quiet precincts more often than appeared to us suitable or safe, and +black-eyed Mayme, looking demure and a little exalted, was whirled away +to unknown worlds, always returning, however, at respectable hours. When +the Little Red Doctor remonstrated with her ostensibly on the score of +her health, she reminded him in one breath that he hadn't been invited +to censor her behavior which was entirely her own affair, and in the +next--with his hand caught between hers and her voice low and +caressing--declared that he was the best little old Doc in the world and +there was nothing to worry about, either as to health or conduct. +Indeed, her condition seemed to be improving. I dare say young Mr. +Berthelin's expensive food was one of the things she needed. +Furthermore, she ceased to be the raggle-taggle, hoydenishly clad Mayme +of the cash department, and, having been promoted to saleswoman, quite +went in for dress. On this point she sought the advice of the Bonnie +Lassie. The result went far to justify my prophecy that Mayme's queer +little face might yet make its share of trouble in an impressionable +world. But the Bonnie Lassie shook her bonnie head privately and said +that the fine-feathers development was a bad sign, and that if young +Berthelin would obligingly run his seventeen-jeweled roadster off the +Williamsburgh Bridge, with himself in it, much trouble might be saved +for all concerned. + +If little Mayme were headed for trouble, she went to meet it with a +smiling face. Never had she seemed so joyous, so filled with the desire +of life. This much was to be counted on the credit side, the Little Red +Doctor said. On the debit side--well, to me was deputed the unwelcome +task of conveying the solemn, and, as it were, official protest and +warning of Our Square. Of course I did it at the worst possible moment. +It was early one morning, when Mayme, on her bench, was looking a little +hollow-eyed and disillusioned. I essayed the light and jocular approach +to the subject: + +"Well, Mayme; how is the ardent swain?" + +She turned to me with the old flash in her big, shadowed eyes: "Did you +say swain or swine, Dominie?" + +"Ah!" said I. "Has he changed his rôle?" + +"He's given himself away, if that's what you mean." + +"I thought that would come." + +"He--he wanted me to take a trip to Boston with him." + +I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or +unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. "Have you told the Little +Red Doctor?" + +"Doc'd kill him," said Mayme simply. + +"What better reason for telling?" + +"Oh, the poor kid: he don't know any better." + +"Doesn't he? In any case I trust that you know better, after this, than +to have anything more to do with him." + +"Yep. I've cut him out," replied Mayme listlessly. "I figured you and +Doc were right, Dominie. It's no good, his kind of game. Not for girls +like me." She looked up at me with limpid eyes, in which there was +courage and determination and suffering. + +"My dear," I murmured, "I hope it isn't going to be too hard." + +"He's so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + +So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color, +his wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful +figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any +inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when, +a few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had +vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret +from him), and, addressing me as "you white-whiskered old goat," accused +me of having come between him and the girl upon whom he had deigned to +bestow his lordly favor. Unfortunately for him, the Little Red Doctor +chanced along just then and inquired, none too deferentially, what the +Scion of Wealth and Position was doing in that quarter. + +"What business is it of yours, Red-Head?" countered the offended +visitor. + +He then listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do +in the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and +convincing summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch +of his personal and sartorial appearance. + +"I didn't mean the kid any harm," argued the Scion suavely. "I--I came +back to apologize." + +"Let me catch you snooping around here again and I'll break every bone +in your body," the Little Red Doctor answered him. + +"I guess this Square's free to everybody. I guess you don't own it," +said the youth, retreating to his car. + +Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exactitude of this surmise, he was +seen no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at +learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme's, that +she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a +cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized +upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two +consisting of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that +it was all right; we didn't understand. This is, I believe, the usual +formula. The last half of it at least, was true. + +About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that +upon our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney's love +affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the +fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its +military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had +drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded. + +She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic +limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative +Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the +ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that +she had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his +woe-begone and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a +spoiled and pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She +suggested a vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied +our forces to meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie Lassie, and +myself. Mrs. Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, +not even awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted +upon these, and she learned that the Bonnie Lassie was Mrs. Cyrus +Staten, she cringed. Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns +quite as genuine as that of Mrs. Berthelin's to get in, the Cyrus +Statens frequently figure among the Shining Ones, a fact almost +painfully appreciated by our visitor. After that it was easy to get her +into the Bonnie Lassie's house, where her eloquence could not draw a +crowd. To get young David there was not quite so easy. He made one +well-timed and almost successful effort to bolt, and even evinced signs +of balking on the steps. + +His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the +Bonnie Lassie's studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a +history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant +lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, +marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, +he squirmed. + +"Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma'am?" inquired +the Little Red Doctor suavely. + +It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission +as Captain in the Quartermaster's Department was arranged for, and she +expected to have the young officer assigned to New York so that he could +live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and +condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no +designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David's +future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate +of Mayme McCartney's character, manners, and morals, in the midst of +which I heard a gasp. + +It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The +front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins' monogrammed +car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared. + +"That's a lie," said Mayme McCartney steadily. "I'm as straight a girl +as your own daughter. Ask him." + +She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it +can be extremely effective. David's head dropped into his hands. + +"Oh, Ma!" he groaned. + +"Don't call me 'Ma,'" snapped the goaded Mrs. Berthelin. "And this is +the girl?" She looked Mayme up and down. Mayme did the same by her and +did it better. + +"I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare trick," +said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel which ended +in her favor. + +The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie's eyelids quiver, +but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor. + +"Mrs. Berthelin," said she, "you have made some very damaging +statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney's character. What +proof have you?" + +"Why, he wants to _marry_ her!" almost yelled the mother. "She's trapped +him." + +"That's another lie," said Mayme. + +"He told me himself that he was going to marry you." + +"Did he? Then he's wrong. I wouldn't marry him with a brass ring," +asserted Mayme. + +"You wouldn't mar--You wouldn't _what_?" demanded the mother, outraged +and incredulous. + +"You heard me. He knows it, too. I don't like the family--what I've seen +of them," observed Mayme judicially. "Besides, he's yellow." + +David's shamed face emerged into view. "I'm not," he gulped. "She--she +made me." + +"Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. +"Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little +fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their +fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the +fightin' is." + +David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly +expression. + +"Let me out of here," he growled. + +"David!" said his mother. "Where are you going?" + +"To enlist." + +"Davey!" It was a shriek. "You shan't." + +"I will." + +"I won't let you." + +"You can go to--" + +"Buddy!" Mayme's voice, magically softened, broke in. "Cut out the rough +stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no +pink-silk picnic." + +"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs. +Berthelin. + +The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she +said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to +betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities." + +Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and +aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I +come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry." + +"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out +of his fingertips this time to-morrow." + +"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he +added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?" + +"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take +me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along." + +They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by +an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with +the rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine. + +We waited at the Bonnie Lassie's for the Little Red Doctor's return. He +came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little gleam of +disappointment in Mayme's deep eyes. + +"He's done it," said the Little Red Doctor. And I was sorry for him, so +much was there of tragic envy in his face. + +"Did you give him your blessing?" I asked. + +"I did. He shook hands like a man. There's maybe something in that boy, +if it weren't for the old hell-cat of a mother. However, she won't have +much chance. He's off to-morrow." + +"Will he write?" said Mayme in a curious, strained voice. + +"He will. He'll report to me from time to time." + +"Didn't he--wasn't there any message?" + +"Just good-bye and good luck," answered the Little Red Doctor, censoring +ruthlessly. + +The Bonnie Lassie went over and put her arms around Mayme McCartney. + +"My dear," she said softly. "It wouldn't do. It really wouldn't. He +isn't worth it. You're going to forget him." + +"All right." Suddenly Mayme looked like a very helpless and sorrowful +little girl. "Only, it--it isn't goin' to be as easy as you think. He +was so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + + +II + +Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from +which one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of +parched shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my +bench with a fell and purposeful smile. + +"Dominie, you're a dear old thing," she began in her most insinuating +tones. + +"I won't do it," I said determinedly, foreboding something serious. + +The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved +innocence. "Won't do what?" she inquired. + +"Whatever it is that you're trying to wheedle me into." + +The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the +corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. "Oh, +but you've already done it," she said. + +"Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with." + +"It must be lovely to be rich," said the Bonnie Lassie meditatively. +"And so generous!" + +"How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven't got that much," I +hastily remarked. + +"And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme +herself." + +"Go on. Don't mind me," I murmured. + +"The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It's in New Mexico. And in +the fall she's going on to the Coast. He's almost willing to guarantee +that a year of it will make her as strong as ever. And the hundred +dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling expenses will be +plenty. You _are_ a good old thing, Dominie!" + +"What you mean is that I'm an old good-thing. How shall I look," I +demanded bitterly, "when Mayme comes to thank me?" + +"No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable objections +to our perfectly good plans," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "Besides, she +won't. She knows that your way is to do good by stealth and blush to +find it fame, and she's under pledge to pretend to know nothing +about it." + +"Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?" I queried. + +"There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative power. +Think it over." + +"The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!" I cried. "Did our medical +friend blackmail him?" + +"Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme's chance here was +rather poorer than a soldier's going to war, unless something could be +done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed to do it. 'Do you +think she'd take it from you?' said the Little Red Doctor, 'after what +your mother called her?' 'Don't let her know,' says our ornamental young +weeper. 'Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it's from that +white-whiskered old--from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the +benevolent expres--'" + +"Yes: I know," I broke in. "Very good. I'm the goat. Lying, hypocrisy, +false pretense, fake charity; it's all one to a sin-seared old reprobate +like me. After it's over I'll go around the corner and steal what +pennies I can find in Blind Simon's cup, just to make me feel +comparatively respectable and decent again." + +It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, +having come to say good-bye, put her lips close to my ear and tried to +whisper something, and cried and kissed me instead. + +Our Square was a dimmer and duller place after she left. But her letters +helped. They were so exactly like herself! Even at the first, when +things seemed to be going ill with her, they were all courage, and +quaint humor and determination to get well and come back to Our Square, +which was the dearest and best place in the world with the dearest and +best people in it. Homesickness! Poor little, lonely Mayme. She was +reading--she wrote the Bonnie Lassie--all the books that the Dominie had +listed for her, and she was being tutored by a school-teacher with blue +goggles and a weak heart who lived at the same resort. "Why grow up a +Boob," wrote the philosophic Mayme, "when the lil old world is full of +wise guys just aking to spill their wiseness?" + +Contemporaneously the Weeping Scion of Wealth was writing back his views +on life and the emptiness thereof, in better orthography, but with +distinctly less of spirit. + +"It appears," reported the Little Red Doctor, "that every man in his own +company has licked our young friend and now the other companies of the +regiment are beginning to show interest, and he doesn't like it. I +believe he'd desert if it weren't that he's afraid of what Mayme +would think." + +"Still on his mind, is she?" I asked. + +The Little Red Doctor produced a letter with a camp postmark from the +South and read a passage: + +"You were right when you guessed that I never wanted anything very much +before, without having it handed to me. Perhaps you are right about its +being good for me. But it comes hard. The promise goes, of course. I'm +going to show you and her that I'm not yellow. [So that was still +rankling; salutary, if bitter dose!] But if this war ever finishes, all +bets are off and I'm coming back to find her. And don't you forget your +part of the bargain, to write and let me know how she is getting on." +The Little Red Doctor was able to send progressively encouraging news. +When the cold weather came, Mayme moved westward to Southern California, +and found herself on the edge of one of the strange, tumultuous, +semi-insane moving-picture colonies of that region. Thence issued, +presently, stirring tidings. + +"What do you think?" wrote our exile. "They've got my funny little +monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The director likes +me and says he will give me a real chance one of these days. But, as the +Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless imp!] I would +not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to be, out +here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh little +frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure calls +herself Mayme or Daisye or Tootsye. Not for me! I am keeping up my +lessons and trying to make my head good for something besides carrying a +switch. Tell the Little Red Doctor that it is so long since I coughed I +have forgotten how. And I love you all so hard that it _hurts_. + +"Your loving + +"MARY MCCARTNEY + +"P.S. I am going to be Marie Courtenay when I get my name up in the +pictures. Put that in the Directory and see how it looks. + +"P.S.2. How is my soldier boy getting along? Poor kid! I expect he is +finding it a lot different from Broadway with money in your pocket." + +About this time the Weeping Scion was finding things very different, +indeed, from Broadway, having been shifted to a specially wet and muddy +section of France; and was taking them as he found them. That is to say, +he had learned the prime lesson of war. + +"And he's been made corporal," announced the Little Red Doctor with +satisfaction. + +"That sounds encouraging," remarked the Bonnie Lassie. "How did it +happen?" + +"He went over on one of the 'flu ships,' and when the epidemic began to +mow 'em down there was a kind of panic. From what I can make out, the +Scion kept his head and his nerve, and made good. A corporal's stripes +aren't much, but they're something." + +Better was to come. There was high triumph in the Little Red Doctor's +expression when he came to my bench with the glad tidings of young +David's promotion to a sergeantcy. + +"While it's very gratifying," I remarked, "it doesn't seem to me an +epoch-making event." + +"Doesn't it!" retorted my friend. "That's because of your abysmal +military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how it is in our army. A +fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a major by luck, or a +colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine martial figure, but +to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you've got to show the +_stuff_. You've got to be a _man_. You've got to have--" + +"Are you going to tell her?" interrupted the Bonnie Lassie who had been +sent for to share the news. + +The Little Red Doctor fell suddenly grave. "She's another matter," he +said. "I don't think I shall." + +Matters were going forward with Mayme--beg her pardon, Mary McCartney, +too. + +"Better and more of it," she wrote the Bonnie Lassie. "They rang me in +on one of their local Red Cross shows to do a monologue. Was I a hit? +Say, I got more flowers than a hearse! You've got to remember, though, +that they deliver flowers by the car-load out here. And the local stock +company has made me an offer. Ingenue parts. There is not the money that +I might get in the pictures, but the chance is better. So Marie +Courtenay moves on to the legit.--I mean the spoken drama. Look out for +me on Broadway later!" + +In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus +followed by a curt bit of official information: "Seriously wounded." The +Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on +his face. + +"It doesn't look good, Dominie," he said. "You know, my old friend, +Death, is a shrewd picker. He's got an eye for men." He mused, rubbing +his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous hand. "I was getting to kind +of like that young pup," he muttered moodily. + +The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one +who never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does +not come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the +Weeping Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it +would be a long time--months, perhaps--before he could get back to the +front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly +metallic, out of various parts of his system. + +"I'm one of the guys you read about that came over here to collect +souvenirs," he commented. "Well, I've got all I need of 'em. They can +have the rest. All I want now is to get back and present a few to +Fritzie before the show is over." + +Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small +parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became +known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With +her answer came the solution. + +"Some of the 'Grass and Asphalt' sketches are wonders; some not so good. +I am going to try out 'Doggy' if I can find a poodle with enough +intelligence to support me. But you need not have been so mysterious, +Doc, about your 'young amateur writer who seems to have some talent.' +Did you think I would not know it was David? Why, bless your dear, silly +heart, I told him some of those stories myself. But how does he get a +chance to write them? Is he back on this side? Or is he invalided? Or +what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You do not have to worry about +my--well, my infatuation for him, any more. He was a pretty boy, though, +wasn't he? But I have seen too many of that kind in the picture game. +I'm spoiled for them. How I would love to smear some of their pretty, +smirky faces! They give me a queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I +forgot I was a lady. But don't say 'pretty' to me any more. I'm through. +At that, you were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you +thought: only he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to +another. I hope he don't come back a He-ro. I'm offen he-roes, too. +Excuse again!" + +Wars and exiles alike come to an end in time. And in time our two +wanderers returned, but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany +with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical +columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie +Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in +the latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the +production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new +actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. +Not that she was in any way a great genius, but she had a certain +indefinable and winningly individual quality. The critics discussed it +gravely and at length, differing argumentatively as to its nature and +constitution. I could have given them a hint. My predictions regarding +the ancestral potencies of the monkey-face were being abundantly +justified. + +No announcements, even of the most modest description, heralded the +arrival of Sergeant Major (if you please!) David Berthelin upon his +native shores. He came at once to Our Square and tackled the Little +Red Doctor. + +"Where is she?" he asked. + +The Little Red Doctor assumed an air of incredulous surprise. "Have you +still got _that_ bee in your bonnet?" said he. + +"Where is she?" repeated the Weeping Scion. + +Maneuvering for time and counsel, the Little Red Doctor took him to see +the Bonnie Lassie and they sent for me. We beheld a new and +reconstituted David. He was no longer pretty. The soft brown eyes were +less soft and more alert, and there were little wrinkles at their +corners. He had broadened a foot or so. That pinky-delicate complexion +by which he had, in earlier and easier days, set obvious store, was +brownish and looked hardened. The Cupid's-bow of his mouth had +straightened out. High on one cheekbone was a not unsightly scar. His +manner was unassertive, but eminently self-respecting, and me, whom +aforetime he had stigmatized as a "white-whiskered old goat," he now +addressed as "Sir." + +"Perhaps _you'll_ tell me where she is, sir," said he patiently. + +"Leave it to me," said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an unquenchable thirst +for the dramatic in real life. "And keep next Sunday night open." + +She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at +her studio, of David's "Doggy" from the "Grass and Asphalt" sketches +which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, pathetic little +conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the streets, as +expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we borrowed +Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he played +it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right +places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and +only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a +check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the +time to settle accounts, but she never could repay--and so forth and so +on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might +accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out +the truth. + +"Oh, _Dominie_!" said the girl, with such reproach that my heart sank +within me. "Do you think that was fair? Don't you know that I never +could have taken the money?" + +"Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn't +have you dying on the premises," I argued with a feeble attempt at +jocularity. + +"But from _him_!" she said. "After what had happened--And his mother. +How could you let me do it!" + +"I thought you would have gotten over that feeling by this time," I +ventured. + +"Oh, there's none of the old feeling left," she answered, so simply that +I knew she believed her own statement. "But to have lived on his +money--Where is he?" she asked abruptly. + +I told her that also and about Sunday night; the whole thing. The Bonnie +Lassie would have slain me. But I couldn't help it. I was feeling +rather abject. + +Sunday night came, and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an +"ace" covered with decorations, whose name is a household word and who +was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been hints +of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no small +discomposure at the sight of the girl's face when she first saw the +changed and matured Weeping Scion of three years before. After the first +flash of recognition she had developed on that expressive face of hers a +look of wonder and almost pathetic questioning, and, I thought, who knew +and loved the child, already something deeper and sweeter. Young David, +after greeting the star of the evening, took a modest rear seat as +befitted his rank. But when the Bonnie Lassie announced "Doggy," it was +his face that was the study. + +Of that performance I shall say nothing. It is now famous and familiar +to thousands of theater-goers. But if ever mortal man spent twenty +minutes in fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of +his fancy. At the close, he disappeared. I suppose he did not dare trust +himself to join in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed. I +found him, as I rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when +Mayme McCartney first found him. And when the crowd had departed from +the studio, I told the girl. Without even stopping to put on her hat she +went out to him. + +He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his +cheekbones. But this time he was not weeping. He was thinking. Just as +of old she put a hand on his humped shoulder. Startled, he looked up, +and jumped to his feet. She was holding something out to him. + +"What's that?" he said. + +"A check. For what I owe you." + +"Who told you? The Little Red Doctor promised--" + +"He's kept his promise. The Dominie told me." + +"Oh! I suppose," he said slowly, "I've got to take this. You +wouldn't--no, of course you wouldn't," he sighed. + +"I've tried to keep strict account," she said. + +David adopted a matter-of-fact tone. "I can't deny that it'll come in +handy, just now," he remarked. "At the present price of clothing, and +with my personal exchequer in its depleted state--" + +"Why," she broke in, "has anything happened? Your mother--?" + +"Cut off," said David briefly. + +"She's cut you off? On my account? Oh--" + +"No. I've cut her off. Temporarily. She doesn't want me to work. I'm +working. On a newspaper." + +"That's good," said the girl warmly. "Let's sit down." + +They sat down. Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again. +Mary was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried +to, she would cry. She didn't want to cry. She had a feeling that crying +would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming +developments. Why didn't David say something? Finally he did make a +beginning. + +"Mayme." + +"No: not 'Mayme' any more." + +He flushed to his temples. "I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay." + +"Nonsense!" she said softly. "Mary. I've discarded the 'Mayme' long +ago." + +"Mary," he repeated in a tone of musing content. + +"Buddy." + +He caught his breath. "A few thousand of the best guys in the world," he +said, "call a fellow that. And every time they said it, it made my heart +ache with longing to hear it in your voice." + +"You're a queer Buddy," returned the girl, not quite steadily. "Did you +bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?" + +He shook his head. "I didn't bring home much of anything, except some +experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to stand on my +own feet, I wasn't much." + +"You got your stripes, didn't you?" suggested the girl. + +"That's all I did get," he returned jealously. "I didn't get any medal, +or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I didn't get anything except +an occasional calling down and a few scratches. If I'd had the luck to +get into aviation or some of the fancy branches--" David checked +himself. "There I go," he said in self-disgust. "Beefing again." + +It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible +personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to +Mary's swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob +tangled itself in the laughter, and she choked and said: + +"Buddy." + +He turned toward her. + +"Don't be dumb, Buddy," she said, in the words of their unforgotten +first talk. "You've--you've got me--if you still want me." + +She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder +and around his neck, and she was drawn close into his arms. + +"The Little Red Doctor," remarked David after an interlude, in the +shaken tone of one who has had undeserved miracles thrust upon him, +"said that to want something more than anything in the world and not get +it was good for my soul, besides serving me right." + +"The Little Red Doctor," retorted Mary McCartney, with the reckless +ingratitude of a woman in love, "is a dear little red idiot. What does +he know about _Us!_" + + + +BARBRAN + +Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a +visit of protest to my bench. + +"Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?" + +"What do you hear, MacLachan?" + +"That ye're to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?" + +"Perfectly true," said I, passing over the uncomplimentary adjective. + +"'Tis a feckless waste of time." + +"Very likely." + +"'Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and influence in Our +Square should be dissuadin' them." + +"Perhaps they need a friendly word." + +MacLachan frowned. "Ye're determined?" + +"Oh, quite!" + +"Then I'll give ye a title for yer romance." + +"That's very kind of you. Give it." + +"The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One," said MacLachan +witheringly, and turned to depart. + +"Mac!" + +"What?" + +"Wait a moment." + +I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be +inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle. + +"I'll waste na time from the tailorin'," began the Scot disdainfully, +but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. "Well?" he said, +showing a guilty inclination to flinch. + +"Mac, was _I_ an original accomplice in this affair?" + +"Will ye purtend to deny--" + +"Did _I_ scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?" + +MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence. + +"Did _I_ get arrested?" + +MacLachan grunted. + +"In a cellar?" + +MacLachan snorted. + +"With my nose painted green?" + +MacLachan groaned. "There was others," he pleaded. + +"A man of your age and influence in Our Square," I interrupted sternly, +"should have been dissuading them." + +"Arr ye designin' to put all that in yer sil--in yer interestin' +account?" + +"Every detail." + +MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as +mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and +retired to his Home of Fashion. + + * * * * * + +That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, +Leon Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young +Phil Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with +modifications and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses +green and frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The +explanation is Barbran. + +Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington +Square. + +Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude +toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. +Our Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when +the foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow +whose wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich +Village. Our Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, +whereas Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with +paint and its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its +inconsiderable laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at +life; Our Square has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little +in common. + +Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not +wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the +Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman +architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by +street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense +urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her +far afield, met Barbran. + +They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving +sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the +Bonnie Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive +and shrewd little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was +thinking of improving on the Mole's Hole idea if she could find a +suitable location, not so much for the money, of course--her tone +implied a lordly indifference to such considerations--as for the fun of +the thing. + +The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her +about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult +thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her +wonderful little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. + +Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination +compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she +has marked down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to +the Bonnie Lassie's house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and +stayed. She rented a room from the Angel of Death ("Boggs Kills Bugs" is +the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local +interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr's +apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked +at me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes. + +"The Bonnie Lassie sent you," said I. + +She nodded. + +"You've come here to live--Heaven only knows why--but we're glad to see +you. And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, +'Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.' Didn't she?" + +Barbran sat down and smiled at me. + +"Having sought information," I pursued, "on my own account, I learn that +you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does +it feel to revel in millions?" + +"Romantic," said she. + +"Of course you have designs upon us." + +"Yes." + +"Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?" + +"Oh, nothing long and clever like that." + +"You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless wish +my advice." + +"No," she answered softly: "I've done it already." + +"Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?" + +"Started my designs. I've rented the basement of Number 26." + +"Are you a rag-picker in disguise?" + +"I'm going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling it 'The +Coffee Pot.' What do you think?" + +"So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that +plumber's shop next to the corner saloon?" I pointed to the Avenue whose +ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without ever sweeping +us into its current. "That was once a tea-shop. It was started by a dear +little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run by Tough Bill +Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and hung it up +outside her place, 'The Teacup.' Tough Bill took a board and painted a +sign and hung it up outside _his_ place; 'The Hiccup.' The dear little, +prim little old maiden lady took down her sign and went away. Yet there +are those who say that competition is the life of trade." + +"Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?" + +"Take it or leave it," said I amiably. + +"I will not call my cellar 'The Coffee Pot' lest a worse thing befall +it." + +"You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury." + +"It is true that my parents named me that," said she, "but my friends +call me 'Barbran' because I always used to call myself that when I was +little, and I want to be called Barbran here." + +"That's very friendly of you," I observed. + +She gave me a swift, suspicious look. "You think I'm a fool," she +observed calmly. "But I'm not. I'm going to become a local institution. +A local institution can't be called Barbara Ann Waterbury, unless it's a +crêche or a drinking-fountain or something like that, can it?" + +"It cannot, Barbran." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dominie," said Barbran gratefully. She then proceeded to +sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and herself a +Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia from +the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms of +darkness as New Haven and Cohoes. + +"That's what I intend to do," said Barbran, "as soon as I get my Great +Idea worked out." + +What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In +fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather +elaborately loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new +friend had departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and +friendly face. Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than +that he represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie +Lassie, who has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal +lack of success. There is something untransferable in the boy's face; +perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to +any woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or +sentimental predilections, "Isn't he a homely cub!" that she didn't +reply indignantly: "He's _sweet_!" Now when women--wonderful women like +the Bonnie Lassie and stupid women like Mrs. Rosser, the twins' aunt, +and fastidious women like Madame Tallafferr--unite in terming a smiling +human freckle "_sweet_," there is nothing more to be said. Adonis may as +well take a back seat and the Apollo Belvedere seek the helpful +resources of a beauty parlor. Said young Phil carelessly: + +"Dominie, who's the newcomer?" + +"That," said I, "is Barbran." + +"Barbran," he repeated with a rising inflection. "It sounds like a +breakfast food." + +"As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music," said I. + +"What's the rest of her name?" + +"I am not officially authorized to communicate that." + +"Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?" + +"On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?" I asked +austerely. + +"Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the +cross-town car; and I--well, I just happened to notice her, you know. +That's all." + +"Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her appearance +is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express myself, to +the discriminating eye." + +"Who's the fool--" began Mr. Stacey hotly. + +"Tut-tut, my young friend," said I. "Certain ladies whom we both esteem +can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, that none of +the young person's features is exactly what it should be or precisely +where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is surprising and +even gratifying." + +"She's a peach!" asseverated my companion. + +"Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you need no +introduction to Barbran. Nobody does." + +"_What_?" Phil Stacey's plain face became ugly; a hostile light +glittered in his eyes. "What do you mean by that?" he growled. + +"Simply that she's about to become a local institution. She's plotting +against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of starting +a coffee-house at Number 26." + +"No!" cried Phil joyously. "Good news!" + +"As a fad. She's a budding millionairess from the West." + +"No!" growled Phil, his face falling. + +"Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some decorations, +and that you might be the one to do them." In his leisure hours, my +young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the term "expert" +appears to be rather an empty compliment, since his stipend is only +twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates impressionistic decorations and +scenery for such minor theaters as will endure them. + +"You're a grand old man, Dominie!" said he. "Let's go." + +We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left +them--without any strenuous protests on the part of either--they were +deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, the +high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, +aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? +Dangerous is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young +Phil Stacey and in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who +is as far from homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each +other's opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, +lighted by will-o'-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually +they smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. +I may have smiled myself. + +Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey's normally cheerful face when, +some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms. + +"Dominie," said he, "I want to tap your library. Have you got any of the +works of Harvey Wheelwright?" + +"God forbid!" said I. + +Phil looked surprised. "Is it as bad as that? I didn't suppose there was +anything wrong with the stuff." + +"Don't you imperil your decent young soul with it," I advised earnestly. +"It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints is so full of +nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather live in +hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of the +Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a +righteously enraged populace would have killed 'em in early childhood. +He's the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United States. +Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to +weak-minded--" + +"Whew! Help! I didn't know what I was starting," protested my visitor. +"As a literary critic you're some Big Bertha, Dominie. I begin to +suspect that you don't care an awful lot about Mr. Wheelwright's style +of composition. Just the same, I've got to read him. All of him. Do you +think I'll find his stuff in the Penny Circulator?" + +"My poor, lost boy! Probably not. It is doubtless all out in the hands +of eager readers." + +However, Phil contrived to round it up somewhere. The awful and +unsuspected results I beheld on my first visit of patronage to Barbran's +cellar, the occasion being the formal opening. A large and curious crowd +of five persons, including myself and Phil Stacey, were there. Outside, +an old English design of a signboard with a wheel on it creaked +despairingly in the wind. Below was a legend: "_At the Sign of the +Wheel_--_The Wrightery_." The interior of the cellar was decorated with +scenes from the novels of Harvey Wheelwright, triumphant virtue, +discomfited villains, benignant blessings, chaste embraces, edifying +death-beds, and orange-blossoms. They were unsigned; but well I knew +whose was the shame. Over the fireplace hung a framed letter from the +Great Soul. It began, "Dear Young Friend and Admirer," and ended, "Yours +for the Light. Harvey Wheelwright." + +The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank +everything in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. +Finally Phil departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner +had the door slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was +looking discouraged. + +"Well, what have you to say in your defense?" + +The way Barbran's eyebrows went up constituted in itself a defense fit +to move any jury to acquittal. + +"For what?" she asked. + +"For corrupting my young friend Stacey. You made him paint those +pictures." + +"They're very nice," returned Barbran demurely. "Quite true to the +subject." + +"They're awful. They're an offense to civilization. They're an insult to +Our Square. Of all subjects in the world, Harvey Wheelwright! Why, +Barbran? Why? Why? Why?" + +"Business," said Barbran. + +"Explain, please," said I. + +"I got the idea from a friend of mine in Washington Square. She got up a +little cellar café built around Alice. Alice in Wonderland, you know, +and the Looking Glass. Though I don't suppose a learned and serious +person like you would ever have read such nonsense." + +"It happened to be Friday and there wasn't a hippopotamus in the house," +I murmured. + +"Oh," said Barbran, brightening. "Well, I thought if she could do it +with Alice, I could do it with Harvey Wheelwright." + +"In the name of Hatta and the March Hare, _why_?" + +"Because, for every one person who reads Alice nowadays, ten read the +author of 'Reborn Through Righteousness' and 'Called by the Cause.' +Isn't it so?" + +"Mathematically unimpeachable." + +"Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other place. +Don't you think so?" she inquired wistfully. + +Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul. +"Undoubtedly," I agreed. "But do you love him?" + +"Who?" said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up her +cheeks. + +"Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?" + +"He is a very estimable writer," returned Barbran primly, quite ignoring +my other query. + +"Good-night, Barbran," said I sadly. "I'm going out to mourn your lost +soul." + +One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of +one's own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all +on this occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once. + +"What did you do it for?" + +To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. "Pay," +said he. + +"Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?" + +"Not exactly. I'm taking it out in trade. I'm going to eat there." + +"You'll starve to death." + +"I haven't got much of an appetite." + +"The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted diet +of Harvey Wheelwright--" + +"Don't speak the swine's name," implored Phil, "or I'll be sick." + +"You've sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, probably +indigestible at that." + +"I don't care," he averred stoutly. "I don't care for anything +except--Dominie, who told you her father was a millionaire?" + +"It's well known," I said vaguely. "He's a cattle king or an emperor of +sheep or the sultan of the piggery or something. A good thing for +Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her cellar going. The kind of +people who read Har--our unmentionable author, don't frequent Bohemian +coffee cellars. They would regard it as reckless and abandoned +debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark." + +"The place has got to be a success," declared Phil between his teeth, +his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. + +"Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West," I suggested. The boy +winced. + +What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically. +Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the +highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid +for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means. + +Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward +innovations. Thornsen's Élite Restaurant has always sufficed for our +inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey +Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little +millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone. +She advertised feebly in the "Where to Eat" columns, catching a few +stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn't come. Until the +first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought their +bills with them. + +Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost +or quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of +patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late +comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say +indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once, +as she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank +terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire's +daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that +look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it, +preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our +Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran's sunny face? Puzzling +over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of +fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?" + +At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of +Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers. + +"I know whom you mean," said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to the +little dormer window which was Barbran's outlook on life. "Interpret me +a signal. What do you see up there?" + +"It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window," said I adjusting +my glasses. + +"Upside down," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"How can a handkerchief be upside down?" I inquired, in what was +intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. + +Contempt was all that it brought me. "Metaphorically, of course! It's a +signal of distress." + +"In what distress can Barbran be?" + +"In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the roof +in Our Square?" + +"She's doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me so +herself. A millionaire's daughter--" + +"Do millionaires' daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and paste them +on windows to dry? Does any woman in or out of Our Square _ever_ soak +her own handkerchiefs in her own washbowl except when she's desperately +saving pennies? Did you ever wash one single handkerchief in your +rooms, Dominie?" + +"Certainly not. It isn't manly. Then you think she isn't a +millionairess?" + +"Look at her shoes when next you see her," answered the Bonnie Lassie +conclusively. "_I_ think the poor little thing has put her every cent in +the world into her senseless cellar, and she's going under." + +"But, good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "Something has got to be done." + +"It's going to be." + +"Who's going to do it?" + +"Me," returned the Bonnie Lassie, who is least grammatical when most +purposeful. + +"Then," said I, "the Fates may as well shut up shop and Providence take +a day off; the universe has temporarily changed its management. Can +I help?" + +The Bonnie Lassie focused her gaze in a peculiar manner upon the exact +center of my countenance. A sort of fairy grin played about her lips. "I +wonder if--No," she sighed. "No. I don't think it would do, Dominie. +Anyway, I've got six without you." + +"Including Phil Stacey?" + +"Of course," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "It was he who came to me for +help. I'm really doing this for him." + +"I thought you were doing it for Barbran." + +"Oh; she's just a transposed Washington Squarer," answered the tyrant of +Our Square. "Though she's a dear kiddie, too, underneath the nonsense." + +"Do I understand--" + +"I don't see," interrupted the Bonnie Lassie sweetly, "how you could. I +haven't told you. And the rest are bound to secrecy. But don't be unduly +alarmed at anything queer you may see in Our Square within the next +few days." + +Only by virtue of that warning was I able to command the emotions +aroused by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was +hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a +shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to +sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering +and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of +nonchalance in this world. + +"Good-evening, Cyrus," I said. + +"Good-evening, Dominie." + +"Beautiful weather we're having." + +"Couldn't be finer." + +"Do you think it will hold?" + +"The paper says rain to-morrow." + +"Why is the tip of your nose painted green?" + +"Is it green?" inquired Cyrus, as if he hadn't given the matter any +special consideration, but thought it quite possible. + +"Emerald," said I. "It looks as if it were mortifying." + +"It would be mortifying," admitted Cyrus the Gaunt, "if it weren't in a +good cause." + +"What cause?" I asked. + +"Come out of there!" said Cyrus the Gaunt, not to me, but to a figure +lurking in the shrubbery. + +The Little Red Doctor emerged. I took one look at his most distinctive +feature. + +"You, too!" I said. "What do you mean by it?" + +"Ask Cyrus," returned the Little Red Doctor glumly. + +"It's a cult," said Cyrus. "The credit of the notion belongs not to me, +but to my esteemed better half. A few chosen souls--" + +"Here comes another of them," I conjectured, as a bowed form approached. +"Who is it? MacLachan!" + +The old Scot appeared to be suffering from a severe cold. His +handkerchief was pressed to his face. + +"Take it down, Mac," I ordered. "It's useless." He did so, and my worst +suspicions were confirmed. + +"He bullied me into it," declared the tailor, glowering at Cyrus the +Gaunt. + +"It'll do your nose good," declared Cyrus jauntily. "Give it a change. +Complementary colors, you know. What ho! Our leader." + +Phil Stacey appeared. He appeared serious; that is, as serious as one +can appear when his central feature glows like the starboard light of an +incoming steamship. Following him were Leon Coventry, huge and shy, and +the lethal Boggs looking unhappy. + +"Where are you all going?" I demanded. + +"To the Wrightery," said Phil. + +"Is it a party?" + +"It's a gathering." + +"Am I included?" + +"If you'll--" + +"Not on any account," I declared firmly. It had just occurred to me why +the Bonnie Lassie had centered her gaze upon my features. "Follow your +indecent noses as far as you like. I stay." + +Still lost in meditation, I may have dozed on my bench, when heavy, +measured footsteps aroused me. I looked up to see Terry the Cop, +guardian of our peace, arbiter of differences, conservator of our +morals. I peered at him with anxiety. + +"Terry," I inquired, "how is your nose?" + +"Keen, Dominie," said Terry. He sniffed the air. "Don't you detect the +smell of illegal alcohol?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"It's very plain," declared the officer wriggling his nasal organ which, +I was vastly relieved to observe, retained its original hue. "Wouldn't +you say, Dominie, it comes from yonder cellar?" + +"Barbran's cellar? + +"I am informed that a circle of dangerous char-_ack_ters with green +noses gather there and drink cider containing more than two-seventy-five +per cent of apple juice. I'm about to pull the place." + +"For Heaven's sake, Terry; don't do that! You'll scare--" + +"Whisht, Dominie!" interrupted Terry with an elaborate wink. "There'll +be no surprise, except maybe to the Judge in the morning. You better +drop in at the court." + +Of the round-up I have no details, except that it seemed to be quietly +conducted. The case was called the next day, before Magistrate Wolf Tone +Hanrahan, known as the "Human Judge." Besides being human, his Honor is, +as may be inferred from his name, somewhat Irish. He heard the evidence, +tested the sample, announced his intention of coming around that evening +for some more, and honorably discharged Barbran. + +"And what about these min?" he inquired, gazing upon the dauntless six. + +"Dangerous suspects, Yeronner," said Terry the Cop. + +"They look mild as goat's milk to me," returned the Magistrate, "though +now I get me eye on the rid-hidded wan [with a friendly wink at the +Little Red Doctor] I reckonize him as a desprit charackter that'd save +your life as soon as look at ye. What way are they dang'rous?" + +"When apprehended," replied Terry, looking covertly about to see that +the reporters were within hearing distance, "their noses were +painted green." + +"Is this true?" asked the Magistrate of the six. + +"It is, your Honor," they replied. + +"An', why not!" demanded the Human Judge hotly. "'Tis a glorious color! +Erin go bragh! Off'cer, ye've exceeded yer jooty. D' ye think this is +downtrodden an' sufferin' Oireland an' yerself the tyrant Gineral +French? Let 'em paint their noses anny color they loike; but green for +preference. I'm tellin' ye, this is the land of freedom an' equality, +an' ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, liberty, and the purshoot +of happiness, an' a man's nose is his castle, an' don't ye fergit it. +Dis-charrrrged! Go an' sin no more. I mane, let the good worruk go awn!" + +"Now watch for the evening papers," said young Phil Stacey exultantly. +"The Wrightery will get some free advertising that'll crowd it +for months." + +Alas for youth's golden hopes! The evening papers ignored the carefully +prepared event. One morning paper published a paragraph, attributing the +green noses to a masquerade party. The conspirators, gathered at the +cellar with their war-paints on (in case of reporters), discussed the +fiasco in embittered tones. Young Stacey raged against a stupid and +corrupt press. MacLachan expressed the acidulous hope that thereafter +Cyrus the Gaunt would be content with making a fool of himself without +implicating innocent and confiding friends. The Bonnie Lassie was not +present, but sent word (characteristically) that they must have done it +all wrong; men had no sense, anyway. The party then sent out for +turpentine and broke up to reassemble no more. Only Phil Stacey, +inventor of the great idea, was still faithful to and hopeful of it. +Each evening he conscientiously greened himself and went to eat +with Barbran. + +Time justified his faith. One evening there dropped in a plump man who +exhaled a mild and comforting benevolence, like a gentle country parson. +He smiled sweetly at Phil, and introduced himself as a reporter for the +"Sunday World Magazine"--and where was the rest of the circle? In a +flurry of excitement, the pair sent for Cyrus the Gaunt to do the +talking. Cyrus arrived, breathless and a trifle off color (the Bonnie +Lassie had unfortunately got a touch of bronze scenic paint mixed with +the green, so that he smelled like an over-ripe banana), and proceeded +to exposition. + +"This," he explained, "is a new cult. It is based on the +back-to-the-spring idea. The well-spring of life, you know. +The--er--spring of eternal youth, and--and so forth. You understand?" + +"I hope to," said the reporter politely. "Why on the nose?" + +"I will explain that," returned Cyrus, getting his second wind; "but +first let me get the central idea in your mind. It's a nature movement; +a readjustment of art to nature. All nature is green. Look about you." +Here he paused for effect, which was unfortunate. + +"Quite so," agreed the reporter. "The cable-car, for instance, and the +dollar bill, not to mention the croton bug and the polar bear. But, +pardon me, I interrupt the flow of your eloquence." + +"You do," said Cyrus severely. "Inanimate nature I speak of. All +inanimate nature is green. But we poor fellow creatures have gotten away +from the universal mother-color. We must get back to it. We must learn +to think greenly. But first we must learn to see greenly. How shall we +accomplish this? Put green in our eyes? Impossible, unfortunately. But, +our noses--there is the solution. In direct proximity to the eye, the +color, properly applied, tints one's vision of all things. Green shadows +in a green world," mooned Cyrus the Gaunt poetically. "As the bard +puts it: + + "'Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade.'" + +"Wait a minute," said the visitor, and made a note on an envelope-back. + +"Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a millionaire +cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second note], has +established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our souls." + +"Good!" said the benevolent reporter. "Fine! Of course it's all bunk--" + +"Bunk!" echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with his lank +jaw drooping. + +"You don't see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?" inquired +the visitor pleasantly. "Just what you're putting over I don't know. +Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don't tell me. It's good enough, +anyway. I'll fall for it. It's worth a page story. Of course I'll want +some photographs of the mural paintings. They're almost painfully +beautiful.... What's wrong with our young friend; is he sick?" he added, +looking with astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting +sub-nauseous symptoms. + +"He painted 'em," explained Cyrus, grinning. + +"And he's sorry," supplemented Barbran. + +"Yes; I wouldn't wonder. Well, I won't give him away," said the kindly +journalist. "Now, as to the membership of your circle...." + +The Sunday "story" covered a full page. The "millionairess" feature was +played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations did what +little the text failed to do. It was a "josh-story" from beginning +to end. + +"I'll kill that pious fraud of a reporter," declared Phil. + +"Now the place _is_ ruined," mourned Barbran. + +"Wait and see," advised the wiser Cyrus. + +Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom +on the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that +week and the succeeding week. + +"I never was good at figures," said the transported Barbran to Phil +Stacey at the close of the month, "but as near as I can make out, I've a +clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My fortune is made. And +it's all due to you." + +Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, +the owner's golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had +other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim +cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was +the first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he +knew he was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to +the pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that +a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then +Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important +engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut +country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow +does not make a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis +convince a skeptical public that it is enjoying the fearful +companionship of a subversive and revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed +out as fast as it had flooded in. Barbran's eyes were as soft and happy +as ever in the evenings, when she and Phil sat in a less and less +interrupted solitude. But in the mornings palpable fear stalked her. +Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied with a dread of his own. + +One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and +home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up +to facing the facts. + +"It's going to be a failure," she said dismally. + +"Then you're going away?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from +quaking. + +She set her little chin quite firmly. "Not while there's a chance left +of pulling it out." + +"Well; it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned," he muttered. "I'm +going away myself." + +"You?" She sat up very straight and startled. "Where?" + +"Kansas City." + +"Oh! What for?" + +"Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came back +to ask about the decorations?" + +"Yes." + +"He's built him a new house--he calls it a mansion--and he wants me to +paint the music-room. He likes"--Phil gulped a little--"my style +of art." + +"Isn't that great!" said Barbran in the voice of one giving three cheers +for a funeral. "How does he want his music-room decorated?" + +Young Phil put his head in his hands. "Scenes from Moody and Sankey," he +said in a muffled voice. + +"Good gracious! You aren't going to do it?" + +"I am," retorted the other gloomily. "It's good money." Almost +immediately he added, "Damn the money!" + +"No; no; you mustn't do that. You must go, of course. Would--will it +take long?" + +"I'm not coming back." + +"I don't _want_ you not to come back," said Barbran, in a queer, +frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and hastily withdrew it. + +He said desperately: "What's the use? I can't sit here forever looking +at you and--and dreaming of--of impossible things, and eating my heart +out with my nose painted green." + +"The poor nose!" murmured Barbran. + +With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she +gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble +attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and +pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable. + +So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed. + +It was not Barbran's nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that matter, +was it young Phil's. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, for the +untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded of +Barbran and the fates: + +"What's the use?" + +"What's the use of what?" returned Barbran tremulously. + +"Of all this? Your father's a millionaire, and I won't--I can't--" + +"He isn't!" cried Barbran. "And you can--you will." + +"He isn't?" ejaculated Phil. "What is he?" + +"He's a school-teacher, and I haven't got a thing but debts." + +Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy +bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an +interlude he said: + +"But, why--" + +"Because," said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: "I thought it +would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it +would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil! +Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a--a--a--dumbbell?" + +For he had thrust her away from him at arm's-length again. + +"There's one other thing between us, Barbran." + +"If there is, it's your fault. What is it?" + +"Harvey Wheelwright," he said solemnly. "Do you really like that +sickening slush-slinger?" + +She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. "I loathe +him. I've always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with and +the paper it's printed on." + +When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the +"Dear Friend and Admirer" letter in a slow candle-flame, and Harvey +Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, was +writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their +little romance. + +"And he's not going to Kansas City," said Barbran defiantly. + +"I'm not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And he's going to paint what he wants to." + +"Pictures of Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And we're going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe off the +walls and _make_ the place a success," said Barbran. + +"And we're going to be married right away," said Phil. + +"Next week," said Barbran. + +"What do you think?" said both. + +Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. +I should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on +twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached +prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out--The wind blew the +door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little +burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my +withered heart. + +"Bless you, my children!" said I. + +It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their +reckless, feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the +tailor, reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions +regarding the pair. + +"What'll they be marryin' on?" demanded Mac Wisdom--that is to say, +MacLachan. + +"Spring and youth," I said. "The fragrance of lilac in the air, the glow +of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?" + +"A bit of prudence," said MacLachan. + +"Prudence!" I retorted scornfully. "The miser of the virtues. It may pay +its own way through the world. But when did it ever take Happiness along +for a jaunt?" + +I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon +me with his observation about two young fools and an old one. + +Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that +headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, +and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at +the window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be +justified of his forebodings, and yet--and yet--who am I, old and lonely +and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and the +sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of +MacLachan and that ilk? + +Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and +flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried--and I let +the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the song +endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its +echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two +young fools. + +As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment +and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his +nose green! + + + +PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE + +Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an old +and melancholy song that my grandfather sang: + + "And his skin was so thin + You could almost see his bones + As he ran, hobble--hobble--hobble + Over the stones." + +Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts would +invariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which had +forever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!" He would then recapitulate +in English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was his +substitute for it. "Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for mend?" + +So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute +intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly +built, stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, +with a face which would have been totally insignificant but for an +obstinate chin and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning +eyes; and he was incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived +among us, occupying a cubbyhole in Schepstein's basement full of ribs, +handles, crooks, patches, and springs, without appreciably improving his +speech or his position. It was said that his name was Garin--nobody +really knew or cared--and it was assumed from his speech that he +was French. + +Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain such +non-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation. +Why Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, though +by no means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the Bonnie +Lassie, to whom any variety of want or helplessness is its own +sufficient recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptown +friends. Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariably +took off his frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she was +there to see, and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent of +declaring that she was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I ever +heard him make upon any one in Our Square, which in turn completely +ignored him until the development of his love affair stimulated our +condescending and contemptuous interest. + +The object of Plooie's addresses was a little Swiss of unknown +derivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from the +surrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bit +of a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, soft +hazel eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those who +scrub other people's doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour. + +For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran an +uneventful course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell +where is fancy bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the +drabbled little worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open +the conversation according to an invariable formula. + +"Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?" Thereby the little Swiss +became known as, and ever will be called locally, "Annie Oombrella." +Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a fatal penchant +for nicknames in Our Square. + +She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed, +should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended! + +Then would he say--I shall not attempt to torture the good English +alphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: "It makes fine +to-day, it do!" + +And she would reply "Yes, a fine day"; and look as if the sun were a +little warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie's greeting, as, +perhaps, indeed, it was. + +After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious, +venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming his +unproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered that +she spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. On +Christmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year's he took +her walking among the tombstones in God's Acre, which is a serious and +sentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in the +following week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in the +glowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand, +on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other's eyes, +and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the rest of +the world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not to +understand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed. +It was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said: + +"If one marries themselves?" + +And she replied: "I believe it well." + +They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric +light which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless +activity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor +of them. + +But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles she +mistrusts that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts as +earthly agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken little +creatures to marry on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Square +in general and to the two people most concerned in particular. Courts of +law might have rejected their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however, +they were convincing enough. + +Said Plooie: "Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?" + +Said Annie Oombrella: "He is so lonely!" + +So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happiness +came of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What disposition +the pair would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficult +to conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, and +fabrics was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for Annie +Oombrella to squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as a +bird, with an odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up at +an auction and resold to them at not more than two hundred per cent +profit, plus a kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of the +Bonnie Lassie and her husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they had +meat. They were rising in the social scale. + +Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to +Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we +endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say +that we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him +professionally. Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie +Oombrella must have lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders +broadened perceptibly. His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew +noticeably brisker. There was even a heartier note in his lamentable +trade cry: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!" + +As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformed +her. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow, +though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabbling +and splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porches +of her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up to +twenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savings +account. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth and +peaceful and sunny with companionship. + +Then came the war. + +The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to so +many helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame and +humiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, Our +Square was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant France +and prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons +of Gaul who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How +sourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence +arose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time +of wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liège. Liège, that city of +fire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the +world were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry +on the marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my +bench with a little furrow between her bright eyes. + +"Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?" + +"Not at all," I replied, failing to identify the rickety Plooie by his +rightful name. + +"Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and asks +if you have an umbrella to mend." + +"I never have. What of him?" + +"Have you any influence with him?" + +"Not compared with yours." + +The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. "I can't find him. +And Annie Oombrella won't tell me where he is. She only cries." + +"That's bad. You think he--he is--" + +"Why don't you say it outright, Dominie? _You_ think he's hiding." + +"Really!" I expostulated. "You come to me with accusations against the +poor fellow and then undertake to make me responsible for them." + +"I don't believe it's true at all," averred the Bonnie Lassie loyally. +"I don't believe Plooie is a coward. There's some reason why he doesn't +go over and help! I want to know what it is." + +Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, I +did my best. "Over age," I suggested. + +"He's only thirty-two." + +"Bless me! He looks sixty. Well--physical infirmity." + +"He can carry a load all day." + +"He won't leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won't let him." + +"When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her mother +was French and she would go and fight herself, if they'd have her." + +"Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?" + +"I don't know. But I'm afraid the Garins are going to have trouble." + +Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal for +trade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once. +Small boys booed at him, called him "yellow," and advised him to go +carefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, our +little old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and claw +with his German Jonathan in Thornsen's Élite Restaurant, stung him with +that most insulting word in any known tongue--"Lâche!"--and threatened +him with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think it was +the fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had set a +picture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that most +exasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grew +quavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matters +looked ill for the Garins. + +The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off all +relations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterward +rejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got on +our nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped a +barrel down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But the +chase took him into the midst of a group of the younger and more +boisterous element, returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen's +Sons of Avenue B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him. + +"Here's our little 'ee-ro!" "Looka the Frenchy that won't fight!" +"Safety first, hey, Plooie?" "Charge umbrellas--backward, march!" + +Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst +thing he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became +their captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, +once in the hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an +inspirational thought: "Ride him on a rail!" + +Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was +hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, +wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore +him with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park. + +When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was being +augmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry the +Cop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonable +probability that he had absented himself on purpose. "God hates a +coward" is a tenet of Terry's creed. I confess to a certain sympathy +with it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for Plooie, +the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I leaned +back on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality. + +Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. +From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, +which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their +concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, +delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his +voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the +supervening heads: + +"Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, +little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear." + +From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in +his face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His +voice, steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to +entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice. + +Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the +more hopelessly against the barrier of bodies. + +Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The +many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation. + +"Le's tar-and-feather him." + +"White feathers!" + +"Where'll we gettum?" + +"Satkins's kosher shop on the Av'noo." + +"Where's yer tar?" + +This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical +expedient now evolved from the collective brain. + +"Duck'm in the fountain!" + +"_Drown_ him in the fountain!" amended an enthusiast. + +Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming +dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate +umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob +impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the +playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. +Plainly the time was ripe for intervention. + +Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, +the scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. +Now, if ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion. + +For the heroic rôle of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by +temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the +imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason. + +The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed. + +"Never mind the Dominie," yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail by +an end and hauling it around. "He don't mean nothin'." + +Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate +brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as +I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous +urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted +aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out +reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a +frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened +for the splash. + +It did not come. + +A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my +unsuccessful rôle of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had +succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney +Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia. + +Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously +anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most +peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing. + +I like to think--the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself +thereby--that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to +hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to +intervene. + +Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the +Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black +Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance +grated upon her sensitive ear. + +"What is that rabble about, Sally?" she inquired. + +The aged negress reconnoitered. "Reckon dey's ridin' a gentmun on a +rail," she reported. + +"A _gentleman_, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an +affront. Look again." + +"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrella +oncet." + +"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkered +for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the high +protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once." + +Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the +advancing mob was "no place foh a niggah." + +With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist +'em, mist'ess." + +Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelled +by her mistress's confidence in herself. + +Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified +servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the +brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed +MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before. +Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to +her locally. + +She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like +steel. The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the +proper moment, she raised it. + +"What are you doing?" + +The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon +humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in +Macaulay's immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, "those behind cried +'Forward' and those before cried 'Back'!" That single hale and fiery old +lady held them. No more could those two hundred ruffians have defied the +challenge of her contemptuous eyes than they could have advanced into +the flaming doors of a furnace. + +A cautious voice from the rear inquired: "Who's the dame?" + +"She's a witch," conjectured some one. + +"It's the Duchess," said another, giving her the local title of +veneration. + +"It's the lady that shot the tailor," proclaimed an awe-stricken +bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.) +Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a +malevolent squeak: + +"T'row 'er in the drink." + +"Who spoke?" said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear. + +Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically +resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. +Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a +glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveled +a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, +who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl into +his own pocket. + +"Michael," said the Duchess. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe Sapperstein. + +"What are you doing to that unfortunate person?" + +"J-j-just a little j-j-joke," replied the other in what was doubtless +intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone. + +"Let him down." Inky Mike hesitated. "At once!" snapped the Duchess and +stamped her foot. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike meekly. + +Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those +behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame +Tallafferr's bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative +diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and +significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A +subtle suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her. +Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to. + +"Go about your business," she said. "Rabble!" she added in precisely the +tone which one might expect of a well-bred but particularly +deadly snake. + +The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd +disintegrated into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what +they were doing there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away. +Plooie was triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, +and (less triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which +chanced to be the Bonnie Lassie's house. Annie Oombrella pattered along +beside him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry. + +But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, _she_ cried, as +much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies +and cowards and imbeciles--and why hadn't her Cyrus been at home to stop +it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus +Staten had not been needed: the _canaille_ would always respect a proper +show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling and +sparkling. + +After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than +anything else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our +Square for his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the +following Sunday. Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the Bonnie +Lassie reasons with her heart instead of her head, we accept her +theories with habitual and smiling indulgence rather than respect--until +the facts bear them out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to +inquire as to their proposed course, and had rather more than hinted +that if the head of the house wished to respond to his country's call, +Our Square would look after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a +stubborn and somber silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that he +seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the +Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather +markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his +departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your +neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiency +of data. + +So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant, +with only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window +as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But +Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year +after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office +far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which +she had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful +and haggard. + +Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs +nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie. +Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head. + +"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence of +iniquity. + +"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice that +Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her +eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as +they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to +observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily +unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, +he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, +on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) +She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head. + +"Well, if you ever need a home, the basement's vacant and there ain't a +better basement in Our Square." + +Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his +business. + +Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, +according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had +known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom +of Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a +bulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until there +sped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales. +Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the +simple memorials in Our Square. + +Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its +ancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to +be. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the +year of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, +vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our +lilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the +air, my ears were smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths. + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees," it cried on a faint and cluttering note. +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder." + +Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual +range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like +Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie's and emitted again the familiar +though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it _was_ Plooie. +He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who never +wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma. + +As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, +and walked over to Schepstein's. There in the basement, amid the +familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie. + +"Bonjour, Dominie," said she wistfully. + +"Good-morning, Annie. So you are back." + +"Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?" + +"There is need that one explain one's self. What have you been doing +these three years?" + +"I work. I work hard." + +"And your husband? What has he been doing?" I asked sternly. + +Annie Oombrella's soft face drooped. "Soyez gentil, Dominie," she +implored. "Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so +triste--so sad." + +"He doesn't look well, Annie." + +"He have been ver' seeck. Now we come home he is already weller." + +"But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?" I demanded, +feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella's reply did not +make me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around that +unspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home to +Plooie and her. + +"We have loved each other so much here," said she. + +Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed or +thought. War's resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was Plooie +in danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he made +his rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella's +prodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple in +Schepstein's basement would have fared ill. + +Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face. + +To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discovery +about Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and +shouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was _you_ doing in the war?" his jaw would +drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave his +burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and +sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly +developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first +and last. + +Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This +didn't help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing +point anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not +to deal with a poltroon, as she put it. + +On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He was +in no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone up +to line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians. +So had such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place was +practically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his +cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie +to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, +the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my +unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been +on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not +misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as +little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for +the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of +God within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still +glossy silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and it +was well for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained at +home for reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrus +the Gaunt, should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up. +Said the Bonnie Lassie: + +"I wonder why Plooie didn't go to see his king." + +"Sense of shame," I suggested acidly. + +"Yes?" said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted. + +"It is no use," I assured her, "for you to favor me with that pitying +and contemptuous smile of yours, for I can't see it. Mendel has my +nearer range of vision locked in his shop." + +"I was just thinking," said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant accents, "how +nice it must be to look back on a long life of unspotted correctness +with not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives one such a comfortable +basis for sitting in judgment." + +"Her lips drip honey," I observed, "and the poison of asps is under her +tongue." + +"Your quotations are fatally mixed," retorted my companion. + +From across the park sounded Plooie's patient falsetto: +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-" The +call broke off in a kind of choke. + +"What's happened to Plooie?" I asked. "The youngsters can't have got +back from the parade already, have they?" + +"A very tall man has stopped him," said the Bonnie Lassie. "Plooie has +dropped his kit.... He's trying to salute.... It must be one of the +Belgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!" + +"Well, what?" I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant Mendel in +my heart. + +"It can't be ... you don't think they can be arresting poor Plooie at +this late day for evading service?" + +"Serve him right if they did," said I. + +"I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is leading +him along. Poor Plooie! He's all wilted down. It's a shame!" cried the +Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. "It ought not to be allowed." + +"Probably they're taking him away. Do you see an official-looking +automobile anywhere about?" + +"There's a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor Annie +Oombrella! But--but they're not going there. They're going into +Schepstein's basement." + +I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment I +endured it. Then I said: + +"Well, Lassie, why don't you?" + +"Why don't I what?" + +"Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. Opposite +Schepstein's." + +"That isn't my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie," said the +Bonnie Lassie with dignity. + +"Isn't it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know." + +"How shamelessly you garble! It was--" + +"Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be: +_suppressed_ curiosity killed a cat." + +The Bonnie Lassie sniffed. + +"Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench," I +pursued, "through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to the +back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should almost +prefer that you would go--and peek." + +"Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie, "you are a despicable old man.... +I'll be back in a minute." + +"Don't stay long," I pleaded. "Pity the blind." + +Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her +voice when she returned. + +"It's so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is sitting on a +pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella's face is all +swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute." + +Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could +best meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we did +not note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces of +the bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very tall +and straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassie +of his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She got +up from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling. +Where, I wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that the +mere sight of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusually +self-controlled wife of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deep +and curiously melancholy voice: + +"Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?" + +"I--I--I--" began the Bonnie Lassie. + +"The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several years +since?" + +"Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville." + +(Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been at +Trouville, which did not assuage my suspicions.) + +"You are friends of my--countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?" he +pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint +echo of an accent. + +"Who?" I said. "Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, acquaintances would +be more accurate." + +"He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great need +of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you." + +"You are interested in Plooie?" I asked. + +"Plooie?" he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he laughed +gently. "Profoundly interested," he said. "I have here one of his finest +umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. There was also a lady of +whom he speaks, a _grande dame_, of very great authority." For all the +sadness of the deep voice, I felt that his eyes were twinkling. + +"Madame Tallafferr," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. "She is away on a +visit." + +"I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be +knighted." + +"Knighthood would add nothing to her status," said I, dryly. "She is a +Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with two _f_s, two +_l_s, and two _r_s." + +"Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders of +merit," said the big sad-voiced man courteously. "But I should have been +proud to meet her." + +"May I tell her that?" asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly. + +"By all means--when I am gone." Again I felt the smile that must be in +the eyes. "But there were others here, not so friendly to the little +Garin. That is true, is it not?" + +"Yes," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving case," +I pointed out defensively. + +"Then it is only because he does not explain himself well," returned the +Belgian quickly. + +"He does not explain himself at all," I corrected. "Nor does Annie +Oom--his wife." + +"Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear with +me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those +who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?" + +The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, +the big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might +have taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so +straightly the expression of a great and generous personality. + +"Emile Garin," he said, "was a son of Belgium. He was poor and his +people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. So +he came to your great country to make his living. When our enemies +invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, the +little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit +for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings +they must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps here +because otherwise he would not--You spoke, Monsieur?" + +"Nothing. I only said, 'God forgive us!'" + +"Amen," said the narrator gravely. "Everywhere they rejected him as +unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not so?" + +"That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously," confirmed the Bonnie +Lassie. + +"After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled into +the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He +was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. +Nothing mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach +my country at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, +no matter who he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, +because he was unable to march. He had weak legs." + +At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. +"I _told_ you there was something," she murmured triumphantly. + +"Hush!" said I. + +"I am glad to find that he had one true defender here," pursued the +biographer of Plooie. "Though he could not fight in the ranks there was +use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in those black +days. He was made driver of a--a charette; I do not know if you have +them in your great city?" He paused, and I guessed that the rumble of +heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come opportunely. "Ah, +yes; there is one." + +"A dump-cart," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious +thing to drive a dump-cart for one's country--unless one makes it so. +But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what you +call quaint--I have already told you. He was faithful and hard-working. +They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and his +big cart." + +"Not precisely safety-first," whispered the Bonnie Lassie to me, +maliciously. + +"You are interrupting the story," said I with dignity. + +"One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here on +this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down +the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type +of grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little +lever--so. One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the +grenade, and at the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is +of terrible power. The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the +middle of the road between the two hospitals full of the helplessly +wounded. For what? Perhaps to sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. +Heaven only knows, for the sergeant has the luck to be killed next day +by a German shell, before he can be court-martialed. As he sets down the +grenade, the little lever is moved. The sergeant loses his head. He +runs, shouting to everybody to run also. + +"But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot run. +They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a +visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady." The sad voice +deepened and softened. + +"I know," whispered the Bonnie Lassie; "I can guess." + +"Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does not +know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people +escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, 'Turn +your cart, you fool, and save yourself.' Oh, yes; he can save himself. +That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can save +them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big +dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The +mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade +explodes, nevertheless. + +"One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. Everything +near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the floor, but she +is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms the terrified. +The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have driven a +dump-cart for one's country--so." + +"But what became of our Plooie?" besought the Bonnie Lassie. + +The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. "They looked for +him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large piece +of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was that +large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital +which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he +cannot speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got +out of hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did +not care. Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records +were lost in the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The +great lady wished very much to see him. But we could find nothing except +that he had come back to this country. Official inquiry was made here +and he was traced to Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot +speak for himself and will not allow his wife to tell his story--it is +part of the shell-shock which will wear off in time--I came to speak +for him." + +"Does your--do you do this sort of thing often?" asked the Bonnie Lassie +with a queer sort of resonance in her voice. + +The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: +"One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But there +is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved lady +whom the little Garin saved." + +"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly. + +After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. +Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. + +"Plooie!" she said, and that was all. + +"You are crying," I said. + +"I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For your +injustice." + +"If we all bewept our injustices," said I oracularly, "Noah would have +to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his." + +"What do you think of him?" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder, +his selections were at times ill-advised." + +"Don't be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I'm not interested in Noah." + +"As to our romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gaunt +would better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus to +produce such an emotional effect upon you." + +"Don't be school-girlish!" admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. "Poor +old Dominie! He doesn't know what's going on under his very nose. Where +are your eyes?" + +"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we going +to make it up to Plooie?" + +"I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassie +loftily. + +Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an +irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their +pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was +subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city's +reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his +important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and +disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign +across the front of Plooie's basement, was the magnet that drew them: + + Emile Garin & Wife + Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser + + to + + His Majesty + + The King of the Belgians + (By Royal Warranty) + +No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their +well-deserved fortune is made. + + + +TRIUMPH + + The months go by--bleak March and May-day heat-- + Harvest is over--winter well-nigh done-- + And still I say, "To-morrow we shall meet." + + MAY PROBYN + +The Little Red Doctor sat on the far end of my bench. Snow fringed the +bristling curve of his mustache. He shivered. + +"Dominie," said he, "it's a wild day." + +I assented. + +"Dominie," said the Little Red Doctor, "it is no kind of a day for an +old man to be sitting on a bench." + +I dissented. + +"Dominie," persisted the Little Red Doctor, "you can't deny that you're +old." + +"Whose fault is that but yours?" I retorted. + +"Don't try to flatter me," said the Little Red Doctor. "You'd have +licked my old friend, Death, in that bout you had with him, without any +help of mine. And, anyway, you were already old, then. You're a tough +old bird, Dominie. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here in a March +blizzard staring at the Worth mansion and wondering what really happened +there three years ago." + +"Your old friend, Death, beat you that time," said I maliciously. + +The Little Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. "Look your fill, +Dominie," he advised. "You won't have much more chance." + +"Why?" I asked, startled. + +"The wreckers begin on it next month. Also a nice, new building is going +up next door to it on that little, secret, walled jungle that Ely Crouch +used to misname his garden. I'm glad of it, too. I don't like +anachronisms." + +"I'm an anachronism," I returned. "You'll be one pretty soon. Our Square +is one solid anachronism." + +"It won't be much longer. The tide is undermining us. Other houses will +go as the Worth place is going. You'll miss it, Dominie. You love houses +as if they were people." + +It is true. To me houses are the only fabrications of man's hands that +are personalities. Enterprise builds the factory, Greed the tenement, +but Love alone builds the house, and by Love alone is it maintained +against the city's relentless encroachments. Once hallowed by +habitation, what warm and vivid influences impregnate it! Ambition, +pride, hope, joys happily shared; suffering, sorrow, and loss bravely +endured--the walls outlive them all, gathering with age, from grief and +joy alike, kind memories and stanch traditions. Yes, I love the old +houses. Yet I should not be sorry to see the Worth mansion razed. It has +outlived all the lives that once cherished it and become a dead, +unhuman thing. + +That solid square of brown, gray-trimmed stone had grown old honorably +with the honorable generations of the Worths. Then it had died. In one +smiting stroke of tragedy the life had gone out of it. Now it stood +staring bleakly out from its corner with filmed eyes, across the busy +square. Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm +of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still +harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret. + +The Little Red Doctor broke in upon my reverie. + +"Yes; you're old, Dominie. But you're not wise. You're very foolish. +Foolish and obstinate." + +Knowing well what he meant, I nevertheless pampered him by asking: "Why +am I foolish and obstinate?" + +"Because you refuse to believe that Ned Worth murdered Ely Crouch. Don't +you?" + +"I do." + +"Then why did Ned commit suicide?" + +"I don't know." + +"How do you explain away his written confession?" + +"I don't. I only know that it was not in Ned Worth's character willfully +to kill an old man. You were his friend; you ought to know it as well +as I do." + +"Ah, that's different," said the Little Red Doctor, giving me one of his +queer looks. "Yes; you're a pig-headed old man, Dominie." + +"I'm a believer in character." + +"I don't know of any other man equally pig-headed, except possibly one. +He's old, too." + +"Gale Sheldon," said I, naming the gentle, withered librarian of a +branch library a few blocks to the westward, the only other resident of +Our Square who had unfailingly supported me in my loyalty to the memory +of the last of the Worths. + +"Yes. He's waiting for us now in his rooms. Will you come?" + +Perceiving that there was something back of this--there usually is, in +the Little Red Doctor's maneuvers--I rose and we set out. As we passed +the Worth house it seemed grimmer and bleaker than ever before. There +was something savage and desperate in its desolation. The cold curse of +abandonment lay upon it. At the turn of the corner the Little Red Doctor +said abruptly. + +"She's dead." + +"Who?" I demanded. + +"The girl. The woman in the case." + +"In the Ely Crouch case? A woman? There was never any woman hinted at." + +"No. And there never would have been as long as she was alive. +Now--Well, I'll leave Sheldon to explain her. He loved her, too, in +his way." + +In Gale Sheldon's big, still room, crowded with the friendly ghosts of +mighty books, a clear fire was burning. One shaded lamp at the desk was +turned on, for though it was afternoon the blizzard cast a gloom like +dusk. The Little Red Doctor retired to a far corner where he was all but +merged in the shadows. + +"Have you seen this?" Sheldon asked me, pointing to the table. + +Thereon was spread strange literature for the scholarly taste of our +local book-worm, a section from the most sensational of New York's +Sunday newspapers. From the front page, surrounded by a barbarous +conglomeration of headlines and uproarious type, there smiled happily +forth a face of such appealing loveliness as no journalistic vulgarity +could taint or profane. I recognized it at once, as any one must have +done who had ever seen the unforgettable original. It was Virginia +Kingsley, who, two years before, had been Sheldon's assistant. The +picture was labeled, "Death Ends Wanderlust of Mysterious Heiress," and +the article was couched in a like style of curiosity-piquing +sensationalism. Stripped of its fulsome verbiage, it told of the girl's +recent death in Italy, after traveling about Europe with an invalid +sister; during which progress, the article gloated, she was "vainly +wooed by the Old World's proudest nobility for her beauty and wealth," +the latter having been unexpectedly left her by an aged relative. Her +inexorable refusals were set down, by the romantic journalist, as due to +some secret and prior attachment. (He termed it an "affair de court"!) + +Out of the welter of words there stood forth one sentence to tempt the +imagination: "She met death as a tryst." For that brief flash the +reporter had been lifted out of his bathos and tawdriness into a clearer +element. One could well believe that she had "met death as a tryst." For +if ever I have beheld unfaltering hope and unflagging courage glorified +and spiritualized into unearthly beauty, it was there in that pictured +face, fixed by the imperishable magic of the camera. + +"No; I hadn't seen it," I said after reading. "Is it true?" + +"In part." Then, after a pause, "You knew her, didn't you, Dominie?" + +"Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn't +she?" + +"Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of all +that the singers of springtime and youth have sung." He sighed, shaking +his grizzled head mournfully. "'And all that glory now lies dimmed in +death.' It doesn't seem believable." + +He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be +vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He +stared at it musing. + +"I've often wondered if she cared for him," he murmured. + +"For him? For Worth!" I exclaimed in amazement. "Were they friends?" + +"Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very strangely +the day of his death and never came back." + +From the physician's corner there came an indeterminate grunt. + +"If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say that on +the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only in the +line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century poets. +But even that interest died out. It was months before the--the tragedy +that he stopped coming to the Library." + +"It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, wasn't +it?" I asked. + +"Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard it +hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain." He turned +inquiringly to the far, dim corner. + +Out of it the Little Red Doctor barked: "Death had him by the throat." + +"Death? In what form?" + +"Slow, sure fingers, shutting off his breath. Do you need further +details or will the dry, scientific term, epithelioma, be enough?" The +voice came grim out of the gloom. No answer being returned, it +continued: "I've had easier jobs than telling Ned Worth. It was hopeless +from the first. My old friend, Death, had too long a start on me." + +"Was it something that affected his mind?" + +"No. His mind was perfectly clear. Vividly clear. May I take my last +verdict, when it comes, with a spirit as clear and as noble." + +Silence fell, and in the stillness we heard the Little Red Doctor +communing with memories. Now and then came a muttered word. "Suicide!" +in a snarl of scornful rejection. "Fool-made definitions!" Presently, +"Story for a romancer, not a physician." He seemed to be canvassing an +inadequacy in himself with dissatisfaction. Then, more clearly: "Love +from the first. At a glance, perhaps. The contagion of flame for powder. +But in that abyss together they saw each other's soul." + +"The Little Red Doctor is turning poet," said Sheldon to me in an +incredulous whisper. + +There was the snap and crackle of a match from the shadowed corner. The +keen, gnarled young face sprang from the darkness, vivid and softened +with a strange triumph, then receded behind an imperfect circle, clouded +the next instant by a nimbus of smoke. The Little Red Doctor spoke. + +Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men, +who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don't suppose any one ever came +in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without +loving him for it. "Immortal hilarity!" The phrase might have been +coined for him. + +It wasn't as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing +sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn't want him to be alone that +first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would +have thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as +steady as a rock. + +"No danger of my being a miser of life," he said. "You've given me leave +to spend freely what's left of it." Well, he spent. Freely and +splendidly! + +The spacious old library on the second floor--you know it, Dominie, +smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned's servant bringing up the rear with +a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over +everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the +corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house +into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since +the others of the family died, Ned hadn't stayed there long enough at a +time to humanize it. + +Ned's man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some +late purchases, and left to execute them. I went over to open the two +deep-set windows on the farther side of the room. It was a still, close +October night, and the late scent of warmed-over earth came up to me out +of Ely Crouch's garden next door. From where I stood in the broad +embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I +could see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his +desk sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon +his face, without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry the +picture in my mind. + +"What's become of you, Chris?" he demanded presently. I came out into +the main part of the room. "Oh, there you are! You'll look after a few +little matters for me, won't you?" He indicated a sheaf of papers. + +"You needn't be in such a hurry," said I with illogical resentment. "It +isn't going to be to-morrow or next week." + +"Isn't it?" Something in his tone made me look at him sharply. "Six +months or three months or to-morrow," he added, more lightly; "what does +it matter as long as it's sure! You know, what I appreciate is that you +gave me the truth straight." + +"It's a luxury few of my patients get. Their constitutions won't stand +it." + +"It's a compliment to my nerve. Strangely enough I don't feel nervous +about it." + +"I do. Damnably! About something, anyway. There's something wrong with +this room, Ned. What is it?" + +"Don't you know?" he laughed. "It's the sepulchral silence of Old +Grandfather Clock, over there. You're looking right at him and wondering +subconsciously why he doesn't make a noise like Time." + +"That's easily remedied." Consulting my watch I set and wound the +ancient timepiece. Its comfortable iteration made the place at once more +livable. Immediately it struck the hour. + +"Ten o'clock," I said, and parted the draperies at the lower window to +look out again. "Ten o'clock of a still, cloudy night and--and the devil +is on a prowl in his garden." + +"Meaning my highly respected neighbor and ornament to the local bar, the +Honorable Ely Crouch?" + +"Exactly. Preceded by a familiar spirit in animal form." + +"Oh, that's his pet ferret and boon companion." + +"Not his only companion. There's some one with him," I said. "A woman." + +"I don't admire her taste in romance," said Ned. + +"Nor her discretion. You know what they say: 'A dollar or a woman never +safe alone with Ely Crouch.'" + +"My dollars certainly weren't," observed Ned. + +"How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?" I asked. + +"Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my +neighbor's flirtations and look here." + +I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded +by a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. + +"Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me," he added. + +"Is it enough to go on with, Ned?" I asked. + +He smiled at me. "Plenty for my time. You forget." + +For the moment I had forgotten. "But what on earth are you going to do +with all that ready cash?" + +"Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed down +your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I've +planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think +of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day +I've struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the +simple medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, +Chris, and come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we'll +work wonders." + +"And after?" I asked. + +"Oh, after! Well, there'll be no further reason for the 'permanent +possibility of sensation' on my part. That's your precious science's +best definition of life, I believe. It doesn't appeal to one as alluring +when the sensation promises to become--well, increasingly unpleasant." + +There was no mistaking his meaning. "I can't have that, my son," I +protested. + +"No? That's a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at it from my +point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, rather +than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no meaning +for a man in my condition. If you'll tell me there's a chance, one mere, +remote human chance--" He paused, turning to me with what was almost +appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! But Ned Worth was the +kind that you can't lie to. I looked at him standing there so strong and +fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in his veins, sentenced +beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of another man +under doom: + + "I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day." + +We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like +the veil over the eagle's eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I +could not trust my voice to answer him. + +"You see," he said; "you can't." His hand fell on my arm. "I'm sorry, +Chris," he said in that winning voice of his; "I shouldn't plague you +for something that you can't give me." + +"I can tell you this, anyway," said I: "that it's something less than +courage to give up until the time comes. You didn't give your life. You +haven't the right to take it; anyway, not until its last usefulness +is over." + +He made a movement of impatience. + +"Oh, I'm not asking you to endure torture. I'd release you myself from +that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But how can you tell +that being alive instead of dead next week or next month may not make an +eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn't played out yet. +Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the curtain is +rung down?" + +"Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down into +that garden and kill Ely Crouch," he suggested, smiling. "That would be +a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and peaceful death, +wouldn't it?" + +"Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable," I answered, +relieved at his change of tone. + +"I suppose it is." He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. "Chris, +what do you believe comes after?" + +"Justice." + +"A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, in +being sport enough to play the game through. You're right, old +hard-shell. I'll stick it out. It will only mean spending _this_"--he +swept the money back into its repository--"a little more slowly." + +"I was sure I could count on you," I said. "Now I can give you the +talisman." I set on the desk before him a small pasteboard box. "Pay +strict attention. You see that label? That's to remind you. One tablet +if you can't sleep." + +"I couldn't last night." + +"Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand." + +He nodded. + +"But three at one time and you'll sleep so sound that nothing will ever +awaken you." + +"Good old Chris!" Opening the box, he fingered the pellets curiously. "A +blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep." + +"On trust, Ned." + +"On honor," he agreed. "Then I mustn't expunge old Crouch? It's a +disappointment," he added gayly. + +He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. +His voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains. + +"Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for it. +I'll stay here and breathe it." + +"Good!" said I. "I've five minutes of telephoning to do. Then I'll be +back." + +Nobody can ever tell me again that there's an instinct which feels the +presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within +arm's-length of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate +emotions. I could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she +crouched, hidden in the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as +if the whole atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the +terrific passion of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt--nothing. +No sense, as I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will +which nerved and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. +Afterward she was unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must +have been for some minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of +terror was the word "Suicide." It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at +first; and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what +followed, my instructions about the poison took on the voice of a +ministering providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor +had she recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of +the disease. But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass +on my way to the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what +she told me later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my +return, I piece together the events which so swiftly followed. + +A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner. +As it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper +window those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure +had almost reached the desk. The face was turned from him. Even in that +moment of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to +her body, with a curious awkwardness. + +"Hello!" he challenged. + +She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush. +Her hand fell upon the box of pellets. She turned, clutching that little +box of desperate hopes to her bosom. + +"Good God! Virginia!" he exclaimed. "Miss Kingsley!" + +"Mr. Worth! Was it you I heard? Why--how are you here?" + +"This is my house." + +"I didn't know." Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a watchful animal, +she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself and a possible +interference. Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, impeded her +fumbling efforts to open the box. Presently, however, the cover yielded. + +He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope. His +brain hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering +upon her obvious and preposterous purpose. Suddenly, as her fingers +trembled among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem +was formed. + +"What do you want with my tonic?" he asked coolly. + +"Tonic? I--I thought--" + +"You thought it was the poison. Well, you've got the wrong box. The +poison box is in the drawer." + +"In the drawer," she repeated. She spoke in the mechanical voice of one +desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital project. Her +nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk. + +He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, +and dropped it into his pocket. + +"Oh!" she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing eyes. +"Then it _was_ the poison!" + +"Yes." + +"Give it back to me!" she implored, like a bereft child. "Oh, give it to +me!" + +"Why do you want to kill yourself?" + +She looked at him in dumb despair. + +"How did you get here?" he demanded. + +"Your fire escape." + +"And to that from the garden wall, I suppose? So _you_ were Ely Crouch's +companion," he cried with a changed voice. + +"Don't," she shuddered, throwing her right arm over her face. + +"I beg your pardon," he said gently. "Take a swallow of this water. +What's the matter with your arm? Are you hurt?" + +"No." Her eyes would not meet his. They were fixed obstinately upon the +pocket into which he had dropped the poison. + +"It's incredible!" he burst out. "You with your youth and loveliness! +With everything that makes life sweet for yourself and others. What +madness--" He broke off and his voice softened into persuasion. "We were +almost friends, once. Can't I--won't you let me help? Don't you think +you can trust me?" + +She raised her eyes to his, and he read in them hopeless terror. "Yes, I +could trust you. But there is only one help for me now. And you've taken +it from me." + +"Who can tell? You've been badly frightened," he said in as soothing a +tone as he could command. "Try to believe that no harm can come to you +here, and that I--I would give the blood of my heart to save you from +harm or danger. You said you could trust me. What was your errand with +Ely Crouch?" + +"Money." + +"Money!" he repeated, drawing back. + +"It was our own; my sister's and mine. Mr. Crouch had it. He had managed +our affairs since my father's death. I could never get an accounting +from him. To-day the doctor told me that Alice must go away at once for +an operation. And to-day Mr. Crouch made this appointment for to-night." + +"Didn't you know his reputation? Weren't you afraid?" + +"I didn't think of fear. When I told him how matters stood, he offered +me money, but--but--Oh, I can't tell you!" + +"No need," he said quickly. "I know what he is. I was joking when I +spoke of killing him, a little while ago. By God, I wish I had killed +him! It isn't too late now." + +"It _is_ too late." + +Her eyes, dilated, were fixed upon his. + +"Why? How--too late?" he stammered. + +"I killed him." + +"_You_! You--killed--Ely--Crouch?" + +"He had a cane," she said, in a hurried, flat, half-whisper. "When he +caught at me, I tried to get it to defend myself. The handle pulled out. +There was a dagger on it. He came at me again. I didn't realize what I +was doing. All I could see was that hateful face drawing nearer. Then it +changed and he seemed to dissolve into a hideous heap. I didn't mean to +kill him." Her voice rose in the struggle against hysteria. "God knows, +I didn't mean to kill him." + +"Hush!" + +His hands fell on her shoulders and held her against the onset. Energy +and resolution quickened in his eyes. "Who knows of your being in +the garden?" + +"No one." + +"Any one see you climb the wall and come here?" + +"No." + +"Or know that you had an appointment with him?" + +"No." + +"Will you do exactly as I tell you?" + +"What is the use?" she said dully. + +"I'm going to get you out of here." + +"I should have to face it later. I couldn't face it--the horror and +shame of it. I'd rather die a thousand times." She lifted her arms, the +coat opened, and the cane-handled blade dropped to the floor, and +rolled. She shuddered away from it. "I kept that for myself, but I +couldn't do it. It's got his blood on it. When I heard the doctor speak +of the poison, it seemed like a miracle of Providence sent to guide me. +Oh, give it to me! Is it"--she faltered--"is it quick?" + +"Steady!" Stooping he picked up the weapon. "It needn't come to that, if +you can play your part. Have you got the courage to walk out of this +house and go home to safety? Absolute safety!" + +She searched his face in bewilderment. "I--don't know." + +"If I give you my word of honor that it depends only on yourself?" + +"How?" + +"Pull yourself together. Go downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. +You'll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head up, +and go home. You're as safe as though you'd never seen Ely Crouch. +There's no clue to you." + +"No clue! Look down the fire escape!" + +He crossed the room at a bound. Beneath him, its evil snout pointed +upwards, sat the dead man's familiar spirit. + +"Good God! The ferret!" + +"It's been sitting there, watching, watching, watching." + +"The more reason for haste. Pull yourself together. Forward, _march_!" +he cried, pressing his will upon her. + +"But you? When they come what will you say to them?" + +"I'll fix up something." He drew back from the window, lowering his +voice. "Men in the garden. A policeman." + +"They've found him!" She fell into Ned's chair, dropping her head in her +hands. For an instant he studied her. Then he took his great and tender +resolution. His hand fell warm and firm on her shoulder. + +"Listen; suppose they suspect some one else?" + +"Who?" + +"Me." + +"You? Why should they?" + +"Circumstances. The place. The weapon here in my possession. My known +trouble with Ely Crouch. Don't you see how it all fits in?" + +She recovered from the stupor of surprise into which his suggestion had +plunged her. "Are you mad? Do you think that I'd let you sacrifice +yourself? What am I to you that you should do this for me?" + +"The woman I love," he said quietly. "I have loved you from the first +day that I saw you." + +It was at this moment that I returned and halted at the door, an +unwilling witness to the rest, only half understanding, not daring to +move. I saw the splendid color mount and glorify her beauty. I saw her +hands go out to him half in appeal, half in rejection. + +"Oh, it's madness!" she cried. "It's your life you're offering me." + +"What else should I offer you--you who have given life its real meaning +for me?" + +He caught her hands in his and held them. He caught her eyes in his and +held them. Then he began speaking, evenly, soothingly, persuasively, +binding her to his will. + +"What does my life amount to? Think how little it means. A few more +weeks of waiting. Then the suffering: then the release. You heard Dr. +Smith. You know. You understand. Didn't you understand?" + +"Yes," she breathed. + +"Then you must see what a splendid way out this is for me. No more +waiting. No pain. Death never came to any one so kindly before. It's my +chance, if only you'll make it worth while. Will you?" he pleaded. + +"Oh, the wonder of it!" she whispered, gazing on him with parted lips. +But he did not understand, yet. He pressed what he thought to be his +advantage. + +"Here," he cried, suddenly dropping her hands and catching up the bills +from the valise. "Here's safety. Here's life. For you and your sister, +both. You spoke of Providence a moment ago. Here's Providence for you! +Quick! Take it." + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing away as he sought to thrust the money +into her hands. + +"Twenty thousand dollars. More. It doesn't matter. It's life for both of +you. Have you the right to refuse it? Take it and go." + +She let the bank-notes fall from her hands unnoticed. + +"Do you think I would leave you _now_?" she cried in a voice of thrilled +music. "Even if they weren't sure to trace me, as they would be." + +This last she uttered as an unimportant matter dismissed with +indifference. + +"There will be nothing to trace. My confession will cover the ground." + +"Confession? To what?" + +"To the murder of Ely Crouch." + +Some sort of sound I was conscious of making. I suppose I gasped. But +they were too engrossed to hear. + +"You would do even that? But the penalty--the shame--" + +"What do they matter to a dying man?" he retorted impatiently. + +She had fallen back from him, in the shock of his suggestion, but now +she came forward again slowly, her glorious eyes fixed on his. So they +stood face to face, soul to soul, deep answering unto deep, and, as I +sit here speaking, I saw the wonder and the miracle flower in her face. +When she spoke again, her words seemed the inevitable expression of that +which had passed silently between them. + +"Do you love me?" + +"Before God I do," he answered. + +"Take me away! There's time yet. I'll go with you anywhere, anywhere! +I'm all yours. I've loved you from the first, I think, as you have loved +me. All I ask is to live for you, and when you die, to die with you." + +Fire flashed from his face at the call. He took a step toward her. A +shout, half-muffled, sounded from outside the window. Instantly the +light and passion died in his eyes. I have never seen a face at once so +stern and so gentle as his was when he caught the outreaching hands +in his own. + +"You forget that they must find one of us, or it's all no use. Listen +carefully, dear one. If you truly love me, you must do as I bid you. +Give me my chance of fooling fate; of making my death worth while. It +won't be hard." He took the little box from his pocket. "It will be +very easy." + +"Give it to me, too," she pleaded like a child. "Ah, Ned, we can't part +now! Both of us together." + +He shook his head, smiling. The man's face was as beautiful as a god's +at that moment or an angel's. "You must go back to your sister," he said +simply. "You haven't the right to die." + +He turned to the table, drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote four +words. You all know what they were; his confession. Then his hand went +up, a swift movement, and a moment later he was setting back the glass +of water upon the desk whence he had taken it. + +"Love and glory of my life, will you go?" he said. + +"Yes," she whispered. + +Not until then did the paralysis, which had gripped me when I saw Ned +turn the pellets into his hand, relax. I ran forward. The girl cried +out. Ned met me with his hand against my breast. + +"How much have you heard?" he said quickly. + +"Enough." + +"Then you'll understand." His faith was more irresistible than a +thousand arguments. "Take her home, Chris." + +I held out my hand. "Come," I said. + +She turned and faced him. "Must I? Alone?" What a depth of desolation in +that word! + +"There is no other way, dearest one." + +"Good-bye, then, until we meet," she said in the passionate music of her +voice. "Every beat of my heart will bring me nearer to you. There will +be no other life for me. Soon or late I'll come to you. You believe it. +Say you believe it!" + +"I believe it." He bent and kissed her lips. Then his form slackened +away from the arms that clasped it, and sank into the chair. A +policeman's whistle shrilled outside the window. The faintest flicker of +a smile passed over the face of the sleeper. + +I took her away, still with that unearthly ecstasy on her face. + + * * * * * + +The glow of the narrator's cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a world +of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. +When I found my voice, it was hardly more than a whisper. + +"Good God! What a tragedy!" + +"Tragedy? You think it so?" The Little Red Doctor's gnarled face gleamed +strangely behind the tiny radiance. "Dominie, you have a queer notion of +this life and little faith in the next." + +"'She met death as a tryst,'" murmured the old librarian. "And he! +'Trailing clouds of glory!' The triumph of that victory over fate! One +would like to have seen the meeting between them, after the waiting." + +The Little Red Doctor rose. "When some brutal and needless tragedy of +the sort that we medical men witness so often shakes my faith in my +kind, I turn to think of those two in the splendor of their last meeting +on earth, the man with the courage to face death, the woman with the +courage to face life." + +He strode over to the table and lifted the newspaper, which had slipped +to the floor unnoticed. The girlish face turned toward us its +irresistible appeal, yearning out from amidst the lurid indignities +of print. + +"You heard from her afterward?" I asked. + +"Often. The sister died and left her nothing to live for but her +promise. Always in her letters sounded the note of courage and of +waiting. It was in the last word I had from her--received since her +death--set to the song of some poet, I don't know who. You ought to +know, Mr. Sheldon." + +His deep voice rose to the rhythm. + + "Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat + Measure the length of every moment gone. + Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet + And light the letters on a churchyard stone.-- + And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet!'" + +"May Probyn," the librarian identified. "Too few people know her. A +wonderful poem!" + +Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. +Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging +wind had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western +cloud shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the +ancient house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, +gleamed, through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. +Behind me in the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and +death repeated once more the message of imperishable hope: + + "And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet.'" + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + +***** This file should be named 10944-8.txt or 10944-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/4/10944/ + +Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: From a Bench in Our Square + +Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams + +Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10944] +Last Updated: July 28, 2018 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + + + + +Etext Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + </h1> + <h2> + By Samuel Hopkins Adams + </h2> + <h3> + 1922 + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> A PATRONESS OF ART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> HOME-SEEKERS’ GOAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE GUARDIAN OF GOD’S ACRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> FOR MAYME, READ MARY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> BARBRAN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> TRIUMPH </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A PATRONESS OF ART + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue) + is the style whereby he is known to Our Square. + </p> + <p> + Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest, + whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in + anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if + you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps + aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color + possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen’s Élite + Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged + ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or, + if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be, + however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for chaste + floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by + appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art. + </p> + <p> + Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April day, + upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light on it, + when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding him with + a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest. + </p> + <p> + “What d’ye think of <i>that</i>?” he said triumphantly, + as he sketched in a set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for + antennae) upon the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Rotten,” was the prompt response. + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>!” said the astounded artist, rising from his + knees. + </p> + <p> + “Punk.” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin’s + nearest ear. It was now that connoisseur’s turn to be affronted. + Picking himself out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and + wiggled his finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging + upon his original critique, in a series of shrill roars: + </p> + <p> + “Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de—de—piffle!” + Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, + tainted by his French origin. + </p> + <p> + He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly + and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon + overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned temple + of Art. + </p> + <p> + “Now, young feller,” said Peter Quick Banta. “Maybe you + think you could do it better.” The world-old retort of the creative + artist to his critic! + </p> + <p> + “Any fool could,” retorted the boy, which, in various forms, + is almost as time-honored as the challenge. + </p> + <p> + Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible murder, + I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks had himself + under control. + </p> + <p> + “Try it,” he said grimly. + </p> + <p> + The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him. + </p> + <p> + “You want me to draw a picture? There?” + </p> + <p> + “If you don’t, I’ll break every bone in your body.” + </p> + <p> + The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter + Quick Banta’s creation. + </p> + <p> + “What is that? A bool-rush?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a laylock; that’s what it is.” + </p> + <p> + “And the little bird that goes to light—” + </p> + <p> + “That ain’t a bird and you know it.” Peter Quick Banta + breathed hard. “That’s a butterfly.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop—so!” The gesture was + inimitable. “And the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She + float—so!” The grimy hands fluttered and sank. + </p> + <p> + “They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk.” + </p> + <p> + From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He fell + to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted the + traffic. Only once did he speak: + </p> + <p> + “Yellow,” he said, reaching, but not looking up. + </p> + <p> + Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the + last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but with + supreme confidence. + </p> + <p> + “There!” said he. + </p> + <p> + It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The + arrangements were false. + </p> + <p> + <i>But</i>—the lilac bloomed. <i>And</i>—the butterfly + hovered. The artist had spoken through his ordained medium and the + presentment of life stood forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. + But beneath his uncouth exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul. + </p> + <p> + “Son,” said he, “you’re a wonder. Wanta keep them + crayons?” + </p> + <p> + Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one of + the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like eyes of + gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta proceeded to + expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving the youngster + time to recover before the inevitable questioning began. + </p> + <p> + “Where did you learn that?” + </p> + <p> + “Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you like to work for me?” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk. + </p> + <p> + “That?” The boy laughed happily. “That ain’t work. + That’s fun.” + </p> + <p> + So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier (soon + simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta’s + roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first + appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as the + local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and practice + of the “sand-dabs.” Out of the joint takings grew a bank + account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy’s + education. + </p> + <p> + “He’s a swell,” said Peter Quick Banta. “Look at + that face! I don’t care if he did crawl outa the gutter. I’m + an artist and I reco’nize aristocracy when I see it. And I want him + brung up accordin’.” + </p> + <p> + So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an old, + half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie came to + Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes (this was + before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the Gaunt), I took + him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love with her beauty and + her genius alike, all of which was good for his developing soul. She + arranged for his art training. + </p> + <p> + “But you know, Dominie,” she used to say, wagging her head + like a profound and thoughtful bird; “this is all very foolish and + shortsighted on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours + will be doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor + little figurines.” + </p> + <p> + To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest + nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she + would help him just the same! + </p> + <p> + But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She would + have objected to the latter classification, averring that, with the rising + cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keep her head + above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, she scorned + the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performed prodigious feats of + committee work, all of it meritorious and some of it useful? She had. It + had left her with a dangerous and destructive appetite for doing good to + people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was a distracting young person. Few + looked at her once without wanting to look again, and not a few looked + again to their undoing. + </p> + <p> + Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus of + Fifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a large + and needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn’t take to + it. As recipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss + Holland transferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner + of the world she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged + one with a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She + came to us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the + upper strata to our humbler domain, who—Pagan that she is!—indiscriminately + accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, Miss + Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of high-blooded + sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident wealth and beauty. + She organized an evening sewing-circle for women whose eyelids would not + stay open after their long day’s work. She formed cultural + improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the printer, who knows half + the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the tailor, to whom Carlyle + is by way of being light reading. She delivered some edifying exhortations + upon the subject of Americanism to Polyglot Elsa, of the Élite Restaurant + (who had taken upon her sturdy young shoulders the support of an old + mother and a paralytic sister, so that her two brothers might enlist for + the war—a detail of patriotism which the dispenser of platitudes + might have learned by judicious inquiry). And so forth and so on. Miss + Roberta Holland meant well, but she had many things to learn and no master + to teach her. + </p> + <p> + Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, deft, + and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she clashed her + lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel of the Little + Red Doctor’s experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who was pressed + for time at the moment): “Take orders. Or get out. Which?” + </p> + <p> + She straightened like a soldier. “Tell me what you want done.” + </p> + <p> + At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer + service, she turned shining eyes upon him. “I’ve never been so + treated in my life! You’re a bully and a brute.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a brick,” retorted the Little Red Doctor. + “I’ll send for you next time Our Square needs help.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll come,” said she, and they shook hands solemnly. + </p> + <p> + Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her ministrations, + and even those of us who least approved her activities felt the stir of + radiance and color which she brought with her. + </p> + <p> + On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland, + seated in the Bonnie Lassie’s front window, was maturing some new + and benign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the + sculptress at work on a group: + </p> + <p> + “There’s a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s Peter Quick Banta. He’s a fellow artist.” + </p> + <p> + “And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable + lion; quite a beautiful lion. He’s making more marks.” + </p> + <p> + “Let him make all he wants.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re waving their arms at each other. At least the queer + man is. I think they’re going to fight.” + </p> + <p> + “They won’t. It’s only an academic discussion on + technique.” + </p> + <p> + “Who is the young one?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s the ruin of what might have been a big artist.” + </p> + <p> + “No! Is he? What did it? Drink?” + </p> + <p> + “Does he look it?” + </p> + <p> + The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. “It’s + a peculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He’s quite poorly + dressed. Does he need money? Is that what’s wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it, Bobbie,” returned the Bonnie Lassie with a + half-smile. “He needs the money.” + </p> + <p> + The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland’s + fatally well-meaning soul. “Would it be a case where I could help? I’d + love to put a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he’s real?” + </p> + <p> + On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincere and + direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesser interests, + such as life and love and human fate. + </p> + <p> + “No; I’m not. If he were, I doubt whether he’d have let + himself go so wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps it isn’t too late,” said the amateur missionary + hopefully. “Is he a man to whom one could offer money?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie’s smile broadened without change in its subtle + quality. “Julien Tenney isn’t exactly a pauper. He just thinks + he can’t afford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to.” + </p> + <p> + “What ought he to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Paint—paint—paint!” said the Bonnie Lassie + vehemently. “Five years ago I believe he had the makings of a great + painter in him. And now look what he’s doing!” + </p> + <p> + “Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Worse. Commercial art.” + </p> + <p> + “Designs and that sort of thing?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and + gloriously dressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, + riding in super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth with + super-toothbrushes?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” said the girl vaguely. + </p> + <p> + “He draws those.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that what you call pot-boiling?” + </p> + <p> + “One kind.” + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose it pays just a pittance.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, “he sticks + to it, so it must support him.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’m going to help him.” + </p> + <p> + “‘To fulfill his destiny,’ is the accepted phrase,” + said the Bonnie Lassie wickedly. “I’ll call him in for you to + look over. But you’d best leave the arrangements for a later + meeting.” + </p> + <p> + Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at home + despite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to Miss + Holland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departure at once. + </p> + <p> + “Who is she?” asked Julien, staring after her. + </p> + <p> + “Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s she doing here?” + </p> + <p> + “Good.” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” said he in pained tones. “Has she got a Cause?” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “Philanthropist?” + </p> + <p> + “Worse.” + </p> + <p> + “There ain’t no sich a animile.” + </p> + <p> + “There is. She’s a patron of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Wow!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She’s going to patronize you.” + </p> + <p> + “Not if I see her first. How do <i>I</i> qualify as a subject?” + </p> + <p> + “She considered you a wasted life.” + </p> + <p> + “Where does she get that idea?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of a + stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think that’s fair?” demanded the indignant + youth. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. “Do + you or do you not,” she challenged, “invade our humble + precincts in a five-thousand-dollar automobile?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s my only extravagance.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy + Park, when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest + working-man?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won’t stand for that!” he + expostulated. “You know perfectly well I keep my room here because + it’s the only place I can work in quietly—” + </p> + <p> + “And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if + you left him entirely,” supplemented the sculptress. + </p> + <p> + Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. “Did you + tell all this stuff to Miss Holland?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely + sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning to + help you realize your destiny.” + </p> + <p> + “Which is?” he queried with lifted brows. + </p> + <p> + “To be a great painter.” + </p> + <p> + The other winced. “As you know, I’ve meant all along, as soon + as I’ve saved enough—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes; <i>I</i> know,” broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can + be quite ruthless where Art is concerned, “and <i>you</i> know; but + time flies and hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be + that kind of a pavement artist—well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a + better.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you suppose she’d let me paint her?” he asked + abruptly. + </p> + <p> + If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was busied + would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling radiance of + her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it from the moment + when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and wonder in his eyes, + as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she had guessed, might be + the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic senses; and even so it + was now working out. But all she said was—and she said it with a + sort of venomous blandness—“My dear boy, you can’t + paint.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t I! Just because I’m a little out of practice—” + </p> + <p> + “Two years, isn’t it, since you’ve touched a palette?” + </p> + <p> + “Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That’s all I ask.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think her so pretty?” inquired the sculptress + disparagingly. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty? She’s the loveliest thing that—” Catching + his hostess’s smile he broke off. “You’ll admit it’s + a well-modeled face,” he said professionally; “and—and—well, + unusual.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! ‘Dangerous’ is the word. Remember it,” + warned the Bonnie Lassie. “She’s a devastating whirlwind, that + child, and she comes down here partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, + if you play your part cleverly—” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not going to play any part.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it’s all up. How is a patroness of Art going to + patronize you, unless you’re a poor and struggling young artist, + living from hand to mouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won’t have to + play a part as far as the pot-boiling goes,” added his monitress + viciously. “Only, don’t let her know that the rewards of your + shame run to high-powered cars and high-class apartments. Remember, you’re + poor but honest. Perhaps she’ll give you money.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps she won’t,” retorted the youth explosively. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I’ll bring her + around to see you and you’ll have to work the sittings yourself.” + </p> + <p> + As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien’s attic + needed no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. He + worked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environment where + there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that Miss Roberta + Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanly poverty. + (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me along to make up + that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien dropped into the + background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board, sketching + eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of good deeds in talk. + Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers do not pay to any + but a master-draughtsman the prices which “J.T.”—with an + arrow transfixing the initials—gets; and Julien was as deft and + rapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, the + visitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out her + hand for the cardboard. + </p> + <p> + To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is an + adequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable little gem + in black-and-white with cool approbation. + </p> + <p> + “Quite clever,” she was pleased to say. “Would you care + to sell it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think it would be exactly—” A stern + glance from the Bonnie Lassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest + of the sentence. + </p> + <p> + “Would ten dollars be too little?” asked the visitor with + bright beneficence. + </p> + <p> + “Too much,” he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a + little crayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fifty + times that.) + </p> + <p> + The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table. + </p> + <p> + “Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?” he + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Does that take long?” she said doubtfully. “I’m + very busy.” + </p> + <p> + “You really should try it, Bobbie,” put in the crafty Bonnie + Lassie. “It might give him the start he needs.” + </p> + <p> + What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, but she + had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was from + time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland’s youthful loveliness + and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly + foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only + if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to + keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there are + few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien when he + chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with a passionate + intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go; tossing aside the + most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened; throwing himself + intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise. The fact is, he + had long been starved for color and was now satiating his soul with it. + Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first. The Bonnie Lassie, + wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that could not last. Men who are + not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain a neutral attitude toward + such creatures of grace and splendor as Bobbie Holland. + </p> + <p> + Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be called + friendship; he was not, to Bobbie’s recognition, a habitant of her + world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have + renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make + love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist + inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, + perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy grew, + he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above the + rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed Peter + Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, a bath, and + a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the more surprising + in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time for sittings now. + Between visits she took to going to the Metropolitan Museum and + conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a view to helping + her protégé form sound artistic tastes. (When the Bonnie Lassie heard + that, she all but choked.) As for Julien! + </p> + <p> + “This is all very well,” he said, one day in the sculptress’s + studio; “but sooner or later she’s going to catch me at it.” + </p> + <p> + “What then?” asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her + work. + </p> + <p> + “She’ll go away.” + </p> + <p> + “Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won’t + it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. That’ll be finished.” + </p> + <p> + This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked back + again. + </p> + <p> + “In any case she’ll have to go away some day—won’t + she?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so,” returned he in a gloomy growl. + </p> + <p> + “I warned you at the outset, ‘Dangerous,’” she + pointed out. + </p> + <p> + They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of Julien Tenny’s + brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as I saw them + occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a budding orchid, he in + the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenely unconscious of any + incongruity. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my + bench one afternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to + where her car waited, “that she is doing him as much good as she + thinks she is, or ought to?” + </p> + <p> + “Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie,” said the Bonnie + Lassie with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “I’m quite serious,” I protested. + </p> + <p> + “And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you know + her.” + </p> + <p> + “Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evident + fact?” + </p> + <p> + “Only,” pursued my companion, ignoring the question, “she + is bored and a little spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + “So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more + spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + “Julien won’t spoil her.” + </p> + <p> + “He certainly doesn’t appear to bore her.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s having the tables turned on her without knowing it. + Julien is doing her a lot of good. Already she’s far less beneficent + and bountiful and all that sort of stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “Lassie,” said I, “what, if I may so express myself, is + the big idea?” + </p> + <p> + “Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar,” she + reproved. “However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. + And it’s <i>mine</i>, that big idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Mightn’t it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect + that the experience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left + when Bobbie Holland goes?” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh! Don’t be an oracular sphinx,” was all that I got + for my pains. + </p> + <p> + Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If the painting + seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not be said of the + fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourished along, and one day + a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element of historical + personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session, displaced a + hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script upon the + plastering Béranger’s famous line: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Dans un grenier qu’on est bien á vingt ans!” + </pre> + <p> + “Did you write that there?” asked the girl. + </p> + <p> + “Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word.” + </p> + <p> + “How did you come to know Béranger?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m French born.” + </p> + <p> + “‘In a garret how good is life at twenty,’” she + translated freely. “I wouldn’t have thought”—she + turned her softly brilliant regard upon him—“that life had + been so good to you.” + </p> + <p> + “It has,” was the rejoinder. “But never so good as now.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve often wondered—you seem to know so many things—where + you got your education?” + </p> + <p> + “Here and there and everywhere. It’s only a patchwork sort of + thing.” (Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my + two-hours-a-day of brain-hammering, and the free run of my library.) + </p> + <p> + “You’re a very puzzling person,” said she And when a + woman says that to a man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie + Lassie, who knows everything, is my authority for the statement.) + </p> + <p> + To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien’s “grenier” + that day. + </p> + <p> + “Cecily,” she said, in the most casual manner she could + contrive, “who <i>is</i> Julien Tenney?” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody.” + </p> + <p> + “You know what I mean,” pleaded the girl. “<i>What</i> + is he?” + </p> + <p> + “A brand snatched from the pot-boiling,” returned the Bonnie + Lassie, quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her + companion was. + </p> + <p> + “Please don’t be clever. Be nice and tell me—” + </p> + <p> + “‘Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,’” + declaimed the Bonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. “You + want me to define his social status for you and tell you whether you’d + better invite him to dinner. You’d better not. He might swallow his + knife.” + </p> + <p> + “You know he wouldn’t!” denied the girl in resentful + tones. “I’ve never known any one with more instinctive good + manners. He seems to go right naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “All due to my influence and training,” bragged the Bonnie + Lassie. “I helped bring him up.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you must know something of his antecedents.” + </p> + <p> + “Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with + the manners of a <i>preux chevalier</i>. Anyway, he never swallowed any of + <i>my</i> knives. Though he’s had plenty of opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very puzzling,” lamented Bobbie. + </p> + <p> + “Why let it prey like a worm i’ the bud of your mind? You’re + not going to adopt him, perhaps?” + </p> + <p> + For the moment Bobbie Holland’s eyes were dreamy and her tongue + unguarded. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” + said she with a gesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble + problem. + </p> + <p> + “Umph!” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + And continued sculpting. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would be + surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event occurred + as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs from the + hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when Bobbie + Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew + involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted his + costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the similarity + of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur’s livery. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she cried out, as if something had hurt her. + </p> + <p> + Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and + looked at her apprehensively. + </p> + <p> + Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, “Do you <i>have</i> + to do that?” + </p> + <p> + “Why—er—no,” began the puzzled Julien, who failed + for the moment to perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective + afternoon of golf. Her next words enlightened him. + </p> + <p> + “I should think you might have let me help before taking a—servant’s + position.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s an honest occupation,” he averred. + </p> + <p> + “Do you do this—regularly?” she pursued with an effort. + </p> + <p> + “Off and on. There’s good money in it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she mourned again. Then: “You’re doing this + so that you can afford to buy paints and canvas and—and things to + paint me,” she accused. “It isn’t fair!” + </p> + <p> + “I’d do worse than this for that,” he declared + valiantly. + </p> + <p> + Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased to + speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him painful + embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big theater + party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable columns + which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at the most + expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of the listed + guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a glimpse of an + unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter’s exit. And + Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of four (stag) + hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw that he was + recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his original intent. + Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. He appealed to the + head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that functionary, developing + a sense of humor under the stimulus of a twenty-dollar bill, procured him + on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a black string tie, and gave him + certain simple directions. When the patroness of Art next observed the + object of her patronage, he was performing the humble but useful duties of + an omnibus. + </p> + <p> + Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable + appetite. + </p> + <p> + Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of + shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, + stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or + drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an + expressive monosyllable. + </p> + <p> + “Why not swear out loud, Caspar?” asked Bobbie presently. + “It’ll do you less harm.” + </p> + <p> + “D’you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one + fixing the forks?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Bobbie faintly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s—No, by thunder, it can’t be!—Yes, + by the red-hot hinges, it <i>is!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you know him?” + </p> + <p> + “Know him! I <i>know</i> him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at + Grandpré. He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us + clean out that little wasp’s nest. His name’s Tenney, and if + ever there was a hellion in a fight! And see—what he’s come + to! My God!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, don’t cry about it,” advised the girl, serenely, + though it was hard for her to keep her voice steady. “There’s + nothing to do about it, is there?” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t there!” retorted the youth, rising purposefully. + “I’m going to get him and find him a job that’s fit for + him if I have to take him into partnership. Of all the + dash-blanked-dod-blizzened—” + </p> + <p> + “Caspar! What are you going to do? Don’t. You’ll + embarrass him frightfully.” + </p> + <p> + But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her + painter’s face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The + pair vanished beyond the watcher’s ken. On his return the gilded + youth behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to + time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, he + shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his + interest in his supper returned. Bobbie’s didn’t. + </p> + <p> + To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of it + who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult and + delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland’s school. + Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both + the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither + answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme + gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding that + he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was. + </p> + <p> + The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable unmasking + which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon Julien Tenney. + By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, Peter Quick Banta + had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a composite floral and + faunal scheme on the flagging in front of Thornsen’s Élite + Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to observe and wonder. + At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the corner, all but ran her + down. She nodded toward the decorator of sidewalks. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t he the funny man that you were with the first time I + saw you?” + </p> + <p> + “The very same,” responded Julien with twinkling eyes. + </p> + <p> + “What is he doing?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or + public-view school of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but what does he do it for?” + </p> + <p> + “His living.” + </p> + <p> + “Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him + something?” she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on + hands and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a + red bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers. + </p> + <p> + “I think he’d be tickled pink.” + </p> + <p> + She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her + companion’s hand. + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i> give it to him. I think he’d like it better.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no; I don’t think he’d like it at all. In fact, I + doubt if he’d take it from me.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you see,” explained Julien blandly, “we’re + rather intimately connected.” He raised his voice. “Hello, + Dad!” + </p> + <p> + The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, + replied, “Hello, Lad,” and continued his work. “What d’ + you think of <i>that</i>?” he added, after a moment, triumphantly + pointing a yellow crayon at the green-headed red-bird. + </p> + <p> + “Some parrot!” enthused Julien. + </p> + <p> + “‘T ain’t a parrot. It’s a nightingale,” + retorted the artist indignantly. “You black-and-white fellows never + do understand color.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a corker, anyway,” said Julien. “Dad here’s + a—an art patron who wants to contribute to the cause.” + </p> + <p> + The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out + her quarter. + </p> + <p> + “I—I—don’t know,” she began. “I was + interested in your picture and I thought—Mr. Tenney said—” + </p> + <p> + Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. “Thank you,” + said he. “There ain’t much appreciation of art just at this + season. But if you’ll come down to Coney about June, I’ll show + you some sand-modeling that <i>is</i> sand-modeling—‘s much as + five dollars a day I’ve taken in there.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Holland recovered her social poise. + </p> + <p> + “I’d like to very much,” she said cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a little + jarringly. “Well,” he said, “does that help you to place + me?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not trying to place you,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “Is that quite true?” he mocked. + </p> + <p> + “No; it isn’t. It’s a downright lie,” said Bobbie + finding courage to raise her eyes to his. + </p> + <p> + “And now, I suppose, I shall be ‘my good man’ or + something like that, to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it likely?” + </p> + <p> + “You called MacLachan that, you know,” he reminded her. + </p> + <p> + “Long ago. When I was—when I didn’t understand Our + Square.” + </p> + <p> + “And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book + to your penetrating vision.” + </p> + <p> + Her lip quivered. “I don’t know why you should want to be so + hateful to me.” + </p> + <p> + For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look that + thrilled and daunted her. “To keep from being something else that I’ve + no right to be,” he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the + picture?” she asked, striving to get on safer ground. + </p> + <p> + “Only one or two, I suppose,” he answered morosely. + </p> + <p> + Such was Julien’s condition of mind after the last sitting that he + actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the + door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening + in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in + the Bonnie Lassie’s face as she studied it. + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it!” she exclaimed. “Flower and flame! + Why did I ever take to sculpture? One can’t get that in the metal.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it,” I echoed. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, technically, it’s rather a sloppy picture.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a glorious picture!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “Naturally that,” returned the exasperating critic. “It + always will be—when you paint with your heart’s blood.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she’s + presented?” + </p> + <p> + “If she doesn’t—which she probably does,” said the + Bonnie Lassie, “she will find out something to her advantage when + she sees me to-morrow. I’m going home to ‘phone her.” + </p> + <p> + In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw her + from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly lovely. + At the door of the Bonnie Lassie’s house she was met with the + challenge direct. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing to my artistic ward?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove + it related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne + Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist. + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t Julien’s father,” said the sculptress. + “He’s only an adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he + ought to. The real father, so I’ve heard, was a French gentleman—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care who his father was!” cried Bobbie. (The + Bonnie Lassie’s face took on the expression of an exclamation + point.) “I can’t bear to think of his having to do servant’s + work. And I told him so yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you look like that while you were telling him?” + </p> + <p> + “Like what? I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “And what did he do?” + </p> + <p> + “Do? He didn’t do anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, “he’s a + stick of wood—hardwood—with a knot-hole for a heart.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the + last.” + </p> + <p> + “About what?” + </p> + <p> + “About taking money.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m a prophetess! And you’re a patroness. Born in us, I + suppose. You <i>did</i> try to give him money.” + </p> + <p> + “Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and + paint. He wouldn’t even let me do that; so I—I—I offered + to buy the picture of me, and he said—he said—Cecily, do you + think he’s sometimes a little queer in his head?” + </p> + <p> + “Not in the head, necessarily. <i>What</i> did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “He said he’d bought it himself at the highest price ever + paid. And he said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just + told him that I hoped I’d see him when I came back—” + </p> + <p> + “Back from where? Are you going away?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; didn’t I tell you? On a three months’ cruise.” + </p> + <p> + “Had you told him that?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. That’s when I tried to get him to take the money. + Cecily—” The girl’s voice shook a little. “You’ll + tell him, won’t you, that he <i>must</i> keep on painting?” + </p> + <p> + “Why? Doesn’t he intend to?” + </p> + <p> + “He said he’d painted himself out and he didn’t think he’d + ever <i>look</i> at color again.” + </p> + <p> + “He will,” said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. + “Grief is just as driving a taskmaster as lo—as other + emotions.” + </p> + <p> + “Grief!” The girl’s color ebbed. “Cecily! You don’t + think I’ve hurt him?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug. + </p> + <p> + “Bobbie, do you know what I’d do in your place?” + </p> + <p> + “No. What?” + </p> + <p> + “I’d go right—straight—back to Julien Tenney’s + studio.” She paused impressively. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said the other faintly. + </p> + <p> + “And I’d walk right—straight—up to Julien Tenney—” + Another pause, even more impressive. + </p> + <p> + “I d-d-don’t think I’d—he’d—” + </p> + <p> + “And I’d say to him: ‘Julien, will you marry me?’ + Like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Bobbie in outraged amazement. + </p> + <p> + “And maybe—” continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: + “maybe I’d kiss him. Yes. I think I would.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie’s large eyes dissolved in + tears. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she sobbed. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t be ashamed of <i>yourself</i>,” prophesied + the other, “if you do just as I say, quickly and naturally.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, naturally,” retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. + “I suppose you think that’s natural. Anyway, he probably doesn’t + care about me at all that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Roberta,” said the sculptress sternly, “did you <i>see</i> + his portrait of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-y-yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And you have the presumption to say that he doesn’t care? + Why, that picture doesn’t simply tell his secret. It <i>yells</i> + it!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care,” said the hard-pressed Bobbie. “It + hasn’t yelled it to me. <i>Nobody’s</i> yelled it to me. And I + c-c-can’t ask a m-m-man to—to—” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you can’t,” allowed her adviser magnanimously. + “On second thought, it won’t be necessary. You just go back—after + powdering your nose a little—and say that you’ve come to see + the picture once more, or that it’s a fine day, or that competition + is the life of trade, or that—oh, anything! And, if he doesn’t + do the rest, I’ll kill and eat him.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Cecily—” + </p> + <p> + “You <i>would</i> be a patroness of Art. Now I’ve given you + something real to patronize. Don’t you dare fail me.” Suddenly + the speaker gave herself over to an access of mirth. “Heaven help + that young man when he comes to own up.” + </p> + <p> + “Own up to what?” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind.” + </p> + <p> + Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her + query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was + curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her + to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to the + attic. + </p> + <p> + A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the + studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted. + </p> + <p> + “And you’re actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year + slip through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?” + </p> + <p> + To which Julien’s equable accents replied: + </p> + <p> + “That’s it, Merrill. I’m going to paint.” + </p> + <p> + The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door + upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an + energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed expression. + At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness to her aid. + </p> + <p> + “Would you think me inexcusably rude,” she said softly, + “if I asked who you are?” + </p> + <p> + The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of + whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: “I’m + George Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?” + </p> + <p> + “He has. For several years.” + </p> + <p> + “So that,” said the girl, half to herself, “is his + pot-boiling.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a very complimentary term,” commented Mr. Merrill, + “for the best black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. + Between my concern and two others he makes a railroad president’s + income out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much.” + </p> + <p> + “In return, may I ask you something?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing + away his career?” + </p> + <p> + “Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Merrill’s face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle + appeared at the corner of his glasses. “I’ve seen the + portrait,” he replied, and with a bow, went on his way. + </p> + <p> + Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with + bright, inscrutable eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?” she + demanded. + </p> + <p> + “D—-n Merrill!” said Julien with fervor. + </p> + <p> + “It’s true that your ‘pot-boiling’ brings you a + big income?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t. That car belongs to me.” + </p> + <p> + “And your being a waiter? I don’t suppose the Taverne + Splendide belongs to you?” + </p> + <p> + “An impromptu bit of acting,” confessed the abashed Julien. + </p> + <p> + “And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?” + </p> + <p> + “No. This is mine, really.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand. Why have you done it all?” + </p> + <p> + “If you want to know the truth,” he said defiantly, “so + that I could keep on seeing you.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s a very poor excuse,” she retorted. + </p> + <p> + “The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what + possible interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling + young painter—that was the Bonnie Lassie’s fault, for I never + lied to you about it—and after we’d started on that track I + didn’t—well, I didn’t have the courage to risk losing + you by quitting the masquerade.” + </p> + <p> + “How you must have laughed at me all the time!” + </p> + <p> + He flushed to his angry eyes. “Do you think that is fair?” he + retorted. “Or kind? Or true?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “You let me + offer you money. And you’ve probably got as much as I have.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t have from now on, then. I’m going to paint. I + thought, when you told me you were going away, that I couldn’t look + at a canvas again. But now I know I was wrong. I’ve got to paint. + You’ll have left me that, at least.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Merrill thinks you’re ruining your career. And if you do, + it’ll be my fault. I’ll never, never, never,” said the + patroness of Art desolately, “try to do any one good again!” + </p> + <p> + She turned toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “At least,” said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out + of control, “you’ll know that it wasn’t all masquerade. + You’ll know why I’ll always keep the picture, even if I never + paint another.” + </p> + <p> + She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the + passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose,” she said, “I asked you to give it up.” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t,” he retorted quickly. + </p> + <p> + “No, I wouldn’t. But—but—” Her glance, + wandering away from him, fell on the joyous line of Béranger bold above + the door. + </p> + <p> + “‘How good is life in an attic at twenty,’” she + murmured. Then, turning to him, she held out her hands. + </p> + <p> + “I could find it good,” she said with a soft little falter in + her voice, “even at twenty-two.” + </p> + <p> + Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, + going by with transfigured faces, stopped. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s tell Dominie,” said Julien. + </p> + <p> + I waved a jaunty hand. “I know already,” said I, “even + if it hadn’t been announced to a waiting world.” + </p> + <p> + “Wh-wh-why,” stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man’s + waiting a lifetime to see, “it—it only just happened.” + </p> + <p> + “Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It’s been + happening for weeks. Come with me.” + </p> + <p> + I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant. + There stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of + imaginative symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in + its powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and + of orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. + “J.T.” and “R.H.” Below, in no less than four + colors, ran the legend, “Cupid’s Token.” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord! Dad!” cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out + with frantic feet. “How long has this been there?” + </p> + <p> + “What’re you doing? Leave it be!” cried the anguished + artist. “It’s been there since noon.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind,” put in Bobbie softly; “it’s very + pretty and tasteful even though it is a little precipitate. But how”—she + turned the lovely and puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist—“how + did you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Artistic intuition,” said Peter Quick Banta with profound + complacency. “<i>I’m</i> an artist.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES + </h2> + <p> + Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 and + wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them. “Kleam, + kleam, kleam, kleam,” it would pipe pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!” solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its + own levity. + </p> + <p> + “Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! Kung-<i>glang</i>! + Kung-<i>glang</i>!” That was a duet in the middle register. + </p> + <p> + Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin + silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny: + </p> + <p> + “Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!” + </p> + <p> + We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our + remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of his + art. + </p> + <p> + Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the + Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the + ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, “For Rental to Suitable + Tenant,” invited inspection. “Suitable” is the catch in + that innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no + estate at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant + proclivities named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of + prejudice rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an + applicant as unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for + breakfast, or a glass eye. + </p> + <p> + How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr. + Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name + rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He + encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in + painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether + twenty-five dollars a month would be considered. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe,” returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger + introduced himself, with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing aristocratic + implications. + </p> + <p> + “The name,” he pronounced, “is satisfactory. The sum is + satisfactory. It is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up + in character and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate.” + This he had adapted from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which + had come to him through the mail, very genteelly worded. “Family + man?” he added briskly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “How many of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Two.” + </p> + <p> + “Wife?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir,” said the little man, very low. + </p> + <p> + “Son? Daughter? What age?” + </p> + <p> + “I have never been blessed with a child.” + </p> + <p> + “Then who—” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly would share the house with me, sir.” + </p> + <p> + For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, + with an important expression, seated behind the railing. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t like dogs,” said the Mordaunt Estate curtly. + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly”—Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his + companion—“this gentleman does not like dogs.” + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling + deepened when Willy Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising + eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his + hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, + droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip to + finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the Maiden’s + Prayer. + </p> + <p> + The Estate promptly capitulated. + </p> + <p> + “Some pup!” he exclaimed. “When did you want to move in?” + </p> + <p> + “At once, if you please.” + </p> + <p> + Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front + door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and + penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in + the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of + the half-dozen succeeding trips was homogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, + little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn + clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of + white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, clocks + that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, the owner + established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted them, and + wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their meticulous + busy-ness, that place which had for so long been muffled in quiet and + deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting mechanism and + the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the House of Silvery + Voices. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr. + Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie Lassie + gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up his + charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and irresponsible, + though through no fault of their own. When they were wound they went. When + they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more than half of them + simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion as to the hour were + radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic eight-day, opposite the + front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, only to be at once + contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor mantel, which announced + that it was six, thereby starting up the cathedral case on the stairway + and the Grandfather in the dining-room, who held out respectively for + eight and two, while all the time it was really half-past one. Thence + arose in the early days painful misunderstandings on the part of Our + Square, for we are a simple people and deem it the duty of a timepiece to + keep time. In particular we were befooled by Grandfather, the + solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a long-range stroke and a most + convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the note-shaver, on his way to a + profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard the hour strike (thirty-five + minutes in advance of the best professional opinion) from the House of + Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the recklessness of hiring a passing + taxi, thereby reaching his destination with half an hour to spare and half + a dollar to lack, for which latter he threatened to sue the Mordaunt + Estate’s tenant. To the credit side of the house’s account it + must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, having started one of his + disastrous drunks within the precincts of his Home of Fashion, was on his + way to finish it in the gutter via the zigzag route from corner saloon to + corner saloon, when the Twelve Apostles clock in the basement window + lifted up its voice and (presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice + denied the hour, which was actually a quarter before midnight. “Losh!” + said MacLachan, who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch + whiskey, “they’ll a’ be closed. Hame an’ to bed wi’ + ye, waster of the priceless hours!” And back he staggered to sleep + it off. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out + to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing + Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had spare + time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr’s gout (which was + really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, only + to find it all over and the patient dead. + </p> + <p> + “It’s an outrage,” declared the Little Red Doctor + fiercely, “that an old lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where + in a pushcart and play merry hell with a hard-working practitioner’s + professional duties. And you’re the one to tell him so, Dominie. You’re + the diplomat of the Square.” + </p> + <p> + He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this + preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of + Silvery Voices. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t the way it plays tricks on time alone,” said + she. “There’s one clock in there that’s worse than + conscience.” + </p> + <p> + And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was wont + to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary clack-and-whirr, + alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping early because the clay + was obdurate and wouldn’t come right, and had gone for a walk to + clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these unjustifiable terms: + </p> + <p> + “Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr <i>wrong! + wrong! wrong! wrong!”</i> + </p> + <p> + “Wherefore,” said the Bonnie Lassie, “your appellant + prays that you be a dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to + Number 37 and ask him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he’s + got to stop it.” + </p> + <p> + Now, the Bonnie Lassie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the + low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and + kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a + self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time + himself opened the door to me. + </p> + <p> + “What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?” he inquired + with timid courtesy. + </p> + <p> + “They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard of you.” He motioned me to a seat in the bare + little room, alive with tickings and clickings. “You have lived long + here, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Long.” + </p> + <p> + From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle + and solemn mockery: “<i>Long. Long. Long</i>.” + </p> + <p> + My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I + afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom. + </p> + <p> + “I, too, am an old man,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + “A hardy sixty, I should guess.” + </p> + <p> + “A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,’ as to the folk + in this Square?” He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. “Are + they, as one might say, friendly? Neighborly?” + </p> + <p> + I was a little taken aback. “We are not an intrusive people.” + </p> + <p> + “No one,” he said, “has been to see my clocks.” + </p> + <p> + I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my + errand. “You live here quite alone?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” said he quickly. “You see, I have Willy + Woolly. Pardon me. I have not yet presented him.” + </p> + <p> + At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended + hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee. + </p> + <p> + “He greets you as a friend,” said my new acquaintance in a + tone which indicated that I had been signally honored. “I trust that + we shall see you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my + collection now?” + </p> + <p> + Here was my opening. “The fact is—” I began, and stopped + from sheer cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle + pride in his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular + being before me—I couldn’t do it. “The fact is,” I + repeated, “I—I have a friend outside waiting for me. The + Little Red Doctor—er—Dr. Smith, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “A physician?” he said eagerly. “Would he come in, do + you think? Willy Woolly has been quite feverish to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll ask him,” I replied, and escaped with that excuse. + </p> + <p> + When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to me + was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet! + </p> + <p> + Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my turn + to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices. Happily for + me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before my substitute + reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me. Balked in this + cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional expression and observed + that it was an obscure case. + </p> + <p> + “For a man of sixty,” I began, “Mr. Merivale—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Who</i>?” interrupted the Little Red Doctor; “I’m + speaking of the dog.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you, then,” I inquired in insinuating accents, “become + a dash-binged vet?” + </p> + <p> + “A man can’t be a brute, can he!” he retorted angrily. + “When that animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out + like a child—” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” I said. “You took on a new patient. Probably + gratis,” I added, with malice, for this was one of the Little Red + Doctor’s notoriously weak points. + </p> + <p> + “Just the same, he’s a fool dog.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice + social discrimination,” I asserted, recalling Willy Woolly’s + flattering acceptance of myself. + </p> + <p> + “A faker,” asseverated my friend. “He pretends to see + things.” + </p> + <p> + I sat up straight on my bench. “Things? What kind of things?” + </p> + <p> + “Things that aren’t there,” returned the Little Red + Doctor, and fell to musing. “They couldn’t be,” he added + presently and argumentatively. + </p> + <p> + Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked whether + he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies of his + clocks. He shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t have time,” said he doggedly. + </p> + <p> + “Time? Why, there’s nothing but time in that house.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor chose to take my feeble joke at par. “No time + at all. None of the clocks keep it.” + </p> + <p> + “How does he manage his life, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly does that for him. Barks him up in the morning. Jogs + his elbow at mealtimes. Tucks him in bed at night, for all I know.” + </p> + <p> + Thus abortively ended Our Square’s protest against Stepfather Time + and his House of Silvery Voices. The Little Red Doctor’s obscure + suggestion stuck in my mind, and a few nights later I made a second call. + Curiosity rather than neighborliness was the inciting cause. Therefore I + ought to have been embarrassed at the quiet warmth of my reception by both + of the tenants. Interrupting himself in the work of adjusting a new + acquisition’s mechanism, Stepfather Time settled me into the most + comfortable chair and immediately began to talk of clocks. + </p> + <p> + Good talk, it was; quaint and flavorous and erudite. But my attention kept + wandering to Willy Woolly, who, after politely kissing my hand, had + settled down behind his master’s chair. Willy Woolly was seeing + things. No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and + thither, following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than + darkness, more ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, + measured thumping sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it + took me an appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle’s + tail, beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. + And still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. It was rather + more than old nerves could stand. + </p> + <p> + “The dog,” I broke in upon the stream of erudition. “Surely, + Mr. Merivale—” + </p> + <p> + “Willy Woolly?” He looked down, and the faithful one withdrew + himself from his vision long enough to lick the master hand. “Does + he disturb you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” I answered, a little confused. “I only thought—it + seemed that he is uneasy about something.” + </p> + <p> + “There are finer sensibilities than we poor humans have,” said + my host gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Then you have noticed how he watches and follows?” + </p> + <p> + “He is always like that. Always, since.” + </p> + <p> + His “since” was one of the strangest syllables that ever came + to my ears. It implied nothing to follow. It was finality’s self. + </p> + <p> + “It is”—I sought a word—“interesting and + curious,” I concluded lamely, feeling how insufficient the word was. + </p> + <p> + “She comes back to him,” said my host simply. + </p> + <p> + No need to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive + as his “since.” Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave + to its utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when he added: + </p> + <p> + “She never comes back to me.” + </p> + <p> + That evening he spoke no more of her. Yet I felt that I had been admitted + to an intimacy. And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of dropping in + to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of his + philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline of the + tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of quiet. She + whom he had cherished since they were boy and girl together, had died in + the previous winter. She had formed the whole circle of his existence + within which he moved, attended by Willy Woolly, happily gathering his + troves. Her death had left him not so much alone as alien in the world. He + was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, without interest + except that of his timepieces, and without hope except that of rejoining + her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to say in a tone of + indescribable conviction: + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I was the happiest man in the world.” + </p> + <p> + Any chance incident or remark might turn his thought and speech, + unconscious of the transition, from his favorite technicalities back to + the past. Some comment of mine upon a specimen of that dismal songster, + the cuckoo clock, which stood on his mantel, had started him into one of + his learned expositions. + </p> + <p> + “The first cuckoo clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir”—he + was always scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no + matter how abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his + inherent courtesy—“was intended to represent not the cuckoo, + but the blackbird. It had a double pipe for the hours, ‘Pit-weep! + Pit-weep!’ and a single—” + </p> + <p> + His voice trailed into silence as the mechanical bird of his own + collection popped forth and piped its wooden lay. Willy Woolly pattered + over, sat down before it, and, gazing through and beyond the meaningless + face with eyes of adoration whose purport there was no mistaking, whined + lovingly. + </p> + <p> + “When the cuckoo sounded,” continued the collector without the + slightest change of intonation, “she used to imitate it to puzzle + Willy Woolly. A merry heart! ... All was so still after it stopped + beating. The clocks forgot to strike.” + </p> + <p> + The poodle, turning his absorbed regard from the Presence that moves + beyond time and its perishing voices, trotted to his master and nuzzled + the frail hand. + </p> + <p> + The hand fondled him. “Yes, little dog,” murmured the man. His + eyes, sad as those of the animal, quested the dimness. + </p> + <p> + “Why does she come to him and not to me? He loved her dearly, didn’t + you, little dog? But not as I did.” There was a quivering note of + jealousy in his voice. “Why is my vision blinded to what he sees?” + </p> + <p> + “You have said yourself that there are finer sensibilities than + ours,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “It lies deeper than that. I think he is drawing + near her. He used to have a little bark that he kept for her alone. In the + dead of night I have heard him give that bark—since. And I knew that + she was speaking to him. I think that he will go first. Perhaps he will + tell her that I am coming.... But I should be very lonely.” + </p> + <p> + “Willy’s a stout young thing,” I asserted, “with + years of life before him.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” he returned doubtfully. A gleam of rare fun lit up + his pale, vague eyes. “Can’t you see him dodging past Saint + Peter through the pearly gates” (“I was brought up a + Methodist,” he added in apologetic explanation), “trotting + along the alabaster streets sniffing about for her among all the Shining + Ones, listening for her voice amid the sound of the harps, and when he + finds her, hallelujahing with that little bark that was for her alone: + ‘Here I am, mistress! Here I am! And <i>he’s</i> coming soon, + mistress. Your Old Boy is coming soon.’” + </p> + <p> + When I retailed that conversation to the Little Red Doctor, he snorted and + said that Stepfather Time was one degree crazier than Willy Woolly and + that I wasn’t much better than a higher moron myself. Well, if I’ve + got to be called a fool by my best friends, I’d rather be called it + in Greek than in English. It’s more euphonious. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The pair in Number 37 soon settled down to a routine life. Every morning + Stepfather Time got out his big pushcart and set forth in search of + treasure, accompanied by Willy Woolly. Sometimes the dog trotted beneath + the cart; sometimes he rode in it. He was always on the job. Never did he + indulge in those divagations so dear to the normal canine heart. Other + dogs and their ways interested him not. Cats simply did not exist in his + circumscribed life. Even to the shining mark of a boy on a bicycle he was + indifferent, and when a dog has reached that stage one may safely say of + him that he has renounced the world and all its vanities. Willy Woolly’s + one concern in life was his master and their joint business. + </p> + <p> + Soon they became accepted familiars of Our Square. Despite the general + conviction that they were slightly touched, we even became proud of them. + They lent distinction to the locality by getting written up in a Sunday + supplement, Willy Woolly being specially photographed therefor, a gleam of + transient glory, which, however it may have gratified our local pride, + left both of the subjects quite indifferent. Stepfather Time might have + paid more heed to it had he not, at the time, been wholly preoccupied in a + difficult quest. + </p> + <p> + In a basement window, far over on Avenue D, stood an old and battered + timepiece of which Stepfather Time had heard the voice but never seen the + face. Each of three attempts to investigate with a view to negotiations + had been frustrated by a crabbed and violent-looking man with a repellent + club. Nevertheless, the voice alone had ensnared the connoisseur; it was, + by the test of the pipe which he carried on all his quests, D in alt, and + would thus complete the major chord of a chime which he had long been + building up. (She had loved, best of all, harmonic combinations of the + clock bells.) Every day he would halt in front of the place and wait to + hear it strike, and its owner would peer out from behind it and shake a + wasted fist and curse him with strange, hoarse foreign oaths, while Willy + Woolly tugged at his trouser leg and urged him to pass on from that + unchancy spot. All that he could learn about the basement dweller was that + his name was Lukisch and he owed for his rent. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made sheep’s + eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as he hated + everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, and a + grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his heart. + Also he had definite ideas of reprisal, which were focused by a dispossess + notice, and directed particularly upon the person and property of his + landlord. The clock he needed as the instrument of his vengeance; + therefore he would not have sold it at any price to the sheep-eyed old + lunatic of the pushcart, who now, on the eve of his eviction, stood gazing + in with wistful contemplation. Presently he passed on and Mr. Lukisch + resumed his tinkering with the clock’s insides. He was very delicate + and careful about it, for these were the final touches, preparatory to his + leaving the timepiece as a memento when he should quietly depart that + evening, shortly before nine. What might happen after nine, or, rather, on + the stroke of nine, was no worry of his, though it might be and probably + would be of the landlord’s, provided that heartless extortioner + survived it. + </p> + <p> + Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair + and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction. + Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those + two physiognomies. The clock’s face, benign and bland, would have + deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man’s + face might have warned him. + </p> + <p> + Something within the clock’s mechanism clicked and checked and went + on again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start. Could + something have gone wrong with the combination? Suppose a premature + release.... At that panic thought something within Mr. Lukisch’s bad + heart clicked and checked and did not go on again. The fear in his eyes + faded and was succeeded by an expression of surprise and inquiry. Whether + the inquiry was answered, nobody could have guessed from the still, + unwinking regard on the face of the victim of heart failure. + </p> + <p> + By and by a crowd gathered on the sidewalk, drawn by that mysterious + instinct for sensation which attracts the casual and the idle. Two bold + spirits entered the door and stood, hesitant, just inside, awed because + the clock seemed so startlingly alive in that place. Some one sent + upstairs for the landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which + had not only mulcted him of two months’ rent with nothing to show + for it but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly + superfluous corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock + because it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it + that Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered. + </p> + <p> + “And who”—the landlord addressed high Heaven with a + gesture at once pious and pessimistic—“is to pay me fourteen + dollars back rent this dirty beggar owes?” + </p> + <p> + “The man,” said Stepfather Time gently, “is dead.” + </p> + <p> + “He is.” The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with + objurgations. “Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and + expense. And what have I who run my property honest and respectable got to + pay for it? Some rags and a bum clock.” + </p> + <p> + Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, + this was not Willy Woolly’s kind of man. “Now, now, Willy + Woolly!” reproved his master. “Who are we that we should judge + him?” + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t <i>like</i> him,” declared Willy Woolly in + unequivocal dog language. + </p> + <p> + “I think from his face that he has suffered much,” said the + gentle collector, wise in human pain. + </p> + <p> + “Me; I suppose I don’t suffer!” pointed out the landlord + vehemently. “Fourteen dollars out. Two months’ rent. A bum + clock.” + </p> + <p> + He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The + voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D in + alt. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering + underneath his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, “I + will buy your clock.” + </p> + <p> + A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word + “nut” floated in the air, and was followed by “Verrichter.” + The landlord took thought and hope. + </p> + <p> + “It is a very fine clock,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “It is a bum clock,” Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. + </p> + <p> + “Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it.” + </p> + <p> + “I will pay you much money for it.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” + </p> + <p> + “Seven dollars. That is one month’s rent that he owed.” + </p> + <p> + “Two months’ rent I must have.” + </p> + <p> + “One,” said Stepfather Time firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Two,” said the landlord insistently. + </p> + <p> + “Urff! Grr—rr—rr—rrff!” said Willy Woolly in + emphatic dissuasion. + </p> + <p> + Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of Willy + Woolly’s province. Only once in the course of their years together + had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to + recall that the subject of Willy’s protests on that occasion had + subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in the + woodwork (artificially blown in with powder) would have led the + unsuspecting to suppose. But about the present legacy there could be no + such question. It was genuine. It was old. It was valuable. It possessed a + seraphic note pitched true to the long-desired chord. + </p> + <p> + Extracting a ten-dollar note from his wallet, Stepfather Time waved it + beneath the landlord’s wrinkled and covetous nose. The landlord + capitulated. Willy Woolly, sniffing at the clock with fur abristle, lifted + up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already detected + the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He stubbornly refused + to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, and was accused of + being sulky and childish. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a + high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. + There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland + and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the + passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke of + nine. Meantime Willy Woolly settled down to keep watch on it and could not + be moved from that duty. Every time it struck the half he growled. At the + hour he barked and raged. When Stepfather Time sought to draw him away to + dinner he committed the unpardonable sin of dog-dom, he snarled at his + master. Turning this strange manifestation over in his troubled mind, the + collector decided that Willy Woolly must be ill, and therefore that + evening went to seek the Little Red Doctor and his wisdom. + </p> + <p> + Together they came across the park space opposite the House of Silvery + Voices in time to witness the final scene. + </p> + <p> + The new clock struck the half after eight as they reached the turn in the + path. A long, quavering howl, mingled of rage and desperation, answered in + Willy Woolly’s voice. + </p> + <p> + “You hear?” said Stepfather Time anxiously to the Little Red + Doctor. “The dog is not himself.” + </p> + <p> + They saw him rear up against the clock case. He seemed to be trying to + tear it open with his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Willy!” cried his master in a tone such as, I suppose, the + well-loved companion had not heard twice before in his life. “Down, + Willy!” + </p> + <p> + The dog drooped back. But it was not in obedience. For once he disregarded + the master’s command. Perhaps he did not even hear it in the + absorption of his dread and rage. Step by step he withdrew, then rushed + and launched himself straight at the timepiece. Slight though his bulk + was, the impetus of the charge did the work. The clock reeled, toppled, + and fell outward through the window; then— + </p> + <p> + From the House of Silvery Voices rose a roar that smote the heavens. A + roar and a belch of flame and a spreading, poisonous stench that struck + the two men in the park to earth. When they struggled to their feet again, + the smoke had parted and the House of Silvery Voices gaped open, its front + wall stripped bodily away. But within, the sound of the busy industry of + time went on uninterrupted. + </p> + <p> + Weaving and wobbling on his feet, Stepfather Time staggered toward the pot + calling on the name of Willy Woolly. At the gate he stopped, put forth his + hand, and lifted from the railing a wopsy, woolly fragment, no bigger than + a sheet of note paper. It was red and warm and wet. + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone,” said Stepfather Time. + </p> + <p> + The Clock of Conscience took up the tale. “Gone. Gone. Gone,” + it pealed. + </p> + <p> + As the collector would not leave the shattered house, they sent for me to + stay the night with him. A strange vigil! For now it was the man who + followed with intent, unworldly eyes that which I, with my lesser vision, + could not discern. And the Unseen moved swiftly about the desolate room, + low to the floor, and seemed finally to stop, motionless beneath a + caressing hand. I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping of a + grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready to + strike. + </p> + <p> + Only once that night did Stepfather Time speak, and then not to me. + </p> + <p> + “Tell her,” he said in an assured murmur, “that I shan’t + be long.” + </p> + <p> + “Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long,” confirmed + Grandfather from his stance on the stairway. + </p> + <p> + In that assurance Stepfather Time fell asleep. He did not go out again + with his pushcart, but sat in the rear room while the Mordaunt Estate in + person superintended the job of putting a new front on the house. + </p> + <p> + The night after it was finished I received an urgent telephone call to + come there at once. At the entrance I met the Little Red Doctor coming + out. + </p> + <p> + “The clocks have stopped,” said he gently. + </p> + <p> + So I turned to cross the park with him. + </p> + <p> + “I shall certify,” said he, “heart disease.” + </p> + <p> + “You may certify what you please,” said I. “But what do + you believe?” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor, who prides himself on being a hard-bitted + materialist, glared at me as injuriously as if my innocent question had + been an insult. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it!” he averred violently. “Do + you take me for a sentimental idiot that I should pin silly labels on my + old friend, Death?” His expression underwent a curious change. + “But I never saw such joy on any living face,” he muttered + under his breath. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and + makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time’s + clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower facing + Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The Bonnie Lassie + designed the tower, and because there is love and understanding in all + that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand to, it is as beautiful + as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the Tower of the Two Faithful + Hearts. + </p> + <p> + The silvery voice within it is the product of a paragon among timepieces, + a most superior instrument, of unimpeachable construction and great cost. + But it has one invincible peculiarity, the despair of the best consulting + experts who have been called in to remedy it and, one and all, have failed + for reasons which they cannot fathom. How should they! + </p> + <p> + It never keeps time. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HOME-SEEKERS’ GOAL + </h2> + <p> + Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general head of + statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square, + looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grown up + in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you for + information, and they will frequently give more than they get of it. Such, + I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves a + satisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorful + splendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with a + taste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that float and + bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I can follow + a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorous bloom. + And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in a receptive + mood for such flies of information as might come to me concerning two + large invading vans which had rumbled into our quiet precincts and, after + a pause for inquiry, stopped before the Mordaunt Estate’s newly + repaired property at Number 37. + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The design + which he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of art than + upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors. + </p> + <p> + The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviously + unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, reverting + to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in approaching the + Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was sure that the + newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. + </p> + <p> + Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I mused + upon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found useful in + such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon. With + an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I dragged myself + back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes upon them. It is + possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal, for they fell + at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, a butterfly of the most + vivid and delightful appearance. + </p> + <p> + “Is the house with the ‘To Let’ sign on it really to + let, do you know, sir?” she inquired, adding music to color with her + voice. + </p> + <p> + “So I understand,” said I, rising. + </p> + <p> + “And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front,” + put in the butterfly’s companion. “Is he a lunatic or a + designer of barber poles?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing a + limited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate.” + </p> + <p> + “He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could + get out of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he + should be addressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. + Wagboom is an irritant to a haughty property-owner’s soul.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?” asked the young + man of his companion. + </p> + <p> + “With a view to renting?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you keep dogs?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Or clocks by the hundred?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” answered the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Or bombs?” + </p> + <p> + Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other with a + wild surmise which said plainly: “Are they <i>all</i> crazy down + here?” + </p> + <p> + “If you do,” I explained kindly, “you might have trouble + in dealing. The latest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed + one of two hundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew + away the front wall.” And I outlined the history of that canine + clairvoyant, Willy Woolly. “The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about + his tenants, anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps + it would be well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of + house painting.” + </p> + <p> + Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the + charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and + delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry. + </p> + <p> + “That,” said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on + his knees with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to + them, “is after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he’s + a bear for color. Are you artists?” + </p> + <p> + “We’re house-hunters,” explained the young man. + </p> + <p> + “As for tenants,” said the Mordaunt Estate, “I take + ’em or leave ’em as I like ’em or don’t. I like + you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of colorin’. Eight rooms, + bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don’t suit each other. + Very choice and classy for a young married couple. Eight dollars, in + advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz.” + </p> + <p> + “We’re not married,” said the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?” demanded that highly + respectable institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression + mollified as he turned to the butterfly. “Aimin’ to be, I s’pose.” + </p> + <p> + “We only met this morning; so we haven’t decided yet,” + answered the young man. “At least,” he added blandly, as his + companion seemed to be struggling for utterance, “she hasn’t + informed me of her decision, if she has made it.” + </p> + <p> + Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the + Mordaunt Estate. “Nothin’ doin’,” he began, + “until—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t decide hastily,” adjured the young man. “Take + this coin.” He forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the + decorator. + </p> + <p> + “Nothin’ doin’ on account, either. Pay as you enter.” + </p> + <p> + “Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your + call,” he said to the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Heads,” cried the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “Tails,” proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into + silence on the flagging. + </p> + <p> + “Then the house is yours,” said the butterfly. “Good + luck go with it.” She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t want it,” returned the young man. + </p> + <p> + “Play fair,” she exhorted him. “We both agreed solemnly + to stand by the toss. Didn’t we?” + </p> + <p> + “What did we agree?” + </p> + <p> + “That the winner should have the choice.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well. I won, didn’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “You certainly did.” + </p> + <p> + “And I choose not to take the house,” he declared + triumphantly. “It’s a very nice house, but”—he + shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the proud-pied façade, blinking + significantly—“I’d have to wear smoked glasses if I + lived in it, and they don’t suit my style of beauty.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on + your knees with a thousand dollars in each hand,” asserted the + offended Estate. + </p> + <p> + “See!” said the young man to the butterfly. “Fate + decides for you.” + </p> + <p> + “But what will you do?” she asked solicitously. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square.” + </p> + <p> + She held out her hand. “You’ve been very nice and helpful, but—I + think not. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + He regarded the hand blankly. “Not—what?” + </p> + <p> + “Not here in this Square, if you don’t mind.” + </p> + <p> + “But where else is there?” he asked piteously. “You know + yourself there are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating + around on this teeming island in vans, with no place to land.” + </p> + <p> + “Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn,” was her hopeful suggestion. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘And bade betwixt their shores to be + The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea,’” + </pre> + <p> + he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: “Matthew + Arnold. Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places + are,” he pleaded. “From you!” he concluded. + </p> + <p> + A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. “I’ve + accepted you as a gentleman on trust,” she began, when he broke in: + </p> + <p> + “Don’t do it. It’s a fearfully depressing thing to be + reminded that you’re a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to + it. Think how it cramps one’s style, not to mention limiting one’s + choice of real estate. A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his + hope of a home on the toss of a coin, but he mustn’t presume to want + to see the other party to the gamble again, even if she’s the only + thing in the whole sweep of his horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where + is Eternal Justice, I ask you, when such things—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do stop!” she implored. “I don’t think you’re + sane.” + </p> + <p> + “No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses + to complete loss of mental equilibrium since—let me see—since + 11.15 A.M.” + </p> + <p> + Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on his + own behalf, interposed. + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather rent to two than one,” he said + insinuatingly. “More reliable and steady with the rent. Settin’ + aside the young feller’s weak eyes, you’re a nice-matched + pair. Gittin’ a license is easy, if you know the ropes. I’d + even be glad to go with you to—” + </p> + <p> + “As to not being married,” broke in the butterfly, with the + light of a great resolve in her eye, “this gentleman may speak for + himself. I am.” + </p> + <p> + “Am what?” queried the Estate. + </p> + <p> + “Married.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn!” exploded the young man. “I mean, congratulations + and all that sort of thing. I—I’m really awfully sorry. You’ll + forgive my making such an ass of myself, won’t you?” + </p> + <p> + To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turned + rather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed on them, + she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a sudden + alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping regard had + fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding ring may be + put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has been once + worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness of the third + finger. The butterfly’s gloves were not new, yet there showed not + the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. While admitting + to himself that the evidence fell short of conclusiveness, the young man + decided to accept it as a working theory and to act, win or lose, do or + die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that his delightful but elusive companion + was a li—that is to say, an inventor. He would give that invention + the run of its young life! + </p> + <p> + “We—ell,” the Mordaunt Estate was saying, “that’s + too bad. Ain’t a widdah lady are you?” + </p> + <p> + “My husband is in France.” + </p> + <p> + With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in where + many an angel might have feared to tread. “Maybe he’ll stay + there,” he surmised. + </p> + <p> + “What!” + </p> + <p> + In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of + “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘The maids of France are fond and free.’ +</pre> + <p> + “Besides,” he added, “it’s quite unhealthy there + at this season. I wouldn’t be surprised”—he halted—“at + anything,” he finished darkly. + </p> + <p> + Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally + hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she + could find them— + </p> + <p> + “I’ll wait around—in hopes,” he decided calmly. + </p> + <p> + So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and + ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She + had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, an + interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now—how dared + he! She put it to him at once: “How dare you!” + </p> + <p> + “Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of + loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse,” + prescribed the unimpressed subject of her retort. “As a wife, you + are, of course, unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or + only prospective”—he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar + through the public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the + suffering—“there is H-O-P-E!” he intoned solemnly, + wagging a benignant forefinger at her. + </p> + <p> + The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into + unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with + foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means + unattractive young suitor—for he could be relegated to no lesser + category—might do next. She said coolly and crisply: + </p> + <p> + “I wish nothing more to do with you whatever.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I needn’t quit the Garden of Ed—I mean, Our + Square?” + </p> + <p> + “You may do as you see fit,” she replied loftily. + </p> + <p> + “Act the gent, can’t chuh?” reproved the Mordaunt + Estate. “You’re makin’ the lady cry.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t,” denied the lady, with ferocity. “He + couldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “He’ll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma’am,” + the polite Estate assured her. + </p> + <p> + “If he wants to stay, he’ll have to live in his van.” + </p> + <p> + “Grand little idea! I’ll do it. I’ll be a van hermit and + fast and watch and pray beneath your windows.” + </p> + <p> + “You may live in your van forever,” retorted the justly + incensed butterfly, “but I’ll never speak to you as long as I + live in this house. Never, never, <i>never</i>!” + </p> + <p> + She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The Mordaunt + Estate took down the “To Let” sign, and went in search of a + helper to unload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled + into his own van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on + the collected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. + But his immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shot + through as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitive + smile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell to dreams. + As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to Our Square, it + had come about in this wise: + </p> + <p> + Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink of a + maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name by + remaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right of + way, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective drivers + inflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recesses of + the larger van said: “Don’t give an inch.” + </p> + <p> + Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what + sounded like “Give an ell,” but probably was not, as there was + no corresponding movement of the wheels. + </p> + <p> + What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they did upon + descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action, and as + such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunder and led + them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the deserted equipages emerged + from amid their lares and penates, and met face to face. The effect upon + the occupant of the smaller van was electric, not to say paralytic. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, glory!” he murmured faintly, with staring eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Would you kindly move?” said the girl, in much the same tone + that one would employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one ever + addressed a beetle with freezing dignity. + </p> + <p> + The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. “I’ve + done nothing else for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and + I’ll bless you as a benefactress of the homeless.” + </p> + <p> + “Anywhere out of my way,” she replied with a severity which + the corners of her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to. + </p> + <p> + “Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged,” he declared humbly. + “But first let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to + give ‘em—that is, to hold his ground, I didn’t know who you + were.” + </p> + <p> + She wrinkled dainty brows at him. “Well, you don’t know who I + am now, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t have to,” he responded with fervor. “Just + on sight you may have all of this street and as many of the adjoining + avenues as you can use. By the way, who <i>are</i> you?” The + question was put with an expression of sweet and innocent simplicity. + </p> + <p> + The girl looked at him hard and straight. “I don’t think that + introductions are necessary.” + </p> + <p> + He sighed outrageously. “They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; + twenty-fourth large edition,” he murmured. “And I was just + about to present myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very + much at your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my + move. May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intend + driving yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll have to, if I’m to get anywhere.” A look of + dismay overspread her piquant face. “Oh, dear! I don’t in the + least understand this machinery. I can’t drive this kind of car.” + </p> + <p> + “Glory be!” exclaimed Mr. Dyke. “I mean, that’s + too bad,” he amended gracefully. “Won’t you let me take + you where you want to go?” + </p> + <p> + “What’ll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven’t + any idea where I want to go.” + </p> + <p> + “What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the + face of an overpopulated earth, Miss?” + </p> + <p> + The “Miss” surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of + this extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of + the servant class? + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I am,” she admitted. + </p> + <p> + “A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood,” he announced + sonorously, “are wandering about, lost and homeless on this + melancholy and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to + come and bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain’t it + harrowing, Miss! Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge + sung over me by a quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did + you breakfast, Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen.” + </p> + <p> + The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. “You ask + the most personal questions as if they were a matter of course.” + </p> + <p> + “By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining + individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived + from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks of + steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for + reading, Miss? I’ve got a neat little library inside, besides an + automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that + policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? <i>I</i> + think he is.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t move on,” she said pathetically. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t you work my van, Miss? It’s quite simple.” + </p> + <p> + She gave it a swift examination. “Yes,” said she. “It’s + almost like my own car.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll lead, and you follow, Miss.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t—I don’t know who—I don’t + <i>want</i> your van. Where shall we—” + </p> + <p> + “Go?” he supplied. “To jail, I judge, unless we go + somewhere else and do it <i>now</i>. Come on! We’re off!” + </p> + <p> + Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the + approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved but + triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from the + path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore downtownward. + Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the girl in the + trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of a side street, + her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke’s engaging and + confident face appeared below her. + </p> + <p> + “Within,” he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, + “they dispense the succulent pig’s foot and the innocuous and + unconvincing near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something + to eat and drink. May I help you down, Miss?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the girl dolefully. “I want to go home.” + </p> + <p> + “But on your own showing, you haven’t any home.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got to find one. Immediately.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll need help, Miss. It’ll take some finding.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss,” she said with + evidences of petulance. + </p> + <p> + “Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson + says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while we + discuss the housing problem—” + </p> + <p> + “Why are you calling me Lady, now?” + </p> + <p> + He shook a discouraged head. “You seem very hard to please, Sister. + I’ve tried you with Miss and I’ve tried you with Lady—” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a gentleman or are you a—a—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t say it, Duchess. Don’t! Remember what Tennyson + says: ‘One hasty line may blast a budding hope.’ Or was it + Burleson? When you deny to the companion of your wanderings the privilege + of knowing your name, what can he do but fall back for guidance upon that + infallible chapter in the Gents’ Handbook of Classy Behavior, + entitled, ‘From Introduction’s Uncertainties to Friendship’s + Fascinations’?” + </p> + <p> + “We haven’t even been introduced,” she pointed out. + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, + Old Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to,” he added piously. + “Now, Miss—or Lady—or Sister, as the case may be; or + even Sis (I believe that form is given in the Gents’ Handbook), if + you will put your lily hand in mine—” + </p> + <p> + “Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during + luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends.” + </p> + <p> + “A test! I’m on. We’re off.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast from + an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled their + real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there was no + available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town. She had + explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and without + success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward for + anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a discovery + they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the approved method of + the tossed coin: “The winner has the choice.” + </p> + <p> + Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort’s manner and + bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied + intimacy of the tête-à-tête across a table than a subtle change manifested + itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his talk, but the + note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the end, when he had + paid the bill and she asked: + </p> + <p> + “What’s my share, please?” + </p> + <p> + “Two-ten,” he replied promptly and without protest. + </p> + <p> + “My name,” said she, “is Anne Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in + his eye as he added: “Of course, that was rudimentary about the + check.” + </p> + <p> + Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk again. + In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, he + suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering + contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of + tea-store art. + </p> + <p> + “Suffering Raphael!” he exclaimed at length. “What’s + the lady in the pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch + in the nightie? What’s it all about, anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “The title,” replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of + insignificant lettering, “is ‘Swedish Wedding Feast.’” + </p> + <p> + “Wedding feast,” he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the + picture to his companion. “Well,” he raised an imaginary glass + high, “prosit omen!” + </p> + <p> + The meaning was not to be mistaken. “Well, really,” she began + indignantly. “If you are going to take advantage—” + </p> + <p> + “You’re not supposed to understand Latin,” interposed + Mr. Dyke hastily. He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For + some subtle reason her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would + have done to his over-enterprising adroitness. + </p> + <p> + “We must be going on,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He gave her a grateful glance. “I was afraid I’d spilled the + apple cart and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time,” he + murmured. Having helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded + for a moment, turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: + </p> + <p> + “Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Cousin.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve + somewhere,” he declared with profound and joyous conviction. + </p> + <p> + “Are you a friend of Budge’s?” + </p> + <p> + “Friend doesn’t half express it! He made the touchdown that + won me a clean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn’t know + him from Henry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you tell me one thing, please?” pleaded Anne Leffingwell + desperately. “Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet. But then, you see, I’m only a beginner. This is my + first attempt. I’ll get better as I go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you please crank my car?” requested Anne Leffingwell + faintly. + </p> + <p> + Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid’s part, + vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne + Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably touching + at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke—and lingering there. She was + solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke’s reason. Came + also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, ouija, + the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. Leffingwell. He + was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. Leffingwell’s + existence. Now when two young persons come separately to an old person to + discuss each other’s affairs, it is a bad sign. Or perhaps a good + sign. Just as you choose. + </p> + <p> + Adopting the Mordaunt Estate’s sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke had + settled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. Anne + Leffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a van + must be prodigious. (“Tell her not to worry; my family own the + storage and moving plant,” was one of his many messages that I + neglected to deliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and + simplicity of her establishment—one small but neat maid—which + he deemed incongruous with her general effect of luxury and ease of life, + and wondered whether she had split with her family. (She hadn’t; + “I’ve always been brought up like a—a—an + artichoke,” she confided to me. “So when father went West for + six months, I just moved, and I’m going to be a potato and see how I + like it. Besides, I’ve got some research work to do.”) + </p> + <p> + Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and every + afternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37. Dyke’s + hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, for he slept + by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electrical experiments + which he was conducting over on the river front, and which were to send + his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapers have already + caught an echo or two.) On his way back from his experiments, he daily + stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist, where, besides chaste and + elegant set pieces inscribed “Gates Ajar” and “Gone But + Not Forgotten,” one may, if expert and insistent, obtain really + fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinal arrival + of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but delivered regularly at the + door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not though a base attempt was + made to incriminate me in the transaction. + </p> + <p> + Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly and + promising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She was + steadfastly adhering to that “Never. Never. <i>Never</i>!” + What less, indeed, could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent + hopes of her husband’s early demise from a young man whom she had + known but four hours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but + for a manifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The + Mordaunt Estate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon + when Martin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss + his favorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty + brows over the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully + that this thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terry the + Cop.) + </p> + <p> + “That lady in Number 37,” said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, + “ain’t the lady I thought she was.” + </p> + <p> + Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked up + hopefully. “You mean that she isn’t really <i>Mrs.</i> + Leffingwell?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean I’m disappointed in her; that’s what I mean. She + wants the house front painted over.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” I protested with polite incredulity. + </p> + <p> + “Where’s her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work + so deeply.” + </p> + <p> + “She does, too,” confirmed the Estate. “But she says it’s + liable to be misunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and + men ask the hired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird + with whiskers wanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told + fortunes there. So she wants I should tone it down. I guess,” + pursued the Mordaunt Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of + finding the Perfect Tenant in an imperfect world, “I’ll have + to notice her to quit.” + </p> + <p> + “No; don’t do that!” cried the young man. “Here! I’ll + repaint the whole wall for you free of charge.” + </p> + <p> + “What do <i>you</i> know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost + money.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll furnish the paint, too,” offered the reckless + youth. “I’m crazy about art. It’s the only solace of my + declining years. And,” he added cunningly and with evil intent to + flatter and cajole, “I can tone down that design of yours without + affecting its beauty and originality at all.” + </p> + <p> + Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his + frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the + following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on a + plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the house + came home at four-thirty and caught him at it. + </p> + <p> + “That’s going to be ever so much nicer,” she called + graciously, not recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing + back. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you for those few kind words.” + </p> + <p> + “You!” she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and + benevolent beam of the eye upon her. “What are you doing to my + house?” + </p> + <p> + “Art. High art.” + </p> + <p> + “How did you get up there?” + </p> + <p> + “Ladder. High ladder.” + </p> + <p> + “You know that isn’t what I mean at all.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Well, I’ve taken a contract to tone down the Midway + aspect of your highly respectable residence. One hour per day.” + </p> + <p> + “If you think that this performance is going to do you any good—” + she began with withering intonation. + </p> + <p> + “It’s done that already,” he hastened to assert. “You’ve + recognized my existence again.” + </p> + <p> + “Only through trickery.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, it’s no trick at all to improve on the + Mordaunt Estate’s art. Now that we’ve made up again, Miss or + Mrs. Leffingwell, as the case may be—” + </p> + <p> + “We haven’t made up. There’s nothing to make up.” + </p> + <p> + “Amended to ‘Now that we’re on speaking terms once more.’ + Accepted? Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you’ve + been sending me. You can’t imagine how they brighten and sweeten my + simple and unlovely van life, with their—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Dyke!” Her eyes were flashing now and her color was + deeper than the pink of the roses which she had rejected. “You must + know that you had no right to send me flowers and that in returning them—” + </p> + <p> + “Returning? But, dear lady—or girl, as the case may be [here + she stamped a violent foot]—if you feel it your duty to return them, + why not return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though my + attentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am, so + to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There’s the Dominie, + for instance. He’s notoriously your admirer, and I’ve seen him + at Eberling’s quite lately.” (Mendacious young scoundrel!) + </p> + <p> + For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner. + </p> + <p> + “How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?” she + said uncertainly. + </p> + <p> + “How should <i>I</i>, for that matter?” he retorted at once. + “Though any idiot could see at a glance that you’re at least + half sister to the whole rose tribe.” + </p> + <p> + “Now you’re beginning again,” she complained. “You + see, it’s impossible to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance.” + </p> + <p> + “But what do you think of me as a painter-man?” inquired the + bewildering youth. + </p> + <p> + Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now + one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. “The + question is,” said she, “wasn’t it really you that sent + the roses, and don’t you realize that you mustn’t?” + </p> + <p> + “The question is,” he repeated, “whether, being denied + the ordinary avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping + the fence with one’s votive offerings. Now I hold—” + </p> + <p> + Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager + eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness + was gone from his voice. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Yes; + I sent the roses. You shan’t be troubled again in that way—or + any other way. Do you mind if I finish this job?” + </p> + <p> + Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell + expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a + thing as triumph being too complete. + </p> + <p> + “I think you’re doing it very nicely,” was the demure + reply. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on my + bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague + truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn’t + necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain gold + band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one who + strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to offer + to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at first + sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of the + consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her eyes, + and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive of + serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous orchid + was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible orchid + expectant of continued patronage should do. + </p> + <p> + There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke’s color scheme on + the following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an + impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there + discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The + motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the house + front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask: + </p> + <p> + “Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?” + </p> + <p> + The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all + but precipitated into the area. “<i>Who</i>?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t mean Mrs. Leffingwell?” queried the aerial + operator in a strained tone. + </p> + <p> + “No; I don’t. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell.” + </p> + <p> + The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the + immaculate garments below. “Toora-loo!” he warbled. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” said the new arrival. + </p> + <p> + “I said ‘Toora-loo.’ It’s a Patagonian expression + signifying satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time + effect.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter,” + reflected the stalwart Adonis. “Is that Patagonian art?” + </p> + <p> + “Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression + of doubt and despair. That,” he added, splashing in a prodigal + streak of whooping scarlet, “is resurgent joy surmounting the misty + mountain-tops of—” + </p> + <p> + The opening door below him cut short the disquisition. + </p> + <p> + “Reg!” cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big + young man’s ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken + occupant of the dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: “Wh—wh—wh—why + didn’t you come before?” + </p> + <p> + To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: “You + little idiot!” + </p> + <p> + The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, continued + blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant hues. After + interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed minutes) the tenant + escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching him as the powerful + and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist descended from his + plank to face her. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have + been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke’s + face which hurt the girl to see. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “With him?” + </p> + <p> + “Ye—es.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t your husband.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven’t any husband.” + </p> + <p> + She hung her head guiltily. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you invent one?” + </p> + <p> + Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the + roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication + with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face. + </p> + <p> + “I see. The invention was for my special benefit.” + </p> + <p> + “Safety first,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “I never really believed it—except when you took me by + surprise,” he pursued. “That’s why I—I went ahead.” + </p> + <p> + “You certainly went ahead,” she confirmed. “What are + speed laws to you!” + </p> + <p> + “You’re telling me that I haven’t played the game + according to the rules. I know I haven’t. One has to make his own + rules when Fate is in the game against him.” He seemed to be + reviewing something in his mind. “Fate,” he observed + sententiously, “is a cheap thimble-rigger.” + </p> + <p> + “Fate,” she said, “is the ghost around the corner.” + </p> + <p> + “A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinée hero, + a movie close-up, a tailor’s model—” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean Reg, it’s just as well for you he isn’t + here.” + </p> + <p> + “Pooh!” retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. “I + could wreck his loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush.” + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless,” she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now + bleeding from every pore. “It’s a fearful weapon. Spare my + poor Reg.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt + of hope, “you’d like me to believe that he’s your + long-lost brother.” + </p> + <p> + She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. “No,” + she returned hesitantly and consciously. “He isn’t—exactly + my brother.” + </p> + <p> + He recalled the initials, “R.B.W.,” on the car’s door. + Hope sank for the third time without a bubble. “Good-bye,” + said Martin Dyke. + </p> + <p> + “Surely you’re not going to quit your job unfinished,” + she protested. + </p> + <p> + Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job. + </p> + <p> + “What will the Mordaunt Estate think?” + </p> + <p> + Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like to take the house, now that it’s + vacant.” + </p> + <p> + Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of residence, + went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and red on the + other. + </p> + <p> + Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to my window + and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly’s memorial clock + was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking sight + afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the measured + footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked for a + swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. Nothing is + worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into my clothes, I + made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I was wont to + pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur + desecrator of other men’s houses, challenger of the wayward fates, + fanatic of a will-o’-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the + uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the polychromatic + abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all the pathos and + all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth. + </p> + <p> + Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusable only + on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous guide, + froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless phantasms, + dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, and the like), + butt of the High Gods’ stinging laughter, deserving of nothing + kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise—which is doubtless + why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked voices and + withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious and fraudulent litany + for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on the bench stirred. A + shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon his face, bewitched + him to unguarded speech: + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, I have been dreaming.” + </p> + <p> + Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent. + </p> + <p> + “A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, + so softly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Always.” + </p> + <p> + “I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world, + Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “There has been.” + </p> + <p> + “Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she + went away so quickly.” + </p> + <p> + “Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?” + </p> + <p> + “So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she leave nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what is this?” I lifted from the ground at his feet a + single petal of pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his + hand. + </p> + <p> + “The fairy’s kiss,” he said dreamily. “That’s + for farewell.” + </p> + <p> + The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightened + up brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Possibly.” + </p> + <p> + “What kind of talk? Nonsense?” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense—or wisdom. How should I know?” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?” + </p> + <p> + “Look in your hand.” + </p> + <p> + He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously. + “I must go now,” he said vaguely. “May I come back to + see you sometimes, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’ll bring Happiness with you,” I said. + </p> + <p> + But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from the alley + and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House of Silvery + Voices, was voiceless again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square. I + missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion, the + fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should see them + both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square—it has held me + these sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himself + can break it—which draws back the hearts that have once known the + place. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back. + More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave November + sun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinably + wistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakened + appetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered and + violent frontage of Number 37. + </p> + <p> + “Empty,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Then he didn’t take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I + mean.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t an idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t he ever come back?” + </p> + <p> + “You must not assume,” said I with severity, “that you + are the only devotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to + that of another whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds + and gained ten years—” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie! Has he?” + </p> + <p> + “Has he what?” + </p> + <p> + “G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t said so.” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you are a cruel old man,” accused the butterfly. + </p> + <p> + “And you are a wicked woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not. I’m only twenty,” was her irrelevant but + natural defense. + </p> + <p> + “Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening + or night before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving us desolate—were + you, I say, abroad in the park? + </p> + <p> + “Y-y-yes, your Honor.” + </p> + <p> + “In the immediate vicinity of this bench?” + </p> + <p> + “Benches are very alike in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “But occupants of them are not. Don’t fence with the court. + Were you wearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those + now displayed in your cheeks?” + </p> + <p> + “The honorable court has nothing to do with my face,” said the + witness defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, your face is the <i>corpus delicti.</i> Did you, + taking advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my + client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberately + imprint a—” + </p> + <p> + “No! No! No! No! <i>No</i>!” cried the butterfly with great + and unconvincing fervor. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing?” + </p> + <p> + “On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse is + coming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder.” + </p> + <p> + Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concerned over + the latter than the former accusation. “Of whom?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “You have killed a budding poet.” Here I violated a sacred if + implied confidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had + said under the spell of the moon. + </p> + <p> + The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me with indignation + that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoying her for days: + <i>that</i> was what made her eyes act so, and I was a suspicious and + malevolent old gentleman—and—and—and perhaps some day + she and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet. + </p> + <p> + “Is that a message?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Then?” I queried. + </p> + <p> + “He’s so—so awfully go-aheadish,” she complained. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll drop him a hint,” I offered kindly. + </p> + <p> + “It might do some good. I’m afraid of him,” she + confessed. + </p> + <p> + “And a little bit of yourself?” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have withered incontinently + anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. It passed and + thoughtfulness supplanted it. “If you really think that he could be + influenced to be more—well, more conventional—” + </p> + <p> + “I guarantee nothing; but I’m a pedagogue by profession and + have taught some hard subjects in my time.” + </p> + <p> + “Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for + word as I give it to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Senile decay,” I admitted, “may have paralyzed most of + my faculties, but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a + phonograph.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell him this, then.” She ticked the message off on her + fingers. “A half is not exactly the same as a whole. Don’t + forget the ‘exactly.’” + </p> + <p> + “Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?” I demanded. But + she had already gone, with a parting injunction to be precise. + </p> + <p> + When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke, + it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got it!” he shouted. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t scare me off my bench! What is it you’ve got?” + </p> + <p> + “The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother.” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away.” + He delivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinion + without a quiver. “Now she says a half isn’t exactly the same + as a whole. He wasn’t exactly her brother, she said; he’s her + half brother. ‘Toora-loora-loo,’ as we say in Patagonia.” + </p> + <p> + “For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?” + </p> + <p> + “Next and immediately,” said Mr. Dyke, “I am obtaining + an address from the Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening + off.” + </p> + <p> + “Take some advice also, my boy,” said I, mindful of the + butterfly’s alarms. “Go slow.” + </p> + <p> + “Slow! Haven’t I lost time enough already?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. But now you’ve got all there is. Don’t force + the game. You’ve frightened that poor child so that she never can + feel sure what you’re going to do next.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither can I, Dominie,” confessed the candid youth. “But + you’re quite right. I’ll clamp on the brakes. I’ll be as + cool and conventional as a slice of lemon on an iced clam. ‘How well + you’re looking to-night, Miss Leffingwell’—that’ll + be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. Trust me, Dominie, and + thank you for the tip.” + </p> + <p> + The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of + the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my + astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully + though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in his + coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing here all night?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Thinking.” + </p> + <p> + I pointed to the flower. “Where did you get that?” + </p> + <p> + “A fairy gift.” + </p> + <p> + “Martin,” said I, “did you abide by my well-meant and + inspired advice?” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” replied the youth with a guilty flush, “I did + my best. I—I tried to. You mustn’t think—Nothing is + settled. It’s only that—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I + expect you to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the + dominant fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: ‘Go slow!’ + and the avalanche—” + </p> + <p> + “Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!” broke in young Mr. Dyke, + shouting. “I beg your pardon, Dominie, I’ve got to see the + Estate for a minute.” + </p> + <p> + Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentleman in + the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, touch that front!” + implored the improver of it. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” demanded the Estate. + </p> + <p> + “I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day.” + </p> + <p> + The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him. + “Nope,” said he. “I’ve had enough of short + rentals. It don’t pay. I’m going to paint her up and lease her + for good.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take your lease,” insisted Martin Dyke. + </p> + <p> + “For how long a period?” inquired the other, in terms of the + Estate again. + </p> + <p> + The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprised on + the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed in Martin + Dyke’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Say a million years,” he answered softly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE GUARDIAN OF GOD’S ACRE + </h2> + <p> + As far as the eye could apprehend him, he was palpably an outlander. No + such pink of perfection ever sprung from the simple soil of Our Square. A + hard pink it was, suggestive less of the flower than of enameled metal. He + was freshly shaved, freshly pressed, freshly anointed, and, as he paced + gallantly across my vision, I perceived him to be slightly grizzled at the + temples, but nevertheless of a vigorous and grim youthfulness that was + almost daunting. Not until he returned and stood before me with his feet + planted a little apart, giving an impression of purposeful immovability to + his wiry figure, did I note that his eyes belied the general jauntiness of + his personality. They were cold, direct eyes, with a filmy appearance, + rather like those of a morose and self-centered turtle which had lived in + our fountain until the day the Rosser twins fell in, when it crawled out + and emigrated. + </p> + <p> + “Nice day,” said the stranger, shifting a patent-leathered + foot out of a puddle. + </p> + <p> + “Very,” I agreed. Finical over-accuracy about the weather is + likely to discourage a budding acquaintanceship. + </p> + <p> + “Have one?” He extended a gemmed cigarette-case, and when, + removing my pipe, I had declined in suitable terms, lighted up, himself. + He then sat down upon the dryest portion of the bench not occupied by my + person. + </p> + <p> + “Whiplash win in the fi’th,” he volunteered presently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said I with a polite but spurious show of interest. + </p> + <p> + “Under a pull. Spread-eagled his field.” + </p> + <p> + “Who is Whiplash, may I ask?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Gaw!” said the pink man, appalled. He searched my face + suspiciously. “A hoss,” he stated at length, satisfied of my + ignorance. + </p> + <p> + After several reflective puffs, the smoke of which insufficiently veiled + his furtive appraisal of myself, he tried again: + </p> + <p> + “They give O’Dowd a shade, last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed? Who did?” + </p> + <p> + “The sporting writers.” + </p> + <p> + “As a testimonial?” I inquired, adding that a shade, whether + of the lamp or sun species seemed an unusual sort of gift. + </p> + <p> + My interlocutor groaned. He drew from the pocket of his gray-check + cutaway, purple and fine linen, the purple being an ornate and + indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan Gluck’s + Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and with a + beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its repository, the + pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. + </p> + <p> + “The Reds copped again yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “If you are referring to the raid on Anarchist Headquarters in + Avenue C, I should have inferred that the Reds <i>were</i> copped, to use + your term.” + </p> + <p> + Curt and contemptuous laughter was his response. “Don’t you + ever read the papers, down here?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” I retorted with some spirit, for the implied slur + upon Our Square stung me. “In fact, I was reading one of our local + publications when you inter—when you arrived. It contains some very + interesting poetry.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” said the hard, pink man politely. + </p> + <p> + “For example, in this issue I find the following apostrophe.” + I proceeded to read aloud: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Farewell, our dear one, we must part, + For thou hast gone to heavenly home, + While we below with aching heart + Must long for thee and ever moan.” + </pre> + <p> + “Swell stuff,” commented the sharer of my bench, with + determined interest. “Poetry’s a little out of my line, but I’m + <i>for</i> it. Who wrote that?” + </p> + <p> + “It is signed ‘Loving Father and 3 Sisters.’ But the + actual authorship rests with the long gentleman in black whom you see + leaning on the park fence yonder. His name is Bartholomew Storrs and he is + the elegiac or mortuary or memorial laureate of Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + This was said with intent to mortify the soul of my new acquaintance in + revenge for his previous display of erudition. The bewilderment in his + face told me that I had scored heavily. But he quickly rallied. + </p> + <p> + “Do I get you right?” he queried. “Does he write those + hymns for other folks to sign?” + </p> + <p> + “He does.” + </p> + <p> + “What does he do that for?” + </p> + <p> + “Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza.” + </p> + <p> + “Some salesman!” My hard-faced companion regarded the lank + figure overhanging the fence with new respect. “Looks to me like the + original Gloom,” he observed. “What’s <i>his</i> grouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Conscience.” + </p> + <p> + “He must have a bum one!” + </p> + <p> + “He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow + repenting of our sins.” + </p> + <p> + “Whose sins?” asked the other, opening wider his dull and + weary eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + My interlocutor promptly and fitly put into words the feeling which had + long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a + monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. “He’s got + a nerve!” he asserted. + </p> + <p> + Warming to him for his pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my + theme. “He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for + Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a + usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he’ll + never do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, + to account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against + the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little house + near the corner”—I waved an illustrative hand—“he + can quote Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect and + hate him. He’s coming this way now.” + </p> + <p> + “Good day, Dominie,” said Bartholomew Storrs, as he passed, in + such a tone as a very superior angel might employ toward a particularly + damned soul. + </p> + <p> + “That frown,” I explained to my companion, after returning the + salutation, “means that I failed to attend church yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + But the hard, pink man had lost interest in Bartholomew. “Called you + ‘Dominie,’ didn’t he?” he remarked. “I thought I + had you right. Heard of you from a little red-headed ginger-box named + Smith.” + </p> + <p> + “You know the Little Red Doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “I met him,” he replied evasively. “He told me to look + you up. ‘You talk to the Dominie,’ he says.” + </p> + <p> + “About what?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m coming to that.” He leaned forward to place a + muscular and confidential hand on my knee. “First, I’d like to + do you a little favor,” he continued in his husky and intimate + voice. “If you’re looking for some quick and easy money, I got + a little tip that I’d like to pass on to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a + tottering ruin, which may be quite true; but if it’s a matter of + investing in the Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion + Concession, I’m reluctantly compelled—” + </p> + <p> + “Forget it!” adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which + secured my silence and almost my confidence. “This is a hoss. Seven + to one, and a sure cop. I <i>know</i> hosses. I’ve owned ’em.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, but I can’t afford such luxuries as betting.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t afford <i>not</i> to have something down on this if + it’s only a shoestring. No? Oh—well!” + </p> + <p> + Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray + derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow. Catching the scent hot and + fresh, Susan Gluck’s Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or + rather, nose, voluptuously. + </p> + <p> + “Mm-m-m! Snmmff!” inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic + nostrils. “Mister, lemme smell it some more!” + </p> + <p> + Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief. + “Like it, kiddie?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s <i>grand</i>!” She stretched out her little + grimy paws. “Please, Mister,” she entreated, “would you + flop it over ’em, just once?” + </p> + <p> + The pink man tossed it to her. “Take it along and, when you get it + all snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, gracious!” said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty. + “Can I have it till <i>to-morrah</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure! What’s the big idea for to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m goin’ to a funeral. I want it to cry in,” + said the Orphan importantly. + </p> + <p> + “A funeral?” I asked. “In Our Square? Whose?” + </p> + <p> + “My cousin Minnie. She’s goin’ to be buried in God’s + Acre, an’ I’m invited ‘cause I’m a r’lation. + She married a sporting gentleman named Hines an’ she died yesterday,” + said the precocious Orphan. + </p> + <p> + So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt + us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. + She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, + defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait and + not worry. There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are buried + just such letters as Minnie’s farewell to her parents; rebellious, + passionate, yearning, pitiful. Ah, well! The moth must break its + chrysalis. The flower must rend its bonds toward the light. Little Minnie + was “going on the stage.” A garish and perilous stage it was, + whereon Innocence plays a part as sorry as it is brief. And now she was + making her exit, without applause. Memory brought back a picture of Minnie + as I had first seen her, a wee thing, blinking and smiling in the arms of + her Madonna-faced mother, on a bench in Our Square, and the mother (who + could not wait for the promised return—she has lain in God’s + Acre these three years) crooning to her an unforgettable song, mournfully + prophetic: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Why did I bring thee, Sweet + Into a world of sin?— + Into a world of wonder and doubt + With sorrows and snares for the little white feet— + Into a world whence the going out + Is as dark as the coming in!” + </pre> + <p> + Old lips readily lend themselves to memory; I suppose I must have repeated + the final lines aloud, for the pink man said, wearily but politely: + </p> + <p> + “Very pretty. Something more in the local line?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly.” I smiled. Between Bartholomew Storr’s elegies + and William Young’s “Wish-makers’ Town” stretches + an infinite chasm. + </p> + <p> + “What’s this—now—God’s Acre the kid was + talking about?” was his next question. + </p> + <p> + “An old local graveyard.” + </p> + <p> + “Anything interesting?” he asked carelessly. + </p> + <p> + “If you’re interested in that sort of thing. Are you an + antiquary?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure!” he replied with such offhand promptitude that I was + certain the answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a + dromedary. + </p> + <p> + “Come along, then. I’ll take you there.” + </p> + <p> + To reach that little green space of peace amidst our turmoil of the + crowded, encroaching slums, we must pass the Bonnie Lassie’s house, + where her tiny figurines, touched with the fire of her love and her + genius, which are perhaps one and the same, stand ever on guard, looking + out over Our Square from her windows. Judging by his appearance and + conversation, I should have supposed my companion to be as little + concerned with art as with, let us say, poetry or local antiquities. But + he stopped dead in his tracks, before the first window. Fingers that were + like steel claws buried themselves in my arm. The other hand pointed. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” he muttered fiercely. + </p> + <p> + “That,” to which he was pointing, was a pictorial bronze, the + figure of a girl, upright in a cockleshell boat, made of a rose-petal, her + arms outspread to the breeze that was bearing her out across sunlit + ripples. Beneath was the legend: “Far Ports.” The face, eager, + laughing, passionate, adventurous, was the face of Minnie Munn. Therein + the Bonnie Lassie had been prophetess as well as poet and sculptress, for + she had finished the bronze before Minnie left us. + </p> + <p> + “That,” I answered the strong, pink man, trying to shake loose + his grip, “is a sculpture by Cecily Willard, otherwise Mrs. Cyrus + Staten.” + </p> + <p> + “What’ll she take for it?” + </p> + <p> + “It can’t be bought.” I spoke with authority, for the + figurines that the Bonnie Lassie sets in her window are not for sale, but + for us of Our Square, who love them. + </p> + <p> + “Anything can be bought,” he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse + persuasiveness, “at a price. I’ve got the price, no matter + what it is.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly I understood my pink and hard acquaintance. I understood that + stale look in his eyes. Tears do not bring that. Nothing brings it but + sleepless thoughts beyond the assuagement of tears. Behind such eyes the + heart is aching cold and the brain searing hot. Who should know better + than I, though the kindly years have brought their healing! But here was a + wound, raw and fresh and savage. I put my hand on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “What was little Minnie to you?” I asked, and answered myself. + “You’re Hines. You’re the man she married.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I’m Chris Hines.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve brought her back to us,” I said stupidly. + </p> + <p> + “She made me promise.” + </p> + <p> + Strange how Our Square binds the heartstrings of those who have once lived + in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the hour of + death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God’s Acre, + shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the + encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few + more of the returning. Laws have been invoked and high and learned courts + appealed to for the jealously guarded right to sleep there, as Minnie Munn + was so soon to sleep beside her mother. + </p> + <p> + I told Hines that I would see the Bonnie Lassie about the statuette, and + led him on, through the nagged and echoing passage and the iron gate, to + the white-studded space of graves. The new excavation showed, brown + against the bright verdure. Above it stood the headstone of the Munns, + solemn and proud, the cost of a quarter-year’s salary, at the + pitiful wage which little, broken Mr. Munn drew from his municipal + clerkship. Hines’s elegant coat rippled on his chest, above what may + have been a shudder, as he looked about him. + </p> + <p> + “It’s crowded,” he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “We lie close, as we lived close, in Our Square. I am glad for her + father’s sake that Minnie wished to come back.” + </p> + <p> + “She said she couldn’t rest peaceful anywhere else. She said + she had some sort of right to be here.” + </p> + <p> + “The Munns belong to what we call the Inalienables in Our Square,” + said I, and told him of the high court decision which secured to the + descendants of the original “churchyard membership,” and to + them alone, the inalienable right to lie in God’s Acre, provided, as + in the ancient charter, they had “died in honorable estate.” I + added: “Bartholomew Storrs, as sexton, has constituted himself + watchdog of our graves and censor of our dead. He carried one case to the + Supreme Court in an attempt to keep an unhappy woman from sleeping in that + pious company.” + </p> + <p> + “That sour-faced prohibitionist?” growled Mr. Hines, employing + what I suspect to be the blackest anathema in his lexicon. “Is he + the sexton?” + </p> + <p> + “The same. Our mortuary genius,” I confirmed. + </p> + <p> + “She was a good girl, Min was,” said Mr. Hines firmly, though, + it might appear, a trifle inconsequentially: “I don’t care + what they say. Anyway, after I met up with her”; in which qualifying + afterthought lay a whole sorrowful and veiled history. + </p> + <p> + I waited. + </p> + <p> + “What did they say about her, down here?” he asked jealously. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there were rumors. They didn’t reach her father.” + </p> + <p> + “No: tell me,” he persisted. “I gotta know.” + </p> + <p> + Because Mr. Hines had already impressed himself upon me as one with whom + straight talk would serve best, I acceded. + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew Storrs said that her feet took hold on hell.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines’s face remained impassive. Only his hands worked slightly, + perhaps kneading an imaginary throat. I perceived him to be a person of + considerable and perhaps formidable self-control. + </p> + <p> + “Not that she hadn’t her friends. The Bonnie Lassie would have + stood by her if she had come back, and little Mrs. Morse, and our Dr. + Smith, and MacLachan, who thought he had lost his own girl the same way, + and—and others, plenty.” + </p> + <p> + “And you, Dominie,” said the hard, pink Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir, old men cannot afford harsh judgments. They are too + near their own time.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” said Mr. Hines absently. “I guess that’s + right.” But his mind was plainly elsewhere. “When would you + say would be the best time to do business with old Funeral-Clothes?” + he asked after a thoughtful pause. + </p> + <p> + “You want to see Bartholomew Storrs?” I interpreted. + </p> + <p> + “Sure. I gotta deliver the death certificate to him if he runs the + graveyard, haven’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “Such is the procedure, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” he added with a leer, “I want to get some of + that weepy poetry of his.” + </p> + <p> + “Well; he’ll sell it to you readily.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll say he’ll sell it to me,” returned Mr. Hines + with a grimness which I failed to comprehend. + </p> + <p> + “Now is as good a time as any to catch him in his office.” I + pointed to a sign at the farther end of the yard. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines seemed in no hurry to go. With his elegantly lacquered cane, he + picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about the + open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a + handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the + May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they + descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. + Hines’s nerves were not all that they should be. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like me to introduce you to Mr. Storrs,” + I hazarded. + </p> + <p> + The cold and filmy eyes gleamed with an instant’s dim warmth. + “Dominie, you’re a good guy,” responded Mr. Hines. + “If a dead cinch at ten to one, all fruited up for next week, the + kind of thing you don’t hand on to your own brother, would be any + use to you—No? I’m off again,” he apologized. “Well—let’s + go.” + </p> + <p> + We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs’s office he paused. + </p> + <p> + “This sexton-guy,” he said anxiously, “he don’t + play the ponies, ever, I wouldn’t suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church,” + I smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Yeh?” he answered, disheartened. “I gotta get to him + some other way. On the poetry—and that’s out of my line.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t quite see what your difficulty is.” + </p> + <p> + “By what you tell me, it’s easier to break into a swell Fifth + Avenue Club than into this place.” + </p> + <p> + “Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has.” + </p> + <p> + “And this sexton-guy handles the concession for—he’s got + the say-so,” he corrected himself hastily—“on who goes + in and who stays out. Is that right?” + </p> + <p> + “Substantially.” + </p> + <p> + “And he’d rather keep ’em out than let ’em in?” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew,” I explained, “considers that the honor of + God’s Acre is in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about + it, as if he had a proprietary interest in the place.” + </p> + <p> + “I get you!” Mr. Hines’s corded throat worked painfully. + “You don’t suppose the old goat would slip Min a blackball?” + he gulped. + </p> + <p> + “How can he? As an ‘Inalienable’—” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh; I know. But wasn’t there something about a clean record? + I’ll tell <i>you</i>, Dominie”—Mr. Hines’s husky + but assured voice trailed away into a miserable, thick whisper—“as + to what he said—about her feet taking hold on hell—I guess + there was a time—I guess about one more slip—I guess I didn’t + run across her any too quick. But there never was a straighter, truer girl + than Min was with me. I gotta get her planted <i>right</i>, Dominie. I + gotta do it,” he concluded with pathetic earnestness. + </p> + <p> + “I see no difficulty,” I assured him. “The charter + specifies ‘<i>died</i> in honorable estate.’ Matrimony is an + honorable estate. How she lived before that is between her and a gentler + Judge than Bartholomew Storrs.” + </p> + <p> + “Give her a straight course and a fair judge and I’ll back Min + to the limit,” said Mr. Hines so simply and loyally that no + suggestion of irreverence could attach to him. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, doubt was mingled with determination in his florid face as + he rang the bell. Bartholomew Storrs opened to us, himself. When he saw + me, he hastily pocketed a Rhyming Dictionary. I introduced my companion, + stating, by way of a favorable opening, that he was interested in memorial + poetry. + </p> + <p> + “Very pleased,” said Bartholomew Storrs in his deep, + lugubrious tones. “Bereaved husband?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s a tasty thing I just completed,” continued the + poet, and, extending a benignant hand toward the visitor he intoned + nasally: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Together we have lived our life + Till thou hast gone on high. + But I will come to thee, dear Wife, + In the sweet bye-and-bye.” + </pre> + <p> + “That style five dollars,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You’re on,” barked Mr. Hines. “I’ll take + it.” + </p> + <p> + “To be published, I suppose, on the first anniversary of death. + Shall I look after the insertion in the papers?” queried the + obliging poet, who split an advertising agent’s percentage on + memorial notices placed by him. + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Got any more? I’d spend a hundred to do this right.” + </p> + <p> + With a smile of astounded gratification, Bartholomew accepted the roll of + bills, fresh and crisp as the visitor himself. To do him justice, I + believe that his pleasure was due as much to the recognition of his genius + as to the stipend it had earned. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’d like a special elegy to be read at the grave,” + he rumbled eagerly. “When and where did the interment take place?” + </p> + <p> + The other glared at him in stony surprise. “It ain’t taken + place. It’s to-morrow. Ain’t you on? I’m Hines.” + </p> + <p> + A frown darkened the sexton’s heavy features. He shook a + reprehensive head. “An unfortunate case,” he boomed; “most + unfortunate. I will not conceal from you, Mr. Hines, that I have consulted + our attorneys upon this case, and unhappily—unhappily, I say—they + hold that there is no basis for exclusion provided the certificate is in + form. You have it with you?” + </p> + <p> + Impassive and inscrutable, Mr. Hines tapped his breast-pocket. + </p> + <p> + The conscience of a responsible sexton being assuaged, Bartholomew’s + expression mollified into that of the flattered poet. + </p> + <p> + “Such being the case,” he pursued, “there can be no + objection to the reading of an elegy as part of the service. Who is to + officiate?” + </p> + <p> + “The Reverend Doctor Hackett.” + </p> + <p> + “He has retired these two years,” said the sexton doubtfully. + “He is very old. His mind sometimes wanders.” + </p> + <p> + “She wouldn’t have any one else,” asserted the hard, + pink Mr. Hines. “She was as particular about that as about being + buried yonder.” He jerked his head toward the window. + </p> + <p> + “Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide + the reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a + moment while I look up my elegies.” + </p> + <p> + “Say,” said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as + the poet-sexton retired, “this is dead easy. Why, the guy’s on + the make. For sale. He’ll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff + for other folks to sign! He’s a crook!” + </p> + <p> + “Make no such mistake,” I advised. “Bartholomew is as + honest a man as lives, in his own belief.” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely. That’s the worst kind,” pronounced the + expert Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. “If + you will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented,” + said he. + </p> + <p> + “What becomes of it after I deliver it?” asked Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “Read, attested, and filed officially.” + </p> + <p> + “Any one else but you see it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessarily.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right, then.” + </p> + <p> + Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. + Hines than he lifted a stiffening face. + </p> + <p> + “What is this?” he challenged. + </p> + <p> + “What’s what?” + </p> + <p> + The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. “‘Minna + Merivale, aged twenty-five,’” he read. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the name she went by.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Unmarried</i>” read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + In the sexton’s eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. + “Take her away.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Bury her somewhere else. Do not think that you can pollute the + ground—” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew!” I broke in, stepping hastily in front of Mr. + Hines, for I had seen all the pink ebb out of his face, leaving it a + dreadful sort of gray; and I had no desire to be witness of a murder, + however much I might deem it justified. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll handle him,” said Mr. Hines steadily. “Now; + you! You got my hundred in your jeans, ain’t you!” + </p> + <p> + “Bribery!” boomed the sexton. He drew out the roll of bills + and let it fall from his contaminated fingers. + </p> + <p> + “Sure! Bribery,” railed the other. “What’d you + think? Ain’t it enough for what I’m asking?” The two men + glared at each other. + </p> + <p> + I broke the silence. “Exactly what are you asking, Mr. Hines?” + </p> + <p> + “File that”—he touched the document—“and + forget it. Let Min rest out there as my wife, like she ought to have been.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you make her your wife?” thundered the + accuser. + </p> + <p> + Some invisible thing gripped the corded throat of Mr. Hines. “Couldn’t,” + he gulped. “There was—another. She wouldn’t divorce me.” + </p> + <p> + “Your sin has found you out,” declared the self-constituted + judge of the dead with a dismal sort of relish. + </p> + <p> + “Yeh? That’s all right. <i>I’ll</i> pay for it. But she’s + paid already.” + </p> + <p> + “As she lived so she has died, in sin,” the inexorable voice + answered. “Let her seek burial elsewhere.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hines leaned forward. His expression and tone were passionless as + those of a statistician proffering a tabulation: his words were fit to + wring the heart of a stone. + </p> + <p> + “She’s dead, ain’t she?” he argued gently. “She + can’t hurt any one, can she? ‘Specially if they don’t + know.” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs made a gesture of repulsion. + </p> + <p> + “Well, who’ll she hurt?” pursued the other, in his form + of pure and abstract reasoning. “Not her mother, I guess. Her mother’s + waiting for her; that’s what Min said when she was—was going. + And her father’ll be on the other side of her. And that’s all. + Min never harmed anybody but herself when she was alive. How’s she + going to do ’em any damage now, just lying there, resting? Be + reasonable, man!” + </p> + <p> + Be pitiful, oh, man! For there was a time not so long past when you, with + all your stern probity and your unwinking conscience, needed pity; yes, + and pleaded for it when the mind was out of control. Think back, + Bartholomew Storrs, to the day when you stood by another grave, close to + that which waits to-day for the weary sleeper—Bartholomew Storrs + rested, opened the door and stood by it, grimly waiting. Mr. Hines turned + to me. + </p> + <p> + “What is this thing, Dominie; a man or a snake? Will I kill it?” + </p> + <p> + “Bartholomew,” I began. “When we—” + </p> + <p> + “Not a word from you, Dominie. My mind is made up.” + </p> + <p> + “The girl is Isabel Munn’s daughter.” + </p> + <p> + I saw a tremor shake the gaunt frame. + </p> + <p> + “When we buried Isabel Munn, you came back in the night to weep at + her grave.” + </p> + <p> + He thrust out a warding hand toward me. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you weep over Isabel Munn’s grave, Bartholomew?” + </p> + <p> + “Speak no evil of the dead,” he cried wildly. + </p> + <p> + “It is not in my mind. She was a good and pure woman. What would she + have been if she had listened to you?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you know? Who betrayed me?” + </p> + <p> + “You, yourself. When you came down with pneumonia after the burial, + I sat with you through a night of delirium.” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs bowed his head. + </p> + <p> + “My sin hath found me out,” he groaned. “God knows I + loved her, and—and I hadn’t the strength not to tell her. I’d + have given up everything for her, my hope of heaven, my—my—I + ‘d have given up my office and gone away from God’s Acre! And + that was twenty years ago. I—I don’t sleep o’ nights + yet, for thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you ain’t the only one,” said the dull voice of + Mr. Hines. + </p> + <p> + “You’re tempting me!” Bartholomew Storrs snarled at him. + “You’re trying to make me false to my trust.” + </p> + <p> + “Just to let her lie by her mother, like her mother would ask you if + she could.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t say it to me!” He beat his head with his clenched + hand. Recovering command of himself, he straightened up, taking a deep + breath: “I must be guided by my conscience and my God,” he + said professionally, and I noted a more reverent intonation given to the + former than to the latter. A bad sign. + </p> + <p> + “Isabel Munn’s daughter, Bartholomew,” I reminded him. + </p> + <p> + Instead of replying he staggered out of the door. Through the window we + saw him, a moment later, posting down the street, bareheaded and + stony-eyed, like one spurred by tormenting thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “Will he do it, do you think?” queried the anxious-visaged Mr. + Hines. + </p> + <p> + I shook my head in doubt. With a man like Bartholomew Storrs, one can + never tell. + </p> + <p> + Old memories are restless companions for the old. So I found them that + night. But there is balm for sleeplessness in the leafy quiet of Our + Square. I went out to my bench, seeking it, and found an occupant already + there. + </p> + <p> + “We ain’t the only ones that need a jab of dope, Dominie,” + said Mr. Hines, hard and pink and hoarsely confidential as when I first + saw him. + </p> + <p> + “No? Who else?” Though I suspected, of course. + </p> + <p> + “Old Gloom. He’s over in the Acre.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you meet him there? What did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “I ducked him. He never saw me. He was—well, I guess he was + praying,” said Mr. Hines shamefacedly. + </p> + <p> + “Praying? At the Munn grave?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it. Groaning and saying, ‘A sign, O Lord! + Vouchsafe thy servant a sign!’ Kept saying it over and over.” + </p> + <p> + “For guidance to-morrow,” I murmured. “Mr. Hines, I’m + not sure that I know Bartholomew Storrs’s God. Nor can I tell what + manner of sign he might give, or with what meaning. But if I know my God, + whom I believe to be the true God, your Minnie is safe with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yeh? You’re a good guy, Dominie,” said Mr. Hines in his + emotionless voice. + </p> + <p> + I took him home with me to sleep. But we did not sleep. We smoked. + </p> + <p> + Minnie Munn’s funeral morning dawned clear and fresh. No word came + from Bartholomew Storrs. I tried to find him, but without avail. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll go through with it,” said Mr. Hines quietly. + </p> + <p> + How small and insignificant seemed our tiny God’s Acre, as the few + mourners crept into it behind Minnie Munn’s body; the gravestones + like petty dots upon the teeming earth, dwarfed by the overshadowing + tenements, as if death were but an incident in the vast, unhasting, + continuous sweep of life, as indeed perhaps it is. Then the grandeur of + the funeral service, which links death to immortality, was bodied forth in + the aged minister’s trembling voice, and by it the things which are + of life were dwarfed to nothingness. But my uneasy mind refused to be + bound by the words; it was concerned with Bartholomew Storrs, standing + grim, haggard, inscrutable, beside the grave, his eyes upturned and + waiting. Too well I knew for what he was waiting; his sign. So, too, did + Mr. Hines, still hard, still pink, still impeccably tailored, and still + clinging to his elegant lacquered cane, as he supported little, broken Mr. + Munn, very pathetic and decorous in full black, even to the gloves. + </p> + <p> + The sonorous beauty and simplicity of the rite suddenly checked, faltered. + Bartholomew Storrs leaned over anxiously to the minister. The poor, + gentle, worn-out old brain was groping now in semi-darkness, through which + shot a cross-ray of memory. The tremulous voice took on new confidence, + but the marrow of my spine turned icy as I heard the fatally misplaced and + confused words that followed: + </p> + <p> + “If any man know—know just and good cause why this woman—why + this woman—should not—” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs’s gaunt hand shot upward, high in air, outspread + in the gesture of forbiddance. His deep voice rang, overbearing the + stumbling accents of the clergyman. + </p> + <p> + “A sign! A sign from on High! O God, thou hast spoken through thy + servant to forefend a sore offense. Listen, ye people. This woman—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped as there rose, on the opposite side of the open grave another + figure, with hands and voice lifted to heaven in what must surely have + been the most ingenuous supplication that ever ascended to the throne of + Pity and Understanding. All the passion which, through the bitter hours, + had been repressed in the self-commanding soul of the hard and pink Mr. + Hines, swelled and cried aloud in his plea: + </p> + <p> + “O God! have a heart!” + </p> + <p> + Bartholomew Storrs’s hand fell. His eyes faltered. His lips + trembled. He stood once more, agonized with doubt. And in that moment the + old minister came to his rightful senses. + </p> + <p> + “Peace, my friends,” he commanded with authority. “Let + no man disturb the peace of the dead.” + </p> + <p> + And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service. + </p> + <p> + So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No + ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her + comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are fresh + flowers on Minnie’s mound, below the headstone reading: “Beloved + Wife of Christopher Hines.” But the elegiac verse has never + appeared. I must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze + cockleshell, outward bound for “Far Ports,” from the Bonnie + Lassie’s window, though Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it + could be bought—like all else —“at a price.” By + the way, I believe that he has modified that theory. + </p> + <p> + As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the + Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as + grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight of + our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he has a + crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of an + official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But even + that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into heaven + on the strength of it. + </p> + <p> + I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o’ nights now. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FOR MAYME, READ MARY + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Mayme Mccartney was a bad little good girl. She inspired (I trust) esteem + for her goodness. But it was for her hardy and happy impudence, her bent + for ingenious mischief, her broad and catholic disrespect for law, + conventions, proprieties and persons, and the glint of the devil in her + black eyes that we really loved her. Such is the perversity of human + nature in Our Square. I am told that it is much the same elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + She first came into public notice by giving (unsolicited) a most + scandalous and spirited imitation of old Madame Tallafferr, aforetime of + the Southern aristocracy, in the act of rebuking her landlord, the + insecticidal Boggs (“Boggs Kills Bugs” in his patent of + nobility), for eating peanuts on his own front steps. She then (earnestly + solicited by a growing audience) put on impromptu sketches of the Little + Red Doctor diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan + (drunk) singing “The Cork Leg” and MacLachan (sober) repenting + thereof; of Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a + bereaved second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten + whiskers (limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious + admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a + bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a + shrub had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew + nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. He + suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he fought an + interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn’t quite + fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon indicated by + the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and floating, and + her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of the mature and + self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her experienced years. + </p> + <p> + “Hello,” greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the + brusque informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. + “I don’t know you, do I?” + </p> + <p> + Mayme lifted her eyes. “If you don’t,” she drawled, + “it ain’t for lack of tryin’. Is your hat glued on?” + </p> + <p> + “Good Lord!” exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. + “Do you think I’m trying to flirt with you? Why, you’re + only a kid.” + </p> + <p> + “Get up to date,” advised Mayme. “I’m old enough + to be your steady. Only, I’m too lucky.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s a bad cough you’ve got,” said the Little + Red Doctor hastily. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?” + </p> + <p> + “Bring it over to my office and let’s look at the thing,” + suggested the Little Red Doctor, smiling. + </p> + <p> + As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men + which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the + suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful. + </p> + <p> + “D’you think it means anything?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Any cough means something. I couldn’t tell without + examination.” + </p> + <p> + “How much?” inquired the cautious Mayme. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. “No charge + for first consultation. Come over to my office.” + </p> + <p> + When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally + non-committal. “Live with your parents?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. With my aunt. ‘Round in the Avenue.” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you work?” + </p> + <p> + “The Emporium,” answered the girl, naming the great and still + fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to quit. As soon as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “And spoil my delicate digestion?” + </p> + <p> + “Who said anything about your digestion?” + </p> + <p> + “I did. If I quit workin’, I quit eatin’. And that’s + bad for me. I tried it once.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition + by no means unprecedented in local practice. “Couldn’t you get + a job in some better climate?” + </p> + <p> + “Where, for instance?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you knew any one in California.” + </p> + <p> + “How’s the walkin’?” asked Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “It’s long,” replied the Little Red Doctor, “seeing” + again. “Anyway, you’ve got to have fresh air.” + </p> + <p> + “They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square,” + Mayme pointed out. + </p> + <p> + “Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour + every day.” He gave some further instructions. + </p> + <p> + Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “Take it away,” said the Little Red Doctor. “Didn’t + I tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “Go-wan!” said Mayme. “Whadda you think you are; + Bellevue Hospital? I pay as I go, Doc.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the matter? Face hurt you?” asked the solicitous + Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “People don’t call me ‘Doc,’” began the + offended practitioner in dignified tones. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s because they ain’t on to you,” she + assured him. “I wouldn’t call you ‘Doc’ myself if + I didn’t know you was a good sport back of your bluff.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the + dollar. “You aren’t such a bad sport yourself,” he + admitted. “Well, we’ll call this a deal. But if I see you in + the Square and give you a tip about yourself now and again, that doesn’t + count. That’s on the side. Understand?” + </p> + <p> + She considered it gravely. “All right,” she agreed at length. + “Between pals, yes? Shake, Doc.” + </p> + <p> + So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, + knightly-hearted practitioner, and the impish and lovable little + store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his old + friend, Death. + </p> + <p> + “He’s got the jump on me, Dominie,” complained the + Little Red Doctor to me. “But, at that, we’re going to give + him a fight. She’s clear grit, that youngster is. She’s got a + philosophy of life, too. I don’t know where she got it, or just what + it is, but it’s there. Oh, she’s worth saving, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “If I hadn’t reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend,” + said I, “I’d give you solemn warning.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, she’s an infant!” returned the Little Red Doctor + scornfully. “A poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides—” + He stopped and sighed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I know,” I assented. There was at that time a “Besides” + in the Little Red Doctor’s sorrowful heart which bulked too large to + admit of any rivalry. “Nevertheless,” I added, “you + needn’t be so scornful about the simian type in woman. It’s a + concentrated peril to mankind. I’ve seen trouble caused in this + world by kitten faces, by pure, classic faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by + vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic faces, by passionate Southern faces, + but for real power of catastrophe, for earthquake and eclipse, for red + ruin and the breaking up of laws, commend me to the humanized, feminized + monkey face. I’ll wager that when Antony first set eyes on + Cleopatra, he said, ‘And which cocoa palm did she fall out of?’ + Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, and as for Helen of + Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief that the face that + launched a thousand ships and fired the topless towers of Ilium was a + reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is born of woman cannot + resist it. Give little Mayme three more years—” + </p> + <p> + “I wish to God I could,” said the Little Red Doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you?” I asked, startled. “Is it as bad as + that?” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t much better. How’s your insomnia, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Insomnia,” said I, “is a scientific quibble for unlaid + memories. I take mine out for the early morning air at times, if that’s + what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that + busy little mind of hers from brooding.” + </p> + <p> + In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She + adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac + near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung + back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a + call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions and + argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair + exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and + adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder? + </p> + <p> + On the morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being discouraged + by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it occupied by an + individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part in the general + lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite exquisite of + raiment, which alone would have marked him for an outlander. His elbows + were propped on his knees, his fists supported his cheekbones, his whole + figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him with surprise, Mayme was + shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from his drooping countenance, + fall to the pavement, followed by another. At the same time she heard an + unmistakable and melancholic sound. + </p> + <p> + The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have cradled + weariness of body and spirit; they have assuaged grief and given refuge to + shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered to the + passion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had any of + their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme McCartney. + It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of which was a + desire to laugh. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one + vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing. + She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Cheer up, Buddy,” she said. “It ain’t as bad as + you think it is.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s worse,” gulped a choky voice. Then the head lifted + again. “Who are you?” it demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I’m your big sister,” said Mayme reassuringly. “Tell + a feller about it.” + </p> + <p> + The response was neither polite nor explanatory. “D—-n + sisters!” said the bencher. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, tutt-<i>tutt</i> and naughty-naughty!” rebuked Mayme. + “Somebody’s sister been puttin’ somethin’ over on + poor little Willy?” + </p> + <p> + “My own sister has.” He was in that state of semi-hysterical + exhaustion in which revelation of one’s intimate troubles to the + first comer seems natural. “She’s gone and got arrested,” + he wailed. + </p> + <p> + Mayme’s face became grave and practical. + </p> + <p> + “That’s different,” said she. “What’s her + lay?” + </p> + <p> + “Lay? I don’t know—” + </p> + <p> + “What’s her line? What’s she done to get pinched?” + </p> + <p> + “Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re tellin’ me! In the silks, huh?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?” + </p> + <p> + “Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that + pinch. Swell young married lady. Say,” she added, after a thoughtful + pause: “has she got somethin’ comin’?” + </p> + <p> + “Something coming? How? What?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be dumb. A kid.” + </p> + <p> + He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who live + in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false shame about + the major facts of life. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose she has?” queried the youth sulkily. + </p> + <p> + “Why, that’ll be all right, you poor boob,” returned the + kindly Mayme. “The judge’ll let her off with a warning.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned + for makin’ a pinch of a lady in the fam’ly way.” + </p> + <p> + “What if they do let her off?” lamented the youth. “It’ll + be in all the papers and I’ll be ruined. My life’s spoiled. I + might as well leave the city.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, don’t do a mean trick like that to the old town!” + besought the sardonic Mayme. “Where do you come in to get hurt?” + </p> + <p> + He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. His + family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy + emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their new, + precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant grief he + did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the local + society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the Shining + Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, her + daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as + “the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented + financier.” + </p> + <p> + Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of + society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American + democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for + their names to appear.) She perceived—not knowing that the + advertising leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those + insecure portals of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny—that + she was in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme’s + independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a + career worth saving! + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go over to the station-house,” said she. “I + know some of the cops.” + </p> + <p> + To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting + case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything + would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store + itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David + Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. She + was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and piquant and + quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. From the + opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking the + insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that she + was a “fly kid.” On that theory he invited her to breakfast + with him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson’s Élite Restaurant, + on the corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast + of Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured + her by declining it. + </p> + <p> + Thus began an acquaintanceship which swiftly ripened into a queer sort of + intimacy, more than a little disturbing to us of Our Square who were + interested in Mayme. Young Berthelin’s over-ornate roadster lingered + in our quiet precincts more often than appeared to us suitable or safe, + and black-eyed Mayme, looking demure and a little exalted, was whirled + away to unknown worlds, always returning, however, at respectable hours. + When the Little Red Doctor remonstrated with her ostensibly on the score + of her health, she reminded him in one breath that he hadn’t been + invited to censor her behavior which was entirely her own affair, and in + the next—with his hand caught between hers and her voice low and + caressing—declared that he was the best little old Doc in the world + and there was nothing to worry about, either as to health or conduct. + Indeed, her condition seemed to be improving. I dare say young Mr. + Berthelin’s expensive food was one of the things she needed. + Furthermore, she ceased to be the raggle-taggle, hoydenishly clad Mayme of + the cash department, and, having been promoted to saleswoman, quite went + in for dress. On this point she sought the advice of the Bonnie Lassie. + The result went far to justify my prophecy that Mayme’s queer little + face might yet make its share of trouble in an impressionable world. But + the Bonnie Lassie shook her bonnie head privately and said that the + fine-feathers development was a bad sign, and that if young Berthelin + would obligingly run his seventeen-jeweled roadster off the Williamsburgh + Bridge, with himself in it, much trouble might be saved for all concerned. + </p> + <p> + If little Mayme were headed for trouble, she went to meet it with a + smiling face. Never had she seemed so joyous, so filled with the desire of + life. This much was to be counted on the credit side, the Little Red + Doctor said. On the debit side—well, to me was deputed the unwelcome + task of conveying the solemn, and, as it were, official protest and + warning of Our Square. Of course I did it at the worst possible moment. It + was early one morning, when Mayme, on her bench, was looking a little + hollow-eyed and disillusioned. I essayed the light and jocular approach to + the subject: + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mayme; how is the ardent swain?” + </p> + <p> + She turned to me with the old flash in her big, shadowed eyes: “Did + you say swain or swine, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said I. “Has he changed his rôle?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s given himself away, if that’s what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought that would come.” + </p> + <p> + “He—he wanted me to take a trip to Boston with him.” + </p> + <p> + I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or + unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. “Have you told the Little + Red Doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “Doc’d kill him,” said Mayme simply. + </p> + <p> + “What better reason for telling?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the poor kid: he don’t know any better.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t he? In any case I trust that you know better, after + this, than to have anything more to do with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yep. I’ve cut him out,” replied Mayme listlessly. + “I figured you and Doc were right, Dominie. It’s no good, his + kind of game. Not for girls like me.” She looked up at me with + limpid eyes, in which there was courage and determination and suffering. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” I murmured, “I hope it isn’t going to + be too hard.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s so pretty,” said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + </p> + <p> + So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color, his + wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful + figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any + inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when, a + few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had + vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret from + him), and, addressing me as “you white-whiskered old goat,” + accused me of having come between him and the girl upon whom he had + deigned to bestow his lordly favor. Unfortunately for him, the Little Red + Doctor chanced along just then and inquired, none too deferentially, what + the Scion of Wealth and Position was doing in that quarter. + </p> + <p> + “What business is it of yours, Red-Head?” countered the + offended visitor. + </p> + <p> + He then listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do in + the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and convincing + summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch of his + personal and sartorial appearance. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t mean the kid any harm,” argued the Scion + suavely. “I—I came back to apologize.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me catch you snooping around here again and I’ll break + every bone in your body,” the Little Red Doctor answered him. + </p> + <p> + “I guess this Square’s free to everybody. I guess you don’t + own it,” said the youth, retreating to his car. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exactitude of this surmise, he was seen + no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at + learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme’s, + that she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a + cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized + upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two consisting + of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that it was all + right; we didn’t understand. This is, I believe, the usual formula. + The last half of it at least, was true. + </p> + <p> + About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that upon + our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney’s love + affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the + fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its + military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had + drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded. + </p> + <p> + She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic + limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative + Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the + ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that she + had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his woe-begone + and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a spoiled and + pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She suggested a + vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied our forces to + meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie Lassie, and myself. Mrs. + Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, not even + awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted upon these, + and she learned that the Bonnie Lassie was Mrs. Cyrus Staten, she cringed. + Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns quite as genuine as + that of Mrs. Berthelin’s to get in, the Cyrus Statens frequently + figure among the Shining Ones, a fact almost painfully appreciated by our + visitor. After that it was easy to get her into the Bonnie Lassie’s + house, where her eloquence could not draw a crowd. To get young David + there was not quite so easy. He made one well-timed and almost successful + effort to bolt, and even evinced signs of balking on the steps. + </p> + <p> + His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the + Bonnie Lassie’s studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a + history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant + lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, + marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, he + squirmed. + </p> + <p> + “Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma’am?” + inquired the Little Red Doctor suavely. + </p> + <p> + It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission + as Captain in the Quartermaster’s Department was arranged for, and + she expected to have the young officer assigned to New York so that he + could live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and + condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no + designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David’s + future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate + of Mayme McCartney’s character, manners, and morals, in the midst of + which I heard a gasp. + </p> + <p> + It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The + front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins’ + monogrammed car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared. + </p> + <p> + “That’s a lie,” said Mayme McCartney steadily. “I’m + as straight a girl as your own daughter. Ask him.” + </p> + <p> + She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it + can be extremely effective. David’s head dropped into his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Ma!” he groaned. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t call me ‘Ma,’” snapped the goaded + Mrs. Berthelin. “And this is the girl?” She looked Mayme up + and down. Mayme did the same by her and did it better. + </p> + <p> + “I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare + trick,” said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel + which ended in her favor. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie’s eyelids + quiver, but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Berthelin,” said she, “you have made some very + damaging statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney’s + character. What proof have you?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, he wants to <i>marry</i> her!” almost yelled the mother. + “She’s trapped him.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s another lie,” said Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “He told me himself that he was going to marry you.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he? Then he’s wrong. I wouldn’t marry him with a + brass ring,” asserted Mayme. + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t mar—You wouldn’t <i>what</i>?” + demanded the mother, outraged and incredulous. + </p> + <p> + “You heard me. He knows it, too. I don’t like the family—what + I’ve seen of them,” observed Mayme judicially. “Besides, + he’s yellow.” + </p> + <p> + David’s shamed face emerged into view. “I’m not,” + he gulped. “She—she made me.” + </p> + <p> + “Captain!” said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. + “Quartermaster’s Department! Safety first! When half the + little fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin’ their + fourteen-inch necks volunteerin’ early and often to get where the + fightin’ is.” + </p> + <p> + David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly + expression. + </p> + <p> + “Let me out of here,” he growled. + </p> + <p> + “David!” said his mother. “Where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + “To enlist.” + </p> + <p> + “Davey!” It was a shriek. “You shan’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I will.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t let you.” + </p> + <p> + “You can go to—” + </p> + <p> + “Buddy!” Mayme’s voice, magically softened, broke in. + “Cut out the rough stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein’ + a private is no pink-silk picnic.” + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!” + cried Mrs. Berthelin. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. “You must leave this house,” + she said. “At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring + myself to betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the + authorities.” + </p> + <p> + Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and + aggrieved pet. “You think I’m no good. I’ll show you, + Mayme. Wait till I come back—if I ever do come back—and you’ll + be sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Hero stuff,” commented the Little Red Doctor. “It’ll + all have oozed out of his fingertips this time to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you show me a place to enlist?” challenged the boy. + “And,” he added with a malicious grin, “will you enlist + with me?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure!” said the Little Red Doctor. “I’ll show + you. But they won’t take me.” He bestowed a bitter glance on + his twisted foot. “Come along.” + </p> + <p> + They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by an + exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with the + rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine. + </p> + <p> + We waited at the Bonnie Lassie’s for the Little Red Doctor’s + return. He came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little + gleam of disappointment in Mayme’s deep eyes. + </p> + <p> + “He’s done it,” said the Little Red Doctor. And I was + sorry for him, so much was there of tragic envy in his face. + </p> + <p> + “Did you give him your blessing?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I did. He shook hands like a man. There’s maybe something in + that boy, if it weren’t for the old hell-cat of a mother. However, + she won’t have much chance. He’s off to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Will he write?” said Mayme in a curious, strained voice. + </p> + <p> + “He will. He’ll report to me from time to time.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t he—wasn’t there any message?” + </p> + <p> + “Just good-bye and good luck,” answered the Little Red Doctor, + censoring ruthlessly. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie went over and put her arms around Mayme McCartney. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” she said softly. “It wouldn’t do. It + really wouldn’t. He isn’t worth it. You’re going to + forget him.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” Suddenly Mayme looked like a very helpless and + sorrowful little girl. “Only, it—it isn’t goin’ to + be as easy as you think. He was so pretty,” said Mayme McCartney + wistfully. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from which + one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of parched + shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my bench with a + fell and purposeful smile. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you’re a dear old thing,” she began in her + most insinuating tones. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t do it,” I said determinedly, foreboding + something serious. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved + innocence. “Won’t do what?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Whatever it is that you’re trying to wheedle me into.” + </p> + <p> + The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the + corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. + “Oh, but you’ve already done it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be lovely to be rich,” said the Bonnie Lassie + meditatively. “And so generous!” + </p> + <p> + “How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven’t got that + much,” I hastily remarked. + </p> + <p> + “And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme + herself.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on. Don’t mind me,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It’s in New + Mexico. And in the fall she’s going on to the Coast. He’s + almost willing to guarantee that a year of it will make her as strong as + ever. And the hundred dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling + expenses will be plenty. You <i>are</i> a good old thing, Dominie!” + </p> + <p> + “What you mean is that I’m an old good-thing. How shall I + look,” I demanded bitterly, “when Mayme comes to thank me?” + </p> + <p> + “No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable + objections to our perfectly good plans,” retorted the Bonnie Lassie. + “Besides, she won’t. She knows that your way is to do good by + stealth and blush to find it fame, and she’s under pledge to pretend + to know nothing about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?” I queried. + </p> + <p> + “There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative + power. Think it over.” + </p> + <p> + “The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!” I cried. “Did + our medical friend blackmail him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme’s chance + here was rather poorer than a soldier’s going to war, unless + something could be done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed + to do it. ‘Do you think she’d take it from you?’ said + the Little Red Doctor, ‘after what your mother called her?’ + ‘Don’t let her know,’ says our ornamental young weeper. + ‘Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it’s from that + white-whiskered old—from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the + benevolent expres—‘” + </p> + <p> + “Yes: I know,” I broke in. “Very good. I’m the + goat. Lying, hypocrisy, false pretense, fake charity; it’s all one + to a sin-seared old reprobate like me. After it’s over I’ll go + around the corner and steal what pennies I can find in Blind Simon’s + cup, just to make me feel comparatively respectable and decent again.” + </p> + <p> + It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, + having come to say good-bye, put her lips close to my ear and tried to + whisper something, and cried and kissed me instead. + </p> + <p> + Our Square was a dimmer and duller place after she left. But her letters + helped. They were so exactly like herself! Even at the first, when things + seemed to be going ill with her, they were all courage, and quaint humor + and determination to get well and come back to Our Square, which was the + dearest and best place in the world with the dearest and best people in + it. Homesickness! Poor little, lonely Mayme. She was reading—she + wrote the Bonnie Lassie—all the books that the Dominie had listed + for her, and she was being tutored by a school-teacher with blue goggles + and a weak heart who lived at the same resort. “Why grow up a Boob,” + wrote the philosophic Mayme, “when the lil old world is full of wise + guys just aking to spill their wiseness?” + </p> + <p> + Contemporaneously the Weeping Scion of Wealth was writing back his views + on life and the emptiness thereof, in better orthography, but with + distinctly less of spirit. + </p> + <p> + “It appears,” reported the Little Red Doctor, “that + every man in his own company has licked our young friend and now the other + companies of the regiment are beginning to show interest, and he doesn’t + like it. I believe he’d desert if it weren’t that he’s + afraid of what Mayme would think.” + </p> + <p> + “Still on his mind, is she?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor produced a letter with a camp postmark from the + South and read a passage: + </p> + <p> + “You were right when you guessed that I never wanted anything very + much before, without having it handed to me. Perhaps you are right about + its being good for me. But it comes hard. The promise goes, of course. I’m + going to show you and her that I’m not yellow. [So that was still + rankling; salutary, if bitter dose!] But if this war ever finishes, all + bets are off and I’m coming back to find her. And don’t you + forget your part of the bargain, to write and let me know how she is + getting on.” The Little Red Doctor was able to send progressively + encouraging news. When the cold weather came, Mayme moved westward to + Southern California, and found herself on the edge of one of the strange, + tumultuous, semi-insane moving-picture colonies of that region. Thence + issued, presently, stirring tidings. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think?” wrote our exile. “They’ve got + my funny little monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The + director likes me and says he will give me a real chance one of these + days. But, as the Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless + imp!] I would not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to + be, out here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh + little frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure + calls herself Mayme or Daisye or Tootsye. Not for me! I am keeping up my + lessons and trying to make my head good for something besides carrying a + switch. Tell the Little Red Doctor that it is so long since I coughed I + have forgotten how. And I love you all so hard that it <i>hurts</i>. + </p> + <p> + “Your loving + </p> + <h3> + “MARY MCCARTNEY + </h3> + <p> + “P.S. I am going to be Marie Courtenay when I get my name up in the + pictures. Put that in the Directory and see how it looks. + </p> + <p> + “P.S.2. How is my soldier boy getting along? Poor kid! I expect he + is finding it a lot different from Broadway with money in your pocket.” + </p> + <p> + About this time the Weeping Scion was finding things very different, + indeed, from Broadway, having been shifted to a specially wet and muddy + section of France; and was taking them as he found them. That is to say, + he had learned the prime lesson of war. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s been made corporal,” announced the Little Red + Doctor with satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “That sounds encouraging,” remarked the Bonnie Lassie. “How + did it happen?” + </p> + <p> + “He went over on one of the ‘flu ships,’ and when the + epidemic began to mow ’em down there was a kind of panic. From what + I can make out, the Scion kept his head and his nerve, and made good. A + corporal’s stripes aren’t much, but they’re something.” + </p> + <p> + Better was to come. There was high triumph in the Little Red Doctor’s + expression when he came to my bench with the glad tidings of young David’s + promotion to a sergeantcy. + </p> + <p> + “While it’s very gratifying,” I remarked, “it + doesn’t seem to me an epoch-making event.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t it!” retorted my friend. “That’s + because of your abysmal military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how + it is in our army. A fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a + major by luck, or a colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine + martial figure, but to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you’ve + got to show the <i>stuff</i>. You’ve got to be a <i>man</i>. You’ve + got to have—” + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to tell her?” interrupted the Bonnie Lassie who + had been sent for to share the news. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor fell suddenly grave. “She’s another + matter,” he said. “I don’t think I shall.” + </p> + <p> + Matters were going forward with Mayme—beg her pardon, Mary + McCartney, too. + </p> + <p> + “Better and more of it,” she wrote the Bonnie Lassie. “They + rang me in on one of their local Red Cross shows to do a monologue. Was I + a hit? Say, I got more flowers than a hearse! You’ve got to + remember, though, that they deliver flowers by the car-load out here. And + the local stock company has made me an offer. Ingenue parts. There is not + the money that I might get in the pictures, but the chance is better. So + Marie Courtenay moves on to the legit.—I mean the spoken drama. Look + out for me on Broadway later!” + </p> + <p> + In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus + followed by a curt bit of official information: “Seriously wounded.” + The Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on + his face. + </p> + <p> + “It doesn’t look good, Dominie,” he said. “You + know, my old friend, Death, is a shrewd picker. He’s got an eye for + men.” He mused, rubbing his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous + hand. “I was getting to kind of like that young pup,” he + muttered moodily. + </p> + <p> + The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one who + never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does not + come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the Weeping + Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it would be + a long time—months, perhaps—before he could get back to the + front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly metallic, + out of various parts of his system. + </p> + <p> + “I’m one of the guys you read about that came over here to + collect souvenirs,” he commented. “Well, I’ve got all I + need of ’em. They can have the rest. All I want now is to get back + and present a few to Fritzie before the show is over.” + </p> + <p> + Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small + parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became + known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With her + answer came the solution. + </p> + <p> + “Some of the ‘Grass and Asphalt’ sketches are wonders; + some not so good. I am going to try out ‘Doggy’ if I can find + a poodle with enough intelligence to support me. But you need not have + been so mysterious, Doc, about your ‘young amateur writer who seems + to have some talent.’ Did you think I would not know it was David? + Why, bless your dear, silly heart, I told him some of those stories + myself. But how does he get a chance to write them? Is he back on this + side? Or is he invalided? Or what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You + do not have to worry about my—well, my infatuation for him, any + more. He was a pretty boy, though, wasn’t he? But I have seen too + many of that kind in the picture game. I’m spoiled for them. How I + would love to smear some of their pretty, smirky faces! They give me a + queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I forgot I was a lady. But don’t + say ‘pretty’ to me any more. I’m through. At that, you + were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you thought: only + he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to another. I hope he + don’t come back a He-ro. I’m offen he-roes, too. Excuse again!” + </p> + <p> + Wars and exiles alike come to an end in time. And in time our two + wanderers returned, but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany + with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical + columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie + Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in the + latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the + production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new + actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. + Not that she was in any way a great genius, but she had a certain + indefinable and winningly individual quality. The critics discussed it + gravely and at length, differing argumentatively as to its nature and + constitution. I could have given them a hint. My predictions regarding the + ancestral potencies of the monkey-face were being abundantly justified. + </p> + <p> + No announcements, even of the most modest description, heralded the + arrival of Sergeant Major (if you please!) David Berthelin upon his native + shores. He came at once to Our Square and tackled the Little Red Doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor assumed an air of incredulous surprise. “Have + you still got <i>that</i> bee in your bonnet?” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” repeated the Weeping Scion. + </p> + <p> + Maneuvering for time and counsel, the Little Red Doctor took him to see + the Bonnie Lassie and they sent for me. We beheld a new and reconstituted + David. He was no longer pretty. The soft brown eyes were less soft and + more alert, and there were little wrinkles at their corners. He had + broadened a foot or so. That pinky-delicate complexion by which he had, in + earlier and easier days, set obvious store, was brownish and looked + hardened. The Cupid’s-bow of his mouth had straightened out. High on + one cheekbone was a not unsightly scar. His manner was unassertive, but + eminently self-respecting, and me, whom aforetime he had stigmatized as a + “white-whiskered old goat,” he now addressed as “Sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps <i>you’ll</i> tell me where she is, sir,” said + he patiently. + </p> + <p> + “Leave it to me,” said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an + unquenchable thirst for the dramatic in real life. “And keep next + Sunday night open.” + </p> + <p> + She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at her + studio, of David’s “Doggy” from the “Grass and + Asphalt” sketches which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, + pathetic little conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the + streets, as expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we + borrowed Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he + played it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right + places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and + only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a + check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the + time to settle accounts, but she never could repay—and so forth and + so on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might + accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out the + truth. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, <i>Dominie</i>!” said the girl, with such reproach that + my heart sank within me. “Do you think that was fair? Don’t + you know that I never could have taken the money?” + </p> + <p> + “Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn’t + have you dying on the premises,” I argued with a feeble attempt at + jocularity. + </p> + <p> + “But from <i>him</i>!” she said. “After what had + happened—And his mother. How could you let me do it!” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you would have gotten over that feeling by this time,” + I ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there’s none of the old feeling left,” she + answered, so simply that I knew she believed her own statement. “But + to have lived on his money—Where is he?” she asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + I told her that also and about Sunday night; the whole thing. The Bonnie + Lassie would have slain me. But I couldn’t help it. I was feeling + rather abject. + </p> + <p> + Sunday night came, and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an + “ace” covered with decorations, whose name is a household word + and who was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been + hints of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no + small discomposure at the sight of the girl’s face when she first + saw the changed and matured Weeping Scion of three years before. After the + first flash of recognition she had developed on that expressive face of + hers a look of wonder and almost pathetic questioning, and, I thought, who + knew and loved the child, already something deeper and sweeter. Young + David, after greeting the star of the evening, took a modest rear seat as + befitted his rank. But when the Bonnie Lassie announced “Doggy,” + it was his face that was the study. + </p> + <p> + Of that performance I shall say nothing. It is now famous and familiar to + thousands of theater-goers. But if ever mortal man spent twenty minutes in + fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of his fancy. At + the close, he disappeared. I suppose he did not dare trust himself to join + in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed. I found him, as I + rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when Mayme McCartney first + found him. And when the crowd had departed from the studio, I told the + girl. Without even stopping to put on her hat she went out to him. + </p> + <p> + He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his + cheekbones. But this time he was not weeping. He was thinking. Just as of + old she put a hand on his humped shoulder. Startled, he looked up, and + jumped to his feet. She was holding something out to him. + </p> + <p> + “What’s that?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “A check. For what I owe you.” + </p> + <p> + “Who told you? The Little Red Doctor promised—” + </p> + <p> + “He’s kept his promise. The Dominie told me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I suppose,” he said slowly, “I’ve got to take + this. You wouldn’t—no, of course you wouldn’t,” he + sighed. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve tried to keep strict account,” she said. + </p> + <p> + David adopted a matter-of-fact tone. “I can’t deny that it’ll + come in handy, just now,” he remarked. “At the present price + of clothing, and with my personal exchequer in its depleted state—” + </p> + <p> + “Why,” she broke in, “has anything happened? Your mother—?” + </p> + <p> + “Cut off,” said David briefly. + </p> + <p> + “She’s cut you off? On my account? Oh—” + </p> + <p> + “No. I’ve cut her off. Temporarily. She doesn’t want me + to work. I’m working. On a newspaper.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s good,” said the girl warmly. “Let’s + sit down.” + </p> + <p> + They sat down. Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again. Mary + was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried to, she + would cry. She didn’t want to cry. She had a feeling that crying + would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming + developments. Why didn’t David say something? Finally he did make a + beginning. + </p> + <p> + “Mayme.” + </p> + <p> + “No: not ‘Mayme’ any more.” + </p> + <p> + He flushed to his temples. “I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” she said softly. “Mary. I’ve discarded + the ‘Mayme’ long ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Mary,” he repeated in a tone of musing content. + </p> + <p> + “Buddy.” + </p> + <p> + He caught his breath. “A few thousand of the best guys in the world,” + he said, “call a fellow that. And every time they said it, it made + my heart ache with longing to hear it in your voice.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a queer Buddy,” returned the girl, not quite + steadily. “Did you bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “I didn’t bring home much of anything, + except some experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to + stand on my own feet, I wasn’t much.” + </p> + <p> + “You got your stripes, didn’t you?” suggested the girl. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all I did get,” he returned jealously. “I + didn’t get any medal, or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I + didn’t get anything except an occasional calling down and a few + scratches. If I’d had the luck to get into aviation or some of the + fancy branches—” David checked himself. “There I go,” + he said in self-disgust. “Beefing again.” + </p> + <p> + It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible + personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to Mary’s + swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob tangled + itself in the laughter, and she choked and said: + </p> + <p> + “Buddy.” + </p> + <p> + He turned toward her. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be dumb, Buddy,” she said, in the words of their + unforgotten first talk. “You’ve—you’ve got me—if + you still want me.” + </p> + <p> + She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder and + around his neck, and she was drawn close into his arms. + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor,” remarked David after an interlude, in + the shaken tone of one who has had undeserved miracles thrust upon him, + “said that to want something more than anything in the world and not + get it was good for my soul, besides serving me right.” + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor,” retorted Mary McCartney, with the + reckless ingratitude of a woman in love, “is a dear little red + idiot. What does he know about <i>Us!</i>” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BARBRAN + </h2> + <p> + Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a + visit of protest to my bench. + </p> + <p> + “Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you hear, MacLachan?” + </p> + <p> + “That ye’re to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly true,” said I, passing over the uncomplimentary + adjective. + </p> + <p> + “‘Tis a feckless waste of time.” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely.” + </p> + <p> + “‘Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and + influence in Our Square should be dissuadin’ them.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps they need a friendly word.” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan frowned. “Ye’re determined?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite!” + </p> + <p> + “Then I’ll give ye a title for yer romance.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very kind of you. Give it.” + </p> + <p> + “The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One,” said MacLachan + witheringly, and turned to depart. + </p> + <p> + “Mac!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment.” + </p> + <p> + I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be + inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll waste na time from the tailorin’,” began the + Scot disdainfully, but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. + “Well?” he said, showing a guilty inclination to flinch. + </p> + <p> + “Mac, was <i>I</i> an original accomplice in this affair?” + </p> + <p> + “Will ye purtend to deny—” + </p> + <p> + “Did <i>I</i> scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence. + </p> + <p> + “Did <i>I</i> get arrested?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan grunted. + </p> + <p> + “In a cellar?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan snorted. + </p> + <p> + “With my nose painted green?” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan groaned. “There was others,” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “A man of your age and influence in Our Square,” I interrupted + sternly, “should have been dissuading them.” + </p> + <p> + “Arr ye designin’ to put all that in yer sil—in yer + interestin’ account?” + </p> + <p> + “Every detail.” + </p> + <p> + MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as + mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and + retired to his Home of Fashion. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, Leon + Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young Phil + Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with modifications + and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses green and + frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The explanation is + Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington + Square. + </p> + <p> + Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude + toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. Our + Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when the + foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow whose + wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich Village. Our + Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, whereas + Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with paint and + its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its inconsiderable + laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at life; Our Square + has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little in common. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not + wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the + Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman + architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by + street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense + urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her + far afield, met Barbran. + </p> + <p> + They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving + sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the Bonnie + Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive and shrewd + little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was thinking of + improving on the Mole’s Hole idea if she could find a suitable + location, not so much for the money, of course—her tone implied a + lordly indifference to such considerations—as for the fun of the + thing. + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her about + Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult thing + that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her wonderful + little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination compared + to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she has marked + down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to the Bonnie + Lassie’s house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and stayed. + She rented a room from the Angel of Death (“Boggs Kills Bugs” + is the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local + interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr’s + apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked at + me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The Bonnie Lassie sent you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve come here to live—Heaven only knows why—but + we’re glad to see you. And you want to know about the people; so the + Bonnie Lassie said, ‘Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.’ + Didn’t she?” + </p> + <p> + Barbran sat down and smiled at me. + </p> + <p> + “Having sought information,” I pursued, “on my own + account, I learn that you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire + ranch-owner. How does it feel to revel in millions?” + </p> + <p> + “Romantic,” said she. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you have designs upon us.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothing long and clever like that.” + </p> + <p> + “You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless + wish my advice.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered softly: “I’ve done it already.” + </p> + <p> + “Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?” + </p> + <p> + “Started my designs. I’ve rented the basement of Number 26.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a rag-picker in disguise?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling + it ‘The Coffee Pot.’ What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that + plumber’s shop next to the corner saloon?” I pointed to the + Avenue whose ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without + ever sweeping us into its current. “That was once a tea-shop. It was + started by a dear little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run + by Tough Bill Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and + hung it up outside her place, ‘The Teacup.’ Tough Bill took a + board and painted a sign and hung it up outside <i>his</i> place; ‘The + Hiccup.’ The dear little, prim little old maiden lady took down her + sign and went away. Yet there are those who say that competition is the + life of trade.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Take it or leave it,” said I amiably. + </p> + <p> + “I will not call my cellar ‘The Coffee Pot’ lest a worse + thing befall it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury.” + </p> + <p> + “It is true that my parents named me that,” said she, “but + my friends call me ‘Barbran’ because I always used to call + myself that when I was little, and I want to be called Barbran here.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very friendly of you,” I observed. + </p> + <p> + She gave me a swift, suspicious look. “You think I’m a fool,” + she observed calmly. “But I’m not. I’m going to become a + local institution. A local institution can’t be called Barbara Ann + Waterbury, unless it’s a crêche or a drinking-fountain or something + like that, can it?” + </p> + <p> + “It cannot, Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, Mr. Dominie,” said Barbran gratefully. She then + proceeded to sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and + herself a Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia + from the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms + of darkness as New Haven and Cohoes. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what I intend to do,” said Barbran, “as + soon as I get my Great Idea worked out.” + </p> + <p> + What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In + fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather elaborately + loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new friend had + departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and friendly face. + Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than that he + represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie Lassie, who + has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal lack of + success. There is something untransferable in the boy’s face; + perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to any + woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or sentimental + predilections, “Isn’t he a homely cub!” that she didn’t + reply indignantly: “He’s <i>sweet</i>!” Now when women—wonderful + women like the Bonnie Lassie and stupid women like Mrs. Rosser, the twins’ + aunt, and fastidious women like Madame Tallafferr—unite in terming a + smiling human freckle “<i>sweet</i>,” there is nothing more to + be said. Adonis may as well take a back seat and the Apollo Belvedere seek + the helpful resources of a beauty parlor. Said young Phil carelessly: + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, who’s the newcomer?” + </p> + <p> + “That,” said I, “is Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Barbran,” he repeated with a rising inflection. “It + sounds like a breakfast food.” + </p> + <p> + “As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music,” said + I. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the rest of her name?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not officially authorized to communicate that.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?” + </p> + <p> + “On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?” + I asked austerely. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the + cross-town car; and I—well, I just happened to notice her, you know. + That’s all.” + </p> + <p> + “Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her + appearance is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express + myself, to the discriminating eye.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s the fool—” began Mr. Stacey hotly. + </p> + <p> + “Tut-tut, my young friend,” said I. “Certain ladies whom + we both esteem can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, + that none of the young person’s features is exactly what it should + be or precisely where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is + surprising and even gratifying.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s a peach!” asseverated my companion. + </p> + <p> + “Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you + need no introduction to Barbran. Nobody does.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>What</i>?” Phil Stacey’s plain face became ugly; a + hostile light glittered in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?” + he growled. + </p> + <p> + “Simply that she’s about to become a local institution. She’s + plotting against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of + starting a coffee-house at Number 26.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” cried Phil joyously. “Good news!” + </p> + <p> + “As a fad. She’s a budding millionairess from the West.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” growled Phil, his face falling. + </p> + <p> + “Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some + decorations, and that you might be the one to do them.” In his + leisure hours, my young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the + term “expert” appears to be rather an empty compliment, since + his stipend is only twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates + impressionistic decorations and scenery for such minor theaters as will + endure them. + </p> + <p> + “You’re a grand old man, Dominie!” said he. “Let’s + go.” + </p> + <p> + We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left + them—without any strenuous protests on the part of either—they + were deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, + the high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, + aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? Dangerous + is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young Phil Stacey and + in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who is as far from + homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each other’s + opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, lighted by + will-o’-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually they + smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. I may + have smiled myself. + </p> + <p> + Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey’s normally cheerful face + when, some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said he, “I want to tap your library. Have + you got any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?” + </p> + <p> + “God forbid!” said I. + </p> + <p> + Phil looked surprised. “Is it as bad as that? I didn’t suppose + there was anything wrong with the stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you imperil your decent young soul with it,” I + advised earnestly. “It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints + is so full of nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather + live in hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of + the Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a + righteously enraged populace would have killed ’em in early + childhood. He’s the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United + States. Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to + weak-minded—” + </p> + <p> + “Whew! Help! I didn’t know what I was starting,” + protested my visitor. “As a literary critic you’re some Big + Bertha, Dominie. I begin to suspect that you don’t care an awful lot + about Mr. Wheelwright’s style of composition. Just the same, I’ve + got to read him. All of him. Do you think I’ll find his stuff in the + Penny Circulator?” + </p> + <p> + “My poor, lost boy! Probably not. It is doubtless all out in the + hands of eager readers.” + </p> + <p> + However, Phil contrived to round it up somewhere. The awful and + unsuspected results I beheld on my first visit of patronage to Barbran’s + cellar, the occasion being the formal opening. A large and curious crowd + of five persons, including myself and Phil Stacey, were there. Outside, an + old English design of a signboard with a wheel on it creaked despairingly + in the wind. Below was a legend: “<i>At the Sign of the Wheel</i>—<i>The + Wrightery</i>.” The interior of the cellar was decorated with scenes + from the novels of Harvey Wheelwright, triumphant virtue, discomfited + villains, benignant blessings, chaste embraces, edifying death-beds, and + orange-blossoms. They were unsigned; but well I knew whose was the shame. + Over the fireplace hung a framed letter from the Great Soul. It began, + “Dear Young Friend and Admirer,” and ended, “Yours for + the Light. Harvey Wheelwright.” + </p> + <p> + The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank everything + in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. Finally Phil + departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner had the door + slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was looking discouraged. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what have you to say in your defense?” + </p> + <p> + The way Barbran’s eyebrows went up constituted in itself a defense + fit to move any jury to acquittal. + </p> + <p> + “For what?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “For corrupting my young friend Stacey. You made him paint those + pictures.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re very nice,” returned Barbran demurely. “Quite + true to the subject.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re awful. They’re an offense to civilization. They’re + an insult to Our Square. Of all subjects in the world, Harvey Wheelwright! + Why, Barbran? Why? Why? Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Business,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Explain, please,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I got the idea from a friend of mine in Washington Square. She got + up a little cellar café built around Alice. Alice in Wonderland, you know, + and the Looking Glass. Though I don’t suppose a learned and serious + person like you would ever have read such nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “It happened to be Friday and there wasn’t a hippopotamus in + the house,” I murmured. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Barbran, brightening. “Well, I thought if she + could do it with Alice, I could do it with Harvey Wheelwright.” + </p> + <p> + “In the name of Hatta and the March Hare, <i>why</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Because, for every one person who reads Alice nowadays, ten read + the author of ‘Reborn Through Righteousness’ and ‘Called + by the Cause.’ Isn’t it so?” + </p> + <p> + “Mathematically unimpeachable.” + </p> + <p> + “Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other + place. Don’t you think so?” she inquired wistfully. + </p> + <p> + Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul. “Undoubtedly,” + I agreed. “But do you love him?” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up + her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a very estimable writer,” returned Barbran primly, + quite ignoring my other query. + </p> + <p> + “Good-night, Barbran,” said I sadly. “I’m going + out to mourn your lost soul.” + </p> + <p> + One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of one’s + own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all on this + occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once. + </p> + <p> + “What did you do it for?” + </p> + <p> + To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. “Pay,” + said he. + </p> + <p> + “Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly. I’m taking it out in trade. I’m going to + eat there.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll starve to death.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t got much of an appetite.” + </p> + <p> + “The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted + diet of Harvey Wheelwright—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t speak the swine’s name,” implored Phil, + “or I’ll be sick.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, + probably indigestible at that.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care,” he averred stoutly. “I don’t + care for anything except—Dominie, who told you her father was a + millionaire?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s well known,” I said vaguely. “He’s a + cattle king or an emperor of sheep or the sultan of the piggery or + something. A good thing for Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her + cellar going. The kind of people who read Har—our unmentionable + author, don’t frequent Bohemian coffee cellars. They would regard it + as reckless and abandoned debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark.” + </p> + <p> + “The place has got to be a success,” declared Phil between his + teeth, his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. + </p> + <p> + “Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West,” I suggested. The + boy winced. + </p> + <p> + What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically. + Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the + highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid + for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means. + </p> + <p> + Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward + innovations. Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant has always sufficed for our + inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey + Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little + millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone. She + advertised feebly in the “Where to Eat” columns, catching a + few stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn’t come. + Until the first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought + their bills with them. + </p> + <p> + Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost or + quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of + patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late + comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say + indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once, as + she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank + terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire’s + daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that + look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it, + preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our + Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran’s sunny face? + Puzzling over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of + fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?” + </p> + <p> + At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of + Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers. + </p> + <p> + “I know whom you mean,” said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to + the little dormer window which was Barbran’s outlook on life. + “Interpret me a signal. What do you see up there?” + </p> + <p> + “It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window,” said I + adjusting my glasses. + </p> + <p> + “Upside down,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “How can a handkerchief be upside down?” I inquired, in what + was intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. + </p> + <p> + Contempt was all that it brought me. “Metaphorically, of course! It’s + a signal of distress.” + </p> + <p> + “In what distress can Barbran be?” + </p> + <p> + “In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the + roof in Our Square?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me + so herself. A millionaire’s daughter—” + </p> + <p> + “Do millionaires’ daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and + paste them on windows to dry? Does any woman in or out of Our Square <i>ever</i> + soak her own handkerchiefs in her own washbowl except when she’s + desperately saving pennies? Did you ever wash one single handkerchief in + your rooms, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not. It isn’t manly. Then you think she isn’t + a millionairess?” + </p> + <p> + “Look at her shoes when next you see her,” answered the Bonnie + Lassie conclusively. “<i>I</i> think the poor little thing has put + her every cent in the world into her senseless cellar, and she’s + going under.” + </p> + <p> + “But, good Heavens!” I exclaimed. “Something has got to + be done.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s going to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Who’s going to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “Me,” returned the Bonnie Lassie, who is least grammatical + when most purposeful. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said I, “the Fates may as well shut up shop and + Providence take a day off; the universe has temporarily changed its + management. Can I help?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie focused her gaze in a peculiar manner upon the exact + center of my countenance. A sort of fairy grin played about her lips. + “I wonder if—No,” she sighed. “No. I don’t + think it would do, Dominie. Anyway, I’ve got six without you.” + </p> + <p> + “Including Phil Stacey?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” retorted the Bonnie Lassie. “It was he who + came to me for help. I’m really doing this for him.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were doing it for Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh; she’s just a transposed Washington Squarer,” + answered the tyrant of Our Square. “Though she’s a dear + kiddie, too, underneath the nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “Do I understand—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see,” interrupted the Bonnie Lassie sweetly, + “how you could. I haven’t told you. And the rest are bound to + secrecy. But don’t be unduly alarmed at anything queer you may see + in Our Square within the next few days.” + </p> + <p> + Only by virtue of that warning was I able to command the emotions aroused + by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was hurrying + across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a shameful + rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to sheer off. When + he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering and nonchalant + effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of nonchalance in + this world. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening, Cyrus,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful weather we’re having.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t be finer.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it will hold?” + </p> + <p> + “The paper says rain to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Why is the tip of your nose painted green?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it green?” inquired Cyrus, as if he hadn’t given the + matter any special consideration, but thought it quite possible. + </p> + <p> + “Emerald,” said I. “It looks as if it were mortifying.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be mortifying,” admitted Cyrus the Gaunt, “if + it weren’t in a good cause.” + </p> + <p> + “What cause?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Come out of there!” said Cyrus the Gaunt, not to me, but to a + figure lurking in the shrubbery. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor emerged. I took one look at his most distinctive + feature. + </p> + <p> + “You, too!” I said. “What do you mean by it?” + </p> + <p> + “Ask Cyrus,” returned the Little Red Doctor glumly. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a cult,” said Cyrus. “The credit of the + notion belongs not to me, but to my esteemed better half. A few chosen + souls—” + </p> + <p> + “Here comes another of them,” I conjectured, as a bowed form + approached. “Who is it? MacLachan!” + </p> + <p> + The old Scot appeared to be suffering from a severe cold. His handkerchief + was pressed to his face. + </p> + <p> + “Take it down, Mac,” I ordered. “It’s useless.” + He did so, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. + </p> + <p> + “He bullied me into it,” declared the tailor, glowering at + Cyrus the Gaunt. + </p> + <p> + “It’ll do your nose good,” declared Cyrus jauntily. + “Give it a change. Complementary colors, you know. What ho! Our + leader.” + </p> + <p> + Phil Stacey appeared. He appeared serious; that is, as serious as one can + appear when his central feature glows like the starboard light of an + incoming steamship. Following him were Leon Coventry, huge and shy, and + the lethal Boggs looking unhappy. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you all going?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “To the Wrightery,” said Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Is it a party?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a gathering.” + </p> + <p> + “Am I included?” + </p> + <p> + “If you’ll—” + </p> + <p> + “Not on any account,” I declared firmly. It had just occurred + to me why the Bonnie Lassie had centered her gaze upon my features. + “Follow your indecent noses as far as you like. I stay.” + </p> + <p> + Still lost in meditation, I may have dozed on my bench, when heavy, + measured footsteps aroused me. I looked up to see Terry the Cop, guardian + of our peace, arbiter of differences, conservator of our morals. I peered + at him with anxiety. + </p> + <p> + “Terry,” I inquired, “how is your nose?” + </p> + <p> + “Keen, Dominie,” said Terry. He sniffed the air. “Don’t + you detect the smell of illegal alcohol?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say I do.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very plain,” declared the officer wriggling his + nasal organ which, I was vastly relieved to observe, retained its original + hue. “Wouldn’t you say, Dominie, it comes from yonder cellar?” + </p> + <p> + “Barbran’s cellar? + </p> + <p> + “I am informed that a circle of dangerous char-<i>ack</i>ters with + green noses gather there and drink cider containing more than + two-seventy-five per cent of apple juice. I’m about to pull the + place.” + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven’s sake, Terry; don’t do that! You’ll + scare—” + </p> + <p> + “Whisht, Dominie!” interrupted Terry with an elaborate wink. + “There’ll be no surprise, except maybe to the Judge in the + morning. You better drop in at the court.” + </p> + <p> + Of the round-up I have no details, except that it seemed to be quietly + conducted. The case was called the next day, before Magistrate Wolf Tone + Hanrahan, known as the “Human Judge.” Besides being human, his + Honor is, as may be inferred from his name, somewhat Irish. He heard the + evidence, tested the sample, announced his intention of coming around that + evening for some more, and honorably discharged Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “And what about these min?” he inquired, gazing upon the + dauntless six. + </p> + <p> + “Dangerous suspects, Yeronner,” said Terry the Cop. + </p> + <p> + “They look mild as goat’s milk to me,” returned the + Magistrate, “though now I get me eye on the rid-hidded wan [with a + friendly wink at the Little Red Doctor] I reckonize him as a desprit + charackter that’d save your life as soon as look at ye. What way are + they dang’rous?” + </p> + <p> + “When apprehended,” replied Terry, looking covertly about to + see that the reporters were within hearing distance, “their noses + were painted green.” + </p> + <p> + “Is this true?” asked the Magistrate of the six. + </p> + <p> + “It is, your Honor,” they replied. + </p> + <p> + “An’, why not!” demanded the Human Judge hotly. “‘Tis + a glorious color! Erin go bragh! Off’cer, ye’ve exceeded yer + jooty. D’ ye think this is downtrodden an’ sufferin’ + Oireland an’ yerself the tyrant Gineral French? Let ’em paint + their noses anny color they loike; but green for preference. I’m + tellin’ ye, this is the land of freedom an’ equality, an’ + ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, liberty, and the purshoot of + happiness, an’ a man’s nose is his castle, an’ don’t + ye fergit it. Dis-charrrrged! Go an’ sin no more. I mane, let the + good worruk go awn!” + </p> + <p> + “Now watch for the evening papers,” said young Phil Stacey + exultantly. “The Wrightery will get some free advertising that’ll + crowd it for months.” + </p> + <p> + Alas for youth’s golden hopes! The evening papers ignored the + carefully prepared event. One morning paper published a paragraph, + attributing the green noses to a masquerade party. The conspirators, + gathered at the cellar with their war-paints on (in case of reporters), + discussed the fiasco in embittered tones. Young Stacey raged against a + stupid and corrupt press. MacLachan expressed the acidulous hope that + thereafter Cyrus the Gaunt would be content with making a fool of himself + without implicating innocent and confiding friends. The Bonnie Lassie was + not present, but sent word (characteristically) that they must have done + it all wrong; men had no sense, anyway. The party then sent out for + turpentine and broke up to reassemble no more. Only Phil Stacey, inventor + of the great idea, was still faithful to and hopeful of it. Each evening + he conscientiously greened himself and went to eat with Barbran. + </p> + <p> + Time justified his faith. One evening there dropped in a plump man who + exhaled a mild and comforting benevolence, like a gentle country parson. + He smiled sweetly at Phil, and introduced himself as a reporter for the + “Sunday World Magazine”—and where was the rest of the + circle? In a flurry of excitement, the pair sent for Cyrus the Gaunt to do + the talking. Cyrus arrived, breathless and a trifle off color (the Bonnie + Lassie had unfortunately got a touch of bronze scenic paint mixed with the + green, so that he smelled like an over-ripe banana), and proceeded to + exposition. + </p> + <p> + “This,” he explained, “is a new cult. It is based on the + back-to-the-spring idea. The well-spring of life, you know. The—er—spring + of eternal youth, and—and so forth. You understand?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope to,” said the reporter politely. “Why on the + nose?” + </p> + <p> + “I will explain that,” returned Cyrus, getting his second + wind; “but first let me get the central idea in your mind. It’s + a nature movement; a readjustment of art to nature. All nature is green. + Look about you.” Here he paused for effect, which was unfortunate. + </p> + <p> + “Quite so,” agreed the reporter. “The cable-car, for + instance, and the dollar bill, not to mention the croton bug and the polar + bear. But, pardon me, I interrupt the flow of your eloquence.” + </p> + <p> + “You do,” said Cyrus severely. “Inanimate nature I speak + of. All inanimate nature is green. But we poor fellow creatures have + gotten away from the universal mother-color. We must get back to it. We + must learn to think greenly. But first we must learn to see greenly. How + shall we accomplish this? Put green in our eyes? Impossible, + unfortunately. But, our noses—there is the solution. In direct + proximity to the eye, the color, properly applied, tints one’s + vision of all things. Green shadows in a green world,” mooned Cyrus + the Gaunt poetically. “As the bard puts it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘Annihilating all that’s made + To a green thought in a green shade.’” + </pre> + <p> + “Wait a minute,” said the visitor, and made a note on an + envelope-back. + </p> + <p> + “Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a + millionaire cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second + note], has established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our + souls.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said the benevolent reporter. “Fine! Of course + it’s all bunk—” + </p> + <p> + “Bunk!” echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with + his lank jaw drooping. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?” + inquired the visitor pleasantly. “Just what you’re putting + over I don’t know. Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don’t + tell me. It’s good enough, anyway. I’ll fall for it. It’s + worth a page story. Of course I’ll want some photographs of the + mural paintings. They’re almost painfully beautiful.... What’s + wrong with our young friend; is he sick?” he added, looking with + astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting sub-nauseous symptoms. + </p> + <p> + “He painted ’em,” explained Cyrus, grinning. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s sorry,” supplemented Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I wouldn’t wonder. Well, I won’t give him away,” + said the kindly journalist. “Now, as to the membership of your + circle....” + </p> + <p> + The Sunday “story” covered a full page. The “millionairess” + feature was played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations + did what little the text failed to do. It was a “josh-story” + from beginning to end. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll kill that pious fraud of a reporter,” declared + Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Now the place <i>is</i> ruined,” mourned Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “Wait and see,” advised the wiser Cyrus. + </p> + <p> + Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom on + the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that week + and the succeeding week. + </p> + <p> + “I never was good at figures,” said the transported Barbran to + Phil Stacey at the close of the month, “but as near as I can make + out, I’ve a clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My + fortune is made. And it’s all due to you.” + </p> + <p> + Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, the + owner’s golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had + other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim + cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was the + first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he knew he + was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to the + pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that a + green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then + Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important + engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut country + house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow does not make + a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis convince a skeptical + public that it is enjoying the fearful companionship of a subversive and + revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed out as fast as it had flooded in. + Barbran’s eyes were as soft and happy as ever in the evenings, when + she and Phil sat in a less and less interrupted solitude. But in the + mornings palpable fear stalked her. Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied + with a dread of his own. + </p> + <p> + One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and + home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up + to facing the facts. + </p> + <p> + “It’s going to be a failure,” she said dismally. + </p> + <p> + “Then you’re going away?” he asked, trying to keep his + voice from quaking. + </p> + <p> + She set her little chin quite firmly. “Not while there’s a + chance left of pulling it out.” + </p> + <p> + “Well; it doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned,” + he muttered. “I’m going away myself.” + </p> + <p> + “You?” She sat up very straight and startled. “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “Kansas City.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! What for?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came + back to ask about the decorations?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s built him a new house—he calls it a mansion—and + he wants me to paint the music-room. He likes”—Phil gulped a + little—“my style of art.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t that great!” said Barbran in the voice of one + giving three cheers for a funeral. “How does he want his music-room + decorated?” + </p> + <p> + Young Phil put his head in his hands. “Scenes from Moody and Sankey,” + he said in a muffled voice. + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious! You aren’t going to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “I am,” retorted the other gloomily. “It’s good + money.” Almost immediately he added, “Damn the money!” + </p> + <p> + “No; no; you mustn’t do that. You must go, of course. Would—will + it take long?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not coming back.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t <i>want</i> you not to come back,” said + Barbran, in a queer, frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and + hastily withdrew it. + </p> + <p> + He said desperately: “What’s the use? I can’t sit here + forever looking at you and—and dreaming of—of impossible + things, and eating my heart out with my nose painted green.” + </p> + <p> + “The poor nose!” murmured Barbran. + </p> + <p> + With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she + gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble + attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and + pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable. + </p> + <p> + So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed. + </p> + <p> + It was not Barbran’s nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that + matter, was it young Phil’s. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, + for the untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded + of Barbran and the fates: + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use?” + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use of what?” returned Barbran tremulously. + </p> + <p> + “Of all this? Your father’s a millionaire, and I won’t—I + can’t—” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t!” cried Barbran. “And you can—you + will.” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t?” ejaculated Phil. “What is he?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s a school-teacher, and I haven’t got a thing but + debts.” + </p> + <p> + Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy + bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an + interlude he said: + </p> + <p> + “But, why—” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: + “I thought it would be an asset. I thought people would consider it + romantic and it would help business. See how much that reporter made of + it! Phil! Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a—a—a—dumbbell?” + </p> + <p> + For he had thrust her away from him at arm’s-length again. + </p> + <p> + “There’s one other thing between us, Barbran.” + </p> + <p> + “If there is, it’s your fault. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Harvey Wheelwright,” he said solemnly. “Do you really + like that sickening slush-slinger?” + </p> + <p> + She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. “I loathe + him. I’ve always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with + and the paper it’s printed on.” + </p> + <p> + When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the + “Dear Friend and Admirer” letter in a slow candle-flame, and + Harvey Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, + was writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their little + romance. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s not going to Kansas City,” said Barbran + defiantly. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran,” said + young Phil. + </p> + <p> + “And he’s going to paint what he wants to.” + </p> + <p> + “Pictures of Barbran,” said young Phil. + </p> + <p> + “And we’re going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe + off the walls and <i>make</i> the place a success,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “And we’re going to be married right away,” said Phil. + </p> + <p> + “Next week,” said Barbran. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think?” said both. + </p> + <p> + Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. I + should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on + twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached + prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out—The wind blew + the door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little + burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my + withered heart. + </p> + <p> + “Bless you, my children!” said I. + </p> + <p> + It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their reckless, + feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the tailor, + reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions regarding the + pair. + </p> + <p> + “What’ll they be marryin’ on?” demanded Mac Wisdom—that + is to say, MacLachan. + </p> + <p> + “Spring and youth,” I said. “The fragrance of lilac in + the air, the glow of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?” + </p> + <p> + “A bit of prudence,” said MacLachan. + </p> + <p> + “Prudence!” I retorted scornfully. “The miser of the + virtues. It may pay its own way through the world. But when did it ever + take Happiness along for a jaunt?” + </p> + <p> + I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon + me with his observation about two young fools and an old one. + </p> + <p> + Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that + headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, + and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at the + window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be + justified of his forebodings, and yet—and yet—who am I, old + and lonely and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and + the sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of + MacLachan and that ilk? + </p> + <p> + Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and + flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried—and I + let the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the + song endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its + echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two young fools. + </p> + <p> + As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment + and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his nose green! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE + </h2> + <p> + Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an old and + melancholy song that my grandfather sang: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And his skin was so thin + You could almost see his bones + As he ran, hobble—hobble—hobble + Over the stones.” + </pre> + <p> + Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts would + invariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which had + forever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie: + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!” He would then + recapitulate in English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was + his substitute for it. “Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for + mend?” + </p> + <p> + So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute + intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly built, + stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, with a + face which would have been totally insignificant but for an obstinate chin + and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning eyes; and he was + incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived among us, occupying a + cubbyhole in Schepstein’s basement full of ribs, handles, crooks, + patches, and springs, without appreciably improving his speech or his + position. It was said that his name was Garin—nobody really knew or + cared—and it was assumed from his speech that he was French. + </p> + <p> + Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain such + non-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation. Why + Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, though by no + means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the Bonnie Lassie, to + whom any variety of want or helplessness is its own sufficient + recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptown friends. + Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariably took off his + frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she was there to see, + and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent of declaring that she + was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I ever heard him make upon + any one in Our Square, which in turn completely ignored him until the + development of his love affair stimulated our condescending and + contemptuous interest. + </p> + <p> + The object of Plooie’s addresses was a little Swiss of unknown + derivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from the + surrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bit of + a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, soft hazel + eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those who scrub other + people’s doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour. + </p> + <p> + For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran an uneventful + course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell where is fancy + bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the drabbled little + worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open the conversation + according to an invariable formula. + </p> + <p> + “Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?” Thereby the + little Swiss became known as, and ever will be called locally, “Annie + Oombrella.” Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a + fatal penchant for nicknames in Our Square. + </p> + <p> + She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed, + should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended! + </p> + <p> + Then would he say—I shall not attempt to torture the good English + alphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: “It makes + fine to-day, it do!” + </p> + <p> + And she would reply “Yes, a fine day”; and look as if the sun + were a little warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie’s + greeting, as, perhaps, indeed, it was. + </p> + <p> + After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious, + venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming his + unproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered that + she spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. On + Christmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year’s he + took her walking among the tombstones in God’s Acre, which is a + serious and sentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in + the following week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in the + glowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand, + on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other’s + eyes, and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the + rest of the world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not to + understand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed. It + was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said: + </p> + <p> + “If one marries themselves?” + </p> + <p> + And she replied: “I believe it well.” + </p> + <p> + They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric light + which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless activity, were + transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor of them. + </p> + <p> + But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles she mistrusts + that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts as earthly + agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken little creatures to marry + on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Square in general and to the + two people most concerned in particular. Courts of law might have rejected + their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however, they were convincing + enough. + </p> + <p> + Said Plooie: “Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?” + </p> + <p> + Said Annie Oombrella: “He is so lonely!” + </p> + <p> + So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happiness came + of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What disposition the pair + would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficult to + conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, and fabrics + was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for Annie Oombrella to + squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as a bird, with an + odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up at an auction and + resold to them at not more than two hundred per cent profit, plus a + kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of the Bonnie Lassie and her + husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they had meat. They were rising in + the social scale. + </p> + <p> + Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to + Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we + endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say that + we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him professionally. + Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie Oombrella must have + lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders broadened perceptibly. + His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew noticeably brisker. There was even + a heartier note in his lamentable trade cry: + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder!” + </p> + <p> + As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformed + her. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow, + though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabbling + and splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porches of + her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up to + twenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savings + account. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth and peaceful + and sunny with companionship. + </p> + <p> + Then came the war. + </p> + <p> + The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to so + many helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame and + humiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, Our Square + was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant France and + prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons of Gaul + who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How sourly we + looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence arose the rumor, + I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time of wrath and + tension that Plooie was born in Liège. Liège, that city of fire and + slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the world were + turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry on the + marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my bench + with a little furrow between her bright eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” I replied, failing to identify the rickety + Plooie by his rightful name. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and + asks if you have an umbrella to mend.” + </p> + <p> + “I never have. What of him?” + </p> + <p> + “Have you any influence with him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not compared with yours.” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. “I can’t + find him. And Annie Oombrella won’t tell me where he is. She only + cries.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s bad. You think he—he is—” + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you say it outright, Dominie? <i>You</i> think he’s + hiding.” + </p> + <p> + “Really!” I expostulated. “You come to me with + accusations against the poor fellow and then undertake to make me + responsible for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe it’s true at all,” averred the + Bonnie Lassie loyally. “I don’t believe Plooie is a coward. + There’s some reason why he doesn’t go over and help! I want to + know what it is.” + </p> + <p> + Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, I + did my best. “Over age,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “He’s only thirty-two.” + </p> + <p> + “Bless me! He looks sixty. Well—physical infirmity.” + </p> + <p> + “He can carry a load all day.” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won’t + let him.” + </p> + <p> + “When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her + mother was French and she would go and fight herself, if they’d have + her.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. But I’m afraid the Garins are going to + have trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal for + trade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once. + Small boys booed at him, called him “yellow,” and advised him + to go carefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, + our little old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and claw + with his German Jonathan in Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant, stung him + with that most insulting word in any known tongue—“Lâche!”—and + threatened him with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think + it was the fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had + set a picture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that + most exasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grew + quavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matters + looked ill for the Garins. + </p> + <p> + The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off all + relations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterward + rejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got on our + nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped a barrel + down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But the chase took + him into the midst of a group of the younger and more boisterous element, + returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen’s Sons of Avenue + B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him. + </p> + <p> + “Here’s our little ‘ee-ro!” “Looka the + Frenchy that won’t fight!” “Safety first, hey, Plooie?” + “Charge umbrellas—backward, march!” + </p> + <p> + Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst thing + he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became their + captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, once in the + hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an inspirational + thought: “Ride him on a rail!” + </p> + <p> + Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was + hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, + wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore him + with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park. + </p> + <p> + When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was being + augmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry the + Cop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonable + probability that he had absented himself on purpose. “God hates a + coward” is a tenet of Terry’s creed. I confess to a certain + sympathy with it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for + Plooie, the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I + leaned back on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality. + </p> + <p> + Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. + From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, + which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their + concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, + delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his + voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the supervening + heads: + </p> + <p> + “Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, + little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear.” + </p> + <p> + From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in his + face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His voice, + steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to + entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice. + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the more + hopelessly against the barrier of bodies. + </p> + <p> + Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The + many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation. + </p> + <p> + “Le’s tar-and-feather him.” + </p> + <p> + “White feathers!” + </p> + <p> + “Where’ll we gettum?” + </p> + <p> + “Satkins’s kosher shop on the Av’noo.” + </p> + <p> + “Where’s yer tar?” + </p> + <p> + This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical + expedient now evolved from the collective brain. + </p> + <p> + “Duck’m in the fountain!” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Drown</i> him in the fountain!” amended an enthusiast. + </p> + <p> + Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming + dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate + umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob + impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the + playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. Plainly + the time was ripe for intervention. + </p> + <p> + Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, the + scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. Now, if + ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion. + </p> + <p> + For the heroic rôle of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by + temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the + imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason. + </p> + <p> + The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind the Dominie,” yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the + rail by an end and hauling it around. “He don’t mean nothin’.” + </p> + <p> + Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate + brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as I + leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous urchins, + the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted aloft, bleeding + but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out reassurances to his wife; + the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a frantic woman, clawing, + sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened for the splash. + </p> + <p> + It did not come. + </p> + <p> + A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my + unsuccessful rôle of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had + succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney + Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia. + </p> + <p> + Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously anticipative + rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most peremptory of + aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing. + </p> + <p> + I like to think—the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself + thereby—that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort + to hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to + intervene. + </p> + <p> + Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the + Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black + Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance + grated upon her sensitive ear. + </p> + <p> + “What is that rabble about, Sally?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + The aged negress reconnoitered. “Reckon dey’s ridin’ a + gentmun on a rail,” she reported. + </p> + <p> + “A <i>gentleman</i>, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure + such an affront. Look again.” + </p> + <p> + “Yessum. It’s dat po’ white trash dey call Plooie. + Mainded yo’ umbrella oncet.” + </p> + <p> + “My umbrella-mender!” (The mere fact that the victim had once + tinkered for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the + high protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) “Tell them to desist + at once.” + </p> + <p> + Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the + advancing mob was “no place foh a niggah.” + </p> + <p> + With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: “You + desist ‘em, mist’ess.” + </p> + <p> + Sally’s confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even + excelled by her mistress’s confidence in herself. + </p> + <p> + Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified + servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the + brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed + MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before. + Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to her + locally. + </p> + <p> + She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like steel. + The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the proper + moment, she raised it. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing?” + </p> + <p> + The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon + humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in + Macaulay’s immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, “those behind + cried ‘Forward’ and those before cried ‘Back’!” + That single hale and fiery old lady held them. No more could those two + hundred ruffians have defied the challenge of her contemptuous eyes than + they could have advanced into the flaming doors of a furnace. + </p> + <p> + A cautious voice from the rear inquired: “Who’s the dame?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s a witch,” conjectured some one. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the Duchess,” said another, giving her the local + title of veneration. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the lady that shot the tailor,” proclaimed an + awe-stricken bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as + elsewhere.) Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a + malevolent squeak: + </p> + <p> + “T’row ‘er in the drink.” + </p> + <p> + “Who spoke?” said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear. + </p> + <p> + Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically + resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. + Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob’s edge, followed + by a glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess + leveled a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to + her, who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl + into his own pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Michael,” said the Duchess. + </p> + <p> + “Yessum,” said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe + Sapperstein. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing to that unfortunate person?” + </p> + <p> + “J-j-just a little j-j-joke,” replied the other in what was + doubtless intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone. + </p> + <p> + “Let him down.” Inky Mike hesitated. “At once!” + snapped the Duchess and stamped her foot. + </p> + <p> + “Yessum,” said Inky Mike meekly. + </p> + <p> + Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those + behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame + Tallafferr’s bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative + diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and + significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A subtle + suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her. + Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to. + </p> + <p> + “Go about your business,” she said. “Rabble!” she + added in precisely the tone which one might expect of a well-bred but + particularly deadly snake. + </p> + <p> + The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd disintegrated + into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what they were doing + there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away. Plooie was + triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, and (less + triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which chanced to + be the Bonnie Lassie’s house. Annie Oombrella pattered along beside + him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry. + </p> + <p> + But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, <i>she</i> cried, as + much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies and + cowards and imbeciles—and why hadn’t her Cyrus been at home to + stop it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus + Staten had not been needed: the <i>canaille</i> would always respect a + proper show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling + and sparkling. + </p> + <p> + After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than anything + else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our Square for + his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the following Sunday. + Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the Bonnie Lassie reasons with + her heart instead of her head, we accept her theories with habitual and + smiling indulgence rather than respect—until the facts bear them + out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to inquire as to their + proposed course, and had rather more than hinted that if the head of the + house wished to respond to his country’s call, Our Square would look + after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a stubborn and somber + silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that he seemed ashamed. She + added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the Dominie would not + think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather markedly failed to + acknowledge his salute on the morning before his departure, I felt a qualm + of misgiving. After all, judging your neighbor’s soul is a kittle + business. There is such an insufficiency of data. + </p> + <p> + So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant, with + only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window as a + memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But Schepstein, + wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year after, + encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office far over + in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which she had + taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful and haggard. + </p> + <p> + Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs + nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie. Where + was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Left you, has he?” asked Schepstein, astonished at this + evidence of iniquity. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice + that Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her + eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as + they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to + observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily + unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, + he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, + on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) + She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you ever need a home, the basement’s vacant and + there ain’t a better basement in Our Square.” + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his + business. + </p> + <p> + Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, + according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had + known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom of + Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a bulwark + between the ravager of the world and his victory until there sped across + the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales. Our Square + gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the simple + memorials in Our Square. + </p> + <p> + Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its ancient + and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to be. In + their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the year of + grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, vagrant from + heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our lilac bush, and + other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the air, my ears were + smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths. + </p> + <p> + “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees,” it cried on a faint and cluttering + note. “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees à raccommoder.” + </p> + <p> + Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual + range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like + Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie’s and emitted again the + familiar though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it <i>was</i> + Plooie. He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who + never wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma. + </p> + <p> + As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, + and walked over to Schepstein’s. There in the basement, amid the + familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie. + </p> + <p> + “Bonjour, Dominie,” said she wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “Good-morning, Annie. So you are back.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?” + </p> + <p> + “There is need that one explain one’s self. What have you been + doing these three years?” + </p> + <p> + “I work. I work hard.” + </p> + <p> + “And your husband? What has he been doing?” I asked sternly. + </p> + <p> + Annie Oombrella’s soft face drooped. “Soyez gentil, Dominie,” + she implored. “Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so + triste—so sad.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t look well, Annie.” + </p> + <p> + “He have been ver’ seeck. Now we come home he is already + weller.” + </p> + <p> + “But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?” I + demanded, feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella’s + reply did not make me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around + that unspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home to + Plooie and her. + </p> + <p> + “We have loved each other so much here,” said she. + </p> + <p> + Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed or + thought. War’s resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was + Plooie in danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he + made his rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella’s + prodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple in Schepstein’s + basement would have fared ill. + </p> + <p> + Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face. + </p> + <p> + To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discovery about + Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and shouted: + “Hey, Plooie! What was <i>you</i> doing in the war?” his jaw + would drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave + his burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and + sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly + developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first and + last. + </p> + <p> + Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This didn’t + help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing point + anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not to deal + with a poltroon, as she put it. + </p> + <p> + On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He was in + no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone up to + line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians. So had + such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place was + practically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his + cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie + to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, the + jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my + unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been + on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not + misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little + as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for the + divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of God + within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still glossy + silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and it was well + for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained at home for + reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrus the Gaunt, + should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up. Said the Bonnie + Lassie: + </p> + <p> + “I wonder why Plooie didn’t go to see his king.” + </p> + <p> + “Sense of shame,” I suggested acidly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted. + </p> + <p> + “It is no use,” I assured her, “for you to favor me with + that pitying and contemptuous smile of yours, for I can’t see it. + Mendel has my nearer range of vision locked in his shop.” + </p> + <p> + “I was just thinking,” said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant + accents, “how nice it must be to look back on a long life of + unspotted correctness with not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives + one such a comfortable basis for sitting in judgment.” + </p> + <p> + “Her lips drip honey,” I observed, “and the poison of + asps is under her tongue.” + </p> + <p> + “Your quotations are fatally mixed,” retorted my companion. + </p> + <p> + From across the park sounded Plooie’s patient falsetto: “Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! + Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-” The call broke off in a + kind of choke. + </p> + <p> + “What’s happened to Plooie?” I asked. “The + youngsters can’t have got back from the parade already, have they?” + </p> + <p> + “A very tall man has stopped him,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + “Plooie has dropped his kit.... He’s trying to salute.... It + must be one of the Belgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what?” I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant + Mendel in my heart. + </p> + <p> + “It can’t be ... you don’t think they can be arresting + poor Plooie at this late day for evading service?” + </p> + <p> + “Serve him right if they did,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is + leading him along. Poor Plooie! He’s all wilted down. It’s a + shame!” cried the Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. “It ought + not to be allowed.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably they’re taking him away. Do you see an + official-looking automobile anywhere about?” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor + Annie Oombrella! But—but they’re not going there. They’re + going into Schepstein’s basement.” + </p> + <p> + I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment I + endured it. Then I said: + </p> + <p> + “Well, Lassie, why don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t I what?” + </p> + <p> + “Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. Opposite + Schepstein’s.” + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie,” + said the Bonnie Lassie with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “How shamelessly you garble! It was—” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be: <i>suppressed</i> + curiosity killed a cat.” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie sniffed. + </p> + <p> + “Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench,” + I pursued, “through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to + the back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should + almost prefer that you would go—and peek.” + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said the Bonnie Lassie, “you are a despicable + old man.... I’ll be back in a minute.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t stay long,” I pleaded. “Pity the blind.” + </p> + <p> + Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her + voice when she returned. + </p> + <p> + “It’s so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is + sitting on a pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella’s + face is all swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute.” + </p> + <p> + Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could + best meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we did not + note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces of the + bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very tall and + straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassie of + his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She got up + from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling. Where, I + wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that the mere sight + of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusually self-controlled wife + of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deep and curiously melancholy + voice: + </p> + <p> + “Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?” + </p> + <p> + “I—I—I—” began the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several + years since?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville.” + </p> + <p> + (Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been at Trouville, + which did not assuage my suspicions.) + </p> + <p> + “You are friends of my—countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?” + he pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint + echo of an accent. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” I said. “Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, + acquaintances would be more accurate.” + </p> + <p> + “He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great + need of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you.” + </p> + <p> + “You are interested in Plooie?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Plooie?” he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he + laughed gently. “Profoundly interested,” he said. “I + have here one of his finest umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. + There was also a lady of whom he speaks, a <i>grande dame</i>, of very + great authority.” For all the sadness of the deep voice, I felt that + his eyes were twinkling. + </p> + <p> + “Madame Tallafferr,” supplied the Bonnie Lassie. “She is + away on a visit.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be + knighted.” + </p> + <p> + “Knighthood would add nothing to her status,” said I, dryly. + “She is a Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with + two <i>f</i>s, two <i>l</i>s, and two <i>r</i>s.” + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders + of merit,” said the big sad-voiced man courteously. “But I + should have been proud to meet her.” + </p> + <p> + “May I tell her that?” asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “By all means—when I am gone.” Again I felt the smile + that must be in the eyes. “But there were others here, not so + friendly to the little Garin. That is true, is it not?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving + case,” I pointed out defensively. + </p> + <p> + “Then it is only because he does not explain himself well,” + returned the Belgian quickly. + </p> + <p> + “He does not explain himself at all,” I corrected. “Nor + does Annie Oom—his wife.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear + with me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those + who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?” + </p> + <p> + The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, the + big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might have + taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so straightly + the expression of a great and generous personality. + </p> + <p> + “Emile Garin,” he said, “was a son of Belgium. He was + poor and his people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they + were dead. So he came to your great country to make his living. When our + enemies invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, + the little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit + for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings + they must sweep him away from our Consul-General’s doorsteps here + because otherwise he would not—You spoke, Monsieur?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. I only said, ‘God forgive us!’” + </p> + <p> + “Amen,” said the narrator gravely. “Everywhere they + rejected him as unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not + so?” + </p> + <p> + “That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously,” confirmed + the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled + into the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He + was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. Nothing + mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach my country + at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, no matter who + he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, because he was + unable to march. He had weak legs.” + </p> + <p> + At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. + “I <i>told</i> you there was something,” she murmured + triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad to find that he had one true defender here,” + pursued the biographer of Plooie. “Though he could not fight in the + ranks there was use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in + those black days. He was made driver of a—a charette; I do not know + if you have them in your great city?” He paused, and I guessed that + the rumble of heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come + opportunely. “Ah, yes; there is one.” + </p> + <p> + “A dump-cart,” supplied the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious + thing to drive a dump-cart for one’s country—unless one makes + it so. But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what + you call quaint—I have already told you. He was faithful and + hard-working. They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and + his big cart.” + </p> + <p> + “Not precisely safety-first,” whispered the Bonnie Lassie to + me, maliciously. + </p> + <p> + “You are interrupting the story,” said I with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here + on this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down + the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type of + grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little lever—so. + One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the grenade, and at + the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is of terrible power. + The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the middle of the road between + the two hospitals full of the helplessly wounded. For what? Perhaps to + sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. Heaven only knows, for the sergeant + has the luck to be killed next day by a German shell, before he can be + court-martialed. As he sets down the grenade, the little lever is moved. + The sergeant loses his head. He runs, shouting to everybody to run also. + </p> + <p> + “But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot + run. They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a + visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady.” The sad + voice deepened and softened. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” whispered the Bonnie Lassie; “I can guess.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does + not know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people + escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, ‘Turn + your cart, you fool, and save yourself.’ Oh, yes; he can save + himself. That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can + save them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big + dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The + mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade + explodes, nevertheless. + </p> + <p> + “One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. + Everything near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the + floor, but she is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms + the terrified. The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have + driven a dump-cart for one’s country—so.” + </p> + <p> + “But what became of our Plooie?” besought the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. “They looked + for him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large + piece of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was + that large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital + which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he cannot + speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got out of + hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did not care. + Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records were lost in + the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The great lady wished + very much to see him. But we could find nothing except that he had come + back to this country. Official inquiry was made here and he was traced to + Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot speak for himself and + will not allow his wife to tell his story—it is part of the + shell-shock which will wear off in time—I came to speak for him.” + </p> + <p> + “Does your—do you do this sort of thing often?” asked + the Bonnie Lassie with a queer sort of resonance in her voice. + </p> + <p> + The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: + “One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But + there is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved + lady whom the little Garin saved.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said the Bonnie Lassie softly. + </p> + <p> + After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. + Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. + </p> + <p> + “Plooie!” she said, and that was all. + </p> + <p> + “You are crying,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not,” she retorted indignantly. “But you + ought to be. For your injustice.” + </p> + <p> + “If we all bewept our injustices,” said I oracularly, “Noah + would have to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of him?” said the Bonnie Lassie. + </p> + <p> + “As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert + animal-breeder, his selections were at times ill-advised.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I’m not + interested in Noah.” + </p> + <p> + “As to our romantic visitant,” I said, “I think that + Cyrus the Gaunt would better be watchful. I’ve never known anyone + else except Cyrus to produce such an emotional effect upon you.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be school-girlish!” admonished the Bonnie Lassie + severely. “Poor old Dominie! He doesn’t know what’s + going on under his very nose. Where are your eyes?” + </p> + <p> + “In Mendel’s top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are + we going to make it up to Plooie?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think you need worry about that,” returned the + Bonnie Lassie loftily. + </p> + <p> + Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an + irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their + pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was + subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city’s + reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his + important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and + disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign + across the front of Plooie’s basement, was the magnet that drew + them: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Emile Garin & Wife + Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser + + to + + His Majesty + + The King of the Belgians + (By Royal Warranty) +</pre> + <p> + No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their + well-deserved fortune is made. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TRIUMPH + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The months go by—bleak March and May-day heat— + Harvest is over—winter well-nigh done— + And still I say, “To-morrow we shall meet.” + + MAY PROBYN +</pre> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor sat on the far end of my bench. Snow fringed the + bristling curve of his mustache. He shivered. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said he, “it’s a wild day.” + </p> + <p> + I assented. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” said the Little Red Doctor, “it is no kind of + a day for an old man to be sitting on a bench.” + </p> + <p> + I dissented. + </p> + <p> + “Dominie,” persisted the Little Red Doctor, “you can’t + deny that you’re old.” + </p> + <p> + “Whose fault is that but yours?” I retorted. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t try to flatter me,” said the Little Red Doctor. + “You’d have licked my old friend, Death, in that bout you had + with him, without any help of mine. And, anyway, you were already old, + then. You’re a tough old bird, Dominie. Otherwise you wouldn’t + be sitting here in a March blizzard staring at the Worth mansion and + wondering what really happened there three years ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Your old friend, Death, beat you that time,” said I + maliciously. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. “Look your fill, + Dominie,” he advised. “You won’t have much more chance.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked, startled. + </p> + <p> + “The wreckers begin on it next month. Also a nice, new building is + going up next door to it on that little, secret, walled jungle that Ely + Crouch used to misname his garden. I’m glad of it, too. I don’t + like anachronisms.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m an anachronism,” I returned. “You’ll be + one pretty soon. Our Square is one solid anachronism.” + </p> + <p> + “It won’t be much longer. The tide is undermining us. Other + houses will go as the Worth place is going. You’ll miss it, Dominie. + You love houses as if they were people.” + </p> + <p> + It is true. To me houses are the only fabrications of man’s hands + that are personalities. Enterprise builds the factory, Greed the tenement, + but Love alone builds the house, and by Love alone is it maintained + against the city’s relentless encroachments. Once hallowed by + habitation, what warm and vivid influences impregnate it! Ambition, pride, + hope, joys happily shared; suffering, sorrow, and loss bravely endured—the + walls outlive them all, gathering with age, from grief and joy alike, kind + memories and stanch traditions. Yes, I love the old houses. Yet I should + not be sorry to see the Worth mansion razed. It has outlived all the lives + that once cherished it and become a dead, unhuman thing. + </p> + <p> + That solid square of brown, gray-trimmed stone had grown old honorably + with the honorable generations of the Worths. Then it had died. In one + smiting stroke of tragedy the life had gone out of it. Now it stood + staring bleakly out from its corner with filmed eyes, across the busy + square. Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm + of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still + harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret. + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor broke in upon my reverie. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; you’re old, Dominie. But you’re not wise. You’re + very foolish. Foolish and obstinate.” + </p> + <p> + Knowing well what he meant, I nevertheless pampered him by asking: “Why + am I foolish and obstinate?” + </p> + <p> + “Because you refuse to believe that Ned Worth murdered Ely Crouch. + Don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why did Ned commit suicide?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you explain away his written confession?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t. I only know that it was not in Ned Worth’s + character willfully to kill an old man. You were his friend; you ought to + know it as well as I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s different,” said the Little Red Doctor, + giving me one of his queer looks. “Yes; you’re a pig-headed + old man, Dominie.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m a believer in character.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know of any other man equally pig-headed, except + possibly one. He’s old, too.” + </p> + <p> + “Gale Sheldon,” said I, naming the gentle, withered librarian + of a branch library a few blocks to the westward, the only other resident + of Our Square who had unfailingly supported me in my loyalty to the memory + of the last of the Worths. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He’s waiting for us now in his rooms. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + Perceiving that there was something back of this—there usually is, + in the Little Red Doctor’s maneuvers—I rose and we set out. As + we passed the Worth house it seemed grimmer and bleaker than ever before. + There was something savage and desperate in its desolation. The cold curse + of abandonment lay upon it. At the turn of the corner the Little Red + Doctor said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “She’s dead.” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “The girl. The woman in the case.” + </p> + <p> + “In the Ely Crouch case? A woman? There was never any woman hinted + at.” + </p> + <p> + “No. And there never would have been as long as she was alive. Now—Well, + I’ll leave Sheldon to explain her. He loved her, too, in his way.” + </p> + <p> + In Gale Sheldon’s big, still room, crowded with the friendly ghosts + of mighty books, a clear fire was burning. One shaded lamp at the desk was + turned on, for though it was afternoon the blizzard cast a gloom like + dusk. The Little Red Doctor retired to a far corner where he was all but + merged in the shadows. + </p> + <p> + “Have you seen this?” Sheldon asked me, pointing to the table. + </p> + <p> + Thereon was spread strange literature for the scholarly taste of our local + book-worm, a section from the most sensational of New York’s Sunday + newspapers. From the front page, surrounded by a barbarous conglomeration + of headlines and uproarious type, there smiled happily forth a face of + such appealing loveliness as no journalistic vulgarity could taint or + profane. I recognized it at once, as any one must have done who had ever + seen the unforgettable original. It was Virginia Kingsley, who, two years + before, had been Sheldon’s assistant. The picture was labeled, + “Death Ends Wanderlust of Mysterious Heiress,” and the article + was couched in a like style of curiosity-piquing sensationalism. Stripped + of its fulsome verbiage, it told of the girl’s recent death in + Italy, after traveling about Europe with an invalid sister; during which + progress, the article gloated, she was “vainly wooed by the Old + World’s proudest nobility for her beauty and wealth,” the + latter having been unexpectedly left her by an aged relative. Her + inexorable refusals were set down, by the romantic journalist, as due to + some secret and prior attachment. (He termed it an “affair de court”!) + </p> + <p> + Out of the welter of words there stood forth one sentence to tempt the + imagination: “She met death as a tryst.” For that brief flash + the reporter had been lifted out of his bathos and tawdriness into a + clearer element. One could well believe that she had “met death as a + tryst.” For if ever I have beheld unfaltering hope and unflagging + courage glorified and spiritualized into unearthly beauty, it was there in + that pictured face, fixed by the imperishable magic of the camera. + </p> + <p> + “No; I hadn’t seen it,” I said after reading. “Is + it true?” + </p> + <p> + “In part.” Then, after a pause, “You knew her, didn’t + you, Dominie?” + </p> + <p> + “Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn’t + she?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of + all that the singers of springtime and youth have sung.” He sighed, + shaking his grizzled head mournfully. “‘And all that glory now + lies dimmed in death.’ It doesn’t seem believable.” + </p> + <p> + He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be + vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He + stared at it musing. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve often wondered if she cared for him,” he murmured. + </p> + <p> + “For him? For Worth!” I exclaimed in amazement. “Were + they friends?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very + strangely the day of his death and never came back.” + </p> + <p> + From the physician’s corner there came an indeterminate grunt. + </p> + <p> + “If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say + that on the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only + in the line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century + poets. But even that interest died out. It was months before the—the + tragedy that he stopped coming to the Library.” + </p> + <p> + “It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, + wasn’t it?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard + it hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain.” He + turned inquiringly to the far, dim corner. + </p> + <p> + Out of it the Little Red Doctor barked: “Death had him by the + throat.” + </p> + <p> + “Death? In what form?” + </p> + <p> + “Slow, sure fingers, shutting off his breath. Do you need further + details or will the dry, scientific term, epithelioma, be enough?” + The voice came grim out of the gloom. No answer being returned, it + continued: “I’ve had easier jobs than telling Ned Worth. It + was hopeless from the first. My old friend, Death, had too long a start on + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it something that affected his mind?” + </p> + <p> + “No. His mind was perfectly clear. Vividly clear. May I take my last + verdict, when it comes, with a spirit as clear and as noble.” + </p> + <p> + Silence fell, and in the stillness we heard the Little Red Doctor + communing with memories. Now and then came a muttered word. “Suicide!” + in a snarl of scornful rejection. “Fool-made definitions!” + Presently, “Story for a romancer, not a physician.” He seemed + to be canvassing an inadequacy in himself with dissatisfaction. Then, more + clearly: “Love from the first. At a glance, perhaps. The contagion + of flame for powder. But in that abyss together they saw each other’s + soul.” + </p> + <p> + “The Little Red Doctor is turning poet,” said Sheldon to me in + an incredulous whisper. + </p> + <p> + There was the snap and crackle of a match from the shadowed corner. The + keen, gnarled young face sprang from the darkness, vivid and softened with + a strange triumph, then receded behind an imperfect circle, clouded the + next instant by a nimbus of smoke. The Little Red Doctor spoke. + </p> + <p> + Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men, + who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don’t suppose any one ever + came in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without + loving him for it. “Immortal hilarity!” The phrase might have + been coined for him. + </p> + <p> + It wasn’t as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing + sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn’t want him to be alone that + first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would have + thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as steady + as a rock. + </p> + <p> + “No danger of my being a miser of life,” he said. “You’ve + given me leave to spend freely what’s left of it.” Well, he + spent. Freely and splendidly! + </p> + <p> + The spacious old library on the second floor—you know it, Dominie, + smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned’s servant bringing up the rear + with a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over + everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the + corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house + into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since + the others of the family died, Ned hadn’t stayed there long enough + at a time to humanize it. + </p> + <p> + Ned’s man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some + late purchases, and left to execute them. I went over to open the two + deep-set windows on the farther side of the room. It was a still, close + October night, and the late scent of warmed-over earth came up to me out + of Ely Crouch’s garden next door. From where I stood in the broad + embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I could + see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his desk + sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon his face, + without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry the picture in my + mind. + </p> + <p> + “What’s become of you, Chris?” he demanded presently. I + came out into the main part of the room. “Oh, there you are! You’ll + look after a few little matters for me, won’t you?” He + indicated a sheaf of papers. + </p> + <p> + “You needn’t be in such a hurry,” said I with illogical + resentment. “It isn’t going to be to-morrow or next week.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it?” Something in his tone made me look at him + sharply. “Six months or three months or to-morrow,” he added, + more lightly; “what does it matter as long as it’s sure! You + know, what I appreciate is that you gave me the truth straight.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a luxury few of my patients get. Their constitutions won’t + stand it.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a compliment to my nerve. Strangely enough I don’t + feel nervous about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I do. Damnably! About something, anyway. There’s something + wrong with this room, Ned. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you know?” he laughed. “It’s the + sepulchral silence of Old Grandfather Clock, over there. You’re + looking right at him and wondering subconsciously why he doesn’t + make a noise like Time.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s easily remedied.” Consulting my watch I set and + wound the ancient timepiece. Its comfortable iteration made the place at + once more livable. Immediately it struck the hour. + </p> + <p> + “Ten o’clock,” I said, and parted the draperies at the + lower window to look out again. “Ten o’clock of a still, + cloudy night and—and the devil is on a prowl in his garden.” + </p> + <p> + “Meaning my highly respected neighbor and ornament to the local bar, + the Honorable Ely Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly. Preceded by a familiar spirit in animal form.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s his pet ferret and boon companion.” + </p> + <p> + “Not his only companion. There’s some one with him,” I + said. “A woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t admire her taste in romance,” said Ned. + </p> + <p> + “Nor her discretion. You know what they say: ‘A dollar or a + woman never safe alone with Ely Crouch.’” + </p> + <p> + “My dollars certainly weren’t,” observed Ned. + </p> + <p> + “How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my + neighbor’s flirtations and look here.” + </p> + <p> + I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded by + a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me,” he + added. + </p> + <p> + “Is it enough to go on with, Ned?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + He smiled at me. “Plenty for my time. You forget.” + </p> + <p> + For the moment I had forgotten. “But what on earth are you going to + do with all that ready cash?” + </p> + <p> + “Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed + down your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I’ve + planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think + of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day I’ve + struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the simple + medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, Chris, and + come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we’ll work wonders.” + </p> + <p> + “And after?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, after! Well, there’ll be no further reason for the + ‘permanent possibility of sensation’ on my part. That’s + your precious science’s best definition of life, I believe. It doesn’t + appeal to one as alluring when the sensation promises to become—well, + increasingly unpleasant.” + </p> + <p> + There was no mistaking his meaning. “I can’t have that, my + son,” I protested. + </p> + <p> + “No? That’s a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at + it from my point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, + rather than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no + meaning for a man in my condition. If you’ll tell me there’s a + chance, one mere, remote human chance—” He paused, turning to + me with what was almost appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! + But Ned Worth was the kind that you can’t lie to. I looked at him + standing there so strong and fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in + his veins, sentenced beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of + another man under doom: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day.” + </pre> + <p> + We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like + the veil over the eagle’s eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I + could not trust my voice to answer him. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” he said; “you can’t.” His hand + fell on my arm. “I’m sorry, Chris,” he said in that + winning voice of his; “I shouldn’t plague you for something + that you can’t give me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you this, anyway,” said I: “that it’s + something less than courage to give up until the time comes. You didn’t + give your life. You haven’t the right to take it; anyway, not until + its last usefulness is over.” + </p> + <p> + He made a movement of impatience. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m not asking you to endure torture. I’d release + you myself from that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But + how can you tell that being alive instead of dead next week or next month + may not make an eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn’t + played out yet. Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the + curtain is rung down?” + </p> + <p> + “Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down + into that garden and kill Ely Crouch,” he suggested, smiling. + “That would be a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and + peaceful death, wouldn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable,” I + answered, relieved at his change of tone. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is.” He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. + “Chris, what do you believe comes after?” + </p> + <p> + “Justice.” + </p> + <p> + “A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, + in being sport enough to play the game through. You’re right, old + hard-shell. I’ll stick it out. It will only mean spending <i>this</i>”—he + swept the money back into its repository—“a little more + slowly.” + </p> + <p> + “I was sure I could count on you,” I said. “Now I can + give you the talisman.” I set on the desk before him a small + pasteboard box. “Pay strict attention. You see that label? That’s + to remind you. One tablet if you can’t sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded. + </p> + <p> + “But three at one time and you’ll sleep so sound that nothing + will ever awaken you.” + </p> + <p> + “Good old Chris!” Opening the box, he fingered the pellets + curiously. “A blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “On trust, Ned.” + </p> + <p> + “On honor,” he agreed. “Then I mustn’t expunge old + Crouch? It’s a disappointment,” he added gayly. + </p> + <p> + He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. His + voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains. + </p> + <p> + “Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for + it. I’ll stay here and breathe it.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said I. “I’ve five minutes of telephoning + to do. Then I’ll be back.” + </p> + <p> + Nobody can ever tell me again that there’s an instinct which feels + the presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within arm’s-length + of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate emotions. I + could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she crouched, hidden in + the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as if the whole + atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the terrific passion + of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt—nothing. No sense, as + I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will which nerved + and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. Afterward she was + unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must have been for some + minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of terror was the word + “Suicide.” It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at first; + and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what followed, my + instructions about the poison took on the voice of a ministering + providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor had she + recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of the disease. + But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass on my way to + the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what she told me + later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my return, I piece + together the events which so swiftly followed. + </p> + <p> + A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner. As + it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper window + those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure had + almost reached the desk. The face was turned from him. Even in that moment + of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to her + body, with a curious awkwardness. + </p> + <p> + “Hello!” he challenged. + </p> + <p> + She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush. Her + hand fell upon the box of pellets. She turned, clutching that little box + of desperate hopes to her bosom. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! Virginia!” he exclaimed. “Miss Kingsley!” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Worth! Was it you I heard? Why—how are you here?” + </p> + <p> + “This is my house.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know.” Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a + watchful animal, she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself + and a possible interference. Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, + impeded her fumbling efforts to open the box. Presently, however, the + cover yielded. + </p> + <p> + He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope. His brain + hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering upon + her obvious and preposterous purpose. Suddenly, as her fingers trembled + among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem was formed. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want with my tonic?” he asked coolly. + </p> + <p> + “Tonic? I—I thought—” + </p> + <p> + “You thought it was the poison. Well, you’ve got the wrong + box. The poison box is in the drawer.” + </p> + <p> + “In the drawer,” she repeated. She spoke in the mechanical + voice of one desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital + project. Her nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk. + </p> + <p> + He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, and + dropped it into his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing + eyes. “Then it <i>was</i> the poison!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Give it back to me!” she implored, like a bereft child. + “Oh, give it to me!” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you want to kill yourself?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him in dumb despair. + </p> + <p> + “How did you get here?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Your fire escape.” + </p> + <p> + “And to that from the garden wall, I suppose? So <i>you</i> were Ely + Crouch’s companion,” he cried with a changed voice. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t,” she shuddered, throwing her right arm over her + face. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” he said gently. “Take a swallow of + this water. What’s the matter with your arm? Are you hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” Her eyes would not meet his. They were fixed obstinately + upon the pocket into which he had dropped the poison. + </p> + <p> + “It’s incredible!” he burst out. “You with your + youth and loveliness! With everything that makes life sweet for yourself + and others. What madness—” He broke off and his voice softened + into persuasion. “We were almost friends, once. Can’t I—won’t + you let me help? Don’t you think you can trust me?” + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes to his, and he read in them hopeless terror. “Yes, + I could trust you. But there is only one help for me now. And you’ve + taken it from me.” + </p> + <p> + “Who can tell? You’ve been badly frightened,” he said in + as soothing a tone as he could command. “Try to believe that no harm + can come to you here, and that I—I would give the blood of my heart + to save you from harm or danger. You said you could trust me. What was + your errand with Ely Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “Money.” + </p> + <p> + “Money!” he repeated, drawing back. + </p> + <p> + “It was our own; my sister’s and mine. Mr. Crouch had it. He + had managed our affairs since my father’s death. I could never get + an accounting from him. To-day the doctor told me that Alice must go away + at once for an operation. And to-day Mr. Crouch made this appointment for + to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you know his reputation? Weren’t you afraid?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t think of fear. When I told him how matters stood, he + offered me money, but—but—Oh, I can’t tell you!” + </p> + <p> + “No need,” he said quickly. “I know what he is. I was + joking when I spoke of killing him, a little while ago. By God, I wish I + had killed him! It isn’t too late now.” + </p> + <p> + “It <i>is</i> too late.” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes, dilated, were fixed upon his. + </p> + <p> + “Why? How—too late?” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + “I killed him.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i>! You—killed—Ely—Crouch?” + </p> + <p> + “He had a cane,” she said, in a hurried, flat, half-whisper. + “When he caught at me, I tried to get it to defend myself. The + handle pulled out. There was a dagger on it. He came at me again. I didn’t + realize what I was doing. All I could see was that hateful face drawing + nearer. Then it changed and he seemed to dissolve into a hideous heap. I + didn’t mean to kill him.” Her voice rose in the struggle + against hysteria. “God knows, I didn’t mean to kill him.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” + </p> + <p> + His hands fell on her shoulders and held her against the onset. Energy and + resolution quickened in his eyes. “Who knows of your being in the + garden?” + </p> + <p> + “No one.” + </p> + <p> + “Any one see you climb the wall and come here?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Or know that you had an appointment with him?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you do exactly as I tell you?” + </p> + <p> + “What is the use?” she said dully. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to get you out of here.” + </p> + <p> + “I should have to face it later. I couldn’t face it—the + horror and shame of it. I’d rather die a thousand times.” She + lifted her arms, the coat opened, and the cane-handled blade dropped to + the floor, and rolled. She shuddered away from it. “I kept that for + myself, but I couldn’t do it. It’s got his blood on it. When I + heard the doctor speak of the poison, it seemed like a miracle of + Providence sent to guide me. Oh, give it to me! Is it”—she + faltered—“is it quick?” + </p> + <p> + “Steady!” Stooping he picked up the weapon. “It needn’t + come to that, if you can play your part. Have you got the courage to walk + out of this house and go home to safety? Absolute safety!” + </p> + <p> + She searched his face in bewilderment. “I—don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “If I give you my word of honor that it depends only on yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Pull yourself together. Go downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. + You’ll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head + up, and go home. You’re as safe as though you’d never seen Ely + Crouch. There’s no clue to you.” + </p> + <p> + “No clue! Look down the fire escape!” + </p> + <p> + He crossed the room at a bound. Beneath him, its evil snout pointed + upwards, sat the dead man’s familiar spirit. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! The ferret!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s been sitting there, watching, watching, watching.” + </p> + <p> + “The more reason for haste. Pull yourself together. Forward, <i>march</i>!” + he cried, pressing his will upon her. + </p> + <p> + “But you? When they come what will you say to them?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll fix up something.” He drew back from the window, + lowering his voice. “Men in the garden. A policeman.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ve found him!” She fell into Ned’s chair, + dropping her head in her hands. For an instant he studied her. Then he + took his great and tender resolution. His hand fell warm and firm on her + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Listen; suppose they suspect some one else?” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Me.” + </p> + <p> + “You? Why should they?” + </p> + <p> + “Circumstances. The place. The weapon here in my possession. My + known trouble with Ely Crouch. Don’t you see how it all fits in?” + </p> + <p> + She recovered from the stupor of surprise into which his suggestion had + plunged her. “Are you mad? Do you think that I’d let you + sacrifice yourself? What am I to you that you should do this for me?” + </p> + <p> + “The woman I love,” he said quietly. “I have loved you + from the first day that I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + It was at this moment that I returned and halted at the door, an unwilling + witness to the rest, only half understanding, not daring to move. I saw + the splendid color mount and glorify her beauty. I saw her hands go out to + him half in appeal, half in rejection. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s madness!” she cried. “It’s your + life you’re offering me.” + </p> + <p> + “What else should I offer you—you who have given life its real + meaning for me?” + </p> + <p> + He caught her hands in his and held them. He caught her eyes in his and + held them. Then he began speaking, evenly, soothingly, persuasively, + binding her to his will. + </p> + <p> + “What does my life amount to? Think how little it means. A few more + weeks of waiting. Then the suffering: then the release. You heard Dr. + Smith. You know. You understand. Didn’t you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she breathed. + </p> + <p> + “Then you must see what a splendid way out this is for me. No more + waiting. No pain. Death never came to any one so kindly before. It’s + my chance, if only you’ll make it worth while. Will you?” he + pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the wonder of it!” she whispered, gazing on him with + parted lips. But he did not understand, yet. He pressed what he thought to + be his advantage. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he cried, suddenly dropping her hands and catching up + the bills from the valise. “Here’s safety. Here’s life. + For you and your sister, both. You spoke of Providence a moment ago. Here’s + Providence for you! Quick! Take it.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she asked, drawing away as he sought to thrust + the money into her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Twenty thousand dollars. More. It doesn’t matter. It’s + life for both of you. Have you the right to refuse it? Take it and go.” + </p> + <p> + She let the bank-notes fall from her hands unnoticed. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I would leave you <i>now</i>?” she cried in a + voice of thrilled music. “Even if they weren’t sure to trace + me, as they would be.” + </p> + <p> + This last she uttered as an unimportant matter dismissed with + indifference. + </p> + <p> + “There will be nothing to trace. My confession will cover the + ground.” + </p> + <p> + “Confession? To what?” + </p> + <p> + “To the murder of Ely Crouch.” + </p> + <p> + Some sort of sound I was conscious of making. I suppose I gasped. But they + were too engrossed to hear. + </p> + <p> + “You would do even that? But the penalty—the shame—” + </p> + <p> + “What do they matter to a dying man?” he retorted impatiently. + </p> + <p> + She had fallen back from him, in the shock of his suggestion, but now she + came forward again slowly, her glorious eyes fixed on his. So they stood + face to face, soul to soul, deep answering unto deep, and, as I sit here + speaking, I saw the wonder and the miracle flower in her face. When she + spoke again, her words seemed the inevitable expression of that which had + passed silently between them. + </p> + <p> + “Do you love me?” + </p> + <p> + “Before God I do,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + “Take me away! There’s time yet. I’ll go with you + anywhere, anywhere! I’m all yours. I’ve loved you from the + first, I think, as you have loved me. All I ask is to live for you, and + when you die, to die with you.” + </p> + <p> + Fire flashed from his face at the call. He took a step toward her. A + shout, half-muffled, sounded from outside the window. Instantly the light + and passion died in his eyes. I have never seen a face at once so stern + and so gentle as his was when he caught the outreaching hands in his own. + </p> + <p> + “You forget that they must find one of us, or it’s all no use. + Listen carefully, dear one. If you truly love me, you must do as I bid + you. Give me my chance of fooling fate; of making my death worth while. It + won’t be hard.” He took the little box from his pocket. + “It will be very easy.” + </p> + <p> + “Give it to me, too,” she pleaded like a child. “Ah, + Ned, we can’t part now! Both of us together.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head, smiling. The man’s face was as beautiful as a god’s + at that moment or an angel’s. “You must go back to your + sister,” he said simply. “You haven’t the right to die.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to the table, drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote four words. + You all know what they were; his confession. Then his hand went up, a + swift movement, and a moment later he was setting back the glass of water + upon the desk whence he had taken it. + </p> + <p> + “Love and glory of my life, will you go?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Not until then did the paralysis, which had gripped me when I saw Ned turn + the pellets into his hand, relax. I ran forward. The girl cried out. Ned + met me with his hand against my breast. + </p> + <p> + “How much have you heard?” he said quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll understand.” His faith was more + irresistible than a thousand arguments. “Take her home, Chris.” + </p> + <p> + I held out my hand. “Come,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She turned and faced him. “Must I? Alone?” What a depth of + desolation in that word! + </p> + <p> + “There is no other way, dearest one.” + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye, then, until we meet,” she said in the passionate + music of her voice. “Every beat of my heart will bring me nearer to + you. There will be no other life for me. Soon or late I’ll come to + you. You believe it. Say you believe it!” + </p> + <p> + “I believe it.” He bent and kissed her lips. Then his form + slackened away from the arms that clasped it, and sank into the chair. A + policeman’s whistle shrilled outside the window. The faintest + flicker of a smile passed over the face of the sleeper. + </p> + <p> + I took her away, still with that unearthly ecstasy on her face. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The glow of the narrator’s cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a + world of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. + When I found my voice, it was hardly more than a whisper. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! What a tragedy!” + </p> + <p> + “Tragedy? You think it so?” The Little Red Doctor’s + gnarled face gleamed strangely behind the tiny radiance. “Dominie, + you have a queer notion of this life and little faith in the next.” + </p> + <p> + “‘She met death as a tryst,’” murmured the old + librarian. “And he! ‘Trailing clouds of glory!’ The triumph of + that victory over fate! One would like to have seen the meeting between + them, after the waiting.” + </p> + <p> + The Little Red Doctor rose. “When some brutal and needless tragedy + of the sort that we medical men witness so often shakes my faith in my + kind, I turn to think of those two in the splendor of their last meeting + on earth, the man with the courage to face death, the woman with the + courage to face life.” + </p> + <p> + He strode over to the table and lifted the newspaper, which had slipped to + the floor unnoticed. The girlish face turned toward us its irresistible + appeal, yearning out from amidst the lurid indignities of print. + </p> + <p> + “You heard from her afterward?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Often. The sister died and left her nothing to live for but her + promise. Always in her letters sounded the note of courage and of waiting. + It was in the last word I had from her—received since her death—set + to the song of some poet, I don’t know who. You ought to know, Mr. + Sheldon.” + </p> + <p> + His deep voice rose to the rhythm. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat + Measure the length of every moment gone. + Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet + And light the letters on a churchyard stone.— + And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet!’” + </pre> + <p> + “May Probyn,” the librarian identified. “Too few people + know her. A wonderful poem!” + </p> + <p> + Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. + Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging wind + had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western cloud + shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the ancient + house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, gleamed, + through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. Behind me in + the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and death repeated + once more the message of imperishable hope: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet.’” + </pre> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + +<pre> + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + +***** This file should be named 10944-h.htm or 10944-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/4/10944/ + +Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: From a Bench in Our Square + +Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams + +Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10944] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + + + + +Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + +BY + +Samuel Hopkins Adams + +1922 + + + + +_Contents_ + + +_A Patroness of Art_ + +_The House of Silvery Voices_ + +_Home-Seekers' Goal_ + +_The Guardian of God's Acre_ + +_For Mayme, Read Mary_ + +_Barbran_ + +_Plooie of Our Square_ + +_Triumph_ + + + + +FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE + + + + +A PATRONESS OF ART + + +I + +Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue) +is the style whereby he is known to Our Square. + +Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest, +whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in +anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if +you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps +aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color +possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Elite +Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged +ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or, +if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be, +however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for +chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by +appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art. + +Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April +day, upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light +on it, when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding +him with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest. + +"What d'ye think of _that_?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in a +set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon the +butterfly. + +"Rotten," was the prompt response. + +"_What_!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees. + +"Punk." + +Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest +ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself +out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his +finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his +original critique, in a series of shrill roars: + +"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacre tas de--de--piffle!" +Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, +tainted by his French origin. + +He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly +and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon +overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned +temple of Art. + +"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you could +do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to +his critic! + +"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost +as time-honored as the challenge. + +Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible +murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks +had himself under control. + +"Try it," he said grimly. + +The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him. + +"You want me to draw a picture? There?" + +"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body." + +The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter +Quick Banta's creation. + +"What is that? A bool-rush?" + +"It's a laylock; that's what it is." + +"And the little bird that goes to light--" + +"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard. +"That's a butterfly." + +"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And +the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy +hands fluttered and sank. + +"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk." + +From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He +fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted +the traffic. Only once did he speak: + +"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up. + +Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the +last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but +with supreme confidence. + +"There!" said he. + +It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The +arrangements were false. + +_But_--the lilac bloomed. _And_--the butterfly hovered. The artist had +spoken through his ordained medium and the presentment of life stood +forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. But beneath his uncouth +exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul. + +"Son," said he, "you're a wonder. Wanta keep them crayons?" + +Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one +of the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like +eyes of gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta +proceeded to expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving +the youngster time to recover before the inevitable questioning began. + +"Where did you learn that?" + +"Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19." + +"Would you like to work for me?" + +"How?" + +Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk. + +"That?" The boy laughed happily. "That ain't work. That's fun." + +So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier +(soon simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta's +roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first +appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as +the local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and +practice of the "sand-dabs." Out of the joint takings grew a bank +account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy's +education. + +"He's a swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't care +if he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nize +aristocracy when I see it. And I want him brung up accordin'." + +So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an +old, half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie +came to Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes +(this was before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the +Gaunt), I took him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love +with her beauty and her genius alike, all of which was good for his +developing soul. She arranged for his art training. + +"But you know, Dominie," she used to say, wagging her head like a +profound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsighted +on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will be +doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor +little figurines." + +To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest +nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she +would help him just the same! + +But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines. + + +II + +Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She would +have objected to the latter classification, averring that, with the +rising cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keep +her head above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, she +scorned the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performed +prodigious feats of committee work, all of it meritorious and some of it +useful? She had. It had left her with a dangerous and destructive +appetite for doing good to people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was a +distracting young person. Few looked at her once without wanting to look +again, and not a few looked again to their undoing. + +Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus of +Fifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a large +and needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn't take to it. As +recipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss Holland +transferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner of the +world she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged one +with a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She came +to us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the upper +strata to our humbler domain, who--Pagan that she is!