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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..4d94328 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54491 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54491) diff --git a/old/54491-0.txt b/old/54491-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0dcf413..0000000 --- a/old/54491-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5239 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of More "Short Sixes", by H. C. Bunner - -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/license - - -Title: More "Short Sixes" - -Author: H. C. Bunner - -Illustrator: C. J. Taylor - -Release Date: April 6, 2017 [EBook #54491] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE "SHORT SIXES" *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - MORE “SHORT SIXES.” - - - - - [Illustration] - - MORE “SHORT SIXES”~ - - BY H·C·BUNNER~ - - [Illustration] - - ILLUSTRATED BY C·J·TAYLOR· - - KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN·PUBLISHERS. - PUCK BUILDING·NEW·YORK·MDCCCXCIV·· - - [Illustration] - - Copyright, 1894, by KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN. - - [Illustration: colophon] - - - TO - - A. L. B. - - - - -Contents. - - -Page. - -The Cumbersome Horse 1 - -Mr. Vincent Egg and the Wage of Sin 22 - -The Ghoollah 46 - -Cutwater of Seneca 68 - -Mr. Wick’s Aunt 84 - -What Mrs. Fortescue Did 110 - -“The Man with the Pink Pants” 134 - -The Third Figure in the Cotillion 156 - -“Samantha Boom-de-ay” 180 - -My Dear Mrs. Billington 214 - - - - -THE CUMBERSOME HORSE. - - -It is not to be denied that a sense of disappointment pervaded Mr. -Brimmington’s being in the hour of his first acquaintance with the -isolated farm-house which he had just purchased, sight unseen, after -long epistolary negotiations with Mr. Hiram Skinner, postmaster, -carpenter, teamster and real estate agent of Bethel Corners, who was now -driving him to his new domain. - -Perhaps the feeling was of a mixed origin. Indian Summer was much colder -up in the Pennsylvania hills than he had expected to find it; and the -hills themselves were much larger and bleaker and barer, and far more -indifferent in their demeanor toward him, than he had expected to find -them. Then Mr. Skinner had been something of a disappointment, himself. -He was too familiar with his big, knobby, red hands; too furtive with -his small, close-set eyes; too profuse of tobacco-juice, and too -raspingly loquacious. And certainly the house itself did not meet his -expectations when he first saw it, standing lonely and desolate in its -ragged meadows of stubble and wild-grass on the unpleasantly steep -mountain-side. - -And yet Mr. Skinner had accomplished for him the desire of his heart. He -had always said that when he should come into his money--forty thousand -dollars from a maiden aunt--he would quit forever his toilsome job of -preparing Young Gentlemen for admission to the Larger Colleges and -Universities, and would devote the next few years to writing his -long-projected “History of Prehistoric Man.” And to go about this task -he had always said that he would go and live in perfect solitude--that -is, all by himself and a chorewoman--in a secluded farm-house, situated -upon the southerly slope of some high hill--an old farm-house--a -Revolutionary farm-house, if possible--a delightful, long, low, rambling -farm-house--a farm-house with floors of various levels--a farm-house -with crooked Stairs, and with nooks and corners and quaint -cupboards--this--this had been the desire of Mr. Brimmington’s heart. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Brimmington, when he came into his money at the age of forty-five, -fixed on Pike County, Pennsylvania, as a mountainous country of good -report. A postal-guide informed him that Mr. Skinner was the postmaster -of Bethel Corners; so, Mr. Brimmington wrote to Mr. Skinner. - -The correspondence between Mr. Brimmington and Mr. Skinner was long -enough and full enough to have settled a treaty between two nations. It -ended by a discovery of a house lonely enough and aged enough to fill -the bill. Several hundred dollars’ worth of repairs were needed to make -it habitable, and Mr. Skinner was employed to make them. Toward the -close of a cold November day, Mr. Brimmington saw his purchase for the -first time. - -In spite of his disappointment, he had to admit, as he walked around the -place in the early twilight, that it was just what he had bargained for. -The situation, the dimensions, the exposure, were all exactly what had -been stipulated. About its age there could be no question. Internally, -its irregularity--indeed, its utter failure to conform to any known -rules of domestic architecture--surpassed Mr. Brimmington’s wildest -expectations. It had stairs eighteen inches wide; it had rooms of -strange shapes and sizes; it had strange, shallow cupboards in strange -places; it had no hallways; its windows were of odd design, and whoso -wanted variety in floors could find it there. And along the main wall of -Mr. Brimmington’s study there ran a structure some three feet and a half -high and nearly as deep, which Mr. Skinner confidently assured him was -used in old times as a wall-bench or a dresser, indifferently. “You -might think,” said Mr. Skinner, “that all that space inside there was -jest wasted; but it ain’t so. Them seats is jest filled up inside with -braces so’s that you can set on them good and solid.” And then Mr. -Skinner proudly called attention to the two coats of gray paint spread -over the entire side of the house, walls, ceilings and woodwork, -blending the original portions and the Skinner restorations in one -harmonious, homogenous whole. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Skinner might have told him that this variety of gray paint is -highly popular in some rural districts, and is made by mixing lamp-black -and ball-blue with a low grade of white lead. But he did not say it; and -he drove away as soon as he conveniently could, after formally -introducing him to Mrs. Sparhawk, a gaunt, stern-faced, silent, elderly -woman. Mrs. Sparhawk was to take charge of his bachelor establishment -during the day time. Mrs. Sparhawk cooked him a meal for which she very -properly apologized. Then she returned to her kitchen to “clean up.” -Mr. Brimmington went to the front door, partly to look out upon his -property, and partly to turn his back on the gray paint. There were no -steps before the front door, but a newly-graded mound or earthwork about -the size of a half-hogshead. He looked out upon his apple-orchard, which -was further away than he had expected to find it. It had been out of -bearing for ten years, but this Mr. Brimmington did not know. He did -know, however, that the whole outlook was distinctly dreary. - -As he stood there and gazed out into the twilight, two forms suddenly -approached him. Around one corner of the house came Mrs. Sparhawk on her -way home. Around the other came an immensely tall, whitish shape, -lumbering forward with a heavy tread. Before he knew it, it had -scrambled up the side of his mound with a clumsy, ponderous rush, and -was thrusting itself directly upon him when he uttered so lusty a cry of -dismay that it fell back startled; and, wheeling about a great long body -that swayed on four misshapen legs, it pounded off in the direction it -had come from, and disappeared around the corner. Mr. Brimmington turned -to Mrs. Sparhawk in disquiet and indignation. - -“Mrs. Sparhawk,” he demanded; “what is that?” - -“It’s a horse,” said Mrs. Sparhawk, not at all surprised, for she knew -that Mr. Brimmington was from the city. “They hitch ’em to wagons here.” - -“I know it is a horse, Mrs. Sparhawk,” Mr. Brimmington rejoined with -some asperity; “but whose horse is it, and what is it doing on my -premises?” - -“I don’t rightly know whose horse it _is_,” replied Mrs. Sparhawk; “the -man that used to own it, he’s dead now.” - -[Illustration] - -“But what,” inquired Mr. Brimmington sternly, “is the animal doing -here?” - -“I guess he b’longs here,” Mrs. Sparhawk said. She had a cold, even, -impersonal way of speaking, as though she felt that her safest course in -life was to confine herself strictly to such statements of fact as might -be absolutely required of her. - -“But, my good woman,” replied Mr. Brimmington, in bewilderment, “how -can that be? The animal can’t certainly belong on my property unless he -belongs to me, and that animal certainly is not mine.” - -Seeing him so much at a loss and so greatly disturbed in mind, Mrs. -Sparhawk relented a little from her strict rule of life, and made an -attempt at explanation. - -“He b’longed to the man who owned this place first off; and I don’ know -for sure, but I’ve heard tell that _he_ fixed it some way so’s that the -horse would sort of go with the place.” - -Mr. Brimmington felt irritation rising within him. - -“But,” he said, “it’s preposterous! There was no such consideration in -the deed. No such thing can be done, Mrs. Sparhawk, without my -acquiescence!” - -“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” said Mrs. Sparhawk; “what I do know -is, the place has changed hands often enough since, and the horse has -always went with the place.” - -There was an unsettled suggestion in the first part of this statement of -Mrs. Sparhawk that gave a shock to Mr. Brimmington’s nerves. He laughed -uneasily. - -“Oh, er, yes! I see. Very probably there’s been some understanding. I -suppose I am to regard the horse as a sort of lien upon the -place--a--a--what do they call it?--an incumbrance! Yes,” he repeated, -more to himself than to Mrs. Sparhawk; “an incumbrance. I’ve got a -gentleman’s country place with a horse incumbrant.” - -Mrs. Sparhawk heard him, however. - -“It _is_ a sorter cumbersome horse,” she said. And without another word -she gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and strode off into the -darkness. - -Mr. Brimmington turned back into the house, and busied himself with a -vain attempt to make his long-cherished furniture look at home in his -new leaden-hued rooms. The ungrateful task gave him the blues; and, -after an hour of it, he went to bed. - -He was dreaming leaden-hued dreams, oppressed, uncomfortable dreams, -when a peculiarly weird and uncanny series of thumps on the front of the -house awoke him with a start. The thumps might have been made by a giant -with a weaver’s beam, but he must have been a very drunken giant to -group his thumps in such a disorderly parody of time and sequence. - -Mr. Brimmington had too guileless and clean a heart to be the prey of -undefined terrors. He rose, ran to the window and opened it. The -moonlight lit up the raw, frosty landscape with a cold, pale, diffused -radiance, and Mr. Brimmington could plainly see right below him the -cumbersome horse, cumbersomely trying to maintain a footing on the top -of the little mound before the front door. When, for a fleeting instant, -he seemed to think that he had succeeded in this feat, he tried to bolt -through the door. As soon, however, as one of his huge knees smote the -panel, his hind feet lost their grip on the soft earth, and he wabbled -back down the incline, where he stood shaking and quivering, until he -could muster wind enough for another attempt to make a catapult of -himself. The veil like illumination of the night, which turned all -things else to a dim, silvery gray, could not hide the scars and bruises -and worn places that spotted the animal’s great, gaunt, distorted frame. -His knees were as big as a man’s head. His feet were enormous. His -joints stood out from his shriveled carcass like so many pine knots. Mr. -Brimmington gazed at him, fascinated, horrified, until a rush more -desperate and uncertain than the rest threatened to break his front door -in. - -[Illustration] - -“Hi!” shrieked Mr. Brimmington; “go away!” - -It was the horse’s turn to get frightened. He lifted his long, -coffin-shaped head toward Mr. Brimmington’s window, cast a sort of -blind, cross-eyed, ineffectual glance at him, and with a long-drawn, -wheezing, cough-choked whinny he backed down the mound, got himself -about, end for end, with such extreme awkwardness that he hurt one poor -knee on a hitching-post that looked to be ten feet out of his way, and -limped off to the rear of the house. - -The sound of that awful, rusty, wind-broken whinny haunted Mr. -Brimmington all the rest of that night. It was like the sound of an -orchestrion run down, or of a man who is utterly tired of the -whooping-cough and doesn’t care who knows it. - -The next morning was bright and sunshiny, and Mr. Brimmington awoke in a -more cheerful frame of mind than he would naturally have expected to -find himself in after his perturbed night. He found himself inclined to -make the best of his purchase and to view it in as favorable a light as -possible. He went outside and looked at it from various points of view, -trying to find and if possible to dispose of the reason for the vague -sense of disappointment which he felt, having come into possession of -the rambling old farm-house, which he had so much desired. - -He decided, after a long and careful inspection, that it was the -_proportions_ of the house that were wrong. They were certainly -peculiar. It was singularly high between joints in the first story, and -singularly low in the second. In spite of its irregularity within, it -was uncompromisingly square on the outside. There was something queer -about the pitch of its roof, and it seemed strange that so modest a -structure with no hallway whatever should have vestibule windows on each -side of its doors, both front and rear. - -But here an idea flashed into Mr. Brimmington’s mind that in an instant -changed him from a carping critic to a delighted discoverer. He was -living in a Block House! Yes; that explained--that accounted for all the -strangeness of its architecture. In in instant he found his purchase -invested with a beautiful glamour of adventurous association. Here was -the stout and well-planned refuge to which the grave settlers of an -earlier day had fled to guard themselves against the attack of the -vindictive red-skins. He saw it all. A moat, crossed no doubt by -draw-bridges, had surrounded the building. In the main room below, the -women and children had huddled while their courageous defenders had -poured a leaden hail upon the foe through loop-holes in the upper story. -He walked around the house for some time, looking for loop-holes. - -So pleased was Mr. Brimmington at his theory that the morning passed -rapidly away, and when he looked at his watch he was surprised to find -that it was nearly noon. Then he remembered that Mr. Skinner had -promised to call on him at eleven, to make anything right that was not -right. Glancing over the landscape he saw Mr. Skinner approaching by a -circuitous track. He was apparently following the course of a snake -fence which he could readily have climbed. This seemed strange, as his -way across the pasture land was seemingly unimpeded. Thinking of the -pasture land made Mr. Brimmington think of the white horse, and casting -his eyes a little further down the hill he saw that animal slowly and -painfully steering a parallel course to Mr. Skinner, on the other side -of the fence. Mr. Skinner went out of sight behind a clump of trees, and -when he arrived it was not upon the side of the house where Mr. -Brimmington had expected to see him appear. - -[Illustration] - -As they were about to enter the house Mr. Brimmington noticed the marks -of last night’s attack upon his front door, and he spoke to Mr. Skinner -about the horse. - -“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Skinner, with much ingenuousness; “that horse. I was -meaning to speak to you about that horse. Fact is, I’ve kinder got that -horse on my hands, and if it’s no inconvenience to you, I’d like to -leave him where he is for a little while.” - -“But it would be very inconvenient, indeed, Mr. Skinner,” said the new -owner of the house. “The animal is a very unpleasant object; and, -moreover, it attempted to break into my front door last night.” - -Mr. Skinner’s face darkened. “Sho!” he said; “you don’t mean to tell me -that?” - -But Mr. Brimmington did mean to tell him that, and Mr. Skinner listened -with a scowl of unconcealed perplexity and annoyance. He bit his lip -reflectively for a minute or two before he spoke. - -[Illustration] - -“Too bad you was disturbed,” he said at length. “You’ll have to keep the -bars up to that meadow and then it won’t happen again.” - -“But, indeed, it must not happen again,” said Mr. Brimmington; “the -horse must be taken away.” - -“Well, you see it’s this way, friend,” returned Mr. Skinner, with a -rather ugly air of decision; “I really ain’t got no choice in the -matter. I’d like to oblige you, and if I’d known as far back that you -would have objected to the animal I’d have had him took somewheres. -But, as it is, there ain’t no such a thing as getting that there horse -off this here place till the frost’s out of the ground. You can see for -yourself that that horse, the condition he’s in now, couldn’t no more go -up nor down this hill than he could fly. Why, I came over here a-foot -this morning on purpose not to take them horses of mine over this road -again. It can’t be done, sir.” - -“Very well,” suggested Mr. Brimmington; “kill the horse.” - -“I ain’t killin’ no horses,” said Mr. Skinner. “You may if you like; but -I’d advise you not to. There’s them as mightn’t like it.” - -“Well, let them come and take their horse away, then,” said Mr. -Brimmington. - -“Just so,” assented Mr. Skinner. “It’s they who are concerned in the -horse, and they have a right to take him away. I would if I was any ways -concerned, but I ain’t.” Here he turned suddenly upon Mr. Brimmington. -“Why, look here,” he said, “you ain’t got the heart to turn that there -horse out of that there pasture where he’s been for fifteen years! It -won’t do you no sorter hurt to have him stay there till Spring. Put the -bars up, and he won’t trouble you no more.” - -“But,” objected Mr. Brimmington, weakly, “even if the poor creature were -not so unsightly, he could not be left alone all Winter in that pasture -without shelter.” - -“That’s just where you’re mistaken,” Mr. Skinner replied, tapping his -interlocutor heavily upon the shoulder; “he don’t mind it not one mite. -See that shed there?” And he pointed to a few wind-racked boards in the -corner of the lot. “There’s hoss-shelter; and as for feed, why there’s -feed enough in that meadow for two such as him.” - -In the end, Mr. Brimmington, being utterly ignorant of the nature and -needs of horse-flesh, was over-persuaded, and he consented to let the -unfortunate white horse remain in his pasture lot to be the sport of the -Winter’s chill and bitter cruelty. Then he and Mr. Skinner talked about -some new paint. - - * * * * * - -It was the dead waist and middle of Mr. Brimmington’s third night in his -new house, when he was absolutely knocked out of a calm and peaceful -slumber by a crash so appalling that he at first thought that the side -of the mountain had slid down upon his dwelling. This was followed by -other crashes, thumps, the tearing of woodwork and various strange and -grewsome noises. Whatever it might be, Mr. Brimmington felt certain that -it was no secret midnight marauder, and he hastened to the eighteen-inch -stairway without even waiting to put on a dressing-gown. A rush of cold -air came up from below, and he had no choice but to scuttle back for a -bath-robe and a candle while the noises continued, and the cold air -floated all over the house. - -There was no difficulty in locating the sounds. Mr. Brimmington -presented himself at the door of the little kitchen, pulled it open, -and, raising the light above his head, looked in. The rush of wind blew -out his light, but not before he had had time to see that it was the -white horse that was in the kitchen, and that he had gone through the -floor. - -[Illustration] - -Subsequent investigation proved that the horse had come in through the -back door, carrying that and its two vestibule windows with him, and -that he had first trampled and then churned the thin floor into -match-wood. He was now reposing on his stomach, with his legs hanging -down between the joists into the hollow under the house--for there was -no cellar. He looked over his shoulder at his host and emitted his -blood-curdling wail. - -“My Gracious!” said Mr. Brimmington. - -That night Mr. Brimmington sat up with the horse, both of them wrapped, -as well as Mr. Brimmington could do it, in bed-clothes. There is not -much you can do with a horse when you have to sit up with him under such -circumstances. The thought crossed Mr. Brimmington’s mind of reading to -him, but he dismissed it. - - * * * * * - -In the interview the next day, between Mr. Brimmington and Mr. Skinner, -the aggressiveness was all on Mr. Brimmington’s side, and Mr. Skinner -was meek and wore an anxious expression. Mr. Brimmington had, however, -changed his point of view. He now realized that sleeping out of Winter -nights might be unpleasant, even painful to an aged and rheumatic horse. -And, although he had cause of legitimate complaint against the creature, -he could no longer bear to think of killing the animal with whom he had -shared that cold and silent vigil. He commissioned Mr. Skinner to build -for the brute a small but commodious lodging, and to provide a proper -stock of provender--commissions which Mr. Skinner gladly and humbly -accepted. As to the undertaking to get the horse out of his immediate -predicament, however, Mr. Skinner absolutely refused to touch the job. -“That horse don’t like me,” said Mr. Skinner; “I know he don’t; I seen -it in his eyes long ago. If you like, I’ll send you two or three men and -a block-and-tackle, and they can get him out; but not me; no, sir!” - -Mr. Skinner devoted that day to repairing damages, and promised on the -morrow to begin the building of the little barn. Mr. Brimmington was -glad there was going to be no greater delay, when, early in the evening, -the sociable white horse tried to put his front feet through the study -window. - -But of all the noises that startled Mr. Brimmington, in the first week -of his sojourn in the farm-house, the most alarming awakened him about -eight o’clock of the following morning. Hurrying to his study, he gazed -in wonder upon a scene unparalleled even in the History of Prehistoric -Man. The boards had been ripped off the curious structure which was -supposed to have served the hardy settlers for a wall-bench and a -dresser, indifferently. This revealed another structure in the form of a -long crib or bin, within which, apparently trying to back out through -the wall, stood Mr. Skinner, holding his tool-box in front of him as if -to shield himself, and fairly yelping with terror. The front door was -off its hinges, and there stood Mrs. Sparhawk wielding a broom to keep -out the white horse, who was viciously trying to force an entrance. Mr. -Brimmington asked what it all meant; and Mrs. Sparhawk, turning a -desperate face upon him, spoke with the vigor of a woman who has kept -silence too long. - -“It means,” she said, “that this here house of yours is this here -horse’s stable; _and the horse knows it_; and that there was the horse’s -manger. This here horse was old Colonel Josh Pincus’s regimental horse, -and so provided for in his will; and this here man Skinner was to have -the caring of him until he should die a natural death, and then he was -to have this stable; and till then the stable was left to the horse. And -now he’s taken the stable away from the horse, and patched it up into a -dwelling-house for a fool from New York City; and the horse don’t like -it; and the horse don’t like Skinner. And when he come back to git that -manger for your barn, the horse sot onto him. And that’s what’s the -matter, Mr. Skimmerton.” - -[Illustration] - -“Mrs. Sparhawk,” began Mr. Brimmington-- - -“I _ain’t_ no Sparhawk!” fairly shouted the enraged woman, as with a -furious shove she sent the Cumbersome Horse staggering down the doorway -mound; “this here’s Hiram Skinner, the meanest man in Pike County, and -I’m his wife, let out to do day’s work! You’ve had one week of him--how -would you have liked twenty years?” - - - - -MR. VINCENT EGG AND THE WAGE OF SIN. - - -Mr. Vincent Egg and the daughter of his washerwoman walked out of the -front doorway of Mr. Egg’s lodging-house into the morning sunlight, with -very different expressions upon their two faces. - -Mr. Vincent Egg, although he was old and stout and red-nosed and shabby -in his attire, wore a look that was at once timorous, fatuous, and -weakly mendacious; a look that tried to tell the possible passer-by that -his red nose and watery eyes bloomed and blinked in the smiles of -Virginie. Virginie, although she was young and pretty and also thin of -face and poverty-stricken of garb, wore a look which told you plainly -and most honestly beyond a question, that she had no smiles for Mr. Egg -or for any one else. They walked down the middle of the street side by -side, but _that_ they could not very well help doing, for the street was -both narrow and dirty, and the edges of the stone gutter down its midway -offered the only clean foothold in its entire breadth. As they walked on -together, Mr. Egg made a few poor-spirited attempts to start up a -gallant conversation with the girl; but she made no response whatever to -his remarks, and strode on in dark-faced silence, her empty wash-basket -poised between her lank right hip and her thin right elbow. Mr. Egg -hemmed and cleared a husky throat, and employed both his unsteady hands -in setting his tall, shabby silk hat upon his head in such a manner that -its broad brim might keep the sunlight out of his eyes. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Vincent Egg was in the little city of Drignan on business. His -lodgings were in the rue des Quatres Mulets, because they were the -cheapest lodgings he could find. There are prettier towns than Drignan, -and even in Drignan there are many better streets than the rue des -Quatres Mulets. But it was much the same to Mr. Egg. He took his shabby -lodgings, the rebuffs of the fair, the sunlight of other men’s fortunes -dazzling his weak eyes--all these things he took with an easy -indifference of mind so long as life gave him the little he asked of it, -namely: a periodic indulgence in alcoholic unconsciousness. A simple -drunk, once a month, of at least a week’s duration, was what Mr. Egg’s -soul most craved and desired; but if his fluctuating means made the -period of intoxication briefer or the period of sobriety longer, he bore -either event with a certain simple heroism. He wanted no “spree,” no -“toot,” no “tear;” a modest spell of sodden, dreamy, tearfully happy -soaking in the back-room of some cheap wine-shop where he and his ways -were known--this was all that remained of ambition and aspiration in Mr. -Egg’s life; which had been, for the rest, a long life, a harmless life -(except in the stern moralist’s sense), and a life that was decidedly a -round, complete and total failure in spite of an exceptional allotment -of abilities and opportunities. Mr. Egg had been many things in the -course of that long and varied life--lawyer, doctor, newspaper-man, -speculator, actor, manager, horse-dealer and racetrack gamester, -croupier (and courier, even, after a fashion)--and heaven knows what -else beside, of things avowable and unavowable. Just at present, he was -supplying an English firm of Tourist-Excursion Managers with a -guide-book of their various routes, at the rate of eighteen-pence per -page of small type, and his traveling expenses--third-class. He had just -finished “doing up” the district last allotted to him; and, after two -weeks’ of traveling about, he had spent another fortnight in writing up -his notes in a dingy little lodging-house room in the rue des Quatres -Mulets. He knew his ground thoroughly, and that was the cheapest place. - -[Illustration] - -Such was Mr. Vincent Egg, after a half-century of struggle with the -world; and something of an imposing figure he made, too, in his defeat -and degradation. His nose was red, his cheeks were puffed and veined, -there were bags under his bloodshot eyes, his close-cropped hair was -thin, his stubby little gray moustache, desperately waxed at the ends, -gave an incongruously foreign touch to his decidedly Anglo-Saxon -face--and his clothes were shockingly shabby. But then he _wore_ his -clothes, as few men in our day can wear clothes; and they were _his_ -clothes; his very own, and not another’s. People often spoke of him, -after seeing him once, as “that big, soldierly-looking old man in the -white hat.” But he did not wear a white hat. His hat, which was one of -the largest, one of the jauntiest and one of the oldest ever seen, had -also been, in its time, one of the blackest. It was his coat that gave -people an idea of his having something about him that suggested white. -It was a tightly-buttoned frock-coat of an indescribable light-dirty -color. Most hopelessly shabby men cling to some standard of taste in -dress that was _the_ standard in their last-remembered days of -prosperity. That coat--if it were one coat and not only one of a -long-lived family--marked the fact that the last season of prosperity -Mr. Egg had enjoyed was a season, now some twenty years gone, when the -London “swells” or “nobs,” or whatever they called them then, wore -frock-coats of certain fashionable light shades of fawn and mouse-color, -then known, I believe, as “London Smoke” and “French Gray.” While it can -not be said that Mr. Egg’s coat was familiar in every quarter of Europe -(for it rarely staid long enough in any one place), it had certainly -been seen in all. And more than one Austrian officer, after passing Mr. -Egg in that garment of pallid, dubious and puzzling hue, had turned -sharply around to satisfy himself that it was not a uniform-coat in a -condition of profanation. A certain state and dignity that still clung -to this coat, and the startling cleanness of his well-scissored cuffs -and collars were all that remained to give Mr. Egg a hold upon exterior -respectability. - -With such a history, Mr. Egg was naturally well versed in the -freemasonry of poverty and need. As his eyes became accustomed to the -sun, he looked at the girl’s pinched face, and his tones suddenly -changed. Vincent Egg spoke several languages, and he knew all their -social dialects and variations. It was in friendly and familiar speech -that he addressed the girl, and asked her--What was the matter? and, Was -the business going ill? - -[Illustration] - -If Virginie had been the poor girl you meet with in the stories written -by English ladies of a mildly religious turn of mind, she would have -dropped a little curtsey and said with a single tear, “Indeed, sir, I -had not meant to speak, but you have hit upon the truth. The business -goes very ill, indeed, and without help I do not see how my poor mother -can survive the Winter.” But Virginie, obeying the instincts of her -nature and her education, responded to Mr. Egg with a single coarse -French adjective which is only to be rendered in English, I am afraid, -by the word “stinking.” - -Mr. Egg was not in the least shocked. He cast his blinking eyes about -him at the filthy roadway, at the narrow old stone houses that crowded -both sides of the street with the peaked roofs of their over-hanging -upper-stories, almost shutting out the sky above his head, at the -countless century-old stains of damp and rust and shameful soilure upon -their dull faces, and he said simply: - -“Fichu locale!” - -Thereby he amply expressed to his hearer his opinion that if the -business deserved the adjective she had accorded it, the explanation was -to be found in its unfortunate location. This opened the flood gates of -Virginie’s speech. She told Mr. Egg that he was entirely right about the -location, and gave him a few casual corroborative details which showed -him that she knew what she was talking about. She also confided to him -enough of her family affairs to account for the bitterness of her spirit -and her contempt for mirthful dalliance. It was nothing but the old -endless story of poverty in one of its innumerable variants. This time -the father, a jobbing stone-mason, had not only broken his leg in -Marseilles, but on coming out of the hospital had got drunk, assaulted a -gend’arme, made a compound fracture of it, and laid himself up for -several months. This time the mother had a rheumatic swelling of one -arm, which hindered her in her washing. This time the eldest boy had got -himself into some trouble in trying to evade the performance of his term -of military duty. This time the youngest child had some torturing -disease of the spine that necessitated--or rather needed--an operation. -And, of course, as at all times, there were five or six hungry mouths, -associated with as many pairs of comparatively helpless hands, between -Virginie and that youngest. And as to business, that was certainly bad. -It was particularly bad of late--although it was always bad in Drignan. -Virginie told Mr. Egg that he was “rudement propre,” or “blazing -clean”--clean as they were not in Drignan, she assured him. In fact, it -appeared, this strange English gentleman, who had paid as high as a -franc-and-a-half a week for his washing, had been accepted by Virginie’s -family as designed in the mercy of Divine Providence to tide them over -their period of distress. His departure at the end of two weeks was a -sore disappointment in a financial point of view. - -[Illustration] - -Vincent Egg was a very kind-hearted man, and he listened to this -recital, and uttered sympathetic ejaculations in the right places. He -was sorry about the youngest child, very sorry; he had known a case -like it. Perhaps, he suggested, business might pick up. Messrs. Sculry & -Co., the great English managers of Tourists’ Excursions, were going to -make Drignan a stopping-place for their excursions on the way to -Avignon. It was going to be a stopping-place of only a few hours, but, -perhaps, it might bring some business. Who knew? Virginie brightened up -when she heard this, and said that was so. Those English, she remarked, -were always washing--no disrespect intended to the gentleman. - -“And here,” she said, as they came abreast of a narrow gateway on the -other side of the street from Mr. Egg’s lodging-house, “is where I live. -It is on the ground floor. Will Monsieur come in and see the baby?” And -her eyes lit up for the first time with a real interest--the interest, -half-proud, and half-morbid, of a poor, simple creature who longs to -exhibit to the world the affliction of monstrosity which sets her poor -household apart from others of its kind. - -Now, Mr. Egg had not the slightest desire to see the baby, and he had no -intention whatever of going in; but, glancing through the narrow -doorway, he saw a succession of arches in the courtyard beyond, and some -old bits of mediæval masonry, which excited his curiosity. If this were -the remains of some old monastery that had escaped his notice, it might -mean a half-page more--nine-pence--in his guide-book. He strolled in by -Virginie’s side, heedless of her chatter. No; it was not the ruin - -[Illustration] - -of an ecclesiastical structure. The courtyard was only a part of an old -stable and blacksmith-shop; old, but no older probably than the rest of -that old street, which might have been standing at the time of Louis -XIV--though it probably wasn’t. From its proximity to a canal that -marked the line of an old moat, Mr. Egg made a safe guess that it was a -small remnant of the stables and farriery attached to the barracks of -the original fortifications of the town. - -At any rate, it was no fish for the net of Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s -guide-book compiler; and he was turning to go, when Virginie, who had -supposed that he was merely following in her lead, to feast his eyes -upon the sick baby, said simply, as she pushed open a door, “This way, -Monsieur,” and, before he knew it, he had entered his washerwoman’s -room. - -Although it was a ground-floor room, damp, dark and old, it was clean -with a curious sort of cleanness that seems to belong to the Latin -races--a cleanness that gives one the impression of having been achieved -without the use of soap and water: as if everything had been scraped -clean instead of being washed clean. Virginie’s mother was clean, too, -in spite of her swollen and helpless arm, and the three or four children -who were playing on the stone floor were no dirtier than healthy -children ought to be between washes. But Mr. Egg had hardly had time to -take more than cursory note of these facts before his attention was -riveted by the sick child in the French woman’s arms--so pitiful a -little piece of suffering childhood that a much harder-hearted man than -Mr. Vincent Egg might readily have been shocked at the sight of it. As -for Mr. Egg, he simply dropped into a seated posture upon a convenient -bench, and stared in the fascination of pity and horror. - -Mr. Egg knew little of children and less of their diseases. In the -ordinary course of things, such matters were not often brought to his -attention; and, to tell the truth, had he known what he was to see -there, no persuasion would have induced him to enter that poor little -room. Now that he did see it, however, he could not move his eyes: the -spectacle had for him a hideous attraction of novelty. Virginie and her -mother exhibited the poor little misshapen thing, and rattled over the -history of the case with a volubility which showed that it was no new -tale. For fifteen minutes their visitor sat and stared in horrified -silence; and, when at last he made his way back to the street, he found -that his mind was in a more disturbed state than he had known it to be -in many years. - -[Illustration] - -It is the people who most avoid the sight of human suffering who very -often are the most sharply shocked by it when that sight is obtruded -upon them. Your professional nurse soon learns to succor without -lamentation: it is the person who “really has no faculty for nursing” -who goes into spasms of sensibility over the sight of a finger caught in -a cog-wheel, and runs about clamoring for new laws for the suppression -of all machinery not constructed of India-rubber. Up to half an hour -before, Mr. Egg had never wasted many thoughts upon the millions of -suffering babies in this world; and now he could not turn his thoughts -to anything except the particular baby that he had just seen. - -And yet, as he had told Virginie, he had known of a similar case before, -though it belonged to a time so long ago that it had practically faded -from his mind. It was the case of his own brother, who had died in -infancy of some such trouble, one of the earliest victims of an -operation at that time in its earliest experimental stages. That was -more than half a century ago, and Vincent Egg had no remembrance -whatever of the little brother. But he did remember his first childish -impression of a visit to the hospital where the little one lay--of the -smell of the disinfectants and the chill of the whitewashed walls. - -The heart of Mr. Egg was touched, and he felt himself moved with a -strong desire to extend some help to these people who were so much worse -off than he was. Yet Mr. Egg’s intellectual parts told him that there -was no possibility of his doing anything of the sort. He knew, beyond -any chance of fond delusion, his present position and his future -prospects. He had his ticket back to Lyons, where the local branch of -Messrs. Sculry & Co. had its office; he had in his valise at his -lodgings just enough money for his necessary sustenance upon his -journey. And not one other penny, not one soumarkee would he have until, -at Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s office, his work had been measured down to the -last syllable, and he had received therefor as many times eighteen-pence -as he had produced pages. That would be, it was true, quite a neat -little sum, but--and here came in the big BUT of Mr. Egg’s existence. - -[Illustration] - -For Mr. Egg knew exactly what was going to become of that money. To draw -it at all, he would have to present himself at the office in a condition -of sobriety, which would be the last effort of a period of abstinence -that he was beginning to find very trying. Then, so much of it must go -to buying himself back into the three or four attenuated credits by -grace of which he lived his poor life at Lyons; and just enough would be -left to give him that fortnight of drunken stupor for which he had -worked so long and so hard. - -Mr. Egg needed an effort rather of the memory than of the imagination to -forecast the recurrence of that familiar stupor. He could see himself -leaving the spick-and-span, highly respectable office of the Lyons -agency of Messrs. Sculry & Co., and hurrying off upon the few bits of -business that must be attended to before he could present himself at -“his” wine-shop, which was a very dirty one, indeed, kept by a certain -M. and Mme. Louis Morel, in an appropriately unclean back street. There -he knew just what to expect in the way of noisy, ready-handed, -false-faced welcome. Then would come the tantalizingly-prolonged -bargaining over the score to be settled and the score to be begun, and -at last he would be free to take possession of that dark, ill-ventilated -little back room which was always reserved for the periodical -retirements of this regular patron of the house. It was a little room -like a ship’s stateroom, hardly large enough to contain its dirty red -velvet divan, its round table and its two chairs; yet for a week or a -fortnight it would be his, and behind it, in the hallway, was a bed on -which he could stretch himself in the hours when he felt the need of -deeper slumber than the hard cushions of the divan permitted. There his -few friends, outcasts and adventurers like himself, would drop in to see -him, one or two at a time, to help him on his murky way with challenges -to bouts of brandy-drinking, in which he would always pay for two -glasses to the other man’s one. Then, as the procession of callers went -on, it would grow dim and dimmer and vague and yet more vague, until it -was lost in a hazy, wavering dream, wherein familiar faces of men and -women stared at him from out of days so long gone by that in his dream -he could fancy them happy. - -That was what lay before him. Mr. Vincent Egg knew it as well as he knew -that the calendar months would go on in their regular order, and the -tides in the sea would continue to rise and fall. Under these -circumstances, nothing was more certain than that the unfortunate -family of Mr. Egg’s washerwoman need look for no help whatever from Mr. -Egg’s prospective earnings. “It’s a damned shame!” said Mr. Egg to -himself, slapping his thigh. And it was a shame. But there it was. - -[Illustration] - -Suddenly a great thought struck Mr. Egg--a thought so great and so -forcible in the blow that it dealt his mental apprehension that for -three minutes he stood stock-still in the gutter in the middle of the -rue des Quatre Mulets. Then somebody poured a pail of water out of a -door-way and drowned him out, but he went on his way, quite indifferent -to wet feet. - -Mr. Vincent Egg went to his lodgings, and there extracted from his -valise the very small sum of money which he had laid aside for his -necessary sustenance on his trip to Lyons. This he took to a -sign-painter on the outskirts of Drignan, to whom he paid the whole of -it for the execution of a small but conspicuous sign-board, which he -carried away with him under his arm. - - * * * * * - -The usual afternoon wind was blowing in Drignan, chill and raw, with a -depressing flavor of a spoilt ocean about it. The sky was overcast, and -everything was dismal in the dismal little town. Dismalest of all, -perhaps, was a wretched little corner of waste land, between the old -barrack-wall and the dirty canal behind it. A few sick, stunted, faded -olive and orange trees in the lee of a mean stone wall showed that the -place had at one time been a garden or courtyard. Heaps of rubbish here -and there showed also that it had long outlived its usefulness. Here -sat, one on each side of a tiny fire of twigs, a shabby, -soldierly-looking old gentleman and a sallow, lanky young girl with a -sullenly pretty face. Right in the sluggish smoke of the fire, the old -man held a small sign-board still fresh from the painter’s hand, and the -more the smoke took the brightness out of the new colors, the more he -gazed at it with thoughtful approval. The girl said nothing; but sat and -stared at the fire and listened with an air of weary and indifferent -toleration while the old man repeated over and over what sounded like a -monotonous narrative recitation. From time to time she nodded her head; -and, at last, she began to repeat after the old man in a listless, -mechanical way. It was late in the afternoon before they rose and -scrambled over the heaps of rubbish to the street, where the old -gentleman bade the girl good-by with what were evidently words of -earnest admonition. His iteration seemed to annoy her, for finally she -let slip, in a tone of anger, a specimen of the speech of the people -which wasn’t exactly this; though at this we will let it go: - -[Illustration] - -“Vous savez, mons vieux, je m’en fiche bien de votre -Pé--Pé--Pétrarque--et de votre Laure aussi--” - -Then she as quickly dropped back into her natural tone of hopeless -submission to all who were less wretched than herself, and said, with -something like gratitude in her voice: - -“All the same, it is very kind of you, sir, I will try to do as you have -told me.” - -And they parted, she entering a near-by passage-way, and he going to the -railroad station. - - * * * * * - -Mr. Vincent Egg stood in the private office of the Lyons branch of -Messrs. Sculry & Co., the great Excursion Managers. He was, for him, -unusually smart as to his clothes--to those who knew him, a sign that he -had reached the end of his period of abstinence. The Manager of the -Branch, a thin, raw, red-faced little Englishman with sandy whiskers, -was looking over the proofs of the guide-book pages set up from Mr. -Egg’s copy. - -“Oh, ah, yes, Egg!” he said; “I knew there was something particular I -wanted to speak to you about. Here it is.” And he slowly read aloud: - - * * * * * - - “Another and perhaps the principal attraction of Drignan is the - ruin, pathetic in its dignity, of the mansion of the Conte dei - Canale, the exiled Venetian, where the immortal poet Petrarch and - the no less immortal lady of his love, whom he has celebrated in - undying verse, met secretly, in the year 1337, to bid each other a - long and chaste farewell. News of the lovers’ design having reached - the ears of de Sade, the husband of the beauteous Laura, his base - mind suspected an elopement, and he dispatched his liveried minions - to separate the pair, and, if possible, to immolate on the altar of - his vengeance the gentle and talented poet. It is supposed to be in - consequence of injuries received in the resultant - -[Illustration] - - struggle that Petrarch went into retirement for three years at - Vaucluse (a spot which no holder of Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s 7-9 - extra-trip coupon should fail to see). This exquisite chapter in - the lives of the lovers over whom so many tears of sentiment have - been shed, has been strangely neglected by the historians; but - survives undimmed in local tradition. A full account will be found - on page 329. The house is now 47 _bis_ rue des Quatres Mulets. - Behind it may still be seen what remains of the magnificent - orangery and olive-garden of the Conte dei Canale. Access to this - is gained from the second gateway from the corner of the Passage - des Porcs, and should not be confounded with the entrance to the - Jardin de Perse, a resort of somewhat frivolous character, - situated on the second crossing below, rue Clément V.”-- - -Here the Manager raised his head. “I suppose that’s for the men?” - -“Yes,” said Mr. Egg; “that’s for the men.” - -“Well,” said the Manager, “what about this other attraction, this -Petrarch and Laura place?” - -“Well,” said Mr. Egg, blinking at him, for it was still early in the -morning; “there it is, as large as life, with a sign on the door that -looks as if it had been there fifty years; and I’ll give it to you as my -opinion that if you don’t work that attraction, the Novelty Excursion -Company will jump in and work it for you.” - -“Ay, ay!” said the Manager, irritably; “that’s all very well; but how -about the fees? That excursion goes by way of Drignan to save money. The -London office won’t thank me if I give them any extra fees to pay.” - -“Oh!” said Mr. Egg, pleasantly; “is that all? Here, give me that proof.” -And, taking the sheets from the manager, he wrote as follows, on the -margin: - - “The mansion is at present owned by a respectable family who also - do trustworthy washing. A polite, well-informed attendant is always - ready to show the premises on payment of a moderate fee of 35 - centimes, (3½ d.) Although no part of the regular excursion, the - liberal time allowed by Messrs. Sculry & Co., for rest and - refreshment in Drignan, will enable excursionists to visit this - shrine of deathless romance.” - -The Manager took the amended proof back, and read it admiringly. - -“By Jove, Egg!” he said; “that does it to the Queen’s taste! An -attraction like that, and not a penny’s expense to the concern! I -suppose, of course, really and truly, it’s all Tommy-rot?” - -[Illustration] - -“I suppose so,” said Mr. Egg, pleasantly. - -“Never was any such business, I suppose,” went on the Manager. - -“I don’t believe it, myself,” said Mr. Egg, shaking his head sagely. - -“Well,” said the Manager, “it’s all right for business, so far as the -Avignon tour is concerned. And, oh! I say, Egg, I don’t suppose you -_could_ keep permanently straight, could you?” - -“At my time of life,” said Mr. Egg, blandly, “a gentleman’s habits are -apt to be fixed.” - -“I suppose so,” sighed the Manager. “Well, all the same, the London -office was very much pleased with the last job you did, Egg, and they -have authorized me, at my discretion, to increase your honorarium. We’ll -make it a shilling a page, beginning with the present.” - -When Mr. Vincent Egg reached the street, he looked at the unexpected -pile of wealth in his hand. - -“This is a three weeks’ go at elysium,” said he to himself; “such as I -haven’t had in many a year. And, so far as I am concerned, it is the -Fruit of Falsification, and the Wage of Sin.” - -But when Mr. Egg next awoke from his period of slumber in M. Morel’s -back-room, and stretched himself upon the hard cushion of the red velvet -divan, throngs of gawking tourists were trying to steep themselves in -sentiment as they gazed about the old room off the rue des Quatres -Mulets, and looked over the wall at the faded orange and olive trees, -and listened to the story which Virginie told, like a talking-doll, and -dropped into her hand a welcome stream of copper or silver, according as -they were English or Americans. - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE GHOOLLAH. - - -I took a long drive one day last Summer to see an old friend of mine who -was in singularly hard luck; and I found him in even harder luck and -more singular than I had expected. My drive took me to a spot a few -miles back of a Southern sea-coast, where, in a cup-like hollow of the -low, rocky hills, treeless save for stunted and distorted firs and -pines, six or eight score of perspiring laborers, attired in low-necked -costumes consisting exclusively of a pair of linen trousers a-piece, -toil all day in the blazing sun to dig out some kind of clay of which I -know nothing, except that it looks mean, smells worse, has a name ending -in _ite_, and is of great value in the arts and sciences. They may make -fertilizer out of it, or they may make water-colors: Billings told me, -but I don’t know. There are some things that one forgets almost as -readily as a blow to one’s pride. Moreover, this stuff was associated in -my mind with Big Mitch. - -Of course Billings was making a fortune out of it. But as it would take -six or eight years to touch the figure he had set for himself, and as he -had no special guarantee of an immortal youth on this earth, and as, -until the fortune was made, he had to live all the year around in that -god-forsaken spot, and to live with Big Mitch, moreover, I looked upon -him as a man in uncommonly hard luck. And he was. - -[Illustration] - -I had been visiting friends in a town some miles inland, and it had -occurred to me that it would be an act of Christian charity to drive -over the hills to Billings’s place of servitude, and to condole with my -old friend. I had nothing else to do--a circumstance always favorable to -the perpetration of acts of Christian charity--and I went. He was -enthusiastically glad to see me--I was the first visitor he had ever -had--and he left his office at once, and led me up the burning hot -sand-hill to his house, which was a very comfortable sort of place when -you got there. It was an old-fashioned Southern house, small but -stately, with a Grecian portico in front, supported by two-story wooden -pillars. Here he was established in lonely luxury, with no one to love, -none to caress, swarms of darkeys, and a cellar full of wines that would -have tempted the Dying Anchorite to swill. Casually dispatching half a -dozen niggers after as many bottles of champagne as they thought we -might need to whet our appetites for luncheon, Billings bade me welcome -again, and we fell to friendly talk. - -He began with that kind of apology for his condition that speaks its own -futility, and its despair of any credence. Of course, he said, it was -not a very cheerful sort of life, but it had its compensations--quiet, -good for the nerves, opportunity for study and all that sort of thing, -self-improvement. And then, of course, there was society, such as it -was--mainly, he had to admit, the superannuated bachelors and worn-out -old maids who clung to those decaying Southern plantations--for, it is -hardly necessary to say, not an acre of property in that forlorn region, -save only Billings’s mud-bank, had yielded a cent of revenue since the -war. And, of course, the unpleasant part of it was that none of them -lived less than ten or fifteen miles away, and were only to be reached -by a long ride, and as he--Billings--was never at ease in the saddle, on -account of his liver, this practically shut him out. But then, of -course, Mitch went everywhere, and enjoyed it very much. - -“Oh, yes!” said I, reminded of the most unpleasant part of my duty; “and -how is Mitch?” - -“He’s dirty well, and it’s devilish little you care!” brayed out an -incredibly brazen - -[Illustration] - -voice just behind my ear, and a big red hand snatched the bottle of -champagne from my grasp, while a laugh, that sounded like a hyena trying -to bellow, rang in my ears. A great, big, raw-boned youngster, dressed -in clothes of an ingenious vulgarity, dropped heavily into a chair by my -side and laid a knobby broad red hand on my knee, where it closed with a -brutal grip. That was Big Mitch, whose real name was Randolph Mitchel, -and who being by birth a distant connection of dear old Billings, might -reasonably have been expected to be some sort or variety of gentleman. -Yet, if you wanted to sum up Big Mitch, his ways, manners, tastes, ideas -and spiritual make-up generally,--if he could be said to have any -spiritual make-up--you had only to say that he was all that a gentleman -is not, and you had a better descriptive characterization of the man -than you could have got in a volume telling just what he was. This was -not by any means my first acquaintance with Mr. Randolph Mitchel. When I -was a young man his father had stood my friend, and though he had -dropped out of my sight when he went, a hopeless consumptive, to -vegetate in some Western sanitarium, it was natural enough that he -should send to me to use my good offices in behalf of his son, who had -been expelled from a well-known fresh-water college of the Atlantic -slope, very shortly after he had entered it. - -Now I am not a hard-hearted man, and a boy with a reasonable, rational, -normal amount of devil in him can do pretty nearly anything he wants to -with me; therefore it signifies something when I say that after giving -up a week to the business, I had to write to poor old Mr. Mitchel, at -the Consumptives’ Home, Bilhi, Colorado, not only that was it impossible -to get his son Randolph reinstated at that particular college, but that -I did not believe that there was any college ever made where the boy had -a prospect of staying even one term out. It was not that he was vicious; -he was no worse on the purely moral side than scores of wild boys. But -he was the most hopelessly, irreclaimably turbulent, riotous, unruly, -insolent, brutal, irreverent, unmannerly and generally blackguardly -young devil that I had ever encountered; and the entire faculty of the -college said, in their own scholastic way, that he beat _their_ time. He -had not even the saving graces of good-nature, thoughtlessness and -mirthful good-fellowship, which may serve as excuse for much youthful -waywardness. The students disliked him as thoroughly as their professors -did, and although he was smart as a steel trap and capable of any amount -of work when he wanted to do it, nobody in that college wanted -him,--_not even the captain of the foot-ball team_. - -Was I right? Had I wronged the boy? I asked that captain, and he said -No. - -Big Mitch was only twenty-three or so, but he had been many things in -his young life. He had run away and traveled with a circus. He had been -a helper in a racing stable. I don’t know what he was when his father -made a last desperate appeal to poor Billings, and Billings, who did not -know what he was letting himself in for, sent him down to start up work -on the recently purchased mud-pit. There Mitch found his billet, and he -led a life of absolute happiness, domineering over a horde of helpless, -ignorant negros, and white men of an even lower grade who sought work in -that wretched place. And what a life he led the dear, gentle, kindly old -fellow who had sold himself to fortune-getting in that little Inferno! I -knew how Billings must loathe him; I knew, indeed, how he did loathe -him, though he was too gentle to say it, but I knew that the burden my -poor old friend had put upon himself would not soon be shifted. For Big -Mitch was useful, nay, indispensable, for the first time in his life. He -was as honest as he was tough, and he could handle that low grade of -human material as few others could have done. The speculation would have -been a failure without him. “In fact,” Billings told me afterward with -a sad smile, “it is not only that he raises the efficient of the works; -he _is_ the efficient of the works.” - -[Illustration] - -Big Mitch never bore me the slightest ill-will for the report I had made -to his father. He was too indurated an Ishmael for that. He knew -everybody disliked him, but he did not care a cent for that. When he -wanted other people’s company, he _took_ it. The question of their -enjoyment was one that never entered his mind. It was in pure delight in -seeing me that he grabbed my knee, pinched my knee-cap until it sent a -qualm to my stomach, and told me that he had ordered my driver to go -home, and that I had got to stay and see the country. Things came pretty -near to a lively squall when I got the impudence of this through my -head; but when Billings joined his frightened, anxious pleadings to the -youth’s brutalities, and I saw his humbled, troubled, mortified face, I -yielded. - -We were free from Mitch after luncheon, and poor Billings began to make -a pitiful little apology; but I stopped him. - -“I don’t mind,” I said; “I was only thinking of _you_.” - -“Oh, I’ve got accustomed to it,” he said, trying to smile; “and it’s -really more tolerable than you would think, when you get to know him. -And when he is too--too trying--why, there is one place that he -understands he must respect. Come to my library. You are the first -person who has ever entered it except myself.” - -He led me to the door of a room at the end of a dark passage-way. As he -put the key in the lock I noticed a curious smell. - -“I want you to see,” said he, “the sort of thing I’m interested in.” - -I had not been five seconds in the room before I knew what it was--the -sort of thing he was interested in. Loneliness breeds strange maggots in -the brain of a New Yorker temporarily engaged in the mud-mining -business. My old friend Billings was now a full-blown Theosophist, and -he had that little room stuffed full of more Mahatma-literature and -faquir trumpery than you could shake a stick at. There were skulls and -fans and grass-cloth things and heathen gods till--literally--your eyes -couldn’t rest. There were four-legged gods and eight-legged gods, and -gods with their legs where their arms ought to be, and gods who were of -the gentleman-god and lady-god sex at one and the same time, and gods -with horns and miscellaneous gods, and a few other gods. In odd places -here and there, where he had not had time to arrange them properly, -there were a few more gods. - -[Illustration] - -And then my poor old friend sat down and tried to put me through the -whole business, and tell me what a great and mysterious thing it was, -and what a splendid scheme it would be to get into the two-hundred and -ninety-seventh state or the thirtieth dilution or the thirty-third -degree, or something, for when you got there you were nothing, don’t you -know? - -I was short on Vishnu and I didn’t know beans about Buddha, and for a -long time, I am afraid, I gave dear old Billings a great deal of grief. -But finally I began to get a new light, and Billings convinced me that -there was something in it, and we had some more champagne. - -That evening Mitch came for us with a carryall, and said he was going to -drive us twenty miles inland to a “dancing-in-the-barn” function on -somebody’s plantation. I proved to him then and there that he was not. -Billings nearly melted into a puddle while the operation was going on. -He could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Big Mitch drive off -alone, and I think he had a slight chill. At any rate, he had the -champagne brought to the library, and there he told me that he had not -believed such a thing to be possible; that he looked upon me in a new -light, and that he thought my _Ghoollah_ must be stronger than Mitch’s -_Ghoollah_. I told him that I should be ashamed of myself if it wasn’t; -and then I asked him what a _Ghoollah_ was. Please do not ask me if I -have spelled that word right. I am spelling it by ear, and if my ear for -Hindoo is as bad as my ear for music, I have probably got it wrong. It -sounded something like the noise that pigeons make, and that is as near -as I can get to it. According to Billings, it was Hindoo for my vital -essence and my will power and my conscience and my immortal soul and -pretty nearly every other spiritual property that I carried around in -my clothes. Everyone, it appeared, had a _Ghoollah_. If your Ghoollah -was stronger than the other man’s Ghoollah, you bossed the other man. If -you had a good and happy Ghoollah, you were good and happy. If you had a -bad Ghoollah, you were bilious. If my Theosophy is wrong, please do not -correct it. I prefer it wrong. I told him that I did not see that having -a Ghoollah was anything more than being yourself, but he said it was; -that folks could swap Ghoollahs, or lend them out on call loans. - -[Illustration] - -Then it all came out. That was the reason that he was driving deeper and -deeper into Theosophy. He had got so sick of Mitch that, feeling it -impossible to shake off his burden, he had seized upon this Ghoollah -idea as offering a ray of hope. He was now trying to learn how to get -into spiritual communication with somebody--_anybody_--else, who would -swap Ghoollahs with him after business hours, so that they could -ride-and-tie, as it were, and give his own weary Ghoollah a rest. - -“Look here, Billings,” I said, “this is all rubbish. Now, I’m not -dealing in Ghoollahs, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can find some -sort of a job here for a decent young fellow, and I’ll send one down -who’ll be grateful for the place and who will be a companion to you. -It’s Arthur Penrhyn, Dr. Penrhyn’s boy; a nice, pleasant young -fellow--just what his father used to be, you remember? He was to have -graduated at Union this year, but he broke down from over-study. That’s -the kind of Ghoollah _you_ want, and he’ll do you no end of good.” - - * * * * * - -This happened in June. I had never expected to see Billings’s mud-heap -again, but I saw it before the end of July. I went there because -Billings had written me that if I cared for him and our life-long -friendship, and for poor Penrhyn’s boy I must come at once. He could not -explain by letter what the matter was. - -It added to my natural concern when, on my arrival, Billings hurried me -into the library and I found it as theosophic as ever. I had hoped that -that nonsense was ended. But worse was to come. - -“When you were here before,” said Billings, impressively, without having -once mentioned champagne, “you scoffed at a light which you couldn’t -see. Now, my friend, I am going to let you see it with your own eyes, -and you shall tell me whether or no you are convinced that it is -possible for one human being to exchange his entity with another. If I -have brought you here on a wild goose chase, I am willing to have you -procure a judicial examination into my sanity, and I will abide the -issue.” - -[Illustration] - -He spoke with so much quiet gravity that he made me feel creepy. - -“See here, old man,” I said; “do you mean to tell me that you have -succeeded in pairing off with any other fellow’s Ghoollah, or Woollah, -or whatever it is?” - -“No,” he said, coloring a little; “it’s not I. It’s--it’s--it’s--in -fact, it’s that boy Penrhyn.” - -“What the deuce do you mean?” I demanded. - -“I mean that Arthur Penrhyn has changed, or, rather, is changing his -spiritual essence with another man.” - -“Indeed,” said I; “and who’s the other man?” - -“Randolph Mitchel,” said Billings. - -“Mitch?” - -“Mitch!” - -There is no need of describing the rest of that interview. You have -probably met the man who believes that the spirit of his grandmother -came out of the cabinet and shook hands with him. You can probably -imagine how you would talk to that man if he had brought you eight -hundred miles to tell you about it. That is what happened in Billings’s -library that afternoon, and it ended, of course, in our calling each -other “old man” a great many times over, and in my agreeing to stay to -the end of the week, and in Billings giving me his word of honor not to -open his mouth on the subject unless at the end of that time I asked him -to and admitted that he was right in sending for me. And then Billings -did something that knocked my consciousness of superiority clean out of -me, and gave a severe shock to my confidence. He offered to bet me five -hundred dollars to anything that would make it interesting on that -contingency, and he called me down and down till I had to compromise on -a bet of fifty dollars even. I have met many men in the course of my -life who believed in various spook-religions, but that was the first and -only time that I ever met a man who would back his faith with a cold -money bet. - - * * * * * - -By way of changing the subject, we strolled down to the quarry. It was -even hotter than before, and it smelt worse, and I did not wonder that -it had driven poor old Billings to Theosophy. It was a scene of -interesting activity, but it could not be called pleasant. I have a -great respect for the dignity of labor, but I think labor looks more -dignified with its shirt on than when reduced to a lone pair of -breeches. - -I was about to make a motion to return to the house, when suddenly a -string of peculiarly offensive oaths, uttered in a shrill angry voice, -drew my attention to a heavy wire rope which a gang of men were hauling -across my path. Looking up I saw, as well as I could see anything, -against the dazzling background of the hill, a short, insignificant-looking -figure perched on a rock, from whence it directed, with many -gesticulations and an abounding stream of profanity, the operations of -the toiling, grunting, straining creatures who dragged at the ponderous -cable. Its operations seemed to be conducted with more vehemence than -judgement, and two or three times the rope was on the edge of slipping -back into the pit behind, when it was saved by the men’s quick response -to some directions given in a low, strong voice by a man who stood in my -rear. Some little hitch occurred after a minute or two, and the small -figure, in an access of rage, rushed down from the rock, and, showering -imprecations all around, leaped in among the workmen, pushing, shoving -and cuffing, and after considerable trouble finally got them to doing -what he wanted. I heard the heavier voice behind me utter half-aloud an -expression of annoyance and disgust. Then the little figure passed me, -running back to its rock, and hailed me as it passed. - -“Hello, Governor!” it said; “you here? See you when I get this job -done!” - -[Illustration] - -“Billings,” said I, “who on earth is that?” - -“Arthur Penrhyn,” said Billings. I looked again and saw that it was. -Then I turned round and saw behind me the gigantic form of Mitch. He, -too, spoke to me as I passed, and with a look of simple pleasure in his -face that made it seem absolutely strange to me. - -“Glad to see you, Sir,” he said. - -_Sir!_ - - * * * * * - -“It’s a most remarkable case altogether,” said Billings, who had got -back to his normal self, and had brought out the champagne. “When that -boy came here he was just as you described him--just like his poor -father in the days when we first knew each other. He brooded a little -too much, and seemed discontented; but, considering his disappointment -at college, that was natural enough. Well, do you know, I believe it’s -he that’s doing the whole thing, and that he is effecting the -substitution for his own ends, though I don’t know what they are.” - -“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he wants his Ghoollah to get the job away from -Mitch’s Ghoollah.” - -“Ahem!” said Billings, looking a little embarrassed; “I--in fact, I’ve -discovered that the best Pundits do not use that word. It ought to be--” - -Here Billings gave me the correct word; but I draw the line at Ghoollah, -and Ghoollah it stays while I am telling this story. - -“He hadn’t been here a week before I noticed that he kept his eyes fixed -on Mitch all the time they were together. He looked at him as though he -were actually trying to absorb him. Before long, I saw that Mitch began -to be troubled under that steady gaze. He seemed at first angry, then -distressed, and he had long fits of silence. His boisterousness has been -vanishing steadily; but it is not sullenness that he displays--on the -contrary, I have never known him so gentle. He is just as efficient in -his duties, without being so extremely--demonstrative as he used to be. -And as for that other boy, who probably had never uttered a profane word -in his life, or spoken rudely to any human being--well, you heard him -to-day!” - -I made up my mind to try to drink fifty dollars’ worth of Billings’s -champagne before the end of the week to even up on my bet; and, as the -days went on, each new development only served to urge me to greater -assiduity in the task. The spirit of Big Mitch looked out of little -Arthur Penrhyn’s insolent eyes, spoke out of his foul mouth, and showed -itself even in tricks of gesture and carriage, and in lines of facial -expression. And Big Mitch, though his huge, uncouth frame and coarse -lineaments lent themselves but ill to the showing of it, carried within -him a new spirit of gentleness and humility. We saw little of him, for -after work hours he kept persistently to his room. But once, late at -night, seeing him, through his open door, asleep over a book, I stepped -softly in and looked over his big shoulders at the half-dozen volumes -that littered his table. They were college text-books, and on the -fly-leaf of each one was the name of Arthur Penrhyn. - - * * * * * - -I had packed my valise, and was looking for Billings to pay him his -fifty dollars, when Big Mitch came out of his room--it was the noon -hour--and he asked me for the favor of a few words. - -“I am ashamed to trouble you, sir,” he said, “but if you could help me -to get any sort of a job in New York, or anywhere else, I’d be more -thankful than I could tell you. I can afford to take almost any sort of -a place where there’s a future, for I am pretty well ahead of the game -financially, and I’ve earned my interest in this concern. And it’s in -such shape now that Mr. Billings can get along without me.” - -[Illustration] - -“But, my dear boy,” I said, “why do you _want_ to go?” - -Big Mitch frowned and fidgeted nervously; then he exploded. - -“I’ll give it to you straight,” he said. “It’s that Penrhyn pup. When he -first came here I thought I was just about the nicest little man on -God’s footstool. I was as contented with myself as a basket of eggs. I -knew it all. I was so sharp you could cut glass with me. I was the only -real sport in the outfit. See? And I’d got a roving commission to jump -on people’s necks. Well, _you_ know what I was. And I liked myself. -See?” - -“But?” I began. “Arthur Penrhyn--” - -“_So did he!_ I don’t believe any one in the world was ever stuck on me -before, but _he_ was. That little ape hadn’t been here a week before he -began to do everything he saw me do, and pretty soon he had me down so -fine that he might have been my twin-brother, if we ever had such runts -in our family. Well, I began to sour on the show. Understand? I could -see for myself it wasn’t pretty. Well, one day I came around a corner, -and there was that baboon sassing back to old man Billings. I was just -going to pick him up and break his neck, when I felt kind of sick at my -stomach, and I says to myself, ‘You swine! that’s the way _you_’ve been -treating that white man! How do you like yourself now?’” - -Big Mitch clutched desperately at his rumpled hair. - -[Illustration] - -“I’m going to be a gentleman,” he grunted, “if I have to chew gravel to -do it. I’ll do it, though, and I’ll show up some day and surprise the -old man before he cashes in his last lung. But if I don’t get a fresh -start pretty soon, I’ll do something to that Penrhyn monkey that won’t -be any young lady’s dancing-class, you bet your boots! - - * * * * * - -I told Billings. First he paid me fifty dollars. Then he made a bonfire -of all his theosophic outfit. Then he went down to the quarry and -announced that he was his own boss from that time on; and by way of a -sample demonstration he called up Arthur Penrhyn and knocked the -everlasting Ghoollah out of him. Then he came back to the house and -looked at the thermometer. - -To this day, I never see champagne without thinking of drinking some. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CUTWATER OF SENECA. - - -The story I am about to tell is hardly a story at all. Perhaps I had -better call it a report, and let it go at that, with a word of -explanation as to how I came to report it. - -In 1884 a new state survey and a new re-districting act between them cut -off about one-quarter of a northern timber county close to the Canada -border, and delivered over the severed portion to its neighbor on the -southerly side, a thickly settled county with several large towns and -with important manufacturing interests. This division left the backwoods -county temporarily without a judiciary or a place of holding court. But -the act provided for the transfer of all pending cases to the courts of -the more fortunate county down below, and gave the backwoods District -Attorney the privilege of trying in the said courts such cases as might -arise in his own bailiwick during his term of office then current. - -No such cases occurred, however, until the period stated by the act was -nearly at an end, when the District Attorney of the mutilated county -came down to Metropole, our County Seat, to try a murder case. As our -backwoods neighbors were a somewhat untrammelled, uncouth and -free-and-easy folk at their quietest, his coming naturally attracted -some curious interest, especially after it became known that he had come -into town sitting side by side with the prisoner in the smoking-car, and -discussing politics with him. His name was Judge Cutwater, and he was -generally spoken of as Cutwater of Seneca--perhaps because he had at -some time been a Judge in Seneca, New York; perhaps because there was no -comprehensible reason for so calling him, any more than there was -comprehensible reason for various and sundry other things about him. - -[Illustration] - -He was a man who might have been sixty or seventy or eighty. Indeed, he -might have been a hundred, and he may be now, for all I know. But he was -lean, wiry, agile, supple and full of eternal youth. He might have been -good-looking if he had cared to be, for he had a fine old-fashioned -eagle face, and a handsome, flowing gray moustache, the grace of which -was spoiled by a straggling thin wisp of chin whiskers, and a patch of -gray stubble on each cheek. And, of course, he chewed tobacco profusely -and diffusely, and in his long, grease-stained, shiny broadcloth coat, -his knee-bagged breeches, his big slouch hat, and his eye-glasses with -heavy black horn rims, suspended from his neck by a combination of black -ribbon and pink string, he looked what he was, as clearly as though he -had been labelled--the representative of the Majesty of the Law among a -backwoods people out of odds with fortune, desperate, disheartened, down -on their luck, and lost to self-respect. - -He said he was a good Democrat, and I think he was. He saw the prisoner -locked up, bade him a kindly “Good night, Jim,” and ordered the jailer -to let him have all the whiskey he wanted. Then Judge Cutwater called on -his brother of the local bench, greeting him with a ceremonious and -stately dignity that absolutely awed the excellent old gentleman, and -dropping an enormous Latin quotation on him as he departed, just by way -of utterly flattening him out. After that he strolled over to the hotel, -grasped the landlord warmly by the hand, and in the space of half an -hour told him a string of stories of such startling novelty, humor and -unfitness for publication that, as the landlord enthusiastically -declared, the recent Drummers’ Convention could not be said to be “in -it” with the old man. - -The next day the case of Jim Adsum for the murder of his mate in a -logging camp was called in court; and District Attorney Cutwater’s -trying of it was a circus that nearly drove old Judge Potter into an -apoplectic fit, and kept the whole court room in what both those eminent -jurists united--it was the only thing they _did_ unite in--in -characterizing as a disgraceful uproar. - -[Illustration] - -And yet, somehow, by four o’clock he had evidence enough in to convict -the prisoner; the defence had not a single exception worth the noting, -and was rattled as to its state of mind; and that weird old prosecutor, -who repeatedly spoke of the prisoner at the bar as “Jim,” and made no -secret of the fact that they had been bosom friends and companions in -the forest, had worked up a case that made the best lawyers in the room -stare at him with looks of puzzled surprise and amazed respect. - -When he rose to sum up, he slowly and thoughtfully drew a tin -tobacco-box from his trousers’ pocket, opened it and deposited therein -his quid, after passing his right hand, with a rapid and skillful -motion, across his gray moustache. This feat he performed with a dignity -that at once fascinated and awed the beholder. Then he began: - -“Your Honor _and_ Gentlemen of the Jury: It is a rare and a seldom -occurrence that a prosecuting official, sworn to exert his utmost -energies to further the execution of the law, is called upon to invoke -the awful vengeance of that law, and the retribution demanded by -outraged humanity, upon the head of one under whose blanket he has lain -within the cold hollows of the snow-clad woods; with whom he has shared -the meagre food of the pioneer; side by side with whom he has struggled -for his rights and his liberties, at the daily and hourly risk of his -life, with half-breed Injuns and with half-breeder Kanucks. Sech, -gentlemen, is the duty that lies before this servant of the Law to-day; -and sech, gentlemen, is the duty that will be done, without fear or -favor, without consideration of friendship or hallowed association; and -this man, Jim Adsum, knows it, knowing me, as well as he ever knew -anything in the fool life that is now drawing to a close. - -“You have heard, Gentlemen of the Jury, the evidence that has been laid -before you on the part of the prosecution, and you have heard the -attempt made by the learned counsel for the defence to discredit that -evidence in his eloquent but frivolous opening on behalf of his -unfortunate client. I trust that you have given to the one the -appreciative attention which it deserves, and that you have let the -other slip, naked and shivering, into the boundless oblivion of your -utter contempt. - -“What, Gentlemen of the Jury, are the circumstances of this case? We -learn by the testimony for the people that on the twenty-seventh of -November a party of seven men started off for the upper waters of the -Sagus River, some to join a lumber camp, and others, among them this -defendant, James Adsum, and his victim, Peter Biaux, a Frenchman, in the -pursuit of their usual vocation--which may be said to be hunting for -fur-skins, on general principles. This party of seven men is snowed up, -and goes into camp at the junction of Sagus and First Rivers, and for -eleven days remains thus snow-bound in that icy solitude, the only human -beings within hundreds of miles. - -“There has been, Gentlemen of the Jury, as has been shown to you, an old -grudge between the prisoner at the bar and the deceased; a grudge of -many years standing. There is no use of going into the origin of that -grudge. Some says it was cards; some, business; some, drink; and I -personally know that it was a woman; but that makes no difference before -this present tribunal. Let it be enough that there was bad blood between -the men; that it broke forth, as two witnesses have told you, day - -[Illustration] - -after day, within the confines of that little camp crowded within its -snow-bound arena in the heart of the immeasurable solitudes of the -wintry forest. Again and again the other members of the party intervened -to make peace between them. At last, upon the eighth day of December, -matters come to a crisis, and a personal encounter ensued between the -two men, in the course of which the deceased, being a Frenchman, is -badly mauled, and Jim, here, being without his knife, through -carelessness, is correspondingly cut. The two are separated; and, for -fear of further mischief, the Frenchman is sent down the river to fish -through the ice, and the prisoner is kept in the camp. That night, by -order of the head of the party, he sleeps between two men. These two men -have told you their story--how one of them woke in the night at the -sound, as he thought, of a distant shot, and became aware that Adsum -was no longer at his side--how, reaching out his hand, he grasped -another hand, and taking it for the prisoner’s, was reassured and fell -asleep again--and how, weeks afterward, he first found out that that -hand was the hand of the man who had been detailed to sleep on the other -side of the prisoner. You have heard, gentlemen, how these two men awoke -in the morning to find Adsum lying between them, shaking and shivering -with a chill under his heavy blanket. You have heard of the long and -unsuccessful search for Peter Biaux, and of the accidental discovery of -his mangled body three months later, under the ice of the Sagus River, -at a point ten miles below the camp. You have heard how each of these -witnesses was haunted by a suspicion that he had unwittingly betrayed -the trust reposed in him, and how, at last, when they spoke together of -their watch on that fatal night, their suspicion flashed, illumined with -the fire of heaven’s truth, into a hijjus certainty. - -“You have been told, gentlemen, that the case of the people rests upon -circumstantial evidence. It does, gentlemen; it does; and the -circumstances are all there. You have heard how when these two witnesses -exchanged notes, they came to one conclusion, and that is the conclusion -to which I shall bring your minds. The witness Duncan said to the -witness Atwood: ‘Jim done it!’ The witness Atwood replied to him: ‘Jim -done it!’ And I say to you, Gentlemen of the Jury: ‘Jim _done_ it!’ And -you done it, Jim; you know you did! - -“And now, gentlemen, what sort of a man is this prisoner at the bar? We -must consider him for the purposes of this trial as two men--on the one -hand, as the brave, upright and courageous trapper which he has on -numberless occasions, to my personal knowledge, shown himself to be--and -I may say to you, Gentlemen of the Jury, that I would not be here -talking to you now if he had not a-been on one or two occasions. And on -the other hand, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am going to show him to you as -the red-handed murderer I always told him he would be if he gave the -rein to his violent passions. Besides, the darn fool’s drunk half the -time. - -[Illustration] - -“You have been told, gentlemen, by the learned counsel for the defence, -that this crime was committed in a rough country, where deeds of -violence are so common that it is possible that this man may have died -by another hand, murdered by a totally different person, for totally -different causes and reasons, and under circumstances totally -unconnected with the circumstances set forth in this case. Gentlemen, it -_is_ a rough country--rough as the speech of its children, rough as -their food and fare, rough as the storms they face, and nigh as rough as -the whiskey they drink. But it is a country, gentlemen, where every man -knows his neighbor’s face and his neighbor’s heart, where the dangers -and privations of life draw men closer together than they are drawn in -great cities like this beautiful town of yours, which is honored by the -citizens I see sot before me in this jury box. In that great snow-clad -wilderness, on that bitter eighth of December, with the thermometer -thirty degrees below zero, I can assure you, gentlemen, that there was -no casual, accidental, extemporaneous murderer lilly-twiddling around -that chilly solitude, sauntering among twenty-foot snowdrifts for the -purpose of striking down a total stranger with nineteen distinct and -separate cuts, and then fading away into nothingness like the airy -fabric of a vision. And Jim doing nothing all that time? Gentlemen, the -contention of the counsel ain’t _sense_! - -[Illustration] - -“Gentlemen, I wish I could tell you that it was so. I wish I could tell -you so for Jim’s sake. I wish I could tell you so for your own sakes, -for on you is soon to rest the awful yet proud responsibility of -deciding that a fellow human being’s life is forfeit to his -blood-guiltiness. I wish I could tell you so for my own sake, regarding -myself as a friend of Jim’s. But it is the District Attorney, the -Prosecutor for the People, that you must listen to while he tells you -the story of what happened that night. - -“It was half-past eleven of that night when this man Adsum arose. How do -I know? Look in the almanac and see where the moon stood at half-past -eleven! It was then that he slipped from between his two guards and drew -back to where the flickering camp-fire cast the shadow of a pine tree on -the wall of snow that shut in their little resting-place. There he stood -in that shadow--a shadow that laid on his soul and on his face--and -waited to see if one of his comrades stirred. At his feet lay the two -men that had been set to guard him, Jared Duncan and Bill Atwood. Eb -Spence laid over the way with his feet to the fire. By him laid Sol -Geary and Kentucky Wilson. Why, Jim, I can see it all just as if I was -there! And then you--he--then, Gentlemen of the Jury, this prisoner at -the bar, slipped from that camp where his companions lay, bound to him -as he was bound to them, in the faith of comradeship; and, as he left -that little circle, that spot trodden out of the virgin snow, he left -behind him his fidelity, his self-respect and his manhood; his mind and -soul and heart full of the black and devilish thought of taking by -treacherous surprise the life of a comrade. Up - -[Illustration] - -to that hour, his spirit had harbored no sech evil thought. The men he -had theretofore killed--and I am not saying, gentlemen, that he had not -killed enough--had been killed in fair and open fight, and there is not -a one of them all but will be glad and proud to meet him as gentleman to -gentleman at the Judgement Day. But now it was with _murder_ in his -heart--base, cowardly, faithless murder--that he left that camp; it was -with murder in his heart that he sneaked, crouching low, down where the -heavy shadows hid the margin of the ice-bound stream. It was with murder -in his heart that he laid himself flat upon his belly on the ice when he -came within two rod of the Beaver Dam, and worked along, keeping ever -in the shadow till he come down to where that Frenchman, who, six hours -before, had et out of the same pan with him, stood with his light by his -side, gazing down into the black hole in the ice that was to be the -mouth of his grave and the portal of his entrance into eternity. Murder, -gentlemen, murder nerved his arm when he struck out that light with the -fur cap you see now in his hand; and murder’s self filled him with a -maniac’s rage as he rose to his feet and shot and stabbed the -defenceless back of his unsuspecting comrade. This, gentlemen, this--and -no tale of a prowling stranger--this, gentlemen, is the _truth_; and I -will appeal to the prisoner, himself, gentlemen, to bear me out. Jim -Adsum, you can lie to this Judge and you can lie to this Jury; you can -lie to your neighbors and you can lie to your own conscience; but you -can’t lie to old man Cutwater, and you know it. Now, Jim, was not that -just about the way you done it?” - -And Jim nodded his head, turned the fur cap over in his hands, and -assented quietly: - -“Just about.” - -Twenty-five minutes later the Jury went out, and Judge Cutwater stalked -slowly and thoughtfully over to the prisoner, and touched him on the -shoulder. - -“Jim,” he said, meditatively, “if I know anything about juries, and I -think I do, I’ve hanged you on that talk as sure as guns. Your man’s -summing-up didn’t amount to pea-soup. I’m sorry, of course; but there -wasn’t no way out of it for either you or me. However, I’ll tell you -what I’ll do. My term as District Attorney expires to-morrow at twelve; -and, if you’ll send that fool counsel of yours round to me at the -tahvern, I’ll show him how to drive a horse and cart through the law in -this case and get you a new trial, like rolling off a log.” - -[Illustration] - -And as Mr. Adsum got not only one but three new trials during the time -that I kept track of him, I have every reason to believe that Judge -Cutwater of Seneca kept his promise as a man, as faithfully as he -performed his duty as a prosecutor for the people. - - - - -MR. WICK’S AUNT. - - -The Wick family had run the usual course of families for many, many -years, and was quite old and respectable when causes, natural and -extraordinary, none of them being pertinent to this statement, reduced -said family to three members, viz: - -MISS ANGELICA SUDBURY WICK, of the Boston branch of the family, who -lived in the house of her guardian, old Jonas Thatcher, with whom we -have no further concern, and who is therefore to be considered as turned -down, although in his day he was a highly respected leather merchant. -MISS ANGELICA WICK was fair and sweet and good up to the last -requirement of young womanhood. - -MR. WINKELMAN HEMPSTEAD WICK, of the Long Island branch of the family, a -distant cousin of the young lady, and a young man of conscientious mind, -an accountant by profession, and very nearly ready to buy out his -employer. - -MR. AARON BUSHWICK WICK, also of the Long Island branch of the family, -the grand-uncle of young Winkelman, who had brought up the young man in -his own house, and who loved him more than anything else in the world, -until, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, he fell in love with, and -married a lady named Louisa Nasmyth Pine, whom we will dismiss from -consideration as we dismissed the old leather merchant, although she was -a most estimable and attractive lady, and did fancy embroidery extremely -well. Her only concern with this story is that she bore the elder Mr. -Wick a baby, and died three or four months subsequently. But that was -enough; plenty; as much as was necessary. - -The way that marriage came about was this: old Mr. Wick wanted to see -the Wick family perpetuated, but young Mr. Wick was one of those -cautious, careful, particular men who get to be old bachelors before -they know it. No girl whom he knew was quite exactly what he wanted. If -she had been, she would have been too good for any man on earth. In -fact, it took young Mr. Wick a number of years to realize that any way -he could marry, he could only marry a human being like himself. In the -meanwhile his grand-uncle grew impatient; and finally he said that if -Winkelman didn’t fix on a girl and get her to agree to marry him by the -first of next January, he, Aaron Bushwick Wick, would marry somebody -himself. Miss Louisa Nasmyth Pine, being then close on to forty, helped -him to get under the line just in time to save his grand-nephew from -engaging himself to an ill-tempered widow with five children--which is -the kind of woman that those particular men generally pick up in the -end. And it serves them right. - -And so this marriage brought into existence the baby--BEATRICE BRIGHTON -WICK. - -Old Mr. Wick’s endeavors to hand the name of Wick down to posterity were -crowned, as you see, with only partial success. He had a Wick, it was -true, but it was a Wick that would be put out by marriage. He found -himself obliged to fall back on young Winkelman, and he bethought -himself of the distant cousin in Boston. He knew nothing of her, but he -reasoned that if she were a Wick, she must be everything that was lovely -and desirable; and so he said to his grand-nephew: - -[Illustration] - -“Wink, you know that I am a man of my word. If you will go and marry -that girl, and if the two of you will take care of that confounded baby, -who is crying again, while I put in three or four years in Europe till -it gets to some sort of a rational age, I will buy your employer out, -guarantee you what is necessary for you to live on in some healthy -country place--no city air for that child, do you understand!--and when -I die you’ll be her guardian and have the usufruct of her estate and be -residuary legatee and all that sort of thing.” - -Winkelman Wick knew that his grand-uncle was a man of his word, and that -“all that sort of thing” meant a very, very comfortable sort of thing, -for the old gentleman was rich and had liberal ideas, and drank more -port than was good for him. He had no fancy for marrying a strange -girl, but he thought there could be no harm in going out to Boston and -taking a look at his, so far, distant cousin. Under pretense of wanting -to write up the Wick genealogy, he went to Boston, and passed some time -under Mr. Thatcher’s hospitable roof. He found Angelica Wick all that -his fancy might have painted her but hadn’t; and, as Mr. Thatcher had -six daughters of his own, all of them older than Angelica, and none so -good-looking, he did not find any difficulty in inducing his pretty -cousin to marry him--and she did not back out even when he sprung the -baby contract on her. She said that she was a true woman and that she -would stand by him, but that she thought it might be a little awkward. -Feminine intuition is a wonderful thing. When it is right, it is apt to -be right. - -[Illustration] - -The elder Mr. Wick was as good as his word,--only, as is often the case -with people who pride themselves upon being as good as their word, he -took his own word too seriously. He died of apoplexy shortly after -landing at Liverpool. His will, however, was probated in New York, and -thus escaped a legacy tax. The will fully carried out every promise he -had made to his young kinsman, but he had drawn it to follow absolutely -the terms of his proposition. He had never for an instant contemplated -the possibility of his dying before he wanted to--people who make their -wills very rarely do--and he had so drawn the document that Mr. and Mrs. -Winkelman Wick could come into their inheritance only after carrying out -their part of the contract, which was to take care of their aunt, baby -Beatrice Brighton Wick, for the space of four years, during which Mr. -Aaron Bushwick Wick had intended, without consideration of the designs -of Divine Providence, to sojourn in Europe. - -This brings the situation exactly down to bed-rock. On the tenth of -April, eighteen hundred and tumty-tum, Mr. Winkelman Wick and Miss -Angelica Wick were married in the old Wick house on Montague Street, -Brooklyn. On the twenty-fifth of April Mr. Aaron Bushwick Wick ended his -journey across the Atlantic at the Port of Liverpool, England. On the -twenty-seventh of April he started on that other journey for which your -heirs pay your passage money--and he certainly was not happy in his -starting place. On the twenty-eighth of the same month young Mr. and -Mrs. Wick knew the terms of their grand-uncle’s will; and on the -thirtieth the old Wick mansion was in the hands of the trustees, and the -young Wicks were in a hotel in charge of their baby-aunt, Beatrice, who -was herself in charge of an aged Irishwoman, whose feet were decidedly -more intelligent than her brain. That is one of the beauties of -Ireland. You can get every variety of human being there from a cherub to -a chimpanzee. - -[Illustration] - -They were very comfortable in the hotel, and would have liked to stay -there, but that awful contract had as many ways of making itself -disagreeable as an octopus has. They had pledged themselves, with and -for the benefit of the baby, to provide a suitable place in the country -without unreasonable delay. Their lawyer informed them that reasonable -delay meant three weeks and not one day more. As their contract began on -the tenth of April, they had, therefore, one day left to them to carry -out this provision. Moreover, the contract, after defining the phrase “a -suitable country place” in terms that would have fitted a selling -advertisement of the Garden of Eden, went on to specify that no place -should be considered suitable that was not at least forty miles from any -city of twenty thousand inhabitants, or upward. When Mr. Aaron Bushwick -Wick wanted pure country air for a baby, he wanted it _pure_. If he -could, he would probably have had it brought in sealed bottles. - -Picking a place of residence for four long years is not an agreeable -task under conditions such as these, especially to a young couple -prematurely saddled with parental cares, and equipped with only twenty -days of experience in the matrimonial state. They discussed the -situation for hours on end. Mrs. Wick wept, and Mr. Wick contributed -more profanity than is generally used by a green husband. They even -asked the Irish nurse if she could not suggest some suitable place, and -they stated the whole situation to her very clearly and carefully. She -thought a while, and then suggested Ballymahon, County Longford, -Ireland. However, indirectly, she assisted them to solve the problem. -Mr. Wick told her to go to Jericho; and Mrs. Wick suddenly brightened up -and said: - -“Why, that’s so, Winkelman!” - -Mr. Wick stared in horror at his wife. Was the sweet young thing going -crazy under the strain? But no; Mrs. Wick was looking as bright as a -rose after an April shower, and she grew brighter and brighter as she -stood thinking in silence, nodding her pretty head affirmatively, -pursing her lips, and checking off the various stages of her thought -with her finger tip on her cheek. Finally she said: - -“And you could use the little room for a dressing room. Yes, dear, I’m -quite certain it will do beautifully.” - -After a while Mr. Wick convinced his wife that he was not a -mind-reader, and then he got some information. Of course she did not -stay convinced--no woman ever did. All women think that the mechanism of -their thought is visible like a model in a glass case. - -Mrs. Wick had forgotten that she herself owned a country house. This was -more excusable than it seems on the face of it, for she had never seen -the house, nor had she ever expected to see it. In fact, it was hardly -to be called a house; it was only a sort of bungalow or pavilion which -had once belonged to a club of sportsmen, and which her father had taken -for a bad debt. It was situated in the village of Jericho, of which she -knew nothing more than that her father had said that it was a good place -for trout, and was accessible by several different railroads. Concerning -the house itself she was better informed. She had had to copy the plans -of its interior on many occasions when her guardian had made futile -efforts to sell or to rent it. She also knew that the place was fully -furnished, and that an old woman lived in it as care-taker, rent free, -and liable to be dispossessed at any moment. - -The nurse was told that they would go to Jericho with her. She only -asked would the baby take her bottle now or wait till she got there? - - * * * * * - -Jericho Junction is one of those lonely and forsaken little -stopping-places on the outskirts of the great woods that are the -sportsman’s paradise, with a dreary, brown-painted, pine box, just big -enough for the ticket agent, the baggage master, the telegraph operator, -the flagman, the local postmaster, and the casual or possible intending -passenger. As this makes two persons in all, the structure is not large. - -[Illustration] - -The casual passenger and the full corps of local railway officials were -both present at Jericho Junction when the 6:30 P. M. train loomed out of -the dreary, raw May twilight, and drew up in front of the little box. -Now, these two occupants of the tiny station were neighbors but not -friends. Farmer Byam Beebe lived “a piece back in the country, over -t’wards Ellenville South Farms.” Mr. John D. Wilkins, station agent, -telegraph operator, and all the rest of the functionaries of Jericho -Junction, dwelt in his little box, midway between Ellenville South Farms -and the nearest important town, Bunker’s Mills, a considerable -manufacturing settlement. A houseless stretch of ten miles separated the -neighbors; but not even ten miles had stood between them and a grudge -of many years’ duration. Beebe hated Wilkins, and Wilkins hated Beebe. -Never mind why. They were close neighbors for that region; and that more -close neighbors do not kill each other testifies every day to the broad -spread of Christian charity. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Beebe so hated Mr. Wilkins that he made it a regular practice to -stop at the station after his day’s work was done, to wait for this -particular train. Silent and unfriendly, he would loaf in the station -for an hour and a half, and the station master dared not put him out, -for he was possibly an intending passenger on the train as far as the -next flag-station, which was a railroad crossing a mile and a quarter -further on. Mr. Beebe never bought a ticket from Mr. Wilkins, on the -occasions when he did ride. He paid his way on the cars, five cents, -plus ten cents rebate-check, and this rebate-check he redeemed at Mr. -Wilkins’s office the next day. Furthermore, he made a point of going out -just before the train arrived, and waiting on the other side of it to -get in, so that Mr. Wilkins could not tell whether he boarded the train -or walked off through the thick woods that crowded down to the very edge -of the line. - -Thus it happened that as the train arrived on the evening of the first -of May, Mr. Beebe, being on the farther side of the track from the -railroad station, saw an Irish nurse blunder helplessly off the platform -in front of him, holding a six months’ old baby in her arms, and stand -staring straight before her in evident bewilderment. Mr. Beebe accosted -her in all kindness: - -“Your folks got off the other side, I guess. This here ain’t the right -side for nobody, only me.” Then he prodded the baby with a large and -horny finger. “How old will that young ’un be?” he inquired. - -“Six months, sorr,” replied the nurse; “gahn on seven.” - -“Is that so?” said Mr. Beebe, with polite affectation of interest. -“Folks been long married?” - -“Wan month, sorr,” replied the nurse. - -“_Which?_” inquired Mr. Beebe. - -“Wan month, sorr,” replied the nurse. - - * * * * * - -On the other side of the train of cars, station agent John D. Wilkins -saw an old-fashioned carryall drive up, conducted by an elderly woman of -austere demeanor. She was dressed in black alpaca, and her look was -stern and severe, and, necessarily, highly respectable. He saw a young -man and a young woman descend from the train, and saw the young man hand -the young woman into the carryall behind the elderly lady. Then, as the -young man turned as though to look for some one following him, he heard -the young woman say: - -[Illustration] - -“Winkelman, dear, I don’t care _what_ her age is, you _must_ spank your -aunt!” - - * * * * * - -When Mr. John D. Wilkins heard what he heard, he forgot the rules of the -railroad company, according to which he should have remained on the -platform until the train had left. He knew that just at 6:30 his -particular crony, Mr. Hiram Stalls, telegraph operator at Bunker’s -Mills, and news-gatherer for the Bunker’s Mills _Daily Eagle_, went off -duty in his telegraphic capacity, and became an unalloyed journalist. He -caught Mr. Stalls in the act of saying goodnight, and he talked to him -over the wire in dot and dash thus: - -“That you, Hi? Meet me at the station when the 7:21 gets in. I’ve got a -news item for you that will make the _Eagle_ scream this trip, sure.” - -If Mr. Wilkins had not been so zealous in breaking his employer’s rules -in the interest of personal journalism, he would have heard the young -man thus enjoined to inflict humiliating punishment upon a parent’s -sister, respond to this cruel counsel in these words: - -“It will only make her cry more;--why, where the deuce is the brat, -anyway?” - -[Illustration] - -Moreover, he would have seen Mr. Beebe pilot an Irish nurse and a -bundled-up baby around the rear of the train, and then jump on the -platform as the cars started, with all the vigor and energy which the -possession of a real mean story about a fellow human being can impart to -the most aged and stiffened limbs. But he didn’t. What would become of -the gossip business if those engaged in it stopped to find things out? - - * * * * * - -When Cæsar expressed a preference for being the first man in a village, -over a second-fiddle job in Rome, he probably never reflected how much -it would rile him if he should happen to find out that there was just -as big a man in the next village who didn’t know Cæsar from a -cheese-cake; yet that is the poor limitation of local bigness. Great is -Mr. Way in Wayback, and great is Mr. Hay in Hayville; but what is Mr. -Way in Hayville, and what is Mr. Hay in Wayback? Two nothings, two -casual strangers, with no credit, with no say-no, two mere chunks of -humanity whose value to the community is strictly proportionate to the -size of their greenback wads, and the laxity or tenacity of their -several grips thereon. - -At nine o’clock that night two local Cæsars, in two towns but a score of -miles from each other, donned the ermine of power, waved the sceptre of -authority, and told their pale-faced but devoted followers that -“SOMETHING had got to be done about IT.” - -The “IT,” of course, was an “OUTRAGE”--it always is when something has -got to be done about it, and the something generally means just about -nothing. - -In the front parlor of his large mansard-roof residence, Mr. Bodger--Mr. -Theophilus Scranton Bodger, prominent manufacturer, pillar of the -Church, candidate for the mayoralty, and general all around magnate and -muldoon of Bunker’s Mills, sat amid surroundings of much elegance, black -walnut, gilt, plush and hand-painted tidies, and slapping a broad palm -with a burly fist, told Mr. Stalls, Mr. Wilkins and Mrs. Bodger that -something had got to be done about it. - -At the same moment, in the Sunday School room of the Baptist Church in -Ellenville South Farms, Mr. Manfred Lusk Hackfeather, theological -student, Sunday School superintendent, social leader and idol of the -ladies in Ellenville South Farms, told six fluttering feminine things, -who gazed at him in affectionate awe, that something had got to be done -about it. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Bodger’s business was making socks. Mr. Hackfeather may have been -wearing a pair of socks of Mr. Bodger’s make at that very instant, yet -had he never heard of Bodger; nor did Mr. Bodger know that any part of -his growing business was built up on the money of a man named -Hackfeather. - - * * * * * - -To say that a party of Brooklyn people, conducted in an old-fashioned -carryall, by an elderly woman of austere demeanor, entered the deep pine -wood in a chilled twilight of early Spring certainly ought to convey an -impression of gloom. And certainly gloom of the deepest enshrouded the -beginning of that ride. Diligent inquiry elicited from the elderly woman -that she was, as the Wicks supposed, Miss Hipsy, the care-taker; that -she had received their telegram, or she wouldn’t have been there nohow; -that she had had a contrack with the late owner of the premises; that -she had lived up to it, whatever other people hed or hedn’t done; that -what she had done she would do, and that if she was not satisfactory to -other parties, or if other parties was not satisfactory to her, which -was most likely to be the case, she was willin’, as far as she was -concerned, to take herself off just as soon as she could; that she -thanked Providence she had folks in Ellenville she could go to, as -respectable as some, that she could go to and no obligations to nobody, -and that she was not aware that her contrack called for no general -conversation. - -Now this extremely discouraging way and manner of Miss Hipsy’s was -entirely general and impersonal, like dampness or a close smell in a -long unused house. Congenitally sub-acid, a failure to accomplish any -sort of an early or late love affair had completely soured her, and many -years of solitude had put a gray-green coating of mildew over her moral -nature. But the Wicks did not know this, and, remembering their peculiar -position, it made them feel extremely uncomfortable. - -But the moon came out in the soft Spring sky, and the mists of the -evening rolled away, and a great silvery radiance wrapped the -cathedral-like spires and pinnacles of the broad spreading pine forest, -and, after awhile, the rough corduroy road grew smoother, and the baby -stopped crying and went to sleep, and they were all, except Miss Hipsy, -beginning to nod off just a little when the wheels crunched on a -driveway of white pebbles, and they looked up to see a spacious low -building standing out black against the sky, except where a half a dozen -brightly lit windows winked at them like friendly eyes. - -This was the bungalow, and here they found a sportsman’s supper of cold -meat and ale awaiting them. Miss Hipsy told them, by way of leaving no -doubt of the unfriendliness of her intentions, that this refection was -provided for in the contract. So, also, must have been the deliciously -soft beds in which they were presently all fast asleep, even to the -baby. And when a traveling baby will sleep, anybody else can. - -[Illustration] - -In the morning the elder Wicks opened their eyes on a world of -wonderment and bewilderment. They found themselves living in a -well-appointed and commodious club-house, on the banks of a broad and -beautiful lake, across which other similar structures with pretty, low, -peaked roofs looked at them in neighborly fashion from the other side. -Mrs. Wick said that it was too nice for anything. - -There was nothing mysterious about the surprise which the Wicks had -found awaiting them. Sportsmen have a habit of referring to their -possessions in a depreciatory way. They call a comfortable club-house a -“box” or a “bungalow” or a “shack,” and they make nothing of calling a -costly hotel a “camp.” Indeed, they seem to try to impart a factitious -flavor of profanity by christening such structures, whenever they can, -“Middle Dam Camp” or “Upper Dam Camp.” And since Mrs. Wick’s father’s -club had died out, the further side of Jericho Pond had become a -fashionable resort, maintaining two or three Winter and Summer -Sanitariums. - -Thanks to the contract, they made an excellent breakfast, and their -praises of the fare mollified Miss Hipsy to some slight extent. Then -they remembered the baby, and after some search they found the Irish -nurse walking it up and down on a broad sunny terrace at the back of the -house. Below stretched an old-fashioned garden, full of homely, pleasant -flowers and simples just beginning to show their buds to the tempting -month of May. - -The scene was so pleasant that Mr. and Mrs. Wick started out for a walk, -and the walk was so pleasant that they prolonged it,--prolonged it until -they reached the settlement on the other side of the lake, and the -people there were so pleasant that they staid to dinner at a club, and -did not get back till nearly supper-time. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration] - -You will please observe that, so far as the members of the Wick family -are concerned, they stand as clear at this point as they did when we got -them down to bed-rock level, on the tenth of April, eighteen hundred and -tumty-tum. Their ways have been ways of pleasantness, and their paths -have been paths of peace. The two Wicks we are dealing with, like all -the other Wicks, have kept their engagements and filled their contract. -They have minded their own business and nobody else’s. They are, in -fact, all straight on the record. - -But now we have to recount the fortunes of two social reformers, and it -is hard for a reformer to keep straight on the record. Whether they have -a genuine reform on their hands, like Martin Luther or the -Abolitionists, or whether they are like Mr. Harold Kettledrum Monocle, -of New York, who thinks that the Mayor of that city ought to be elected -by Harvard College, they are all likely to have what one might call a -mote-and-beam sort of time with their neighbors. - -Thus did it happen with Mr. Bodger, of Bunker’s Mills, and with Mr. -Hackfeather, of Ellenville South Farms, who both found their way to -Jericho Pond that pleasant afternoon, the theological student a little -in advance of the business man. Mr. Hackfeather came to rebuke a -shocking case of impropriety in two so young; Mr. Bodger came to express -the sentiment of society at large toward a man who would inflict -corporal chastisement on a lady. - -Terrible as with an army with banners, and consumed with the fire of -righteousness, Mr. Hackfeather bore down on the old-fashioned garden at -the back of the bungalow, in the full glory of the Spring afternoon. As -to his person, he was attired in a long, black diagonal frock-coat, worn -unbuttoned, and so well worn that its flaps waved in the wind with all -the easy grace of a linen duster. Trousers of the kind that chorus -together: “We are pants,” adorned his long, thin but heavily-kneed legs. -A shoestring necktie, a low cut waistcoat, and a whole-souled, -oh-be-joyful shirtfront added to this simple but harmonious effect, and -his last year’s hat had a mellow tone against the pale Springtime -greens. He tackled Miss Hipsy (who had so far relented from her -austerity as to take the baby while the nurse got dinner,) in that -old-fashioned garden; and the benign influences of budding nature had no -effect whatever upon his pious wrath. He pointed out the discrepancy in -the dates of the vital statistics of the Wick family, and he told Miss -Hipsy that she was - -[Illustration] - -the servant of sin, (who had been a respectable woman for forty-three -years, and if some as ought to know better said it was forty-seven there -was no truth in it,) that she was the slave of iniquity and abettor of -sin, (and if them she knowed of, one leastways, was alive to-day she -would not be insulted,) that the demon vice should not rear its hideous -head in that unpolluted community, (and she wasn’t rarin’ no heads, but -she could go to them she knowed of as could rare their heads as high as -him or any of his friends,) and that even if he, Mr. Hackfeather, had to -face all the minions of Satan, and all the retinue of the Scarlet Woman, -he would purify the stain or die in the attempt. Mr. Hackfeather’s -allusion to the Lady of Babylon probably was born of a mixed condition -of mind, and a desire to use forcible language. It did not seem clear to -him and it did not seem clear to Miss Hipsy, either. She said she was no -such a thing, and never expected to live to see the day she would be so -called, especially at her time of life. And, tearful and vociferous, -Miss Hipsy marched back to the bungalow, delivered over the baby to the -Irish nurse, packed her little old hair trunk with the round top, -dragged it down herself to the lakefront dock, and there sat on it in -stern grandeur until the afternoon boat came down the lake and took her -to Ellenville, presumably to the sheltering arms of them that she knowed -of. - -Meanwhile, a thing she did not know of was happening on the other side -of the house in that same old-fashioned garden. Mr. Bodger, accompanied -by Mr. Stalls and Mr. Wilkins, had arrived from Bunker’s Mills to -interview the new arrival in the county, whose latitude in administering -corporal punishment had aroused the indignation of every humane heart -that had been made acquainted with the station master’s story. Mr. -Bodger saw the departure of the weeping woman of elderly aspect, he -heard her wails, and he saw their cause in a strange young man. This was -all the evidence that he wanted. Mr. Bodger made no inquiries into -identity or relationship. He weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, he -had three men behind him, and he fell upon Mr. Hackfeather as the -cyclone falls upon the chicken-coop. - - * * * * * - -The consequences of these two meetings were so far-reaching, extending -to warrants of arrest, counter charges, civil suits and much civiler -compromises, that it was July before the ladies of the Bodger and -Hackfeather families picked up their threads of social intercourse, -which were knotted only at one point. To both of them it occurred on a -fine Summer’s day to call on the new comers at the old bungalow by way -of seeing whether the innocent causes of so much dire mischief knew -anything about the agitation they had caused. - -[Illustration] - -As the train from Bunker’s Mills met the boat from Ellenville, Mr. -Bodger’s wife and Mr. Hackfeather’s mother arrived at the same time, -and, sitting in the sunny reception room of the bungalow, glared at each -other in chilly and silent hostility, while poor, innocent little Mrs. -Wick, much troubled by their strange behavior, tried to talk to both of -them at once, and rattled away in her embarrassment until she had talked -a great deal more than she had meant to. She told them all the story of -Beatrice Brighton Wick, and the will, and the hurried flight to Jericho, -and at their surprise at finding Jericho Pond with its Summer and Winter -colony so delightful a place that they hardly felt as if they could -tear themselves away from it when the four years were up. And she told -them that both she and Mr. Wick had thought it might be quite awkward -for so newly married a couple to be traveling with a six month’s old -baby, and that baby Mr. Wick’s aunt. - -[Illustration] - -“But, do you know,” she said, “we must have been over-sensitive about -it, for we never had the first least little bit of trouble. Indeed, the -only mishap we had was the other way. The old woman who was in charge of -the place here left us suddenly the first day without a word of warning. -I couldn’t make out why she was dissatisfied, but my nurse, Nora, told -me that she thought that Miss Hipsy thought that the baby was too young. -Some people have such an objection to young babies, you know. However, -it didn’t the least bit matter, for Nora turned out to be a very good -cook, and I took the baby. I wanted to learn, you know.” - - - - -WHAT MRS. FORTESCUE DID. - - -Right in the rear of the First Congregational Church of ’Quawket, and -cornerwise across the street, the Old Ladies’ Home of Aquawket sits on -the topmost of a series of velvety green terraces. It is a quiet street; -the noisiest thing in it, or rather over it, is the bell in the church -steeple, and that is as deep toned and mellow as all church bells ought -to be and few church bells are. As to the Old Ladies’ Home, itself, it -looks like the veritable abode of peace. A great wistaria clambers over -its dull brown stucco walls. Beds of old-fashioned flowers nod and sway -in the chastened breezes on its two sunny sides, and thick clumps of -lilacs and syringas shield it to the north and east. Dainty little -dimity curtains flutter at the open windows all Summer long; and, -whether it comes from the immaculately neat chambers of the old ladies, -or from some of the old-fashioned flower beds, there is always, in warm -weather, a faint smell of lavender floating down upon the breeze to the -passer-by in the quiet street. You would never dream, to look at it, -that the mad, inhuman, pitiless strife and fury of an Old Ladies’ Home -raged ceaselessly, year after year, within those quiet walls. - -[Illustration] - -Now suppose that every wasp in a certain wasp’s nest had an individual -theology of its own, totally different from the theology of any other -wasp, and that each one personally conducted his theology in the real -earnest calvinistic spirit--you would call that wasp’s nest a pretty -warm, lively, interesting domicile, would you not? Well, it would be a -paradise of paralysis alongside of an Old Ladies’ Home. If you want to -get at the original compound tincture of envy, malice and all -uncharitableness, go to a nice, respectable Old Ladies’ Home with a list -of “Lady Patronesses” as long as your arm, and get the genuine article -in its most highly concentrated form. - -There were eleven inmates of the ‘Old Ladies’ Home of Aquawket, besides -the matron, the nurse, the cook, and a couple of “chore-girls.” These -two last led a sort of life that came very near to qualifying them for -admission to the institution on a basis of premature old age. Of the -real old ladies in the home, every one of the eleven had a bitter and -undying grievance against at least one, and, possibly, against ten of -her companions, and the only thing that held the ten oldest of the band -together was the burning scorn and hatred which they all felt for the -youngest of the flock, Mrs. Williametta Fortescue, who signed what few -letters she wrote “Willie,” and had been known to the world as “Billy” -Fortescue when she sang in comic opera and wore pink tights. - -All the other old ladies said that Mrs. Fortescue was a daughter of -Belial, a play actress, and no old lady, anyway. I know nothing about -her ancestry--and I don’t believe that she did, either; but as to the -other two counts in the indictment I am afraid I must plead guilty for -Mrs. Fortescue. An actress she was, to the tips of her fingers, an -unconscious, involuntary, dyed-in-the-wool actress. She acted because -she could not help it, not from any wish to deceive or mislead, but just -because it came as natural to her as breathing. If you asked her to take -a piece of pie, it was not enough for her to want the pie, and to tell -you so, and to take the pie; she had to act out the whole dramatic -business of the situation--her passion for pie, her eager craving and -anxious expectation, her incredulous delight when she actually got the -pie, and her tender, brooding thankfulness and gratitude when she had -got outside of the pie, and put it where it couldn’t be taken away from -her. No; there wasn’t the least bit of humbug in it all. She did want -the pie; but she wanted to act, too. - -[Illustration] - -It was this characteristic of Mrs. Fortescue that got her into the Old -Ladies’ Home on false pretenses; for, to tell the truth, Mrs. Fortescue -was only an old lady by courtesy. She had beautiful white hair; but she -had had beautiful white hair ever since she was twenty years old. Before -she had reached that age she had had red hair, black hair, brown hair, -golden hair, and hair of half-a-dozen intermediate shades. Either the -hair or the hair dye finally got tired, and Mrs. Fortescue’s head became -white--that is, when she gave it a chance to be its natural self. That, -however, was not often; and, at last, there came a day when, as her -manager coarsely expressed it, “she monkeyed with her fur one time too -many.” For ten years she had been the leading lady in a small traveling -opera company, where tireless industry and a willingness to wait for -salary were accepted as substitutes for extreme youth and commanding -talent. Ten years is a long time, especially when it is neither the -first nor the second, and, possibly, not the third ten years of an -actress’s professional career; and when Mrs. Fortescue asked for a -contract for three years more, her manager told her that he was not in -the business for his health, and that While he regarded her as one of -the most elegant ladies he had ever met in his life, her face was not -made of India rubber; and, furthermore, that the public was just about -ready for the Spring styles in leading ladies. This did not hurt Mrs. -Fortescue’s feelings, for the leading juvenile had long been in the -habit of calling her “Mommer, dear,” whenever they had to rehearse -impassioned love scenes. But it did put her on her mettle, and she tried -a new hair dye, just to show what she could do. The result was a case of -lead poisoning, that laid her up in a dirty little second-class hotel, -in a back street of ’Quawket for three months of suffering and -helplessness. The company went its way and left her, and went to pieces -in the end. The greater part of her poor savings went for the expenses -of her sickness. At last, when the critical period was over, her doctor -got some charitably-disposed ladies and gentlemen interested in her -case; and, between them all, they procured admission to the Old Ladies’ -Home for a poor, white-haired, half-palsied wreck of a woman, who not -only was decrepit before her time, but who acted decrepitude so -successfully that nobody thought of asking her if she were less than -eighty years old. I do not mean to say that Mrs. Fortescue willfully -deceived her benefactors: she was old--oldish, anyway--she was helpless, -partially paralyzed, and her system was permeated with lead; but when -she came to add to this the correct dramatic outfit of expression, she -was _so_ old, and _so_ sick, and so utterly miserable and stricken and -done for that the hearts of the managers of the Old Ladies’ Home were -opened, and they took her in at half the usual entrance fee; because, as -the matron very thoughtfully remarked, she couldn’t possibly live six -weeks, and it was just so much clear gain for the institution. By the -end of six weeks, however, Mrs. Fortescue was just as well as she had -ever been in her life, and was acting about twice as healthy as she -felt. - -[Illustration] - -With her trim figure, her elastic step, and her beautiful white hair -setting off her rosy cheeks--and Mrs. Fortescue knew how to have rosy -cheeks whenever she wanted them--she certainly was an incongruous -figure in an Old Ladies’ Home, and it was no wonder that her presence -made the genuine old ladies genuinely mad. And every day of her stay -they got madder and madder; for by the constitution of the Home, an -inmate might, if dissatisfied with her surroundings, after a two-years’ -stay, withdraw from the institution, _taking her entrance fee with her_. -And that was why Mrs. Fortescue staid on in the Old Ladies’ Home, -snubbed, sneered at, totally indifferent to it all, eating three square -meals a day, and checking off the dull but health-giving weeks that -brought her nearer to freedom, and the comfortable little nest-egg with -which she meant to begin life again. - -And yet the time came when Mrs. Fortescue’s histrionic capacity won for -her, if not a friend, at least an ally, out of the snarling sisterhood; -and for a few brief months there was just one old woman out of the lot -who was decently civil to her, and who even showed rudimentary systems -of polite intentions. - - * * * * * - -This old woman was Mrs. Filley, and this was the manner of her -modification. - -One pleasant Spring day, a portly gentleman of powerful frame, with -ruddy cheeks and short, steel-gray hair--a man whose sturdy physique -hardly suited with his absent-minded, unbusiness-like expression of -countenance--ascended the terraces in front of the Old Ladies’ Home. His -brows were knit; he looked upon the ground as he walked, and he did not -in the least notice the eleven old ladies, the matron, the nurse, the -cook and the two “chore-girls” who were watching his every step with -profound interest. - -Mrs. Fortescue was watching the gentleman with interest, because she -thought that he was a singularly fine-looking and well-preserved man, as -indeed he was. All the other inmates of the Home were watching him with -interest because he was Mr. Josiah Heatherington Filley, the millionaire -architect, civil engineer and contractor. Their interest, however, was -not excited by Mr. Filley’s fame as a designer of mighty bridges, of -sky-scraping office buildings, and of other triumphs of mechanical -skill; they looked on him with awe and rapture simply because he was the -richest man in ’Quawket, or, more properly speaking, in ’Quawket -Township; for Mr. Filley lived in the old manor-house of the Filley -family, a couple of miles out of town. - -You might think that with a millionaire Mr. Filley coming up the steps, -the heart of indigent Mrs. Filley in the Old Ladies’ Home might beat -high with expectation; but, as a matter of fact, it did not. In -Connecticut and New Jersey family names mean no more than the name of -breeds of poultry--like Plymouth Rocks or Wyandottes. All Palmers are -kin, so are all Vreelands, and the Smiths of Peapack are of one stock. -But so are all speckled hens, and kinship may mean no more in one case -than it does in the other. In colonial times, Filleys had abounded in -’Quawket. But to Mrs. Filley of the Home the visit of Mr. Filley of the -Manor House was as the visit of a stranger; and very much surprised, -indeed, was she when the great man asked to see her. - -[Illustration] - -In spite of his absent-minded expression, Mr. Filley proved to be both -direct and business-like. He explained his errand briefly and clearly. - -Mr. Filley was a bachelor, and the last of his branch of the family. His -only surviving relative was a half-brother by his mother’s first -marriage, who had lived a wandering and worthless life, and who had died -in the West a widower, leaving one child, a girl of nine, in a -Massachusetts boarding-school. This child he had bequeathed to the -loving care and attention of his brother. It is perfectly wonderful how -men of that particular sort, who never can get ten dollars ahead of the -world, will pick up a tremendous responsibility of that kind, and throw -it around just as if it were a half-pound dumb-bell. They don’t seem to -mind it at all; it does not weigh upon their spirits; they will pass -over a growing child to anybody who happens to be handy, to be taken -care of for life, just as easily as you would hand a towel over to the -next man at the wash-basin, as soon as you are done with it. Mr. -Filley’s half-brother may have died easily, and probably did, but he -could not possibly have made such a simple job of it as he did of -turning over Etta Adelina, his daughter, to the care of the half-brother -whom he hardly knew well enough to borrow money from oftener than once a -year. - -Now, Mr. Josiah Filley had promised his mother on her death-bed that he -would assume a certain sort of responsibility for the consequences of -the perfectly legitimate but highly injudicious matrimonial excursion of -her early youth, and so he accepted the guardianship of Etta Adelina. -But he was not, as the worldly phrase it, “_too_ easy.” He was a -profound scientific student, and a man whose mind was wrapt up in his -profession, but he did not propose to make a parade-ground of himself -for everybody who might feel inclined to walk over him. He had no -intention of taking the care of a nine-year-old infant upon himself, and -the happy idea had come to him of hunting up the last feminine bearer -of his name in the ’Quawket Old Ladies’ Home, and hiring her for a -liberal cash payment to represent him as a quarterly visitor to the -school where the young one was confined. - -“I don’t suppose,” he said, “there is any actual relationship between -us--” - -“There ain’t none,” interrupted Mrs. Filley; “leastwise there ain’t been -none since your father got money enough to send you to college.” - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Filley smiled indulgently. - -“Well,” he suggested, “suppose we re-establish relationship as cousins. -All you have to do for some years to come is to visit the Tophill -Institute once in three months, satisfy yourself that the child is -properly taken care of and educated, and kindly treated, and to make a -full and complete report to me in writing. If anything is wrong, let me -know. I shall examine your reports carefully. Whether it is favorable or -unfavorable, if I am satisfied that it is correct and faithful, I will -send you my check for fifty dollars. Is it a bargain?” - -It was a bargain, but poor old Mrs. Filley stipulated for a payment in -cash instead of by check. She had once in her life been caught on a -worthless note, and she never had got the distinction between notes and -checks clear in her mind. As to Mr. Josiah Filley, he was not wholly -satisfied with the representative of his family, so far as grammar and -manners were concerned; but he saw with his scholar’s eye, that looked -so absent-minded and took in so much, that the old lady was both shrewd -and kindly-natured, and he felt sure that Etta Adelina would be safe in -her hands. - -When I said that Mrs. Filley was kindly, I meant that as a human being -she was capable of kindness. Of course, as an inmate of an Old Ladies’ -Home, she was just as spiteful as any other of the old ladies, and her -first natural impulse was to make a profound mystery of Mr. Filley’s -errand, not only because by so doing she could tease the other old -ladies, but from a natural, old-ladylike fear that somebody else might -get her job away from her. But she found herself unable to carry out her -pleasant scheme in its entirety. Nine of her aged comrades, and all the -members of the household staff, consumed their souls in bitterness, -wondering what the millionaire had wanted of his humble kinswoman; and -three times in the course of one year they saw that excellent woman put -on her Sunday black silk and take her silent way to the railroad -station. On the day following they saw her return, but where she had -been or why she had been there they knew not. By the rules of the Home -she had a right to eight days of absence annually. She told the matron -that she was going to see her “folks.” The matron knew well that she had -not a folk in the world, but she had to take the old lady’s word. - -[Illustration] - -But did not those dear old ladies ask the ticket-agent at the station -what station Mrs. Filley took tickets for? Indeed they did, bless them! -And the ticket-agent told them that Mrs. Filley had bought a -thousand-mile ticket, and that they would have to hunt up the conductors -who took up her coupons on the next division of the road, if they wanted -to find out. (A thousand-mile ticket, gentle reader, is a delightful -device by means of which you can buy a lot of travel in one big chunk, -and work it out in little bits whenever you want to. Next to a sure and -certain consciousness of salvation, it gives its possessor more of a -feeling of pride and independence than anything else this life has to -offer.) - -And yet Mrs. Filley’s happiness was incomplete, for it was necessary to -let one person into her secret. She put it on her spectacles, which had -not been of the right kind for a number of years, owing to the -inferiority of modern glass ware, but defective education was what -brought Mrs. Filley to making a confidant of Mrs. Fortescue. No -spectacles that ever were made would have enabled Mrs. Filley to spell, -and when she began her first report thus: - -“i sene the gerl She had or to hav cod-livor roil--” - -even she, herself, felt that it was hardly the report for Mr. Filley’s -fifty-dollars. Here is the way that Mrs. Fortescue started off that -report in her fine Italian hand: - -“It gives me the greatest pleasure, my dear Mr. Filley, to inform you -that, pursuant to your instructions, I journeyed yesterday to the -charming, and I am sure salubrious shades of Tophill, to look after the -welfare of your interesting and precocious little ward. Save for the -slight pallor which might suggest the addition of some simple tonic -stimulant, such as codliver oil, to the generous fare of the Tophill -Academy, I found your little Etta Adelina in every respect--” - -Mrs. Filley’s name was signed to that report in the same fine Italian -hand; and it surprised Mr. Filley very much when he saw it. But there -was more surprise ahead for Mr. Filley. - - * * * * * - -As a business man Mr. Filley read the paper, but not the local papers of -’Quawket, for it was seldom that the papers were local there long enough -to get anybody into the habit of reading them. Thus it came about that -he failed to see the notice of the death of old Mrs. Filley, which -occurred in the Old Ladies’ Home something less than a twelve-month -after the date of his first and only visit. The death occurred, however, -but the reports kept on coming in the same fine Italian hand, and with -the same generous freedom in language of the most expensive sort. No man -could have got more report for fifty dollars than Mr. Filley got, and -the report did not begin to be the most of what he was getting. - -[Illustration] - - * * * * * - -Sometimes clergymen but slightly acquainted with the theatrical business -are surprised when traveling through small towns to see lithographs and -posters displaying the features of great stars of the theatrical and -operatic world, who are billed to appear in some local opera house about -two sizes larger than a cigar-box. The portraits are familiar, the names -under them are not; you may recognize the features of Joe Jefferson and -Adelina Patti, with labels on them establishing their identity as -“Comical Maginnis, the Monkey Mugger,” and “Sadie Sylvester, the Society -Clog Artiste.” These are what are known as “Stock-printing,” and it is -pleasant to reflect that the printers who get them up for a fraud on the -public rarely are able to collect their bills from the actors and -actresses that use them, and that the audiences that go to such shows -don’t know the difference between Adelina Patti and an oyster patty. - -This explanation of an interesting custom is made to forestall the -reader’s surprise at learning that two years and a half after her -retirement from the stage, and ten years, at least, after the -retirement of such of her youthful charms as might have justified -the exhibition, the portrait of Mrs. Fortescue, arrayed in silk tights, -of a most constricted pattern--not constrained at all, simply -constricted--decorated scores of fences in what theatrical people call -the “’Quawket Circuit,” which circuit includes the charming and -presumably salubrious shades of Tophill. There was no mistaking Mrs. -Fortescue’s face; Mrs. Fortescue’s attire might have given rise to -almost any sort of mistake. The name under the picture was not that of -Mrs. Fortescue; it was that of a much advertised young person whose -“dramatic speciality” was entitled “Too Much for London; or, Oh, My! Did -you Ever!” - - * * * * * - -Now it is necessary to disinter old Mrs. Filley for a moment, and to -smirch her character a little by way of introducing some excuse for -what Mrs. Fortescue did. - -[Illustration] - -By the time Mrs. Fortescue had cooked her third report, she had found -out that the old lady had not quite kept faith with her employer. At the -Tophill Institute she had represented herself as Mr. Filley’s mother, -gaining thereby much consideration and many cups of tea. So that when -she died, with the rest of her secret hidden from all but Mrs. -Fortescue, the latter lady, having fully made up her mind to appropriate -the job, felt that it behooved her to go her predecessor one better, and -when she made her appearance at Tophill it was in the character of Mr. -Filley’s newly married wife. She told the sympathetic all about it, how -Mr. Filley and she had known each other from childhood, how he had -always loved her, how she had wedded another to please her family, how -the other had died, and Mr. Filley had renewed his addresses, how she -had staved him off (I am not quoting her language) until his dear old -mother had died, and left him so helpless and lonely that she really had -to take pity on him. Mrs. Filley No. 2 got all the consideration she -wanted, and the principal sent out for champagne for her, under the -impression that that was the daily and hourly drink in all millionaire -families. He never found out otherwise from Mrs. Filley, either. - -Probably Mrs. Fortescue-Filley had calculated on keeping up her pretty -career of imposture until her time of probation at the Home was up, and -she could withdraw her entrance fee and vanish at once from ’Quawket and -Tophill. She had the report business well in hand; her employer -occasionally wrote her for detailed information on minor points of the -child’s work or personal needs, but in general expressed himself -perfectly satisfied; and she felt quite safe, so far as he was -concerned, when he commissioned her to put the child through an -all-round examination, and sent her fifty dollars extra with his -“highest compliments” on her manner of doing it. Indeed, in this she was -no humbug. She could have put the principal, himself, through his -scholastic facings if she had cared to. - -But the appearance of those unholy portraits came without warning, and -did their work thoroughly. Even if it had not been that every child in -the institute could recognize that well-known countenance, a still more -damning disclosure came in the prompt denunciation of the fraud by the -“Indignant Theatre Goer” with a long memory, who wrote to the local -paper to protest against the profanation, as he put it, of the features -of a peerless Mrs. Fortescue, once an ornament of the stage, and now -dwelling in retirement in ’Quawket. Ordinary, common, plain, every-day -gossip did the rest. - -[Illustration] - -Mrs. Fortescue saw the posters on her way to Tophill, but she -dauntlessly presented herself at the portal. She got no further. The -principal interposed himself between her and his shades of innocents, -and he addressed that creature of false pretenses in scathing -language--or it might have scathed if the good man had not been so angry -that he talked falsetto. It did not look as if there were much in the -situation for Mrs. Fortescue, but it would be a strange situation out of -which the lady could not extract just the least little bit of acting. -She drew herself up in majestic indignation, hurled the calumnies back -at the astonished principal, and with a magnificent threat to bring Mr. -Filley right to the spot to utterly overwhelm and confute him, she swept -away, leaving the Institute looking two sizes smaller, and its principal -looking no particular size at all. - - * * * * * - -And, what is more, she did, for her magnificent dramatic outburst made -her fairly acting-drunk. She could not help herself; she was inebriated -with the exuberance of her own verbosity, to use a once famous phrase, -and she simply had to go off on a regular histrionic bat. - -She went straight off to the old Filley Manor House at the extreme end -of ’Quawket township; she bearded the millionaire builder in his great -cool, darkened office, among his mighty plans and elevations and -mysterious models, and she told that great man the whole story of her -imposture with such a torrent of comic force, with such marvelous -mimicry of the plain-spoken Mrs. Filley and the prim principal, and with -so humorous an introduction of the champagne episode that her victim lay -back in his leather arm-chair, slapped his sturdy leg, roared out mighty -peals of laughter, told her she was the most audacious little woman in -the whole hemisphere, and that he never heard of anything so funny in -his life, and that he’d call down any number of damn schoolmasters if -she wanted him to. - -“I don’t see how we can arrange a retroactive, Ma’am; I’m a little too -old for that sort of thing, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you what I can do. -I’ll send my agent at once to take the child out of school, and I’ll see -that my man doesn’t give him any satisfaction or a chance for -explanation. - -“Why, damn it!” concluded the hearty Mr. Filley; “if I ever see the -little prig I’ll tell him I think it is a monstrous and great -condescension on your part to let yourself be known as the wife of a -plain old fellow like me. Why doesn’t a man know a handsome woman when -he sees her?” - -“Then I am forgiven for all my wickedness?” said Mrs. Fortescue--but, -oh! _how_ she said it! - -[Illustration] - -“Forgiveness?” repeated Mr. Filley, thoughtfully. “Yes; I think so.” -Then he rose, crossed the room to a large safe, in which he opened a -small drawer. From this he took a small package of papers which he -placed in Mrs. Fortescue’s hands. She recognized her own reports, and -also a curious scrawl on a crumpled and discolored piece of paper, which -also she promptly recognized. It was a “screw” that had held three -cents’ worth of snuff, and she had seen it in Mrs. Filley’s hand just -about the time that dear old lady was passing away. She read it now for -the first time: - -[Illustration] - -“dere mr Filley i kno that fort escew woman is gone to kepon senden them -re ports an nottel you ime dedd but iam Sara Filley.” - - * * * * * - -“She sent that to me,” said Mr. Filley, “by Doctor Butts, the house -physician, and between us we managed to get a ‘line’ on you, Mrs. -Fortescue; so that there’s been a little duplicity on both sides.” - -Mrs. Fortescue looked at him with admiration mingled with respect; then -she looked puzzled. - -“But why, if you knew it all along, why did you--” - -“Why did I let you go on?” repeated Mr. Filley. “Well, you’ve got to -have the whole duplicity, I see.” He went back to the drawer and took -out another object. It was a faded photograph of a young lady with her -hair done up in a net, and with a hat like a soap-dish standing straight -up on her head. - -“Twenty-five years ago,” said Mr. Filley, “boy; three dollars a week in -an architect’s office; spent two-fifty of them, two weeks running, for -flowers for that young lady when she played her first engagement in New -Haven. Walked there. Paid the other fifty cents to get into the theatre. -Lived on apples the rest of the week. Every boy does it. Never forgets -it. Place always remains soft.” - -And, as Mrs. Fortescue sat and looked long and earnestly at the picture, -a soft color came into her face that was born rather of memory than of -her love for acting; and yet it wonderfully simulated youth and fresh -beauty and a young joy in life. - - - - -“THE MAN WITH THE PINK PANTS.” - - -This is a tale of pitiless and persistent vengeance, and it shows by -what simple means a very small and unimportant person may bring about -the undoing of the rich, great and influential. It was told to me by my -good friend, the Doctor, as we strolled through the pleasant suburbs of -a pretty little city that is day by day growing into greatness and -ugliness, as what they call a manufacturing centre. - -We had been watching the curious antics of a large man who would have -attracted attention at any time on account of his size, his luxuriant -hair and whiskers, and the strange condition of the costly clothing he -wore--a frock-coat and trousers of the extremest fashion, a rolling -white waist-coat, gray-spatted patent-leathers, and a silk hat. But all -these fine articles of apparel were much soiled in places, his -coat-collar was half turned up, the hat had met with various mishaps, -his shoes were scratched and dusty, his cravat ill-tied, and altogether -his appearance suggested a puzzling combination of prosperity and hard -luck. His doings were stranger than his looks. He tacked cautiously -from side to side of the way, peered up a cross-street here; went slowly -and cautiously up another for a few yards, only to return and to efface -himself for a moment behind a tree or in a doorway. - -Suddenly he gave signs of having caught sight of somebody far up a -narrow lane. Promptly bolting into the nearest front yard, he got behind -the syringa bush and waited patiently until another man, smaller, but -much more active, hurried sharply down the lane, glancing suspiciously -around. This second person missed seeing the big man, and after waiting -irresolutely a moment or two, he hailed a street-car going toward the -town. At the same time another car passed him going in the opposite -direction. With incredible agility, the large man darted from behind the -syringa bush and made the second car in the brief second the little -man’s back was turned. Swinging himself inside, the figures on the rear -platform promptly concealed him from view, and as he was whirled past us -we could distinctly hear him emit a tremendous sigh or puff of profound -relief. - -“You don’t know him?” said the Doctor, smiling. “Yes, you do; at least, -you have seen him before; and I will show you him in his likeness as you -saw him two little years ago. - -“Such as you see that man to-day,” continued the Doctor, as we strolled -toward the town, “he is entirely the creation of one small and -insignificant man; not the man you just saw watching for him, but -another so very insignificant that his name even is forgotten by the few -who have heard it. I alone remember his face. Nobody knows anything else -that throws light on his identity, except the fact that he was on one -occasion addressed as ‘Mr. Thingumajig,’ and that he is or was a writer -for the press, in no very great way of business. Now let us turn down -Main Street, and I will show you the man he reduced to the ignominious -object we have just been watching.” - -We soon stopped at a photograph gallery, and the Doctor led me, in a way -that showed that his errand was not a rare one, to a little room in the -rear, where, on a purple velvet background, hung a nearly life-size -crayon portrait. It represented a large gentleman--the large gentleman -whom we had just seen--attired in much similar garments, only that in -the picture his neatness was spotless and perfect. Not a wrinkle, not a -stain marred him from top to toe. He stood in the graceful and dignified -attitude of one who has been set up by his fellow-citizens to be looked -at and admired, and who knows that his fellow-citizens are only doing -the right thing by him. His silk hat was jauntily poised upon his hip, -and the smile that illuminated his moustache and whiskers was at once -genial, encouraging, condescending, and full of deep religious and -political feeling. It was hardly necessary to look at the superb gilt -inscription below to know that that portrait was “Presented by the -Vestry of St. Dives Church, on the Occasion of his Retirement from their -Body to Assume the Burden of Civic Duties in the Assembly of the State -that Counts Him Among her Proudest Ornaments.” - -[Illustration] - -“Mr. Silo!” cried I. - -“Mr. Silo,” said the Doctor; “but he did not go to the Assembly, and -that picture has never been presented. When you saw him to-day he was -running away from his brother-in-law, to get to New York to go on any -sort of a spree to drown his misery. Come along, and you shall hear the -tale of a fallen idol. And if, as you listen, an ant should cross your -path, do not step on it. Mr. Silo stepped upon an ant, and the ant made -of him the thing you saw.” - -I do not tell this story exactly in the Doctor’s own words, though I -will let it look as if I did. The trouble of letting non-literary people -tell stories in their own language is that the “says I’s,” and the “says -he’s,” and the “well, this man” passages, and “then this other man I was -telling you about” interpolations take up so much of the narrative that -a story like this could not be read while a pound of candles burned. - -But here is about the way the Doctor ought to have told it: - -I do not wish to undervaluate the good influence of Mr. Silo in our -city. He has been a large and enterprising investor. He has built up the -town in many ways. He has been charitable and patriotic. He was a good -man; but he was not a saint. And a man has to be a saint to boom town -lots and keep straight. No; I’ll go further than that--it can’t be done! -George Washington couldn’t have boomed town lots and kept straight. And -Silo, as you can see by those whiskers, was no George Washington. Real -estate isn’t sold on the Golden Rule, you know. There were times when it -was mighty lucky for Silo that he was six feet high and weighed two -hundred pounds. - -I don’t know the details of the transaction, but I am afraid that Silo -treated the little newspaper man pretty shabbily. He was a decent, -hard-working, unobtrusive little fellow, and he and his wife had been -scraping and saving for years and years to buy a house with a garden to -it, in just such a town as this. Well, no, that’s not the way to put it. -They had fixed on a particular house in this particular town, and they -had been waiting several years for the lease of it to fall in. They were -ready with the price, and I do not doubt that Silo or his agents had at -one time accepted their offer for the place. But when the time came, -Silo backed out, refused to sell, and disowned the whole transaction. - -[Illustration] - -That, in itself, was a mean act. It was a trifling matter to Silo, but -it was a biggest kind of matter to the other man and his wife. They had -set their hearts on that particular house; they had stinted themselves -for a long, long time to lay up the money to buy it; and probably no -other house in the whole world could ever be so desirable to those two -people. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The man might have put up with -his disappointment, and perhaps even have forgiven Silo for the shabby -trick. But Silo, I suppose, felt ashamed of himself and went further -than he had meant to, in trying to lash himself into a real good, honest -indignation. At least, that is my guess at it; for Silo was neither -brutal nor stupid by nature; but on this occasion he had the incredible -cussedness to twit the little man on his helplessness. It was purely a -question of veracity between the two, and Silo pointed out that, as -against him, nobody would take the stranger’s word. That was true; but, -good Lord! Silo himself told me subsequently that it was the meanest -thing, under the circumstances, that he ever heard one man say to -another. He always maintained that he was right about the sale; but he -admitted that his roughing of the poor fellow was inexcusable; and the -thing that graveled him most and frightened him most in the end was that -he had called the poor man “Mr. Thingumajig.” He had not caught the real -name; he only remembered that it had some sort of a foreign sound that -suggested “Thingumajig” to his mind. - -Now, all that Silo had had before him previous to that outburst was only -a plain case of angry man; but from that time on he had ahead of him -through his pathway in life an incarnation of human hatred, out for -vengeance, and bound to have it. - -“Well, now the fun of the thing comes in,” said the Doctor. - -“I should think it was high time,” said I. - - * * * * * - -There was nothing very unusual in that little episode; but somehow it -got public, and was a good deal talked about; although, as I said, -hardly anybody knew the stranger, even by name. But, of course, it was -well nigh forgotten six months later, when the newspaper man came to the -front again. - -His reappearance took the form of such a singular exhibition of meekness -that it ought to have made Silo suspicious, to say the least. But he was -a bit of a bully; and, like all bullies, it was hard for him to believe -that a man who did not bluster could really mean fight. Perhaps he had -no chance of mercy at that time; but if he did he threw it away. - -The stranger wrote to the local paper a polite, even modest letter, -stating, very moderately, his grievance against Mr. Silo. He further -proposed a scheme, the adoption of which would obviate all possibilities -of such misunderstanding. I have forgotten what the scheme was. It was -not a good one, and I know now that it was not meant to be. The local -paper was the _Echo_. It was run by a shiftless young man named Meecham; -and, of course, Silo had him deep in his debt; and, of course, again, -Silo more or less ran the paper. So, when that letter arrived, Meecham -showed it to Silo, and Silo gave new cause of offense by violating the -honorable laws of newspaper controversy, and answering back in the very -same number of the paper. The matter of his reply was also injudicious. -He lost his temper at once when he saw that the letter was signed “Mr. -Thingumajig,” and he characterized both the plan and its proposer as -“preposterous.” I am inclined to think that that word “preposterous” -was just the word that the other man was setting a trap for. At any -rate, he got it, and he wanted nothing better. Here is his reply: - -[Illustration] - - AN OPEN LETTER TO P. Q. SILO, ESQ. - -MY DEAR MR. SILO: - - I greatly regret that my little scheme for the simplification of - the relations between intending purchasers and non-intending - sellers (so-called) of real estate should have fallen under your - disapprobation. Of course, I do not attempt to question your - judgement; but you must allow me to take exception to the language - in which that judgement is expressed; which is at once - inappropriate and insulting. You call me and my scheme - “preposterous;” and this shows that you do not know the meaning of - that frequently misused word. “Preposterous” is a word that may be - properly applied to a scheme that puts the cart before the - horse--“having that first which ought to be last,” as Mr. Webster’s - International Dictionary puts it--or to a thing or creature - “contrary to nature or reason; not adapted to the end; utterly and - glaringly foolish; unreasonably absurd; perverted.” If you want an - instance of its proper application, the word “preposterous” might - fitly be used in all its senses to describe your own brief but - startling appearance on Thursday evening last, between the hours of - nine and ten, in a certain quiet street of New York, in a pair of - pink pants. - - I remain, dear sir, - - Yours very truly, - - MR. THINGUMAJIG. - - - -That was all. Nothing more. But, as the lineman said of the two-thousand -volt shock, “it isn’t necessary to see some things to know that they’re -there.” - -Now I want you to note the devilish ingenuity of that phraseology. To -speak of “pink trousers” would serve only to call up an unattractive -mental picture. “Pink breeches” would only suggest the satin -knee-breeches of a page in a comic opera; but “pink pants” is a -combination you can’t get out of your head. It is not English; the word -“pants” is a vulgar contraction of the word pantaloons, and we don’t -wear pantaloons in these days. But “pants” is the funniest word of its -size that ever was invented, and it is just about the right word for -the hideous garment it belongs to. And whether there’s any reason or -logic in it or not, when I put those two little cheap words together and -say “pink pants,” I am certain of two things. First, you have got to -smile; second, you can’t forget it to save your neck. And that’s what -Mr. Thingumajig knew. I think he had everything laid out in his mind -just as it was going to happen. - -Meecham got that letter, and laid it aside to show to Silo; but as he -sat at his desk and worked, the salient phrase kept bobbing around in -his mind; and, finally, he said aloud: - -“Pink pants! What in thunder are pink pants, anyway?” - -His foreman heard him, and looked at him in amazement. - -“Pink pants,” he repeated; “that’s a new one on me.” - -Meecham picked up the letter again, and knit his brows as he studied it. - -“That’s right,” he said; “that’s what it is.” - -The foreman came and looked over his shoulder. - -“‘Pink pants,’” he repeated; “that’s right.” - -A man who had just come into the office looked at the two speakers with -astonishment. Meecham knew that he had come to put an advertisement in -the paper, and so he showed him the letter. - -“Well, I’m damned!” he said. “That’s right, though. It’s ‘pink pants,’ -on your life. But where in blazes would a man get pink pants, anyway?” - -When Mr. Silo saw the letter he told Meecham to “burke” it; and Meecham -put it in the waste-basket. The next day Silo made him take it out of -the waste-basket and print it. He explained that so many people had -asked him about the letter--and he said something to Meecham as to his -methods of running the office--that he thought it better to print it and -let the people see for themselves how absurd it was, or else they might -magnify it and think he was afraid to print it. Meecham did not say -anything at the moment. He did not like being blown up any more than the -rest of us do, however; and, when he had got the letter safely printed -and out before the public, he said to Silo: - -“You did just right about that letter. It wouldn’t have done for a man -of your position to have folks going around asking where you were on any -particular Thursday evening.” - -[Illustration] - -“Why, no!” said Silo; “of course it wouldn’t. Lemme see; was that the -day the infernal crank picked out?” - -“Thursday night, the eleventh,” said Meecham, his finger on the -calendar; “between nine and ten o’clock at night. Now, of course, Mr. -Silo, you know just where you were then.” - -“Why, of course!” said Silo. “Lemme see, now. Thursday the eleventh, -nine, ten at night. Why, I was--no--why, _Thursday, the eleventh_!--Oh, -thunder!--no--it can’t be! Oh, certainly! yes; that’s all right, of -course! Is that Mr. Smith over there, the other side of the street? I’ve -got to speak to him a minute. I’ll see you to-morrow. Good-night, my -boy!” - - * * * * * - -How much of an expert in human nature are you? If I tell you that Mr. -Silo insisted on having every first impression of an edition of the -_Echo_ sent to his house by special messenger the instant it was -printed, whether he was at home or not, and that he did this just to -make Meecham feel the bitterness of the servitude of debt, what do you -deduce or infer from that? That somebody else was tyrannizing over Silo? -Quite right! Mrs. Silo was a woman who opened all of her husband’s -letters--that came to the house. And she looked at Silo’s paper before -he saw it himself. - -And when Silo got home that day, Mrs. Silo was waiting for him. Mrs. -Silo and the copy of the _Echo_, with the letter concerning Mr. Silo and -the pink pants. Mrs. Silo wanted to know about it. If Mr. Silo was in -any doubt about Thursday night, the eleventh, Mrs. Silo was not. On -that night Mr. Silo had been expected out on the train leaving New York -at eight o’clock. He had arrived on the train leaving New York at ten -o’clock. There was no trouble at all in identifying the night. Mrs. Silo -reminded him that it was the night of the day when he took in a certain -hank of red Berlin wool to be delivered to Mrs. Silo’s mother, who lived -in 14th Street; which, as Mrs. Silo remarked, is not a quiet street. She -also reminded Mr. Silo that on his appearance that evening she had asked -him if he had delivered that hank of red Berlin wool at the house of his -mother-in-law, and he had answered that he had; that his lateness was -due to that cause; and, furthermore, that his dear mother-in law was -very well. - -[Illustration] - -To this Mr. Silo responded that his statements on Thursday evening were -perfectly correct. - -Then Mrs. Silo told him that since the arrival of the paper she had made -a trip to New York to inform herself as to the true condition of -affairs. And, furthermore, on Thursday the eleventh, Mrs. Silo’s mother -had been confined to her bed all day with a severe neuralgic headache, -all the other members of the family being absent at the bedside of a -sick relative; the cook had had a day off, and the aged waitress, who -had been in the family twenty-five years, was certain that no one had -entered the house up to the return of the absent members at eight, -sharp, when, the sick relative being by that time a dead relative, the -house was closed. So much for furthermore. Now, moreover, the hank of -red Berlin wool had arrived at the house in Fourteenth Street four days -after the date in question. It came through the United States mail, -wrapped up in a sheet of tinted notepaper, scented with musk, and -addressed in a sprawling but unmistakably feminine hand. - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Silo made an explanation. It was unsatisfactory. - - * * * * * - -It had long been known in the town that suspicion was rife in the Silo -household. It was now known that suspicion had ripened into certainty. -Events of that kind belong to what may be classed as the masculine or -strictly necessary and self-protective scandal. News of the event goes -in hushed whispers through the masculine community--the brotherhood of -man, as you might say. One man says to his neighbor, “Let’s get Johnston -and go down to Coney Island this afternoon.” “Johnston isn’t going down -to Coney Island this week,” says the neighbor. “Johnston miscalculated -his wine last night, and Mrs. Johnston is good people to leave alone -this morning.” - -In a case so much more serious than a mere case of intoxication as -Silo’s was supposed to be, you can readily understand that the scandal -of the pink pants spread through the town like wildfire. Silo had -already resigned from the vestry, so all the vestry could do was to -pitch in and see that he did not get the ghost of a show as a candidate -for assembly. It was not much of a job, under the circumstances, and the -vestry did it very easily. - - * * * * * - -“Well, but what _had_ Silo done?” I asked the Doctor. “And what were the -pink pants, anyway?” - -“Silo hadn’t done a thing,” replied the Doctor. “Not a blessed -thing--except to tell a tiny little bit of a two-for-one-cent fib about -that hank of worsted. I met Mr. Thingumajig in Chicago last year, and -he told me how he worked the whole scheme. The gist of the invention lay -in the ‘pink pants.’ Any fool can put up a job to make a man’s wife -jealous; but it takes the genius of deathless malevolence to invent a -phrase sure to catch every ear that hears it; sure to interest and -puzzle and excite every mind that gives it lodgment, and to tie that -phrase up to an individuality in such a way that it conveys an -accusation almost without form and void, and yet hideously suggestive of -iniquity. - -“That is just what the little newspaper cuss did with Silo. He was bent -on revenge, and he gave up a certain portion of his time to shadowing -him. You must remember that, while he had reason to remember Silo, Silo -had hardly any to remember him. Well, he told me that he dogged Silo for -days--months, even--trying to catch him in some wrong-doing. But Silo, -big and blustering as he looked, with his whiskers and his knowing air, -was an innocent, respectable, henpecked ass. Outside of business, all -that he ever did in New York was to go to his mother-in-law’s house at -his wife’s bidding to execute shopping commissions and the like. For -instance, this hank of Berlin wool the old lady had bought for her -daughter; the shade was wrong, and the daughter sent it back. Mr. -Thingumajig--never mind his name now--had been tracking Silo on his -trips to Fourteenth Street for weeks, and had just learned their -innocent nature. His soul was full of rage. He got into a green car with -Silo, going to the ferry. The evening was hot. Silo dozed in the corner -of the car. The hank of red Berlin wool lay on the seat beside him. Mr. -Thingumajig saw it, and saw the letter pinned to it, addressed by Mrs. -Silo to her mother. In that instant he conceived the crude basis of his -plot--to appropriate the hank, suppress the letter, souse the wool with -cheap perfume, get his wife to readdress the parcel in her worst -hand--and to rely in pretty good confidence on Silo’s telling a lie at -one end or both ends of the line about the missing wool. Silo was not -much of a sinner, but a man who loses his wife’s hank of Berlin wool and -goes home and owns up about it is a good deal of a saint. The chances -were all in Mr. Thingumajig’s favor.” - - * * * * * - -“But,” said I, “when you had met Mr. Thingumajig and became possessed of -the plot, why didn’t you come back here and tell all about it, and clear -up poor Silo?” - -[Illustration] - -The Doctor looked at me pityingly, almost contemptuously. - -“My dear fellow,” he said, as if he were talking to a child, “what was -my word to those pink pants? I tried it on, until I found that people -simply began to suspect me, and to think that I might be Silo’s -accomplice in iniquity. There wasn’t the least use in it. If I talked -to a man, he would hear me through; and then he would wag his head and -say, ‘That’s all very well; but how about those pink pants? If there -weren’t any pink pants how did they come to be mentioned?’ And that was -the way everywhere. I could explain all about poor Silo’s foolish little -lie, and they would say, ‘Oh, yes, that’s possible; a man might lie -about a hank of wool if he had the kind of wife Silo’s got; but how -about those pink pants?’ And when it wasn’t _those_ pink pants, it was -_them_ pink pants. And after a while I gave it up. Silo had got to -drinking pretty hard by that time, in order to drown his miseries; and -of course that only confirmed the earlier scandal. Now, Silo never was a -man that could drink; it never did agree with him, and he has got so -wild recently that Mrs. Silo has her two brothers take turns to come out -here and try to control him. Of course that makes him all the wilder.” - -At the end of Main Street I parted from my friend, the Doctor, and -shortly I crossed the pathway of another citizen who had seen the two of -us bidding good-by. - -“He’s a nice man, the Doctor is,” said the citizen; “but the trouble -with him is, he’s altogether too credulous and sympathetic. Now, I -wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been making some defense to you of the -goings on of that man Silo. He’s a sort of addled on that subject. May -be it’s just pure charity, of course; and may be, equally, he was in -with Silo when Silo wasn’t so openly disgraceful; but if you want to -know what that man Silo is, I’ll tell you. The people around here, -sir--the people who ought to know--do you know what they call him, sir? -Well, sir, they call him, ‘The Man with the Pink Pants.’ And do you -suppose for one minute, sir, that a man gets a name fixed on him like -that without he’s deserved it? No, sir; your friend there is a good man, -and a charitable man, but as for judgement of character, he ain’t got -it. And if you’re a friend of his, you’ll tell him that the less he has -to say about ‘The Man with the Pink Pants’--the better for _him_.” - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE THIRD FIGURE IN THE COTILLION. - - -Around the little island of Ausserland the fishing-smacks hover all -through the season. They rarely go out of sight; or, indeed, stand far -off shore, for life is easy in Ausserland, and the famous Ausserland -herrings, which give the island its prosperity, are oftenest to be -caught in the broad reaches of shallow water that surround the island. -Beyond these reaches there are fish, too; but out there the waters are -more turbulent. And why should a fisherman risk his life and his -beautiful brown duck sails in treacherous seas, when he has his -herring-pond at his own door-step, so to speak. And they have a saying -in Ausserland that if you are drowned you may go to heaven; but -certainly not to Ausserland. - -And who would want to leave Ausserland? Life is so easy there that it -takes most of the inhabitants about ninety years to die--and even then -you can hardly call it dying. Life’s pendulum only slows down day by -day, and swings through an arc that imperceptibly diminishes as the -years go on, until at last, without surprise, without shock, almost -without regret, so gradual is the process, you perceive that it has -stopped. And then the whole village, all in Sunday clothes, marches out -to the little graveyard on the hill, and somebody’s great birchen -beer-mug is hung on the living-room wall in memory of one who ate and -drank and slept, and who is no more. There are rooms in those old houses -in Ausserland where the wooden mugs hang in a double row, and the oldest -of them was last touched by living lips in days when the dragon-ships of -the Vikings ploughed that Northern sea. - -[Illustration] - -Ausserland is a principality, and a part of a mighty empire; but except -that it has to pay its taxes, and in return is guaranteed immunity from -foreign invasion, it might just as well be an independent kingdom; or, -rather, an independent state, for it is governed by Burgesses, elected -by the people to administer laws made hundreds of years ago, and still -quite good and suitable. If a man steals his neighbor’s goods, he is put -in the pillory. But what should a man steal his neighbor’s goods for -when he has all the goods that he wants of his own? The last time the -pillory was used was for a shipwrecked Spanish sailor who refused to go -to church on the ground of a rooted prejudice against the Protestant -religion. And it must have been a singularly comfortable pillory, for -somehow or other he managed to carve his name on it during the hour in -which he stood there--his name and the date of the event, and there they -are to this day: “Miguel Diaz jul 6 1743.” My own opinion is that they -did not even let the top-piece down on him. - -The men of Ausserland are not liable to conscription, and as no ships of -war ever come to their odd corner of the sea, they know no more of the -mighty struggles of their great empire than if they were half a world -away. This is a part of the beautiful understanding which the -Ausserlanders have established with their hereditary Prince and with the -imperial government. The Prince lives at the court of the Emperor, and -none of his line has seen Ausserland since his grandfather was there in -the last century for a day’s visit. Yet his relations with his subjects -are of a permanently pleasant nature. They pay him his taxes, of which -he hands over the lion’s share to the government, keeping enough for -himself to attire his plump person in beautiful uniforms and tight -cavalry boots, and to cultivate the most beautiful port-wine nose in the -whole court. The amount of the taxes has been settled long ago, and it -is always exactly the same. The Ausserland fishermen are like a sort of -deep-sea Dutchmen, independent, sturdy and shrewd. They know just how -much they ought to pay; and they pay it, and not one soumarkee more or -less. Ages ago the hereditary Princes discovered that if they put up the -tax-rate, the herring fisheries promptly failed just in the necessary -proportion to bring the assessment back to the old figure. When they -lowered the rate the accommodating herring came back. It was a curious -if not pleasing freak of nature to which they had to accustom -themselves, for it never would have done to leave the market open to any -other supply of herrings than the famous herrings of Ausserland. So that -question settled itself. - -[Illustration] - -Twice a year the finest of the broad-breasted fishing smacks sailed for -the distant mainland, bearing heavy cargoes of dried fish, and beautiful -seashells such as were to be found nowhere else. Twice a year they came -back, bringing cloths and calicos, always of the same quality, color and -pattern, for the fashions never change in Ausserland. They brought also -drugs and medicines, school-books and pipes, tools and household -utensils of the finer sort, more delicate than the Ausserland ironsmiths -could fashion; brandy and cordials and wine in casks great and small, -and the few other articles of commerce for which they were dependent -upon the outer world; for the Ausserlanders supplied their own needs for -the most part, spun their own linen, tanned their own leather, built -their own boats, and generally “did” for themselves, as they say in New -England. Then it was, and then only, that the newspapers came to -Ausserland--a six-months’ collection of newspapers at each trip. And the -Head Burgess read them for the whole town. The Head Burgess was always a -man who had reached that period of thrift and prosperity at which it -seemed futile to toil longer, and who was both willing and able to give -his whole leisure to affairs of state. He it was who collected and -forwarded the taxes, and who stood ready to punish offenders, should any -one feel tempted to offend. The Head Burgess always grumbled a good -deal, and talked much of the burdens of public life; but it was -observant among even the unobservant Ausserlanders that the Head Burgess -was usually the fattest man in town; and the post was much sought after -because few Head Burgesses had been known to die under ninety-two or -three years of age. - -As a rule, the Head Burgess read slowly and with deliberation. Of a June -afternoon, when the fishermen came in from their day’s work, he would -stroll leisurely down to the wharves, with his long pipe with the -painted china bowl, and would give forth the news of the day to the -fishermen. - -“Three families,” he would say, “were frozen to death in Hamburg.” - -“Ah, indeed!” some courteous listener would respond; “and when was -that?” - -“In February last,” the Head Burgess would reply; “it seems scandalous, -does it not, that people should never learn to go in-doors and keep the -fires lighted in Winter? Thank heaven, we have no such idiots here!” - -For an Ausserlander can never understand what it means to be poor or -needy. How can anybody want, he argues, while there are millions of -herring in the sea, and they come along every year just at the same -time? - -[Illustration] - -In Spring, of course, the Head Burgess gave the Ausserlanders a budget -of news that began with the preceding Summer. They listened to it -politely, as they listened to the pastor’s sermons. Outside of the -market-reports they had little interest in the world which ate their -herrings. Still, they were a polite and intelligent people, and they -were willing for once in a way to lend a courteous and attentive ear to -the doings and sayings of people who were not happy enough to live in -Ausserland. Thus it happened that they knew, several months after it -occurred, of the death of the reigning Emperor and the accession to the -throne of his son. The news was received with just the least shade of -disapproval. The preceding Emperor had come to the throne a sick man, -and had reigned but a short time. _His_ father had reigned about as long -as an Emperor can possibly reign, and they felt that he had done what -was expected of him. They hoped that their Emperors were not going to -get into the habit of reigning for a few months and then dying. It was -annoying, they thought, to have to learn new names every few years. - -So it is not remarkable that the new Emperor had been several months on -his throne before the good people of Ausserland learned that he was a -very peculiar young man, with a character of his own, and with a -passion, that almost amounted to a mania, for re-establishing an ancient -order of things that had well-nigh perished from the face of the earth. -Nor is it to be wondered at that, considering all news of the court as -frivolous and probably fictitious, they were utterly ignorant of a -controversy that had divided the whole social system of the empire into -two camps. Who could expect that in the cosy, well-furnished rooms of -the weather-beaten old houses of Ausserland it should be known that -there was a vast commotion in the Imperial court over the new cotillion -introduced by the Lord Chamberlain? It was a charming cotillion, all -agreed; the music was ravishing, and the figures were exquisitely -original; but the third figure--ah, there was the trouble!