--indiscriminately +accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, +Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of +high-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident +wealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for women +whose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. She +formed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the +printer, who knows half the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the +tailor, to whom Carlyle is by way of being light reading. She delivered +some edifying exhortations upon the subject of Americanism to Polyglot +Elsa, of the Elite Restaurant (who had taken upon her sturdy young +shoulders the support of an old mother and a paralytic sister, so that +her two brothers might enlist for the war--a detail of patriotism which +the dispenser of platitudes might have learned by judicious inquiry). +And so forth and so on. Miss Roberta Holland meant well, but she had +many things to learn and no master to teach her. + +Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, +deft, and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she +clashed her lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel +of the Little Red Doctor's experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who +was pressed for time at the moment): "Take orders. Or get out. Which?" + +She straightened like a soldier. "Tell me what you want done." + +At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer +service, she turned shining eyes upon him. "I've never been so treated +in my life! You're a bully and a brute." + +"You're a brick," retorted the Little Red Doctor. "I'll send for you +next time Our Square needs help." + +"I'll come," said she, and they shook hands solemnly. + +Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her +ministrations, and even those of us who least approved her activities +felt the stir of radiance and color which she brought with her. + +On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland, +seated in the Bonnie Lassie's front window, was maturing some new and +benign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the sculptress +at work on a group: + +"There's a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk." + +"That's Peter Quick Banta. He's a fellow artist." + +"And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable lion; +quite a beautiful lion. He's making more marks." + +"Let him make all he wants." + +"They're waving their arms at each other. At least the queer man is. I +think they're going to fight." + +"They won't. It's only an academic discussion on technique." + +"Who is the young one?" + +"He's the ruin of what might have been a big artist." + +"No! Is he? What did it? Drink?" + +"Does he look it?" + +The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. "It's a +peculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He's quite poorly dressed. +Does he need money? Is that what's wrong?" + +"That's it, Bobbie," returned the Bonnie Lassie with a half-smile. "He +needs the money." + +The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland's fatally +well-meaning soul. "Would it be a case where I could help? I'd love to +put a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he's real?" + +On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincere +and direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesser +interests, such as life and love and human fate. + +"No; I'm not. If he were, I doubt whether he'd have let himself go so +wrong." + +"Perhaps it isn't too late," said the amateur missionary hopefully. "Is +he a man to whom one could offer money?" + +The Bonnie Lassie's smile broadened without change in its subtle +quality. "Julien Tenney isn't exactly a pauper. He just thinks he can't +afford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to." + +"What ought he to do?" + +"Paint--paint--paint!" said the Bonnie Lassie vehemently. "Five years +ago I believe he had the makings of a great painter in him. And now look +what he's doing!" + +"Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?" + +"Worse. Commercial art." + +"Designs and that sort of thing?" + +"Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and gloriously +dressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, riding +in super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth with +super-toothbrushes?" + +"I suppose so," said the girl vaguely. + +"He draws those." + +"Is that what you call pot-boiling?" + +"One kind." + +"And I suppose it pays just a pittance." + +"Well," replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, "he sticks to it, so it +must support him." + +"Then I'm going to help him." + +"'To fulfill his destiny,' is the accepted phrase," said the Bonnie +Lassie wickedly. "I'll call him in for you to look over. But you'd best +leave the arrangements for a later meeting." + +Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at home +despite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to Miss +Holland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departure +at once. + +"Who is she?" asked Julien, staring after her. + +"Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown." + +"What's she doing here?" + +"Good." + +"O Lord!" said he in pained tones. "Has she got a Cause?" + +"Naturally." + +"Philanthropist?" + +"Worse." + +"There ain't no sich a animile." + +"There is. She's a patron of art." + +"Wow!" + +"Yes. She's going to patronize you." + +"Not if I see her first. How do _I_ qualify as a subject?" + +"She considered you a wasted life." + +"Where does she get that idea?" + +The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye of +a stoical figurine and pointed it at herself. + +"Do you think that's fair?" demanded the indignant youth. + +The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. "Do you +or do you not," she challenged, "invade our humble precincts in a +five-thousand-dollar automobile?" + +"It's my only extravagance." + +"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park, +when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest +working-man?" + +"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated. +"You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place +I can work in quietly--" + +"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you +left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress. + +Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell +all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked. + +"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely +sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning +to help you realize your destiny." + +"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows. + +"To be a great painter." + +The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've +saved enough--" + +"Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite +ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and +hell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of a +pavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better." + +"Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly. + +If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie was +busied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzling +radiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned it +from the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise and +wonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, she +had guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artistic +senses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--and +she said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, you +can't paint." + +"Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--" + +"Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?" + +"Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask." + +"Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly. + +"Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smile +he broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he said +professionally; "and--and--well, unusual." + +"Pooh! 'Dangerous' is the word. Remember it," warned the Bonnie Lassie. +"She's a devastating whirlwind, that child, and she comes down here +partly to get away from the wreckage. Now, if you play your part +cleverly--" + +"I'm not going to play any part." + +"Then it's all up. How is a patroness of Art going to patronize you, +unless you're a poor and struggling young artist, living from hand to +mouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won't have to play a part as far as +the pot-boiling goes," added his monitress viciously. "Only, don't let +her know that the rewards of your shame run to high-powered cars and +high-class apartments. Remember, you're poor but honest. Perhaps she'll +give you money." + +"Perhaps she won't," retorted the youth explosively. + +"Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I'll bring her around to see +you and you'll have to work the sittings yourself." + +As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien's attic +needed no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. He +worked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environment +where there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that Miss +Roberta Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanly +poverty. (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me along +to make up that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien dropped +into the background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board, +sketching eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of good +deeds in talk. Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers do +not pay to any but a master-draughtsman the prices which "J.T."--with +an arrow transfixing the initials--gets; and Julien was as deft and +rapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, the +visitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out her +hand for the cardboard. + +To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is an +adequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable little +gem in black-and-white with cool approbation. + +"Quite clever," she was pleased to say. "Would you care to sell it?" + +"I don't think it would be exactly--" A stern glance from the Bonnie +Lassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest of the sentence. + +"Would ten dollars be too little?" asked the visitor with bright +beneficence. + +"Too much," he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a little +crayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fifty +times that.) + +The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table. + +"Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?" he asked. + +"Does that take long?" she said doubtfully. "I'm very busy." + +"You really should try it, Bobbie," put in the crafty Bonnie Lassie. "It +might give him the start he needs." + +What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, but +she had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was +from time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland's youthful loveliness +and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly +foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only +if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to +keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there +are few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien +when he chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with a +passionate intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go; +tossing aside the most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened; +throwing himself intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise. +The fact is, he had long been starved for color and was now satiating +his soul with it. Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first. +The Bonnie Lassie, wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that could +not last. Men who are not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain a +neutral attitude toward such creatures of grace and splendor as +Bobbie Holland. + +Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be called +friendship; he was not, to Bobbie's recognition, a habitant of her +world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have +renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make +love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist +inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, +perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy +grew, he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above +the rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed +Peter Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, a +bath, and a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the more +surprising in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time for +sittings now. Between visits she took to going to the Metropolitan +Museum and conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a view +to helping her protege form sound artistic tastes. (When the Bonnie +Lassie heard that, she all but choked.) As for Julien! + +"This is all very well," he said, one day in the sculptress's studio; +"but sooner or later she's going to catch me at it." + +"What then?" asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her work. + +"She'll go away." + +"Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won't it?" + +"Oh, yes. That'll be finished." + +This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked back +again. + +"In any case she'll have to go away some day--won't she?" + +"I suppose so," returned he in a gloomy growl. + +"I warned you at the outset, 'Dangerous,'" she pointed out. + +They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of Julien +Tenny's brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as I +saw them occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a budding +orchid, he in the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenely +unconscious of any incongruity. + +"Do you think," I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my bench one +afternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to where her +car waited, "that she is doing him as much good as she thinks she is, or +ought to?" + +"Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie +with dignity. + +"I'm quite serious," I protested. + +"And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you know +her." + +"Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evident +fact?" + +"Only," pursued my companion, ignoring the question, "she is bored and a +little spoiled." + +"So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more spoiled." + +"Julien won't spoil her." + +"He certainly doesn't appear to bore her." + +"She's having the tables turned on her without knowing it. Julien is +doing her a lot of good. Already she's far less beneficent and bountiful +and all that sort of stuff." + +"Lassie," said I, "what, if I may so express myself, is the big idea?" + +"Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar," she reproved. +"However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. And it's +_mine_, that big idea." + +"Mightn't it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect that the +experience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left when +Bobbie Holland goes?" + +"Pooh! Don't be an oracular sphinx," was all that I got for my pains. + +Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If the +painting seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not be +said of the fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourished +along, and one day a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element of +historical personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session, +displaced a hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script upon +the plastering Beranger's famous line: + + "Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans!" + +"Did you write that there?" asked the girl. + +"Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word." + +"How did you come to know Beranger?" + +"I'm French born." + +"'In a garret how good is life at twenty,'" she translated freely. "I +wouldn't have thought"--she turned her softly brilliant regard upon +him--"that life had been so good to you." + +"It has," was the rejoinder. "But never so good as now." + +"I've often wondered--you seem to know so many things--where you got +your education?" + +"Here and there and everywhere. It's only a patchwork sort of thing." +(Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my two-hours-a-day of +brain-hammering, and the free run of my library.) + +"You're a very puzzling person," said she And when a woman says that to +a man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie Lassie, who knows +everything, is my authority for the statement.) + +To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien's "grenier" that +day. + +"Cecily," she said, in the most casual manner she could contrive, "who +_is_ Julien Tenney?" + +"Nobody." + +"You know what I mean," pleaded the girl. "_What_ is he?" + +"A brand snatched from the pot-boiling," returned the Bonnie Lassie, +quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her companion was. + +"Please don't be clever. Be nice and tell me--" + +"'Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,'" declaimed the +Bonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. "You want me to define +his social status for you and tell you whether you'd better invite him +to dinner. You'd better not. He might swallow his knife." + +"You know he wouldn't!" denied the girl in resentful tones. "I've never +known any one with more instinctive good manners. He seems to go right +naturally." + +"All due to my influence and training," bragged the Bonnie Lassie. "I +helped bring him up." + +"Then you must know something of his antecedents." + +"Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with the +manners of a _preux chevalier_. Anyway, he never swallowed any of _my_ +knives. Though he's had plenty of opportunity." + +"It's very puzzling," lamented Bobbie. + +"Why let it prey like a worm i' the bud of your mind? You're not going +to adopt him, perhaps?" + +For the moment Bobbie Holland's eyes were dreamy and her tongue +unguarded. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," said she with a +gesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble problem. + +"Umph!" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +And continued sculpting. + + +III + +As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would +be surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event +occurred as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs +from the hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when +Bobbie Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew +involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted +his costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the +similarity of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur's livery. + +"Oh!" she cried out, as if something had hurt her. + +Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and +looked at her apprehensively. + +Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, "Do you _have_ to do +that?" + +"Why--er--no," began the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment to +perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon of +golf. Her next words enlightened him. + +"I should think you might have let me help before taking a--servant's +position." + +"It's an honest occupation," he averred. + +"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort. + +"Off and on. There's good money in it." + +"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can afford +to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "It +isn't fair!" + +"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly. + +Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased +to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him +painful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big +theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable +columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at +the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of +the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a +glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's +exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of +four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw +that he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his +original intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. +He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that +functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a +twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a +black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the +patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was +performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus. + +Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable +appetite. + +Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of +shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, +stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or +drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an +expressive monosyllable. + +"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you +less harm." + +"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the +forks?" + +"Yes," said Bobbie faintly. + +"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, +it _is!_" + +"Do you think you know him?" + +"Know him! I _know_ him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpre. +He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out +that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a +hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!" + +"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was +hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, +is there?" + +"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to +get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into +partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--" + +"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him +frightfully." + +But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her +painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair +vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth +behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to +time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, +he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his +interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't. + +To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of +it who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult +and delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school. +Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both +the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither +answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme +gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding +that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was. + +The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable +unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon +Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, +Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a +composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of +Thornsen's Elite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to +observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the +corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of +sidewalks. + +"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?" + +"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes. + +"What is he doing?" + +"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-view +school of art." + +"Yes, but what does he do it for?" + +"His living." + +"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him +something?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on hands +and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a red +bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers. + +"I think he'd be tickled pink." + +She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her +companion's hand. + +"_You_ give it to him. I think he'd like it better." + +"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'd +take it from me." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimately +connected." He raised his voice. "Hello, Dad!" + +The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, +replied, "Hello, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think of +_that_?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayon +at the green-headed red-bird. + +"Some parrot!" enthused Julien. + +"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist +indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color." + +"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron who +wants to contribute to the cause." + +The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out +her quarter. + +"I--I--don't know," she began. "I was interested in your picture and I +thought--Mr. Tenney said--" + +Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. "Thank you," said +he. "There ain't much appreciation of art just at this season. But if +you'll come down to Coney about June, I'll show you some sand-modeling +that _is_ sand-modeling--'s much as five dollars a day I've taken +in there." + +Miss Holland recovered her social poise. + +"I'd like to very much," she said cheerfully. + +She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a little +jarringly. "Well," he said, "does that help you to place me?" + +"I'm not trying to place you," she answered. + +"Is that quite true?" he mocked. + +"No; it isn't. It's a downright lie," said Bobbie finding courage to +raise her eyes to his. + +"And now, I suppose, I shall be 'my good man' or something like that, to +you." + +"Do you think it likely?" + +"You called MacLachan that, you know," he reminded her. + +"Long ago. When I was--when I didn't understand Our Square." + +"And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book to +your penetrating vision." + +Her lip quivered. "I don't know why you should want to be so hateful to +me." + +For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look that +thrilled and daunted her. "To keep from being something else that I've +no right to be," he muttered. + +"How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the +picture?" she asked, striving to get on safer ground. + +"Only one or two, I suppose," he answered morosely. + +Such was Julien's condition of mind after the last sitting that he +actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the +door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening +in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in +the Bonnie Lassie's face as she studied it. + +"He's done it!" she exclaimed. "Flower and flame! Why did I ever take to +sculpture? One can't get that in the metal." + +"He's done it," I echoed. + +"Of course, technically, it's rather a sloppy picture." + +"It's a glorious picture!" I cried. + +"Naturally that," returned the exasperating critic. "It always will +be--when you paint with your heart's blood." + +"Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she's +presented?" + +"If she doesn't--which she probably does," said the Bonnie Lassie, "she +will find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I'm +going home to 'phone her." + +In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I saw +her from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowingly +lovely. At the door of the Bonnie Lassie's house she was met with the +challenge direct. + +"What have you been doing to my artistic ward?" + +"Nothing," replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove it +related the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the Taverne +Splendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist. + +"That isn't Julien's father," said the sculptress. "He's only an +adoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he ought to. The real father, +so I've heard, was a French gentleman--" + +"I don't care who his father was!" cried Bobbie. (The Bonnie Lassie's +face took on the expression of an exclamation point.) "I can't bear to +think of his having to do servant's work. And I told him so yesterday." + +"Did you look like that while you were telling him?" + +"Like what? I suppose so." + +"And what did he do?" + +"Do? He didn't do anything." + +"Then," pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, "he's a stick of +wood--hardwood--with a knot-hole for a heart." + +"He isn't! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last." + +"About what?" + +"About taking money." + +"I'm a prophetess! And you're a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. You +_did_ try to give him money." + +"Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. He +wouldn't even let me do that; so I--I--I offered to buy the picture of +me, and he said--he said--Cecily, do you think he's sometimes a little +queer in his head?" + +"Not in the head, necessarily. _What_ did he say?" + +"He said he'd bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And he +said it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him that +I hoped I'd see him when I came back--" + +"Back from where? Are you going away?" + +"Yes; didn't I tell you? On a three months' cruise." + +"Had you told him that?" + +"Of course. That's when I tried to get him to take the money. Cecily--" +The girl's voice shook a little. "You'll tell him, won't you, that he +_must_ keep on painting?" + +"Why? Doesn't he intend to?" + +"He said he'd painted himself out and he didn't think he'd ever _look_ +at color again." + +"He will," said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. "Grief is just +as driving a taskmaster as lo--as other emotions." + +"Grief!" The girl's color ebbed. "Cecily! You don't think I've hurt +him?" + +The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug. + +"Bobbie, do you know what I'd do in your place?" + +"No. What?" + +"I'd go right--straight--back to Julien Tenney's studio." She paused +impressively. + +"Yes?" said the other faintly. + +"And I'd walk right--straight--up to Julien Tenney--" Another pause, +even more impressive. + +"I d-d-don't think I'd--he'd--" + +"And I'd say to him: 'Julien, will you marry me?' Like that." + +"Oh!" said Bobbie in outraged amazement. + +"And maybe--" continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: "maybe I'd kiss +him. Yes. I think I would." + +Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie's large eyes dissolved in +tears. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she sobbed. + +"You won't be ashamed of _yourself_," prophesied the other, "if you do +just as I say, quickly and naturally." + +"Oh, naturally," retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. "I suppose +you think that's natural. Anyway, he probably doesn't care about me at +all that way." + +"Roberta," said the sculptress sternly, "did you _see_ his portrait of +you?" + +"Y-y-yes." + +"And you have the presumption to say that he doesn't care? Why, that +picture doesn't simply tell his secret. It _yells_ it!" + +"I don't care," said the hard-pressed Bobbie. "It hasn't yelled it to +me. _Nobody's_ yelled it to me. And I c-c-can't ask a m-m-man to--to--" + +"Perhaps you can't," allowed her adviser magnanimously. "On second +thought, it won't be necessary. You just go back--after powdering your +nose a little--and say that you've come to see the picture once more, or +that it's a fine day, or that competition is the life of trade, or +that--oh, anything! And, if he doesn't do the rest, I'll kill and +eat him." + +"But, Cecily--" + +"You _would_ be a patroness of Art. Now I've given you something real to +patronize. Don't you dare fail me." Suddenly the speaker gave herself +over to an access of mirth. "Heaven help that young man when he comes +to own up." + +"Own up to what?" + +"Never mind." + +Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her +query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was +curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her +to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to +the attic. + +A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the +studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted. + +"And you're actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year slip +through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?" + +To which Julien's equable accents replied: + +"That's it, Merrill. I'm going to paint." + +The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door +upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an +energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed +expression. At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness +to her aid. + +"Would you think me inexcusably rude," she said softly, "if I asked who +you are?" + +The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of +whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: "I'm George +Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company." + +"And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?" + +"He has. For several years." + +"So that," said the girl, half to herself, "is his pot-boiling." + +"Not a very complimentary term," commented Mr. Merrill, "for the best +black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. Between my concern +and two others he makes a railroad president's income out of it." + +"Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much." + +"In return, may I ask you something?" + +"Certainly." + +"Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing away +his career?" + +"Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?" + +Mr. Merrill's face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle +appeared at the corner of his glasses. "I've seen the portrait," he +replied, and with a bow, went on his way. + +Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with +bright, inscrutable eyes. + +"Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?" she demanded. + +"D---n Merrill!" said Julien with fervor. + +"It's true that your 'pot-boiling' brings you a big income?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?" + +"I don't. That car belongs to me." + +"And your being a waiter? I don't suppose the Taverne Splendide belongs +to you?" + +"An impromptu bit of acting," confessed the abashed Julien. + +"And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?" + +"No. This is mine, really." + +"I don't understand. Why have you done it all?" + +"If you want to know the truth," he said defiantly, "so that I could +keep on seeing you." + +"That's a very poor excuse," she retorted. + +"The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible +interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young +painter--that was the Bonnie Lassie's fault, for I never lied to you +about it--and after we'd started on that track I didn't--well, I didn't +have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade." + +"How you must have laughed at me all the time!" + +He flushed to his angry eyes. "Do you think that is fair?" he retorted. +"Or kind? Or true?" + +"I--I don't know," she faltered. "You let me offer you money. And you've +probably got as much as I have." + +"I won't have from now on, then. I'm going to paint. I thought, when you +told me you were going away, that I couldn't look at a canvas again. But +now I know I was wrong. I've got to paint. You'll have left me that, +at least." + +"Mr. Merrill thinks you're ruining your career. And if you do, it'll be +my fault. I'll never, never, never," said the patroness of Art +desolately, "try to do any one good again!" + +She turned toward the door. + +"At least," said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of +control, "you'll know that it wasn't all masquerade. You'll know why +I'll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another." + +She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the +passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking. + +"Suppose," she said, "I asked you to give it up." + +"You wouldn't," he retorted quickly. + +"No, I wouldn't. But--but--" Her glance, wandering away from him, fell +on the joyous line of Beranger bold above the door. + +"'How good is life in an attic at twenty,'" she murmured. Then, turning +to him, she held out her hands. + +"I could find it good," she said with a soft little falter in her voice, +"even at twenty-two." + +Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, +going by with transfigured faces, stopped. + +"Let's tell Dominie," said Julien. + +I waved a jaunty hand. "I know already," said I, "even if it hadn't been +announced to a waiting world." + +"Wh-wh-why," stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man's waiting a +lifetime to see, "it--it only just happened." + +"Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It's been happening for +weeks. Come with me." + +I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen's Elite Restaurant. There +stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative +symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its +powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of +orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. +"J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, +"Cupid's Token." + +"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic +feet. "How long has this been there?" + +"What're you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It's been +there since noon." + +"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it's very pretty and tasteful even +though it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely and +puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?" + +"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency. +"_I'm_ an artist." + + + +THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES + +Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 +and wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them. +"Kleam, kleam, kleam, kleam," it would pipe pleasantly. + +"BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!" solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its own levity. + +"Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_!" +That was a duet in the middle register. + +Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin +silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny: + +"Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!" + +We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our +remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of +his art. + +Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the +Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the +ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, "For Rental to Suitable +Tenant," invited inspection. "Suitable" is the catch in that +innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no estate +at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant proclivities +named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of prejudice +rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an applicant as +unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for breakfast, or +a glass eye. + +How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr. +Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name +rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He +encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in +painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether +twenty-five dollars a month would be considered. + +"Maybe," returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger introduced himself, +with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale. + +Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing +aristocratic implications. + +"The name," he pronounced, "is satisfactory. The sum is satisfactory. It +is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up in character +and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate." This he had adapted +from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which had come to him +through the mail, very genteelly worded. "Family man?" he added briskly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"How many of you?" + +"Two." + +"Wife?" + +"No, sir," said the little man, very low. + +"Son? Daughter? What age?" + +"I have never been blessed with a child." + +"Then who--" + +"Willy Woolly would share the house with me, sir." + +For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, +with an important expression, seated behind the railing. + +"I don't like dogs," said the Mordaunt Estate curtly. + +"Willy Woolly"--Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his companion--"this +gentleman does not like dogs." + +The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling +deepened when Willy Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising +eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his +hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, +droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip +to finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the +Maiden's Prayer. + +The Estate promptly capitulated. + +"Some pup!" he exclaimed. "When did you want to move in?" + +"At once, if you please." + +Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front +door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and +penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in +the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of +the half-dozen succeeding trips was homogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, +little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn +clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of +white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, +clocks that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, +the owner established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted +them, and wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their +meticulous busy-ness, that place which had for so long been muffled in +quiet and deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting +mechanism and the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the +House of Silvery Voices. + + * * * * * + +Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr. +Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie +Lassie gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up +his charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and +irresponsible, though through no fault of their own. When they were +wound they went. When they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more +than half of them simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion +as to the hour were radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic +eight-day, opposite the front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, +only to be at once contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor +mantel, which announced that it was six, thereby starting up the +cathedral case on the stairway and the Grandfather in the dining-room, +who held out respectively for eight and two, while all the time it was +really half-past one. Thence arose in the early days painful +misunderstandings on the part of Our Square, for we are a simple people +and deem it the duty of a timepiece to keep time. In particular we were +befooled by Grandfather, the solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a +long-range stroke and a most convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the +note-shaver, on his way to a profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard +the hour strike (thirty-five minutes in advance of the best professional +opinion) from the House of Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the +recklessness of hiring a passing taxi, thereby reaching his destination +with half an hour to spare and half a dollar to lack, for which latter +he threatened to sue the Mordaunt Estate's tenant. To the credit side of +the house's account it must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, +having started one of his disastrous drunks within the precincts of his +Home of Fashion, was on his way to finish it in the gutter via the +zigzag route from corner saloon to corner saloon, when the Twelve +Apostles clock in the basement window lifted up its voice and +(presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice denied the hour, +which was actually a quarter before midnight. "Losh!" said MacLachan, +who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch whiskey, +"they'll a' be closed. Hame an' to bed wi' ye, waster of the priceless +hours!" And back he staggered to sleep it off. + +Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out +to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing +Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had +spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was +really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, +only to find it all over and the patient dead. + +"It's an outrage," declared the Little Red Doctor fiercely, "that an old +lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where in a pushcart and play +merry hell with a hard-working practitioner's professional duties. And +you're the one to tell him so, Dominie. You're the diplomat of +the Square." + +He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this +preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of +Silvery Voices. + +"It isn't the way it plays tricks on time alone," said she. "There's one +clock in there that's worse than conscience." + +And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was +wont to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary +clack-and-whirr, alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping +early because the clay was obdurate and wouldn't come right, and had +gone for a walk to clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these +unjustifiable terms: + +"Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr _wrong! +wrong! wrong! wrong!"_ + +"Wherefore," said the Bonnie Lassie, "your appellant prays that you be a +dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to Number 37 and ask +him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he's got to stop it." + +Now, the Bonnie Lassie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the +low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and +kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a +self-constituted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time +himself opened the door to me. + +"What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?" he inquired with timid +courtesy. + +"They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do." + +"I have heard of you." He motioned me to a seat in the bare little room, +alive with tickings and clickings. "You have lived long here, sir?" + +"Long." + +From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle +and solemn mockery: "_Long. Long. Long_." + +My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I +afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom. + +"I, too, am an old man," he murmured. + +"A hardy sixty, I should guess." + +"A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,' as to the folk in this +Square?" He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. "Are they, as one +might say, friendly? Neighborly?" + +I was a little taken aback. "We are not an intrusive people." + +"No one," he said, "has been to see my clocks." + +I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my +errand. "You live here quite alone?" I asked. + +"Oh, no!" said he quickly. "You see, I have Willy Woolly. Pardon me. I +have not yet presented him." + +At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended +hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee. + +"He greets you as a friend," said my new acquaintance in a tone which +indicated that I had been signally honored. "I trust that we shall see +you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my +collection now?" + +Here was my opening. "The fact is--" I began, and stopped from sheer +cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle pride in +his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular being +before me--I couldn't do it. "The fact is," I repeated, "I--I have a +friend outside waiting for me. The Little Red Doctor--er--Dr. Smith, +you know." + +"A physician?" he said eagerly. "Would he come in, do you think? Willy +Woolly has been quite feverish to-day." + +"I'll ask him," I replied, and escaped with that excuse. + +When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to +me was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet! + +Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my +turn to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices. +Happily for me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before +my substitute reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me. +Balked in this cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional +expression and observed that it was an obscure case. + +"For a man of sixty," I began, "Mr. Merivale--" + +"_Who_?" interrupted the Little Red Doctor; "I'm speaking of the dog." + +"Have you, then," I inquired in insinuating accents, "become a +dash-binged vet?" + +"A man can't be a brute, can he!" he retorted angrily. "When that +animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out like a child--" + +"I know," I said. "You took on a new patient. Probably gratis," I added, +with malice, for this was one of the Little Red Doctor's notoriously +weak points. + +"Just the same, he's a fool dog." + +"On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice social +discrimination," I asserted, recalling Willy Woolly's flattering +acceptance of myself. + +"A faker," asseverated my friend. "He pretends to see things." + +I sat up straight on my bench. "Things? What kind of things?" + +"Things that aren't there," returned the Little Red Doctor, and fell to +musing. "They couldn't be," he added presently and argumentatively. + +Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked +whether he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies +of his clocks. He shook his head. + +"I didn't have time," said he doggedly. + +"Time? Why, there's nothing but time in that house." + +The Little Red Doctor chose to take my feeble joke at par. "No time at +all. None of the clocks keep it." + +"How does he manage his life, then?" + +"Willy Woolly does that for him. Barks him up in the morning. Jogs his +elbow at mealtimes. Tucks him in bed at night, for all I know." + +Thus abortively ended Our Square's protest against Stepfather Time and +his House of Silvery Voices. The Little Red Doctor's obscure suggestion +stuck in my mind, and a few nights later I made a second call. Curiosity +rather than neighborliness was the inciting cause. Therefore I ought to +have been embarrassed at the quiet warmth of my reception by both of the +tenants. Interrupting himself in the work of adjusting a new +acquisition's mechanism, Stepfather Time settled me into the most +comfortable chair and immediately began to talk of clocks. + +Good talk, it was; quaint and flavorous and erudite. But my attention +kept wandering to Willy Woolly, who, after politely kissing my hand, had +settled down behind his master's chair. Willy Woolly was seeing things. +No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and thither, +following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than darkness, more +ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, measured thumping +sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it took me an +appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle's tail, +beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. And +still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. It was rather more +than old nerves could stand. + +"The dog," I broke in upon the stream of erudition. "Surely, Mr. +Merivale--" + +"Willy Woolly?" He looked down, and the faithful one withdrew himself +from his vision long enough to lick the master hand. "Does he +disturb you?" + +"Oh, no," I answered, a little confused. "I only thought--it seemed that +he is uneasy about something." + +"There are finer sensibilities than we poor humans have," said my host +gravely. + +"Then you have noticed how he watches and follows?" + +"He is always like that. Always, since." + +His "since" was one of the strangest syllables that ever came to my +ears. It implied nothing to follow. It was finality's self. + +"It is"--I sought a word--"interesting and curious," I concluded lamely, +feeling how insufficient the word was. + +"She comes back to him," said my host simply. + +No need to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive +as his "since." Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave to its +utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when he added: + +"She never comes back to me." + +That evening he spoke no more of her. Yet I felt that I had been +admitted to an intimacy. And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of +dropping in to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of +his philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline +of the tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of +quiet. She whom he had cherished since they were boy and girl together, +had died in the previous winter. She had formed the whole circle of his +existence within which he moved, attended by Willy Woolly, happily +gathering his troves. Her death had left him not so much alone as alien +in the world. He was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, +without interest except that of his timepieces, and without hope except +that of rejoining her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to +say in a tone of indescribable conviction: + +"I suppose I was the happiest man in the world." + +Any chance incident or remark might turn his thought and speech, +unconscious of the transition, from his favorite technicalities back to +the past. Some comment of mine upon a specimen of that dismal songster, +the cuckoo clock, which stood on his mantel, had started him into one of +his learned expositions. + +"The first cuckoo clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir"--he was always +scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how +abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent +courtesy--"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. +It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' and +a single--" + +His voice trailed into silence as the mechanical bird of his own +collection popped forth and piped its wooden lay. Willy Woolly pattered +over, sat down before it, and, gazing through and beyond the meaningless +face with eyes of adoration whose purport there was no mistaking, +whined lovingly. + +"When the cuckoo sounded," continued the collector without the slightest +change of intonation, "she used to imitate it to puzzle Willy Woolly. A +merry heart! ... All was so still after it stopped beating. The clocks +forgot to strike." + +The poodle, turning his absorbed regard from the Presence that moves +beyond time and its perishing voices, trotted to his master and nuzzled +the frail hand. + +The hand fondled him. "Yes, little dog," murmured the man. His eyes, sad +as those of the animal, quested the dimness. + +"Why does she come to him and not to me? He loved her dearly, didn't +you, little dog? But not as I did." There was a quivering note of +jealousy in his voice. "Why is my vision blinded to what he sees?" + +"You have said yourself that there are finer sensibilities than ours," I +suggested. + +He shook his head. "It lies deeper than that. I think he is drawing near +her. He used to have a little bark that he kept for her alone. In the +dead of night I have heard him give that bark--since. And I knew that +she was speaking to him. I think that he will go first. Perhaps he will +tell her that I am coming.... But I should be very lonely." + +"Willy's a stout young thing," I asserted, "with years of life before +him." + +"Perhaps," he returned doubtfully. A gleam of rare fun lit up his pale, +vague eyes. "Can't you see him dodging past Saint Peter through the +pearly gates" ("I was brought up a Methodist," he added in apologetic +explanation), "trotting along the alabaster streets sniffing about for +her among all the Shining Ones, listening for her voice amid the sound +of the harps, and when he finds her, hallelujahing with that little bark +that was for her alone: 'Here I am, mistress! Here I am! And _he's_ +coming soon, mistress. Your Old Boy is coming soon.'" + +When I retailed that conversation to the Little Red Doctor, he snorted +and said that Stepfather Time was one degree crazier than Willy Woolly +and that I wasn't much better than a higher moron myself. Well, if I've +got to be called a fool by my best friends, I'd rather be called it in +Greek than in English. It's more euphonious. + + * * * * * + +The pair in Number 37 soon settled down to a routine life. Every morning +Stepfather Time got out his big pushcart and set forth in search of +treasure, accompanied by Willy Woolly. Sometimes the dog trotted beneath +the cart; sometimes he rode in it. He was always on the job. Never did +he indulge in those divagations so dear to the normal canine heart. +Other dogs and their ways interested him not. Cats simply did not exist +in his circumscribed life. Even to the shining mark of a boy on a +bicycle he was indifferent, and when a dog has reached that stage one +may safely say of him that he has renounced the world and all its +vanities. Willy Woolly's one concern in life was his master and their +joint business. + +Soon they became accepted familiars of Our Square. Despite the general +conviction that they were slightly touched, we even became proud of +them. They lent distinction to the locality by getting written up in a +Sunday supplement, Willy Woolly being specially photographed therefor, a +gleam of transient glory, which, however it may have gratified our local +pride, left both of the subjects quite indifferent. Stepfather Time +might have paid more heed to it had he not, at the time, been wholly +preoccupied in a difficult quest. + +In a basement window, far over on Avenue D, stood an old and battered +timepiece of which Stepfather Time had heard the voice but never seen +the face. Each of three attempts to investigate with a view to +negotiations had been frustrated by a crabbed and violent-looking man +with a repellent club. Nevertheless, the voice alone had ensnared the +connoisseur; it was, by the test of the pipe which he carried on all his +quests, D in alt, and would thus complete the major chord of a chime +which he had long been building up. (She had loved, best of all, +harmonic combinations of the clock bells.) Every day he would halt in +front of the place and wait to hear it strike, and its owner would peer +out from behind it and shake a wasted fist and curse him with strange, +hoarse foreign oaths, while Willy Woolly tugged at his trouser leg and +urged him to pass on from that unchancy spot. All that he could learn +about the basement dweller was that his name was Lukisch and he owed +for his rent. + +Mr. Lukisch had nothing special against the queer old party who made +sheep's eyes at his clock every day. He hated him quite impartially, as +he hated everybody. Mr. Lukisch had a bad heart in more senses than one, +and a grudge against the world which he blamed for the badness of his +heart. Also he had definite ideas of reprisal, which were focused by a +dispossess notice, and directed particularly upon the person and +property of his landlord. The clock he needed as the instrument of his +vengeance; therefore he would not have sold it at any price to the +sheep-eyed old lunatic of the pushcart, who now, on the eve of his +eviction, stood gazing in with wistful contemplation. Presently he +passed on and Mr. Lukisch resumed his tinkering with the clock's +insides. He was very delicate and careful about it, for these were the +final touches, preparatory to his leaving the timepiece as a memento +when he should quietly depart that evening, shortly before nine. What +might happen after nine, or, rather, on the stroke of nine, was no worry +of his, though it might be and probably would be of the landlord's, +provided that heartless extortioner survived it. + +Having completed his operations, Mr. Lukisch sat down in a rickety chair +and gazed at the clock, face to face, with contemplative satisfaction. +Stepfather Time would have been interested in the contrast between those +two physiognomies. The clock's face, benign and bland, would have +deceived him. But, innocent though he was in the ways of evil, the man's +face might have warned him. + +Something within the clock's mechanism clicked and checked and went on +again. The sound, quite unexpected, gave Mr. Lukisch a bad start. Could +something have gone wrong with the combination? Suppose a premature +release.... At that panic thought something within Mr. Lukisch's bad +heart clicked and checked and did not go on again. The fear in his eyes +faded and was succeeded by an expression of surprise and inquiry. +Whether the inquiry was answered, nobody could have guessed from the +still, unwinking regard on the face of the victim of heart failure. + +By and by a crowd gathered on the sidewalk, drawn by that mysterious +instinct for sensation which attracts the casual and the idle. Two bold +spirits entered the door and stood, hesitant, just inside, awed because +the clock seemed so startlingly alive in that place. Some one sent +upstairs for the landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which +had not only mulcted him of two months' rent with nothing to show for it +but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly superfluous +corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock because +it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it that +Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered. + +"And who"--the landlord addressed high Heaven with a gesture at once +pious and pessimistic--"is to pay me fourteen dollars back rent this +dirty beggar owes?" + +"The man," said Stepfather Time gently, "is dead." + +"He is." The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with objurgations. +"Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and expense. And what +have I who run my property honest and respectable got to pay for it? +Some rags and a bum clock." + +Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive, +this was not Willy Woolly's kind of man. "Now, now, Willy Woolly!" +reproved his master. "Who are we that we should judge him?" + +"But I don't _like_ him," declared Willy Woolly in unequivocal dog +language. + +"I think from his face that he has suffered much," said the gentle +collector, wise in human pain. + +"Me; I suppose I don't suffer!" pointed out the landlord vehemently. +"Fourteen dollars out. Two months' rent. A bum clock." + +He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The +voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D +in alt. + +"My dear sir," said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath +his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, "I will buy +your clock." + +A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word +"nut" floated in the air, and was followed by "Verrichter." The landlord +took thought and hope. + +"It is a very fine clock," he declared. + +"It is a bum clock," Stepfather Time reminded him mildly. + +"Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it." + +"I will pay you much money for it." + +"How much?" + +"Seven dollars. That is one month's rent that he owed." + +"Two months' rent I must have." + +"One," said Stepfather Time firmly. + +"Two," said the landlord insistently. + +"Urff! Grr--rr--rr--rrff!" said Willy Woolly in emphatic dissuasion. + +Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of +Willy Woolly's province. Only once in the course of their years together +had he interfered in a purchase. Justice compelled Stepfather Time to +recall that the subject of Willy's protests on that occasion had +subsequently turned out to be far less antique than the worm holes in +the woodwork (artificially blown in with powder) would have led the +unsuspecting to suppose. But about the present legacy there could be no +such question. It was genuine. It was old. It was valuable. It possessed +a seraphic note pitched true to the long-desired chord. + +Extracting a ten-dollar note from his wallet, Stepfather Time waved it +beneath the landlord's wrinkled and covetous nose. The landlord +capitulated. Willy Woolly, sniffing at the clock with fur abristle, +lifted up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already +detected the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He +stubbornly refused to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, +and was accused of being sulky and childish. + + * * * * * + +The relic of the late unlamented Lukisch was temporarily installed in a +high chair before the open window giving on the areaway of Number 37. +There it briefly beamed upon the busy life of Our Square with its bland +and hypocritical face, and there, thrice and no more, it sounded the +passing of the hours with its sweet and false voice, biding the stroke +of nine. Meantime Willy Woolly settled down to keep watch on it and +could not be moved from that duty. Every time it struck the half he +growled. At the hour he barked and raged. When Stepfather Time sought to +draw him away to dinner he committed the unpardonable sin of dog-dom, he +snarled at his master. Turning this strange manifestation over in his +troubled mind, the collector decided that Willy Woolly must be ill, and +therefore that evening went to seek the Little Red Doctor and +his wisdom. + +Together they came across the park space opposite the House of Silvery +Voices in time to witness the final scene. + +The new clock struck the half after eight as they reached the turn in +the path. A long, quavering howl, mingled of rage and desperation, +answered in Willy Woolly's voice. + +"You hear?" said Stepfather Time anxiously to the Little Red Doctor. +"The dog is not himself." + +They saw him rear up against the clock case. He seemed to be trying to +tear it open with his teeth. + +"Willy!" cried his master in a tone such as, I suppose, the well-loved +companion had not heard twice before in his life. "Down, Willy!" + +The dog drooped back. But it was not in obedience. For once he +disregarded the master's command. Perhaps he did not even hear it in the +absorption of his dread and rage. Step by step he withdrew, then rushed +and launched himself straight at the timepiece. Slight though his bulk +was, the impetus of the charge did the work. The clock reeled, toppled, +and fell outward through the window; then-- + +From the House of Silvery Voices rose a roar that smote the heavens. A +roar and a belch of flame and a spreading, poisonous stench that struck +the two men in the park to earth. When they struggled to their feet +again, the smoke had parted and the House of Silvery Voices gaped open, +its front wall stripped bodily away. But within, the sound of the busy +industry of time went on uninterrupted. + +Weaving and wobbling on his feet, Stepfather Time staggered toward the +pot calling on the name of Willy Woolly. At the gate he stopped, put +forth his hand, and lifted from the railing a wopsy, woolly fragment, no +bigger than a sheet of note paper. It was red and warm and wet. + +"He's gone," said Stepfather Time. + +The Clock of Conscience took up the tale. "Gone. Gone. Gone," it pealed. + +As the collector would not leave the shattered house, they sent for me +to stay the night with him. A strange vigil! For now it was the man who +followed with intent, unworldly eyes that which I, with my lesser +vision, could not discern. And the Unseen moved swiftly about the +desolate room, low to the floor, and seemed finally to stop, motionless +beneath a caressing hand. I thought to hear that dull, measured thumping +of a grateful tail, but it was only the Twelve Apostles getting ready +to strike. + +Only once that night did Stepfather Time speak, and then not to me. + +"Tell her," he said in an assured murmur, "that I shan't be long." + +"Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long. Not-long," confirmed +Grandfather from his stance on the stairway. + +In that assurance Stepfather Time fell asleep. He did not go out again +with his pushcart, but sat in the rear room while the Mordaunt Estate in +person superintended the job of putting a new front on the house. + +The night after it was finished I received an urgent telephone call to +come there at once. At the entrance I met the Little Red Doctor +coming out. + +"The clocks have stopped," said he gently. + +So I turned to cross the park with him. + +"I shall certify," said he, "heart disease." + +"You may certify what you please," said I. "But what do you believe?" + +The Little Red Doctor, who prides himself on being a hard-bitted +materialist, glared at me as injuriously as if my innocent question had +been an insult. + +"I don't believe it!" he averred violently. "Do you take me for a +sentimental idiot that I should pin silly labels on my old friend, +Death?" His expression underwent a curious change. "But I never saw such +joy on any living face," he muttered under his breath. + + * * * * * + +The House of Silvery Voices is silent now. But its echo still lives and +makes music in Our Square. For, with the proceeds of Stepfather Time's +clocks, an astounding total, we have built a miniature clock tower +facing Number 37, with a silvery voice of its own, for memory. The +Bonnie Lassie designed the tower, and because there is love and +understanding in all that the Bonnie Lassie sets her wonder-working hand +to, it is as beautiful as it is simple. Among ourselves we call it the +Tower of the Two Faithful Hearts. + +The silvery voice within it is the product of a paragon among +timepieces, a most superior instrument, of unimpeachable construction +and great cost. But it has one invincible peculiarity, the despair of +the best consulting experts who have been called in to remedy it and, +one and all, have failed for reasons which they cannot fathom. How +should they! + +It never keeps time. + + + +HOME-SEEKERS' GOAL + +Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general head +of statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square, +looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grown +up in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you for +information, and they will frequently give more than they get of it. +Such, I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves a +satisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorful +splendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with a +taste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that float +and bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I can +follow a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorous +bloom. And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in a +receptive mood for such flies of information as might come to me +concerning two large invading vans which had rumbled into our quiet +precincts and, after a pause for inquiry, stopped before the Mordaunt +Estate's newly repaired property at Number 37. + +The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The design +which he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of art +than upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors. + +The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviously +unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, +reverting to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in +approaching the Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was +sure that the newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. + +Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I mused +upon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found useful +in such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon. +With an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I dragged +myself back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes upon +them. It is possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal, +for they fell at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, a +butterfly of the most vivid and delightful appearance. + +"Is the house with the 'To Let' sign on it really to let, do you know, +sir?" she inquired, adding music to color with her voice. + +"So I understand," said I, rising. + +"And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front," put +in the butterfly's companion. "Is he a lunatic or a designer of +barber poles?" + +"He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing a +limited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate." + +"He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could get +out of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name." + +"Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he should be +addressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. Wagboom +is an irritant to a haughty property-owner's soul." + +"Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?" asked the young man of +his companion. + +"With a view to renting?" I inquired. + +"Yes." + +"Do you keep dogs?" + +"No," said the young man. + +"Or clocks by the hundred?" + +"Certainly not," answered the butterfly. + +"Or bombs?" + +Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other with +a wild surmise which said plainly: "Are they _all_ crazy down here?" + +"If you do," I explained kindly, "you might have trouble in dealing. The +latest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed one of two +hundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew away the +front wall." And I outlined the history of that canine clairvoyant, +Willy Woolly. "The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about his tenants, +anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps it would be +well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of house +painting." + +Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the +charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and +delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry. + +"That," said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on his knees +with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to them, "is +after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he's a bear for +color. Are you artists?" + +"We're house-hunters," explained the young man. + +"As for tenants," said the Mordaunt Estate, "I take 'em or leave 'em as +I like 'em or don't. I like you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of +colorin'. Eight rooms, bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don't +suit each other. Very choice and classy for a young married couple. +Eight dollars, in advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz." + +"We're not married," said the young man. + +"Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?" demanded that highly respectable +institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression mollified as +he turned to the butterfly. "Aimin' to be, I s'pose." + +"We only met this morning; so we haven't decided yet," answered the +young man. "At least," he added blandly, as his companion seemed to be +struggling for utterance, "she hasn't informed me of her decision, if +she has made it." + +Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the +Mordaunt Estate. "Nothin' doin'," he began, "until--" + +"Don't decide hastily," adjured the young man. "Take this coin." He +forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the decorator. + +"Nothin' doin' on account, either. Pay as you enter." + +"Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your +call," he said to the butterfly. + +"Heads," cried the butterfly. + +"Tails," proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into silence on +the flagging. + +"Then the house is yours," said the butterfly. "Good luck go with it." +She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment. + +"I don't want it," returned the young man. + +"Play fair," she exhorted him. "We both agreed solemnly to stand by the +toss. Didn't we?" + +"What did we agree?" + +"That the winner should have the choice." + +"Very well. I won, didn't I?" + +"You certainly did." + +"And I choose not to take the house," he declared triumphantly. "It's a +very nice house, but"--he shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the +proud-pied facade, blinking significantly--"I'd have to wear smoked +glasses if I lived in it, and they don't suit my style of beauty." + +"You'd not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on your knees +with a thousand dollars in each hand," asserted the offended Estate. + +"See!" said the young man to the butterfly. "Fate decides for you." + +"But what will you do?" she asked solicitously. + +"Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square." + +She held out her hand. "You've been very nice and helpful, but--I think +not. Good-bye." + +He regarded the hand blankly. "Not--what?" + +"Not here in this Square, if you don't mind." + +"But where else is there?" he asked piteously. "You know yourself there +are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating around on this +teeming island in vans, with no place to land." + +"Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn," was her hopeful suggestion. + + + "'And bade betwixt their shores to be + The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea,'" + + +he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: "Matthew Arnold. +Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places are," +he pleaded. "From you!" he concluded. + +A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. "I've accepted you as +a gentleman on trust," she began, when he broke in: + +"Don't do it. It's a fearfully depressing thing to be reminded that +you're a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how it +cramps one's style, not to mention limiting one's choice of real estate. +A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on the +toss of a coin, but he mustn't presume to want to see the other party to +the gamble again, even if she's the only thing in the whole sweep of his +horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask you, +when such things--" + +"Oh, do stop!" she implored. "I don't think you're sane." + +"No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses to +complete loss of mental equilibrium since--let me see--since 11.15 A.M." + +Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on his +own behalf, interposed. + +"I'd rather rent to two than one," he said insinuatingly. "More reliable +and steady with the rent. Settin' aside the young feller's weak eyes, +you're a nice-matched pair. Gittin' a license is easy, if you know the +ropes. I'd even be glad to go with you to--" + +"As to not being married," broke in the butterfly, with the light of a +great resolve in her eye, "this gentleman may speak for himself. I am." + +"Am what?" queried the Estate. + +"Married." + +"Damn!" exploded the young man. "I mean, congratulations and all that +sort of thing. I--I'm really awfully sorry. You'll forgive my making +such an ass of myself, won't you?" + +To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turned +rather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed on +them, she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a +sudden alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping +regard had fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding +ring may be put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has +been once worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness +of the third finger. The butterfly's gloves were not new, yet there +showed not the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. +While admitting to himself that the evidence fell short of +conclusiveness, the young man decided to accept it as a working theory +and to act, win or lose, do or die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that his +delightful but elusive companion was a li--that is to say, an inventor. +He would give that invention the run of its young life! + +"We--ell," the Mordaunt Estate was saying, "that's too bad. Ain't a +widdah lady are you?" + +"My husband is in France." + +With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in where +many an angel might have feared to tread. "Maybe he'll stay there," +he surmised. + +"What!" + +In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of +"The Girl I Left Behind Me." + + "'The maids of France are fond and free.' + +"Besides," he added, "it's quite unhealthy there at this season. I +wouldn't be surprised"--he halted--"at anything," he finished darkly. + +Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally +hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she +could find them-- + +"I'll wait around--in hopes," he decided calmly. + +So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and +ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She +had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, +an interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now--how dared +he! She put it to him at once: "How dare you!" + +"Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of +loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse," prescribed +the unimpressed subject of her retort. "As a wife, you are, of course, +unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or only +prospective"--he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar through the +public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the suffering--"there +is H-O-P-E!" he intoned solemnly, wagging a benignant forefinger at her. + +The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into +unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with +foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means +unattractive young suitor--for he could be relegated to no lesser +category--might do next. She said coolly and crisply: + +"I wish nothing more to do with you whatever." + +"Then I needn't quit the Garden of Ed--I mean, Our Square?" + +"You may do as you see fit," she replied loftily. + +"Act the gent, can't chuh?" reproved the Mordaunt Estate. "You're makin' +the lady cry." + +"He isn't," denied the lady, with ferocity. "He couldn't." + +"He'll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma'am," the polite +Estate assured her. + +"If he wants to stay, he'll have to live in his van." + +"Grand little idea! I'll do it. I'll be a van hermit and fast and watch +and pray beneath your windows." + +"You may live in your van forever," retorted the justly incensed +butterfly, "but I'll never speak to you as long as I live in this house. +Never, never, _never_!" + +She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The Mordaunt +Estate took down the "To Let" sign, and went in search of a helper to +unload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled into his +own van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on the +collected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. But +his immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shot +through as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitive +smile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell to +dreams. As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to Our +Square, it had come about in this wise: + +Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink of +a maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name by +remaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right of +way, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective drivers +inflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recesses +of the larger van said: "Don't give an inch." + +Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said what +sounded like "Give an ell," but probably was not, as there was no +corresponding movement of the wheels. + +What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they did +upon descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action, +and as such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunder +and led them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the deserted +equipages emerged from amid their lares and penates, and met face to +face. The effect upon the occupant of the smaller van was electric, not +to say paralytic. + +"Oh, glory!" he murmured faintly, with staring eyes. + +"Would you kindly move?" said the girl, in much the same tone that one +would employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one ever +addressed a beetle with freezing dignity. + +The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. "I've done nothing +else for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and I'll bless +you as a benefactress of the homeless." + +"Anywhere out of my way," she replied with a severity which the corners +of her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to. + +"Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged," he declared humbly. "But +first let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to give +'em--that is, to hold his ground, I didn't know who you were." + +She wrinkled dainty brows at him. "Well, you don't know who I am now, do +you?" + +"I don't have to," he responded with fervor. "Just on sight you may have +all of this street and as many of the adjoining avenues as you can use. +By the way, who _are_ you?" The question was put with an expression of +sweet and innocent simplicity. + +The girl looked at him hard and straight. "I don't think that +introductions are necessary." + +He sighed outrageously. "They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; +twenty-fourth large edition," he murmured. "And I was just about to +present myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very much at +your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my move. +May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intend +driving yourself." + +"I'll have to, if I'm to get anywhere." A look of dismay overspread her +piquant face. "Oh, dear! I don't in the least understand this machinery. +I can't drive this kind of car." + +"Glory be!" exclaimed Mr. Dyke. "I mean, that's too bad," he amended +gracefully. "Won't you let me take you where you want to go?" + +"What'll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven't any idea where I +want to go." + +"What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the face of +an overpopulated earth, Miss?" + +The "Miss" surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of this +extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of +the servant class? + +"Yes, I am," she admitted. + +"A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood," he announced +sonorously, "are wandering about, lost and homeless on this melancholy +and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to come and +bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain't it harrowing, Miss! +Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge sung over me by a +quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did you breakfast, +Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen." + +The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. "You ask the +most personal questions as if they were a matter of course." + +"By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining +individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived +from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks +of steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for +reading, Miss? I've got a neat little library inside, besides an +automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that +policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? _I_ +think he is." + +"But I can't move on," she said pathetically. + +"Couldn't you work my van, Miss? It's quite simple." + +She gave it a swift examination. "Yes," said she. "It's almost like my +own car." + +"Then I'll lead, and you follow, Miss." + +"But I can't--I don't know who--I don't _want_ your van. Where shall +we--" + +"Go?" he supplied. "To jail, I judge, unless we go somewhere else and do +it _now_. Come on! We're off!" + +Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the +approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved +but triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from +the path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore +downtownward. Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the +girl in the trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of +a side street, her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke's +engaging and confident face appeared below her. + +"Within," he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispense +the succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincing +near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat and +drink. May I help you down, Miss?" + +"No," said the girl dolefully. "I want to go home." + +"But on your own showing, you haven't any home." + +"I've got to find one. Immediately." + +"You'll need help, Miss. It'll take some finding." + +"I wish you wouldn't call me Miss," she said with evidences of +petulance. + +"Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson +says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while +we discuss the housing problem--" + +"Why are you calling me Lady, now?" + +He shook a discouraged head. "You seem very hard to please, Sister. I've +tried you with Miss and I've tried you with Lady--" + +"Are you a gentleman or are you a--a--" + +"Don't say it, Duchess. Don't! Remember what Tennyson says: 'One hasty +line may blast a budding hope.' Or was it Burleson? When you deny to the +companion of your wanderings the privilege of knowing your name, what +can he do but fall back for guidance upon that infallible chapter in the +Gents' Handbook of Classy Behavior, entitled, 'From Introduction's +Uncertainties to Friendship's Fascinations'?" + +"We haven't even been introduced," she pointed out. + +"Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, Old +Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to," he added piously. "Now, +Miss--or Lady--or Sister, as the case may be; or even Sis (I believe +that form is given in the Gents' Handbook), if you will put your lily +hand in mine--" + +"Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during +luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends." + +"A test! I'm on. We're off." + +Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast +from an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled +their real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there +was no available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town. +She had explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and +without success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward +for anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a +discovery they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the +approved method of the tossed coin: "The winner has the choice." + +Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort's manner and +bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied +intimacy of the tete-a-tete across a table than a subtle change +manifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his +talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the +end, when he had paid the bill and she asked: + +"What's my share, please?" + +"Two-ten," he replied promptly and without protest. + +"My name," said she, "is Anne Leffingwell." + +"Thank you," he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eye +as he added: "Of course, that was rudimentary about the check." + +Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk +again. In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, +he suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering +contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of +tea-store art. + +"Suffering Raphael!" he exclaimed at length. "What's the lady in the +pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch in the +nightie? What's it all about, anyway?" + +"The title," replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of +insignificant lettering, "is 'Swedish Wedding Feast.'" + +"Wedding feast," he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the picture to +his companion. "Well," he raised an imaginary glass high, "prosit omen!" + +The meaning was not to be mistaken. "Well, really," she began +indignantly. "If you are going to take advantage--" + +"You're not supposed to understand Latin," interposed Mr. Dyke hastily. +He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For some subtle reason +her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would have done to his +over-enterprising adroitness. + +"We must be going on," she said. + +He gave her a grateful glance. "I was afraid I'd spilled the apple cart +and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time," he murmured. Having +helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded for a moment, +turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: + +"Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?" + +"No. Cousin." + +"I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve somewhere," +he declared with profound and joyous conviction. + +"Are you a friend of Budge's?" + +"Friend doesn't half express it! He made the touchdown that won me a +clean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn't know him from +Henry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together." + +"Will you tell me one thing, please?" pleaded Anne Leffingwell +desperately. "Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?" + +"Not yet. But then, you see, I'm only a beginner. This is my first +attempt. I'll get better as I go on." + +"Will you please crank my car?" requested Anne Leffingwell faintly. + +Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again. + + * * * * * + +All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid's part, +vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne +Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably +touching at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke--and lingering there. She +was solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke's reason. Came +also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, +ouija, the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. +Leffingwell. He was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. +Leffingwell's existence. Now when two young persons come separately to +an old person to discuss each other's affairs, it is a bad sign. Or +perhaps a good sign. Just as you choose. + +Adopting the Mordaunt Estate's sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke had +settled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. Anne +Leffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a van +must be prodigious. ("Tell her not to worry; my family own the storage +and moving plant," was one of his many messages that I neglected to +deliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and simplicity of +her establishment--one small but neat maid--which he deemed incongruous +with her general effect of luxury and ease of life, and wondered whether +she had split with her family. (She hadn't; "I've always been brought up +like a--a--an artichoke," she confided to me. "So when father went West +for six months, I just moved, and I'm going to be a potato and see how I +like it. Besides, I've got some research work to do.") + +Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and every +afternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37. +Dyke's hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, for +he slept by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electrical +experiments which he was conducting over on the river front, and which +were to send his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapers +have already caught an echo or two.) On his way back from his +experiments, he daily stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist, +where, besides chaste and elegant set pieces inscribed "Gates Ajar" and +"Gone But Not Forgotten," one may, if expert and insistent, obtain +really fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinal +arrival of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but delivered +regularly at the door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not though +a base attempt was made to incriminate me in the transaction. + +Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly and +promising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She was +steadfastly adhering to that "Never. Never. _Never_!" What less, indeed, +could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent hopes of her +husband's early demise from a young man whom she had known but four +hours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but for a +manifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The Mordaunt +Estate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon when +Martin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss his +favorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty brows +over the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully that +this thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terry +the Cop.) + +"That lady in Number 37," said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, "ain't the +lady I thought she was." + +Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked up +hopefully. "You mean that she isn't really _Mrs._ Leffingwell?" + +"I mean I'm disappointed in her; that's what I mean. She wants the house +front painted over." + +"No!" I protested with polite incredulity. + +"Where's her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work so deeply." + +"She does, too," confirmed the Estate. "But she says it's liable to be +misunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and men ask the +hired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird with whiskers +wanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told fortunes there. +So she wants I should tone it down. I guess," pursued the Mordaunt +Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of finding the Perfect +Tenant in an imperfect world, "I'll have to notice her to quit." + +"No; don't do that!" cried the young man. "Here! I'll repaint the whole +wall for you free of charge." + +"What do _you_ know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost money." + +"I'll furnish the paint, too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazy +about art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he added +cunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone down +that design of yours without affecting its beauty and originality +at all." + +Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his +frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the +following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on +a plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the +house came home at four-thirty and caught him at it. + +"That's going to be ever so much nicer," she called graciously, not +recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing back. + +"Thank you for those few kind words." + +"You!" she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and benevolent beam +of the eye upon her. "What are you doing to my house?" + +"Art. High art." + +"How did you get up there?" + +"Ladder. High ladder." + +"You know that isn't what I mean at all." + +"Oh! Well, I've taken a contract to tone down the Midway aspect of your +highly respectable residence. One hour per day." + +"If you think that this performance is going to do you any good--" she +began with withering intonation. + +"It's done that already," he hastened to assert. "You've recognized my +existence again." + +"Only through trickery." + +"On the contrary, it's no trick at all to improve on the Mordaunt +Estate's art. Now that we've made up again, Miss or Mrs. Leffingwell, as +the case may be--" + +"We haven't made up. There's nothing to make up." + +"Amended to 'Now that we're on speaking terms once more.' Accepted? +Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you've been +sending me. You can't imagine how they brighten and sweeten my simple +and unlovely van life, with their--" + +"Mr. Dyke!" Her eyes were flashing now and her color was deeper than the +pink of the roses which she had rejected. "You must know that you had no +right to send me flowers and that in returning them--" + +"Returning? But, dear lady--or girl, as the case may be [here she +stamped a violent foot]--if you feel it your duty to return them, why +not return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though my +attentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am, +so to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There's the Dominie, +for instance. He's notoriously your admirer, and I've seen him at +Eberling's quite lately." (Mendacious young scoundrel!) + +For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner. + +"How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?" she said +uncertainly. + +"How should _I_, for that matter?" he retorted at once. "Though any +idiot could see at a glance that you're at least half sister to the +whole rose tribe." + +"Now you're beginning again," she complained. "You see, it's impossible +to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance." + +"But what do you think of me as a painter-man?" inquired the bewildering +youth. + +Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now +one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. "The question +is," said she, "wasn't it really you that sent the roses, and don't you +realize that you mustn't?" + +"The question is," he repeated, "whether, being denied the ordinary +avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping the fence +with one's votive offerings. Now I hold--" + +Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager +eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness +was gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent the +roses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Do +you mind if I finish this job?" + +Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell +expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a +thing as triumph being too complete. + +"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply. + +Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on +my bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague +truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn't +necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain +gold band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one +who strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to +offer to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at +first sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of the +consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her +eyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive +of serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous +orchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible +orchid expectant of continued patronage should do. + +There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke's color scheme on the +following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an +impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there +discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The +motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the +house front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask: + +"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?" + +The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all +but precipitated into the area. "_Who_?" he said. + +"Miss Leffingwell." + +"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in a +strained tone. + +"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell." + +The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the +immaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled. + +"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival. + +"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifying +satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect." + +"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflected +the stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?" + +"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of +doubt and despair. That," he added, splashing in a prodigal streak of +whooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the misty +mountain-tops of--" + +The opening door below him cut short the disquisition. + +"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man's +ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the +dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't you +come before?" + +To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "You +little idiot!" + +The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter, +continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant +hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed +minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching +him as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist +descended from his plank to face her. + +"Are you going?" he demanded. + +A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have +been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke's +face which hurt the girl to see. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"With him?" + +"Ye--es." + +"He isn't your husband." + +"No." + +"You haven't any husband." + +She hung her head guiltily. + +"Why did you invent one?" + +Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the +roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication +with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face. + +"I see. The invention was for my special benefit." + +"Safety first," she murmured. + +"I never really believed it--except when you took me by surprise," he +pursued. "That's why I--I went ahead." + +"You certainly went ahead," she confirmed. "What are speed laws to you!" + +"You're telling me that I haven't played the game according to the +rules. I know I haven't. One has to make his own rules when Fate is in +the game against him." He seemed to be reviewing something in his mind. +"Fate," he observed sententiously, "is a cheap thimble-rigger." + +"Fate," she said, "is the ghost around the corner." + +"A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinee hero, a +movie close-up, a tailor's model--" + +"If you mean Reg, it's just as well for you he isn't here." + +"Pooh!" retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. "I could wreck his +loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush." + +"Doubtless," she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now bleeding +from every pore. "It's a fearful weapon. Spare my poor Reg." + +"I suppose," said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt of hope, +"you'd like me to believe that he's your long-lost brother." + +She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. "No," she +returned hesitantly and consciously. "He isn't--exactly my brother." + +He recalled the initials, "R.B.W.," on the car's door. Hope sank for the +third time without a bubble. "Good-bye," said Martin Dyke. + +"Surely you're not going to quit your job unfinished," she protested. + +Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job. + +"What will the Mordaunt Estate think?" + +Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate. + +"Perhaps you'd like to take the house, now that it's vacant." + +Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of +residence, went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and +red on the other. + +Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to my +window and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly's memorial +clock was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking +sight afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the +measured footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked +for a swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. +Nothing is worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into my +clothes, I made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I was +wont to pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur +desecrator of other men's houses, challenger of the wayward fates, +fanatic of a will-o'-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the +uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the +polychromatic abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all +the pathos and all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth. + +Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusable +only on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous +guide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless +phantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, +and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, deserving of +nothing kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise--which is +doubtless why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked +voices and withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious and +fraudulent litany for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on the +bench stirred. A shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon his +face, bewitched him to unguarded speech: + +"Dominie, I have been dreaming." + +Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent. + +"A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, so +softly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?" + +"Always." + +"I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world, +Dominie?" + +"There has been." + +"Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she went +away so quickly." + +"Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?" + +"So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms." + +"Did she leave nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then what is this?" I lifted from the ground at his feet a single petal +of pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his hand. + +"The fairy's kiss," he said dreamily. "That's for farewell." + +The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightened +up brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes. + +"Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?" + +"Possibly." + +"What kind of talk? Nonsense?" + +"Nonsense--or wisdom. How should I know?" + +"Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?" + +"Look in your hand." + +He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously. +"I must go now," he said vaguely. "May I come back to see you +sometimes, Dominie?" + +"Perhaps you'll bring Happiness with you," I said. + +But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from the +alley and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House of +Silvery Voices, was voiceless again. + + * * * * * + +Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square. +I missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion, +the fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should see +them both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square--it has held me +these sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himself +can break it--which draws back the hearts that have once known the +place. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back. +More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave November +sun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinably +wistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakened +appetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered and +violent frontage of Number 37. + +"Empty," said I. + +"Then he didn't take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I mean." + +"He's gone." + +"Where?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"Doesn't he ever come back?" + +"You must not assume," said I with severity, "that you are the only +devotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to that of +another whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds and +gained ten years--" + +"Dominie! Has he?" + +"Has he what?" + +"G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years." + +"I haven't said so." + +"Dominie, you are a cruel old man," accused the butterfly. + +"And you are a wicked woman." + +"I'm not. I'm only twenty," was her irrelevant but natural defense. + +"Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening or +night before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving us +desolate--were you, I say, abroad in the park? + +"Y-y-yes, your Honor." + +"In the immediate vicinity of this bench?" + +"Benches are very alike in the dark." + +"But occupants of them are not. Don't fence with the court. Were you +wearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those now +displayed in your cheeks?" + +"The honorable court has nothing to do with my face," said the witness +defiantly. + +"On the contrary, your face is the _corpus delicti._ Did you, taking +advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my +client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberately +imprint a--" + +"No! No! No! No! _No_!" cried the butterfly with great and unconvincing +fervor. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing?" + +"On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse is +coming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder." + +Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concerned +over the latter than the former accusation. "Of whom?" she inquired. + +"You have killed a budding poet." Here I violated a sacred if implied +confidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had said +under the spell of the moon. + +The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me with +indignation that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoying +her for days: _that_ was what made her eyes act so, and I was a +suspicious and malevolent old gentleman--and--and--and perhaps some day +she and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet. + +"Is that a message?" I asked. + +"No," answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her eyes. + +"Then?" I queried. + +"He's so--so awfully go-aheadish," she complained. + +"I'll drop him a hint," I offered kindly. + +"It might do some good. I'm afraid of him," she confessed. + +"And a little bit of yourself?" I suggested. + +The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have withered +incontinently anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. It +passed and thoughtfulness supplanted it. "If you really think that he +could be influenced to be more--well, more conventional--" + +"I guarantee nothing; but I'm a pedagogue by profession and have taught +some hard subjects in my time." + +"Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for word as +I give it to you?" + +"Senile decay," I admitted, "may have paralyzed most of my faculties, +but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a phonograph." + +"Tell him this, then." She ticked the message off on her fingers. "A +half is not exactly the same as a whole. Don't forget the 'exactly.'" + +"Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?" I demanded. But she had +already gone, with a parting injunction to be precise. + +When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke, +it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect. + +"I've got it!" he shouted. + +"Don't scare me off my bench! What is it you've got?" + +"The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother." + +"Who?" + +"That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away." He +delivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinion +without a quiver. "Now she says a half isn't exactly the same as a +whole. He wasn't exactly her brother, she said; he's her half brother. +'Toora-loora-loo,' as we say in Patagonia." + +"For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?" + +"Next and immediately," said Mr. Dyke, "I am obtaining an address from +the Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening off." + +"Take some advice also, my boy," said I, mindful of the butterfly's +alarms. "Go slow." + +"Slow! Haven't I lost time enough already?" + +"Perhaps. But now you've got all there is. Don't force the game. You've +frightened that poor child so that she never can feel sure what you're +going to do next." + +"Neither can I, Dominie," confessed the candid youth. "But you're quite +right. I'll clamp on the brakes. I'll be as cool and conventional as a +slice of lemon on an iced clam. 'How well you're looking to-night, Miss +Leffingwell'--that'll be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. +Trust me, Dominie, and thank you for the tip." + +The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven of +the following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when my +astonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifully +though inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose in +his coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare. + +"What have you been doing here all night?" I asked. + +"Thinking." + +I pointed to the flower. "Where did you get that?" + +"A fairy gift." + +"Martin," said I, "did you abide by my well-meant and inspired advice?" + +"Dominie," replied the youth with a guilty flush, "I did my best. I--I +tried to. You mustn't think--Nothing is settled. It's only that--" + +"It's only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I expect you +to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the dominant +fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: 'Go slow!' and the avalanche--" + +"Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!" broke in young Mr. Dyke, shouting. "I +beg your pardon, Dominie, I've got to see the Estate for a minute." + +Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentleman +in the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, touch that front!" implored the improver of +it. + +"Why not?" demanded the Estate. + +"I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day." + +The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him. +"Nope," said he. "I've had enough of short rentals. It don't pay. I'm +going to paint her up and lease her for good." + +"I'll take your lease," insisted Martin Dyke. + +"For how long a period?" inquired the other, in terms of the Estate +again. + +The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprised +on the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed in +Martin Dyke's eyes. + +"Say a million years," he answered softly. + + + +THE GUARDIAN OF GOD'S ACRE + +As far as the eye could apprehend him, he was palpably an outlander. No +such pink of perfection ever sprung from the simple soil of Our Square. +A hard pink it was, suggestive less of the flower than of enameled +metal. He was freshly shaved, freshly pressed, freshly anointed, and, as +he paced gallantly across my vision, I perceived him to be slightly +grizzled at the temples, but nevertheless of a vigorous and grim +youthfulness that was almost daunting. Not until he returned and stood +before me with his feet planted a little apart, giving an impression of +purposeful immovability to his wiry figure, did I note that his eyes +belied the general jauntiness of his personality. They were cold, direct +eyes, with a filmy appearance, rather like those of a morose and +self-centered turtle which had lived in our fountain until the day the +Rosser twins fell in, when it crawled out and emigrated. + +"Nice day," said the stranger, shifting a patent-leathered foot out of a +puddle. + +"Very," I agreed. Finical over-accuracy about the weather is likely to +discourage a budding acquaintanceship. + +"Have one?" He extended a gemmed cigarette-case, and when, removing my +pipe, I had declined in suitable terms, lighted up, himself. He then sat +down upon the dryest portion of the bench not occupied by my person. + +"Whiplash win in the fi'th," he volunteered presently. + +"Yes?" said I with a polite but spurious show of interest. + +"Under a pull. Spread-eagled his field." + +"Who is Whiplash, may I ask?" + +"Oh, Gaw!" said the pink man, appalled. He searched my face +suspiciously. "A hoss," he stated at length, satisfied of my ignorance. + +After several reflective puffs, the smoke of which insufficiently veiled +his furtive appraisal of myself, he tried again: + +"They give O'Dowd a shade, last night." + +"Indeed? Who did?" + +"The sporting writers." + +"As a testimonial?" I inquired, adding that a shade, whether of the lamp +or sun species seemed an unusual sort of gift. + +My interlocutor groaned. He drew from the pocket of his gray-check +cutaway, purple and fine linen, the purple being an ornate and +indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan +Gluck's Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and +with a beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its +repository, the pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. + +"The Reds copped again yesterday." + +"If you are referring to the raid on Anarchist Headquarters in Avenue C, +I should have inferred that the Reds _were_ copped, to use your term." + +Curt and contemptuous laughter was his response. "Don't you ever read +the papers, down here?" + +"Certainly," I retorted with some spirit, for the implied slur upon Our +Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications +when you inter--when you arrived. It contains some very +interesting poetry." + +"Yeh?" said the hard, pink man politely. + +"For example, in this issue I find the following apostrophe." I +proceeded to read aloud: + + "Farewell, our dear one, we must part, + For thou hast gone to heavenly home, + While we below with aching heart + Must long for thee and ever moan." + +"Swell stuff," commented the sharer of my bench, with determined +interest. "Poetry's a little out of my line, but I'm _for_ it. Who +wrote that?" + +"It is signed 'Loving Father and 3 Sisters.' But the actual authorship +rests with the long gentleman in black whom you see leaning on the park +fence yonder. His name is Bartholomew Storrs and he is the elegiac or +mortuary or memorial laureate of Our Square." + +This was said with intent to mortify the soul of my new acquaintance in +revenge for his previous display of erudition. The bewilderment in his +face told me that I had scored heavily. But he quickly rallied. + +"Do I get you right?" he queried. "Does he write those hymns for other +folks to sign?" + +"He does." + +"What does he do that for?" + +"Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza." + +"Some salesman!" My hard-faced companion regarded the lank figure +overhanging the fence with new respect. "Looks to me like the original +Gloom," he observed. "What's _his_ grouch?" + +"Conscience." + +"He must have a bum one!" + +"He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow +repenting of our sins." + +"Whose sins?" asked the other, opening wider his dull and weary eyes. + +"Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square." + +My interlocutor promptly and fitly put into words the feeling which had +long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a +monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. "He's got a nerve!" +he asserted. + +Warming to him for his pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my +theme. "He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for +Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a +usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he'll never +do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, to +account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against +the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little +house near the corner"--I waved an illustrative hand--"he can quote +Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect and hate him. +He's coming this way now." + +"Good day, Dominie," said Bartholomew Storrs, as he passed, in such a +tone as a very superior angel might employ toward a particularly +damned soul. + +"That frown," I explained to my companion, after returning the +salutation, "means that I failed to attend church yesterday." + +But the hard, pink man had lost interest in Bartholomew. "Called you +'Dominie,' didn't he?" he remarked. "I thought I had you right. Heard of +you from a little red-headed ginger-box named Smith." + +"You know the Little Red Doctor?" + +"I met him," he replied evasively. "He told me to look you up. 'You talk +to the Dominie,' he says." + +"About what?" + +"I'm coming to that." He leaned forward to place a muscular and +confidential hand on my knee. "First, I'd like to do you a little +favor," he continued in his husky and intimate voice. "If you're looking +for some quick and easy money, I got a little tip that I'd like to pass +on to you." + +"Evidently the Little Red Doctor told you that my mind was a tottering +ruin, which may be quite true; but if it's a matter of investing in the +Peruvian Gold, Rubber Tree, and Perpetual Motion Concession, I'm +reluctantly compelled--" + +"Forget it!" adjured the hard, pink man in a tone which secured my +silence and almost my confidence. "This is a hoss. Seven to one, and a +sure cop. I _know_ hosses. I've owned 'em." + +"Thank you, but I can't afford such luxuries as betting." + +"You can't afford _not_ to have something down on this if it's only a +shoestring. No? Oh--well!" + +Again drawing the art-square from his pocket he lifted his pearl-gray +derby and dabbed despairingly at his brow. Catching the scent hot and +fresh, Susan Gluck's Orphan came dashing up-wind giving tongue, or +rather, nose, voluptuously. + +"Mm-m-m! Snmmff!" inhaled the Orphan, wrinkling ecstatic nostrils. +"Mister, lemme smell it some more!" + +Graciously the dispenser of fragrance waved his balm-laden handkerchief. +"Like it, kiddie?" he said. + +"Oh, it's _grand_!" She stretched out her little grimy paws. "Please, +Mister," she entreated, "would you flop it over 'em, just once?" + +The pink man tossed it to her. "Take it along and, when you get it all +snuffed up, give it back to the Dominie here for me." + +"Oh, gracious!" said the Orphan, incredulous at this bounty. "Can I have +it till _to-morrah_?" + +"Sure! What's the big idea for to-morrow?" + +"I'm goin' to a funeral. I want it to cry in," said the Orphan +importantly. + +"A funeral?" I asked. "In Our Square? Whose?" + +"My cousin Minnie. She's goin' to be buried in God's Acre, an' I'm +invited 'cause I'm a r'lation. She married a sporting gentleman named +Hines an' she died yesterday," said the precocious Orphan. + +So Minnie Munn, pretty, blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt +us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. +She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, +defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait +and not worry. There are thousands of homes, I suppose, in which are +buried just such letters as Minnie's farewell to her parents; +rebellious, passionate, yearning, pitiful. Ah, well! The moth must break +its chrysalis. The flower must rend its bonds toward the light. Little +Minnie was "going on the stage." A garish and perilous stage it was, +whereon Innocence plays a part as sorry as it is brief. And now she was +making her exit, without applause. Memory brought back a picture of +Minnie as I had first seen her, a wee thing, blinking and smiling in the +arms of her Madonna-faced mother, on a bench in Our Square, and the +mother (who could not wait for the promised return--she has lain in +God's Acre these three years) crooning to her an unforgettable song, +mournfully prophetic: + + "Why did I bring thee, Sweet + Into a world of sin?-- + Into a world of wonder and doubt + With sorrows and snares for the little white feet-- + Into a world whence the going out + Is as dark as the coming in!" + +Old lips readily lend themselves to memory; I suppose I must have +repeated the final lines aloud, for the pink man said, wearily +but politely: + +"Very pretty. Something more in the local line?" + +"Hardly." I smiled. Between Bartholomew Storr's elegies and William +Young's "Wish-makers' Town" stretches an infinite chasm. + +"What's this--now--God's Acre the kid was talking about?" was his next +question. + +"An old local graveyard." + +"Anything interesting?" he asked carelessly. + +"If you're interested in that sort of thing. Are you an antiquary?" + +"Sure!" he replied with such offhand promptitude that I was certain the +answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a dromedary. + +"Come along, then. I'll take you there." + +To reach that little green space of peace amidst our turmoil of the +crowded, encroaching slums, we must pass the Bonnie Lassie's house, +where her tiny figurines, touched with the fire of her love and her +genius, which are perhaps one and the same, stand ever on guard, looking +out over Our Square from her windows. Judging by his appearance and +conversation, I should have supposed my companion to be as little +concerned with art as with, let us say, poetry or local antiquities. But +he stopped dead in his tracks, before the first window. Fingers that +were like steel claws buried themselves in my arm. The other +hand pointed. + +"What's that?" he muttered fiercely. + +"That," to which he was pointing, was a pictorial bronze, the figure of +a girl, upright in a cockleshell boat, made of a rose-petal, her arms +outspread to the breeze that was bearing her out across sunlit ripples. +Beneath was the legend: "Far Ports." The face, eager, laughing, +passionate, adventurous, was the face of Minnie Munn. Therein the Bonnie +Lassie had been prophetess as well as poet and sculptress, for she had +finished the bronze before Minnie left us. + +"That," I answered the strong, pink man, trying to shake loose his grip, +"is a sculpture by Cecily Willard, otherwise Mrs. Cyrus Staten." + +"What'll she take for it?" + +"It can't be bought." I spoke with authority, for the figurines that the +Bonnie Lassie sets in her window are not for sale, but for us of Our +Square, who love them. + +"Anything can be bought," he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse +persuasiveness, "at a price. I've got the price, no matter what it is." + +Suddenly I understood my pink and hard acquaintance. I understood that +stale look in his eyes. Tears do not bring that. Nothing brings it but +sleepless thoughts beyond the assuagement of tears. Behind such eyes the +heart is aching cold and the brain searing hot. Who should know better +than I, though the kindly years have brought their healing! But here was +a wound, raw and fresh and savage. I put my hand on his shoulder. + +"What was little Minnie to you?" I asked, and answered myself. "You're +Hines. You're the man she married." + +"Yes. I'm Chris Hines." + +"You've brought her back to us," I said stupidly. + +"She made me promise." + +Strange how Our Square binds the heartstrings of those who have once +lived in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the +hour of death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God's Acre, +shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the +encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few +more of the returning. Laws have been invoked and high and learned +courts appealed to for the jealously guarded right to sleep there, as +Minnie Munn was so soon to sleep beside her mother. + +I told Hines that I would see the Bonnie Lassie about the statuette, and +led him on, through the nagged and echoing passage and the iron gate, to +the white-studded space of graves. The new excavation showed, brown +against the bright verdure. Above it stood the headstone of the Munns, +solemn and proud, the cost of a quarter-year's salary, at the pitiful +wage which little, broken Mr. Munn drew from his municipal clerkship. +Hines's elegant coat rippled on his chest, above what may have been a +shudder, as he looked about him. + +"It's crowded," he muttered. + +"We lie close, as we lived close, in Our Square. I am glad for her +father's sake that Minnie wished to come back." + +"She said she couldn't rest peaceful anywhere else. She said she had +some sort of right to be here." + +"The Munns belong to what we call the Inalienables in Our Square," said +I, and told him of the high court decision which secured to the +descendants of the original "churchyard membership," and to them alone, +the inalienable right to lie in God's Acre, provided, as in the ancient +charter, they had "died in honorable estate." I added: "Bartholomew +Storrs, as sexton, has constituted himself watchdog of our graves and +censor of our dead. He carried one case to the Supreme Court in an +attempt to keep an unhappy woman from sleeping in that pious company." + +"That sour-faced prohibitionist?" growled Mr. Hines, employing what I +suspect to be the blackest anathema in his lexicon. "Is he the sexton?" + +"The same. Our mortuary genius," I confirmed. + +"She was a good girl, Min was," said Mr. Hines firmly, though, it might +appear, a trifle inconsequentially: "I don't care what they say. Anyway, +after I met up with her"; in which qualifying afterthought lay a whole +sorrowful and veiled history. + +I waited. + +"What did they say about her, down here?" he asked jealously. + +"Oh, there were rumors. They didn't reach her father." + +"No: tell me," he persisted. "I gotta know." + +Because Mr. Hines had already impressed himself upon me as one with whom +straight talk would serve best, I acceded. + +"Bartholomew Storrs said that her feet took hold on hell." + +Mr. Hines's face remained impassive. Only his hands worked slightly, +perhaps kneading an imaginary throat. I perceived him to be a person of +considerable and perhaps formidable self-control. + +"Not that she hadn't her friends. The Bonnie Lassie would have stood by +her if she had come back, and little Mrs. Morse, and our Dr. Smith, and +MacLachan, who thought he had lost his own girl the same way, and--and +others, plenty." + +"And you, Dominie," said the hard, pink Mr. Hines. + +"My dear sir, old men cannot afford harsh judgments. They are too near +their own time." + +"Yeh?" said Mr. Hines absently. "I guess that's right." But his mind was +plainly elsewhere. "When would you say would be the best time to do +business with old Funeral-Clothes?" he asked after a thoughtful pause. + +"You want to see Bartholomew Storrs?" I interpreted. + +"Sure. I gotta deliver the death certificate to him if he runs the +graveyard, haven't I?" + +"Such is the procedure, I believe." + +"Besides," he added with a leer, "I want to get some of that weepy +poetry of his." + +"Well; he'll sell it to you readily." + +"I'll say he'll sell it to me," returned Mr. Hines with a grimness which +I failed to comprehend. + +"Now is as good a time as any to catch him in his office." I pointed to +a sign at the farther end of the yard. + +Mr. Hines seemed in no hurry to go. With his elegantly lacquered cane, +he picked at the sod, undecidedly. His chill, veiled eyes roved about +the open space. He lifted his pearl-gray derby, and, for lack of a +handkerchief, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Although the +May day was cool and brisk with wind, his knuckles glistened when they +descended. I began to suspect that, despite his stony self-command, Mr. +Hines's nerves were not all that they should be. + +"Perhaps you'd like me to introduce you to Mr. Storrs," I hazarded. + +The cold and filmy eyes gleamed with an instant's dim warmth. "Dominie, +you're a good guy," responded Mr. Hines. "If a dead cinch at ten to one, +all fruited up for next week, the kind of thing you don't hand on to +your own brother, would be any use to you--No? I'm off again," he +apologized. "Well--let's go." + +We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs's office he paused. + +"This sexton-guy," he said anxiously, "he don't play the ponies, ever, I +wouldn't suppose?" + +"No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church," I +smiled. + +"Yeh?" he answered, disheartened. "I gotta get to him some other way. On +the poetry--and that's out of my line." + +"I don't quite see what your difficulty is." + +"By what you tell me, it's easier to break into a swell Fifth Avenue +Club than into this place." + +"Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has." + +"And this sexton-guy handles the concession for--he's got the say-so," +he corrected himself hastily--"on who goes in and who stays out. Is +that right?" + +"Substantially." + +"And he'd rather keep 'em out than let 'em in?" + +"Bartholomew," I explained, "considers that the honor of God's Acre is +in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about it, as if he had +a proprietary interest in the place." + +"I get you!" Mr. Hines's corded throat worked painfully. "You don't +suppose the old goat would slip Min a blackball?" he gulped. + +"How can he? As an 'Inalienable'--" + +"Yeh; I know. But wasn't there something about a clean record? I'll tell +_you_, Dominie"--Mr. Hines's husky but assured voice trailed away into +a miserable, thick whisper--"as to what he said--about her feet taking +hold on hell--I guess there was a time--I guess about one more slip--I +guess I didn't run across her any too quick. But there never was a +straighter, truer girl than Min was with me. I gotta get her planted +_right_, Dominie. I gotta do it," he concluded with pathetic +earnestness. + +"I see no difficulty," I assured him. "The charter specifies '_died_ in +honorable estate.' Matrimony is an honorable estate. How she lived +before that is between her and a gentler Judge than Bartholomew Storrs." + +"Give her a straight course and a fair judge and I'll back Min to the +limit," said Mr. Hines so simply and loyally that no suggestion of +irreverence could attach to him. + +Nevertheless, doubt was mingled with determination in his florid face as +he rang the bell. Bartholomew Storrs opened to us, himself. When he saw +me, he hastily pocketed a Rhyming Dictionary. I introduced my companion, +stating, by way of a favorable opening, that he was interested in +memorial poetry. + +"Very pleased," said Bartholomew Storrs in his deep, lugubrious tones. +"Bereaved husband?" + +Mr. Hines nodded. + +"Here's a tasty thing I just completed," continued the poet, and, +extending a benignant hand toward the visitor he intoned nasally: + + "Together we have lived our life + Till thou hast gone on high. + But I will come to thee, dear Wife, + In the sweet bye-and-bye." + +"That style five dollars," he said. + +"You're on," barked Mr. Hines. "I'll take it." + +"To be published, I suppose, on the first anniversary of death. Shall I +look after the insertion in the papers?" queried the obliging poet, who +split an advertising agent's percentage on memorial notices placed +by him. + +"Sure. Got any more? I'd spend a hundred to do this right." + +With a smile of astounded gratification, Bartholomew accepted the roll +of bills, fresh and crisp as the visitor himself. To do him justice, I +believe that his pleasure was due as much to the recognition of his +genius as to the stipend it had earned. + +"Perhaps you'd like a special elegy to be read at the grave," he rumbled +eagerly. "When and where did the interment take place?" + +The other glared at him in stony surprise. "It ain't taken place. It's +to-morrow. Ain't you on? I'm Hines." + +A frown darkened the sexton's heavy features. He shook a reprehensive +head. "An unfortunate case," he boomed; "most unfortunate. I will not +conceal from you, Mr. Hines, that I have consulted our attorneys upon +this case, and unhappily--unhappily, I say--they hold that there is no +basis for exclusion provided the certificate is in form. You have it +with you?" + +Impassive and inscrutable, Mr. Hines tapped his breast-pocket. + +The conscience of a responsible sexton being assuaged, Bartholomew's +expression mollified into that of the flattered poet. + +"Such being the case," he pursued, "there can be no objection to the +reading of an elegy as part of the service. Who is to officiate?" + +"The Reverend Doctor Hackett." + +"He has retired these two years," said the sexton doubtfully. "He is +very old. His mind sometimes wanders." + +"She wouldn't have any one else," asserted the hard, pink Mr. Hines. +"She was as particular about that as about being buried yonder." He +jerked his head toward the window. + +"Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide the +reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a moment +while I look up my elegies." + +"Say," said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as the +poet-sexton retired, "this is dead easy. Why, the guy's on the make. For +sale. He'll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff for other folks +to sign! He's a crook!" + +"Make no such mistake," I advised. "Bartholomew is as honest a man as +lives, in his own belief." + +"Very likely. That's the worst kind," pronounced the expert Mr. Hines. + +Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. "If you +will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented," +said he. + +"What becomes of it after I deliver it?" asked Mr. Hines. + +"Read, attested, and filed officially." + +"Any one else but you see it?" + +"Not necessarily." + +"That's all right, then." + +Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. +Hines than he lifted a stiffening face. + +"What is this?" he challenged. + +"What's what?" + +The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. "'Minna Merivale, +aged twenty-five,'" he read. + +"That's the name she went by." + +"_Unmarried_" read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom. + +"Well?" + +In the sexton's eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. "Take +her away." + +"_What_?" + +"Bury her somewhere else. Do not think that you can pollute the +ground--" + +"Bartholomew!" I broke in, stepping hastily in front of Mr. Hines, for I +had seen all the pink ebb out of his face, leaving it a dreadful sort of +gray; and I had no desire to be witness of a murder, however much I +might deem it justified. + +"I'll handle him," said Mr. Hines steadily. "Now; you! You got my +hundred in your jeans, ain't you!" + +"Bribery!" boomed the sexton. He drew out the roll of bills and let it +fall from his contaminated fingers. + +"Sure! Bribery," railed the other. "What'd you think? Ain't it enough +for what I'm asking?" The two men glared at each other. + +I broke the silence. "Exactly what are you asking, Mr. Hines?" + +"File that"--he touched the document--"and forget it. Let Min rest out +there as my wife, like she ought to have been." + +"Why didn't you make her your wife?" thundered the accuser. + +Some invisible thing gripped the corded throat of Mr. Hines. "Couldn't," +he gulped. "There was--another. She wouldn't divorce me." + +"Your sin has found you out," declared the self-constituted judge of the +dead with a dismal sort of relish. + +"Yeh? That's all right. _I'll_ pay for it. But she's paid already." + +"As she lived so she has died, in sin," the inexorable voice answered. +"Let her seek burial elsewhere." + +Mr. Hines leaned forward. His expression and tone were passionless as +those of a statistician proffering a tabulation: his words were fit to +wring the heart of a stone. + +"She's dead, ain't she?" he argued gently. "She can't hurt any one, can +she? 'Specially if they don't know." + +Bartholomew Storrs made a gesture of repulsion. + +"Well, who'll she hurt?" pursued the other, in his form of pure and +abstract reasoning. "Not her mother, I guess. Her mother's waiting for +her; that's what Min said when she was--was going. And her father'll be +on the other side of her. And that's all. Min never harmed anybody but +herself when she was alive. How's she going to do 'em any damage now, +just lying there, resting? Be reasonable, man!" + +Be pitiful, oh, man! For there was a time not so long past when you, +with all your stern probity and your unwinking conscience, needed pity; +yes, and pleaded for it when the mind was out of control. Think back, +Bartholomew Storrs, to the day when you stood by another grave, close to +that which waits to-day for the weary sleeper--Bartholomew Storrs +rested, opened the door and stood by it, grimly waiting. Mr. Hines +turned to me. + +"What is this thing, Dominie; a man or a snake? Will I kill it?" + +"Bartholomew," I began. "When we--" + +"Not a word from you, Dominie. My mind is made up." + +"The girl is Isabel Munn's daughter." + +I saw a tremor shake the gaunt frame. + +"When we buried Isabel Munn, you came back in the night to weep at her +grave." + +He thrust out a warding hand toward me. + +"Why did you weep over Isabel Munn's grave, Bartholomew?" + +"Speak no evil of the dead," he cried wildly. + +"It is not in my mind. She was a good and pure woman. What would she +have been if she had listened to you?" + +"What do you know? Who betrayed me?" + +"You, yourself. When you came down with pneumonia after the burial, I +sat with you through a night of delirium." + +Bartholomew Storrs bowed his head. + +"My sin hath found me out," he groaned. "God knows I loved her, and--and +I hadn't the strength not to tell her. I'd have given up everything for +her, my hope of heaven, my--my--I 'd have given up my office and gone +away from God's Acre! And that was twenty years ago. I--I don't sleep o' +nights yet, for thinking." + +"Well, you ain't the only one," said the dull voice of Mr. Hines. + +"You're tempting me!" Bartholomew Storrs snarled at him. "You're trying +to make me false to my trust." + +"Just to let her lie by her mother, like her mother would ask you if she +could." + +"Don't say it to me!" He beat his head with his clenched hand. +Recovering command of himself, he straightened up, taking a deep breath: +"I must be guided by my conscience and my God," he said professionally, +and I noted a more reverent intonation given to the former than to the +latter. A bad sign. + +"Isabel Munn's daughter, Bartholomew," I reminded him. + +Instead of replying he staggered out of the door. Through the window we +saw him, a moment later, posting down the street, bareheaded and +stony-eyed, like one spurred by tormenting thoughts. + +"Will he do it, do you think?" queried the anxious-visaged Mr. Hines. + +I shook my head in doubt. With a man like Bartholomew Storrs, one can +never tell. + +Old memories are restless companions for the old. So I found them that +night. But there is balm for sleeplessness in the leafy quiet of Our +Square. I went out to my bench, seeking it, and found an occupant +already there. + +"We ain't the only ones that need a jab of dope, Dominie," said Mr. +Hines, hard and pink and hoarsely confidential as when I first saw him. + +"No? Who else?" Though I suspected, of course. + +"Old Gloom. He's over in the Acre." + +"Did you meet him there? What did he say?" + +"I ducked him. He never saw me. He was--well, I guess he was praying," +said Mr. Hines shamefacedly. + +"Praying? At the Munn grave?" + +"That's it. Groaning and saying, 'A sign, O Lord! Vouchsafe thy servant +a sign!' Kept saying it over and over." + +"For guidance to-morrow," I murmured. "Mr. Hines, I'm not sure that I +know Bartholomew Storrs's God. Nor can I tell what manner of sign he +might give, or with what meaning. But if I know my God, whom I believe +to be the true God, your Minnie is safe with him." + +"Yeh? You're a good guy, Dominie," said Mr. Hines in his emotionless +voice. + +I took him home with me to sleep. But we did not sleep. We smoked. + +Minnie Munn's funeral morning dawned clear and fresh. No word came from +Bartholomew Storrs. I tried to find him, but without avail. + +"We'll go through with it," said Mr. Hines quietly. + +How small and insignificant seemed our tiny God's Acre, as the few +mourners crept into it behind Minnie Munn's body; the gravestones like +petty dots upon the teeming earth, dwarfed by the overshadowing +tenements, as if death were but an incident in the vast, unhasting, +continuous sweep of life, as indeed perhaps it is. Then the grandeur of +the funeral service, which links death to immortality, was bodied forth +in the aged minister's trembling voice, and by it the things which are +of life were dwarfed to nothingness. But my uneasy mind refused to be +bound by the words; it was concerned with Bartholomew Storrs, standing +grim, haggard, inscrutable, beside the grave, his eyes upturned and +waiting. Too well I knew for what he was waiting; his sign. So, too, did +Mr. Hines, still hard, still pink, still impeccably tailored, and still +clinging to his elegant lacquered cane, as he supported little, broken +Mr. Munn, very pathetic and decorous in full black, even to the gloves. + +The sonorous beauty and simplicity of the rite suddenly checked, +faltered. Bartholomew Storrs leaned over anxiously to the minister. The +poor, gentle, worn-out old brain was groping now in semi-darkness, +through which shot a cross-ray of memory. The tremulous voice took on +new confidence, but the marrow of my spine turned icy as I heard the +fatally misplaced and confused words that followed: + +"If any man know--know just and good cause why this woman--why this +woman--should not--" + +Bartholomew Storrs's gaunt hand shot upward, high in air, outspread in +the gesture of forbiddance. His deep voice rang, overbearing the +stumbling accents of the clergyman. + +"A sign! A sign from on High! O God, thou hast spoken through thy +servant to forefend a sore offense. Listen, ye people. This woman--" + +He stopped as there rose, on the opposite side of the open grave another +figure, with hands and voice lifted to heaven in what must surely have +been the most ingenuous supplication that ever ascended to the throne of +Pity and Understanding. All the passion which, through the bitter hours, +had been repressed in the self-commanding soul of the hard and pink Mr. +Hines, swelled and cried aloud in his plea: + +"O God! have a heart!" + +Bartholomew Storrs's hand fell. His eyes faltered. His lips trembled. He +stood once more, agonized with doubt. And in that moment the old +minister came to his rightful senses. + +"Peace, my friends," he commanded with authority. "Let no man disturb +the peace of the dead." + +And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service. + +So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No +ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her +comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are +fresh flowers on Minnie's mound, below the headstone reading: "Beloved +Wife of Christopher Hines." But the elegiac verse has never appeared. I +must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze cockleshell, +outward bound for "Far Ports," from the Bonnie Lassie's window, though +Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it could be bought--like all else +--"at a price." By the way, I believe that he has modified that theory. + +As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the +Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as +grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight +of our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he +has a crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of +an official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But +even that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into +heaven on the strength of it. + +I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o' nights now. + + + +FOR MAYME, READ MARY + +I + +Mayme Mccartney was a bad little good girl. She inspired (I trust) +esteem for her goodness. But it was for her hardy and happy impudence, +her bent for ingenious mischief, her broad and catholic disrespect for +law, conventions, proprieties and persons, and the glint of the devil in +her black eyes that we really loved her. Such is the perversity of human +nature in Our Square. I am told that it is much the same elsewhere. + +She first came into public notice by giving (unsolicited) a most +scandalous and spirited imitation of old Madame Tallafferr, aforetime of +the Southern aristocracy, in the act of rebuking her landlord, the +insecticidal Boggs ("Boggs Kills Bugs" in his patent of nobility), for +eating peanuts on his own front steps. She then (earnestly solicited by +a growing audience) put on impromptu sketches of the Little Red Doctor +diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan (drunk) +singing "The Cork Leg" and MacLachan (sober) repenting thereof; of +Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a bereaved +second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten whiskers +(limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious +admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a +bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a +shrub had observed her presentation of his little idiosyncrasies, drew +nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough. +He suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he +fought an interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn't +quite fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon +indicated by the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and +floating, and her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of +the mature and self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her +experienced years. + +"Hello," greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque +informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't +know you, do I?" + +Mayme lifted her eyes. "If you don't," she drawled, "it ain't for lack +of tryin'. Is your hat glued on?" + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. "Do you think +I'm trying to flirt with you? Why, you're only a kid." + +"Get up to date," advised Mayme. "I'm old enough to be your steady. +Only, I'm too lucky." + +"That's a bad cough you've got," said the Little Red Doctor hastily. + +"I've got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?" + +"Bring it over to my office and let's look at the thing," suggested the +Little Red Doctor, smiling. + +As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men +which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the +suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful. + +"D'you think it means anything?" she asked. + +"Any cough means something. I couldn't tell without examination." + +"How much?" inquired the cautious Mayme. + +The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. "No charge for +first consultation. Come over to my office." + +When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally +non-committal. "Live with your parents?" he asked. + +"No. With my aunt. 'Round in the Avenue." + +"Where do you work?" + +"The Emporium," answered the girl, naming the great and still +fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward. + +"You ought to quit. As soon as possible." + +"And spoil my delicate digestion?" + +"Who said anything about your digestion?" + +"I did. If I quit workin', I quit eatin'. And that's bad for me. I tried +it once." + +"I see," said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition by no means +unprecedented in local practice. "Couldn't you get a job in some +better climate?" + +"Where, for instance?" + +"Well, if you knew any one in California." + +"How's the walkin'?" asked Mayme. + +"It's long," replied the Little Red Doctor, "seeing" again. "Anyway, +you've got to have fresh air." + +"They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square," Mayme +pointed out. + +"Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour +every day." He gave some further instructions. + +Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel. + +"Take it away," said the Little Red Doctor. "Didn't I tell you--" + +"Go-wan!" said Mayme. "Whadda you think you are; Bellevue Hospital? I +pay as I go, Doc." + +The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely. + +"What's the matter? Face hurt you?" asked the solicitous Mayme. + +"People don't call me 'Doc,'" began the offended practitioner in +dignified tones. + +"Oh, that's because they ain't on to you," she assured him. "I wouldn't +call you 'Doc' myself if I didn't know you was a good sport back of +your bluff." + +The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the +dollar. "You aren't such a bad sport yourself," he admitted. "Well, +we'll call this a deal. But if I see you in the Square and give you a +tip about yourself now and again, that doesn't count. That's on the +side. Understand?" + +She considered it gravely. "All right," she agreed at length. "Between +pals, yes? Shake, Doc." + +So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, +knightly-hearted practitioner, and the impish and lovable little +store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his +old friend, Death. + +"He's got the jump on me, Dominie," complained the Little Red Doctor to +me. "But, at that, we're going to give him a fight. She's clear grit, +that youngster is. She's got a philosophy of life, too. I don't know +where she got it, or just what it is, but it's there. Oh, she's worth +saving, Dominie." + +"If I hadn't reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend," said I, +"I'd give you solemn warning." + +"Why, she's an infant!" returned the Little Red Doctor scornfully. "A +poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides--" He stopped and sighed. + +"Yes; I know," I assented. There was at that time a "Besides" in the +Little Red Doctor's sorrowful heart which bulked too large to admit of +any rivalry. "Nevertheless," I added, "you needn't be so scornful about +the simian type in woman. It's a concentrated peril to mankind. I've +seen trouble caused in this world by kitten faces, by pure, classic +faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic +faces, by passionate Southern faces, but for real power of catastrophe, +for earthquake and eclipse, for red ruin and the breaking up of laws, +commend me to the humanized, feminized monkey face. I'll wager that when +Antony first set eyes on Cleopatra, he said, 'And which cocoa palm did +she fall out of?' Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, +and as for Helen of Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief +that the face that launched a thousand ships and fired the topless +towers of Ilium was a reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is +born of woman cannot resist it. Give little Mayme three more years--" + +"I wish to God I could," said the Little Red Doctor. + +"Can't you?" I asked, startled. "Is it as bad as that?" + +"It isn't much better. How's your insomnia, Dominie?" + +"Insomnia," said I, "is a scientific quibble for unlaid memories. I take +mine out for the early morning air at times, if that's what you mean." + +"It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that busy +little mind of hers from brooding." + +In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She +adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac +near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung +back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a +call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions +and argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair +exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and +adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder? + +On the morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being +discouraged by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it +occupied by an individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part +in the general lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite +exquisite of raiment, which alone would have marked him for an +outlander. His elbows were propped on his knees, his fists supported his +cheekbones, his whole figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him +with surprise, Mayme was shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from +his drooping countenance, fall to the pavement, followed by another. At +the same time she heard an unmistakable and melancholic sound. + +The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have +cradled weariness of body and spirit; they have assuaged grief and given +refuge to shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered +to the passion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had +any of their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme +McCartney. It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of +which was a desire to laugh. + +Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one +vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing. +She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders. + +"Cheer up, Buddy," she said. "It ain't as bad as you think it is." + +"It's worse," gulped a choky voice. Then the head lifted again. "Who are +you?" it demanded. + +"I'm your big sister," said Mayme reassuringly. "Tell a feller about +it." + +The response was neither polite nor explanatory. "D---n sisters!" said +the bencher. + +"Oh, tutt-_tutt_ and naughty-naughty!" rebuked Mayme. "Somebody's sister +been puttin' somethin' over on poor little Willy?" + +"My own sister has." He was in that state of semi-hysterical exhaustion +in which revelation of one's intimate troubles to the first comer seems +natural. "She's gone and got arrested," he wailed. + +Mayme's face became grave and practical. + +"That's different," said she. "What's her lay?" + +"Lay? I don't know--" + +"What's her line? What's she done to get pinched?" + +"Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium." + +"You're tellin' me! In the silks, huh?" + +"What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?" + +"Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that pinch. +Swell young married lady. Say," she added, after a thoughtful pause: +"has she got somethin' comin'?" + +"Something coming? How? What?" + +"Don't be dumb. A kid." + +He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who +live in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false +shame about the major facts of life. + +"Suppose she has?" queried the youth sulkily. + +"Why, that'll be all right, you poor boob," returned the kindly Mayme. +"The judge'll let her off with a warning." + +"How do you know?" + +"They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned for +makin' a pinch of a lady in the fam'ly way." + +"What if they do let her off?" lamented the youth. "It'll be in all the +papers and I'll be ruined. My life's spoiled. I might as well leave +the city." + +"Ah, don't do a mean trick like that to the old town!" besought the +sardonic Mayme. "Where do you come in to get hurt?" + +He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. +His family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy +emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their +new, precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant +grief he did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the +local society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the +Shining Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, +her daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as +"the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented financier." + +Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of +society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American +democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for +their names to appear.) She perceived--not knowing that the advertising +leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those insecure portals +of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny--that she was +in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme's +independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a +career worth saving! + +"Let's go over to the station-house," said she. "I know some of the +cops." + +To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting +case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything +would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store +itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David +Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. +She was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and +piquant and quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. +From the opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking +the insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that +she was a "fly kid." On that theory he invited her to breakfast with +him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson's Elite Restaurant, on the +corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast of +Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured +her by declining it. + +Thus began an acquaintanceship which swiftly ripened into a queer sort +of intimacy, more than a little disturbing to us of Our Square who were +interested in Mayme. Young Berthelin's over-ornate roadster lingered in +our quiet precincts more often than appeared to us suitable or safe, and +black-eyed Mayme, looking demure and a little exalted, was whirled away +to unknown worlds, always returning, however, at respectable hours. When +the Little Red Doctor remonstrated with her ostensibly on the score of +her health, she reminded him in one breath that he hadn't been invited +to censor her behavior which was entirely her own affair, and in the +next--with his hand caught between hers and her voice low and +caressing--declared that he was the best little old Doc in the world and +there was nothing to worry about, either as to health or conduct. +Indeed, her condition seemed to be improving. I dare say young Mr. +Berthelin's expensive food was one of the things she needed. +Furthermore, she ceased to be the raggle-taggle, hoydenishly clad Mayme +of the cash department, and, having been promoted to saleswoman, quite +went in for dress. On this point she sought the advice of the Bonnie +Lassie. The result went far to justify my prophecy that Mayme's queer +little face might yet make its share of trouble in an impressionable +world. But the Bonnie Lassie shook her bonnie head privately and said +that the fine-feathers development was a bad sign, and that if young +Berthelin would obligingly run his seventeen-jeweled roadster off the +Williamsburgh Bridge, with himself in it, much trouble might be saved +for all concerned. + +If little Mayme were headed for trouble, she went to meet it with a +smiling face. Never had she seemed so joyous, so filled with the desire +of life. This much was to be counted on the credit side, the Little Red +Doctor said. On the debit side--well, to me was deputed the unwelcome +task of conveying the solemn, and, as it were, official protest and +warning of Our Square. Of course I did it at the worst possible moment. +It was early one morning, when Mayme, on her bench, was looking a little +hollow-eyed and disillusioned. I essayed the light and jocular approach +to the subject: + +"Well, Mayme; how is the ardent swain?" + +She turned to me with the old flash in her big, shadowed eyes: "Did you +say swain or swine, Dominie?" + +"Ah!" said I. "Has he changed his role?" + +"He's given himself away, if that's what you mean." + +"I thought that would come." + +"He--he wanted me to take a trip to Boston with him." + +I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or +unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. "Have you told the Little +Red Doctor?" + +"Doc'd kill him," said Mayme simply. + +"What better reason for telling?" + +"Oh, the poor kid: he don't know any better." + +"Doesn't he? In any case I trust that you know better, after this, than +to have anything more to do with him." + +"Yep. I've cut him out," replied Mayme listlessly. "I figured you and +Doc were right, Dominie. It's no good, his kind of game. Not for girls +like me." She looked up at me with limpid eyes, in which there was +courage and determination and suffering. + +"My dear," I murmured, "I hope it isn't going to be too hard." + +"He's so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + +So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color, +his wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful +figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any +inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when, +a few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had +vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret +from him), and, addressing me as "you white-whiskered old goat," accused +me of having come between him and the girl upon whom he had deigned to +bestow his lordly favor. Unfortunately for him, the Little Red Doctor +chanced along just then and inquired, none too deferentially, what the +Scion of Wealth and Position was doing in that quarter. + +"What business is it of yours, Red-Head?" countered the offended +visitor. + +He then listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do +in the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and +convincing summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch +of his personal and sartorial appearance. + +"I didn't mean the kid any harm," argued the Scion suavely. "I--I came +back to apologize." + +"Let me catch you snooping around here again and I'll break every bone +in your body," the Little Red Doctor answered him. + +"I guess this Square's free to everybody. I guess you don't own it," +said the youth, retreating to his car. + +Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exactitude of this surmise, he was +seen no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at +learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme's, that +she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a +cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized +upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two +consisting of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that +it was all right; we didn't understand. This is, I believe, the usual +formula. The last half of it at least, was true. + +About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that +upon our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney's love +affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the +fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its +military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had +drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded. + +She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic +limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative +Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the +ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that +she had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his +woe-begone and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a +spoiled and pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She +suggested a vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied +our forces to meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie Lassie, and +myself. Mrs. Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, +not even awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted +upon these, and she learned that the Bonnie Lassie was Mrs. Cyrus +Staten, she cringed. Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns +quite as genuine as that of Mrs. Berthelin's to get in, the Cyrus +Statens frequently figure among the Shining Ones, a fact almost +painfully appreciated by our visitor. After that it was easy to get her +into the Bonnie Lassie's house, where her eloquence could not draw a +crowd. To get young David there was not quite so easy. He made one +well-timed and almost successful effort to bolt, and even evinced signs +of balking on the steps. + +His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the +Bonnie Lassie's studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a +history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant +lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, +marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, +he squirmed. + +"Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma'am?" inquired +the Little Red Doctor suavely. + +It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission +as Captain in the Quartermaster's Department was arranged for, and she +expected to have the young officer assigned to New York so that he could +live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and +condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no +designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David's +future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate +of Mayme McCartney's character, manners, and morals, in the midst of +which I heard a gasp. + +It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The +front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins' monogrammed +car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared. + +"That's a lie," said Mayme McCartney steadily. "I'm as straight a girl +as your own daughter. Ask him." + +She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it +can be extremely effective. David's head dropped into his hands. + +"Oh, Ma!" he groaned. + +"Don't call me 'Ma,'" snapped the goaded Mrs. Berthelin. "And this is +the girl?" She looked Mayme up and down. Mayme did the same by her and +did it better. + +"I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare trick," +said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel which ended +in her favor. + +The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie's eyelids quiver, +but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor. + +"Mrs. Berthelin," said she, "you have made some very damaging +statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney's character. What +proof have you?" + +"Why, he wants to _marry_ her!" almost yelled the mother. "She's trapped +him." + +"That's another lie," said Mayme. + +"He told me himself that he was going to marry you." + +"Did he? Then he's wrong. I wouldn't marry him with a brass ring," +asserted Mayme. + +"You wouldn't mar--You wouldn't _what_?" demanded the mother, outraged +and incredulous. + +"You heard me. He knows it, too. I don't like the family--what I've seen +of them," observed Mayme judicially. "Besides, he's yellow." + +David's shamed face emerged into view. "I'm not," he gulped. "She--she +made me." + +"Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. +"Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little +fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their +fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the +fightin' is." + +David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly +expression. + +"Let me out of here," he growled. + +"David!" said his mother. "Where are you going?" + +"To enlist." + +"Davey!" It was a shriek. "You shan't." + +"I will." + +"I won't let you." + +"You can go to--" + +"Buddy!" Mayme's voice, magically softened, broke in. "Cut out the rough +stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no +pink-silk picnic." + +"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs. +Berthelin. + +The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she +said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to +betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities." + +Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and +aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I +come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry." + +"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out +of his fingertips this time to-morrow." + +"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he +added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?" + +"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take +me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along." + +They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by +an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with +the rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine. + +We waited at the Bonnie Lassie's for the Little Red Doctor's return. He +came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little gleam of +disappointment in Mayme's deep eyes. + +"He's done it," said the Little Red Doctor. And I was sorry for him, so +much was there of tragic envy in his face. + +"Did you give him your blessing?" I asked. + +"I did. He shook hands like a man. There's maybe something in that boy, +if it weren't for the old hell-cat of a mother. However, she won't have +much chance. He's off to-morrow." + +"Will he write?" said Mayme in a curious, strained voice. + +"He will. He'll report to me from time to time." + +"Didn't he--wasn't there any message?" + +"Just good-bye and good luck," answered the Little Red Doctor, censoring +ruthlessly. + +The Bonnie Lassie went over and put her arms around Mayme McCartney. + +"My dear," she said softly. "It wouldn't do. It really wouldn't. He +isn't worth it. You're going to forget him." + +"All right." Suddenly Mayme looked like a very helpless and sorrowful +little girl. "Only, it--it isn't goin' to be as easy as you think. He +was so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully. + + +II + +Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from +which one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of +parched shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my +bench with a fell and purposeful smile. + +"Dominie, you're a dear old thing," she began in her most insinuating +tones. + +"I won't do it," I said determinedly, foreboding something serious. + +The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved +innocence. "Won't do what?" she inquired. + +"Whatever it is that you're trying to wheedle me into." + +The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the +corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. "Oh, +but you've already done it," she said. + +"Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with." + +"It must be lovely to be rich," said the Bonnie Lassie meditatively. +"And so generous!" + +"How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven't got that much," I +hastily remarked. + +"And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme +herself." + +"Go on. Don't mind me," I murmured. + +"The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It's in New Mexico. And in +the fall she's going on to the Coast. He's almost willing to guarantee +that a year of it will make her as strong as ever. And the hundred +dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling expenses will be +plenty. You _are_ a good old thing, Dominie!" + +"What you mean is that I'm an old good-thing. How shall I look," I +demanded bitterly, "when Mayme comes to thank me?" + +"No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable objections +to our perfectly good plans," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "Besides, she +won't. She knows that your way is to do good by stealth and blush to +find it fame, and she's under pledge to pretend to know nothing +about it." + +"Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?" I queried. + +"There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative power. +Think it over." + +"The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!" I cried. "Did our medical +friend blackmail him?" + +"Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme's chance here was +rather poorer than a soldier's going to war, unless something could be +done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed to do it. 'Do you +think she'd take it from you?' said the Little Red Doctor, 'after what +your mother called her?' 'Don't let her know,' says our ornamental young +weeper. 'Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it's from that +white-whiskered old--from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the +benevolent expres--'" + +"Yes: I know," I broke in. "Very good. I'm the goat. Lying, hypocrisy, +false pretense, fake charity; it's all one to a sin-seared old reprobate +like me. After it's over I'll go around the corner and steal what +pennies I can find in Blind Simon's cup, just to make me feel +comparatively respectable and decent again." + +It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, +having come to say good-bye, put her lips close to my ear and tried to +whisper something, and cried and kissed me instead. + +Our Square was a dimmer and duller place after she left. But her letters +helped. They were so exactly like herself! Even at the first, when +things seemed to be going ill with her, they were all courage, and +quaint humor and determination to get well and come back to Our Square, +which was the dearest and best place in the world with the dearest and +best people in it. Homesickness! Poor little, lonely Mayme. She was +reading--she wrote the Bonnie Lassie--all the books that the Dominie had +listed for her, and she was being tutored by a school-teacher with blue +goggles and a weak heart who lived at the same resort. "Why grow up a +Boob," wrote the philosophic Mayme, "when the lil old world is full of +wise guys just aking to spill their wiseness?" + +Contemporaneously the Weeping Scion of Wealth was writing back his views +on life and the emptiness thereof, in better orthography, but with +distinctly less of spirit. + +"It appears," reported the Little Red Doctor, "that every man in his own +company has licked our young friend and now the other companies of the +regiment are beginning to show interest, and he doesn't like it. I +believe he'd desert if it weren't that he's afraid of what Mayme +would think." + +"Still on his mind, is she?" I asked. + +The Little Red Doctor produced a letter with a camp postmark from the +South and read a passage: + +"You were right when you guessed that I never wanted anything very much +before, without having it handed to me. Perhaps you are right about its +being good for me. But it comes hard. The promise goes, of course. I'm +going to show you and her that I'm not yellow. [So that was still +rankling; salutary, if bitter dose!] But if this war ever finishes, all +bets are off and I'm coming back to find her. And don't you forget your +part of the bargain, to write and let me know how she is getting on." +The Little Red Doctor was able to send progressively encouraging news. +When the cold weather came, Mayme moved westward to Southern California, +and found herself on the edge of one of the strange, tumultuous, +semi-insane moving-picture colonies of that region. Thence issued, +presently, stirring tidings. + +"What do you think?" wrote our exile. "They've got my funny little +monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The director likes +me and says he will give me a real chance one of these days. But, as the +Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless imp!] I would +not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to be, out +here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh little +frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure calls +herself Mayme or Daisye or Tootsye. Not for me! I am keeping up my +lessons and trying to make my head good for something besides carrying a +switch. Tell the Little Red Doctor that it is so long since I coughed I +have forgotten how. And I love you all so hard that it _hurts_. + +"Your loving + +"MARY MCCARTNEY + +"P.S. I am going to be Marie Courtenay when I get my name up in the +pictures. Put that in the Directory and see how it looks. + +"P.S.2. How is my soldier boy getting along? Poor kid! I expect he is +finding it a lot different from Broadway with money in your pocket." + +About this time the Weeping Scion was finding things very different, +indeed, from Broadway, having been shifted to a specially wet and muddy +section of France; and was taking them as he found them. That is to say, +he had learned the prime lesson of war. + +"And he's been made corporal," announced the Little Red Doctor with +satisfaction. + +"That sounds encouraging," remarked the Bonnie Lassie. "How did it +happen?" + +"He went over on one of the 'flu ships,' and when the epidemic began to +mow 'em down there was a kind of panic. From what I can make out, the +Scion kept his head and his nerve, and made good. A corporal's stripes +aren't much, but they're something." + +Better was to come. There was high triumph in the Little Red Doctor's +expression when he came to my bench with the glad tidings of young +David's promotion to a sergeantcy. + +"While it's very gratifying," I remarked, "it doesn't seem to me an +epoch-making event." + +"Doesn't it!" retorted my friend. "That's because of your abysmal +military ignorance, Dominie. Let me tell you how it is in our army. A +fellow can get himself made a captain by pull, or a major by luck, or a +colonel by desk-work, or a general by having a fine martial figure, but +to get yourself made a sergeant, by Gosh, you've got to show the +_stuff_. You've got to be a _man_. You've got to have--" + +"Are you going to tell her?" interrupted the Bonnie Lassie who had been +sent for to share the news. + +The Little Red Doctor fell suddenly grave. "She's another matter," he +said. "I don't think I shall." + +Matters were going forward with Mayme--beg her pardon, Mary McCartney, +too. + +"Better and more of it," she wrote the Bonnie Lassie. "They rang me in +on one of their local Red Cross shows to do a monologue. Was I a hit? +Say, I got more flowers than a hearse! You've got to remember, though, +that they deliver flowers by the car-load out here. And the local stock +company has made me an offer. Ingenue parts. There is not the money that +I might get in the pictures, but the chance is better. So Marie +Courtenay moves on to the legit.--I mean the spoken drama. Look out for +me on Broadway later!" + +In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus +followed by a curt bit of official information: "Seriously wounded." The +Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on +his face. + +"It doesn't look good, Dominie," he said. "You know, my old friend, +Death, is a shrewd picker. He's got an eye for men." He mused, rubbing +his tousled, brickish locks with a nervous hand. "I was getting to kind +of like that young pup," he muttered moodily. + +The saying that no news is good news was surely concocted by some one +who never chafed through day after lengthening day for that which does +not come. But in the end it did come, in the form of a scrawl from the +Weeping Scion himself. He was mending, but very slowly, and they said it +would be a long time--months, perhaps--before he could get back to the +front. Meantime, they were still picking odds and ends, chiefly +metallic, out of various parts of his system. + +"I'm one of the guys you read about that came over here to collect +souvenirs," he commented. "Well, I've got all I need of 'em. They can +have the rest. All I want now is to get back and present a few to +Fritzie before the show is over." + +Thereafter the Little Red Doctor exhibited, but read to us only in small +parts, quite bulky communications from overseas. Some of them, it became +known, he was forwarding to our little Mary, out in the Far West. With +her answer came the solution. + +"Some of the 'Grass and Asphalt' sketches are wonders; some not so good. +I am going to try out 'Doggy' if I can find a poodle with enough +intelligence to support me. But you need not have been so mysterious, +Doc, about your 'young amateur writer who seems to have some talent.' +Did you think I would not know it was David? Why, bless your dear, silly +heart, I told him some of those stories myself. But how does he get a +chance to write them? Is he back on this side? Or is he invalided? Or +what? Tell me. I want to know about him. You do not have to worry about +my--well, my infatuation for him, any more. He was a pretty boy, though, +wasn't he? But I have seen too many of that kind in the picture game. +I'm spoiled for them. How I would love to smear some of their pretty, +smirky faces! They give me a queer feeling in my breakfast. Excuse me: I +forgot I was a lady. But don't say 'pretty' to me any more. I'm through. +At that, you were all wrong about Buddy. He was a lot decenter than you +thought: only he was brought up wrong. Give him my love as one pal to +another. I hope he don't come back a He-ro. I'm offen he-roes, too. +Excuse again!" + +Wars and exiles alike come to an end in time. And in time our two +wanderers returned, but Mary first, David having been sent into Germany +with the Army of Occupation. Modest announcements in the theatrical +columns informed an indifferent theater-going world that Miss Marie +Courtenay, an actress new to Broadway, was to play the ingenue part in +the latest comedy by a highly popular dramatist. Immediately upon the +production, the theater-going world ceased to be indifferent to the new +actress; in fact, it went into one of its occasional furores about her. +Not that she was in any way a great genius, but she had a certain +indefinable and winningly individual quality. The critics discussed it +gravely and at length, differing argumentatively as to its nature and +constitution. I could have given them a hint. My predictions regarding +the ancestral potencies of the monkey-face were being abundantly +justified. + +No announcements, even of the most modest description, heralded the +arrival of Sergeant Major (if you please!) David Berthelin upon his +native shores. He came at once to Our Square and tackled the Little +Red Doctor. + +"Where is she?" he asked. + +The Little Red Doctor assumed an air of incredulous surprise. "Have you +still got _that_ bee in your bonnet?" said he. + +"Where is she?" repeated the Weeping Scion. + +Maneuvering for time and counsel, the Little Red Doctor took him to see +the Bonnie Lassie and they sent for me. We beheld a new and +reconstituted David. He was no longer pretty. The soft brown eyes were +less soft and more alert, and there were little wrinkles at their +corners. He had broadened a foot or so. That pinky-delicate complexion +by which he had, in earlier and easier days, set obvious store, was +brownish and looked hardened. The Cupid's-bow of his mouth had +straightened out. High on one cheekbone was a not unsightly scar. His +manner was unassertive, but eminently self-respecting, and me, whom +aforetime he had stigmatized as a "white-whiskered old goat," he now +addressed as "Sir." + +"Perhaps _you'll_ tell me where she is, sir," said he patiently. + +"Leave it to me," said the Bonnie Lassie, who has an unquenchable thirst +for the dramatic in real life. "And keep next Sunday night open." + +She arranged with Mary McCartney to give a reading on that evening, at +her studio, of David's "Doggy" from the "Grass and Asphalt" sketches +which he had written in hospital. It was a quaint, pathetic little +conceit, the bewildered philosophy of a waif of the streets, as +expressed to his waif of a dog. For the supporting part we borrowed +Willy Woolly from the House of Silvery Voices, and admirably he played +it, barking accurately and with true histrionic fervor in the right +places (besides promptly falling in love with the star at the first and +only rehearsal). After the try-out, Mary came over to my bench with a +check for a rather dazzling sum in her hand, and said that now was the +time to settle accounts, but she never could repay--and so forth and so +on; all put so sweetly and genuinely that I heartily wished I might +accept the thanks if not the check. Instead of which I blurted out +the truth. + +"Oh, _Dominie_!" said the girl, with such reproach that my heart sank +within me. "Do you think that was fair? Don't you know that I never +could have taken the money?" + +"Precisely. And we had to find a way to make you take it. We couldn't +have you dying on the premises," I argued with a feeble attempt at +jocularity. + +"But from _him_!" she said. "After what had happened--And his mother. +How could you let me do it!" + +"I thought you would have gotten over that feeling by this time," I +ventured. + +"Oh, there's none of the old feeling left," she answered, so simply that +I knew she believed her own statement. "But to have lived on his +money--Where is he?" she asked abruptly. + +I told her that also and about Sunday night; the whole thing. The Bonnie +Lassie would have slain me. But I couldn't help it. I was feeling +rather abject. + +Sunday night came, and with it Miss Marie Courtenay, escorted by an +"ace" covered with decorations, whose name is a household word and who +was only too obviously her adoring slave. Already there had been hints +of their engagement. Had I been that ace, I should have felt no small +discomposure at the sight of the girl's face when she first saw the +changed and matured Weeping Scion of three years before. After the first +flash of recognition she had developed on that expressive face of hers a +look of wonder and almost pathetic questioning, and, I thought, who knew +and loved the child, already something deeper and sweeter. Young David, +after greeting the star of the evening, took a modest rear seat as +befitted his rank. But when the Bonnie Lassie announced "Doggy," it was +his face that was the study. + +Of that performance I shall say nothing. It is now famous and familiar +to thousands of theater-goers. But if ever mortal man spent twenty +minutes in fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of +his fancy. At the close, he disappeared. I suppose he did not dare trust +himself to join in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed. I +found him, as I rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when +Mayme McCartney first found him. And when the crowd had departed from +the studio, I told the girl. Without even stopping to put on her hat she +went out to him. + +He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his +cheekbones. But this time he was not weeping. He was thinking. Just as +of old she put a hand on his humped shoulder. Startled, he looked up, +and jumped to his feet. She was holding something out to him. + +"What's that?" he said. + +"A check. For what I owe you." + +"Who told you? The Little Red Doctor promised--" + +"He's kept his promise. The Dominie told me." + +"Oh! I suppose," he said slowly, "I've got to take this. You +wouldn't--no, of course you wouldn't," he sighed. + +"I've tried to keep strict account," she said. + +David adopted a matter-of-fact tone. "I can't deny that it'll come in +handy, just now," he remarked. "At the present price of clothing, and +with my personal exchequer in its depleted state--" + +"Why," she broke in, "has anything happened? Your mother--?" + +"Cut off," said David briefly. + +"She's cut you off? On my account? Oh--" + +"No. I've cut her off. Temporarily. She doesn't want me to work. I'm +working. On a newspaper." + +"That's good," said the girl warmly. "Let's sit down." + +They sat down. Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again. +Mary was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried +to, she would cry. She didn't want to cry. She had a feeling that crying +would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming +developments. Why didn't David say something? Finally he did make a +beginning. + +"Mayme." + +"No: not 'Mayme' any more." + +He flushed to his temples. "I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay." + +"Nonsense!" she said softly. "Mary. I've discarded the 'Mayme' long +ago." + +"Mary," he repeated in a tone of musing content. + +"Buddy." + +He caught his breath. "A few thousand of the best guys in the world," he +said, "call a fellow that. And every time they said it, it made my heart +ache with longing to hear it in your voice." + +"You're a queer Buddy," returned the girl, not quite steadily. "Did you +bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?" + +He shook his head. "I didn't bring home much of anything, except some +experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to stand on my +own feet, I wasn't much." + +"You got your stripes, didn't you?" suggested the girl. + +"That's all I did get," he returned jealously. "I didn't get any medal, +or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I didn't get anything except +an occasional calling down and a few scratches. If I'd had the luck to +get into aviation or some of the fancy branches--" David checked +himself. "There I go," he said in self-disgust. "Beefing again." + +It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible +personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to +Mary's swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob +tangled itself in the laughter, and she choked and said: + +"Buddy." + +He turned toward her. + +"Don't be dumb, Buddy," she said, in the words of their unforgotten +first talk. "You've--you've got me--if you still want me." + +She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder +and around his neck, and she was drawn close into his arms. + +"The Little Red Doctor," remarked David after an interlude, in the +shaken tone of one who has had undeserved miracles thrust upon him, +"said that to want something more than anything in the world and not get +it was good for my soul, besides serving me right." + +"The Little Red Doctor," retorted Mary McCartney, with the reckless +ingratitude of a woman in love, "is a dear little red idiot. What does +he know about _Us!_" + + + +BARBRAN + +Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a +visit of protest to my bench. + +"Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?" + +"What do you hear, MacLachan?" + +"That ye're to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?" + +"Perfectly true," said I, passing over the uncomplimentary adjective. + +"'Tis a feckless waste of time." + +"Very likely." + +"'Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and influence in Our +Square should be dissuadin' them." + +"Perhaps they need a friendly word." + +MacLachan frowned. "Ye're determined?" + +"Oh, quite!" + +"Then I'll give ye a title for yer romance." + +"That's very kind of you. Give it." + +"The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One," said MacLachan +witheringly, and turned to depart. + +"Mac!" + +"What?" + +"Wait a moment." + +I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be +inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle. + +"I'll waste na time from the tailorin'," began the Scot disdainfully, +but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. "Well?" he said, +showing a guilty inclination to flinch. + +"Mac, was _I_ an original accomplice in this affair?" + +"Will ye purtend to deny--" + +"Did _I_ scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?" + +MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence. + +"Did _I_ get arrested?" + +MacLachan grunted. + +"In a cellar?" + +MacLachan snorted. + +"With my nose painted green?" + +MacLachan groaned. "There was others," he pleaded. + +"A man of your age and influence in Our Square," I interrupted sternly, +"should have been dissuading them." + +"Arr ye designin' to put all that in yer sil--in yer interestin' +account?" + +"Every detail." + +MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as +mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and +retired to his Home of Fashion. + + * * * * * + +That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, +Leon Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young +Phil Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with +modifications and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses +green and frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The +explanation is Barbran. + +Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington +Square. + +Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude +toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. +Our Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when +the foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow +whose wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich +Village. Our Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, +whereas Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with +paint and its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its +inconsiderable laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at +life; Our Square has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little +in common. + +Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not +wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the +Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman +architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by +street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense +urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her +far afield, met Barbran. + +They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving +sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the +Bonnie Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive +and shrewd little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was +thinking of improving on the Mole's Hole idea if she could find a +suitable location, not so much for the money, of course--her tone +implied a lordly indifference to such considerations--as for the fun of +the thing. + +The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her +about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult +thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her +wonderful little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. + +Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination +compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she +has marked down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to +the Bonnie Lassie's house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and +stayed. She rented a room from the Angel of Death ("Boggs Kills Bugs" is +the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local +interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr's +apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked +at me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes. + +"The Bonnie Lassie sent you," said I. + +She nodded. + +"You've come here to live--Heaven only knows why--but we're glad to see +you. And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, +'Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.' Didn't she?" + +Barbran sat down and smiled at me. + +"Having sought information," I pursued, "on my own account, I learn that +you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does +it feel to revel in millions?" + +"Romantic," said she. + +"Of course you have designs upon us." + +"Yes." + +"Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?" + +"Oh, nothing long and clever like that." + +"You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless wish +my advice." + +"No," she answered softly: "I've done it already." + +"Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?" + +"Started my designs. I've rented the basement of Number 26." + +"Are you a rag-picker in disguise?" + +"I'm going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling it 'The +Coffee Pot.' What do you think?" + +"So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that +plumber's shop next to the corner saloon?" I pointed to the Avenue whose +ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without ever sweeping +us into its current. "That was once a tea-shop. It was started by a dear +little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run by Tough Bill +Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and hung it up +outside her place, 'The Teacup.' Tough Bill took a board and painted a +sign and hung it up outside _his_ place; 'The Hiccup.' The dear little, +prim little old maiden lady took down her sign and went away. Yet there +are those who say that competition is the life of trade." + +"Is there a moral to your story, Mr. Dominie?" + +"Take it or leave it," said I amiably. + +"I will not call my cellar 'The Coffee Pot' lest a worse thing befall +it." + +"You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury." + +"It is true that my parents named me that," said she, "but my friends +call me 'Barbran' because I always used to call myself that when I was +little, and I want to be called Barbran here." + +"That's very friendly of you," I observed. + +She gave me a swift, suspicious look. "You think I'm a fool," she +observed calmly. "But I'm not. I'm going to become a local institution. +A local institution can't be called Barbara Ann Waterbury, unless it's a +creche or a drinking-fountain or something like that, can it?" + +"It cannot, Barbran." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dominie," said Barbran gratefully. She then proceeded to +sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and herself a +Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia from +the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms of +darkness as New Haven and Cohoes. + +"That's what I intend to do," said Barbran, "as soon as I get my Great +Idea worked out." + +What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In +fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather +elaborately loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new +friend had departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and +friendly face. Young Mr. Stacey is notable, if for no other reason than +that he represents a flat artistic failure on the part of the Bonnie +Lassie, who has tried him in bronze, in plaster, and in clay with equal +lack of success. There is something untransferable in the boy's face; +perhaps its outshining character. I know that I never yet have said to +any woman who knew him, no matter what her age, condition, or +sentimental predilections, "Isn't he a homely cub!" that she didn't +reply indignantly: "He's _sweet_!" Now when women--wonderful women like +the Bonnie Lassie and stupid women like Mrs. Rosser, the twins' aunt, +and fastidious women like Madame Tallafferr--unite in terming a smiling +human freckle "_sweet_," there is nothing more to be said. Adonis may as +well take a back seat and the Apollo Belvedere seek the helpful +resources of a beauty parlor. Said young Phil carelessly: + +"Dominie, who's the newcomer?" + +"That," said I, "is Barbran." + +"Barbran," he repeated with a rising inflection. "It sounds like a +breakfast food." + +"As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music," said I. + +"What's the rest of her name?" + +"I am not officially authorized to communicate that." + +"Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?" + +"On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?" I asked +austerely. + +"Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the +cross-town car; and I--well, I just happened to notice her, you know. +That's all." + +"Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her appearance +is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express myself, to +the discriminating eye." + +"Who's the fool--" began Mr. Stacey hotly. + +"Tut-tut, my young friend," said I. "Certain ladies whom we both esteem +can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, that none of +the young person's features is exactly what it should be or precisely +where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is surprising and +even gratifying." + +"She's a peach!" asseverated my companion. + +"Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you need no +introduction to Barbran. Nobody does." + +"_What_?" Phil Stacey's plain face became ugly; a hostile light +glittered in his eyes. "What do you mean by that?" he growled. + +"Simply that she's about to become a local institution. She's plotting +against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of starting +a coffee-house at Number 26." + +"No!" cried Phil joyously. "Good news!" + +"As a fad. She's a budding millionairess from the West." + +"No!" growled Phil, his face falling. + +"Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some decorations, +and that you might be the one to do them." In his leisure hours, my +young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the term "expert" +appears to be rather an empty compliment, since his stipend is only +twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates impressionistic decorations and +scenery for such minor theaters as will endure them. + +"You're a grand old man, Dominie!" said he. "Let's go." + +We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left +them--without any strenuous protests on the part of either--they were +deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, the +high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, +aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? +Dangerous is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young +Phil Stacey and in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who +is as far from homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each +other's opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, +lighted by will-o'-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually +they smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. +I may have smiled myself. + +Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey's normally cheerful face when, +some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms. + +"Dominie," said he, "I want to tap your library. Have you got any of the +works of Harvey Wheelwright?" + +"God forbid!" said I. + +Phil looked surprised. "Is it as bad as that? I didn't suppose there was +anything wrong with the stuff." + +"Don't you imperil your decent young soul with it," I advised earnestly. +"It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints is so full of +nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather live in +hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of the +Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a +righteously enraged populace would have killed 'em in early childhood. +He's the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United States. +Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to +weak-minded--" + +"Whew! Help! I didn't know what I was starting," protested my visitor. +"As a literary critic you're some Big Bertha, Dominie. I begin to +suspect that you don't care an awful lot about Mr. Wheelwright's style +of composition. Just the same, I've got to read him. All of him. Do you +think I'll find his stuff in the Penny Circulator?" + +"My poor, lost boy! Probably not. It is doubtless all out in the hands +of eager readers." + +However, Phil contrived to round it up somewhere. The awful and +unsuspected results I beheld on my first visit of patronage to Barbran's +cellar, the occasion being the formal opening. A large and curious crowd +of five persons, including myself and Phil Stacey, were there. Outside, +an old English design of a signboard with a wheel on it creaked +despairingly in the wind. Below was a legend: "_At the Sign of the +Wheel_--_The Wrightery_." The interior of the cellar was decorated with +scenes from the novels of Harvey Wheelwright, triumphant virtue, +discomfited villains, benignant blessings, chaste embraces, edifying +death-beds, and orange-blossoms. They were unsigned; but well I knew +whose was the shame. Over the fireplace hung a framed letter from the +Great Soul. It began, "Dear Young Friend and Admirer," and ended, "Yours +for the Light. Harvey Wheelwright." + +The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank +everything in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. +Finally Phil departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner +had the door slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was +looking discouraged. + +"Well, what have you to say in your defense?" + +The way Barbran's eyebrows went up constituted in itself a defense fit +to move any jury to acquittal. + +"For what?" she asked. + +"For corrupting my young friend Stacey. You made him paint those +pictures." + +"They're very nice," returned Barbran demurely. "Quite true to the +subject." + +"They're awful. They're an offense to civilization. They're an insult to +Our Square. Of all subjects in the world, Harvey Wheelwright! Why, +Barbran? Why? Why? Why?" + +"Business," said Barbran. + +"Explain, please," said I. + +"I got the idea from a friend of mine in Washington Square. She got up a +little cellar cafe built around Alice. Alice in Wonderland, you know, +and the Looking Glass. Though I don't suppose a learned and serious +person like you would ever have read such nonsense." + +"It happened to be Friday and there wasn't a hippopotamus in the house," +I murmured. + +"Oh," said Barbran, brightening. "Well, I thought if she could do it +with Alice, I could do it with Harvey Wheelwright." + +"In the name of Hatta and the March Hare, _why_?" + +"Because, for every one person who reads Alice nowadays, ten read the +author of 'Reborn Through Righteousness' and 'Called by the Cause.' +Isn't it so?" + +"Mathematically unimpeachable." + +"Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other place. +Don't you think so?" she inquired wistfully. + +Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul. +"Undoubtedly," I agreed. "But do you love him?" + +"Who?" said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up her +cheeks. + +"Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?" + +"He is a very estimable writer," returned Barbran primly, quite ignoring +my other query. + +"Good-night, Barbran," said I sadly. "I'm going out to mourn your lost +soul." + +One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of +one's own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all +on this occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once. + +"What did you do it for?" + +To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. "Pay," +said he. + +"Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?" + +"Not exactly. I'm taking it out in trade. I'm going to eat there." + +"You'll starve to death." + +"I haven't got much of an appetite." + +"The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted diet +of Harvey Wheelwright--" + +"Don't speak the swine's name," implored Phil, "or I'll be sick." + +"You've sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, probably +indigestible at that." + +"I don't care," he averred stoutly. "I don't care for anything +except--Dominie, who told you her father was a millionaire?" + +"It's well known," I said vaguely. "He's a cattle king or an emperor of +sheep or the sultan of the piggery or something. A good thing for +Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her cellar going. The kind of +people who read Har--our unmentionable author, don't frequent Bohemian +coffee cellars. They would regard it as reckless and abandoned +debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark." + +"The place has got to be a success," declared Phil between his teeth, +his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. + +"Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West," I suggested. The boy +winced. + +What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically. +Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the +highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid +for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means. + +Our Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward +innovations. Thornsen's Elite Restaurant has always sufficed for our +inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey +Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little +millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone. +She advertised feebly in the "Where to Eat" columns, catching a few +stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn't come. Until the +first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought their +bills with them. + +Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost +or quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of +patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late +comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say +indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once, +as she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank +terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire's +daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that +look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it, +preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our +Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran's sunny face? Puzzling +over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of +fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?" + +At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of +Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers. + +"I know whom you mean," said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to the +little dormer window which was Barbran's outlook on life. "Interpret me +a signal. What do you see up there?" + +"It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window," said I adjusting +my glasses. + +"Upside down," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"How can a handkerchief be upside down?" I inquired, in what was +intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. + +Contempt was all that it brought me. "Metaphorically, of course! It's a +signal of distress." + +"In what distress can Barbran be?" + +"In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the roof +in Our Square?" + +"She's doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me so +herself. A millionaire's daughter--" + +"Do millionaires' daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and paste them +on windows to dry? Does any woman in or out of Our Square _ever_ soak +her own handkerchiefs in her own washbowl except when she's desperately +saving pennies? Did you ever wash one single handkerchief in your +rooms, Dominie?" + +"Certainly not. It isn't manly. Then you think she isn't a +millionairess?" + +"Look at her shoes when next you see her," answered the Bonnie Lassie +conclusively. "_I_ think the poor little thing has put her every cent in +the world into her senseless cellar, and she's going under." + +"But, good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "Something has got to be done." + +"It's going to be." + +"Who's going to do it?" + +"Me," returned the Bonnie Lassie, who is least grammatical when most +purposeful. + +"Then," said I, "the Fates may as well shut up shop and Providence take +a day off; the universe has temporarily changed its management. Can +I help?" + +The Bonnie Lassie focused her gaze in a peculiar manner upon the exact +center of my countenance. A sort of fairy grin played about her lips. "I +wonder if--No," she sighed. "No. I don't think it would do, Dominie. +Anyway, I've got six without you." + +"Including Phil Stacey?" + +"Of course," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "It was he who came to me for +help. I'm really doing this for him." + +"I thought you were doing it for Barbran." + +"Oh; she's just a transposed Washington Squarer," answered the tyrant of +Our Square. "Though she's a dear kiddie, too, underneath the nonsense." + +"Do I understand--" + +"I don't see," interrupted the Bonnie Lassie sweetly, "how you could. I +haven't told you. And the rest are bound to secrecy. But don't be unduly +alarmed at anything queer you may see in Our Square within the next +few days." + +Only by virtue of that warning was I able to command the emotions +aroused by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was +hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a +shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to +sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering +and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of +nonchalance in this world. + +"Good-evening, Cyrus," I said. + +"Good-evening, Dominie." + +"Beautiful weather we're having." + +"Couldn't be finer." + +"Do you think it will hold?" + +"The paper says rain to-morrow." + +"Why is the tip of your nose painted green?" + +"Is it green?" inquired Cyrus, as if he hadn't given the matter any +special consideration, but thought it quite possible. + +"Emerald," said I. "It looks as if it were mortifying." + +"It would be mortifying," admitted Cyrus the Gaunt, "if it weren't in a +good cause." + +"What cause?" I asked. + +"Come out of there!" said Cyrus the Gaunt, not to me, but to a figure +lurking in the shrubbery. + +The Little Red Doctor emerged. I took one look at his most distinctive +feature. + +"You, too!" I said. "What do you mean by it?" + +"Ask Cyrus," returned the Little Red Doctor glumly. + +"It's a cult," said Cyrus. "The credit of the notion belongs not to me, +but to my esteemed better half. A few chosen souls--" + +"Here comes another of them," I conjectured, as a bowed form approached. +"Who is it? MacLachan!" + +The old Scot appeared to be suffering from a severe cold. His +handkerchief was pressed to his face. + +"Take it down, Mac," I ordered. "It's useless." He did so, and my worst +suspicions were confirmed. + +"He bullied me into it," declared the tailor, glowering at Cyrus the +Gaunt. + +"It'll do your nose good," declared Cyrus jauntily. "Give it a change. +Complementary colors, you know. What ho! Our leader." + +Phil Stacey appeared. He appeared serious; that is, as serious as one +can appear when his central feature glows like the starboard light of an +incoming steamship. Following him were Leon Coventry, huge and shy, and +the lethal Boggs looking unhappy. + +"Where are you all going?" I demanded. + +"To the Wrightery," said Phil. + +"Is it a party?" + +"It's a gathering." + +"Am I included?" + +"If you'll--" + +"Not on any account," I declared firmly. It had just occurred to me why +the Bonnie Lassie had centered her gaze upon my features. "Follow your +indecent noses as far as you like. I stay." + +Still lost in meditation, I may have dozed on my bench, when heavy, +measured footsteps aroused me. I looked up to see Terry the Cop, +guardian of our peace, arbiter of differences, conservator of our +morals. I peered at him with anxiety. + +"Terry," I inquired, "how is your nose?" + +"Keen, Dominie," said Terry. He sniffed the air. "Don't you detect the +smell of illegal alcohol?" + +"I can't say I do." + +"It's very plain," declared the officer wriggling his nasal organ which, +I was vastly relieved to observe, retained its original hue. "Wouldn't +you say, Dominie, it comes from yonder cellar?" + +"Barbran's cellar? + +"I am informed that a circle of dangerous char-_ack_ters with green +noses gather there and drink cider containing more than two-seventy-five +per cent of apple juice. I'm about to pull the place." + +"For Heaven's sake, Terry; don't do that! You'll scare--" + +"Whisht, Dominie!" interrupted Terry with an elaborate wink. "There'll +be no surprise, except maybe to the Judge in the morning. You better +drop in at the court." + +Of the round-up I have no details, except that it seemed to be quietly +conducted. The case was called the next day, before Magistrate Wolf Tone +Hanrahan, known as the "Human Judge." Besides being human, his Honor is, +as may be inferred from his name, somewhat Irish. He heard the evidence, +tested the sample, announced his intention of coming around that evening +for some more, and honorably discharged Barbran. + +"And what about these min?" he inquired, gazing upon the dauntless six. + +"Dangerous suspects, Yeronner," said Terry the Cop. + +"They look mild as goat's milk to me," returned the Magistrate, "though +now I get me eye on the rid-hidded wan [with a friendly wink at the +Little Red Doctor] I reckonize him as a desprit charackter that'd save +your life as soon as look at ye. What way are they dang'rous?" + +"When apprehended," replied Terry, looking covertly about to see that +the reporters were within hearing distance, "their noses were +painted green." + +"Is this true?" asked the Magistrate of the six. + +"It is, your Honor," they replied. + +"An', why not!" demanded the Human Judge hotly. "'Tis a glorious color! +Erin go bragh! Off'cer, ye've exceeded yer jooty. D' ye think this is +downtrodden an' sufferin' Oireland an' yerself the tyrant Gineral +French? Let 'em paint their noses anny color they loike; but green for +preference. I'm tellin' ye, this is the land of freedom an' equality, +an' ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, liberty, and the purshoot +of happiness, an' a man's nose is his castle, an' don't ye fergit it. +Dis-charrrrged! Go an' sin no more. I mane, let the good worruk go awn!" + +"Now watch for the evening papers," said young Phil Stacey exultantly. +"The Wrightery will get some free advertising that'll crowd it +for months." + +Alas for youth's golden hopes! The evening papers ignored the carefully +prepared event. One morning paper published a paragraph, attributing the +green noses to a masquerade party. The conspirators, gathered at the +cellar with their war-paints on (in case of reporters), discussed the +fiasco in embittered tones. Young Stacey raged against a stupid and +corrupt press. MacLachan expressed the acidulous hope that thereafter +Cyrus the Gaunt would be content with making a fool of himself without +implicating innocent and confiding friends. The Bonnie Lassie was not +present, but sent word (characteristically) that they must have done it +all wrong; men had no sense, anyway. The party then sent out for +turpentine and broke up to reassemble no more. Only Phil Stacey, +inventor of the great idea, was still faithful to and hopeful of it. +Each evening he conscientiously greened himself and went to eat +with Barbran. + +Time justified his faith. One evening there dropped in a plump man who +exhaled a mild and comforting benevolence, like a gentle country parson. +He smiled sweetly at Phil, and introduced himself as a reporter for the +"Sunday World Magazine"--and where was the rest of the circle? In a +flurry of excitement, the pair sent for Cyrus the Gaunt to do the +talking. Cyrus arrived, breathless and a trifle off color (the Bonnie +Lassie had unfortunately got a touch of bronze scenic paint mixed with +the green, so that he smelled like an over-ripe banana), and proceeded +to exposition. + +"This," he explained, "is a new cult. It is based on the +back-to-the-spring idea. The well-spring of life, you know. +The--er--spring of eternal youth, and--and so forth. You understand?" + +"I hope to," said the reporter politely. "Why on the nose?" + +"I will explain that," returned Cyrus, getting his second wind; "but +first let me get the central idea in your mind. It's a nature movement; +a readjustment of art to nature. All nature is green. Look about you." +Here he paused for effect, which was unfortunate. + +"Quite so," agreed the reporter. "The cable-car, for instance, and the +dollar bill, not to mention the croton bug and the polar bear. But, +pardon me, I interrupt the flow of your eloquence." + +"You do," said Cyrus severely. "Inanimate nature I speak of. All +inanimate nature is green. But we poor fellow creatures have gotten away +from the universal mother-color. We must get back to it. We must learn +to think greenly. But first we must learn to see greenly. How shall we +accomplish this? Put green in our eyes? Impossible, unfortunately. But, +our noses--there is the solution. In direct proximity to the eye, the +color, properly applied, tints one's vision of all things. Green shadows +in a green world," mooned Cyrus the Gaunt poetically. "As the bard +puts it: + + "'Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade.'" + +"Wait a minute," said the visitor, and made a note on an envelope-back. + +"Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a millionaire +cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second note], has +established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our souls." + +"Good!" said the benevolent reporter. "Fine! Of course it's all bunk--" + +"Bunk!" echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with his lank +jaw drooping. + +"You don't see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?" inquired +the visitor pleasantly. "Just what you're putting over I don't know. +Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don't tell me. It's good enough, +anyway. I'll fall for it. It's worth a page story. Of course I'll want +some photographs of the mural paintings. They're almost painfully +beautiful.... What's wrong with our young friend; is he sick?" he added, +looking with astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting +sub-nauseous symptoms. + +"He painted 'em," explained Cyrus, grinning. + +"And he's sorry," supplemented Barbran. + +"Yes; I wouldn't wonder. Well, I won't give him away," said the kindly +journalist. "Now, as to the membership of your circle...." + +The Sunday "story" covered a full page. The "millionairess" feature was +played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations did what +little the text failed to do. It was a "josh-story" from beginning +to end. + +"I'll kill that pious fraud of a reporter," declared Phil. + +"Now the place _is_ ruined," mourned Barbran. + +"Wait and see," advised the wiser Cyrus. + +Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom +on the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that +week and the succeeding week. + +"I never was good at figures," said the transported Barbran to Phil +Stacey at the close of the month, "but as near as I can make out, I've a +clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My fortune is made. And +it's all due to you." + +Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, +the owner's golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had +other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim +cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was +the first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he +knew he was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to +the pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that +a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then +Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important +engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut +country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow +does not make a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis +convince a skeptical public that it is enjoying the fearful +companionship of a subversive and revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed +out as fast as it had flooded in. Barbran's eyes were as soft and happy +as ever in the evenings, when she and Phil sat in a less and less +interrupted solitude. But in the mornings palpable fear stalked her. +Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied with a dread of his own. + +One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and +home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up +to facing the facts. + +"It's going to be a failure," she said dismally. + +"Then you're going away?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from +quaking. + +She set her little chin quite firmly. "Not while there's a chance left +of pulling it out." + +"Well; it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned," he muttered. "I'm +going away myself." + +"You?" She sat up very straight and startled. "Where?" + +"Kansas City." + +"Oh! What for?" + +"Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came back +to ask about the decorations?" + +"Yes." + +"He's built him a new house--he calls it a mansion--and he wants me to +paint the music-room. He likes"--Phil gulped a little--"my style +of art." + +"Isn't that great!" said Barbran in the voice of one giving three cheers +for a funeral. "How does he want his music-room decorated?" + +Young Phil put his head in his hands. "Scenes from Moody and Sankey," he +said in a muffled voice. + +"Good gracious! You aren't going to do it?" + +"I am," retorted the other gloomily. "It's good money." Almost +immediately he added, "Damn the money!" + +"No; no; you mustn't do that. You must go, of course. Would--will it +take long?" + +"I'm not coming back." + +"I don't _want_ you not to come back," said Barbran, in a queer, +frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and hastily withdrew it. + +He said desperately: "What's the use? I can't sit here forever looking +at you and--and dreaming of--of impossible things, and eating my heart +out with my nose painted green." + +"The poor nose!" murmured Barbran. + +With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she +gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble +attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and +pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable. + +So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed. + +It was not Barbran's nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that matter, +was it young Phil's. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, for the +untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded of +Barbran and the fates: + +"What's the use?" + +"What's the use of what?" returned Barbran tremulously. + +"Of all this? Your father's a millionaire, and I won't--I can't--" + +"He isn't!" cried Barbran. "And you can--you will." + +"He isn't?" ejaculated Phil. "What is he?" + +"He's a school-teacher, and I haven't got a thing but debts." + +Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy +bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an +interlude he said: + +"But, why--" + +"Because," said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: "I thought it +would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it +would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil! +Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a--a--a--dumbbell?" + +For he had thrust her away from him at arm's-length again. + +"There's one other thing between us, Barbran." + +"If there is, it's your fault. What is it?" + +"Harvey Wheelwright," he said solemnly. "Do you really like that +sickening slush-slinger?" + +She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. "I loathe +him. I've always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with and +the paper it's printed on." + +When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the +"Dear Friend and Admirer" letter in a slow candle-flame, and Harvey +Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, was +writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their +little romance. + +"And he's not going to Kansas City," said Barbran defiantly. + +"I'm not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And he's going to paint what he wants to." + +"Pictures of Barbran," said young Phil. + +"And we're going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe off the +walls and _make_ the place a success," said Barbran. + +"And we're going to be married right away," said Phil. + +"Next week," said Barbran. + +"What do you think?" said both. + +Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. +I should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on +twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached +prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out--The wind blew the +door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little +burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my +withered heart. + +"Bless you, my children!" said I. + +It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their +reckless, feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the +tailor, reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions +regarding the pair. + +"What'll they be marryin' on?" demanded Mac Wisdom--that is to say, +MacLachan. + +"Spring and youth," I said. "The fragrance of lilac in the air, the glow +of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?" + +"A bit of prudence," said MacLachan. + +"Prudence!" I retorted scornfully. "The miser of the virtues. It may pay +its own way through the world. But when did it ever take Happiness along +for a jaunt?" + +I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon +me with his observation about two young fools and an old one. + +Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that +headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, +and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at +the window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be +justified of his forebodings, and yet--and yet--who am I, old and lonely +and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and the +sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of +MacLachan and that ilk? + +Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and +flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried--and I let +the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the song +endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its +echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two +young fools. + +As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment +and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his +nose green! + + + +PLOOIE OF OUR SQUARE + +Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an old +and melancholy song that my grandfather sang: + + "And his skin was so thin + You could almost see his bones + As he ran, hobble--hobble--hobble + Over the stones." + +Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts would +invariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which had +forever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder!" He would then recapitulate +in English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was his +substitute for it. "Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for mend?" + +So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute +intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly +built, stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, +with a face which would have been totally insignificant but for an +obstinate chin and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning +eyes; and he was incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived +among us, occupying a cubbyhole in Schepstein's basement full of ribs, +handles, crooks, patches, and springs, without appreciably improving his +speech or his position. It was said that his name was Garin--nobody +really knew or cared--and it was assumed from his speech that he +was French. + +Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain such +non-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation. +Why Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, though +by no means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the Bonnie +Lassie, to whom any variety of want or helplessness is its own +sufficient recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptown +friends. Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariably +took off his frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she was +there to see, and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent of +declaring that she was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I ever +heard him make upon any one in Our Square, which in turn completely +ignored him until the development of his love affair stimulated our +condescending and contemptuous interest. + +The object of Plooie's addresses was a little Swiss of unknown +derivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from the +surrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bit +of a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, soft +hazel eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those who +scrub other people's doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour. + +For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran an +uneventful course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tell +where is fancy bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw the +drabbled little worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and open +the conversation according to an invariable formula. + +"Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?" Thereby the little Swiss +became known as, and ever will be called locally, "Annie Oombrella." +Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a fatal penchant +for nicknames in Our Square. + +She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed, +should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended! + +Then would he say--I shall not attempt to torture the good English +alphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: "It makes fine +to-day, it do!" + +And she would reply "Yes, a fine day"; and look as if the sun were a +little warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie's greeting, as, +perhaps, indeed, it was. + +After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious, +venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming his +unproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered that +she spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. On +Christmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year's he took +her walking among the tombstones in God's Acre, which is a serious and +sentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in the +following week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in the +glowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand, +on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other's eyes, +and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the rest of +the world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not to +understand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed. +It was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said: + +"If one marries themselves?" + +And she replied: "I believe it well." + +They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electric +light which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactless +activity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendor +of them. + +But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles she +mistrusts that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts as +earthly agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken little +creatures to marry on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Square +in general and to the two people most concerned in particular. Courts of +law might have rejected their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however, +they were convincing enough. + +Said Plooie: "Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?" + +Said Annie Oombrella: "He is so lonely!" + +So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happiness +came of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What disposition +the pair would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficult +to conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, and +fabrics was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for Annie +Oombrella to squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as a +bird, with an odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up at +an auction and resold to them at not more than two hundred per cent +profit, plus a kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of the +Bonnie Lassie and her husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they had +meat. They were rising in the social scale. + +Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to +Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we +endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say +that we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him +professionally. Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie +Oombrella must have lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders +broadened perceptibly. His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew +noticeably brisker. There was even a heartier note in his lamentable +trade cry: + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder!" + +As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformed +her. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow, +though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabbling +and splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porches +of her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up to +twenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savings +account. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth and +peaceful and sunny with companionship. + +Then came the war. + +The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to so +many helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame and +humiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, Our +Square was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant France +and prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons +of Gaul who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How +sourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence +arose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time +of wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liege. Liege, that city of +fire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the +world were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry +on the marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my +bench with a little furrow between her bright eyes. + +"Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?" + +"Not at all," I replied, failing to identify the rickety Plooie by his +rightful name. + +"Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and asks +if you have an umbrella to mend." + +"I never have. What of him?" + +"Have you any influence with him?" + +"Not compared with yours." + +The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. "I can't find him. +And Annie Oombrella won't tell me where he is. She only cries." + +"That's bad. You think he--he is--" + +"Why don't you say it outright, Dominie? _You_ think he's hiding." + +"Really!" I expostulated. "You come to me with accusations against the +poor fellow and then undertake to make me responsible for them." + +"I don't believe it's true at all," averred the Bonnie Lassie loyally. +"I don't believe Plooie is a coward. There's some reason why he doesn't +go over and help! I want to know what it is." + +Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, I +did my best. "Over age," I suggested. + +"He's only thirty-two." + +"Bless me! He looks sixty. Well--physical infirmity." + +"He can carry a load all day." + +"He won't leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won't let him." + +"When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her mother +was French and she would go and fight herself, if they'd have her." + +"Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?" + +"I don't know. But I'm afraid the Garins are going to have trouble." + +Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal for +trade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once. +Small boys booed at him, called him "yellow," and advised him to go +carefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, our +little old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and claw +with his German Jonathan in Thornsen's Elite Restaurant, stung him with +that most insulting word in any known tongue--"Lache!"--and threatened +him with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think it was +the fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had set a +picture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that most +exasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grew +quavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matters +looked ill for the Garins. + +The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off all +relations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterward +rejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got on +our nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped a +barrel down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But the +chase took him into the midst of a group of the younger and more +boisterous element, returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen's +Sons of Avenue B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him. + +"Here's our little 'ee-ro!" "Looka the Frenchy that won't fight!" +"Safety first, hey, Plooie?" "Charge umbrellas--backward, march!" + +Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst +thing he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became +their captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, +once in the hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an +inspirational thought: "Ride him on a rail!" + +Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was +hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, +wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore +him with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park. + +When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was being +augmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry the +Cop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonable +probability that he had absented himself on purpose. "God hates a +coward" is a tenet of Terry's creed. I confess to a certain sympathy +with it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for Plooie, +the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I leaned +back on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality. + +Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. +From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, +which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their +concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, +delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his +voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the +supervening heads: + +"Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, +little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear." + +From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in +his face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His +voice, steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to +entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice. + +Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the +more hopelessly against the barrier of bodies. + +Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The +many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation. + +"Le's tar-and-feather him." + +"White feathers!" + +"Where'll we gettum?" + +"Satkins's kosher shop on the Av'noo." + +"Where's yer tar?" + +This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical +expedient now evolved from the collective brain. + +"Duck'm in the fountain!" + +"_Drown_ him in the fountain!" amended an enthusiast. + +Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming +dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate +umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob +impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the +playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. +Plainly the time was ripe for intervention. + +Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, +the scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. +Now, if ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion. + +For the heroic role of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by +temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the +imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason. + +The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed. + +"Never mind the Dominie," yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail by +an end and hauling it around. "He don't mean nothin'." + +Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate +brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as +I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous +urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted +aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out +reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a +frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened +for the splash. + +It did not come. + +A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my +unsuccessful role of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had +succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney +Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia. + +Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously +anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most +peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing. + +I like to think--the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself +thereby--that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to +hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to +intervene. + +Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the +Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black +Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance +grated upon her sensitive ear. + +"What is that rabble about, Sally?" she inquired. + +The aged negress reconnoitered. "Reckon dey's ridin' a gentmun on a +rail," she reported. + +"A _gentleman_, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an +affront. Look again." + +"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrella +oncet." + +"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkered +for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the high +protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once." + +Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the +advancing mob was "no place foh a niggah." + +With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist +'em, mist'ess." + +Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelled +by her mistress's confidence in herself. + +Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified +servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the +brink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmed +MacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before. +Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself to +her locally. + +She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered like +steel. The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at the +proper moment, she raised it. + +"What are you doing?" + +The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardon +humbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As in +Macaulay's immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, "those behind cried +'Forward' and those before cried 'Back'!" That single hale and fiery old +lady held them. No more could those two hundred ruffians have defied the +challenge of her contemptuous eyes than they could have advanced into +the flaming doors of a furnace. + +A cautious voice from the rear inquired: "Who's the dame?" + +"She's a witch," conjectured some one. + +"It's the Duchess," said another, giving her the local title of +veneration. + +"It's the lady that shot the tailor," proclaimed an awe-stricken +bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.) +Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in a +malevolent squeak: + +"T'row 'er in the drink." + +"Who spoke?" said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear. + +Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate frantically +resisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence. +Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by a +glimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveled +a bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her, +who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl into +his own pocket. + +"Michael," said the Duchess. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe Sapperstein. + +"What are you doing to that unfortunate person?" + +"J-j-just a little j-j-joke," replied the other in what was doubtless +intended for a light-hearted and care-free tone. + +"Let him down." Inky Mike hesitated. "At once!" snapped the Duchess and +stamped her foot. + +"Yessum," said Inky Mike meekly. + +Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of those +behind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. Madame +Tallafferr's bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritative +diamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy and +significant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. A +subtle suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her. +Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to. + +"Go about your business," she said. "Rabble!" she added in precisely the +tone which one might expect of a well-bred but particularly +deadly snake. + +The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowd +disintegrated into individuals. The individuals asked themselves what +they were doing there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away. +Plooie was triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally, +and (less triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, which +chanced to be the Bonnie Lassie's house. Annie Oombrella pattered along +beside him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry. + +But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, _she_ cried, as +much from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bullies +and cowards and imbeciles--and why hadn't her Cyrus been at home to stop +it? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. Cyrus +Staten had not been needed: the _canaille_ would always respect a proper +show of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling and +sparkling. + +After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened than +anything else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in Our +Square for his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on the +following Sunday. Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the Bonnie +Lassie reasons with her heart instead of her head, we accept her +theories with habitual and smiling indulgence rather than respect--until +the facts bear them out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies to +inquire as to their proposed course, and had rather more than hinted +that if the head of the house wished to respond to his country's call, +Our Square would look after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only a +stubborn and somber silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that he +seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the +Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather +markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his +departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your +neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiency +of data. + +So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant, +with only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the window +as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But +Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year +after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office +far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which +she had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistful +and haggard. + +Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costs +nothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie. +Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head. + +"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence of +iniquity. + +"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice that +Schepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Her +eyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely as +they could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked to +observe that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarily +unbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes, +he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest, +on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.) +She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head. + +"Well, if you ever need a home, the basement's vacant and there ain't a +better basement in Our Square." + +Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about his +business. + +Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently, +according to their natures, and many men went away from places that had +known them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdom +of Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, a +bulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until there +sped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales. +Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness the +simple memorials in Our Square. + +Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits its +ancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought to +be. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in the +year of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada, +vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in our +lilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling the +air, my ears were smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths. + +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees," it cried on a faint and cluttering note. +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder." + +Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visual +range. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded like +Plooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie's and emitted again the familiar +though diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it _was_ Plooie. +He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who never +wished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma. + +As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear, +and walked over to Schepstein's. There in the basement, amid the +familiar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie. + +"Bonjour, Dominie," said she wistfully. + +"Good-morning, Annie. So you are back." + +"Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?" + +"There is need that one explain one's self. What have you been doing +these three years?" + +"I work. I work hard." + +"And your husband? What has he been doing?" I asked sternly. + +Annie Oombrella's soft face drooped. "Soyez gentil, Dominie," she +implored. "Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him so +triste--so sad." + +"He doesn't look well, Annie." + +"He have been ver' seeck. Now we come home he is already weller." + +"But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?" I demanded, +feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella's reply did not +make me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around that +unspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home to +Plooie and her. + +"We have loved each other so much here," said she. + +Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed or +thought. War's resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was Plooie +in danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he made +his rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella's +prodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple in +Schepstein's basement would have fared ill. + +Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face. + +To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discovery +about Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and +shouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was _you_ doing in the war?" his jaw would +drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave his +burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and +sobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highly +developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first +and last. + +Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This +didn't help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing +point anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not +to deal with a poltroon, as she put it. + +On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He was +in no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone up +to line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians. +So had such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place was +practically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his +cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie +to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, +the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my +unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been +on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not +misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as +little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for +the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of +God within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still +glossy silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and it +was well for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained at +home for reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrus +the Gaunt, should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up. +Said the Bonnie Lassie: + +"I wonder why Plooie didn't go to see his king." + +"Sense of shame," I suggested acidly. + +"Yes?" said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted. + +"It is no use," I assured her, "for you to favor me with that pitying +and contemptuous smile of yours, for I can't see it. Mendel has my +nearer range of vision locked in his shop." + +"I was just thinking," said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant accents, "how +nice it must be to look back on a long life of unspotted correctness +with not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives one such a comfortable +basis for sitting in judgment." + +"Her lips drip honey," I observed, "and the poison of asps is under her +tongue." + +"Your quotations are fatally mixed," retorted my companion. + +From across the park sounded Plooie's patient falsetto: +"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-" The +call broke off in a kind of choke. + +"What's happened to Plooie?" I asked. "The youngsters can't have got +back from the parade already, have they?" + +"A very tall man has stopped him," said the Bonnie Lassie. "Plooie has +dropped his kit.... He's trying to salute.... It must be one of the +Belgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!" + +"Well, what?" I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant Mendel in +my heart. + +"It can't be ... you don't think they can be arresting poor Plooie at +this late day for evading service?" + +"Serve him right if they did," said I. + +"I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is leading +him along. Poor Plooie! He's all wilted down. It's a shame!" cried the +Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. "It ought not to be allowed." + +"Probably they're taking him away. Do you see an official-looking +automobile anywhere about?" + +"There's a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor Annie +Oombrella! But--but they're not going there. They're going into +Schepstein's basement." + +I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment I +endured it. Then I said: + +"Well, Lassie, why don't you?" + +"Why don't I what?" + +"Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. Opposite +Schepstein's." + +"That isn't my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie," said the +Bonnie Lassie with dignity. + +"Isn't it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know." + +"How shamelessly you garble! It was--" + +"Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be: +_suppressed_ curiosity killed a cat." + +The Bonnie Lassie sniffed. + +"Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench," I +pursued, "through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to the +back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should almost +prefer that you would go--and peek." + +"Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie, "you are a despicable old man.... +I'll be back in a minute." + +"Don't stay long," I pleaded. "Pity the blind." + +Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her +voice when she returned. + +"It's so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is sitting on a +pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella's face is all +swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute." + +Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could +best meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we did +not note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces of +the bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very tall +and straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassie +of his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She got +up from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling. +Where, I wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that the +mere sight of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusually +self-controlled wife of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deep +and curiously melancholy voice: + +"Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?" + +"I--I--I--" began the Bonnie Lassie. + +"The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several years +since?" + +"Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville." + +(Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been at +Trouville, which did not assuage my suspicions.) + +"You are friends of my--countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?" he +pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint +echo of an accent. + +"Who?" I said. "Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, acquaintances would +be more accurate." + +"He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great need +of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you." + +"You are interested in Plooie?" I asked. + +"Plooie?" he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he laughed +gently. "Profoundly interested," he said. "I have here one of his finest +umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. There was also a lady of +whom he speaks, a _grande dame_, of very great authority." For all the +sadness of the deep voice, I felt that his eyes were twinkling. + +"Madame Tallafferr," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. "She is away on a +visit." + +"I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be +knighted." + +"Knighthood would add nothing to her status," said I, dryly. "She is a +Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with two _f_s, two +_l_s, and two _r_s." + +"Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders of +merit," said the big sad-voiced man courteously. "But I should have been +proud to meet her." + +"May I tell her that?" asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly. + +"By all means--when I am gone." Again I felt the smile that must be in +the eyes. "But there were others here, not so friendly to the little +Garin. That is true, is it not?" + +"Yes," said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving case," +I pointed out defensively. + +"Then it is only because he does not explain himself well," returned the +Belgian quickly. + +"He does not explain himself at all," I corrected. "Nor does Annie +Oom--his wife." + +"Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear with +me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those +who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?" + +The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, +the big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might +have taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so +straightly the expression of a great and generous personality. + +"Emile Garin," he said, "was a son of Belgium. He was poor and his +people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. So +he came to your great country to make his living. When our enemies +invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, the +little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit +for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings +they must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps here +because otherwise he would not--You spoke, Monsieur?" + +"Nothing. I only said, 'God forgive us!'" + +"Amen," said the narrator gravely. "Everywhere they rejected him as +unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not so?" + +"That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously," confirmed the Bonnie +Lassie. + +"After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled into +the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He +was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. +Nothing mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach +my country at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, +no matter who he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, +because he was unable to march. He had weak legs." + +At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. +"I _told_ you there was something," she murmured triumphantly. + +"Hush!" said I. + +"I am glad to find that he had one true defender here," pursued the +biographer of Plooie. "Though he could not fight in the ranks there was +use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in those black +days. He was made driver of a--a charette; I do not know if you have +them in your great city?" He paused, and I guessed that the rumble of +heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come opportunely. "Ah, +yes; there is one." + +"A dump-cart," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. + +"Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious +thing to drive a dump-cart for one's country--unless one makes it so. +But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what you +call quaint--I have already told you. He was faithful and hard-working. +They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and his +big cart." + +"Not precisely safety-first," whispered the Bonnie Lassie to me, +maliciously. + +"You are interrupting the story," said I with dignity. + +"One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here on +this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down +the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type +of grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little +lever--so. One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the +grenade, and at the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is +of terrible power. The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the +middle of the road between the two hospitals full of the helplessly +wounded. For what? Perhaps to sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. +Heaven only knows, for the sergeant has the luck to be killed next day +by a German shell, before he can be court-martialed. As he sets down the +grenade, the little lever is moved. The sergeant loses his head. He +runs, shouting to everybody to run also. + +"But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot run. +They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a +visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady." The sad voice +deepened and softened. + +"I know," whispered the Bonnie Lassie; "I can guess." + +"Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does not +know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people +escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, 'Turn +your cart, you fool, and save yourself.' Oh, yes; he can save himself. +That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can save +them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big +dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The +mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade +explodes, nevertheless. + +"One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. Everything +near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the floor, but she +is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms the terrified. +The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have driven a +dump-cart for one's country--so." + +"But what became of our Plooie?" besought the Bonnie Lassie. + +The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. "They looked for +him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large piece +of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was that +large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital +which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he +cannot speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got +out of hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did +not care. Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records +were lost in the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The +great lady wished very much to see him. But we could find nothing except +that he had come back to this country. Official inquiry was made here +and he was traced to Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot +speak for himself and will not allow his wife to tell his story--it is +part of the shell-shock which will wear off in time--I came to speak +for him." + +"Does your--do you do this sort of thing often?" asked the Bonnie Lassie +with a queer sort of resonance in her voice. + +The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: +"One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But there +is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved lady +whom the little Garin saved." + +"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly. + +After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. +Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. + +"Plooie!" she said, and that was all. + +"You are crying," I said. + +"I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For your +injustice." + +"If we all bewept our injustices," said I oracularly, "Noah would have +to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his." + +"What do you think of him?" said the Bonnie Lassie. + +"As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder, +his selections were at times ill-advised." + +"Don't be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I'm not interested in Noah." + +"As to our romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gaunt +would better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus to +produce such an emotional effect upon you." + +"Don't be school-girlish!" admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. "Poor +old Dominie! He doesn't know what's going on under his very nose. Where +are your eyes?" + +"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we going +to make it up to Plooie?" + +"I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassie +loftily. + +Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an +irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their +pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was +subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city's +reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his +important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and +disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign +across the front of Plooie's basement, was the magnet that drew them: + + Emile Garin & Wife + Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser + + to + + His Majesty + + The King of the Belgians + (By Royal Warranty) + +No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their +well-deserved fortune is made. + + + +TRIUMPH + + The months go by--bleak March and May-day heat-- + Harvest is over--winter well-nigh done-- + And still I say, "To-morrow we shall meet." + + MAY PROBYN + +The Little Red Doctor sat on the far end of my bench. Snow fringed the +bristling curve of his mustache. He shivered. + +"Dominie," said he, "it's a wild day." + +I assented. + +"Dominie," said the Little Red Doctor, "it is no kind of a day for an +old man to be sitting on a bench." + +I dissented. + +"Dominie," persisted the Little Red Doctor, "you can't deny that you're +old." + +"Whose fault is that but yours?" I retorted. + +"Don't try to flatter me," said the Little Red Doctor. "You'd have +licked my old friend, Death, in that bout you had with him, without any +help of mine. And, anyway, you were already old, then. You're a tough +old bird, Dominie. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here in a March +blizzard staring at the Worth mansion and wondering what really happened +there three years ago." + +"Your old friend, Death, beat you that time," said I maliciously. + +The Little Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. "Look your fill, +Dominie," he advised. "You won't have much more chance." + +"Why?" I asked, startled. + +"The wreckers begin on it next month. Also a nice, new building is going +up next door to it on that little, secret, walled jungle that Ely Crouch +used to misname his garden. I'm glad of it, too. I don't like +anachronisms." + +"I'm an anachronism," I returned. "You'll be one pretty soon. Our Square +is one solid anachronism." + +"It won't be much longer. The tide is undermining us. Other houses will +go as the Worth place is going. You'll miss it, Dominie. You love houses +as if they were people." + +It is true. To me houses are the only fabrications of man's hands that +are personalities. Enterprise builds the factory, Greed the tenement, +but Love alone builds the house, and by Love alone is it maintained +against the city's relentless encroachments. Once hallowed by +habitation, what warm and vivid influences impregnate it! Ambition, +pride, hope, joys happily shared; suffering, sorrow, and loss bravely +endured--the walls outlive them all, gathering with age, from grief and +joy alike, kind memories and stanch traditions. Yes, I love the old +houses. Yet I should not be sorry to see the Worth mansion razed. It has +outlived all the lives that once cherished it and become a dead, +unhuman thing. + +That solid square of brown, gray-trimmed stone had grown old honorably +with the honorable generations of the Worths. Then it had died. In one +smiting stroke of tragedy the life had gone out of it. Now it stood +staring bleakly out from its corner with filmed eyes, across the busy +square. Passing its closed gates daily, I was always sensible of a qualm +of the spirit, a daunting prescience that the stilled mansion still +harbored the ghost of an unlaid secret. + +The Little Red Doctor broke in upon my reverie. + +"Yes; you're old, Dominie. But you're not wise. You're very foolish. +Foolish and obstinate." + +Knowing well what he meant, I nevertheless pampered him by asking: "Why +am I foolish and obstinate?" + +"Because you refuse to believe that Ned Worth murdered Ely Crouch. Don't +you?" + +"I do." + +"Then why did Ned commit suicide?" + +"I don't know." + +"How do you explain away his written confession?" + +"I don't. I only know that it was not in Ned Worth's character willfully +to kill an old man. You were his friend; you ought to know it as well +as I do." + +"Ah, that's different," said the Little Red Doctor, giving me one of his +queer looks. "Yes; you're a pig-headed old man, Dominie." + +"I'm a believer in character." + +"I don't know of any other man equally pig-headed, except possibly one. +He's old, too." + +"Gale Sheldon," said I, naming the gentle, withered librarian of a +branch library a few blocks to the westward, the only other resident of +Our Square who had unfailingly supported me in my loyalty to the memory +of the last of the Worths. + +"Yes. He's waiting for us now in his rooms. Will you come?" + +Perceiving that there was something back of this--there usually is, in +the Little Red Doctor's maneuvers--I rose and we set out. As we passed +the Worth house it seemed grimmer and bleaker than ever before. There +was something savage and desperate in its desolation. The cold curse of +abandonment lay upon it. At the turn of the corner the Little Red Doctor +said abruptly. + +"She's dead." + +"Who?" I demanded. + +"The girl. The woman in the case." + +"In the Ely Crouch case? A woman? There was never any woman hinted at." + +"No. And there never would have been as long as she was alive. +Now--Well, I'll leave Sheldon to explain her. He loved her, too, in +his way." + +In Gale Sheldon's big, still room, crowded with the friendly ghosts of +mighty books, a clear fire was burning. One shaded lamp at the desk was +turned on, for though it was afternoon the blizzard cast a gloom like +dusk. The Little Red Doctor retired to a far corner where he was all but +merged in the shadows. + +"Have you seen this?" Sheldon asked me, pointing to the table. + +Thereon was spread strange literature for the scholarly taste of our +local book-worm, a section from the most sensational of New York's +Sunday newspapers. From the front page, surrounded by a barbarous +conglomeration of headlines and uproarious type, there smiled happily +forth a face of such appealing loveliness as no journalistic vulgarity +could taint or profane. I recognized it at once, as any one must have +done who had ever seen the unforgettable original. It was Virginia +Kingsley, who, two years before, had been Sheldon's assistant. The +picture was labeled, "Death Ends Wanderlust of Mysterious Heiress," and +the article was couched in a like style of curiosity-piquing +sensationalism. Stripped of its fulsome verbiage, it told of the girl's +recent death in Italy, after traveling about Europe with an invalid +sister; during which progress, the article gloated, she was "vainly +wooed by the Old World's proudest nobility for her beauty and wealth," +the latter having been unexpectedly left her by an aged relative. Her +inexorable refusals were set down, by the romantic journalist, as due to +some secret and prior attachment. (He termed it an "affair de court"!) + +Out of the welter of words there stood forth one sentence to tempt the +imagination: "She met death as a tryst." For that brief flash the +reporter had been lifted out of his bathos and tawdriness into a clearer +element. One could well believe that she had "met death as a tryst." For +if ever I have beheld unfaltering hope and unflagging courage glorified +and spiritualized into unearthly beauty, it was there in that pictured +face, fixed by the imperishable magic of the camera. + +"No; I hadn't seen it," I said after reading. "Is it true?" + +"In part." Then, after a pause, "You knew her, didn't you, Dominie?" + +"Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn't +she?" + +"Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of all +that the singers of springtime and youth have sung." He sighed, shaking +his grizzled head mournfully. "'And all that glory now lies dimmed in +death.' It doesn't seem believable." + +He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be +vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He +stared at it musing. + +"I've often wondered if she cared for him," he murmured. + +"For him? For Worth!" I exclaimed in amazement. "Were they friends?" + +"Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very strangely +the day of his death and never came back." + +From the physician's corner there came an indeterminate grunt. + +"If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say that on +the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only in the +line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century poets. +But even that interest died out. It was months before the--the tragedy +that he stopped coming to the Library." + +"It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, wasn't +it?" I asked. + +"Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard it +hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain." He turned +inquiringly to the far, dim corner. + +Out of it the Little Red Doctor barked: "Death had him by the throat." + +"Death? In what form?" + +"Slow, sure fingers, shutting off his breath. Do you need further +details or will the dry, scientific term, epithelioma, be enough?" The +voice came grim out of the gloom. No answer being returned, it +continued: "I've had easier jobs than telling Ned Worth. It was hopeless +from the first. My old friend, Death, had too long a start on me." + +"Was it something that affected his mind?" + +"No. His mind was perfectly clear. Vividly clear. May I take my last +verdict, when it comes, with a spirit as clear and as noble." + +Silence fell, and in the stillness we heard the Little Red Doctor +communing with memories. Now and then came a muttered word. "Suicide!" +in a snarl of scornful rejection. "Fool-made definitions!" Presently, +"Story for a romancer, not a physician." He seemed to be canvassing an +inadequacy in himself with dissatisfaction. Then, more clearly: "Love +from the first. At a glance, perhaps. The contagion of flame for powder. +But in that abyss together they saw each other's soul." + +"The Little Red Doctor is turning poet," said Sheldon to me in an +incredulous whisper. + +There was the snap and crackle of a match from the shadowed corner. The +keen, gnarled young face sprang from the darkness, vivid and softened +with a strange triumph, then receded behind an imperfect circle, clouded +the next instant by a nimbus of smoke. The Little Red Doctor spoke. + +Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men, +who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don't suppose any one ever came +in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without +loving him for it. "Immortal hilarity!" The phrase might have been +coined for him. + +It wasn't as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing +sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn't want him to be alone that +first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would +have thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as +steady as a rock. + +"No danger of my being a miser of life," he said. "You've given me leave +to spend freely what's left of it." Well, he spent. Freely and +splendidly! + +The spacious old library on the second floor--you know it, Dominie, +smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned's servant bringing up the rear with +a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over +everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the +corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house +into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since +the others of the family died, Ned hadn't stayed there long enough at a +time to humanize it. + +Ned's man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some +late purchases, and left to execute them. I went over to open the two +deep-set windows on the farther side of the room. It was a still, close +October night, and the late scent of warmed-over earth came up to me out +of Ely Crouch's garden next door. From where I stood in the broad +embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I +could see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his +desk sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon +his face, without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry the +picture in my mind. + +"What's become of you, Chris?" he demanded presently. I came out into +the main part of the room. "Oh, there you are! You'll look after a few +little matters for me, won't you?" He indicated a sheaf of papers. + +"You needn't be in such a hurry," said I with illogical resentment. "It +isn't going to be to-morrow or next week." + +"Isn't it?" Something in his tone made me look at him sharply. "Six +months or three months or to-morrow," he added, more lightly; "what does +it matter as long as it's sure! You know, what I appreciate is that you +gave me the truth straight." + +"It's a luxury few of my patients get. Their constitutions won't stand +it." + +"It's a compliment to my nerve. Strangely enough I don't feel nervous +about it." + +"I do. Damnably! About something, anyway. There's something wrong with +this room, Ned. What is it?" + +"Don't you know?" he laughed. "It's the sepulchral silence of Old +Grandfather Clock, over there. You're looking right at him and wondering +subconsciously why he doesn't make a noise like Time." + +"That's easily remedied." Consulting my watch I set and wound the +ancient timepiece. Its comfortable iteration made the place at once more +livable. Immediately it struck the hour. + +"Ten o'clock," I said, and parted the draperies at the lower window to +look out again. "Ten o'clock of a still, cloudy night and--and the devil +is on a prowl in his garden." + +"Meaning my highly respected neighbor and ornament to the local bar, the +Honorable Ely Crouch?" + +"Exactly. Preceded by a familiar spirit in animal form." + +"Oh, that's his pet ferret and boon companion." + +"Not his only companion. There's some one with him," I said. "A woman." + +"I don't admire her taste in romance," said Ned. + +"Nor her discretion. You know what they say: 'A dollar or a woman never +safe alone with Ely Crouch.'" + +"My dollars certainly weren't," observed Ned. + +"How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?" I asked. + +"Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my +neighbor's flirtations and look here." + +I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded +by a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. + +"Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me," he added. + +"Is it enough to go on with, Ned?" I asked. + +He smiled at me. "Plenty for my time. You forget." + +For the moment I had forgotten. "But what on earth are you going to do +with all that ready cash?" + +"Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed down +your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I've +planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think +of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day +I've struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the +simple medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, +Chris, and come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we'll +work wonders." + +"And after?" I asked. + +"Oh, after! Well, there'll be no further reason for the 'permanent +possibility of sensation' on my part. That's your precious science's +best definition of life, I believe. It doesn't appeal to one as alluring +when the sensation promises to become--well, increasingly unpleasant." + +There was no mistaking his meaning. "I can't have that, my son," I +protested. + +"No? That's a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at it from my +point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, rather +than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no meaning +for a man in my condition. If you'll tell me there's a chance, one mere, +remote human chance--" He paused, turning to me with what was almost +appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! But Ned Worth was the +kind that you can't lie to. I looked at him standing there so strong and +fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in his veins, sentenced +beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of another man +under doom: + + "I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day." + +We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like +the veil over the eagle's eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I +could not trust my voice to answer him. + +"You see," he said; "you can't." His hand fell on my arm. "I'm sorry, +Chris," he said in that winning voice of his; "I shouldn't plague you +for something that you can't give me." + +"I can tell you this, anyway," said I: "that it's something less than +courage to give up until the time comes. You didn't give your life. You +haven't the right to take it; anyway, not until its last usefulness +is over." + +He made a movement of impatience. + +"Oh, I'm not asking you to endure torture. I'd release you myself from +that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But how can you tell +that being alive instead of dead next week or next month may not make an +eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn't played out yet. +Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the curtain is +rung down?" + +"Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down into +that garden and kill Ely Crouch," he suggested, smiling. "That would be +a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and peaceful death, +wouldn't it?" + +"Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable," I answered, +relieved at his change of tone. + +"I suppose it is." He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. "Chris, +what do you believe comes after?" + +"Justice." + +"A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, in +being sport enough to play the game through. You're right, old +hard-shell. I'll stick it out. It will only mean spending _this_"--he +swept the money back into its repository--"a little more slowly." + +"I was sure I could count on you," I said. "Now I can give you the +talisman." I set on the desk before him a small pasteboard box. "Pay +strict attention. You see that label? That's to remind you. One tablet +if you can't sleep." + +"I couldn't last night." + +"Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand." + +He nodded. + +"But three at one time and you'll sleep so sound that nothing will ever +awaken you." + +"Good old Chris!" Opening the box, he fingered the pellets curiously. "A +blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep." + +"On trust, Ned." + +"On honor," he agreed. "Then I mustn't expunge old Crouch? It's a +disappointment," he added gayly. + +He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. +His voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains. + +"Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for it. +I'll stay here and breathe it." + +"Good!" said I. "I've five minutes of telephoning to do. Then I'll be +back." + +Nobody can ever tell me again that there's an instinct which feels the +presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within +arm's-length of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate +emotions. I could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she +crouched, hidden in the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as +if the whole atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the +terrific passion of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt--nothing. +No sense, as I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will +which nerved and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. +Afterward she was unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must +have been for some minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of +terror was the word "Suicide." It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at +first; and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what +followed, my instructions about the poison took on the voice of a +ministering providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor +had she recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of +the disease. But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass +on my way to the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what +she told me later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my +return, I piece together the events which so swiftly followed. + +A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner. +As it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper +window those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure +had almost reached the desk. The face was turned from him. Even in that +moment of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to +her body, with a curious awkwardness. + +"Hello!" he challenged. + +She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush. +Her hand fell upon the box of pellets. She turned, clutching that little +box of desperate hopes to her bosom. + +"Good God! Virginia!" he exclaimed. "Miss Kingsley!" + +"Mr. Worth! Was it you I heard? Why--how are you here?" + +"This is my house." + +"I didn't know." Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a watchful animal, +she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself and a possible +interference. Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, impeded her +fumbling efforts to open the box. Presently, however, the cover yielded. + +He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope. His +brain hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering +upon her obvious and preposterous purpose. Suddenly, as her fingers +trembled among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem +was formed. + +"What do you want with my tonic?" he asked coolly. + +"Tonic? I--I thought--" + +"You thought it was the poison. Well, you've got the wrong box. The +poison box is in the drawer." + +"In the drawer," she repeated. She spoke in the mechanical voice of one +desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital project. Her +nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk. + +He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, +and dropped it into his pocket. + +"Oh!" she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing eyes. +"Then it _was_ the poison!" + +"Yes." + +"Give it back to me!" she implored, like a bereft child. "Oh, give it to +me!" + +"Why do you want to kill yourself?" + +She looked at him in dumb despair. + +"How did you get here?" he demanded. + +"Your fire escape." + +"And to that from the garden wall, I suppose? So _you_ were Ely Crouch's +companion," he cried with a changed voice. + +"Don't," she shuddered, throwing her right arm over her face. + +"I beg your pardon," he said gently. "Take a swallow of this water. +What's the matter with your arm? Are you hurt?" + +"No." Her eyes would not meet his. They were fixed obstinately upon the +pocket into which he had dropped the poison. + +"It's incredible!" he burst out. "You with your youth and loveliness! +With everything that makes life sweet for yourself and others. What +madness--" He broke off and his voice softened into persuasion. "We were +almost friends, once. Can't I--won't you let me help? Don't you think +you can trust me?" + +She raised her eyes to his, and he read in them hopeless terror. "Yes, I +could trust you. But there is only one help for me now. And you've taken +it from me." + +"Who can tell? You've been badly frightened," he said in as soothing a +tone as he could command. "Try to believe that no harm can come to you +here, and that I--I would give the blood of my heart to save you from +harm or danger. You said you could trust me. What was your errand with +Ely Crouch?" + +"Money." + +"Money!" he repeated, drawing back. + +"It was our own; my sister's and mine. Mr. Crouch had it. He had managed +our affairs since my father's death. I could never get an accounting +from him. To-day the doctor told me that Alice must go away at once for +an operation. And to-day Mr. Crouch made this appointment for to-night." + +"Didn't you know his reputation? Weren't you afraid?" + +"I didn't think of fear. When I told him how matters stood, he offered +me money, but--but--Oh, I can't tell you!" + +"No need," he said quickly. "I know what he is. I was joking when I +spoke of killing him, a little while ago. By God, I wish I had killed +him! It isn't too late now." + +"It _is_ too late." + +Her eyes, dilated, were fixed upon his. + +"Why? How--too late?" he stammered. + +"I killed him." + +"_You_! You--killed--Ely--Crouch?" + +"He had a cane," she said, in a hurried, flat, half-whisper. "When he +caught at me, I tried to get it to defend myself. The handle pulled out. +There was a dagger on it. He came at me again. I didn't realize what I +was doing. All I could see was that hateful face drawing nearer. Then it +changed and he seemed to dissolve into a hideous heap. I didn't mean to +kill him." Her voice rose in the struggle against hysteria. "God knows, +I didn't mean to kill him." + +"Hush!" + +His hands fell on her shoulders and held her against the onset. Energy +and resolution quickened in his eyes. "Who knows of your being in +the garden?" + +"No one." + +"Any one see you climb the wall and come here?" + +"No." + +"Or know that you had an appointment with him?" + +"No." + +"Will you do exactly as I tell you?" + +"What is the use?" she said dully. + +"I'm going to get you out of here." + +"I should have to face it later. I couldn't face it--the horror and +shame of it. I'd rather die a thousand times." She lifted her arms, the +coat opened, and the cane-handled blade dropped to the floor, and +rolled. She shuddered away from it. "I kept that for myself, but I +couldn't do it. It's got his blood on it. When I heard the doctor speak +of the poison, it seemed like a miracle of Providence sent to guide me. +Oh, give it to me! Is it"--she faltered--"is it quick?" + +"Steady!" Stooping he picked up the weapon. "It needn't come to that, if +you can play your part. Have you got the courage to walk out of this +house and go home to safety? Absolute safety!" + +She searched his face in bewilderment. "I--don't know." + +"If I give you my word of honor that it depends only on yourself?" + +"How?" + +"Pull yourself together. Go downstairs quietly. Turn to your left. +You'll see a door. It opens on the street. Walk out with your head up, +and go home. You're as safe as though you'd never seen Ely Crouch. +There's no clue to you." + +"No clue! Look down the fire escape!" + +He crossed the room at a bound. Beneath him, its evil snout pointed +upwards, sat the dead man's familiar spirit. + +"Good God! The ferret!" + +"It's been sitting there, watching, watching, watching." + +"The more reason for haste. Pull yourself together. Forward, _march_!" +he cried, pressing his will upon her. + +"But you? When they come what will you say to them?" + +"I'll fix up something." He drew back from the window, lowering his +voice. "Men in the garden. A policeman." + +"They've found him!" She fell into Ned's chair, dropping her head in her +hands. For an instant he studied her. Then he took his great and tender +resolution. His hand fell warm and firm on her shoulder. + +"Listen; suppose they suspect some one else?" + +"Who?" + +"Me." + +"You? Why should they?" + +"Circumstances. The place. The weapon here in my possession. My known +trouble with Ely Crouch. Don't you see how it all fits in?" + +She recovered from the stupor of surprise into which his suggestion had +plunged her. "Are you mad? Do you think that I'd let you sacrifice +yourself? What am I to you that you should do this for me?" + +"The woman I love," he said quietly. "I have loved you from the first +day that I saw you." + +It was at this moment that I returned and halted at the door, an +unwilling witness to the rest, only half understanding, not daring to +move. I saw the splendid color mount and glorify her beauty. I saw her +hands go out to him half in appeal, half in rejection. + +"Oh, it's madness!" she cried. "It's your life you're offering me." + +"What else should I offer you--you who have given life its real meaning +for me?" + +He caught her hands in his and held them. He caught her eyes in his and +held them. Then he began speaking, evenly, soothingly, persuasively, +binding her to his will. + +"What does my life amount to? Think how little it means. A few more +weeks of waiting. Then the suffering: then the release. You heard Dr. +Smith. You know. You understand. Didn't you understand?" + +"Yes," she breathed. + +"Then you must see what a splendid way out this is for me. No more +waiting. No pain. Death never came to any one so kindly before. It's my +chance, if only you'll make it worth while. Will you?" he pleaded. + +"Oh, the wonder of it!" she whispered, gazing on him with parted lips. +But he did not understand, yet. He pressed what he thought to be his +advantage. + +"Here," he cried, suddenly dropping her hands and catching up the bills +from the valise. "Here's safety. Here's life. For you and your sister, +both. You spoke of Providence a moment ago. Here's Providence for you! +Quick! Take it." + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing away as he sought to thrust the money +into her hands. + +"Twenty thousand dollars. More. It doesn't matter. It's life for both of +you. Have you the right to refuse it? Take it and go." + +She let the bank-notes fall from her hands unnoticed. + +"Do you think I would leave you _now_?" she cried in a voice of thrilled +music. "Even if they weren't sure to trace me, as they would be." + +This last she uttered as an unimportant matter dismissed with +indifference. + +"There will be nothing to trace. My confession will cover the ground." + +"Confession? To what?" + +"To the murder of Ely Crouch." + +Some sort of sound I was conscious of making. I suppose I gasped. But +they were too engrossed to hear. + +"You would do even that? But the penalty--the shame--" + +"What do they matter to a dying man?" he retorted impatiently. + +She had fallen back from him, in the shock of his suggestion, but now +she came forward again slowly, her glorious eyes fixed on his. So they +stood face to face, soul to soul, deep answering unto deep, and, as I +sit here speaking, I saw the wonder and the miracle flower in her face. +When she spoke again, her words seemed the inevitable expression of that +which had passed silently between them. + +"Do you love me?" + +"Before God I do," he answered. + +"Take me away! There's time yet. I'll go with you anywhere, anywhere! +I'm all yours. I've loved you from the first, I think, as you have loved +me. All I ask is to live for you, and when you die, to die with you." + +Fire flashed from his face at the call. He took a step toward her. A +shout, half-muffled, sounded from outside the window. Instantly the +light and passion died in his eyes. I have never seen a face at once so +stern and so gentle as his was when he caught the outreaching hands +in his own. + +"You forget that they must find one of us, or it's all no use. Listen +carefully, dear one. If you truly love me, you must do as I bid you. +Give me my chance of fooling fate; of making my death worth while. It +won't be hard." He took the little box from his pocket. "It will be +very easy." + +"Give it to me, too," she pleaded like a child. "Ah, Ned, we can't part +now! Both of us together." + +He shook his head, smiling. The man's face was as beautiful as a god's +at that moment or an angel's. "You must go back to your sister," he said +simply. "You haven't the right to die." + +He turned to the table, drew a sheet of paper to him and wrote four +words. You all know what they were; his confession. Then his hand went +up, a swift movement, and a moment later he was setting back the glass +of water upon the desk whence he had taken it. + +"Love and glory of my life, will you go?" he said. + +"Yes," she whispered. + +Not until then did the paralysis, which had gripped me when I saw Ned +turn the pellets into his hand, relax. I ran forward. The girl cried +out. Ned met me with his hand against my breast. + +"How much have you heard?" he said quickly. + +"Enough." + +"Then you'll understand." His faith was more irresistible than a +thousand arguments. "Take her home, Chris." + +I held out my hand. "Come," I said. + +She turned and faced him. "Must I? Alone?" What a depth of desolation in +that word! + +"There is no other way, dearest one." + +"Good-bye, then, until we meet," she said in the passionate music of her +voice. "Every beat of my heart will bring me nearer to you. There will +be no other life for me. Soon or late I'll come to you. You believe it. +Say you believe it!" + +"I believe it." He bent and kissed her lips. Then his form slackened +away from the arms that clasped it, and sank into the chair. A +policeman's whistle shrilled outside the window. The faintest flicker of +a smile passed over the face of the sleeper. + +I took her away, still with that unearthly ecstasy on her face. + + * * * * * + +The glow of the narrator's cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a world +of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. +When I found my voice, it was hardly more than a whisper. + +"Good God! What a tragedy!" + +"Tragedy? You think it so?" The Little Red Doctor's gnarled face gleamed +strangely behind the tiny radiance. "Dominie, you have a queer notion of +this life and little faith in the next." + +"'She met death as a tryst,'" murmured the old librarian. "And he! +'Trailing clouds of glory!' The triumph of that victory over fate! One +would like to have seen the meeting between them, after the waiting." + +The Little Red Doctor rose. "When some brutal and needless tragedy of +the sort that we medical men witness so often shakes my faith in my +kind, I turn to think of those two in the splendor of their last meeting +on earth, the man with the courage to face death, the woman with the +courage to face life." + +He strode over to the table and lifted the newspaper, which had slipped +to the floor unnoticed. The girlish face turned toward us its +irresistible appeal, yearning out from amidst the lurid indignities +of print. + +"You heard from her afterward?" I asked. + +"Often. The sister died and left her nothing to live for but her +promise. Always in her letters sounded the note of courage and of +waiting. It was in the last word I had from her--received since her +death--set to the song of some poet, I don't know who. You ought to +know, Mr. Sheldon." + +His deep voice rose to the rhythm. + + "Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat + Measure the length of every moment gone. + Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet + And light the letters on a churchyard stone.-- + And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet!'" + +"May Probyn," the librarian identified. "Too few people know her. A +wonderful poem!" + +Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. +Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging +wind had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western +cloud shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the +ancient house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, +gleamed, through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. +Behind me in the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and +death repeated once more the message of imperishable hope: + + "And still I say, 'To-morrow we shall meet.'" + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From a Bench in Our Square, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE *** + +***** This file should be named 10944.txt or 10944.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/4/10944/ + +Produced by Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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