--the third -figure had not met with the approval of the matrons. The young girls and -the very young married women all liked it; and the men were as a unit in -its favor; but the more elderly ladies thought that it was indelicate, -and that it afforded opportunities for objectionable familiarities. A -hot war was raged between the two parties. The Emperor, of course, was -arbiter. He hesitated long. He was a very young man, and he took himself -very much in earnest. To him a matter of court punctilio had an -importance scarcely second to that of the fate of nations. As soon as an -objection was offered, he issued an edict proscribing the performance -of - -[Illustration] - -the dance of dubious propriety until such time as he should have made up -his imperial mind as to its character. For three months its fate -trembled in the balance. Then he decided that it should be and continue -to be; and he issued a formal proclamation to that effect--the first -formal proclamation of his reign. It was an opportunity for the -re-introduction of ancient and ancestral methods which the young Emperor -could not lose. The edict had gone forth in haste by word of mouth and -by notice in the daily papers; but he resolved that the proclamation -should go by special envoy to all the principalities that composed his -powerful empire. Accordingly, an officer of high rank, specially -despatched from the court, read his Imperial Majesty’s proclamation in -every principality of the nation; and thereafter it was legitimate and -proper to dance the third figure of the new Lord Chamberlain’s cotillion -on all occasions of lordly festivities, and all the elderly ladies -accepted the situation with a cheerful submissiveness, and set about -using it for scandal-mongering purposes with promptitude and alacrity. - - * * * * * - -Early one Midsummer morning a strange fishing-smack was sighted from the -Ausserland wharves far out at sea, beating up against an obstinate wind, -and coming from the direction of the mainland. This in itself was enough -to cause general comment and to stir the whole village with a thrill of -interest; for strange vessels rarely came that way, except under stress -of storm; and though the sea was running unusually high there had been -no storm in many days. Besides, why should a vessel obviously unfitted -for that sort of sailing, beat up against a wind that would take her to -the mainland in half the time? Yet there she was, making for the island -in long, laborious tacks. Everybody stopped work to look at her; but -work was suspended and utterly thrown aside when she hoisted a pennant -that, according to the nautical code, signified that she had on board an -Envoy from his Imperial Majesty. - -The whole town was astir in a moment. The shops and schools closed. The -village band began to practice as it had never practiced before. The -burgesses and other officials donned their garments of state. A -committee was promptly appointed to prepare a public banquet worthy of -the Emperor’s messenger. The children were sent collecting flowers, and -were instructed how to strew them in his path. The bell-ringers gathered -and arranged an elaborate - -[Illustration] - -programme of chimes. The citizens got into their Sunday clothes, which -were most wonderful clothes in their way; and the town-crier, who played -the trumpet, got his instrument out and polished it up until it shone -like gold. But the man who felt most of the burden of responsibility -upon his shoulders was the Head Burgess. He got into his robes of office -as quickly as his wife and his three daughters could array him, and then -he hastened to the Rathhaus, or Town Hall, and there consulted the -archives to find out from the records of his predecessors what it became -him to do when his Majesty’s Envoy should announce his errand. He must -make a speech, that was clear, for the honor of the Island. But what -speech should he make? He could not compose one on the instant--in fact, -he could not compose one at all. What had his forerunners done on like -occasions? He looked over the record and found that three King’s Envoys -had landed on the Island: one in 1699, to announce that the Island had -been ceded by one kingdom to another; another in 1764, to inform the -people that the great-grandmother of the hereditary Prince was dead; and -another in 1848, to proclaim that the Islanders’ right of exemption from -conscription was suspended. In not one of these cases, it should be -remarked, did the message of King, Prince or Emperor, change the face of -affairs on the Island in the smallest degree. The herring market -remaining stable, the Ausserlanders cared no whit to whom they paid -taxes; as to the death of the Prince’s great-grandmother, they simply -remarked that it was a pity to die at the early age of eighty-seven; and -when they were told that they would have to get up a draft and be -conscripted into the army or navy, they just went fishing, and there the -matter dropped. One is not an Ausserlander for nothing. - -But the Head Burgess found that the same speech had been used on all -three occasions. It was short, and he had little difficulty in -committing it to memory, for it took the ship of his Majesty’s Envoy six -good hours to get into port. This was the speech: - -“Noble and Honorable, Well and High-Born Sir, the people of Ausserland -desire through their representative, the Head Burgess, to affirm their -unwavering loyalty to the most illustrious and high-born personage who -condescends to assume the government of a loyal and independent -populace, and to express the hope that Divine Providence may endow him -with such power and capacity as properly befit a so-situated ruler.” - -So heartily did the whole population throw itself into the work of -preparing to receive the distinguished visitor, that everything had been -in readiness a full hour, when, in the early afternoon, the -fishing-smack finally made her landing. During this long hour, the whole -town watched the struggles of the little boat with the baffling wind and -waves. Everybody was in a state of delighted expectancy. An Emperor’s -Envoy does not call on one every day, and his coming offered an excuse -for merry-making such as the prosperous and easy-going people of -Ausserland were only too willing to seize. - -So, when the boat made fast to the wharf, the signal guns boomed, and -the people cheered again and again, and threw their caps in the air when -the King’s Envoy appeared from the cabin and returned the salute of the -Head Burgess. - -And, indeed, the King’s Envoy was a most satisfactory and gratifying -spectacle of grandeur. He was so grand and so gorgeous generally that he -might have been taken for the hereditary Prince, himself, had it not -been well known that the color of the hereditary Prince’s nose was -unchangeable--being what the ladies call a fast red--whereas, this -gentleman’s face was as white as the Head Burgess’s frilled shirtfront. -But his clothes! So splendid a uniform was never seen before. Some of it -was of cobalt blue and some of it of Prussian blue, and some of it of -white; and, all over, in every possible place, it was decorated with a -gold lace and gold buttons and silken frogs and tassels, and every other -device of beauty that ingenuity could suggest, with complete disregard -of cost. - -[Illustration] - -And then His Serene Highness, Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of -Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, stepped on the wharf and -graciously introduced himself to the representative of the people, who -grasped him warmly by the hand with a cordiality untempered by awe; and -the people shouted again as they saw the two great men together; and not -one suspected the anguish hidden by that martial outside. For, of -course, as such things will happen, the Envoy selected to carry the -Emperor’s proclamation to this marine principality was a man who had -never been to sea in his life, and who never would have made a sailor if -he had been kept at sea until he was pickled. And for eighteen hours the -unfortunate messenger of good tidings had been tossed about in the dark, -close, malodorous little cabin of a fishing-smack on the breast of a -chopping sea, beating up against a strong head wind. And, oh! had he not -been sick? Sick, sick, sick, and then again sick--so sick, indeed, that -he had had to hide his gorgeous clothes under a sailor’s dirty -tarpaulin. This made him feel sicker yet; but, though in the course of -the trip he lost his respect for mankind, including himself, for -royalty, for religion, for life and for death, he still retained a vital -spark of respect for his beautiful clothes. He stood motionless upon the -wharf and returned the compliments of the Head Burgess in a husky voice -that sounded in his own ears strange and far off. The Herr Graf -Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, -Envoy of his Imperial Majesty, was waiting for the ground to steady -itself, for it was behaving as it had never behaved before, to his -knowledge. It rolled and it heaved, it flew up and it nearly hit him in -the face, then it slipped away from under him and rocked back again -sidewise. Never having been on an island before, the King’s Envoy might -have thought that the land was really afloat if he had not seen that -the wine in the silver cup which the Burgess was presenting to him was -swinging around like everything else without spilling a drop. - -Things began to settle a little after the Envoy had drunk the wine, and -when he had found that there was actually a carriage to take him to the -Town Hall, he brightened up wonderfully. He was much pleased to see also -that the Town Hall was solidly built of brick, and that it was to a -stone balcony that he was led to read his proclamation to the people. -Grasping the balustrade firmly with one hand, he read to the surging -crowd before him--he had heard of surging crowds before, but now he saw -one that really did surge--the message of his Imperial Master. The -proclamation was exceedingly brief, except for the recital of the titles -of the Emperor. The body of the document ran as follows: - -“I announce to my faithful, loyal and devoted subjects of the honorable -principality of Ausserland, that hereafter, by my favor and pleasure, -the use of the Third Figure in the Cotillion is graciously granted to -them without further restriction. Done, under my hand and seal, this -first day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and -ninety-two.” - -That was all. The people listened attentively and cheered -enthusiastically. Then the Envoy handed the proclamation and his -credentials to the Head Burgess, with a bow and a flourish, and -signified his intention of returning at once by the way he had come. Nor -could any entreaties prevail upon him even to stay to - -[Illustration] - -the banquet already spread. He told the Burgesses, with many compliments -and assurances of his lofty esteem, that he had another principality to -notify before six o’clock the next morning, and that the business of his -Imperial Master admitted of not so much as a moment’s delay. The truth -of the matter, however, he kept to himself. For one thing, he could not -have gazed upon food without disastrous results. For another, he was -experiencing an emotion which in any other than a military breast would -have been fear. He had but one wish in the world, and that was to get -back to the mainland, the breeze being in his favor going back and -promising a quicker passage. Indeed it was with difficulty that he -repressed a mad desire to ask the Head Burgess whether the island ever -fetched loose and floated further out, or sank to the bottom. However, -he maintained his dignity to the last; and, a half an hour later, as -the people watched the fishing-smack with the Imperial ensign sail forth -upon the dancing sea, bearing the Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, -of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, they all agreed that, for a -short visit, he made a very satisfactory King’s Envoy. - -But they could banquet very well without assistance from Envoys or -anybody, and they sat them down in the great hall of the Rathhaus, and -they fell upon the smoked herring and the fresh herring, and the pickled -herring, and the smoked goose-breast and the potato salad, and all the -rest of the good things, and they drank great tankards of home-made -beer, and great flagons of imported Rhenish wine; and, after that, they -smoked long pipes and chatted contentedly, mainly about the -herring-market. - -They had reached this stage in the proceedings before it occurred to any -one in the company to broach the comparatively uninteresting subject of -the Imperial proclamation, and then somebody said in a casual way that -he did not think he had quite caught the sense of it. Soon it appeared -that no one else had. The Head Burgess was puzzled. “I have just copied -it into the Town Archives,” he said; “but, upon my soul, I never thought -of considering the sense of it.” So the document was taken from the -ponderous safe of the Rathhaus and passed around among the goodly -company, each one of whom read it slowly through and smoked solemnly -over it. The Head Burgess was appealed to for the meaning of the word -“cotillion.” He had to confess that he did not exactly know. He -believed, however, that it was a custom-house word, and had reference -to the gauging of proof spirits. Then the Doctor was asked his opinion. -He said, somewhat uneasily, that he thought it was one of the new -chemicals recently derived from coal tar; but, with all due respect to -his Imperial Majesty, he took no stock in such new-fangled nonsense, and -castor-oil would be good enough for his patients while he lived. The -School-Master would know, some one suggested; but the School-Master had -gone home early, being in expectation of an addition to his family. The -Dominie took a hand in the discussion, and calling attention to the word -figure, opined that it belonged to some branch of astronomy hitherto -under the ban of the universities on account of its tendency to unsettle -the minds of young men and promote the growth of infidelity. He lamented -the atheistical tendency of modern times, and shook his head gravely as -he said he hoped that the young Emperor would not be led astray. - -[Illustration] - -Many suggestions were made; so many, indeed, that, it being plainly -impossible to arrive at a consensus of opinion, the subject was dropped; -and, wrapped in great clouds of tobacco smoke, the conversation made its -way back to the herring fisheries. - -But, later in the night, as the Head Burgess and the Doctor strolled -slowly homeward, smoking their pipes in the calm moonlight, the question -came up again, and they were earnestly discussing it in deep, sonorous -tones when they came in front of the house of the School-Master, and saw -by a light in the window of his study that he was still waiting the -pleasure of Mrs. School-Master. They rapped with their pipes on the -door-post, giving the signal that had often called their old friend -forth to late card-parties at the tavern, and in a couple of -minutes--for no one hurries in Ausserland--he appeared at the door in -his old green dressing-gown and with his long-stemmed pipe in his mouth. - -Now, the School-Master was not only a man of profound learning, but a -man of rapid mental processes. He had heard from his open window the -discussion as his two friends slowly came down the street; and, in point -of fact, his professional instinct had led him to note the mystic word -when it dropped from the Envoy’s lips. This it was, rather than domestic -expectations, that had kept him awake so late. And in the time that -elapsed between the arrival of his friends and his appearance at the -door, he had prepared himself to meet the situation. - -He listened solemnly to the question with the tolerant interest of a man -of science, and he answered it without hesitation, in the imposing tone -of perfect knowledge. - -[Illustration] - -“A cotillion,” he said, decisively, “is the one-billionth part of a -minus million in quaternions, and is used by surveyors to determine the -logarithm of the cube root. That is, its use has hitherto been forbidden -to the government surveyors on account of the uncertainty of the -formula. That, however, has been finally determined by Prof. Lipsius, of -Munich, and hereafter it may be applied to delicate calculations in -determining the altitude of mountains too lofty for ascent. Gentlemen, I -should like to ask you in to take a night-cap with me, but, under the -circumstances, you understand.... Doctor, I don’t think we shall need -you to-night. Good-evening, friends.” - -The Doctor and the Head Burgess ruminated over this new acquisition to -their stock of knowledge as they strolled on down the street. At last -the latter broke the silence and said, in a tone in which conviction -struggled with sleepiness: - -“Doctor, I have often thought what a hard life those poor devils on the -mainland must have with their impassable mountains, and their railroads -that kill and mangle you if they get a millionth part of a cube root out -of the way, and the boundary-lines they are everlastingly quarreling -about. Why, here in Ausserland, see how simple it all is! We never have -any trouble about our boundary-lines. Where the land stops the water -begins, and where the land begins the water stops; and that’s all there -is to it!” - -[Illustration] - -And with these words, as the last puff of his pipe rose heavenward, the -Burgess dismissed the matter from his mind, and the Emperor’s -proclamation legitimizing the Third Figure of the Cotillion vanished -from his memory--and from that of all Ausserland--passing into oblivion -with those that had told of Ausserland’s change of nationality, of the -conscription of her exempt citizens, and of the death of the -great-grandmother of the hereditary Prince. - - - - -“SAMANTHA BOOM-DE-AY.” - - -It was a long, rough, sunlit stretch of stony turnpike that climbed -across the flanks of a mountain range in Maine, and skirted a great -forest for many miles, on its way to an upland farming-country near the -Canada border. - -As you ascended this road, on your right hand was a continuous wall of -dull-hued evergreens, straggly pines and cedars, crowded closely and -rising high above a thick underbrush. Behind this lay the vast, -mysterious, silent wilderness. Here and there the emergence of a foamy, -rushing river, or the entrance of a narrow corduroy road or trail, -afforded a glimpse into its depths, and then you saw the slopes of hills -and valleys, clad ever in one smoky, bluish veil of fir and pine. - -On the other hand, where you could see through the roadside brush, you -looked down the mountain slope to the plains below, where the brawling -mountain streams quieted down into pleasant water-courses; where broad -patches of meadow land and wheat field spread out from edges of the -woods, and where, far, far off, clusters of farm-houses, and further -yet, towns and villages, sent their smoke up above the hazy horizon. - -It was a road of so much variety and sweep of view, as it kept its -course along the boundary of the forest’s dateless antiquity, and yet in -full view of the prosperous outposts of a well-established civilization, -that the most calloused traveler might have been expected to look about -him and take an interest in his surroundings. But the three people who -drove slowly up this hill one August afternoon might have been passing -through a tunnel for all the attention they paid to the shifting scene. - -Their vehicle was a farm-wagon; a fine, fresh-painted Concord wagon. The -horses that drew it were large, sleek, and a little too fat. A -comfortable country prosperity appeared in the whole outfit; and, -although the raiment of the three travelers was unfashionably plain, -they all three had an aspect of robust health and physical well-being, -which was much at variance with their dismal countenances--for the -middle-aged man who was driving looked sheepish and embarrassed; the -good-looking, sturdy young fellow by his side was clearly in a state of -frank, undisguised dejection, and the black-garbed woman, who sat behind -in a splint-bottomed chair, had the extra-hard granite expression of the -New England woman who particularly disapproves of something; whether -that something be the destruction of her life’s best hopes or her -neighbor’s method of making pie. - -For mile after mile they jogged along in silence. Occasionally the elder -man would make some brief and commonplace remark in a tentative way, as -though to start a conversation. To these feeble attempts the young man -made no response whatever. The woman in black sometimes nodded and -sometimes said “Yes?” with a rising inflection, which is a form of -torture invented and much practiced in the New England States. - -[Illustration] - -It was late in the afternoon when a noise behind and below them made -them all glance round. The middle-aged man drew his horses to one side; -and, in a cloud of dust, a big, old-fashioned stage of a dull-red color -overtook them and lumbered on its way, the two drivers interchanging -careless nods. - -The woman did not alter her rigid attitude, and kept her eyes cast down; -but the passing of the stage awakened a noticeable interest in the two -men on the front seat. The elder gazed with surprise and curiosity at -the freight that the top of the stage-coach bore--three or four -traveling trunks of unusual size, shape and color, clamped with iron and -studded with heavy nails. - -“Be them trunks?” he inquired, staring open-mouthed at the sight. “I -never seen trunks like them before.” - -[Illustration] - -Neither of his companions answered him; but a curious new expression -came into the young man’s face. He sat up straight for the first time; -and, as the wagon drew back into the narrow road, he began to whistle -softly and melodiously. - - * * * * * - -When Samantha Spaulding was left a widow with a little boy, she got, as -one of her neighbors expressed it, “more politeness than pity.” In -truth, in so far as the condition has any luck about it, Samantha was -lucky in her widowhood. She was a young widow, and a well-to-do widow. -Old man Spaulding had been a good provider and a good husband; but he -was much older than his wife, and had not particularly engaged her -affections. Now that he was dead, after some eighteen months of married -life, and had left her one of the two best farms in the county, -everybody supposed that Mis’ Spaulding would marry Reuben Pett, who -owned the other best farm, besides a saw-mill and a stage-route. That -is, everybody thought so, except Samantha and Pett. They calmly kept on -in their individual ways, and showed no inclination to join their two -properties, though these throve and waxed more and more valuable year by -year. They were good friends, however. Reuben Pett was a sagacious -counselor, and a prudent man of affairs; and when Samantha’s boy became -old enough to work, he was apprenticed to Mr. Pett, to the end that he -might some day take charge of the saw-mill business, which his mother -stood ready to buy for him. - -[Illustration] - -But the youthful Baxter Spaulding had not reached the age of twenty when -he cast down his mother’s hopes in utter ruin by coming home from a -business trip to Augusta and announcing that he was going to marry, and -that the bride of his choice was a young lady of the variety stage who -danced for a living, her specialty being known as “hitch-and-kick.” - -Now, this may not seem, to you who read this, quite a complete, perfect -and unimprovable thing in the way of the abomination of desolation; but -then you must remember that you were not born and raised in a far corner -of the Maine hills, and that you probably have so frequently seen -play-actoress-women of all sorts that the mere idea of them has ceased -to give you cold creeps down your back. And to Samantha Spaulding the -whole theatrical system, from the Tragic Muse to the “hitch-and-kick -artiste,” was conceived in sin and born in iniquity; and what her son -proposed to do was to her no whit better than forgery, arson, or any -other ungodliness. To you of a less distinctively Aroostook code of -morals, I may say that the enchainer of young Spaulding’s heart was -quite as good a little girl in her morals and her manners as you need -want to find on the stage or off it; and “hitch-and-kick” dancing was to -her only a matter of business, as serio-comic singing had been to her -mother, as playing Harlequin had been to her father, and as -grinning through a horse-collar had been to her grandfather and -great-grandfather, famous old English clowns in their day, one of whom -had been a partner of Grimaldi. She made her living, it is true, by -traveling around the country singing a song called “Ta-ra-ra -Boom-de-ay,” which required a great deal of high-kicking for its just -and full artistic expression; but then, it should be remembered, it was -the way she had always made her living, and her mother’s living, too, -since the old lady lost her serio-comic voice. And as her mother had -taught her all she knew about dancing, and as she and her mother had -hardly been separated for an hour since she was out of her cradle, -Little Betty Billington looked on her profession, as you well may -imagine, with eyes quite different from those with which Mrs. Samantha -Spaulding regarded it. It was a lop-sided contest that ensued, and that -lasted for months. On one side were Baxter and his Betty and Betty’s -mama--after that good lady got over her natural objections to having -her daughter marry “out of the profession.” On the other side was -Samantha, determined enough to be a match for all three of them. Mr. -Reuben Pett hovered on the outskirts, asking only peace. - -At last he was dragged into the fight. Baxter Spaulding went to Bangor, -where his lady’s company happened to be playing, with the avowed -intention of wedding Betty out of hand. When his mother found it out, -she took Reuben Pett and her boy’s apprenticeship-indenture to Bangor -with her, caught the youngster ere the deed was done, and, having the -majesty of the law behind her, she was taking her helpless captive home -on this particular August afternoon. He was on the front seat of the -wagon, Samantha was on the splint-bottomed chair, and Reuben Pett was -driving. - - * * * * * - -It was a two-days’ drive from the railroad station at Byram’s Pond -around the spur of the mountain to their home. The bi-weekly stage did -it in a day; but it was unwonted traveling for Mr. Pett’s easy-going -team. Therefore, the three travelers put up at Canada Jake’s camp; so -called, though it was only on the edge of the wilderness, because it was -what Maine people generally mean when they talk of a “camp”--a large -shanty of rough, unpainted planks, with a kitchen and eating-room below, -and rudely partitioned sleeping-rooms in the upper story. It stood by -the roadside, and served the purpose of an inn. - -Canada Jake was lounging in the doorway as they came up, squat, -bullet-headed and bead-eyed; a very ordinary specimen of mean French -Canadian. He welcomed them in as if he were conferring a favor upon -them, fed them upon black, fried meat and soggy, boiled potatos, and -later on bestowed them in three wretched enclosures overhead. - -He himself staid awake until the sound of two bass and one treble snore -penetrated the thin partition planks; and then he stole softly up the -ladder that served for stairway, and slipped into the moonlit little -room where Baxter Spaulding was lying on a cot-bed six inches too short -for him. Putting his finger upon his lips, he whispered to the wakeful -youth: - -“Sh-h-h-h-h-h! You got you’ boots on?” - -“No,” said Baxter softly. - -“Come wiz me and don’ make no noise!” - -And the next thing that Baxter Spaulding knew, he was outside of the -house, behind the wood-pile, holding a slight but charming figure in his -arms, and saying: - -“Why, Betty! why, Betty!” in a dazed sort of way, while a fat and -motherly lady near by stood shaking with silent sobs, like a jelly-fish -convulsed with sympathy and affection. - -“We ’eaded you off in the stage-coach!” was all she said. - - * * * * * - -The next morning Mr. Reuben Pett was called out of the land of dreams by -a familiar feminine voice from the next room. - -“Reuben Pett!” it said; “_where is Baxter?_” - -“Baxter!” yelled Mr. Pett; “your ma wants yer!” - -[Illustration] - -But Baxter came not. His room was empty. Mr. Pett descended and found -his host out by the wood-pile, splitting kindling. Canada Jake had seen -nothing whatever of the young man. He opined that the youth most ’ave -got up airlee, go feeshin’. - -Reuben Pett went back and reported to Samantha Spaulding through the -door. Samantha’s voice came back to him as a voice from the bottom -sub-cellar of abysmal gloom. - -“Reuben,” she said; “them women have been here!” - -“Why, Samantha!” he said; “it ain’t possible!” - -“I heard them last night,” returned Samantha, in tones of conviction. “I -know, now. I did. I thought then I was dreamin’.” - -“Most likely you was, too!” said Mr. Pett, encouragingly. - -“Well, I wa’n’t!” rejoined Mrs. Spaulding, with a suddenness and an -acerbity that made her listener jump. “_They’ve stole my clothes!_” - -“Whatever do you mean, Samantha?” roared Reuben Pett. - -“I mean,” said Mrs. Spaulding, in a tone that left no doubt whatever -that what she did mean she meant very hard; “I mean that that hussy has -been here in the night, and has took every stitch and string of my -clothing, and ain’t left me so much as a button-hole, -except--except--except--” - -“Except what?” demanded Reuben, in stark amazement. - -“Except that there idolatrous flounced frock the shameless critter doos -her stage-dancing in!” - -Mr. Pett might, perhaps, have offered appropriate condolences on this -bereavement had not a thought struck him which made him scramble down -the ladder again and hasten to the woodshed, where he had put up his -team the night before. The team was gone--the fat horses and fresh -painted wagon, and the tracks led back down the road up which they had -ridden the day before. - -Once more Mr. Pett climbed the ladder; but when he announced his loss he -was met, to his astonishment, with severity instead of with sympathy. - -“I don’t care, Reuben Pett,” Samantha spoke through the door; “if you’ve -lost ten horses and nineteen wagons. You got to hitch some kind of a -critter to _suthin’_, for we’re goin’ to ketch them people to-day or my -name’s not Samantha Spaulding.” - -“But Law Sakes Alive, Samantha!” expostulated Mr. Pett; “you ain’t goin’ -to wear no circus clothes, be ye?” - -“You go hunt a team, Mr. Pett,” returned his companion, tartly; “I know -my own business.” - -[Illustration] - -Mr. Pett remonstrated. He pointed out that there was neither horse nor -vehicle to be had in the neighborhood, and that pursuit was practically -hopeless in view of the start which the runaways had. But Mrs. Spaulding -was obdurate with an obduracy that made the heart of Reuben Pett creep -into his boots. After ten minutes of vain combating, he saw, beyond a -doubt, that the chase would have to continue even if it were to be -carried on astraddle a pair of confiscated cows. Having learned that -much, he went drearily down again to discuss the situation with Canada -Pete. Canada Pete was indisposed to be of the slightest assistance, -until Mr. Pett reminded him of the danger of the law in which he stands -who aids a runaway apprentice in his flight. After that, the sulky -Canadian awoke to a new and anxious interest; and, before long, he -remembered that a lumberer who lived “a piece” up the road had a bit of -meadow-land reclaimed from the forest, and sometimes kept an old horse -in it. It was a horse, however, that had always positively refused to go -under saddle, so that a new complication barred the way, until suddenly -the swarthy face of the _habitant_ lit up with a joyful, white-toothed -grin. - -“My old calèche zat I bring from Canada! I let you have her, hey? You -come wiz me!” - -And Canada Pete led the way through the underbrush to a bit of a -clearing near his house, where were accumulated many years’ deposits of -household rubbish; and here, in a desert of tin-cans and broken bottles -and crockery, stood the oldest of all old calashes. - -There are calashes and calashes, but the calash or calèche of Canada is -practically of one type. It is a high-hung, tilting chaise, with a -commodious back seat and a capacious hood, and with an absurd, narrow, -cushioned bar in front for the driver to sit on. It is a -startling-looking vehicle in its mildest form, and when you gaze upon a -calash for the first time you will probably wonder whether, if a stray -boy should catch on behind, the shafts would not fly up into the air, -bearing the horse between them. Canada Pete’s calash had evidently stood -long a monument of decay, yet being of sturdy and simple construction, -it showed distinct signs of life when Pete seized its curved shafts and -ran it backward and forward to prove that the wheels could still revolve -and the great hood still nod and sway like a real calash in commission. -It was ragged, it was rusty, it was water-soaked and weather-beaten, -blistered and stained; but it hung together, and bobbed along behind -Canada Pete, lurching and rickety, but still a vehicle, and entitled to -rank as such. - -[Illustration] - -The calash was taken into Pete’s back-yard; and then, after a brief and -energetic campaign, Pete secured the horse, which was a very good match -for the calash. He was an old horse, and he had the spring-halt. He held -his long ewe-neck to one side, being blind in one eye; and this gave him -the coquettish appearance of a mincing old maid. A little polka step, -which he affected with his fore-feet, served to carry out this idea. - -Also, he had been feeding on grass for a whole Summer, and his spirits -were those of the young lambkin that gambols in the mead. He was happy, -and he wanted to make others happy, although he did not seem always to -know the right way to go about it. When Mr. Pett and Canada Pete had -got this animal harnessed up with odds and ends of rope and leather, -they sat down and wiped their brows. Then Mr. Pett started off to notify -Mrs. Samantha Spaulding. - -Mr. Pett was a man unused to feminine society, except such as he had -grown up with from early childhood, and he was of a naturally modest, -even bashful disposition. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was -startled when, on re-entering the living-room of Canada Pete’s camp, he -found himself face to face with a strange lady, and a lady, at that, of -a strangeness that he had never conceived of before. She wore upon her -head a preposterously tall bonnet, or at least a towering structure that -seemed to be intended to serve the purpose of a bonnet. It reminded -him--except for its shininess and newness--of the hood of the calash; -indeed, it may have suggested itself vaguely to his memory that his -grandmother had worn a piece of head-gear something similar, though not -so shapely, which in very truth was nicknamed a “calash” from this -obvious resemblance. The lady’s shapely and generously feminine figure -was closely drawn into a waist of shining black satin, cut down in a V -on the neck, before and behind, and ornamented with very large sleeves -of a strange pattern. But her skirts--for they were voluminous beyond -numeration--were the wonder of her attire. Within fold after fold they -swathed a foamy mystery of innumerable gauzy white underpinnings. As Mr. -Pett’s abashed eye traveled down this marvel of costume it landed upon a -pair of black stockings, the feet of which appeared to be balanced -somewhat uncertainly in black satin slippers with queer high heels. - -“Reuben Pett,” said the lady suddenly and with decision, “don’t you say -nothing! If you knew how them shoes was pinching me, you’d know what I -was goin’ through.” - -Mr. Pett had to lean up against the door-post before recovering himself. - -“Why, Samantha!” he said at last; “seems to me like you _had_ gone -through more or less.” - -Here Mrs. Spaulding reached out in an irritation that carried her beyond -all speech, and boxed Mr. Pett’s ears. Then she drew back, startled at -her own act, but even more surprised at Mr. Pett’s reception of it. He -was neither surprised nor disconcerted. He leaned back against the -door-post and gazed on unperturbed. - -“My!” he said; “Samantha, be them that play-actresses’ clo’es?” - -Mrs. Spaulding nodded grimly. - -“Well, all I’ve got to say, Samantha,” remarked Reuben Pett, as he -straightened himself up and started out to bring their chariot to the -door; “all I’ve got to say, and all I want to say, is that she must be a -mighty fine figure of a woman, and that you’re busting her seams.” - -Down the old dusty road the old calash jiggled and juggled, “weaving” -most of the way in easy tacks down the sharp declivities. On the front -seat--or, rather, on the upholstered bar--sat Reuben Pett, squirming -uncomfortably, and every now and then trying to sit side-saddle fashion -for the sake of easier converse with his fair passenger. Mrs. Spaulding -occupied the back seat, lifted high above her driver by the tilt - -[Illustration] - -of the curious vehicle, which also served to make the white foundation -of her costume particularly visible, so that there were certain jolting -moments when she suggested a black-robed Venus rising from a snowy -foam-crest. At such moments Mr. Pett lost control of his horse to such -an extent that the animal actually danced and fairly turned his long -neck around as though it were set on a pivot. When such a crisis was -reached, Mrs. Spaulding would utter a shrill and startling “hi!” which -would cause the horse to stop suddenly, hurling Mr. Pett forward with -such force that he would have to grab his narrow perch to save his neck, -and for the next hundred yards or so of descent his attention would be -wholly concentrated upon his duties as driver--for the horse insisted -upon waltzing at the slightest shock to his nerves. - -Mr. Pett’s tendency to turn around and stare should not be laid up -against him. For twenty years he had seen his neighbor, Mrs. Samantha -Spaulding, once, at least; perhaps twice or thrice; mayhap even six or -seven times a week; and yet, on this occasion, he had fair excuse for -looking over his shoulder now and then to assure himself that the fair -passenger at whose feet he--literally--sat, was indeed that very -Samantha of his twenty years’ knowledge. How was he, who was only a man, -and no ladies’ man at that, to understand that the local dressmaker and -the local habit of wearing wrinkly black alpaca and bombazine were to -blame for his never having known that his next door neighbor had a -superb bust and a gracious waist? How was he to know that the blindness -of his own eyes was alone accountable for his ignorance of the whiteness -of her teeth, and the shapeliness of the arms that peeped from the big, -old-fashioned sleeves? Samantha’s especial care upon her farm was her -well-appointed dairy, and it is well known that to some women work in -the spring-house imparts a delicate creaminess of complexion; but he was -no close observer, and how was he to know that that was the reason why -the little V in the front of Samantha’s black satin bodice melted so -softly into the fresh bright tint of her neck and chin? How, indeed, -was a man who had no better opportunities than Reuben Pett had enjoyed, -to understand that the pretty skirt-dancer dress, a dainty, fanciful -travesty of an old-time fashion, had only revealed and not created an -attractive and charming woman in his life-long friend and neighbor? - -[Illustration] - -Samantha was not thinking in the least of herself. She had accepted her -costume as something which she had no choice but to assume in the -exercise of an imperative duty. She wore it for conscience sake only, -just as any other New England martyr to her New England convictions of -right might have worn a mealsack or a suit of armor had circumstances -imposed such a necessity. - -But when Reuben Pett had looked around three or four times, she grasped -her skirts in both hands and pushed them angrily down to their utmost -length. Then, with a true woman’s dislike of outraging pretty dress -material, she made a furtive experiment or two to see if her skirts -would not answer all the purposes of modesty without hanging wrong. -Perhaps she had a natural talent that way; at any rate, she found that -they would. - -“Samantha,” said Reuben Pett, over his shoulder, “what under the sun -sense be there in chasin’ them two young fools up? If they want to -marry, why not let ’em marry? It’s natural for ’em to want to, and it’s -agin nature to stop ’em. May be it wouldn’t be sech a bad marriage, -after all. Now you look at it in the light of conscience--” - -“_You_’re a nice hand to be advocating marriage, Reuben Pett,” said -Mrs. Spaulding; “you jest hurry up that horse and I’ll look out for the -light of conscience.” - -Mr. Pett chirruped to the capering ewe-neck, and they jolted downward in -silence for a half a mile. Then he said suddenly, as if emerging from a -cloud of reflection: - -“I ain’t never said nothing agin marriage!” - - * * * * * - -Noon-time came, and the hot August sun poured down upon them, until the -old calash felt, as Mr. Pett remarked, like a chariot of fire. This -observation was evolved in a humorous way to slacken the tension of a -situation which was becoming distinctly unpleasant. Moved by a spirit of -genial and broadly human benevolence which was somewhat unnatural to -him, Mr. Pett had insisted upon pleading the cause of the youthful -runaways with an insistence that was at once indiscreet and futile. In -the end his companion had ordered him to hold his tongue, an injunction -he was quite incapable of obeying. After a series of failures in the way -of conversational starters, he finally scored a success by suggesting -that they should pause and partake of the meagre refection which Canada -Pete had furnished them--a modest repast of doughnuts, apples and -store-pie. This they ate at the first creek where they found a -convenient place to water the horse. - -When they resumed their journey, they found that they were all refreshed -and in brighter mood. Even the horse was intoxicated by the water and -that form of verdure which may pass for grass on the margin of a -mountain highway in Maine. - -This change of feeling was also perceptible in the manner and bearing of -the human beings who made up the cavalcade. Samantha adjusted her -furbelows with unconscious deftness and daintiness, while she gazed -before her into the bright blue heaven; and, I am sorry to say, sucked -her teeth. Reuben frankly flung one leg over the end of his seat, and -conversed easily as he drove along, poised like a boy who rides a -bare-back horse to water. After awhile he even felt emboldened to resume -the forbidden theme of conversation. - -“Nature is nature, Samantha,” he said. - -“’Tis in some folks,” responded Samantha, dryly; “there’s others seems -to be able to git along without it.” And Reuben turned this speech over -in his mind for a good ten minutes. - -Then, just as he was evidently about to say something, he glanced up and -saw a sight which changed the current of his reflections. It was only a -cloud in the heavens, but it evidently awakened a new idea in his mind. - -“Samantha,” he said, in a tone of voice that seemed inappropriately -cheerful; “they’s goin’ to be a thunder storm.” - -[Illustration] - -“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Spaulding. - -“Certain,” asseverated Mr. Pett; “there she is a-comin up, right agin -the wind.” - -A thunder storm on the edge of a Maine forest is not wholly a joke. It -sometimes has a way of playing with the forest trees much as a table -d’hôte diner plays with the wooden tooth-picks. Samantha’s protests, -when Mr. Pett stated that he was going to get under the cover of an -abandoned saw-mill which stood by the roadside a little way ahead of -them, were more a matter of form than anything else. But still, when -they reached the rough shed of unpainted and weather-beaten boards, and -Mr. Pett, in turning in gave the vehicle a sudden twist that broke the -shaft, her anger at the delay thus rendered necessary was beyond her -control. - -“I declare to goodness, Reuben Pett,” she cried; “if you ain’t the -awkwardest! Anybody’d a’most think you’d done that a purpose.” - -“Oh, no, Samantha!” said Reuben Pett, pleasantly; “it ain’t right to -talk like that. This here machine’s dreadful old. Why, Samantha, we’d -ought to sympathize with it--you and me!” - -“Speak for yourself, Mr. Pett,” said Samantha. “I ain’t so dreadful old, -whatever you may be.” - -At the moment Mr. Pett made no rejoinder to this. He unshipped the merry -horse, and tied him to a post under the old saw-mill, and then he pulled -the calash up the runway into the first story, and patiently set about -the difficult task of mending the broken shaft, while Samantha, looking -out through the broad, open doorway, watched the fierce Summer storm -descend upon the land; and she tapped her impatient foot until it almost -burst its too narrow satin covering. - -“No, Samantha,” Mr. Pett said, at last, intently at work upon his -splicing; “you ain’t so dreadful old, for a fact; but I’ve knowed you -when you was a dreadful sight younger. I’ve knowed you,” he continued, -reflectively, “when you was the spryest girl in ten miles round--when -you could dance as lively as that young lady whose clo’es you’re -a-wearin’.” - -“Don’t you dare to talk to me about that jade!” said Mrs. Spaulding, -snappishly. - -“Why, no! certainly not!” said Mr. Pett; “I didn’t mean no comparison. -Only, as I was a-sayin’, there was a time, Samantha, when you could -dance.” - -[Illustration] - -“And who says I can’t dance now?” demanded Mrs. Spaulding, with anger in -her voice. - -“My! I remember wunst,” said Mr. Pett; and then the sense of Samantha’s -angry question seemed to penetrate his wandering mind. - -“‘Dance now?’” he repeated. “Sho! Samantha, you couldn’t dance nowadays -if you was to try.” - -“Who says I couldn’t?” asked Samantha, again, with a set look developing -around the corners of her mouth. - -“_I_ say you couldn’t,” replied Mr. Pett, obtusely. “’Tain’t in nature. -But there was a time, Samantha, when you was great on fancy steps.” - -“Think I’m too old for fancy steps now, do you?” She looked at her -tormentor savagely, out of the corners of her eyes. - -“Well, not too old, may be, Samantha,” went on Mr. Pett; “but may be you -ain’t that limber you was. I know how it is. I ain’t smart as I used to -be, myself. Why, do you remember that night down at the Corners, when we -two was the only ones that could jump over Squire Tate’s high andirons -and cut a pigeon-wing before we come down?” - -Mr. Pett appeared to be entirely unconscious that Mrs. Spaulding’s bosom -was heaving, that her eyes were snapping angrily, and that her foot was -beating on the floor in that tattoo with which a woman announces that -she is near an end of her patience. - -“How high was them andirons?” she asked, breathlessly. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Reuben, indifferently. He kept his eyes -fixed on his work; but while he worked his splice closer with his right -hand, with his left he took off his hat and held it out rather more than -two feet above the floor. - -“’Bout as high as that, may be,” he said. “Remember the tune we done -that to? Went some sort of way like this, didn’t it?” And with that -remarkable force of talent which is only developed in country solitudes, -Mr. Pett began to whistle an old-time air, a jiggetty, wiggetty -whirl-around strain born of some dead darkey’s sea-sawing fiddle-bow, -with a volume of sustained sound that would have put to shame anything -the saw-mill could have done for itself in its buzzingest days. - -“Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee, ee _ee_!” whistled Mr. Pett; -and then, softly, and as if only the dim stirring of memory moved him, -he began to call the old figures of the old dance. - -“Forward all!” he crooned. “Turn partners! Sashay! Alleman’ all! -Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee _ee_!” - -And suddenly, like the tiger leaping from her lair, the soft pattering -and shuffling of feet behind him resolved itself into a quick, furious -rhythmic beat, and Samantha Spaulding shot high into the air, holding up -her skirts with both hands, while her neat ankles crossed each other in -a marvelous complication of agility a good twelve inches above his -outstretched hat. - -“There!” she cried, as she landed with a flourish that combined skill -and grace; “there’s what I done with you, and much I think of it! If you -want to see dancin’ that is dancin’ look here. Here’s what I did with -Ben Griggs at the shuckin’ that same year; and you wa’n’t there, and -good reason why!” - -And then and there, while Reuben Pett’s great rasping whistle rang -through the old saw-mill, shrilling above the roar of the storm -outside, Mrs. Samantha Spaulding executed with lightning rapidity and -with the precision of perfect and confident knowledge, a dancing-step -which for scientific complexity and daring originality had been twenty -years before the surprise, the delight, the tingling, shocking, tempting -nine-days’-wonder of the country-side. - -[Illustration] - -“Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee ee, ee _ee_!” Reuben -Pett’s whistle died away from sheer lack of breath as Samantha came to -the end of her dance. - - * * * * * - -There is nothing that hath a more heavy and leaden cold than a chilled -enthusiasm. When the storm was over, although a laughing light - -[Illustration] - -played over the landscape; although diamond sparkles lit up the grateful -white mist that rose from the refreshed earth; although the sun shone as -though he had been expecting that thunder storm all day, and was -inexpressibly glad that it was over and done with, Samantha leaned back -in her seat in the calash, and nursed a cheerless bitterness of -spirit--such a bitterness as is known only to the New England woman to -whom has come a realization of the fact that she has made a fool of -herself. Samantha Spaulding. Made a fool of herself. At her age. After -twenty years of respectable widowhood. Her, of all folks. And with that -old fool. Who’d be’n a-settin’ and a-settin’ and a-settin’ all these -years. And never said Boo! And now for him to twist her round his finger -like that. She felt like--well, she didn’t know how she _did_ feel. - -She was so long wrapped up in her own thoughts that it was with a start -that she awoke to the fact that they were making very slow progress, and -that this was due to the very peculiar conduct of Mr. Pett. He was -making little or no effort to urge the horse along, and the horse, -consequently, having got tired of wasting his bright spirits on the -empty air, was maundering. So was Mr. Pett, in another way. He mumbled -to himself; from time to time he whistled scraps of old-fashioned tunes, -and occasionally he sang to himself a brief catch--the catch coming in -about the third or fourth bar. - -“Look here, Reuben Pett!” demanded Samantha, shrilly; “be you going to -get to Byram’s Pond to-night?” - -“I _kin_,” replied Reuben. - -“Well, _be_ you?” Samantha Spaulding inquired. - -“I d’no. Fact is, I wa’n’t figurin’ on that just now.” - -“Well, what _was_ you figurin’ on?” snapped Mrs. Spaulding. - -“When you’s goin’ to marry me,” Mr. Pett answered with perfect -composure. “Look here, Samantha! it’s this way: here’s twenty years -you’ve kept me waitin’.” - -“_Me_ kept you waitin’! Well, Reuben Pett, if I ever!” - -“Don’t arguefy, Samantha; don’t arguefy,” remonstrated Mr. Pett; “I -ain’t rakin up no details. What we’ve got to deal with is this question -as it stands to-day. Be you a-goin’ to marry me or be you not? And if -you be, when be you?” - -“Reuben Pett,” exclaimed Samantha, with a showing of severity which was -very creditable under the circumstances; “ain’t you _ashamed_ of talk -like that between folks of our age?” - -“_We_ ain’t no age--no age in particular, Samantha,” said Mr. Pett. “A -woman who can cut a pigeon-wing over a hat held up higher than any two -pair of andirons that I ever see is young enough for me, anyway.” And he -chuckled over his successful duplicity. - -Samantha blushed a red that was none the less becoming for a tinge of -russet. Then she took a leaf out of Mr. Pett’s book. - -“Young enough for you?” she repeated. “Well, I guess so! I wa’n’t -thinkin’ of myself when I said old, Mr. Pett. I was thinkin’ of folks -who was gettin’ most too old to drive down hill in a hurry.” - -“Who’s that?” asked Reuben. - -“I ain’t namin’ any names,” said Samantha; “but I’ve knowed the time -when you wasn’t so awful afraid of gettin’ a spill off the front seat of -a calash. Lord! how time does take the tuck out of some folks!” she -concluded, addressing vacancy. - -“Do you mean to say that I da’sn’t drive you down to Byram’s Pond -to-night?” Mr. Pett inquired defiantly. - -“I don’t know anything about it,” said Mrs. Spaulding. - -Mr. Pett stuck a crooked forefinger into his lady-love’s face, and -gazed at her with such an intensity that she was obliged at last to -return his penetrating gaze. - -“If I get you to Byram’s Pond before the train goes, will you marry me -the first meetin’ house we come to?” - -[Illustration] - -“I will,” said Mrs. Spaulding, after a moment’s hesitation, well -remembering what the other party to the bargain had forgotten, that -there was no church in Byram Pond, nor nearer than forty miles down the -railroad. - - * * * * * - -In the warm dusk of a Summer’s evening, a limping, shackle-gaited, -bewildered horse, dragging a calash in the last stages of ruin, brought -two travelers into the village of Byram’s Pond. Far up on the hills -there lingered yet the clouds of dust that marked where that calash had -come down those hills at a pace whereat no calash ever came down hill -before. Dust covered the two travelers so thickly, that, although the -woman’s costume was of peculiar and striking construction, its -eccentricities were lost in a dull and uniform grayness. Her bonnet, -however, would have excited comment. It had apparently been of -remarkable height; but pounding against the hood of the calash had so -knocked it out of all semblance to its original shape, that with its -great wire hoops sticking out “four ways for Sunday,” it looked more -like a discarded crinoline perched upon her head than any known form of -feminine bonnet. - -[Illustration] - -The calash slowed up as it drew near the town. Suddenly it stopped -short, and both the travelers gazed with startled interest at a -capacious white tent reared by the roadside. From within this tent came -the strains of a straining melodeon. Over the portal was stretched a -canvas sign: - - GOSPEL TENT OF REV. J. HANKEY. - -As the travelers stared with all their eyes, they saw the flap of the -tent thrown back, and four figures came out. There were two ladies, a -stout, middle-aged lady, a shapely, buxom young lady, a tall, -broad-shouldered young man, and the fourth figure was unmistakably a -Minister of one of the Congregational denominations. The young man and -the two ladies walked down the road a little way, and, entering a -solid-looking farm wagon, drove off behind a pair of plump horses, in -the direction of the railroad station, while the minister waved them a -farewell that was also a benediction. - -“Git down, Samantha!” said Reuben Pett, “and straighten out that bonnet -of yours. Parson’s got another job before prayer-meetin’ begins.” - - - - -MY DEAR MRS. BILLINGTON. - - -Miss Carmelita Billington sat in a bent-wood rocking-chair in an upper -room of a great hotel by the sea, and cried for a little space, and then -for a little space dabbed at her hot cheeks and red eyes with a -handkerchief wet with cologne; and dabbed and cried, and dabbed and -cried, without seeming to get any “forwarder.” The sun and the fresh -breeze and the smell of the sea came in through her open windows, but -she heeded them not. She mopped herself with cologne till she felt as if -she could never again bear to have that honest scent near her dainty -nose; but between the mops the tears trickled and trickled and trickled; -and she was dreadfully afraid that inwardly, into the surprising great -big cavity that had suddenly found room for itself in her poor little -heart, the tears would trickle, trickle, trickle forever. It was no use -telling herself she had done right. When you have done right and wish -you hadn’t had to you can’t help having a profound contempt for the -right. The right is respectable, of course, and proper and commendable -and--in short, it’s the right;--but, oh! what a nuisance it is! You -can’t help wondering in your private mind why the right is so -disagreeable and unpleasant and unsatisfactory, and the wrong so -extremely nice. Of course, it was right to refuse Jack Hatterly; but -why, why on earth couldn’t it just as easily have been right to accept -him? And the more she thought about it the more she doubted whether it -was always quite right to do right, and whether it was not sometimes -entirely wrong not to do wrong. - -[Illustration] - -No; it was no use telling herself to be a brave girl. She was a brave -girl and she knew it. In the face of the heartless world she could bear -herself as jauntily as if she were heartless, too; but in the privacy of -her own room, with Mama fast asleep on the verandah below, she could not -see the slightest use in humbugging herself. She was perfectly -miserable, and the rest of her reflections might have been summed up in -the simple phrase of early girlhood, “So there!” - -It was no consolation to poor Carmelita’s feelings that her little -private tragedy was of a most business-like, commonplace, unromantic -complexion. It only made her more disgusted with herself for having made -up her mind to do the right thing. She was not torn from her chosen love -by the hands of cruel parents. Her parents had never denied her anything -in her life, and if she had really wanted to wed a bankrupt bashaw with -three tails and an elephant’s head, she could have had her will. Nor did -picturesque poverty have anything to do with the situation. She was rich -and so was Jack. Nor could she rail against a parental code of morality -too stern for tender hearts. There was not the least atom of objection -to Jack in any respect. He was absolutely as nice as could be--and, -unless I am greatly misinformed, a good-looking young man, deeply in -love, can be very nice indeed. - -And yet there was no doubt in Carmelita’s mind that it was her plain -duty to refuse Jack. To marry him would mean to utterly give up and -throw aside a plan of life, which, from her earliest childhood, she had -never imagined to be capable of the smallest essential alteration. If a -man who had devoted his whole mind and soul to the business of -manufacturing overshoes were suddenly invited to become a salaried poet -on a popular magazine, he could not regard the proposed change of -profession as more preposterously impossible than the idea of marriage -with Jack Hatterly seemed to Miss Carmelita Billington. - -For Miss Billington occupied a peculiar position. She was the Diana of a -small but highly prosperous city in the South-West; a city which her -father had built up in years of enterprising toil. To mention the town -of Los Brazos to any capitalist in the land was to call up the name of -Billington, the brilliant speculator who, ruined on the Boston -stock-market, went to Texas and absolutely created a town which for -wealth, beauty and social distinction had not its equal in the great -South-West. It was colonized with college graduates from New York, -Boston and Philadelphia; and, in Los Brazos, boys who had left -cane-rushes and campus choruses scarce ten years behind them had -fortunes in the hundred thousands, and stood high in public places. As -the daughter of the founder of Los Brazos, Miss Billington’s fortunes -were allied, she could not but feel, to the place of her birth. There -must she marry, there must she continue the social leadership which her -mother was only too ready to lay down. The Mayor of the town, the -District Attorney, the Supreme Court Judge and the Bishop were all among -her many suitors; and six months before she had wished, being a -natural-born sport, if she _was_ a girl, that they would only get -together and shake dice to see which of them should have her. But then -she hadn’t come East and met Jack Hatterly. - -She thought of the first day she had seen the Atlantic Ocean and Jack, -and she wished now that she had never been seized with the fancy to gaze -on the great water. And yet, what a glorious day that was! How grand - -[Illustration] - -she had thought the ocean! And how grand she had thought Jack! And now -she had given him up forever, that model of manly beauty and audacity; -Jack with his jokes and his deviltries and his exhaustless capacity for -ever new and original larks. Was it absolutely needful? Her poor little -soul had to answer itself that it was. To leave Los Brazos and the great -house with the cool quiet court-yard and the broad verandahs, and to -live in crowded, noisy New York, where she knew not a soul except -Jack--to be separated from those two good fairies who lived only to -gratify her slightest wish--to “go back” on Los Brazos, the pride of the -Billingtons--no; it was impossible, impossible! She must stick to her -post and make her choice between the Mayor and the Judge and the -District Attorney and the Bishop. But how dull and serious and -business-like they all seemed to her now that she had known Jack -Hatterly, the first man she had ever met with a well-developed sense of -humor! - -What made it hardest for poor Carmelita was, perhaps, that fate had -played her cruel pranks ever since the terrible moment of her act of -renunciation. Thirty-six hours before, at the end of the dance in the -great hotel parlors, Jack had proposed to her. For many days she had -known what was coming, and what her answer must be, and she had given -him no chance to see her alone. But Jack was Jack, and he had made his -opportunity for himself, and had said his say under cover of the -confusion at the end of the dance; and she had promised to give him his -answer later, and she had given it, after a sleepless and tearful night; -just a line to say that it could never, never be, and that he must not -ask her again. And it had been done in such a commonplace, unromantic -way that she hated to think of it--the meagre, insufficient little note -handed to her maid to drop in the common letter-box of the hotel, and to -lie there among bills and circulars and all sorts of silly every-day -correspondence, until the hotel-clerk should take it out and put it in -Jack’s box. She had passed through the office a little later, and her -heart had sunk within her as she saw his morning’s mail waiting for him -in its pigeon-hole, and thought what the opening of it would bring to -him. - -But this was the least of her woe. Later came the fishing trip on the -crowded cat-boat. She had fondly hoped that he would have the delicacy -to excuse himself from that party of pleasure; but no, he was there, and -doing just as she had asked him to, treating her as if nothing had -happened, which was certainly the - -[Illustration] - -most exasperating thing he could have done. And then, to crown it all, -they had been caught in a storm; and had not only been put in serious -danger, which Carmelita did not mind at all, but had been tossed about -until they were sore, and drenched with water, and driven into the -stuffy little hole that was called a cabin, to choke and swelter and -bump about in nauseated misery for two mortal hours, with the spray -driving in through the gaping hatches; a dozen of them in all, packed -together in there in the ill-smelling darkness. And so it was no wonder -that, after a second night of utter misery, Miss Carmelita Billington -felt so low in her nerves that she was quite unable to withhold her -tears as she sat alone and thought of what lay behind her and before -her. - -She had been sitting alone a long time when she heard her mother come up -the stairs and enter her own room. Mrs. Billington was as stout as she -was good-natured, and her step was not that of a light-weight. An -irresistible desire came, to the girl to go to her and pour out her -grief, with her head pillowed on that broad and kindly bosom. She -started up and hurried into the little parlor that separated her room -from her mother’s. As she entered the room at one door, Mr. Jack -Hatterly entered through the door opening into the corridor. Then -Carmelita lost her breath in wonderment, anger and dismay, for Mr. Jack -Hatterly put his arm around her waist, kissed her in a somewhat casual -manner, and then the door of her mother’s room opened and her mother -appeared; and instead of rebuking such extraordinary conduct, assisted -Mr. Hatterly in gently thrusting her into the chamber of the elder lady -with the kind of caressing but steering push with which a child is -dismissed when grown-ups wish to talk privately. - -“Stay in there, my dear, for the present; Mr. Hatterly and I have -something to say to each other. I will call you later.” - -And before Carmelita fairly knew what had happened to her she found -herself on the other side of the door, wondering exactly where insanity -had broken out in the Billington family. - -It took the astonished Miss Billington a couple of seconds to pull -herself together, and then she seized the handle of the door with the -full intention of walking indignantly into the parlor and demanding an -explanation. But she had hardly got the door open by the merest crack -when the discourse of Mr. John Hatterly paralyzed her as thoroughly as -had his previous actions. - -“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he was saying, in what Carmelita always -called his “florid” voice, “I thoroughly understand your position, and I -know the nature of the ties that bind Carmelita to her father’s home. -Had I known of them earlier, I might have avoided an association that -could only have one ending for me. But it is not for myself that I speak -now. Perhaps I have been unwise, and even wrong; but what is done is -done, and I know now that she loves me as she could love no other man.” - -[Illustration] - -“Good gracious!” said Carmelita to herself, behind the door; “how does -he know that?” - -“Is it not possible, Mr. Hatterly, that there is some -misunderstanding?” asked Mrs. Billington. - -“My dear Mrs. Billington,” said Jack, impressively; “there is no -possible misunderstanding. She told me so herself.” - -Carmelita opened her eyes and her mouth, and stood as one petrified. - -“Well, if I ever--!” was all that she whispered to herself, in the -obscurity of her mother’s room. She had addressed just seven words to -Jack Hatterly on the fishing trip, and five of these were “Apple pie, if -you please;” and the other two, uttered later, were “Not very.” - -“But, Mr. Hatterly,” persisted Mrs. Billington, “when did you receive -this assurance of my daughter’s feelings? You tell me that you spoke to -her on this subject only the night before last, and I am sure she has -hardly been out of my sight since.” - -“Yesterday,” said Jack, in his calmest and most assured tone; “on the -boat, coming home, during the squall.” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_behind the door, aside_).--“The shameless wretch! Why, -he doesn’t seem even to _know_ that he’s lying!” - -“But, Mr. Hatterly,” exclaimed Mrs. Billington; “during the squall we -were all in the cabin, and you were outside, steering!” - -“Certainly,” said Jack. - -“Then--excuse me, Mr. Hatterly--but how could my daughter have conveyed -any such intelligence to you?” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before_).--“What _is_ the man going to say now? He -must be perfectly crazy!” - -Mr. Hatterly was calm and imperturbed. - -“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he responded, “you may or may not have -observed a small heart-shaped aperture in each door or hatch of the -cabin, exactly opposite the steersman’s seat. It was through one of -these apertures that your daughter communicated with me. Very -appropriate shape, I must say, although their purpose is simply that of -ventilation.” - -“It was very little ventilation we had in that awful place, Mr. -Hatterly!” interjected Mrs. Billington, remembering those hours of -horror. - -[Illustration] - -“Very little, indeed, my dear Mrs. Billington,” replied Mr. Hatterly, in -an apologetic tone; “and I am afraid your daughter and I, between us, -were responsible for some of your discomfort. She had her hand through -the port ventilator about half the time.” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before_).--“I wonder the man isn’t struck dead, -sitting there! Of all the wicked, heartless falsehoods I ever heard--!” - -“And may I ask, Mr. Hatterly,” inquired Mrs. Billington, “what my -daughter’s hand was doing through the ventilator?” - -“Pressing mine, God bless her!” responded Mr. Hatterly, unabashed. - -MISS BILLINGTON, (_as before, but conscious of a sudden, hideous -chill_).--“Good heavens! the man can’t be lying; he’s simply mistaken.” - -“I see, my dear Mrs. Billington,” said Mr. Hatterly, “that I shall have -to be perfectly frank with you. Such passages are not often repeated, -especially to a parent; but under the circumstances I think you will -admit that I have no other guarantee of my good faith to give you. I -have no doubt that if you were to ask your daughter at this minute about -her feelings, she would think she ought to sacrifice her affection to -the duty that she thinks is laid out for her in a distant life. Did I -feel that she could ever have any happiness in following that path, -believe me, I should be the last to try to win her from it, no matter -what might be my own loneliness and misery. But after what she confided -to me in that awful hour of peril, where, in the presence of imminent -death, it was impossible for her to conceal or repress the deepest -feelings of her heart, I should be doing an injustice to her as well as -to myself, and even to you, my dear Mrs. Billington--for I know how -sincerely you wish her happiness--if I were to let any false delicacy -keep me from telling you what she said to me.” Jack Hatterly could talk -when he got going. - -MISS BILLINGTON, (_as before, but hot, not cold_).--“Now, I am going to -know which one of those girls was talking to him, if I have to stay here -all day.” - -It was with a quavering voice that Mrs. Billington said: - -“Under the circumstances, Mr. Hatterly, I think you might tell me all -she said--all--all--” - -Here Mrs. Billington drew herself up and spoke with a certain dignity. -“I should explain to you, Mr. Hatterly, that during the return trip I -was not feeling entirely well, myself, and I probably was not as -observant as I should have been under other circumstances.” - -MISS BILLINGTON, (_as before, reflectively_).--“Poor Ma! She was so sick -that she went to sleep with her head on my feet. I believe it was that -Peterson girl who was nearest the port ventilator.” - -Mr. Hatterly’s tone was effusively grateful. “I knew that I could rely -upon your clear sense, my dear Mrs. Billington,” he said, “as well as -upon your kindness of heart. Very well, then; the first thing I knew as -I sat there alone, steering, almost blinded by the spray, Carmelita -slipped her hand through the ventilator and caught mine in a pressure -that went to my heart.” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, but without stopping to reflect_).--“If I -find out the girl that did that--” - -Mr. Hatterly went on with warm gratitude in his voice: “And let me add, -my dear Mrs. Billington, that every single time I luffed, that dear -little hand came out and touched mine, to inspire me with strength and -confidence.” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, with decision_).--“I’ll cut her hand off!” - -“And in the lulls of the storm,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me -what nothing but the extremity of the occasion would induce me to -repeat, my dear Mrs. Billington; ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I am yours, I am all -yours, and yours forever.’” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, but more so_).--“That wasn’t the Peterson -girl. That was Mamie Jackson, for I have known of her saying it twice -before.” - -Mrs. Billington leaned back in her chair, and fanned herself with her -handkerchief. - -“Oh, Mr. Hatterly!” she cried. - -Mr. Hatterly leaned forward and captured one of Mrs. Billington’s hands, -while she covered her eyes with the other. - -“Call me Jack,” he said. - -“I--I’m afraid I shall have to,” sobbed Mrs. Billington. - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, grimly_).--“Mamie Jackson’s mother won’t; I -know _that_!” - -“And then,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me, ‘Jack, I am glad of -this fate. I can speak now as I never could have spoken before.’” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, but highly charged with -electricity_).--“Now I want to know what she did say when she spoke.” - -Mr. Hatterly’s clear and fluent voice continued to report the -interesting conversation, while Mrs. Billington sobbed softly, and -permitted her kind old hand to be fondled. - -“‘Jack,’ she said,” Mr. Hatterly went on, “‘life might have separated -us, but death unites us.’” - -MISS BILLINGTON (_as before, but with clenched hands and set -lips_).--“_That_ is neither one of those girls. They haven’t got the -sand. Whoever it is, that settles it.” She flung open the door and swept -into the room. - -“Jack,” she said, “if I did talk any such ridiculous, absurd, -contemptible, utterly despicable nonsense, I don’t _choose_ to have it -repeated. Mama, dear, you know we _can_ see a great deal of each other -if you can only make Papa come and spend the Summer here by the sea, and -we go down to Los Brazos for part of the Winter.” - - * * * * * - -That evening Miss Carmelita Billington asked her Spanish maid if she had -dropped the letter addressed to Mr. Hatterly in the letter-box. The -Spanish maid went through a pleasing dramatic performance, in which she -first assured her mistress that she _had_; then became aware of a sudden -doubt; hunted through six or eight pockets which were not in her dress, -and then produced the crumpled envelope unopened. She begged ten -thousand pardons; she cursed herself and the day she was born, and her -incapable memory; and expressed a willingness to drown herself, which -might have been more terrifying had she ever before displayed any -willingness to enter into intimate relations with water. - -Miss Billington treated her with unusual indulgence. - -“It’s all right, Concha,” she said; “it didn’t matter in the least, only -Mr. Hatterly told me that he had never received it, and so I thought I’d -ask you.” - -Then, as the girl was leaving the room, Carmelita called her back, moved -by a sudden impulse. - -“Oh, Concha!” she said; “you wanted one of those shell breast-pins, -didn’t you Here, take this and buy yourself one!” and she held out a -dollar-bill. - -When she reached her own room, Concha put the dollar-bill in a -gayly-painted little box on top of a new five-dollar bill, and hid them -both under her prayer-book. - -[Illustration] - -“Women,” she said, in her simple Spanish way; “women are pigs. The -gentleman, he gives me five dollars, only that I put the letter in my -pocket; the lady, she gets the gentleman, and she gives me one dollar, -and I hasten out of the room that she shall not take it back. -Women--women are pigs!” - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of More "Short Sixes", by H. C. 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C. Bunner - -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/license - - -Title: More "Short Sixes" - -Author: H. C. Bunner - -Illustrator: C. J. Taylor - -Release Date: April 6, 2017 [EBook #54491] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE "SHORT SIXES" *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="348" height="500" alt="[Image -of the book's cover unavailable.]" /></a> -</div> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c"><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents.</a></p> -<p class="c"><span class="nonvis">(In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] -clicking on the image, -will bring up a larger version.)</span></p> - -<p class="c">(etext transcriber's note)</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/frontispiece_lg.png"> -<img src="images/frontispiece_sml.png" -alt="[Image unavailable: Frontispiece.]" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="c">MORE “SHORT SIXES.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/bar-1.png" width="500" -alt="==============================================" /> -</div> - -<h1 class="fnt"> -MORE “SHORT SIXES”~<br /> -<span style="margin-right: 10%;"><span class="red">BY H·C·BUNNER~</span></span></h1> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/colophon-1.png" width="280" -alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="fnt">ILLUSTRATED BY C·J·TAYLOR·<br /> -<br /> -<span class="red">KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN·PUBLISHERS.<br /> -PUCK BUILDING·NEW·YORK·MDCCCXCIV··</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/bar-2.png" width="500" alt="==============================================" /> -</div> - -<p class="c"> -Copyright, 1894, by <span class="smcap">Keppler & Schwarzmann</span>.<br /> -<br /> -<img src="images/colophon-2.png" width="100" -alt="[Image of the colophon unavailable.]" /> -<br /> -<br /><br /><br /> - -TO<br /> -<br /> -A. L. B.<br /> -</p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><span class="eng">Contents</span>.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>Page.</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#THE_CUMBERSOME_HORSE">The Cumbersome Horse</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#MR_VINCENT_EGG_AND_THE_WAGE_OF_SIN">Mr. Vincent Egg and the Wage of Sin</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_022">22</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#THE_GHOOLLAH">The Ghoollah</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_046">46</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#CUTWATER_OF_SENECA">Cutwater of Seneca</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_068">68</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#MR_WICKS_AUNT">Mr. Wick’s Aunt</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_084">84</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#WHAT_MRS_FORTESCUE_DID">What Mrs. Fortescue Did</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#THE_MAN_WITH_THE_PINK_PANTS">“The Man with the Pink Pants”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_134">134</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#THE_THIRD_FIGURE_IN_THE_COTILLION">The Third Figure in the Cotillion</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_156">156</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#SAMANTHA_BOOM-DE-AY">“Samantha Boom-de-ay”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_180">180</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#MY_DEAR_MRS_BILLINGTON">My Dear Mrs. Billington</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_214">214</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<h2><a name="THE_CUMBERSOME_HORSE" id="THE_CUMBERSOME_HORSE"></a>THE CUMBERSOME HORSE.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> -<img src="images/i_010.jpg" -alt="I" -width="120" /></span>T is not to be denied that a sense of disappointment pervaded Mr. -Brimmington’s being in the hour of his first acquaintance with the -isolated farm-house which he had just purchased, sight unseen, after -long epistolary negotiations with Mr. Hiram Skinner, postmaster, -carpenter, teamster and real estate agent of Bethel Corners, who was now -driving him to his new domain.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the feeling was of a mixed origin. Indian Summer was much colder -up in the Pennsylvania hills than he had expected to find it; and the -hills themselves were much larger and bleaker and barer, and far more -indifferent in their demeanor toward him, than he had expected to find -them. Then Mr. Skinner had been something of a disappointment, himself. -He was too familiar with his big, knobby, red hands; too furtive with -his small, close-set eyes; too profuse of tobacco-juice, and too -raspingly loquacious. And certainly the house itself did not meet his -expectations when he first saw it, standing lonely and desolate in its -ragged meadows of stubble and wild-grass on the unpleasantly steep -mountain-side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span></p> - -<p>And yet Mr. Skinner had accomplished for him the desire of his heart. He -had always said that when he should come into his money—forty thousand -dollars from a maiden aunt—he would quit forever his toilsome job of -preparing Young Gentlemen for admission to the Larger Colleges and -Universities, and would devote the next few years to writing his -long-projected “History of Prehistoric Man.” And to go about this task -he had always said that he would go and live in perfect solitude—that -is, all by himself and a chorewoman—in a secluded farm-house, situated -upon the southerly slope of some high hill—an old farm-house—a -Revolutionary farm-house, if possible—a delightful, long, low, rambling -farm-house—a farm-house with floors of various levels—a farm-house -with crooked Stairs, and with nooks and corners and quaint -cupboards—this—this had been the desire of Mr. Brimmington’s heart.</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 238px;"> -<a href="images/i_011_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_011_sml.jpg" width="238" height="361" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Brimmington, when he came into his money at the age of forty-five, -fixed on Pike County, Pennsylvania, as a mountainous country of good -report. A postal-guide informed him that Mr. Skinner was the postmaster -of Bethel Corners; so, Mr. Brimmington wrote to Mr. Skinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span></p> - -<p>The correspondence between Mr. Brimmington and Mr. Skinner was long -enough and full enough to have settled a treaty between two nations. It -ended by a discovery of a house lonely enough and aged enough to fill -the bill. Several hundred dollars’ worth of repairs were needed to make -it habitable, and Mr. Skinner was employed to make them. Toward the -close of a cold November day, Mr. Brimmington saw his purchase for the -first time.</p> - -<p>In spite of his disappointment, he had to admit, as he walked around the -place in the early twilight, that it was just what he had bargained for. -The situation, the dimensions, the exposure, were all exactly what had -been stipulated. About its age there could be no question. Internally, -its irregularity—indeed, its utter failure to conform to any known -rules of domestic architecture—surpassed Mr. Brimmington’s wildest -expectations. It had stairs eighteen inches wide; it had rooms of -strange shapes and sizes; it had strange, shallow cupboards in strange -places; it had no hallways; its windows were of odd design, and whoso -wanted variety in floors could find it there. And along the main wall of -Mr. Brimmington’s study there ran a structure some three feet and a half -high and nearly as deep, which Mr. Skinner confidently assured him was -used in old times as a wall-bench or a dresser, indifferently. “You -might think,” said Mr. Skinner, “that all that space inside there was -jest wasted; but it ain’t so. Them seats is jest filled up inside with -braces so’s that you can set on them good and solid.” And then Mr. -Skinner proudly called attention to the two coats of gray paint spread -over the entire side of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span> the house, walls, ceilings and woodwork, -blending the original portions and the Skinner restorations in one -harmonious, homogenous whole.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_013_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_013_sml.jpg" width="402" height="435" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Skinner might have told him that this variety of gray paint is -highly popular in some rural districts, and is made by mixing lamp-black -and ball-blue with a low grade of white lead. But he did not say it; and -he drove away as soon as he conveniently could, after formally -introducing him to Mrs. Sparhawk, a gaunt, stern-faced, silent, elderly -woman. Mrs. Sparhawk was to take charge of his bachelor establishment -during the day time. Mrs. Sparhawk cooked him a meal for which she very -properly apologized. Then she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> returned to her kitchen to “clean up.” -Mr. Brimmington went to the front door, partly to look out upon his -property, and partly to turn his back on the gray paint. There were no -steps before the front door, but a newly-graded mound or earthwork about -the size of a half-hogshead. He looked out upon his apple-orchard, which -was further away than he had expected to find it. It had been out of -bearing for ten years, but this Mr. Brimmington did not know. He did -know, however, that the whole outlook was distinctly dreary.</p> - -<p>As he stood there and gazed out into the twilight, two forms suddenly -approached him. Around one corner of the house came Mrs. Sparhawk on her -way home. Around the other came an immensely tall, whitish shape, -lumbering forward with a heavy tread. Before he knew it, it had -scrambled up the side of his mound with a clumsy, ponderous rush, and -was thrusting itself directly upon him when he uttered so lusty a cry of -dismay that it fell back startled; and, wheeling about a great long body -that swayed on four misshapen legs, it pounded off in the direction it -had come from, and disappeared around the corner. Mr. Brimmington turned -to Mrs. Sparhawk in disquiet and indignation.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Sparhawk,” he demanded; “what is that?”</p> - -<p>“It’s a horse,” said Mrs. Sparhawk, not at all surprised, for she knew -that Mr. Brimmington was from the city. “They hitch ’em to wagons here.”</p> - -<p>“I know it is a horse, Mrs. Sparhawk,” Mr. Brimmington rejoined with -some asperity;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> “but whose horse is it, and what is it doing on my -premises?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t rightly know whose horse it <i>is</i>,” replied Mrs. Sparhawk; “the -man that used to own it, he’s dead now.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_015_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_015_sml.jpg" width="297" height="428" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“But what,” inquired Mr. Brimmington sternly, “is the animal doing -here?”</p> - -<p>“I guess he b’longs here,” Mrs. Sparhawk said. She had a cold, even, -impersonal way of speaking, as though she felt that her safest course in -life was to confine herself strictly to such statements of fact as might -be absolutely required of her.</p> - -<p>“But, my good woman,” replied Mr. Brimmington,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> in bewilderment, “how -can that be? The animal can’t certainly belong on my property unless he -belongs to me, and that animal certainly is not mine.”</p> - -<p>Seeing him so much at a loss and so greatly disturbed in mind, Mrs. -Sparhawk relented a little from her strict rule of life, and made an -attempt at explanation.</p> - -<p>“He b’longed to the man who owned this place first off; and I don’ know -for sure, but I’ve heard tell that <i>he</i> fixed it some way so’s that the -horse would sort of go with the place.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brimmington felt irritation rising within him.</p> - -<p>“But,” he said, “it’s preposterous! There was no such consideration in -the deed. No such thing can be done, Mrs. Sparhawk, without my -acquiescence!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” said Mrs. Sparhawk; “what I do know -is, the place has changed hands often enough since, and the horse has -always went with the place.”</p> - -<p>There was an unsettled suggestion in the first part of this statement of -Mrs. Sparhawk that gave a shock to Mr. Brimmington’s nerves. He laughed -uneasily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, er, yes! I see. Very probably there’s been some understanding. I -suppose I am to regard the horse as a sort of lien upon the -place—a—a—what do they call it?—an incumbrance! Yes,” he repeated, -more to himself than to Mrs. Sparhawk; “an incumbrance. I’ve got a -gentleman’s country place with a horse incumbrant.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Sparhawk heard him, however.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span></p> - -<p>“It <i>is</i> a sorter cumbersome horse,” she said. And without another word -she gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and strode off into the -darkness.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brimmington turned back into the house, and busied himself with a -vain attempt to make his long-cherished furniture look at home in his -new leaden-hued rooms. The ungrateful task gave him the blues; and, -after an hour of it, he went to bed.</p> - -<p>He was dreaming leaden-hued dreams, oppressed, uncomfortable dreams, -when a peculiarly weird and uncanny series of thumps on the front of the -house awoke him with a start. The thumps might have been made by a giant -with a weaver’s beam, but he must have been a very drunken giant to -group his thumps in such a disorderly parody of time and sequence.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brimmington had too guileless and clean a heart to be the prey of -undefined terrors. He rose, ran to the window and opened it. The -moonlight lit up the raw, frosty landscape with a cold, pale, diffused -radiance, and Mr. Brimmington could plainly see right below him the -cumbersome horse, cumbersomely trying to maintain a footing on the top -of the little mound before the front door. When, for a fleeting instant, -he seemed to think that he had succeeded in this feat, he tried to bolt -through the door. As soon, however, as one of his huge knees smote the -panel, his hind feet lost their grip on the soft earth, and he wabbled -back down the incline, where he stood shaking and quivering, until he -could muster wind enough for another attempt to make a catapult of -himself. The veil like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span> illumination of the night, which turned all -things else to a dim, silvery gray, could not hide the scars and bruises -and worn places that spotted the animal’s great, gaunt, distorted frame. -His knees were as big as a man’s head. His feet were enormous. His -joints stood out from his shriveled carcass like so many pine knots. Mr. -Brimmington gazed at him, fascinated, horrified, until a rush more -desperate and uncertain than the rest threatened to break his front door -in.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_018_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_018_sml.jpg" width="344" height="423" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Hi!” shrieked Mr. Brimmington; “go away!”</p> - -<p>It was the horse’s turn to get frightened.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> He lifted his long, -coffin-shaped head toward Mr. Brimmington’s window, cast a sort of -blind, cross-eyed, ineffectual glance at him, and with a long-drawn, -wheezing, cough-choked whinny he backed down the mound, got himself -about, end for end, with such extreme awkwardness that he hurt one poor -knee on a hitching-post that looked to be ten feet out of his way, and -limped off to the rear of the house.</p> - -<p>The sound of that awful, rusty, wind-broken whinny haunted Mr. -Brimmington all the rest of that night. It was like the sound of an -orchestrion run down, or of a man who is utterly tired of the -whooping-cough and doesn’t care who knows it.</p> - -<p>The next morning was bright and sunshiny, and Mr. Brimmington awoke in a -more cheerful frame of mind than he would naturally have expected to -find himself in after his perturbed night. He found himself inclined to -make the best of his purchase and to view it in as favorable a light as -possible. He went outside and looked at it from various points of view, -trying to find and if possible to dispose of the reason for the vague -sense of disappointment which he felt, having come into possession of -the rambling old farm-house, which he had so much desired.</p> - -<p>He decided, after a long and careful inspection, that it was the -<i>proportions</i> of the house that were wrong. They were certainly -peculiar. It was singularly high between joints in the first story, and -singularly low in the second. In spite of its irregularity within, it -was uncompromisingly square on the outside. There was something queer -about the pitch of its roof, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span> seemed strange that so modest a -structure with no hallway whatever should have vestibule windows on each -side of its doors, both front and rear.</p> - -<p>But here an idea flashed into Mr. Brimmington’s mind that in an instant -changed him from a carping critic to a delighted discoverer. He was -living in a Block House! Yes; that explained—that accounted for all the -strangeness of its architecture. In in instant he found his purchase -invested with a beautiful glamour of adventurous association. Here was -the stout and well-planned refuge to which the grave settlers of an -earlier day had fled to guard themselves against the attack of the -vindictive red-skins. He saw it all. A moat, crossed no doubt by -draw-bridges, had surrounded the building. In the main room below, the -women and children had huddled while their courageous defenders had -poured a leaden hail upon the foe through loop-holes in the upper story. -He walked around the house for some time, looking for loop-holes.</p> - -<p>So pleased was Mr. Brimmington at his theory that the morning passed -rapidly away, and when he looked at his watch he was surprised to find -that it was nearly noon. Then he remembered that Mr. Skinner had -promised to call on him at eleven, to make anything right that was not -right. Glancing over the landscape he saw Mr. Skinner approaching by a -circuitous track. He was apparently following the course of a snake -fence which he could readily have climbed. This seemed strange, as his -way across the pasture land was seemingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span> unimpeded. Thinking of the -pasture land made Mr. Brimmington think of the white horse, and casting -his eyes a little further down the hill he saw that animal slowly and -painfully steering a parallel course to Mr. Skinner, on the other side -of the fence. Mr. Skinner went out of sight behind a clump of trees, and -when he arrived it was not upon the side of the house where Mr. -Brimmington had expected to see him appear.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_021_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_021_sml.jpg" width="445" height="310" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>As they were about to enter the house Mr. Brimmington noticed the marks -of last night’s attack upon his front door, and he spoke to Mr. Skinner -about the horse.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Skinner, with much ingenuousness; “that horse. I was -meaning to speak to you about that horse. Fact is, I’ve kinder got that -horse on my hands, and if it’s no inconvenience to you, I’d like to -leave him where he is for a little while.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span></p> - -<p>“But it would be very inconvenient, indeed, Mr. Skinner,” said the new -owner of the house. “The animal is a very unpleasant object; and, -moreover, it attempted to break into my front door last night.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Skinner’s face darkened. “Sho!” he said; “you don’t mean to tell me -that?”</p> - -<p>But Mr. Brimmington did mean to tell him that, and Mr. Skinner listened -with a scowl of unconcealed perplexity and annoyance. He bit his lip -reflectively for a minute or two before he spoke.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 258px;"> -<a href="images/i_022_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_022_sml.jpg" width="258" height="368" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Too bad you was disturbed,” he said at length. “You’ll have to keep the -bars up to that meadow and then it won’t happen again.”</p> - -<p>“But, indeed, it must not happen again,” said Mr. Brimmington; “the -horse must be taken away.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you see it’s this way, friend,” returned Mr. Skinner, with a -rather ugly air of decision; “I really ain’t got no choice in the -matter. I’d like to oblige you, and if I’d known as far back that you -would have objected to the animal I’d have had him took somewheres. -But,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> as it is, there ain’t no such a thing as getting that there horse -off this here place till the frost’s out of the ground. You can see for -yourself that that horse, the condition he’s in now, couldn’t no more go -up nor down this hill than he could fly. Why, I came over here a-foot -this morning on purpose not to take them horses of mine over this road -again. It can’t be done, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” suggested Mr. Brimmington; “kill the horse.”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t killin’ no horses,” said Mr. Skinner. “You may if you like; but -I’d advise you not to. There’s them as mightn’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let them come and take their horse away, then,” said Mr. -Brimmington.</p> - -<p>“Just so,” assented Mr. Skinner. “It’s they who are concerned in the -horse, and they have a right to take him away. I would if I was any ways -concerned, but I ain’t.” Here he turned suddenly upon Mr. Brimmington. -“Why, look here,” he said, “you ain’t got the heart to turn that there -horse out of that there pasture where he’s been for fifteen years! It -won’t do you no sorter hurt to have him stay there till Spring. Put the -bars up, and he won’t trouble you no more.”</p> - -<p>“But,” objected Mr. Brimmington, weakly, “even if the poor creature were -not so unsightly, he could not be left alone all Winter in that pasture -without shelter.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just where you’re mistaken,” Mr. Skinner replied, tapping his -interlocutor heavily upon the shoulder; “he don’t mind it not one mite. -See that shed there?” And he pointed to a few wind-racked boards in the -corner of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span> lot. “There’s hoss-shelter; and as for feed, why there’s -feed enough in that meadow for two such as him.”</p> - -<p>In the end, Mr. Brimmington, being utterly ignorant of the nature and -needs of horse-flesh, was over-persuaded, and he consented to let the -unfortunate white horse remain in his pasture lot to be the sport of the -Winter’s chill and bitter cruelty. Then he and Mr. Skinner talked about -some new paint.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>It was the dead waist and middle of Mr. Brimmington’s third night in his -new house, when he was absolutely knocked out of a calm and peaceful -slumber by a crash so appalling that he at first thought that the side -of the mountain had slid down upon his dwelling. This was followed by -other crashes, thumps, the tearing of woodwork and various strange and -grewsome noises. Whatever it might be, Mr. Brimmington felt certain that -it was no secret midnight marauder, and he hastened to the eighteen-inch -stairway without even waiting to put on a dressing-gown. A rush of cold -air came up from below, and he had no choice but to scuttle back for a -bath-robe and a candle while the noises continued, and the cold air -floated all over the house.</p> - -<p>There was no difficulty in locating the sounds. Mr. Brimmington -presented himself at the door of the little kitchen, pulled it open, -and, raising the light above his head, looked in. The rush of wind blew -out his light, but not before he had had time to see that it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span> the -white horse that was in the kitchen, and that he had gone through the -floor.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_025_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_025_sml.jpg" width="410" height="480" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Subsequent investigation proved that the horse had come in through the -back door, carrying that and its two vestibule windows with him, and -that he had first trampled and then churned the thin floor into -match-wood. He was now reposing on his stomach, with his legs hanging -down between the joists into the hollow under the house—for there was -no cellar. He looked over his shoulder at his host and emitted his -blood-curdling wail.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span></p> - -<p>“My Gracious!” said Mr. Brimmington.</p> - -<p>That night Mr. Brimmington sat up with the horse, both of them wrapped, -as well as Mr. Brimmington could do it, in bed-clothes. There is not -much you can do with a horse when you have to sit up with him under such -circumstances. The thought crossed Mr. Brimmington’s mind of reading to -him, but he dismissed it.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>In the interview the next day, between Mr. Brimmington and Mr. Skinner, -the aggressiveness was all on Mr. Brimmington’s side, and Mr. Skinner -was meek and wore an anxious expression. Mr. Brimmington had, however, -changed his point of view. He now realized that sleeping out of Winter -nights might be unpleasant, even painful to an aged and rheumatic horse. -And, although he had cause of legitimate complaint against the creature, -he could no longer bear to think of killing the animal with whom he had -shared that cold and silent vigil. He commissioned Mr. Skinner to build -for the brute a small but commodious lodging, and to provide a proper -stock of provender—commissions which Mr. Skinner gladly and humbly -accepted. As to the undertaking to get the horse out of his immediate -predicament, however, Mr. Skinner absolutely refused to touch the job. -“That horse don’t like me,” said Mr. Skinner; “I know he don’t; I seen -it in his eyes long ago. If you like, I’ll send you two or three men and -a block-and-tackle, and they can get him out; but not me; no, sir!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span></p> - -<p>Mr. Skinner devoted that day to repairing damages, and promised on the -morrow to begin the building of the little barn. Mr. Brimmington was -glad there was going to be no greater delay, when, early in the evening, -the sociable white horse tried to put his front feet through the study -window.</p> - -<p>But of all the noises that startled Mr. Brimmington, in the first week -of his sojourn in the farm-house, the most alarming awakened him about -eight o’clock of the following morning. Hurrying to his study, he gazed -in wonder upon a scene unparalleled even in the History of Prehistoric -Man. The boards had been ripped off the curious structure which was -supposed to have served the hardy settlers for a wall-bench and a -dresser, indifferently. This revealed another structure in the form of a -long crib or bin, within which, apparently trying to back out through -the wall, stood Mr. Skinner, holding his tool-box in front of him as if -to shield himself, and fairly yelping with terror. The front door was -off its hinges, and there stood Mrs. Sparhawk wielding a broom to keep -out the white horse, who was viciously trying to force an entrance. Mr. -Brimmington asked what it all meant; and Mrs. Sparhawk, turning a -desperate face upon him, spoke with the vigor of a woman who has kept -silence too long.</p> - -<p>“It means,” she said, “that this here house of yours is this here -horse’s stable; <i>and the horse knows it</i>; and that there was the horse’s -manger. This here horse was old Colonel Josh Pincus’s regimental horse, -and so provided for in his will; and this here man Skinner was to have -the caring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> of him until he should die a natural death, and then he was -to have this stable; and till then the stable was left to the horse. And -now he’s taken the stable away from the horse, and patched it up into a -dwelling-house for a fool from New York City; and the horse don’t like -it; and the horse don’t like Skinner. And when he come back to git that -manger for your barn, the horse sot onto him. And that’s what’s the -matter, Mr. Skimmerton.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_028_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_028_sml.jpg" width="441" height="413" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Mrs. Sparhawk,” began Mr. Brimmington—</p> - -<p>“I <i>ain’t</i> no Sparhawk!” fairly shouted the enraged woman, as with a -furious shove she sent the Cumbersome Horse staggering down the door<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span>way -mound; “this here’s Hiram Skinner, the meanest man in Pike County, and -I’m his wife, let out to do day’s work! You’ve had one week of him—how -would you have liked twenty years?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MR_VINCENT_EGG_AND_THE_WAGE_OF_SIN" id="MR_VINCENT_EGG_AND_THE_WAGE_OF_SIN"></a>MR. VINCENT EGG AND THE WAGE OF SIN.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/i_031.jpg" -alt="MR." -width="120" /></span> VINCENT EGG and the daughter of his washerwoman walked out of the -front doorway of Mr. Egg’s lodging-house into the morning sunlight, with -very different expressions upon their two faces.</p> - -<p>Mr. Vincent Egg, although he was old and stout and red-nosed and shabby -in his attire, wore a look that was at once timorous, fatuous, and -weakly mendacious; a look that tried to tell the possible passer-by that -his red nose and watery eyes bloomed and blinked in the smiles of -Virginie. Virginie, although she was young and pretty and also thin of -face and poverty-stricken of garb, wore a look which told you plainly -and most honestly beyond a question, that she had no smiles for Mr. Egg -or for any one else. They walked down the middle of the street side by -side, but <i>that</i> they could not very well help doing, for the street was -both narrow and dirty, and the edges of the stone gutter down its midway -offered the only clean foothold in its entire breadth. As they walked on -together, Mr. Egg made a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span> few poor-spirited attempts to start up a -gallant conversation with the girl; but she made no response whatever to -his remarks, and strode on in dark-faced silence, her empty wash-basket -poised between her lank right hip and her thin right elbow. Mr. Egg -hemmed and cleared a husky throat, and employed both his unsteady hands -in setting his tall, shabby silk hat upon his head in such a manner that -its broad brim might keep the sunlight out of his eyes.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_032_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_032_sml.jpg" width="314" height="386" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Vincent Egg was in the little city of Drignan on business. His -lodgings were in the rue des Quatres Mulets, because they were the -cheapest lodgings he could find. There are prettier towns than Drignan, -and even in Drignan there are many better streets than the rue des<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span> -Quatres Mulets. But it was much the same to Mr. Egg. He took his shabby -lodgings, the rebuffs of the fair, the sunlight of other men’s fortunes -dazzling his weak eyes—all these things he took with an easy -indifference of mind so long as life gave him the little he asked of it, -namely: a periodic indulgence in alcoholic unconsciousness. A simple -drunk, once a month, of at least a week’s duration, was what Mr. Egg’s -soul most craved and desired; but if his fluctuating means made the -period of intoxication briefer or the period of sobriety longer, he bore -either event with a certain simple heroism. He wanted no “spree,” no -“toot,” no “tear;” a modest spell of sodden, dreamy, tearfully happy -soaking in the back-room of some cheap wine-shop where he and his ways -were known—this was all that remained of ambition and aspiration in Mr. -Egg’s life; which had been, for the rest, a long life, a harmless life -(except in the stern moralist’s sense), and a life that was decidedly a -round, complete and total failure in spite of an exceptional allotment -of abilities and opportunities. Mr. Egg had been many things in the -course of that long and varied life—lawyer, doctor, newspaper-man, -speculator, actor, manager, horse-dealer and racetrack gamester, -croupier (and courier, even, after a fashion)—and heaven knows what -else beside, of things avowable and unavowable. Just at present, he was -supplying an English firm of Tourist-Excursion Managers with a -guide-book of their various routes, at the rate of eighteen-pence per -page of small type, and his traveling expenses—third-class. He had just -finished “doing up” the district last allotted to him; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span> after two -weeks’ of traveling about, he had spent another fortnight in writing up -his notes in a dingy little lodging-house room in the rue des Quatres -Mulets. He knew his ground thoroughly, and that was the cheapest place.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 258px;"> -<a href="images/i_034_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_034_sml.jpg" width="258" height="358" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Such was Mr. Vincent Egg, after a half-century of struggle with the -world; and something of an imposing figure he made, too, in his defeat -and degradation. His nose was red, his cheeks were puffed and veined, -there were bags under his bloodshot eyes, his close-cropped hair was -thin, his stubby little gray moustache, desperately waxed at the ends, -gave an incongruously foreign touch to his decidedly Anglo-Saxon -face—and his clothes were shockingly shabby. But then he <i>wore</i> his -clothes, as few men in our day can wear clothes; and they were <i>his</i> -clothes; his very own, and not another’s. People often spoke of him, -after seeing him once, as “that big, soldierly-looking old man in the -white hat.” But he did not wear a white hat. His hat, which was one of -the largest, one of the jauntiest and one of the oldest ever seen, had -also been,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span> in its time, one of the blackest. It was his coat that gave -people an idea of his having something about him that suggested white. -It was a tightly-buttoned frock-coat of an indescribable light-dirty -color. Most hopelessly shabby men cling to some standard of taste in -dress that was <i>the</i> standard in their last-remembered days of -prosperity. That coat—if it were one coat and not only one of a -long-lived family—marked the fact that the last season of prosperity -Mr. Egg had enjoyed was a season, now some twenty years gone, when the -London “swells” or “nobs,” or whatever they called them then, wore -frock-coats of certain fashionable light shades of fawn and mouse-color, -then known, I believe, as “London Smoke” and “French Gray.” While it can -not be said that Mr. Egg’s coat was familiar in every quarter of Europe -(for it rarely staid long enough in any one place), it had certainly -been seen in all. And more than one Austrian officer, after passing Mr. -Egg in that garment of pallid, dubious and puzzling hue, had turned -sharply around to satisfy himself that it was not a uniform-coat in a -condition of profanation. A certain state and dignity that still clung -to this coat, and the startling cleanness of his well-scissored cuffs -and collars were all that remained to give Mr. Egg a hold upon exterior -respectability.</p> - -<p>With such a history, Mr. Egg was naturally well versed in the -freemasonry of poverty and need. As his eyes became accustomed to the -sun, he looked at the girl’s pinched face, and his tones suddenly -changed. Vincent Egg spoke several languages, and he knew all their -social<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> dialects and variations. It was in friendly and familiar speech -that he addressed the girl, and asked her—What was the matter? and, Was -the business going ill?</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_036_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_036_sml.jpg" width="323" height="316" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>If Virginie had been the poor girl you meet with in the stories written -by English ladies of a mildly religious turn of mind, she would have -dropped a little curtsey and said with a single tear, “Indeed, sir, I -had not meant to speak, but you have hit upon the truth. The business -goes very ill, indeed, and without help I do not see how my poor mother -can survive the Winter.” But Virginie, obeying the instincts of her -nature and her education, responded to Mr. Egg with a single coarse -French adjective which is only to be rendered in English, I am afraid, -by the word “stinking.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Egg was not in the least shocked. He cast his blinking eyes about -him at the filthy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span> roadway, at the narrow old stone houses that crowded -both sides of the street with the peaked roofs of their over-hanging -upper-stories, almost shutting out the sky above his head, at the -countless century-old stains of damp and rust and shameful soilure upon -their dull faces, and he said simply:</p> - -<p>“Fichu locale!”</p> - -<p>Thereby he amply expressed to his hearer his opinion that if the -business deserved the adjective she had accorded it, the explanation was -to be found in its unfortunate location. This opened the flood gates of -Virginie’s speech. She told Mr. Egg that he was entirely right about the -location, and gave him a few casual corroborative details which showed -him that she knew what she was talking about. She also confided to him -enough of her family affairs to account for the bitterness of her spirit -and her contempt for mirthful dalliance. It was nothing but the old -endless story of poverty in one of its innumerable variants. This time -the father, a jobbing stone-mason, had not only broken his leg in -Marseilles, but on coming out of the hospital had got drunk, assaulted a -gend’arme, made a compound fracture of it, and laid himself up for -several months. This time the mother had a rheumatic swelling of one -arm, which hindered her in her washing. This time the eldest boy had got -himself into some trouble in trying to evade the performance of his term -of military duty. This time the youngest child had some torturing -disease of the spine that necessitated—or rather needed—an operation. -And, of course, as at all times, there were five<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> or six hungry mouths, -associated with as many pairs of comparatively helpless hands, between -Virginie and that youngest. And as to business, that was certainly bad. -It was particularly bad of late—although it was always bad in Drignan. -Virginie told Mr. Egg that he was “rudement propre,” or “blazing -clean”—clean as they were not in Drignan, she assured him. In fact, it -appeared, this strange English gentleman, who had paid as high as a -franc-and-a-half a week for his washing, had been accepted by Virginie’s -family as designed in the mercy of Divine Providence to tide them over -their period of distress. His departure at the end of two weeks was a -sore disappointment in a financial point of view.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_038_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_038_sml.jpg" width="255" height="298" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Vincent Egg was a very kind-hearted man, and he listened to this -recital, and uttered sympathetic ejaculations in the right places. He -was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span> sorry about the youngest child, very sorry; he had known a case -like it. Perhaps, he suggested, business might pick up. Messrs. Sculry & -Co., the great English managers of Tourists’ Excursions, were going to -make Drignan a stopping-place for their excursions on the way to -Avignon. It was going to be a stopping-place of only a few hours, but, -perhaps, it might bring some business. Who knew? Virginie brightened up -when she heard this, and said that was so. Those English, she remarked, -were always washing—no disrespect intended to the gentleman.</p> - -<p>“And here,” she said, as they came abreast of a narrow gateway on the -other side of the street from Mr. Egg’s lodging-house, “is where I live. -It is on the ground floor. Will Monsieur come in and see the baby?” And -her eyes lit up for the first time with a real interest—the interest, -half-proud, and half-morbid, of a poor, simple creature who longs to -exhibit to the world the affliction of monstrosity which sets her poor -household apart from others of its kind.</p> - -<p>Now, Mr. Egg had not the slightest desire to see the baby, and he had no -intention whatever of going in; but, glancing through the narrow -doorway, he saw a succession of arches in the courtyard beyond, and some -old bits of mediæval masonry, which excited his curiosity. If this were -the remains of some old monastery that had escaped his notice, it might -mean a half-page more—nine-pence—in his guide-book. He strolled in by -Virginie’s side, heedless of her chatter. No; it was not the ruin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_040_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_040_sml.jpg" width="353" height="542" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">of an ecclesiastical structure. The courtyard was only a part of an old -stable and blacksmith-shop; old, but no older probably than the rest of -that old street, which might have been standing at the time of Louis -XIV—though it probably wasn’t. From its proximity to a canal that -marked the line of an old moat, Mr. Egg made a safe guess that it was a -small remnant of the stables and farriery attached to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span> the barracks of -the original fortifications of the town.</p> - -<p>At any rate, it was no fish for the net of Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s -guide-book compiler; and he was turning to go, when Virginie, who had -supposed that he was merely following in her lead, to feast his eyes -upon the sick baby, said simply, as she pushed open a door, “This way, -Monsieur,” and, before he knew it, he had entered his washerwoman’s -room.</p> - -<p>Although it was a ground-floor room, damp, dark and old, it was clean -with a curious sort of cleanness that seems to belong to the Latin -races—a cleanness that gives one the impression of having been achieved -without the use of soap and water: as if everything had been scraped -clean instead of being washed clean. Virginie’s mother was clean, too, -in spite of her swollen and helpless arm, and the three or four children -who were playing on the stone floor were no dirtier than healthy -children ought to be between washes. But Mr. Egg had hardly had time to -take more than cursory note of these facts before his attention was -riveted by the sick child in the French woman’s arms—so pitiful a -little piece of suffering childhood that a much harder-hearted man than -Mr. Vincent Egg might readily have been shocked at the sight of it. As -for Mr. Egg, he simply dropped into a seated posture upon a convenient -bench, and stared in the fascination of pity and horror.</p> - -<p>Mr. Egg knew little of children and less of their diseases. In the -ordinary course of things, such matters were not often brought to his -attention; and, to tell the truth, had he known what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span> he was to see -there, no persuasion would have induced him to enter that poor little -room. Now that he did see it, however, he could not move his eyes: the -spectacle had for him a hideous attraction of novelty. Virginie and her -mother exhibited the poor little misshapen thing, and rattled over the -history of the case with a volubility which showed that it was no new -tale. For fifteen minutes their visitor sat and stared in horrified -silence; and, when at last he made his way back to the street, he found -that his mind was in a more disturbed state than he had known it to be -in many years.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_042_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_042_sml.jpg" width="452" height="351" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>It is the people who most avoid the sight of human suffering who very -often are the most sharply shocked by it when that sight is obtruded -upon them. Your professional nurse soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span> learns to succor without -lamentation: it is the person who “really has no faculty for nursing” -who goes into spasms of sensibility over the sight of a finger caught in -a cog-wheel, and runs about clamoring for new laws for the suppression -of all machinery not constructed of India-rubber. Up to half an hour -before, Mr. Egg had never wasted many thoughts upon the millions of -suffering babies in this world; and now he could not turn his thoughts -to anything except the particular baby that he had just seen.</p> - -<p>And yet, as he had told Virginie, he had known of a similar case before, -though it belonged to a time so long ago that it had practically faded -from his mind. It was the case of his own brother, who had died in -infancy of some such trouble, one of the earliest victims of an -operation at that time in its earliest experimental stages. That was -more than half a century ago, and Vincent Egg had no remembrance -whatever of the little brother. But he did remember his first childish -impression of a visit to the hospital where the little one lay—of the -smell of the disinfectants and the chill of the whitewashed walls.</p> - -<p>The heart of Mr. Egg was touched, and he felt himself moved with a -strong desire to extend some help to these people who were so much worse -off than he was. Yet Mr. Egg’s intellectual parts told him that there -was no possibility of his doing anything of the sort. He knew, beyond -any chance of fond delusion, his present position and his future -prospects. He had his ticket back to Lyons, where the local branch of -Messrs. Sculry & Co. had its office;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> he had in his valise at his -lodgings just enough money for his necessary sustenance upon his -journey. And not one other penny, not one soumarkee would he have until, -at Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s office, his work had been measured down to the -last syllable, and he had received therefor as many times eighteen-pence -as he had produced pages. That would be, it was true, quite a neat -little sum, but—and here came in the big BUT of Mr. Egg’s existence.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;"> -<a href="images/i_044_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_044_sml.jpg" width="180" height="148" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>For Mr. Egg knew exactly what was going to become of that money. To draw -it at all, he would have to present himself at the office in a condition -of sobriety, which would be the last effort of a period of abstinence -that he was beginning to find very trying. Then, so much of it must go -to buying himself back into the three or four attenuated credits by -grace of which he lived his poor life at Lyons; and just enough would be -left to give him that fortnight of drunken stupor for which he had -worked so long and so hard.</p> - -<p>Mr. Egg needed an effort rather of the memory than of the imagination to -forecast the recurrence of that familiar stupor. He could see himself -leaving the spick-and-span, highly respectable office of the Lyons -agency of Messrs. Sculry & Co., and hurrying off upon the few bits of -business that must be attended to before he could present himself at -“his” wine-shop, which was a very dirty one, indeed, kept by a certain -M. and Mme. Louis Morel, in an appro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span>priately unclean back street. There -he knew just what to expect in the way of noisy, ready-handed, -false-faced welcome. Then would come the tantalizingly-prolonged -bargaining over the score to be settled and the score to be begun, and -at last he would be free to take possession of that dark, ill-ventilated -little back room which was always reserved for the periodical -retirements of this regular patron of the house. It was a little room -like a ship’s stateroom, hardly large enough to contain its dirty red -velvet divan, its round table and its two chairs; yet for a week or a -fortnight it would be his, and behind it, in the hallway, was a bed on -which he could stretch himself in the hours when he felt the need of -deeper slumber than the hard cushions of the divan permitted. There his -few friends, outcasts and adventurers like himself, would drop in to see -him, one or two at a time, to help him on his murky way with challenges -to bouts of brandy-drinking, in which he would always pay for two -glasses to the other man’s one. Then, as the procession of callers went -on, it would grow dim and dimmer and vague and yet more vague, until it -was lost in a hazy, wavering dream, wherein familiar faces of men and -women stared at him from out of days so long gone by that in his dream -he could fancy them happy.</p> - -<p>That was what lay before him. Mr. Vincent Egg knew it as well as he knew -that the calendar months would go on in their regular order, and the -tides in the sea would continue to rise and fall. Under these -circumstances, nothing was more certain than that the unfortu<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span>nate -family of Mr. Egg’s washerwoman need look for no help whatever from Mr. -Egg’s prospective earnings. “It’s a damned shame!” said Mr. Egg to -himself, slapping his thigh. And it was a shame. But there it was.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_046_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_046_sml.jpg" width="393" height="295" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Suddenly a great thought struck Mr. Egg—a thought so great and so -forcible in the blow that it dealt his mental apprehension that for -three minutes he stood stock-still in the gutter in the middle of the -rue des Quatre Mulets. Then somebody poured a pail of water out of a -door-way and drowned him out, but he went on his way, quite indifferent -to wet feet.</p> - -<p>Mr. Vincent Egg went to his lodgings, and there extracted from his -valise the very small sum of money which he had laid aside for his -necessary sustenance on his trip to Lyons. This he took to a -sign-painter on the outskirts of Drignan, to whom he paid the whole of -it for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> the execution of a small but conspicuous sign-board, which he -carried away with him under his arm.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>The usual afternoon wind was blowing in Drignan, chill and raw, with a -depressing flavor of a spoilt ocean about it. The sky was overcast, and -everything was dismal in the dismal little town. Dismalest of all, -perhaps, was a wretched little corner of waste land, between the old -barrack-wall and the dirty canal behind it. A few sick, stunted, faded -olive and orange trees in the lee of a mean stone wall showed that the -place had at one time been a garden or courtyard. Heaps of rubbish here -and there showed also that it had long outlived its usefulness. Here -sat, one on each side of a tiny fire of twigs, a shabby, -soldierly-looking old gentleman and a sallow, lanky young girl with a -sullenly pretty face. Right in the sluggish smoke of the fire, the old -man held a small sign-board still fresh from the painter’s hand, and the -more the smoke took the brightness out of the new colors, the more he -gazed at it with thoughtful approval. The girl said nothing; but sat and -stared at the fire and listened with an air of weary and indifferent -toleration while the old man repeated over and over what sounded like a -monotonous narrative recitation. From time to time she nodded her head; -and, at last, she began to repeat after the old man in a listless, -mechanical way. It was late in the afternoon before they rose and -scrambled over the heaps of rubbish to the street, where the old -gentle<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span>man bade the girl good-by with what were evidently words of -earnest admonition. His iteration seemed to annoy her, for finally she -let slip, in a tone of anger, a specimen of the speech of the people -which wasn’t exactly this; though at this we will let it go:</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_048_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_048_sml.jpg" width="375" height="399" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Vous savez, mons vieux, je m’en fiche bien de votre -Pé—Pé—Pétrarque—et de votre Laure aussi—”</p> - -<p>Then she as quickly dropped back into her natural tone of hopeless -submission to all who were less wretched than herself, and said, with -something like gratitude in her voice:</p> - -<p>“All the same, it is very kind of you, sir, I will try to do as you have -told me.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span></p> - -<p>And they parted, she entering a near-by passage-way, and he going to the -railroad station.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Mr. Vincent Egg stood in the private office of the Lyons branch of -Messrs. Sculry & Co., the great Excursion Managers. He was, for him, -unusually smart as to his clothes—to those who knew him, a sign that he -had reached the end of his period of abstinence. The Manager of the -Branch, a thin, raw, red-faced little Englishman with sandy whiskers, -was looking over the proofs of the guide-book pages set up from Mr. -Egg’s copy.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ah, yes, Egg!” he said; “I knew there was something particular I -wanted to speak to you about. Here it is.” And he slowly read aloud:</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Another and perhaps the principal attraction of Drignan is the -ruin, pathetic in its dignity, of the mansion of the Conte dei -Canale, the exiled Venetian, where the immortal poet Petrarch and -the no less immortal lady of his love, whom he has celebrated in -undying verse, met secretly, in the year 1337, to bid each other a -long and chaste farewell. News of the lovers’ design having reached -the ears of de Sade, the husband of the beauteous Laura, his base -mind suspected an elopement, and he dispatched his liveried minions -to separate the pair, and, if possible, to immolate on the altar of -his vengeance the gentle and talented poet. It is supposed to be in -consequence of injuries received in the resultant</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_050_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_050_sml.jpg" width="369" height="376" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind">struggle that Petrarch went into retirement for three years at -Vaucluse (a spot which no holder of Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s 7-9 -extra-trip coupon should fail to see). This exquisite chapter in -the lives of the lovers over whom so many tears of sentiment have -been shed, has been strangely neglected by the historians; but -survives undimmed in local tradition. A full account will be found -on page 329. The house is now 47 <i>bis</i> rue des Quatres Mulets. -Behind it may still be seen what remains of the magnificent -orangery and olive-garden of the Conte dei Canale. Access to this -is gained from the second gateway from the corner of the Passage -des Porcs, and should not be confounded with the entrance to the -Jardin de Perse, a resort of somewhat frivolous<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> character, -situated on the second crossing below, rue Clément V.”—</p></div> - -<p>Here the Manager raised his head. “I suppose that’s for the men?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mr. Egg; “that’s for the men.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the Manager, “what about this other attraction, this -Petrarch and Laura place?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Egg, blinking at him, for it was still early in the -morning; “there it is, as large as life, with a sign on the door that -looks as if it had been there fifty years; and I’ll give it to you as my -opinion that if you don’t work that attraction, the Novelty Excursion -Company will jump in and work it for you.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay!” said the Manager, irritably; “that’s all very well; but how -about the fees? That excursion goes by way of Drignan to save money. The -London office won’t thank me if I give them any extra fees to pay.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mr. Egg, pleasantly; “is that all? Here, give me that proof.” -And, taking the sheets from the manager, he wrote as follows, on the -margin:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The mansion is at present owned by a respectable family who also -do trustworthy washing. A polite, well-informed attendant is always -ready to show the premises on payment of a moderate fee of 35 -centimes, (3½ d.) Although no part of the regular excursion, the -liberal time allowed by Messrs. Sculry & Co., for rest and -refreshment in Drignan, will enable excursionists to visit this -shrine of deathless romance.”</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span></p> - -<p>The Manager took the amended proof back, and read it admiringly.</p> - -<p>“By Jove, Egg!” he said; “that does it to the Queen’s taste! An -attraction like that, and not a penny’s expense to the concern! I -suppose, of course, really and truly, it’s all Tommy-rot?”</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 271px;"> -<a href="images/i_052_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_052_sml.jpg" width="271" height="232" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“I suppose so,” said Mr. Egg, pleasantly.</p> - -<p>“Never was any such business, I suppose,” went on the Manager.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe it, myself,” said Mr. Egg, shaking his head sagely.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the Manager, “it’s all right for business, so far as the -Avignon tour is concerned. And, oh! I say, Egg, I don’t suppose you -<i>could</i> keep permanently straight, could you?”</p> - -<p>“At my time of life,” said Mr. Egg, blandly, “a gentleman’s habits are -apt to be fixed.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” sighed the Manager. “Well, all the same, the London -office was very much pleased with the last job you did, Egg, and they -have authorized me, at my discretion, to increase your honorarium. We’ll -make it a shilling a page, beginning with the present.”</p> - -<p>When Mr. Vincent Egg reached the street, he looked at the unexpected -pile of wealth in his hand.</p> - -<p>“This is a three weeks’ go at elysium,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> said he to himself; “such as I -haven’t had in many a year. And, so far as I am concerned, it is the -Fruit of Falsification, and the Wage of Sin.”</p> - -<p>But when Mr. Egg next awoke from his period of slumber in M. Morel’s -back-room, and stretched himself upon the hard cushion of the red velvet -divan, throngs of gawking tourists were trying to steep themselves in -sentiment as they gazed about the old room off the rue des Quatres -Mulets, and looked over the wall at the faded orange and olive trees, -and listened to the story which Virginie told, like a talking-doll, and -dropped into her hand a welcome stream of copper or silver, according as -they were English or Americans.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_053_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_053_sml.jpg" width="326" height="154" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_GHOOLLAH" id="THE_GHOOLLAH"></a>THE GHOOLLAH.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/i_055.jpg" -alt="I" -width="120" /></span> TOOK a long drive one day last Summer to see an old friend of mine who -was in singularly hard luck; and I found him in even harder luck and -more singular than I had expected. My drive took me to a spot a few -miles back of a Southern sea-coast, where, in a cup-like hollow of the -low, rocky hills, treeless save for stunted and distorted firs and -pines, six or eight score of perspiring laborers, attired in low-necked -costumes consisting exclusively of a pair of linen trousers a-piece, -toil all day in the blazing sun to dig out some kind of clay of which I -know nothing, except that it looks mean, smells worse, has a name ending -in <i>ite</i>, and is of great value in the arts and sciences. They may make -fertilizer out of it, or they may make water-colors: Billings told me, -but I don’t know. There are some things that one forgets almost as -readily as a blow to one’s pride. Moreover, this stuff was associated in -my mind with Big Mitch.</p> - -<p>Of course Billings was making a fortune out of it. But as it would take -six or eight years to touch the figure he had set for himself, and as he -had no special guarantee of an immortal youth on this earth, and as, -until the fortune<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span> was made, he had to live all the year around in that -god-forsaken spot, and to live with Big Mitch, moreover, I looked upon -him as a man in uncommonly hard luck. And he was.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_056_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_056_sml.jpg" width="314" height="300" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>I had been visiting friends in a town some miles inland, and it had -occurred to me that it would be an act of Christian charity to drive -over the hills to Billings’s place of servitude, and to condole with my -old friend. I had nothing else to do—a circumstance always favorable to -the perpetration of acts of Christian charity—and I went. He was -enthusiastically glad to see me—I was the first visitor he had ever -had—and he left his office at once, and led me up the burning hot -sand-hill to his house, which was a very comfortable sort of place when -you got there. It was an old-fashioned Southern house, small but -stately, with a Grecian portico in front, supported by two-story<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> wooden -pillars. Here he was established in lonely luxury, with no one to love, -none to caress, swarms of darkeys, and a cellar full of wines that would -have tempted the Dying Anchorite to swill. Casually dispatching half a -dozen niggers after as many bottles of champagne as they thought we -might need to whet our appetites for luncheon, Billings bade me welcome -again, and we fell to friendly talk.</p> - -<p>He began with that kind of apology for his condition that speaks its own -futility, and its despair of any credence. Of course, he said, it was -not a very cheerful sort of life, but it had its compensations—quiet, -good for the nerves, opportunity for study and all that sort of thing, -self-improvement. And then, of course, there was society, such as it -was—mainly, he had to admit, the superannuated bachelors and worn-out -old maids who clung to those decaying Southern plantations—for, it is -hardly necessary to say, not an acre of property in that forlorn region, -save only Billings’s mud-bank, had yielded a cent of revenue since the -war. And, of course, the unpleasant part of it was that none of them -lived less than ten or fifteen miles away, and were only to be reached -by a long ride, and as he—Billings—was never at ease in the saddle, on -account of his liver, this practically shut him out. But then, of -course, Mitch went everywhere, and enjoyed it very much.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes!” said I, reminded of the most unpleasant part of my duty; “and -how is Mitch?”</p> - -<p>“He’s dirty well, and it’s devilish little you care!” brayed out an -incredibly brazen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_058_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_058_sml.jpg" width="306" height="329" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">voice just behind my ear, and a big red hand snatched the bottle of -champagne from my grasp, while a laugh, that sounded like a hyena trying -to bellow, rang in my ears. A great, big, raw-boned youngster, dressed -in clothes of an ingenious vulgarity, dropped heavily into a chair by my -side and laid a knobby broad red hand on my knee, where it closed with a -brutal grip. That was Big Mitch, whose real name was Randolph Mitchel, -and who being by birth a distant connection of dear old Billings, might -reasonably have been expected to be some sort or variety of gentleman. -Yet, if you wanted to sum up Big Mitch, his ways, manners, tastes, ideas -and spiritual make-up generally,—if he could be said to have any -spiritual make-up—you had only to say that he was all that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> gentleman -is not, and you had a better descriptive characterization of the man -than you could have got in a volume telling just what he was. This was -not by any means my first acquaintance with Mr. Randolph Mitchel. When I -was a young man his father had stood my friend, and though he had -dropped out of my sight when he went, a hopeless consumptive, to -vegetate in some Western sanitarium, it was natural enough that he -should send to me to use my good offices in behalf of his son, who had -been expelled from a well-known fresh-water college of the Atlantic -slope, very shortly after he had entered it.</p> - -<p>Now I am not a hard-hearted man, and a boy with a reasonable, rational, -normal amount of devil in him can do pretty nearly anything he wants to -with me; therefore it signifies something when I say that after giving -up a week to the business, I had to write to poor old Mr. Mitchel, at -the Consumptives’ Home, Bilhi, Colorado, not only that was it impossible -to get his son Randolph reinstated at that particular college, but that -I did not believe that there was any college ever made where the boy had -a prospect of staying even one term out. It was not that he was vicious; -he was no worse on the purely moral side than scores of wild boys. But -he was the most hopelessly, irreclaimably turbulent, riotous, unruly, -insolent, brutal, irreverent, unmannerly and generally blackguardly -young devil that I had ever encountered; and the entire faculty of the -college said, in their own scholastic way, that he beat <i>their</i> time. He -had not even the saving graces<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span> of good-nature, thoughtlessness and -mirthful good-fellowship, which may serve as excuse for much youthful -waywardness. The students disliked him as thoroughly as their professors -did, and although he was smart as a steel trap and capable of any amount -of work when he wanted to do it, nobody in that college wanted -him,—<i>not even the captain of the foot-ball team</i>.</p> - -<p>Was I right? Had I wronged the boy? I asked that captain, and he said -No.</p> - -<p>Big Mitch was only twenty-three or so, but he had been many things in -his young life. He had run away and traveled with a circus. He had been -a helper in a racing stable. I don’t know what he was when his father -made a last desperate appeal to poor Billings, and Billings, who did not -know what he was letting himself in for, sent him down to start up work -on the recently purchased mud-pit. There Mitch found his billet, and he -led a life of absolute happiness, domineering over a horde of helpless, -ignorant negros, and white men of an even lower grade who sought work in -that wretched place. And what a life he led the dear, gentle, kindly old -fellow who had sold himself to fortune-getting in that little Inferno! I -knew how Billings must loathe him; I knew, indeed, how he did loathe -him, though he was too gentle to say it, but I knew that the burden my -poor old friend had put upon himself would not soon be shifted. For Big -Mitch was useful, nay, indispensable, for the first time in his life. He -was as honest as he was tough, and he could handle that low grade of -human material as few others could have done. The speculation would have -been a failure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span> without him. “In fact,” Billings told me afterward with -a sad smile, “it is not only that he raises the efficient of the works; -he <i>is</i> the efficient of the works.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_061_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_061_sml.jpg" width="399" height="435" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Big Mitch never bore me the slightest ill-will for the report I had made -to his father. He was too indurated an Ishmael for that. He knew -everybody disliked him, but he did not care a cent for that. When he -wanted other people’s company, he <i>took</i> it. The question of their -enjoyment was one that never entered his mind. It was in pure delight in -seeing me that he grabbed my knee, pinched my knee-cap<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span> until it sent a -qualm to my stomach, and told me that he had ordered my driver to go -home, and that I had got to stay and see the country. Things came pretty -near to a lively squall when I got the impudence of this through my -head; but when Billings joined his frightened, anxious pleadings to the -youth’s brutalities, and I saw his humbled, troubled, mortified face, I -yielded.</p> - -<p>We were free from Mitch after luncheon, and poor Billings began to make -a pitiful little apology; but I stopped him.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind,” I said; “I was only thinking of <i>you</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve got accustomed to it,” he said, trying to smile; “and it’s -really more tolerable than you would think, when you get to know him. -And when he is too—too trying—why, there is one place that he -understands he must respect. Come to my library. You are the first -person who has ever entered it except myself.”</p> - -<p>He led me to the door of a room at the end of a dark passage-way. As he -put the key in the lock I noticed a curious smell.</p> - -<p>“I want you to see,” said he, “the sort of thing I’m interested in.”</p> - -<p>I had not been five seconds in the room before I knew what it was—the -sort of thing he was interested in. Loneliness breeds strange maggots in -the brain of a New Yorker temporarily engaged in the mud-mining -business. My old friend Billings was now a full-blown Theosophist, and -he had that little room stuffed full of more Mahatma-literature and -faquir trumpery than you could shake a stick at. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span> were skulls and -fans and grass-cloth things and heathen gods till—literally—your eyes -couldn’t rest. There were four-legged gods and eight-legged gods, and -gods with their legs where their arms ought to be, and gods who were of -the gentleman-god and lady-god sex at one and the same time, and gods -with horns and miscellaneous gods, and a few other gods. In odd places -here and there, where he had not had time to arrange them properly, -there were a few more gods.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_063_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_063_sml.jpg" width="354" height="392" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>And then my poor old friend sat down and tried to put me through the -whole business, and tell me what a great and mysterious thing it was, -and what a splendid scheme it would be to get into the two-hundred and -ninety-seventh state<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span> or the thirtieth dilution or the thirty-third -degree, or something, for when you got there you were nothing, don’t you -know?</p> - -<p>I was short on Vishnu and I didn’t know beans about Buddha, and for a -long time, I am afraid, I gave dear old Billings a great deal of grief. -But finally I began to get a new light, and Billings convinced me that -there was something in it, and we had some more champagne.</p> - -<p>That evening Mitch came for us with a carryall, and said he was going to -drive us twenty miles inland to a “dancing-in-the-barn” function on -somebody’s plantation. I proved to him then and there that he was not. -Billings nearly melted into a puddle while the operation was going on. -He could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Big Mitch drive off -alone, and I think he had a slight chill. At any rate, he had the -champagne brought to the library, and there he told me that he had not -believed such a thing to be possible; that he looked upon me in a new -light, and that he thought my <i>Ghoollah</i> must be stronger than Mitch’s -<i>Ghoollah</i>. I told him that I should be ashamed of myself if it wasn’t; -and then I asked him what a <i>Ghoollah</i> was. Please do not ask me if I -have spelled that word right. I am spelling it by ear, and if my ear for -Hindoo is as bad as my ear for music, I have probably got it wrong. It -sounded something like the noise that pigeons make, and that is as near -as I can get to it. According to Billings, it was Hindoo for my vital -essence and my will power and my conscience and my immortal soul and -pretty nearly every other spiritual property that I carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> around in -my clothes. Everyone, it appeared, had a <i>Ghoollah</i>. If your Ghoollah -was stronger than the other man’s Ghoollah, you bossed the other man. If -you had a good and happy Ghoollah, you were good and happy. If you had a -bad Ghoollah, you were bilious. If my Theosophy is wrong, please do not -correct it. I prefer it wrong. I told him that I did not see that having -a Ghoollah was anything more than being yourself, but he said it was; -that folks could swap Ghoollahs, or lend them out on call loans.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_065_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_065_sml.jpg" width="318" height="381" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Then it all came out. That was the reason that he was driving deeper and -deeper into Theosophy. He had got so sick of Mitch that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span> feeling it -impossible to shake off his burden, he had seized upon this Ghoollah -idea as offering a ray of hope. He was now trying to learn how to get -into spiritual communication with somebody—<i>anybody</i>—else, who would -swap Ghoollahs with him after business hours, so that they could -ride-and-tie, as it were, and give his own weary Ghoollah a rest.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Billings,” I said, “this is all rubbish. Now, I’m not -dealing in Ghoollahs, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can find some -sort of a job here for a decent young fellow, and I’ll send one down -who’ll be grateful for the place and who will be a companion to you. -It’s Arthur Penrhyn, Dr. Penrhyn’s boy; a nice, pleasant young -fellow—just what his father used to be, you remember? He was to have -graduated at Union this year, but he broke down from over-study. That’s -the kind of Ghoollah <i>you</i> want, and he’ll do you no end of good.”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>This happened in June. I had never expected to see Billings’s mud-heap -again, but I saw it before the end of July. I went there because -Billings had written me that if I cared for him and our life-long -friendship, and for poor Penrhyn’s boy I must come at once. He could not -explain by letter what the matter was.</p> - -<p>It added to my natural concern when, on my arrival, Billings hurried me -into the library and I found it as theosophic as ever. I had hoped that -that nonsense was ended. But worse was to come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span></p> - -<p>“When you were here before,” said Billings, impressively, without having -once mentioned champagne, “you scoffed at a light which you couldn’t -see. Now, my friend, I am going to let you see it with your own eyes, -and you shall tell me whether or no you are convinced that it is -possible for one human being to exchange his entity with another. If I -have brought you here on a wild goose chase, I am willing to have you -procure a judicial examination into my sanity, and I will abide the -issue.”</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 295px;"> -<a href="images/i_067_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_067_sml.jpg" width="295" height="223" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>He spoke with so much quiet gravity that he made me feel creepy.</p> - -<p>“See here, old man,” I said; “do you mean to tell me that you have -succeeded in pairing off with any other fellow’s Ghoollah, or Woollah, -or whatever it is?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, coloring a little; “it’s not I. It’s—it’s—it’s—in -fact, it’s that boy Penrhyn.”</p> - -<p>“What the deuce do you mean?” I demanded.</p> - -<p>“I mean that Arthur Penrhyn has changed, or, rather, is changing his -spiritual essence with another man.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed,” said I; “and who’s the other man?”</p> - -<p>“Randolph Mitchel,” said Billings.</p> - -<p>“Mitch?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span></p> - -<p>“Mitch!”</p> - -<p>There is no need of describing the rest of that interview. You have -probably met the man who believes that the spirit of his grandmother -came out of the cabinet and shook hands with him. You can probably -imagine how you would talk to that man if he had brought you eight -hundred miles to tell you about it. That is what happened in Billings’s -library that afternoon, and it ended, of course, in our calling each -other “old man” a great many times over, and in my agreeing to stay to -the end of the week, and in Billings giving me his word of honor not to -open his mouth on the subject unless at the end of that time I asked him -to and admitted that he was right in sending for me. And then Billings -did something that knocked my consciousness of superiority clean out of -me, and gave a severe shock to my confidence. He offered to bet me five -hundred dollars to anything that would make it interesting on that -contingency, and he called me down and down till I had to compromise on -a bet of fifty dollars even. I have met many men in the course of my -life who believed in various spook-religions, but that was the first and -only time that I ever met a man who would back his faith with a cold -money bet.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>By way of changing the subject, we strolled down to the quarry. It was -even hotter than before, and it smelt worse, and I did not wonder that -it had driven poor old Billings to Theosophy. It was a scene of -interesting activity, but it could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> not be called pleasant. I have a -great respect for the dignity of labor, but I think labor looks more -dignified with its shirt on than when reduced to a lone pair of -breeches.</p> - -<p>I was about to make a motion to return to the house, when suddenly a -string of peculiarly offensive oaths, uttered in a shrill angry voice, -drew my attention to a heavy wire rope which a gang of men were hauling -across my path. Looking up I saw, as well as I could see anything, -against the dazzling background of the hill, a short, -insignificant-looking figure perched on a rock, from whence it directed, -with many gesticulations and an abounding stream of profanity, the -operations of the toiling, grunting, straining creatures who dragged at -the ponderous cable. Its operations seemed to be conducted with more -vehemence than judgement, and two or three times the rope was on the -edge of slipping back into the pit behind, when it was saved by the -men’s quick response to some directions given in a low, strong voice by -a man who stood in my rear. Some little hitch occurred after a minute or -two, and the small figure, in an access of rage, rushed down from the -rock, and, showering imprecations all around, leaped in among the -workmen, pushing, shoving and cuffing, and after considerable trouble -finally got them to doing what he wanted. I heard the heavier voice -behind me utter half-aloud an expression of annoyance and disgust. Then -the little figure passed me, running back to its rock, and hailed me as -it passed.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Governor!” it said; “you here? See you when I get this job -done!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_070_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_070_sml.jpg" width="401" height="344" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Billings,” said I, “who on earth is that?”</p> - -<p>“Arthur Penrhyn,” said Billings. I looked again and saw that it was. -Then I turned round and saw behind me the gigantic form of Mitch. He, -too, spoke to me as I passed, and with a look of simple pleasure in his -face that made it seem absolutely strange to me.</p> - -<p>“Glad to see you, Sir,” he said.</p> - -<p><i>Sir!</i></p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>“It’s a most remarkable case altogether,” said Billings, who had got -back to his normal self, and had brought out the champagne. “When that -boy came here he was just as you described him—just like his poor -father in the days when we first knew each other. He brooded a little -too much, and seemed discontented;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> but, considering his disappointment -at college, that was natural enough. Well, do you know, I believe it’s -he that’s doing the whole thing, and that he is effecting the -substitution for his own ends, though I don’t know what they are.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he wants his Ghoollah to get the job away from -Mitch’s Ghoollah.”</p> - -<p>“Ahem!” said Billings, looking a little embarrassed; “I—in fact, I’ve -discovered that the best Pundits do not use that word. It ought to be—”</p> - -<p>Here Billings gave me the correct word; but I draw the line at Ghoollah, -and Ghoollah it stays while I am telling this story.</p> - -<p>“He hadn’t been here a week before I noticed that he kept his eyes fixed -on Mitch all the time they were together. He looked at him as though he -were actually trying to absorb him. Before long, I saw that Mitch began -to be troubled under that steady gaze. He seemed at first angry, then -distressed, and he had long fits of silence. His boisterousness has been -vanishing steadily; but it is not sullenness that he displays—on the -contrary, I have never known him so gentle. He is just as efficient in -his duties, without being so extremely—demonstrative as he used to be. -And as for that other boy, who probably had never uttered a profane word -in his life, or spoken rudely to any human being—well, you heard him -to-day!”</p> - -<p>I made up my mind to try to drink fifty dollars’ worth of Billings’s -champagne before the end of the week to even up on my bet; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span> as the -days went on, each new development only served to urge me to greater -assiduity in the task. The spirit of Big Mitch looked out of little -Arthur Penrhyn’s insolent eyes, spoke out of his foul mouth, and showed -itself even in tricks of gesture and carriage, and in lines of facial -expression. And Big Mitch, though his huge, uncouth frame and coarse -lineaments lent themselves but ill to the showing of it, carried within -him a new spirit of gentleness and humility. We saw little of him, for -after work hours he kept persistently to his room. But once, late at -night, seeing him, through his open door, asleep over a book, I stepped -softly in and looked over his big shoulders at the half-dozen volumes -that littered his table. They were college text-books, and on the -fly-leaf of each one was the name of Arthur Penrhyn.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>I had packed my valise, and was looking for Billings to pay him his -fifty dollars, when Big Mitch came out of his room—it was the noon -hour—and he asked me for the favor of a few words.</p> - -<p>“I am ashamed to trouble you, sir,” he said, “but if you could help me -to get any sort of a job in New York, or anywhere else, I’d be more -thankful than I could tell you. I can afford to take almost any sort of -a place where there’s a future, for I am pretty well ahead of the game -financially, and I’ve earned my interest in this concern. And it’s in -such shape now that Mr. Billings can get along without me.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_073_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_073_sml.jpg" width="359" height="352" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“But, my dear boy,” I said, “why do you <i>want</i> to go?”</p> - -<p>Big Mitch frowned and fidgeted nervously; then he exploded.</p> - -<p>“I’ll give it to you straight,” he said. “It’s that Penrhyn pup. When he -first came here I thought I was just about the nicest little man on -God’s footstool. I was as contented with myself as a basket of eggs. I -knew it all. I was so sharp you could cut glass with me. I was the only -real sport in the outfit. See? And I’d got a roving commission to jump -on people’s necks. Well, <i>you</i> know what I was. And I liked myself. -See?”</p> - -<p>“But?” I began. “Arthur Penrhyn—”</p> - -<p>“<i>So did he!</i> I don’t believe any one in the world was ever stuck on me -before, but <i>he</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span> was. That little ape hadn’t been here a week before he -began to do everything he saw me do, and pretty soon he had me down so -fine that he might have been my twin-brother, if we ever had such runts -in our family. Well, I began to sour on the show. Understand? I could -see for myself it wasn’t pretty. Well, one day I came around a corner, -and there was that baboon sassing back to old man Billings. I was just -going to pick him up and break his neck, when I felt kind of sick at my -stomach, and I says to myself, ‘You swine! that’s the way <i>you</i>’ve been -treating that white man! How do you like yourself now?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Big Mitch clutched desperately at his rumpled hair.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 248px;"> -<a href="images/i_074_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_074_sml.jpg" width="248" height="407" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“I’m going to be a gentleman,” he grunted, “if I have to chew gravel to -do it. I’ll do it, though, and I’ll show up some day and surprise the -old man before he cashes in his last lung. But if I don’t get a fresh -start pretty soon, I’ll do something to that Penrhyn monkey that won’t -be any young lady’s dancing-class, you bet your boots!</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span></p> - -<p>I told Billings. First he paid me fifty dollars. Then he made a bonfire -of all his theosophic outfit. Then he went down to the quarry and -announced that he was his own boss from that time on; and by way of a -sample demonstration he called up Arthur Penrhyn and knocked the -everlasting Ghoollah out of him. Then he came back to the house and -looked at the thermometer.</p> - -<p>To this day, I never see champagne without thinking of drinking some.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_075_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_075_sml.jpg" width="194" height="276" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CUTWATER_OF_SENECA" id="CUTWATER_OF_SENECA"></a>CUTWATER OF SENECA. - -</h2><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span></p> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/i_077.jpg" -alt="T" -width="120" /></span>HE story I am about to tell is hardly a story at all. Perhaps I had -better call it a report, and let it go at that, with a word of -explanation as to how I came to report it.</p> - -<p>In 1884 a new state survey and a new re-districting act between them cut -off about one-quarter of a northern timber county close to the Canada -border, and delivered over the severed portion to its neighbor on the -southerly side, a thickly settled county with several large towns and -with important manufacturing interests. This division left the backwoods -county temporarily without a judiciary or a place of holding court. But -the act provided for the transfer of all pending cases to the courts of -the more fortunate county down below, and gave the backwoods District -Attorney the privilege of trying in the said courts such cases as might -arise in his own bailiwick during his term of office then current.</p> - -<p>No such cases occurred, however, until the period stated by the act was -nearly at an end, when the District Attorney of the mutilated county -came down to Metropole, our County Seat, to try a murder case. As our -backwoods<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> neighbors were a somewhat untrammelled, uncouth and -free-and-easy folk at their quietest, his coming naturally attracted -some curious interest, especially after it became known that he had come -into town sitting side by side with the prisoner in the smoking-car, and -discussing politics with him. His name was Judge Cutwater, and he was -generally spoken of as Cutwater of Seneca—perhaps because he had at -some time been a Judge in Seneca, New York; perhaps because there was no -comprehensible reason for so calling him, any more than there was -comprehensible reason for various and sundry other things about him.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_078_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_078_sml.jpg" width="322" height="377" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>He was a man who might have been sixty<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> or seventy or eighty. Indeed, he -might have been a hundred, and he may be now, for all I know. But he was -lean, wiry, agile, supple and full of eternal youth. He might have been -good-looking if he had cared to be, for he had a fine old-fashioned -eagle face, and a handsome, flowing gray moustache, the grace of which -was spoiled by a straggling thin wisp of chin whiskers, and a patch of -gray stubble on each cheek. And, of course, he chewed tobacco profusely -and diffusely, and in his long, grease-stained, shiny broadcloth coat, -his knee-bagged breeches, his big slouch hat, and his eye-glasses with -heavy black horn rims, suspended from his neck by a combination of black -ribbon and pink string, he looked what he was, as clearly as though he -had been labelled—the representative of the Majesty of the Law among a -backwoods people out of odds with fortune, desperate, disheartened, down -on their luck, and lost to self-respect.</p> - -<p>He said he was a good Democrat, and I think he was. He saw the prisoner -locked up, bade him a kindly “Good night, Jim,” and ordered the jailer -to let him have all the whiskey he wanted. Then Judge Cutwater called on -his brother of the local bench, greeting him with a ceremonious and -stately dignity that absolutely awed the excellent old gentleman, and -dropping an enormous Latin quotation on him as he departed, just by way -of utterly flattening him out. After that he strolled over to the hotel, -grasped the landlord warmly by the hand, and in the space of half an -hour told him a string of stories of such startling novelty, humor and -unfitness for publication that, as the landlord enthusiastically<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span> -declared, the recent Drummers’ Convention could not be said to be “in -it” with the old man.</p> - -<p>The next day the case of Jim Adsum for the murder of his mate in a -logging camp was called in court; and District Attorney Cutwater’s -trying of it was a circus that nearly drove old Judge Potter into an -apoplectic fit, and kept the whole court room in what both those eminent -jurists united—it was the only thing they <i>did</i> unite in—in -characterizing as a disgraceful uproar.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_080_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_080_sml.jpg" width="293" height="296" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>And yet, somehow, by four o’clock he had evidence enough in to convict -the prisoner; the defence had not a single exception worth the noting, -and was rattled as to its state of mind; and that weird old prosecutor, -who repeatedly spoke of the prisoner at the bar as “Jim,” and made no -secret of the fact that they had been bosom friends and companions in -the forest, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span> worked up a case that made the best lawyers in the room -stare at him with looks of puzzled surprise and amazed respect.</p> - -<p>When he rose to sum up, he slowly and thoughtfully drew a tin -tobacco-box from his trousers’ pocket, opened it and deposited therein -his quid, after passing his right hand, with a rapid and skillful -motion, across his gray moustache. This feat he performed with a dignity -that at once fascinated and awed the beholder. Then he began:</p> - -<p>“Your Honor <i>and</i> Gentlemen of the Jury: It is a rare and a seldom -occurrence that a prosecuting official, sworn to exert his utmost -energies to further the execution of the law, is called upon to invoke -the awful vengeance of that law, and the retribution demanded by -outraged humanity, upon the head of one under whose blanket he has lain -within the cold hollows of the snow-clad woods; with whom he has shared -the meagre food of the pioneer; side by side with whom he has struggled -for his rights and his liberties, at the daily and hourly risk of his -life, with half-breed Injuns and with half-breeder Kanucks. Sech, -gentlemen, is the duty that lies before this servant of the Law to-day; -and sech, gentlemen, is the duty that will be done, without fear or -favor, without consideration of friendship or hallowed association; and -this man, Jim Adsum, knows it, knowing me, as well as he ever knew -anything in the fool life that is now drawing to a close.</p> - -<p>“You have heard, Gentlemen of the Jury, the evidence that has been laid -before you on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span> the part of the prosecution, and you have heard the -attempt made by the learned counsel for the defence to discredit that -evidence in his eloquent but frivolous opening on behalf of his -unfortunate client. I trust that you have given to the one the -appreciative attention which it deserves, and that you have let the -other slip, naked and shivering, into the boundless oblivion of your -utter contempt.</p> - -<p>“What, Gentlemen of the Jury, are the circumstances of this case? We -learn by the testimony for the people that on the twenty-seventh of -November a party of seven men started off for the upper waters of the -Sagus River, some to join a lumber camp, and others, among them this -defendant, James Adsum, and his victim, Peter Biaux, a Frenchman, in the -pursuit of their usual vocation—which may be said to be hunting for -fur-skins, on general principles. This party of seven men is snowed up, -and goes into camp at the junction of Sagus and First Rivers, and for -eleven days remains thus snow-bound in that icy solitude, the only human -beings within hundreds of miles.</p> - -<p>“There has been, Gentlemen of the Jury, as has been shown to you, an old -grudge between the prisoner at the bar and the deceased; a grudge of -many years standing. There is no use of going into the origin of that -grudge. Some says it was cards; some, business; some, drink; and I -personally know that it was a woman; but that makes no difference before -this present tribunal. Let it be enough that there was bad blood between -the men; that it broke forth, as two witnesses have told you, day<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_083_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_083_sml.jpg" width="313" height="302" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">after day, within the confines of that little camp crowded within its -snow-bound arena in the heart of the immeasurable solitudes of the -wintry forest. Again and again the other members of the party intervened -to make peace between them. At last, upon the eighth day of December, -matters come to a crisis, and a personal encounter ensued between the -two men, in the course of which the deceased, being a Frenchman, is -badly mauled, and Jim, here, being without his knife, through -carelessness, is correspondingly cut. The two are separated; and, for -fear of further mischief, the Frenchman is sent down the river to fish -through the ice, and the prisoner is kept in the camp. That night, by -order of the head of the party, he sleeps between two men. These two men -have told you their story—how one of them woke in the night at the -sound, as he thought, of a distant shot, and became aware that Adsum<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> -was no longer at his side—how, reaching out his hand, he grasped -another hand, and taking it for the prisoner’s, was reassured and fell -asleep again—and how, weeks afterward, he first found out that that -hand was the hand of the man who had been detailed to sleep on the other -side of the prisoner. You have heard, gentlemen, how these two men awoke -in the morning to find Adsum lying between them, shaking and shivering -with a chill under his heavy blanket. You have heard of the long and -unsuccessful search for Peter Biaux, and of the accidental discovery of -his mangled body three months later, under the ice of the Sagus River, -at a point ten miles below the camp. You have heard how each of these -witnesses was haunted by a suspicion that he had unwittingly betrayed -the trust reposed in him, and how, at last, when they spoke together of -their watch on that fatal night, their suspicion flashed, illumined with -the fire of heaven’s truth, into a hijjus certainty.</p> - -<p>“You have been told, gentlemen, that the case of the people rests upon -circumstantial evidence. It does, gentlemen; it does; and the -circumstances are all there. You have heard how when these two witnesses -exchanged notes, they came to one conclusion, and that is the conclusion -to which I shall bring your minds. The witness Duncan said to the -witness Atwood: ‘Jim done it!’ The witness Atwood replied to him: ‘Jim -done it!’ And I say to you, Gentlemen of the Jury: ‘Jim <i>done</i> it!’ And -you done it, Jim; you know you did!</p> - -<p>“And now, gentlemen, what sort of a man is this prisoner at the bar? We -must consider<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span> him for the purposes of this trial as two men—on the one -hand, as the brave, upright and courageous trapper which he has on -numberless occasions, to my personal knowledge, shown himself to be—and -I may say to you, Gentlemen of the Jury, that I would not be here -talking to you now if he had not a-been on one or two occasions. And on -the other hand, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am going to show him to you as -the red-handed murderer I always told him he would be if he gave the -rein to his violent passions. Besides, the darn fool’s drunk half the -time.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_085_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_085_sml.jpg" width="425" height="234" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“You have been told, gentlemen, by the learned counsel for the defence, -that this crime was committed in a rough country, where deeds of -violence are so common that it is possible that this man may have died -by another hand, murdered by a totally different person, for totally -different causes and reasons, and under circumstances totally -unconnected with the circumstances set forth in this case. Gentlemen, it -<i>is</i> a rough country—rough as the speech of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span> children, rough as -their food and fare, rough as the storms they face, and nigh as rough as -the whiskey they drink. But it is a country, gentlemen, where every man -knows his neighbor’s face and his neighbor’s heart, where the dangers -and privations of life draw men closer together than they are drawn in -great cities like this beautiful town of yours, which is honored by the -citizens I see sot before me in this jury box. In that great snow-clad -wilderness, on that bitter eighth of December, with the thermometer -thirty degrees below zero, I can assure you, gentlemen, that there was -no casual, accidental, extemporaneous murderer lilly-twiddling around -that chilly solitude, sauntering among twenty-foot snowdrifts for the -purpose of striking down a total stranger with nineteen distinct and -separate cuts, and then fading away into nothingness like the airy -fabric of a vision. And Jim doing nothing all that time? Gentlemen, the -contention of the counsel ain’t <i>sense</i>!</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 234px;"> -<a href="images/i_086_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_086_sml.jpg" width="234" height="386" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Gentlemen, I wish I could tell you that it was so. I wish I could tell -you so for Jim’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span> sake. I wish I could tell you so for your own sakes, -for on you is soon to rest the awful yet proud responsibility of -deciding that a fellow human being’s life is forfeit to his -blood-guiltiness. I wish I could tell you so for my own sake, regarding -myself as a friend of Jim’s. But it is the District Attorney, the -Prosecutor for the People, that you must listen to while he tells you -the story of what happened that night.</p> - -<p>“It was half-past eleven of that night when this man Adsum arose. How do -I know? Look in the almanac and see where the moon stood at half-past -eleven! It was then that he slipped from between his two guards and drew -back to where the flickering camp-fire cast the shadow of a pine tree on -the wall of snow that shut in their little resting-place. There he stood -in that shadow—a shadow that laid on his soul and on his face—and -waited to see if one of his comrades stirred. At his feet lay the two -men that had been set to guard him, Jared Duncan and Bill Atwood. Eb -Spence laid over the way with his feet to the fire. By him laid Sol -Geary and Kentucky Wilson. Why, Jim, I can see it all just as if I was -there! And then you—he—then, Gentlemen of the Jury, this prisoner at -the bar, slipped from that camp where his companions lay, bound to him -as he was bound to them, in the faith of comradeship; and, as he left -that little circle, that spot trodden out of the virgin snow, he left -behind him his fidelity, his self-respect and his manhood; his mind and -soul and heart full of the black and devilish thought of taking by -treacherous surprise the life of a comrade. Up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_088_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_088_sml.jpg" width="259" height="382" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">to that hour, his spirit had harbored no sech evil thought. The men he -had theretofore killed—and I am not saying, gentlemen, that he had not -killed enough—had been killed in fair and open fight, and there is not -a one of them all but will be glad and proud to meet him as gentleman to -gentleman at the Judgement Day. But now it was with <i>murder</i> in his -heart—base, cowardly, faithless murder—that he left that camp; it was -with murder in his heart that he sneaked, crouching low, down where the -heavy shadows hid the margin of the ice-bound stream. It was with murder -in his heart that he laid himself flat upon his belly on the ice when he -came within two rod of the Beaver Dam, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span> worked along, keeping ever -in the shadow till he come down to where that Frenchman, who, six hours -before, had et out of the same pan with him, stood with his light by his -side, gazing down into the black hole in the ice that was to be the -mouth of his grave and the portal of his entrance into eternity. Murder, -gentlemen, murder nerved his arm when he struck out that light with the -fur cap you see now in his hand; and murder’s self filled him with a -maniac’s rage as he rose to his feet and shot and stabbed the -defenceless back of his unsuspecting comrade. This, gentlemen, this—and -no tale of a prowling stranger—this, gentlemen, is the <i>truth</i>; and I -will appeal to the prisoner, himself, gentlemen, to bear me out. Jim -Adsum, you can lie to this Judge and you can lie to this Jury; you can -lie to your neighbors and you can lie to your own conscience; but you -can’t lie to old man Cutwater, and you know it. Now, Jim, was not that -just about the way you done it?”</p> - -<p>And Jim nodded his head, turned the fur cap over in his hands, and -assented quietly:</p> - -<p>“Just about.”</p> - -<p>Twenty-five minutes later the Jury went out, and Judge Cutwater stalked -slowly and thoughtfully over to the prisoner, and touched him on the -shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Jim,” he said, meditatively, “if I know anything about juries, and I -think I do, I’ve hanged you on that talk as sure as guns. Your man’s -summing-up didn’t amount to pea-soup. I’m sorry, of course; but there -wasn’t no way out of it for either you or me. However, I’ll <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span>tell you -what I’ll do. My term as District Attorney expires to-morrow at twelve; -and, if you’ll send that fool counsel of yours round to me at the -tahvern, I’ll show him how to drive a horse and cart through the law in -this case and get you a new trial, like rolling off a log.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_090_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_090_sml.jpg" width="335" height="496" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>And as Mr. Adsum got not only one but three new trials during the time -that I kept track of him, I have every reason to believe that Judge -Cutwater of Seneca kept his promise as a man, as faithfully as he -performed his duty as a prosecutor for the people.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MR_WICKS_AUNT" id="MR_WICKS_AUNT"></a>MR. WICK’S AUNT.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra1"><img src="images/i_093.jpg" -alt="T" -width="120" /></span>HE Wick family had run the usual course of families for many, many -years, and was quite old and respectable when causes, natural and -extraordinary, none of them being pertinent to this statement, reduced -said family to three members, viz:</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Angelica Sudbury Wick</span>, of the Boston branch of the family, who -lived in the house of her guardian, old Jonas Thatcher, with whom we -have no further concern, and who is therefore to be considered as turned -down, although in his day he was a highly respected leather merchant. -<span class="smcap">Miss Angelica Wick</span> was fair and sweet and good up to the last -requirement of young womanhood.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Winkelman Hempstead Wick</span>, of the Long Island branch of the family, a -distant cousin of the young lady, and a young man of conscientious mind, -an accountant by profession, and very nearly ready to buy out his -employer.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Aaron Bushwick Wick</span>, also of the Long Island branch of the family, -the grand-uncle of young Winkelman, who had brought up the young man in -his own house, and who loved<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span> him more than anything else in the world, -until, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, he fell in love with, and -married a lady named Louisa Nasmyth Pine, whom we will dismiss from -consideration as we dismissed the old leather merchant, although she was -a most estimable and attractive lady, and did fancy embroidery extremely -well. Her only concern with this story is that she bore the elder Mr. -Wick a baby, and died three or four months subsequently. But that was -enough; plenty; as much as was necessary.</p> - -<p>The way that marriage came about was this: old Mr. Wick wanted to see -the Wick family perpetuated, but young Mr. Wick was one of those -cautious, careful, particular men who get to be old bachelors before -they know it. No girl whom he knew was quite exactly what he wanted. If -she had been, she would have been too good for any man on earth. In -fact, it took young Mr. Wick a number of years to realize that any way -he could marry, he could only marry a human being like himself. In the -meanwhile his grand-uncle grew impatient; and finally he said that if -Winkelman didn’t fix on a girl and get her to agree to marry him by the -first of next January, he, Aaron Bushwick Wick, would marry somebody -himself. Miss Louisa Nasmyth Pine, being then close on to forty, helped -him to get under the line just in time to save his grand-nephew from -engaging himself to an ill-tempered widow with five children—which is -the kind of woman that those particular men generally pick up in the -end. And it serves them right.</p> - -<p>And so this marriage brought into existence the baby—<span class="smcap">Beatrice Brighton -Wick</span>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span></p> - -<p>Old Mr. Wick’s endeavors to hand the name of Wick down to posterity were -crowned, as you see, with only partial success. He had a Wick, it was -true, but it was a Wick that would be put out by marriage. He found -himself obliged to fall back on young Winkelman, and he bethought -himself of the distant cousin in Boston. He knew nothing of her, but he -reasoned that if she were a Wick, she must be everything that was lovely -and desirable; and so he said to his grand-nephew:</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width:298px;"> -<a href="images/i_095_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_095_sml.jpg" width="298" height="190" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Wink, you know that I am a man of my word. If you will go and marry -that girl, and if the two of you will take care of that confounded baby, -who is crying again, while I put in three or four years in Europe till -it gets to some sort of a rational age, I will buy your employer out, -guarantee you what is necessary for you to live on in some healthy -country place—no city air for that child, do you understand!—and when -I die you’ll be her guardian and have the usufruct of her estate and be -residuary legatee and all that sort of thing.”</p> - -<p>Winkelman Wick knew that his grand-uncle was a man of his word, and that -“all that sort of thing” meant a very, very comfortable sort of thing, -for the old gentleman was rich and had liberal ideas, and drank more -port than was good for him. He had no fancy for marrying a strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> -girl, but he thought there could be no harm in going out to Boston and -taking a look at his, so far, distant cousin. Under pretense of wanting -to write up the Wick genealogy, he went to Boston, and passed some time -under Mr. Thatcher’s hospitable roof. He found Angelica Wick all that -his fancy might have painted her but hadn’t; and, as Mr. Thatcher had -six daughters of his own, all of them older than Angelica, and none so -good-looking, he did not find any difficulty in inducing his pretty -cousin to marry him—and she did not back out even when he sprung the -baby contract on her. She said that she was a true woman and that she -would stand by him, but that she thought it might be a little awkward. -Feminine intuition is a wonderful thing. When it is right, it is apt to -be right.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_096_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_096_sml.jpg" width="345" height="249" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The elder Mr. Wick was as good as his word,—only, as is often the case -with people who pride themselves upon being as good as their word, he -took his own word too seriously. He died of apoplexy shortly after -landing at Liverpool.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span> His will, however, was probated in New York, and -thus escaped a legacy tax. The will fully carried out every promise he -had made to his young kinsman, but he had drawn it to follow absolutely -the terms of his proposition. He had never for an instant contemplated -the possibility of his dying before he wanted to—people who make their -wills very rarely do—and he had so drawn the document that Mr. and Mrs. -Winkelman Wick could come into their inheritance only after carrying out -their part of the contract, which was to take care of their aunt, baby -Beatrice Brighton Wick, for the space of four years, during which Mr. -Aaron Bushwick Wick had intended, without consideration of the designs -of Divine Providence, to sojourn in Europe.</p> - -<p>This brings the situation exactly down to bed-rock. On the tenth of -April, eighteen hundred and tumty-tum, Mr. Winkelman Wick and Miss -Angelica Wick were married in the old Wick house on Montague Street, -Brooklyn. On the twenty-fifth of April Mr. Aaron Bushwick Wick ended his -journey across the Atlantic at the Port of Liverpool, England. On the -twenty-seventh of April he started on that other journey for which your -heirs pay your passage money—and he certainly was not happy in his -starting place. On the twenty-eighth of the same month young Mr. and -Mrs. Wick knew the terms of their grand-uncle’s will; and on the -thirtieth the old Wick mansion was in the hands of the trustees, and the -young Wicks were in a hotel in charge of their baby-aunt, Beatrice, who -was herself in charge of an aged Irishwoman, whose feet were decidedly -more intelligent than her brain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> That is one of the beauties of -Ireland. You can get every variety of human being there from a cherub to -a chimpanzee.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_098_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_098_sml.jpg" width="327" height="282" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>They were very comfortable in the hotel, and would have liked to stay -there, but that awful contract had as many ways of making itself -disagreeable as an octopus has. They had pledged themselves, with and -for the benefit of the baby, to provide a suitable place in the country -without unreasonable delay. Their lawyer informed them that reasonable -delay meant three weeks and not one day more. As their contract began on -the tenth of April, they had, therefore, one day left to them to carry -out this provision. Moreover, the contract, after defining the phrase “a -suitable country place” in terms that would have fitted a selling -advertisement of the Garden of Eden, went on to specify that no place -should be considered suitable that was not at least forty miles from any -city of twenty thou<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span>sand inhabitants, or upward. When Mr. Aaron Bushwick -Wick wanted pure country air for a baby, he wanted it <i>pure</i>. If he -could, he would probably have had it brought in sealed bottles.</p> - -<p>Picking a place of residence for four long years is not an agreeable -task under conditions such as these, especially to a young couple -prematurely saddled with parental cares, and equipped with only twenty -days of experience in the matrimonial state. They discussed the -situation for hours on end. Mrs. Wick wept, and Mr. Wick contributed -more profanity than is generally used by a green husband. They even -asked the Irish nurse if she could not suggest some suitable place, and -they stated the whole situation to her very clearly and carefully. She -thought a while, and then suggested Ballymahon, County Longford, -Ireland. However, indirectly, she assisted them to solve the problem. -Mr. Wick told her to go to Jericho; and Mrs. Wick suddenly brightened up -and said:</p> - -<p>“Why, that’s so, Winkelman!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Wick stared in horror at his wife. Was the sweet young thing going -crazy under the strain? But no; Mrs. Wick was looking as bright as a -rose after an April shower, and she grew brighter and brighter as she -stood thinking in silence, nodding her pretty head affirmatively, -pursing her lips, and checking off the various stages of her thought -with her finger tip on her cheek. Finally she said:</p> - -<p>“And you could use the little room for a dressing room. Yes, dear, I’m -quite certain it will do beautifully.”</p> - -<p>After a while Mr. Wick convinced his wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> that he was not a -mind-reader, and then he got some information. Of course she did not -stay convinced—no woman ever did. All women think that the mechanism of -their thought is visible like a model in a glass case.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wick had forgotten that she herself owned a country house. This was -more excusable than it seems on the face of it, for she had never seen -the house, nor had she ever expected to see it. In fact, it was hardly -to be called a house; it was only a sort of bungalow or pavilion which -had once belonged to a club of sportsmen, and which her father had taken -for a bad debt. It was situated in the village of Jericho, of which she -knew nothing more than that her father had said that it was a good place -for trout, and was accessible by several different railroads. Concerning -the house itself she was better informed. She had had to copy the plans -of its interior on many occasions when her guardian had made futile -efforts to sell or to rent it. She also knew that the place was fully -furnished, and that an old woman lived in it as care-taker, rent free, -and liable to be dispossessed at any moment.</p> - -<p>The nurse was told that they would go to Jericho with her. She only -asked would the baby take her bottle now or wait till she got there?</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Jericho Junction is one of those lonely and forsaken little -stopping-places on the outskirts of the great woods that are the -sportsman’s paradise, with a dreary, brown-painted, pine box,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span> just big -enough for the ticket agent, the baggage master, the telegraph operator, -the flagman, the local postmaster, and the casual or possible intending -passenger. As this makes two persons in all, the structure is not large.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_101_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_101_sml.jpg" width="392" height="282" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The casual passenger and the full corps of local railway officials were -both present at Jericho Junction when the 6:30 P. M. train loomed out of -the dreary, raw May twilight, and drew up in front of the little box. -Now, these two occupants of the tiny station were neighbors but not -friends. Farmer Byam Beebe lived “a piece back in the country, over -t’wards Ellenville South Farms.” Mr. John D. Wilkins, station agent, -telegraph operator, and all the rest of the functionaries of Jericho -Junction, dwelt in his little box, midway between Ellenville South Farms -and the nearest important town, Bunker’s Mills, a considerable -manufacturing settlement. A houseless stretch of ten miles separated the -neighbors; but not even ten miles had stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> between them and a grudge -of many years’ duration. Beebe hated Wilkins, and Wilkins hated Beebe. -Never mind why. They were close neighbors for that region; and that more -close neighbors do not kill each other testifies every day to the broad -spread of Christian charity.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_102_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_102_sml.jpg" width="407" height="161" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Beebe so hated Mr. Wilkins that he made it a regular practice to -stop at the station after his day’s work was done, to wait for this -particular train. Silent and unfriendly, he would loaf in the station -for an hour and a half, and the station master dared not put him out, -for he was possibly an intending passenger on the train as far as the -next flag-station, which was a railroad crossing a mile and a quarter -further on. Mr. Beebe never bought a ticket from Mr. Wilkins, on the -occasions when he did ride. He paid his way on the cars, five cents, -plus ten cents rebate-check, and this rebate-check he redeemed at Mr. -Wilkins’s office the next day. Furthermore, he made a point of going out -just before the train arrived, and waiting on the other side of it to -get in, so that Mr. Wilkins could not tell whether he boarded the train -or walked off through the thick woods that crowded down to the very edge -of the line.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span></p> - -<p>Thus it happened that as the train arrived on the evening of the first -of May, Mr. Beebe, being on the farther side of the track from the -railroad station, saw an Irish nurse blunder helplessly off the platform -in front of him, holding a six months’ old baby in her arms, and stand -staring straight before her in evident bewilderment. Mr. Beebe accosted -her in all kindness:</p> - -<p>“Your folks got off the other side, I guess. This here ain’t the right -side for nobody, only me.” Then he prodded the baby with a large and -horny finger. “How old will that young ’un be?” he inquired.</p> - -<p>“Six months, sorr,” replied the nurse; “gahn on seven.”</p> - -<p>“Is that so?” said Mr. Beebe, with polite affectation of interest. -“Folks been long married?”</p> - -<p>“Wan month, sorr,” replied the nurse.</p> - -<p>“<i>Which?</i>” inquired Mr. Beebe.</p> - -<p>“Wan month, sorr,” replied the nurse.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>On the other side of the train of cars, station agent John D. Wilkins -saw an old-fashioned carryall drive up, conducted by an elderly woman of -austere demeanor. She was dressed in black alpaca, and her look was -stern and severe, and, necessarily, highly respectable. He saw a young -man and a young woman descend from the train, and saw the young man hand -the young woman into the carryall behind the elderly lady. Then, as the -young man turned as though to look for some one following him, he heard -the young woman say:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_104_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_104_sml.jpg" width="347" height="351" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Winkelman, dear, I don’t care <i>what</i> her age is, you <i>must</i> spank your -aunt!”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>When Mr. John D. Wilkins heard what he heard, he forgot the rules of the -railroad company, according to which he should have remained on the -platform until the train had left. He knew that just at 6:30 his -particular crony, Mr. Hiram Stalls, telegraph operator at Bunker’s -Mills, and news-gatherer for the Bunker’s Mills <i>Daily Eagle</i>, went off -duty in his telegraphic capacity, and became an unalloyed journalist. He -caught Mr. Stalls in the act of saying goodnight, and he talked to him -over the wire in dot and dash thus:</p> - -<p>“That you, Hi? Meet me at the station<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> when the 7:21 gets in. I’ve got a -news item for you that will make the <i>Eagle</i> scream this trip, sure.”</p> - -<p>If Mr. Wilkins had not been so zealous in breaking his employer’s rules -in the interest of personal journalism, he would have heard the young -man thus enjoined to inflict humiliating punishment upon a parent’s -sister, respond to this cruel counsel in these words:</p> - -<p>“It will only make her cry more;—why, where the deuce is the brat, -anyway?”</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 288px;"> -<a href="images/i_105_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_105_sml.jpg" width="288" height="265" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Moreover, he would have seen Mr. Beebe pilot an Irish nurse and a -bundled-up baby around the rear of the train, and then jump on the -platform as the cars started, with all the vigor and energy which the -possession of a real mean story about a fellow human being can impart to -the most aged and stiffened limbs. But he didn’t. What would become of -the gossip business if those engaged in it stopped to find things out?</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>When Cæsar expressed a preference for being the first man in a village, -over a second-fiddle job in Rome, he probably never reflected how much -it would rile him if he should hap<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span>pen to find out that there was just -as big a man in the next village who didn’t know Cæsar from a -cheese-cake; yet that is the poor limitation of local bigness. Great is -Mr. Way in Wayback, and great is Mr. Hay in Hayville; but what is Mr. -Way in Hayville, and what is Mr. Hay in Wayback? Two nothings, two -casual strangers, with no credit, with no say-no, two mere chunks of -humanity whose value to the community is strictly proportionate to the -size of their greenback wads, and the laxity or tenacity of their -several grips thereon.</p> - -<p>At nine o’clock that night two local Cæsars, in two towns but a score of -miles from each other, donned the ermine of power, waved the sceptre of -authority, and told their pale-faced but devoted followers that -“SOMETHING had got to be done about IT.”</p> - -<p>The “IT,” of course, was an “OUTRAGE”—it always is when something has -got to be done about it, and the something generally means just about -nothing.</p> - -<p>In the front parlor of his large mansard-roof residence, Mr. Bodger—Mr. -Theophilus Scranton Bodger, prominent manufacturer, pillar of the -Church, candidate for the mayoralty, and general all around magnate and -muldoon of Bunker’s Mills, sat amid surroundings of much elegance, black -walnut, gilt, plush and hand-painted tidies, and slapping a broad palm -with a burly fist, told Mr. Stalls, Mr. Wilkins and Mrs. Bodger that -something had got to be done about it.</p> - -<p>At the same moment, in the Sunday School room of the Baptist Church in -Ellenville South<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span> Farms, Mr. Manfred Lusk Hackfeather, theological -student, Sunday School superintendent, social leader and idol of the -ladies in Ellenville South Farms, told six fluttering feminine things, -who gazed at him in affectionate awe, that something had got to be done -about it.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_107_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_107_sml.jpg" width="351" height="221" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Bodger’s business was making socks. Mr. Hackfeather may have been -wearing a pair of socks of Mr. Bodger’s make at that very instant, yet -had he never heard of Bodger; nor did Mr. Bodger know that any part of -his growing business was built up on the money of a man named -Hackfeather.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>To say that a party of Brooklyn people, conducted in an old-fashioned -carryall, by an elderly woman of austere demeanor, entered the deep pine -wood in a chilled twilight of early Spring certainly ought to convey an -impression of gloom. And certainly gloom of the deepest enshrouded the -beginning of that ride. Diligent inquiry elicited from the elderly woman -that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> was, as the Wicks supposed, Miss Hipsy, the care-taker; that -she had received their telegram, or she wouldn’t have been there nohow; -that she had had a contrack with the late owner of the premises; that -she had lived up to it, whatever other people hed or hedn’t done; that -what she had done she would do, and that if she was not satisfactory to -other parties, or if other parties was not satisfactory to her, which -was most likely to be the case, she was willin’, as far as she was -concerned, to take herself off just as soon as she could; that she -thanked Providence she had folks in Ellenville she could go to, as -respectable as some, that she could go to and no obligations to nobody, -and that she was not aware that her contrack called for no general -conversation.</p> - -<p>Now this extremely discouraging way and manner of Miss Hipsy’s was -entirely general and impersonal, like dampness or a close smell in a -long unused house. Congenitally sub-acid, a failure to accomplish any -sort of an early or late love affair had completely soured her, and many -years of solitude had put a gray-green coating of mildew over her moral -nature. But the Wicks did not know this, and, remembering their peculiar -position, it made them feel extremely uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>But the moon came out in the soft Spring sky, and the mists of the -evening rolled away, and a great silvery radiance wrapped the -cathedral-like spires and pinnacles of the broad spreading pine forest, -and, after awhile, the rough corduroy road grew smoother, and the baby -stopped crying and went to sleep, and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> were all, except Miss Hipsy, -beginning to nod off just a little when the wheels crunched on a -driveway of white pebbles, and they looked up to see a spacious low -building standing out black against the sky, except where a half a dozen -brightly lit windows winked at them like friendly eyes.</p> - -<p>This was the bungalow, and here they found a sportsman’s supper of cold -meat and ale awaiting them. Miss Hipsy told them, by way of leaving no -doubt of the unfriendliness of her intentions, that this refection was -provided for in the contract. So, also, must have been the deliciously -soft beds in which they were presently all fast asleep, even to the -baby. And when a traveling baby will sleep, anybody else can.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_109_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_109_sml.jpg" width="395" height="210" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>In the morning the elder Wicks opened their eyes on a world of -wonderment and bewilderment. They found themselves living in a -well-appointed and commodious club-house, on the banks of a broad and -beautiful lake, across which other similar structures with pretty, low, -peaked roofs looked at them in neighborly fash<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span>ion from the other side. -Mrs. Wick said that it was too nice for anything.</p> - -<p>There was nothing mysterious about the surprise which the Wicks had -found awaiting them. Sportsmen have a habit of referring to their -possessions in a depreciatory way. They call a comfortable club-house a -“box” or a “bungalow” or a “shack,” and they make nothing of calling a -costly hotel a “camp.” Indeed, they seem to try to impart a factitious -flavor of profanity by christening such structures, whenever they can, -“Middle Dam Camp” or “Upper Dam Camp.” And since Mrs. Wick’s father’s -club had died out, the further side of Jericho Pond had become a -fashionable resort, maintaining two or three Winter and Summer -Sanitariums.</p> - -<p>Thanks to the contract, they made an excellent breakfast, and their -praises of the fare mollified Miss Hipsy to some slight extent. Then -they remembered the baby, and after some search they found the Irish -nurse walking it up and down on a broad sunny terrace at the back of the -house. Below stretched an old-fashioned garden, full of homely, pleasant -flowers and simples just beginning to show their buds to the tempting -month of May.</p> - -<p>The scene was so pleasant that Mr. and Mrs. Wick started out for a walk, -and the walk was so pleasant that they prolonged it,—prolonged it until -they reached the settlement on the other side of the lake, and the -people there were so pleasant that they staid to dinner at a club, and -did not get back till nearly supper-time.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_111_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_111_sml.jpg" width="391" height="294" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>You will please observe that, so far as the members of the Wick family -are concerned, they stand as clear at this point as they did when we got -them down to bed-rock level, on the tenth of April, eighteen hundred and -tumty-tum. Their ways have been ways of pleasantness, and their paths -have been paths of peace. The two Wicks we are dealing with, like all -the other Wicks, have kept their engagements and filled their contract. -They have minded their own business and nobody else’s. They are, in -fact, all straight on the record.</p> - -<p>But now we have to recount the fortunes of two social reformers, and it -is hard for a reformer to keep straight on the record. Whether they have -a genuine reform on their hands, like Martin Luther or the -Abolitionists, or whether they are like Mr. Harold Kettledrum Monocle, -of New York, who thinks that the Mayor of that city ought to be elected -by Harvard College, they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> all likely to have what one might call a -mote-and-beam sort of time with their neighbors.</p> - -<p>Thus did it happen with Mr. Bodger, of Bunker’s Mills, and with Mr. -Hackfeather, of Ellenville South Farms, who both found their way to -Jericho Pond that pleasant afternoon, the theological student a little -in advance of the business man. Mr. Hackfeather came to rebuke a -shocking case of impropriety in two so young; Mr. Bodger came to express -the sentiment of society at large toward a man who would inflict -corporal chastisement on a lady.</p> - -<p>Terrible as with an army with banners, and consumed with the fire of -righteousness, Mr. Hackfeather bore down on the old-fashioned garden at -the back of the bungalow, in the full glory of the Spring afternoon. As -to his person, he was attired in a long, black diagonal frock-coat, worn -unbuttoned, and so well worn that its flaps waved in the wind with all -the easy grace of a linen duster. Trousers of the kind that chorus -together: “We are pants,” adorned his long, thin but heavily-kneed legs. -A shoestring necktie, a low cut waistcoat, and a whole-souled, -oh-be-joyful shirtfront added to this simple but harmonious effect, and -his last year’s hat had a mellow tone against the pale Springtime -greens. He tackled Miss Hipsy (who had so far relented from her -austerity as to take the baby while the nurse got dinner,) in that -old-fashioned garden; and the benign influences of budding nature had no -effect whatever upon his pious wrath. He pointed out the discrepancy in -the dates of the vital statistics of the Wick family, and he told Miss -Hipsy that she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_113_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_113_sml.jpg" width="300" height="254" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">the servant of sin, (who had been a respectable woman for forty-three -years, and if some as ought to know better said it was forty-seven there -was no truth in it,) that she was the slave of iniquity and abettor of -sin, (and if them she knowed of, one leastways, was alive to-day she -would not be insulted,) that the demon vice should not rear its hideous -head in that unpolluted community, (and she wasn’t rarin’ no heads, but -she could go to them she knowed of as could rare their heads as high as -him or any of his friends,) and that even if he, Mr. Hackfeather, had to -face all the minions of Satan, and all the retinue of the Scarlet Woman, -he would purify the stain or die in the attempt. Mr. Hackfeather’s -allusion to the Lady of Babylon probably was born of a mixed condition -of mind, and a desire to use forcible language. It did not seem clear to -him and it did not seem clear to Miss Hipsy, either. She said she was no -such a thing, and never expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> to live to see the day she would be so -called, especially at her time of life. And, tearful and vociferous, -Miss Hipsy marched back to the bungalow, delivered over the baby to the -Irish nurse, packed her little old hair trunk with the round top, -dragged it down herself to the lakefront dock, and there sat on it in -stern grandeur until the afternoon boat came down the lake and took her -to Ellenville, presumably to the sheltering arms of them that she knowed -of.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, a thing she did not know of was happening on the other side -of the house in that same old-fashioned garden. Mr. Bodger, accompanied -by Mr. Stalls and Mr. Wilkins, had arrived from Bunker’s Mills to -interview the new arrival in the county, whose latitude in administering -corporal punishment had aroused the indignation of every humane heart -that had been made acquainted with the station master’s story. Mr. -Bodger saw the departure of the weeping woman of elderly aspect, he -heard her wails, and he saw their cause in a strange young man. This was -all the evidence that he wanted. Mr. Bodger made no inquiries into -identity or relationship. He weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, he -had three men behind him, and he fell upon Mr. Hackfeather as the -cyclone falls upon the chicken-coop.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>The consequences of these two meetings were so far-reaching, extending -to warrants of arrest, counter charges, civil suits and much civiler -compromises, that it was July before the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span> ladies of the Bodger and -Hackfeather families picked up their threads of social intercourse, -which were knotted only at one point. To both of them it occurred on a -fine Summer’s day to call on the new comers at the old bungalow by way -of seeing whether the innocent causes of so much dire mischief knew -anything about the agitation they had caused.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_115_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_115_sml.jpg" width="360" height="230" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>As the train from Bunker’s Mills met the boat from Ellenville, Mr. -Bodger’s wife and Mr. Hackfeather’s mother arrived at the same time, -and, sitting in the sunny reception room of the bungalow, glared at each -other in chilly and silent hostility, while poor, innocent little Mrs. -Wick, much troubled by their strange behavior, tried to talk to both of -them at once, and rattled away in her embarrassment until she had talked -a great deal more than she had meant to. She told them all the story of -Beatrice Brighton Wick, and the will, and the hurried flight to Jericho, -and at their surprise at finding Jericho Pond with its Summer and Winter -colony so delightful a place that they hardly felt as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> they could -tear themselves away from it when the four years were up. And she told -them that both she and Mr. Wick had thought it might be quite awkward -for so newly married a couple to be traveling with a six month’s old -baby, and that baby Mr. Wick’s aunt.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_116_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_116_sml.jpg" width="431" height="338" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“But, do you know,” she said, “we must have been over-sensitive about -it, for we never had the first least little bit of trouble. Indeed, the -only mishap we had was the other way. The old woman who was in charge of -the place here left us suddenly the first day without a word of warning. -I couldn’t make out why she was dissatisfied, but my nurse, Nora, told -me that she thought that Miss Hipsy thought that the baby was too young. -Some people have such an objection to young babies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span> you know. However, -it didn’t the least bit matter, for Nora turned out to be a very good -cook, and I took the baby. I wanted to learn, you know.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="WHAT_MRS_FORTESCUE_DID" id="WHAT_MRS_FORTESCUE_DID"></a>WHAT MRS. FORTESCUE DID.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra1"><img src="images/i_119.jpg" -alt="R" -width="120" /></span>IGHT in the rear of the First Congregational Church of ’Quawket, and -cornerwise across the street, the Old Ladies’ Home of Aquawket sits on -the topmost of a series of velvety green terraces. It is a quiet street; -the noisiest thing in it, or rather over it, is the bell in the church -steeple, and that is as deep toned and mellow as all church bells ought -to be and few church bells are. As to the Old Ladies’ Home, itself, it -looks like the veritable abode of peace. A great wistaria clambers over -its dull brown stucco walls. Beds of old-fashioned flowers nod and sway -in the chastened breezes on its two sunny sides, and thick clumps of -lilacs and syringas shield it to the north and east. Dainty little -dimity curtains flutter at the open windows all Summer long; and, -whether it comes from the immaculately neat chambers of the old ladies, -or from some of the old-fashioned flower beds, there is always, in warm -weather, a faint smell of lavender floating down upon the breeze to the -passer-by in the quiet street. You would never dream, to look at it, -that the mad, inhuman, pitiless strife and fury of an Old Ladies’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> Home -raged ceaselessly, year after year, within those quiet walls.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_120_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_120_sml.jpg" width="351" height="222" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Now suppose that every wasp in a certain wasp’s nest had an individual -theology of its own, totally different from the theology of any other -wasp, and that each one personally conducted his theology in the real -earnest calvinistic spirit—you would call that wasp’s nest a pretty -warm, lively, interesting domicile, would you not? Well, it would be a -paradise of paralysis alongside of an Old Ladies’ Home. If you want to -get at the original compound tincture of envy, malice and all -uncharitableness, go to a nice, respectable Old Ladies’ Home with a list -of “Lady Patronesses” as long as your arm, and get the genuine article -in its most highly concentrated form.</p> - -<p>There were eleven inmates of the ‘Old Ladies’ Home of Aquawket, besides -the matron, the nurse, the cook, and a couple of “chore-girls.” These -two last led a sort of life that came very near to qualifying them for -admission to the institution on a basis of premature old age. Of the -real old ladies in the home,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> every one of the eleven had a bitter and -undying grievance against at least one, and, possibly, against ten of -her companions, and the only thing that held the ten oldest of the band -together was the burning scorn and hatred which they all felt for the -youngest of the flock, Mrs. Williametta Fortescue, who signed what few -letters she wrote “Willie,” and had been known to the world as “Billy” -Fortescue when she sang in comic opera and wore pink tights.</p> - -<p>All the other old ladies said that Mrs. Fortescue was a daughter of -Belial, a play actress, and no old lady, anyway. I know nothing about -her ancestry—and I don’t believe that she did, either; but as to the -other two counts in the indictment I am afraid I must plead guilty for -Mrs. Fortescue. An actress she was, to the tips of her fingers, an -unconscious, involuntary, dyed-in-the-wool actress. She acted because -she could not help it, not from any wish to deceive or mislead, but just -because it came as natural to her as breathing. If you asked her to take -a piece of pie, it was not enough for her to want the pie, and to tell -you so, and to take the pie; she had to act out the whole dramatic -business of the situation—her passion for pie, her eager craving and -anxious expectation, her incredulous delight when she actually got the -pie, and her tender, brooding thankfulness and gratitude when she had -got outside of the pie, and put it where it couldn’t be taken away from -her. No; there wasn’t the least bit of humbug in it all. She did want -the pie; but she wanted to act, too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_122_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_122_sml.jpg" width="374" height="351" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>It was this characteristic of Mrs. Fortescue that got her into the Old -Ladies’ Home on false pretenses; for, to tell the truth, Mrs. Fortescue -was only an old lady by courtesy. She had beautiful white hair; but she -had had beautiful white hair ever since she was twenty years old. Before -she had reached that age she had had red hair, black hair, brown hair, -golden hair, and hair of half-a-dozen intermediate shades. Either the -hair or the hair dye finally got tired, and Mrs. Fortescue’s head became -white—that is, when she gave it a chance to be its natural self. That, -however, was not often; and, at last, there came a day when, as her -manager coarsely expressed it, “she monkeyed with her fur one time too -many.” For ten years she had been the leading lady in a small traveling -opera company, where tire<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span>less industry and a willingness to wait for -salary were accepted as substitutes for extreme youth and commanding -talent. Ten years is a long time, especially when it is neither the -first nor the second, and, possibly, not the third ten years of an -actress’s professional career; and when Mrs. Fortescue asked for a -contract for three years more, her manager told her that he was not in -the business for his health, and that While he regarded her as one of -the most elegant ladies he had ever met in his life, her face was not -made of India rubber; and, furthermore, that the public was just about -ready for the Spring styles in leading ladies. This did not hurt Mrs. -Fortescue’s feelings, for the leading juvenile had long been in the -habit of calling her “Mommer, dear,” whenever they had to rehearse -impassioned love scenes. But it did put her on her mettle, and she tried -a new hair dye, just to show what she could do. The result was a case of -lead poisoning, that laid her up in a dirty little second-class hotel, -in a back street of ’Quawket for three months of suffering and -helplessness. The company went its way and left her, and went to pieces -in the end. The greater part of her poor savings went for the expenses -of her sickness. At last, when the critical period was over, her doctor -got some charitably-disposed ladies and gentlemen interested in her -case; and, between them all, they procured admission to the Old Ladies’ -Home for a poor, white-haired, half-palsied wreck of a woman, who not -only was decrepit before her time, but who acted decrepitude so -successfully that nobody thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> of asking her if she were less than -eighty years old. I do not mean to say that Mrs. Fortescue willfully -deceived her benefactors: she was old—oldish, anyway—she was helpless, -partially paralyzed, and her system was permeated with lead; but when -she came to add to this the correct dramatic outfit of expression, she -was <i>so</i> old, and <i>so</i> sick, and so utterly miserable and stricken and -done for that the hearts of the managers of the Old Ladies’ Home were -opened, and they took her in at half the usual entrance fee; because, as -the matron very thoughtfully remarked, she couldn’t possibly live six -weeks, and it was just so much clear gain for the institution. By the -end of six weeks, however, Mrs. Fortescue was just as well as she had -ever been in her life, and was acting about twice as healthy as she -felt.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_124_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_124_sml.jpg" width="340" height="264" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>With her trim figure, her elastic step, and her beautiful white hair -setting off her rosy cheeks—and Mrs. Fortescue knew how to have rosy -cheeks whenever she wanted them—she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> certainly was an incongruous -figure in an Old Ladies’ Home, and it was no wonder that her presence -made the genuine old ladies genuinely mad. And every day of her stay -they got madder and madder; for by the constitution of the Home, an -inmate might, if dissatisfied with her surroundings, after a two-years’ -stay, withdraw from the institution, <i>taking her entrance fee with her</i>. -And that was why Mrs. Fortescue staid on in the Old Ladies’ Home, -snubbed, sneered at, totally indifferent to it all, eating three square -meals a day, and checking off the dull but health-giving weeks that -brought her nearer to freedom, and the comfortable little nest-egg with -which she meant to begin life again.</p> - -<p>And yet the time came when Mrs. Fortescue’s histrionic capacity won for -her, if not a friend, at least an ally, out of the snarling sisterhood; -and for a few brief months there was just one old woman out of the lot -who was decently civil to her, and who even showed rudimentary systems -of polite intentions.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>This old woman was Mrs. Filley, and this was the manner of her -modification.</p> - -<p>One pleasant Spring day, a portly gentleman of powerful frame, with -ruddy cheeks and short, steel-gray hair—a man whose sturdy physique -hardly suited with his absent-minded, unbusiness-like expression of -countenance—ascended the terraces in front of the Old Ladies’ Home. His -brows were knit; he looked upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span> the ground as he walked, and he did not -in the least notice the eleven old ladies, the matron, the nurse, the -cook and the two “chore-girls” who were watching his every step with -profound interest.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fortescue was watching the gentleman with interest, because she -thought that he was a singularly fine-looking and well-preserved man, as -indeed he was. All the other inmates of the Home were watching him with -interest because he was Mr. Josiah Heatherington Filley, the millionaire -architect, civil engineer and contractor. Their interest, however, was -not excited by Mr. Filley’s fame as a designer of mighty bridges, of -sky-scraping office buildings, and of other triumphs of mechanical -skill; they looked on him with awe and rapture simply because he was the -richest man in ’Quawket, or, more properly speaking, in ’Quawket -Township; for Mr. Filley lived in the old manor-house of the Filley -family, a couple of miles out of town.</p> - -<p>You might think that with a millionaire Mr. Filley coming up the steps, -the heart of indigent Mrs. Filley in the Old Ladies’ Home might beat -high with expectation; but, as a matter of fact, it did not. In -Connecticut and New Jersey family names mean no more than the name of -breeds of poultry—like Plymouth Rocks or Wyandottes. All Palmers are -kin, so are all Vreelands, and the Smiths of Peapack are of one stock. -But so are all speckled hens, and kinship may mean no more in one case -than it does in the other. In colonial times, Filleys had abounded in -’Quawket. But to Mrs. Filley of the Home the visit of Mr. Filley<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> of the -Manor House was as the visit of a stranger; and very much surprised, -indeed, was she when the great man asked to see her.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_127_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_127_sml.jpg" width="420" height="448" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>In spite of his absent-minded expression, Mr. Filley proved to be both -direct and business-like. He explained his errand briefly and clearly.</p> - -<p>Mr. Filley was a bachelor, and the last of his branch of the family. His -only surviving relative was a half-brother by his mother’s first -marriage, who had lived a wandering and worthless life, and who had died -in the West a widower, leaving one child, a girl of nine, in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> -Massachusetts boarding-school. This child he had bequeathed to the -loving care and attention of his brother. It is perfectly wonderful how -men of that particular sort, who never can get ten dollars ahead of the -world, will pick up a tremendous responsibility of that kind, and throw -it around just as if it were a half-pound dumb-bell. They don’t seem to -mind it at all; it does not weigh upon their spirits; they will pass -over a growing child to anybody who happens to be handy, to be taken -care of for life, just as easily as you would hand a towel over to the -next man at the wash-basin, as soon as you are done with it. Mr. -Filley’s half-brother may have died easily, and probably did, but he -could not possibly have made such a simple job of it as he did of -turning over Etta Adelina, his daughter, to the care of the half-brother -whom he hardly knew well enough to borrow money from oftener than once a -year.</p> - -<p>Now, Mr. Josiah Filley had promised his mother on her death-bed that he -would assume a certain sort of responsibility for the consequences of -the perfectly legitimate but highly injudicious matrimonial excursion of -her early youth, and so he accepted the guardianship of Etta Adelina. -But he was not, as the worldly phrase it, “<i>too</i> easy.” He was a -profound scientific student, and a man whose mind was wrapt up in his -profession, but he did not propose to make a parade-ground of himself -for everybody who might feel inclined to walk over him. He had no -intention of taking the care of a nine-year-old infant upon himself, and -the happy idea had come to him of hunting up the last<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span> feminine bearer -of his name in the ’Quawket Old Ladies’ Home, and hiring her for a -liberal cash payment to represent him as a quarterly visitor to the -school where the young one was confined.</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose,” he said, “there is any actual relationship between -us—”</p> - -<p>“There ain’t none,” interrupted Mrs. Filley; “leastwise there ain’t been -none since your father got money enough to send you to college.”</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 223px;"> -<a href="images/i_129_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_129_sml.jpg" width="223" height="377" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Filley smiled indulgently.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he suggested, “suppose we re-establish relationship as cousins. -All you have to do for some years to come is to visit the Tophill -Institute once in three months, satisfy yourself that the child is -properly taken care of and educated, and kindly treated, and to make a -full and complete report to me in writing. If anything is wrong, let me -know. I shall examine your reports carefully. Whether it is favorable or -unfavorable, if I am satisfied that it is correct and faithful, I will -send you my check for fifty dollars. Is it a bargain?”</p> - -<p>It was a bargain, but poor old Mrs. Filley stipulated for a payment in -cash instead of by check. She had once in her life been caught on a -worthless note, and she never had got the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> distinction between notes and -checks clear in her mind. As to Mr. Josiah Filley, he was not wholly -satisfied with the representative of his family, so far as grammar and -manners were concerned; but he saw with his scholar’s eye, that looked -so absent-minded and took in so much, that the old lady was both shrewd -and kindly-natured, and he felt sure that Etta Adelina would be safe in -her hands.</p> - -<p>When I said that Mrs. Filley was kindly, I meant that as a human being -she was capable of kindness. Of course, as an inmate of an Old Ladies’ -Home, she was just as spiteful as any other of the old ladies, and her -first natural impulse was to make a profound mystery of Mr. Filley’s -errand, not only because by so doing she could tease the other old -ladies, but from a natural, old-ladylike fear that somebody else might -get her job away from her. But she found herself unable to carry out her -pleasant scheme in its entirety. Nine of her aged comrades, and all the -members of the household staff, consumed their souls in bitterness, -wondering what the millionaire had wanted of his humble kinswoman; and -three times in the course of one year they saw that excellent woman put -on her Sunday black silk and take her silent way to the railroad -station. On the day following they saw her return, but where she had -been or why she had been there they knew not. By the rules of the Home -she had a right to eight days of absence annually. She told the matron -that she was going to see her “folks.” The matron knew well that she had -not a folk in the world, but she had to take the old lady’s word.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_131_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_131_sml.jpg" width="386" height="259" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>But did not those dear old ladies ask the ticket-agent at the station -what station Mrs. Filley took tickets for? Indeed they did, bless them! -And the ticket-agent told them that Mrs. Filley had bought a -thousand-mile ticket, and that they would have to hunt up the conductors -who took up her coupons on the next division of the road, if they wanted -to find out. (A thousand-mile ticket, gentle reader, is a delightful -device by means of which you can buy a lot of travel in one big chunk, -and work it out in little bits whenever you want to. Next to a sure and -certain consciousness of salvation, it gives its possessor more of a -feeling of pride and independence than anything else this life has to -offer.)</p> - -<p>And yet Mrs. Filley’s happiness was incomplete, for it was necessary to -let one person into her secret. She put it on her spectacles, which had -not been of the right kind for a number of years, owing to the -inferiority of modern glass ware, but defective education was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> what -brought Mrs. Filley to making a confidant of Mrs. Fortescue. No -spectacles that ever were made would have enabled Mrs. Filley to spell, -and when she began her first report thus:</p> - -<p>“i sene the gerl She had or to hav cod-livor roil—”</p> - -<p class="nind">even she, herself, felt that it was hardly the report for Mr. Filley’s -fifty-dollars. Here is the way that Mrs. Fortescue started off that -report in her fine Italian hand:</p> - -<p>“It gives me the greatest pleasure, my dear Mr. Filley, to inform you -that, pursuant to your instructions, I journeyed yesterday to the -charming, and I am sure salubrious shades of Tophill, to look after the -welfare of your interesting and precocious little ward. Save for the -slight pallor which might suggest the addition of some simple tonic -stimulant, such as codliver oil, to the generous fare of the Tophill -Academy, I found your little Etta Adelina in every respect—”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Filley’s name was signed to that report in the same fine Italian -hand; and it surprised Mr. Filley very much when he saw it. But there -was more surprise ahead for Mr. Filley.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>As a business man Mr. Filley read the paper, but not the local papers of -’Quawket, for it was seldom that the papers were local there long enough -to get anybody into the habit of reading them. Thus it came about that -he failed to see the notice of the death of old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> Mrs. Filley, which -occurred in the Old Ladies’ Home something less than a twelve-month -after the date of his first and only visit. The death occurred, however, -but the reports kept on coming in the same fine Italian hand, and with -the same generous freedom in language of the most expensive sort. No man -could have got more report for fifty dollars than Mr. Filley got, and -the report did not begin to be the most of what he was getting.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_133_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_133_sml.jpg" width="335" height="240" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Sometimes clergymen but slightly acquainted with the theatrical business -are surprised when traveling through small towns to see lithographs and -posters displaying the features of great stars of the theatrical and -operatic world, who are billed to appear in some local opera house about -two sizes larger than a cigar-box. The portraits are familiar, the names -under them are not; you may recognize the features of Joe Jefferson and -Adelina Patti, with labels on them establish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span>ing their identity as -“Comical Maginnis, the Monkey Mugger,” and “Sadie Sylvester, the Society -Clog Artiste.” These are what are known as “Stock-printing,” and it is -pleasant to reflect that the printers who get them up for a fraud on the -public rarely are able to collect their bills from the actors and -actresses that use them, and that the audiences that go to such shows -don’t know the difference between Adelina Patti and an oyster patty.</p> - -<p>This explanation of an interesting custom is made to forestall the -reader’s surprise at learning that two years and a half after her -retirement from the stage, and ten years, at least, after the retirement -of such of her youthful charms as might have justified the exhibition, -the portrait of Mrs. Fortescue, arrayed in silk tights, of a most -constricted pattern—not constrained at all, simply -constricted—decorated scores of fences in what theatrical people call -the “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Quawket Circuit,” which circuit includes the charming and -presumably salubrious shades of Tophill. There was no mistaking Mrs. -Fortescue’s face; Mrs. Fortescue’s attire might have given rise to -almost any sort of mistake. The name under the picture was not that of -Mrs. Fortescue; it was that of a much advertised young person whose -“dramatic speciality” was entitled “Too Much for London; or, Oh, My! Did -you Ever!”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Now it is necessary to disinter old Mrs. Filley for a moment, and to -smirch her char<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span>acter a little by way of introducing some excuse for -what Mrs. Fortescue did.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_135_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_135_sml.jpg" width="366" height="343" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>By the time Mrs. Fortescue had cooked her third report, she had found -out that the old lady had not quite kept faith with her employer. At the -Tophill Institute she had represented herself as Mr. Filley’s mother, -gaining thereby much consideration and many cups of tea. So that when -she died, with the rest of her secret hidden from all but Mrs. -Fortescue, the latter lady, having fully made up her mind to appropriate -the job, felt that it behooved her to go her predecessor one better, and -when she made her appearance at Tophill it was in the character of Mr. -Filley’s newly married wife. She told the sympathetic all about it, how -Mr. Filley and she had known each other from childhood, how he had -always<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> loved her, how she had wedded another to please her family, how -the other had died, and Mr. Filley had renewed his addresses, how she -had staved him off (I am not quoting her language) until his dear old -mother had died, and left him so helpless and lonely that she really had -to take pity on him. Mrs. Filley No. 2 got all the consideration she -wanted, and the principal sent out for champagne for her, under the -impression that that was the daily and hourly drink in all millionaire -families. He never found out otherwise from Mrs. Filley, either.</p> - -<p>Probably Mrs. Fortescue-Filley had calculated on keeping up her pretty -career of imposture until her time of probation at the Home was up, and -she could withdraw her entrance fee and vanish at once from ’Quawket and -Tophill. She had the report business well in hand; her employer -occasionally wrote her for detailed information on minor points of the -child’s work or personal needs, but in general expressed himself -perfectly satisfied; and she felt quite safe, so far as he was -concerned, when he commissioned her to put the child through an -all-round examination, and sent her fifty dollars extra with his -“highest compliments” on her manner of doing it. Indeed, in this she was -no humbug. She could have put the principal, himself, through his -scholastic facings if she had cared to.</p> - -<p>But the appearance of those unholy portraits came without warning, and -did their work thoroughly. Even if it had not been that every child in -the institute could recognize that well-known countenance, a still more -damning disclosure came in the prompt denunciation of the fraud<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> by the -“Indignant Theatre Goer” with a long memory, who wrote to the local -paper to protest against the profanation, as he put it, of the features -of a peerless Mrs. Fortescue, once an ornament of the stage, and now -dwelling in retirement in ’Quawket. Ordinary, common, plain, every-day -gossip did the rest.</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 162px;"> -<a href="images/i_137_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_137_sml.jpg" width="162" height="133" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mrs. Fortescue saw the posters on her way to Tophill, but she -dauntlessly presented herself at the portal. She got no further. The -principal interposed himself between her and his shades of innocents, -and he addressed that creature of false pretenses in scathing -language—or it might have scathed if the good man had not been so angry -that he talked falsetto. It did not look as if there were much in the -situation for Mrs. Fortescue, but it would be a strange situation out of -which the lady could not extract just the least little bit of acting. -She drew herself up in majestic indignation, hurled the calumnies back -at the astonished principal, and with a magnificent threat to bring Mr. -Filley right to the spot to utterly overwhelm and confute him, she swept -away, leaving the Institute looking two sizes smaller, and its principal -looking no particular size at all.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>And, what is more, she did, for her magnificent dramatic outburst made -her fairly acting-drunk. She could not help herself; she was ine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span>briated -with the exuberance of her own verbosity, to use a once famous phrase, -and she simply had to go off on a regular histrionic bat.</p> - -<p>She went straight off to the old Filley Manor House at the extreme end -of ’Quawket township; she bearded the millionaire builder in his great -cool, darkened office, among his mighty plans and elevations and -mysterious models, and she told that great man the whole story of her -imposture with such a torrent of comic force, with such marvelous -mimicry of the plain-spoken Mrs. Filley and the prim principal, and with -so humorous an introduction of the champagne episode that her victim lay -back in his leather arm-chair, slapped his sturdy leg, roared out mighty -peals of laughter, told her she was the most audacious little woman in -the whole hemisphere, and that he never heard of anything so funny in -his life, and that he’d call down any number of damn schoolmasters if -she wanted him to.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see how we can arrange a retroactive, Ma’am; I’m a little too -old for that sort of thing, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you what I can do. -I’ll send my agent at once to take the child out of school, and I’ll see -that my man doesn’t give him any satisfaction or a chance for -explanation.</p> - -<p>“Why, damn it!” concluded the hearty Mr. Filley; “if I ever see the -little prig I’ll tell him I think it is a monstrous and great -condescension on your part to let yourself be known as the wife of a -plain old fellow like me. Why doesn’t a man know a handsome woman when -he sees her?”</p> - -<p>“Then I am forgiven for all my wickedness?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span>” said Mrs. Fortescue—but, -oh! <i>how</i> she said it!</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_139_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_139_sml.jpg" width="438" height="350" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Forgiveness?” repeated Mr. Filley, thoughtfully. “Yes; I think so.” -Then he rose, crossed the room to a large safe, in which he opened a -small drawer. From this he took a small package of papers which he -placed in Mrs. Fortescue’s hands. She recognized her own reports, and -also a curious scrawl on a crumpled and discolored piece of paper, which -also she promptly recognized. It was a “screw” that had held three -cents’ worth of snuff, and she had seen it in Mrs. Filley’s hand just -about the time that dear old lady was passing away. She read it now for -the first time:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_140_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_140_sml.jpg" width="307" height="414" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“dere mr Filley i kno that fort escew woman is gone to kepon senden them -re ports an nottel you ime dedd but iam Sara Filley.”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>“She sent that to me,” said Mr. Filley, “by Doctor Butts, the house -physician, and between us we managed to get a ‘line’ on you, Mrs. -Fortescue; so that there’s been a little duplicity on both sides.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fortescue looked at him with admiration mingled with respect; then -she looked puzzled.</p> - -<p>“But why, if you knew it all along, why did you—”</p> - -<p>“Why did I let you go on?” repeated Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span> Filley. “Well, you’ve got to -have the whole duplicity, I see.” He went back to the drawer and took -out another object. It was a faded photograph of a young lady with her -hair done up in a net, and with a hat like a soap-dish standing straight -up on her head.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-five years ago,” said Mr. Filley, “boy; three dollars a week in -an architect’s office; spent two-fifty of them, two weeks running, for -flowers for that young lady when she played her first engagement in New -Haven. Walked there. Paid the other fifty cents to get into the theatre. -Lived on apples the rest of the week. Every boy does it. Never forgets -it. Place always remains soft.”</p> - -<p>And, as Mrs. Fortescue sat and looked long and earnestly at the picture, -a soft color came into her face that was born rather of memory than of -her love for acting; and yet it wonderfully simulated youth and fresh -beauty and a young joy in life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_MAN_WITH_THE_PINK_PANTS" id="THE_MAN_WITH_THE_PINK_PANTS"></a>“THE MAN WITH THE PINK<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span> PANTS.”</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/i_143.jpg" -alt="T" -width="140" /></span>HIS is a tale of pitiless and persistent vengeance, and it shows by -what simple means a very small and unimportant person may bring about -the undoing of the rich, great and influential. It was told to me by my -good friend, the Doctor, as we strolled through the pleasant suburbs of -a pretty little city that is day by day growing into greatness and -ugliness, as what they call a manufacturing centre.</p> - -<p>We had been watching the curious antics of a large man who would have -attracted attention at any time on account of his size, his luxuriant -hair and whiskers, and the strange condition of the costly clothing he -wore—a frock-coat and trousers of the extremest fashion, a rolling -white waist-coat, gray-spatted patent-leathers, and a silk hat. But all -these fine articles of apparel were much soiled in places, his -coat-collar was half turned up, the hat had met with various mishaps, -his shoes were scratched and dusty, his cravat ill-tied, and altogether -his appearance suggested a puzzling combination of prosperity and hard -luck. His doings were stranger than his looks. He tacked cautiously<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> -from side to side of the way, peered up a cross-street here; went slowly -and cautiously up another for a few yards, only to return and to efface -himself for a moment behind a tree or in a doorway.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 190px;"> -<a href="images/i_144_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_144_sml.jpg" width="190" height="389" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Suddenly he gave signs of having caught sight of somebody far up a -narrow lane. Promptly bolting into the nearest front yard, he got behind -the syringa bush and waited patiently until another man, smaller, but -much more active, hurried sharply down the lane, glancing suspiciously -around. This second person missed seeing the big man, and after waiting -irresolutely a moment or two, he hailed a street-car going toward the -town. At the same time another car passed him going in the opposite -direction. With incredible agility, the large man darted from behind the -syringa bush and made the second car in the brief second the little -man’s back was turned. Swinging himself inside, the figures on the rear -platform promptly concealed him from view, and as he was whirled past us -we could distinctly hear him emit a tremendous sigh or puff of profound -relief.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know him?” said the Doctor, smiling. “Yes, you do; at least, -you have seen him before; and I will show you him in his likeness as you -saw him two little years ago.</p> - -<p>“Such as you see that man to-day,” con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span>tinued the Doctor, as we strolled -toward the town, “he is entirely the creation of one small and -insignificant man; not the man you just saw watching for him, but -another so very insignificant that his name even is forgotten by the few -who have heard it. I alone remember his face. Nobody knows anything else -that throws light on his identity, except the fact that he was on one -occasion addressed as ‘Mr. Thingumajig,’ and that he is or was a writer -for the press, in no very great way of business. Now let us turn down -Main Street, and I will show you the man he reduced to the ignominious -object we have just been watching.”</p> - -<p>We soon stopped at a photograph gallery, and the Doctor led me, in a way -that showed that his errand was not a rare one, to a little room in the -rear, where, on a purple velvet background, hung a nearly life-size -crayon portrait. It represented a large gentleman—the large gentleman -whom we had just seen—attired in much similar garments, only that in -the picture his neatness was spotless and perfect. Not a wrinkle, not a -stain marred him from top to toe. He stood in the graceful and dignified -attitude of one who has been set up by his fellow-citizens to be looked -at and admired, and who knows that his fellow-citizens are only doing -the right thing by him. His silk hat was jauntily poised upon his hip, -and the smile that illuminated his moustache and whiskers was at once -genial, encouraging, condescending, and full of deep religious and -political feeling. It was hardly necessary to look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span> at the superb gilt -inscription below to know that that portrait was “Presented by the -Vestry of St. Dives Church, on the Occasion of his Retirement from their -Body to Assume the Burden of Civic Duties in the Assembly of the State -that Counts Him Among her Proudest Ornaments.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_146_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_146_sml.jpg" width="284" height="381" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Mr. Silo!” cried I.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Silo,” said the Doctor; “but he did not go to the Assembly, and -that picture has never been presented. When you saw him to-day he was -running away from his brother-in-law, to get to New York to go on any -sort of a spree to drown his misery. Come along, and you shall hear the -tale of a fallen idol. And if, as you listen, an ant should cross your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span> -path, do not step on it. Mr. Silo stepped upon an ant, and the ant made -of him the thing you saw.”</p> - -<p>I do not tell this story exactly in the Doctor’s own words, though I -will let it look as if I did. The trouble of letting non-literary people -tell stories in their own language is that the “says I’s,” and the “says -he’s,” and the “well, this man” passages, and “then this other man I was -telling you about” interpolations take up so much of the narrative that -a story like this could not be read while a pound of candles burned.</p> - -<p>But here is about the way the Doctor ought to have told it:</p> - -<p>I do not wish to undervaluate the good influence of Mr. Silo in our -city. He has been a large and enterprising investor. He has built up the -town in many ways. He has been charitable and patriotic. He was a good -man; but he was not a saint. And a man has to be a saint to boom town -lots and keep straight. No; I’ll go further than that—it can’t be done! -George Washington couldn’t have boomed town lots and kept straight. And -Silo, as you can see by those whiskers, was no George Washington. Real -estate isn’t sold on the Golden Rule, you know. There were times when it -was mighty lucky for Silo that he was six feet high and weighed two -hundred pounds.</p> - -<p>I don’t know the details of the transaction, but I am afraid that Silo -treated the little newspaper man pretty shabbily. He was a decent, -hard-working, unobtrusive little fellow, and he and his wife had been -scraping and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span> saving for years and years to buy a house with a garden to -it, in just such a town as this. Well, no, that’s not the way to put it. -They had fixed on a particular house in this particular town, and they -had been waiting several years for the lease of it to fall in. They were -ready with the price, and I do not doubt that Silo or his agents had at -one time accepted their offer for the place. But when the time came, -Silo backed out, refused to sell, and disowned the whole transaction.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_148_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_148_sml.jpg" width="356" height="221" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>That, in itself, was a mean act. It was a trifling matter to Silo, but -it was a biggest kind of matter to the other man and his wife. They had -set their hearts on that particular house; they had stinted themselves -for a long, long time to lay up the money to buy it; and probably no -other house in the whole world could ever be so desirable to those two -people. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The man might have put up with -his disappointment, and perhaps even have forgiven Silo for the shabby -trick. But Silo, I suppose, felt ashamed of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span> himself and went further -than he had meant to, in trying to lash himself into a real good, honest -indignation. At least, that is my guess at it; for Silo was neither -brutal nor stupid by nature; but on this occasion he had the incredible -cussedness to twit the little man on his helplessness. It was purely a -question of veracity between the two, and Silo pointed out that, as -against him, nobody would take the stranger’s word. That was true; but, -good Lord! Silo himself told me subsequently that it was the meanest -thing, under the circumstances, that he ever heard one man say to -another. He always maintained that he was right about the sale; but he -admitted that his roughing of the poor fellow was inexcusable; and the -thing that graveled him most and frightened him most in the end was that -he had called the poor man “Mr. Thingumajig.” He had not caught the real -name; he only remembered that it had some sort of a foreign sound that -suggested “Thingumajig” to his mind.</p> - -<p>Now, all that Silo had had before him previous to that outburst was only -a plain case of angry man; but from that time on he had ahead of him -through his pathway in life an incarnation of human hatred, out for -vengeance, and bound to have it.</p> - -<p>“Well, now the fun of the thing comes in,” said the Doctor.</p> - -<p>“I should think it was high time,” said I.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>There was nothing very unusual in that little episode; but somehow it -got public, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> was a good deal talked about; although, as I said, -hardly anybody knew the stranger, even by name. But, of course, it was -well nigh forgotten six months later, when the newspaper man came to the -front again.</p> - -<p>His reappearance took the form of such a singular exhibition of meekness -that it ought to have made Silo suspicious, to say the least. But he was -a bit of a bully; and, like all bullies, it was hard for him to believe -that a man who did not bluster could really mean fight. Perhaps he had -no chance of mercy at that time; but if he did he threw it away.</p> - -<p>The stranger wrote to the local paper a polite, even modest letter, -stating, very moderately, his grievance against Mr. Silo. He further -proposed a scheme, the adoption of which would obviate all possibilities -of such misunderstanding. I have forgotten what the scheme was. It was -not a good one, and I know now that it was not meant to be. The local -paper was the <i>Echo</i>. It was run by a shiftless young man named Meecham; -and, of course, Silo had him deep in his debt; and, of course, again, -Silo more or less ran the paper. So, when that letter arrived, Meecham -showed it to Silo, and Silo gave new cause of offense by violating the -honorable laws of newspaper controversy, and answering back in the very -same number of the paper. The matter of his reply was also injudicious. -He lost his temper at once when he saw that the letter was signed “Mr. -Thingumajig,” and he characterized both the plan and its proposer as -“preposterous.” I am inclined to think that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> that word “preposterous” -was just the word that the other man was setting a trap for. At any -rate, he got it, and he wanted nothing better. Here is his reply:</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_151_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_151_sml.jpg" width="347" height="355" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="c"> -<span class="smcap">An Open Letter to P. Q. Silo, Esq.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p class="nind"> -<span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Silo</span>:<br /> -</p> - -<p>I greatly regret that my little scheme for the simplification of -the relations between intending purchasers and non-intending -sellers (so-called) of real estate should have fallen under your -disapprobation. Of course, I do not attempt to question your -judgement; but you must allow me to take exception to the language -in which that judgement is expressed; which is at once -inappropriate and insulting. You call me and my scheme -“preposterous;” and this shows that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span> do not know the meaning of -that frequently misused word. “Preposterous” is a word that may be -properly applied to a scheme that puts the cart before the -horse—“having that first which ought to be last,” as Mr. Webster’s -International Dictionary puts it—or to a thing or creature -“contrary to nature or reason; not adapted to the end; utterly and -glaringly foolish; unreasonably absurd; perverted.” If you want an -instance of its proper application, the word “preposterous” might -fitly be used in all its senses to describe your own brief but -startling appearance on Thursday evening last, between the hours of -nine and ten, in a certain quiet street of New York, in a pair of -pink pants.</p> - -<p class="c"> -I remain, dear sir,<br /> -Yours very truly,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Mr. Thingumajig</span>.<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>That was all. Nothing more. But, as the lineman said of the two-thousand -volt shock, “it isn’t necessary to see some things to know that they’re -there.”</p> - -<p>Now I want you to note the devilish ingenuity of that phraseology. To -speak of “pink trousers” would serve only to call up an unattractive -mental picture. “Pink breeches” would only suggest the satin -knee-breeches of a page in a comic opera; but “pink pants” is a -combination you can’t get out of your head. It is not English; the word -“pants” is a vulgar contraction of the word pantaloons, and we don’t -wear pantaloons in these days. But “pants” is the funniest word of its -size that ever was invented, and it is just about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> right word for -the hideous garment it belongs to. And whether there’s any reason or -logic in it or not, when I put those two little cheap words together and -say “pink pants,” I am certain of two things. First, you have got to -smile; second, you can’t forget it to save your neck. And that’s what -Mr. Thingumajig knew. I think he had everything laid out in his mind -just as it was going to happen.</p> - -<p>Meecham got that letter, and laid it aside to show to Silo; but as he -sat at his desk and worked, the salient phrase kept bobbing around in -his mind; and, finally, he said aloud:</p> - -<p>“Pink pants! What in thunder are pink pants, anyway?”</p> - -<p>His foreman heard him, and looked at him in amazement.</p> - -<p>“Pink pants,” he repeated; “that’s a new one on me.”</p> - -<p>Meecham picked up the letter again, and knit his brows as he studied it.</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” he said; “that’s what it is.”</p> - -<p>The foreman came and looked over his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Pink pants,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> he repeated; “that’s right.”</p> - -<p>A man who had just come into the office looked at the two speakers with -astonishment. Meecham knew that he had come to put an advertisement in -the paper, and so he showed him the letter.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m damned!” he said. “That’s right, though. It’s ‘pink pants,’ -on your life. But where in blazes would a man get pink pants, anyway?”</p> - -<p>When Mr. Silo saw the letter he told Mee<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span>cham to “burke” it; and Meecham -put it in the waste-basket. The next day Silo made him take it out of -the waste-basket and print it. He explained that so many people had -asked him about the letter—and he said something to Meecham as to his -methods of running the office—that he thought it better to print it and -let the people see for themselves how absurd it was, or else they might -magnify it and think he was afraid to print it. Meecham did not say -anything at the moment. He did not like being blown up any more than the -rest of us do, however; and, when he had got the letter safely printed -and out before the public, he said to Silo:</p> - -<p>“You did just right about that letter. It wouldn’t have done for a man -of your position to have folks going around asking where you were on any -particular Thursday evening.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_154_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_154_sml.jpg" width="366" height="305" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Why, no!” said Silo; “of course it wouldn’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span>. Lemme see; was that the -day the infernal crank picked out?”</p> - -<p>“Thursday night, the eleventh,” said Meecham, his finger on the -calendar; “between nine and ten o’clock at night. Now, of course, Mr. -Silo, you know just where you were then.”</p> - -<p>“Why, of course!” said Silo. “Lemme see, now. Thursday the eleventh, -nine, ten at night. Why, I was—no—why, <i>Thursday, the eleventh</i>!—Oh, -thunder!—no—it can’t be! Oh, certainly! yes; that’s all right, of -course! Is that Mr. Smith over there, the other side of the street? I’ve -got to speak to him a minute. I’ll see you to-morrow. Good-night, my -boy!”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>How much of an expert in human nature are you? If I tell you that Mr. -Silo insisted on having every first impression of an edition of the -<i>Echo</i> sent to his house by special messenger the instant it was -printed, whether he was at home or not, and that he did this just to -make Meecham feel the bitterness of the servitude of debt, what do you -deduce or infer from that? That somebody else was tyrannizing over Silo? -Quite right! Mrs. Silo was a woman who opened all of her husband’s -letters—that came to the house. And she looked at Silo’s paper before -he saw it himself.</p> - -<p>And when Silo got home that day, Mrs. Silo was waiting for him. Mrs. -Silo and the copy of the <i>Echo</i>, with the letter concerning Mr. Silo and -the pink pants. Mrs. Silo wanted to know about it. If Mr. Silo was in -any doubt about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span> Thursday night, the eleventh, Mrs. Silo was not. On -that night Mr. Silo had been expected out on the train leaving New York -at eight o’clock. He had arrived on the train leaving New York at ten -o’clock. There was no trouble at all in identifying the night. Mrs. Silo -reminded him that it was the night of the day when he took in a certain -hank of red Berlin wool to be delivered to Mrs. Silo’s mother, who lived -in 14th Street; which, as Mrs. Silo remarked, is not a quiet street. She -also reminded Mr. Silo that on his appearance that evening she had asked -him if he had delivered that hank of red Berlin wool at the house of his -mother-in-law, and he had answered that he had; that his lateness was -due to that cause; and, furthermore, that his dear mother-in law was -very well.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 265px;"> -<a href="images/i_156_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_156_sml.jpg" width="265" height="361" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>To this Mr. Silo responded that his statements on Thursday evening were -perfectly correct.</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Silo told him that since the arrival of the paper she had made -a trip to New York to inform herself as to the true condition of -affairs. And, furthermore, on Thursday the eleventh, Mrs. Silo’s mother -had been confined to her bed all day with a severe neuralgic headache,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> -all the other members of the family being absent at the bedside of a -sick relative; the cook had had a day off, and the aged waitress, who -had been in the family twenty-five years, was certain that no one had -entered the house up to the return of the absent members at eight, -sharp, when, the sick relative being by that time a dead relative, the -house was closed. So much for furthermore. Now, moreover, the hank of -red Berlin wool had arrived at the house in Fourteenth Street four days -after the date in question. It came through the United States mail, -wrapped up in a sheet of tinted notepaper, scented with musk, and -addressed in a sprawling but unmistakably feminine hand.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_157_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_157_sml.jpg" width="415" height="327" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Silo made an explanation. It was unsatisfactory.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span></p> - -<p>It had long been known in the town that suspicion was rife in the Silo -household. It was now known that suspicion had ripened into certainty. -Events of that kind belong to what may be classed as the masculine or -strictly necessary and self-protective scandal. News of the event goes -in hushed whispers through the masculine community—the brotherhood of -man, as you might say. One man says to his neighbor, “Let’s get Johnston -and go down to Coney Island this afternoon.” “Johnston isn’t going down -to Coney Island this week,” says the neighbor. “Johnston miscalculated -his wine last night, and Mrs. Johnston is good people to leave alone -this morning.”</p> - -<p>In a case so much more serious than a mere case of intoxication as -Silo’s was supposed to be, you can readily understand that the scandal -of the pink pants spread through the town like wildfire. Silo had -already resigned from the vestry, so all the vestry could do was to -pitch in and see that he did not get the ghost of a show as a candidate -for assembly. It was not much of a job, under the circumstances, and the -vestry did it very easily.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>“Well, but what <i>had</i> Silo done?” I asked the Doctor. “And what were the -pink pants, anyway?”</p> - -<p>“Silo hadn’t done a thing,” replied the Doctor. “Not a blessed -thing—except to tell a tiny little bit of a two-for-one-cent fib about -that hank of worsted. I met Mr. Thingumajig in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> Chicago last year, and -he told me how he worked the whole scheme. The gist of the invention lay -in the ‘pink pants.’ Any fool can put up a job to make a man’s wife -jealous; but it takes the genius of deathless malevolence to invent a -phrase sure to catch every ear that hears it; sure to interest and -puzzle and excite every mind that gives it lodgment, and to tie that -phrase up to an individuality in such a way that it conveys an -accusation almost without form and void, and yet hideously suggestive of -iniquity.</p> - -<p>“That is just what the little newspaper cuss did with Silo. He was bent -on revenge, and he gave up a certain portion of his time to shadowing -him. You must remember that, while he had reason to remember Silo, Silo -had hardly any to remember him. Well, he told me that he dogged Silo for -days—months, even—trying to catch him in some wrong-doing. But Silo, -big and blustering as he looked, with his whiskers and his knowing air, -was an innocent, respectable, henpecked ass. Outside of business, all -that he ever did in New York was to go to his mother-in-law’s house at -his wife’s bidding to execute shopping commissions and the like. For -instance, this hank of Berlin wool the old lady had bought for her -daughter; the shade was wrong, and the daughter sent it back. Mr. -Thingumajig—never mind his name now—had been tracking Silo on his -trips to Fourteenth Street for weeks, and had just learned their -innocent nature. His soul was full of rage. He got into a green car with -Silo, going to the ferry. The evening was hot. Silo dozed in the corner -of the car. The hank of red Berlin wool lay on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> the seat beside him. Mr. -Thingumajig saw it, and saw the letter pinned to it, addressed by Mrs. -Silo to her mother. In that instant he conceived the crude basis of his -plot—to appropriate the hank, suppress the letter, souse the wool with -cheap perfume, get his wife to readdress the parcel in her worst -hand—and to rely in pretty good confidence on Silo’s telling a lie at -one end or both ends of the line about the missing wool. Silo was not -much of a sinner, but a man who loses his wife’s hank of Berlin wool and -goes home and owns up about it is a good deal of a saint. The chances -were all in Mr. Thingumajig’s favor.”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>“But,” said I, “when you had met Mr. Thingumajig and became possessed of -the plot, why didn’t you come back here and tell all about it, and clear -up poor Silo?”</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 272px;"> -<a href="images/i_160_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_160_sml.jpg" width="272" height="343" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The Doctor looked at me pityingly, almost contemptuously.</p> - -<p>“My dear fellow,” he said, as if he were talking to a child, “what was -my word to those pink pants? I tried it on, until I found that people -simply began to suspect me, and to think that I might be Silo’s -accomplice in iniquity. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> wasn’t the least use in it. If I talked -to a man, he would hear me through; and then he would wag his head and -say, ‘That’s all very well; but how about those pink pants? If there -weren’t any pink pants how did they come to be mentioned?’ And that was -the way everywhere. I could explain all about poor Silo’s foolish little -lie, and they would say, ‘Oh, yes, that’s possible; a man might lie -about a hank of wool if he had the kind of wife Silo’s got; but how -about those pink pants?’ And when it wasn’t <i>those</i> pink pants, it was -<i>them</i> pink pants. And after a while I gave it up. Silo had got to -drinking pretty hard by that time, in order to drown his miseries; and -of course that only confirmed the earlier scandal. Now, Silo never was a -man that could drink; it never did agree with him, and he has got so -wild recently that Mrs. Silo has her two brothers take turns to come out -here and try to control him. Of course that makes him all the wilder.”</p> - -<p>At the end of Main Street I parted from my friend, the Doctor, and -shortly I crossed the pathway of another citizen who had seen the two of -us bidding good-by.</p> - -<p>“He’s a nice man, the Doctor is,” said the citizen; “but the trouble -with him is, he’s altogether too credulous and sympathetic. Now, I -wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been making some defense to you of the -goings on of that man Silo. He’s a sort of addled on that subject. May -be it’s just pure charity, of course; and may be, equally, he was in -with Silo when Silo wasn’t so openly disgraceful; but if you want to -know what that man Silo is, I’ll tell you. The people around here, -sir—the people<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span> who ought to know—do you know what they call him, sir? -Well, sir, they call him, ‘The Man with the Pink Pants.’ And do you -suppose for one minute, sir, that a man gets a name fixed on him like -that without he’s deserved it? No, sir; your friend there is a good man, -and a charitable man, but as for judgement of character, he ain’t got -it. And if you’re a friend of his, you’ll tell him that the less he has -to say about ‘The Man with the Pink Pants’—the better for <i>him</i>.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_162_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_162_sml.jpg" width="389" height="482" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_THIRD_FIGURE_IN_THE_COTILLION" id="THE_THIRD_FIGURE_IN_THE_COTILLION"></a>THE THIRD FIGURE IN THE COTILLION.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra1"><img src="images/i_165.jpg" -alt="A" -width="120" /></span>ROUND the little island of Ausserland the fishing-smacks hover all -through the season. They rarely go out of sight; or, indeed, stand far -off shore, for life is easy in Ausserland, and the famous Ausserland -herrings, which give the island its prosperity, are oftenest to be -caught in the broad reaches of shallow water that surround the island. -Beyond these reaches there are fish, too; but out there the waters are -more turbulent. And why should a fisherman risk his life and his -beautiful brown duck sails in treacherous seas, when he has his -herring-pond at his own door-step, so to speak. And they have a saying -in Ausserland that if you are drowned you may go to heaven; but -certainly not to Ausserland.</p> - -<p>And who would want to leave Ausserland? Life is so easy there that it -takes most of the inhabitants about ninety years to die—and even then -you can hardly call it dying. Life’s pendulum only slows down day by -day, and swings through an arc that imperceptibly diminishes as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> the -years go on, until at last, without surprise, without shock, almost -without regret, so gradual is the process, you perceive that it has -stopped. And then the whole village, all in Sunday clothes, marches out -to the little graveyard on the hill, and somebody’s great birchen -beer-mug is hung on the living-room wall in memory of one who ate and -drank and slept, and who is no more. There are rooms in those old houses -in Ausserland where the wooden mugs hang in a double row, and the oldest -of them was last touched by living lips in days when the dragon-ships of -the Vikings ploughed that Northern sea.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_166_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_166_sml.jpg" width="317" height="248" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Ausserland is a principality, and a part of a mighty empire; but except -that it has to pay its taxes, and in return is guaranteed immunity from -foreign invasion, it might just as well be an independent kingdom; or, -rather, an independent state, for it is governed by Burgesses, elected -by the people to administer laws made hundreds of years ago, and still -quite good and suitable. If a man steals his neighbor’s goods, he is put -in the pillory. But what should a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span> man steal his neighbor’s goods for -when he has all the goods that he wants of his own? The last time the -pillory was used was for a shipwrecked Spanish sailor who refused to go -to church on the ground of a rooted prejudice against the Protestant -religion. And it must have been a singularly comfortable pillory, for -somehow or other he managed to carve his name on it during the hour in -which he stood there—his name and the date of the event, and there they -are to this day: “Miguel Diaz jul 6 1743.” My own opinion is that they -did not even let the top-piece down on him.</p> - -<p>The men of Ausserland are not liable to conscription, and as no ships of -war ever come to their odd corner of the sea, they know no more of the -mighty struggles of their great empire than if they were half a world -away. This is a part of the beautiful understanding which the -Ausserlanders have established with their hereditary Prince and with the -imperial government. The Prince lives at the court of the Emperor, and -none of his line has seen Ausserland since his grandfather was there in -the last century for a day’s visit. Yet his relations with his subjects -are of a permanently pleasant nature. They pay him his taxes, of which -he hands over the lion’s share to the government, keeping enough for -himself to attire his plump person in beautiful uniforms and tight -cavalry boots, and to cultivate the most beautiful port-wine nose in the -whole court. The amount of the taxes has been settled long ago, and it -is always exactly the same. The Ausserland fishermen are like a sort of -deep-sea Dutchmen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span> independent, sturdy and shrewd. They know just how -much they ought to pay; and they pay it, and not one soumarkee more or -less. Ages ago the hereditary Princes discovered that if they put up the -tax-rate, the herring fisheries promptly failed just in the necessary -proportion to bring the assessment back to the old figure. When they -lowered the rate the accommodating herring came back. It was a curious -if not pleasing freak of nature to which they had to accustom -themselves, for it never would have done to leave the market open to any -other supply of herrings than the famous herrings of Ausserland. So that -question settled itself.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 174px;"> -<a href="images/i_168_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_168_sml.jpg" width="174" height="285" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Twice a year the finest of the broad-breasted fishing smacks sailed for -the distant mainland, bearing heavy cargoes of dried fish, and beautiful -seashells such as were to be found nowhere else. Twice a year they came -back, bringing cloths and calicos, always of the same quality, color and -pattern, for the fashions never change in Ausserland. They brought also -drugs and medicines, school-books and pipes, tools and household -utensils of the finer sort, more delicate than the Ausserland ironsmiths -could fashion; brandy and cordials and wine in casks great and small, -and the few other articles of commerce for which they were dependent -upon the outer world; for the Ausserlanders supplied their own needs for -the most part, spun their own linen, tanned their own leather, built -their own boats,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> and generally “did” for themselves, as they say in New -England. Then it was, and then only, that the newspapers came to -Ausserland—a six-months’ collection of newspapers at each trip. And the -Head Burgess read them for the whole town. The Head Burgess was always a -man who had reached that period of thrift and prosperity at which it -seemed futile to toil longer, and who was both willing and able to give -his whole leisure to affairs of state. He it was who collected and -forwarded the taxes, and who stood ready to punish offenders, should any -one feel tempted to offend. The Head Burgess always grumbled a good -deal, and talked much of the burdens of public life; but it was -observant among even the unobservant Ausserlanders that the Head Burgess -was usually the fattest man in town; and the post was much sought after -because few Head Burgesses had been known to die under ninety-two or -three years of age.</p> - -<p>As a rule, the Head Burgess read slowly and with deliberation. Of a June -afternoon, when the fishermen came in from their day’s work, he would -stroll leisurely down to the wharves, with his long pipe with the -painted china bowl, and would give forth the news of the day to the -fishermen.</p> - -<p>“Three families,” he would say, “were frozen to death in Hamburg.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, indeed!” some courteous listener would respond; “and when was -that?”</p> - -<p>“In February last,” the Head Burgess would reply; “it seems scandalous, -does it not, that people should never learn to go in-doors and keep the -fires lighted in Winter? Thank heaven, we have no such idiots here!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span></p> - -<p>For an Ausserlander can never understand what it means to be poor or -needy. How can anybody want, he argues, while there are millions of -herring in the sea, and they come along every year just at the same -time?</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 245px;"> -<a href="images/i_170_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_170_sml.jpg" width="245" height="289" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>In Spring, of course, the Head Burgess gave the Ausserlanders a budget -of news that began with the preceding Summer. They listened to it -politely, as they listened to the pastor’s sermons. Outside of the -market-reports they had little interest in the world which ate their -herrings. Still, they were a polite and intelligent people, and they -were willing for once in a way to lend a courteous and attentive ear to -the doings and sayings of people who were not happy enough to live in -Ausserland. Thus it happened that they knew, several months after it -occurred, of the death of the reigning Emperor and the accession to the -throne of his son. The news was received with just the least shade of -disapproval. The preceding Emperor had come to the throne a sick man, -and had reigned but a short time. <i>His</i> father had reigned about as long -as an Emperor can possibly reign, and they felt that he had done what -was expected of him. They hoped that their Emperors were not going to -get into the habit of reigning for a few months and then dying. It was -annoying, they thought, to have to learn new names every few years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span></p> - -<p>So it is not remarkable that the new Emperor had been several months on -his throne before the good people of Ausserland learned that he was a -very peculiar young man, with a character of his own, and with a -passion, that almost amounted to a mania, for re-establishing an ancient -order of things that had well-nigh perished from the face of the earth. -Nor is it to be wondered at that, considering all news of the court as -frivolous and probably fictitious, they were utterly ignorant of a -controversy that had divided the whole social system of the empire into -two camps. Who could expect that in the cosy, well-furnished rooms of -the weather-beaten old houses of Ausserland it should be known that -there was a vast commotion in the Imperial court over the new cotillion -introduced by the Lord Chamberlain? It was a charming cotillion, all -agreed; the music was ravishing, and the figures were exquisitely -original; but the third figure—ah, there was the trouble!—the third -figure had not met with the approval of the matrons. The young girls and -the very young married women all liked it; and the men were as a unit in -its favor; but the more elderly ladies thought that it was indelicate, -and that it afforded opportunities for objectionable familiarities. A -hot war was raged between the two parties. The Emperor, of course, was -arbiter. He hesitated long. He was a very young man, and he took himself -very much in earnest. To him a matter of court punctilio had an -importance scarcely second to that of the fate of nations. As soon as an -objection was offered, he issued an edict proscribing the performance -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_172_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_172_sml.jpg" width="413" height="258" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">the dance of dubious propriety until such time as he should have made up -his imperial mind as to its character. For three months its fate -trembled in the balance. Then he decided that it should be and continue -to be; and he issued a formal proclamation to that effect—the first -formal proclamation of his reign. It was an opportunity for the -re-introduction of ancient and ancestral methods which the young Emperor -could not lose. The edict had gone forth in haste by word of mouth and -by notice in the daily papers; but he resolved that the proclamation -should go by special envoy to all the principalities that composed his -powerful empire. Accordingly, an officer of high rank, specially -despatched from the court, read his Imperial Majesty’s proclamation in -every principality of the nation; and thereafter it was legitimate and -proper to dance the third figure of the new Lord Chamberlain’s cotillion -on all occasions of lordly festivities, and all the elderly ladies -accepted the situation with a cheerful submissiveness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> and set about -using it for scandal-mongering purposes with promptitude and alacrity.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Early one Midsummer morning a strange fishing-smack was sighted from the -Ausserland wharves far out at sea, beating up against an obstinate wind, -and coming from the direction of the mainland. This in itself was enough -to cause general comment and to stir the whole village with a thrill of -interest; for strange vessels rarely came that way, except under stress -of storm; and though the sea was running unusually high there had been -no storm in many days. Besides, why should a vessel obviously unfitted -for that sort of sailing, beat up against a wind that would take her to -the mainland in half the time? Yet there she was, making for the island -in long, laborious tacks. Everybody stopped work to look at her; but -work was suspended and utterly thrown aside when she hoisted a pennant -that, according to the nautical code, signified that she had on board an -Envoy from his Imperial Majesty.</p> - -<p>The whole town was astir in a moment. The shops and schools closed. The -village band began to practice as it had never practiced before. The -burgesses and other officials donned their garments of state. A -committee was promptly appointed to prepare a public banquet worthy of -the Emperor’s messenger. The children were sent collecting flowers, and -were instructed how to strew them in his path. The bell-ringers gathered -and arranged an elaborate<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_174_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_174_sml.jpg" width="391" height="442" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">programme of chimes. The citizens got into their Sunday clothes, which -were most wonderful clothes in their way; and the town-crier, who played -the trumpet, got his instrument out and polished it up until it shone -like gold. But the man who felt most of the burden of responsibility -upon his shoulders was the Head Burgess. He got into his robes of office -as quickly as his wife and his three daughters could array him, and then -he hastened to the Rathhaus, or Town Hall, and there consulted the -archives to find out from the records of his predecessors what it became -him to do when his Majesty’s Envoy should announce his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> errand. He must -make a speech, that was clear, for the honor of the Island. But what -speech should he make? He could not compose one on the instant—in fact, -he could not compose one at all. What had his forerunners done on like -occasions? He looked over the record and found that three King’s Envoys -had landed on the Island: one in 1699, to announce that the Island had -been ceded by one kingdom to another; another in 1764, to inform the -people that the great-grandmother of the hereditary Prince was dead; and -another in 1848, to proclaim that the Islanders’ right of exemption from -conscription was suspended. In not one of these cases, it should be -remarked, did the message of King, Prince or Emperor, change the face of -affairs on the Island in the smallest degree. The herring market -remaining stable, the Ausserlanders cared no whit to whom they paid -taxes; as to the death of the Prince’s great-grandmother, they simply -remarked that it was a pity to die at the early age of eighty-seven; and -when they were told that they would have to get up a draft and be -conscripted into the army or navy, they just went fishing, and there the -matter dropped. One is not an Ausserlander for nothing.</p> - -<p>But the Head Burgess found that the same speech had been used on all -three occasions. It was short, and he had little difficulty in -committing it to memory, for it took the ship of his Majesty’s Envoy six -good hours to get into port. This was the speech:</p> - -<p>“Noble and Honorable, Well and High-Born Sir, the people of Ausserland -desire through<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> their representative, the Head Burgess, to affirm their -unwavering loyalty to the most illustrious and high-born personage who -condescends to assume the government of a loyal and independent -populace, and to express the hope that Divine Providence may endow him -with such power and capacity as properly befit a so-situated ruler.”</p> - -<p>So heartily did the whole population throw itself into the work of -preparing to receive the distinguished visitor, that everything had been -in readiness a full hour, when, in the early afternoon, the -fishing-smack finally made her landing. During this long hour, the whole -town watched the struggles of the little boat with the baffling wind and -waves. Everybody was in a state of delighted expectancy. An Emperor’s -Envoy does not call on one every day, and his coming offered an excuse -for merry-making such as the prosperous and easy-going people of -Ausserland were only too willing to seize.</p> - -<p>So, when the boat made fast to the wharf, the signal guns boomed, and -the people cheered again and again, and threw their caps in the air when -the King’s Envoy appeared from the cabin and returned the salute of the -Head Burgess.</p> - -<p>And, indeed, the King’s Envoy was a most satisfactory and gratifying -spectacle of grandeur. He was so grand and so gorgeous generally that he -might have been taken for the hereditary Prince, himself, had it not -been well known that the color of the hereditary Prince’s nose was -unchangeable—being what the ladies call a fast red—whereas, this -gentleman’s face was as white as the Head Burgess’s frilled shirtfront.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> -But his clothes! So splendid a uniform was never seen before. Some of it -was of cobalt blue and some of it of Prussian blue, and some of it of -white; and, all over, in every possible place, it was decorated with a -gold lace and gold buttons and silken frogs and tassels, and every other -device of beauty that ingenuity could suggest, with complete disregard -of cost.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_177_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_177_sml.jpg" width="430" height="381" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>And then His Serene Highness, Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of -Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, stepped on the wharf and -graciously introduced himself to the representative of the people, who -grasped him warmly by the hand with a cordiality untempered by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span> awe; and -the people shouted again as they saw the two great men together; and not -one suspected the anguish hidden by that martial outside. For, of -course, as such things will happen, the Envoy selected to carry the -Emperor’s proclamation to this marine principality was a man who had -never been to sea in his life, and who never would have made a sailor if -he had been kept at sea until he was pickled. And for eighteen hours the -unfortunate messenger of good tidings had been tossed about in the dark, -close, malodorous little cabin of a fishing-smack on the breast of a -chopping sea, beating up against a strong head wind. And, oh! had he not -been sick? Sick, sick, sick, and then again sick—so sick, indeed, that -he had had to hide his gorgeous clothes under a sailor’s dirty -tarpaulin. This made him feel sicker yet; but, though in the course of -the trip he lost his respect for mankind, including himself, for -royalty, for religion, for life and for death, he still retained a vital -spark of respect for his beautiful clothes. He stood motionless upon the -wharf and returned the compliments of the Head Burgess in a husky voice -that sounded in his own ears strange and far off. The Herr Graf -Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, -Envoy of his Imperial Majesty, was waiting for the ground to steady -itself, for it was behaving as it had never behaved before, to his -knowledge. It rolled and it heaved, it flew up and it nearly hit him in -the face, then it slipped away from under him and rocked back again -sidewise. Never having been on an island before, the King’s Envoy might -have thought that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span> the land was really afloat if he had not seen that -the wine in the silver cup which the Burgess was presenting to him was -swinging around like everything else without spilling a drop.</p> - -<p>Things began to settle a little after the Envoy had drunk the wine, and -when he had found that there was actually a carriage to take him to the -Town Hall, he brightened up wonderfully. He was much pleased to see also -that the Town Hall was solidly built of brick, and that it was to a -stone balcony that he was led to read his proclamation to the people. -Grasping the balustrade firmly with one hand, he read to the surging -crowd before him—he had heard of surging crowds before, but now he saw -one that really did surge—the message of his Imperial Master. The -proclamation was exceedingly brief, except for the recital of the titles -of the Emperor. The body of the document ran as follows:</p> - -<p>“I announce to my faithful, loyal and devoted subjects of the honorable -principality of Ausserland, that hereafter, by my favor and pleasure, -the use of the Third Figure in the Cotillion is graciously granted to -them without further restriction. Done, under my hand and seal, this -first day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and -ninety-two.”</p> - -<p>That was all. The people listened attentively and cheered -enthusiastically. Then the Envoy handed the proclamation and his -credentials to the Head Burgess, with a bow and a flourish, and -signified his intention of returning at once by the way he had come. Nor -could any entreaties prevail upon him even to stay to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_180_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_180_sml.jpg" width="354" height="319" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">the banquet already spread. He told the Burgesses, with many compliments -and assurances of his lofty esteem, that he had another principality to -notify before six o’clock the next morning, and that the business of his -Imperial Master admitted of not so much as a moment’s delay. The truth -of the matter, however, he kept to himself. For one thing, he could not -have gazed upon food without disastrous results. For another, he was -experiencing an emotion which in any other than a military breast would -have been fear. He had but one wish in the world, and that was to get -back to the mainland, the breeze being in his favor going back and -promising a quicker passage. Indeed it was with difficulty that he -repressed a mad desire to ask the Head Burgess whether the island ever -fetched loose and floated further out, or sank to the bottom. However, -he maintained his dig<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span>nity to the last; and, a half an hour later, as -the people watched the fishing-smack with the Imperial ensign sail forth -upon the dancing sea, bearing the Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, -of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, they all agreed that, for a -short visit, he made a very satisfactory King’s Envoy.</p> - -<p>But they could banquet very well without assistance from Envoys or -anybody, and they sat them down in the great hall of the Rathhaus, and -they fell upon the smoked herring and the fresh herring, and the pickled -herring, and the smoked goose-breast and the potato salad, and all the -rest of the good things, and they drank great tankards of home-made -beer, and great flagons of imported Rhenish wine; and, after that, they -smoked long pipes and chatted contentedly, mainly about the -herring-market.</p> - -<p>They had reached this stage in the proceedings before it occurred to any -one in the company to broach the comparatively uninteresting subject of -the Imperial proclamation, and then somebody said in a casual way that -he did not think he had quite caught the sense of it. Soon it appeared -that no one else had. The Head Burgess was puzzled. “I have just copied -it into the Town Archives,” he said; “but, upon my soul, I never thought -of considering the sense of it.” So the document was taken from the -ponderous safe of the Rathhaus and passed around among the goodly -company, each one of whom read it slowly through and smoked solemnly -over it. The Head Burgess was appealed to for the meaning of the word -“cotillion.” He had to confess that he did not exactly know. He -believed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span> however, that it was a custom-house word, and had reference -to the gauging of proof spirits. Then the Doctor was asked his opinion. -He said, somewhat uneasily, that he thought it was one of the new -chemicals recently derived from coal tar; but, with all due respect to -his Imperial Majesty, he took no stock in such new-fangled nonsense, and -castor-oil would be good enough for his patients while he lived. The -School-Master would know, some one suggested; but the School-Master had -gone home early, being in expectation of an addition to his family. The -Dominie took a hand in the discussion, and calling attention to the word -figure, opined that it belonged to some branch of astronomy hitherto -under the ban of the universities on account of its tendency to unsettle -the minds of young men and promote the growth of infidelity. He lamented -the atheistical tendency of modern times, and shook his head gravely as -he said he hoped that the young Emperor would not be led astray.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_182_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_182_sml.jpg" width="344" height="291" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span></p> - -<p>Many suggestions were made; so many, indeed, that, it being plainly -impossible to arrive at a consensus of opinion, the subject was dropped; -and, wrapped in great clouds of tobacco smoke, the conversation made its -way back to the herring fisheries.</p> - -<p>But, later in the night, as the Head Burgess and the Doctor strolled -slowly homeward, smoking their pipes in the calm moonlight, the question -came up again, and they were earnestly discussing it in deep, sonorous -tones when they came in front of the house of the School-Master, and saw -by a light in the window of his study that he was still waiting the -pleasure of Mrs. School-Master. They rapped with their pipes on the -door-post, giving the signal that had often called their old friend -forth to late card-parties at the tavern, and in a couple of -minutes—for no one hurries in Ausserland—he appeared at the door in -his old green dressing-gown and with his long-stemmed pipe in his mouth.</p> - -<p>Now, the School-Master was not only a man of profound learning, but a -man of rapid mental processes. He had heard from his open window the -discussion as his two friends slowly came down the street; and, in point -of fact, his professional instinct had led him to note the mystic word -when it dropped from the Envoy’s lips. This it was, rather than domestic -expectations, that had kept him awake so late. And in the time that -elapsed between the arrival of his friends and his appearance at the -door, he had prepared himself to meet the situation.</p> - -<p>He listened solemnly to the question with the tolerant interest of a man -of science, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span> answered it without hesitation, in the imposing tone -of perfect knowledge.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_184_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_184_sml.jpg" width="311" height="400" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“A cotillion,” he said, decisively, “is the one-billionth part of a -minus million in quaternions, and is used by surveyors to determine the -logarithm of the cube root. That is, its use has hitherto been forbidden -to the government surveyors on account of the uncertainty of the -formula. That, however, has been finally determined by Prof. Lipsius, of -Munich, and hereafter it may be applied to delicate calculations in -determining the altitude of mountains too lofty for ascent. Gentlemen, I -should like to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> ask you in to take a night-cap with me, but, under the -circumstances, you understand.... Doctor, I don’t think we shall need -you to-night. Good-evening, friends.”</p> - -<p>The Doctor and the Head Burgess ruminated over this new acquisition to -their stock of knowledge as they strolled on down the street. At last -the latter broke the silence and said, in a tone in which conviction -struggled with sleepiness:</p> - -<p>“Doctor, I have often thought what a hard life those poor devils on the -mainland must have with their impassable mountains, and their railroads -that kill and mangle you if they get a millionth part of a cube root out -of the way, and the boundary-lines they are everlastingly quarreling -about. Why, here in Ausserland, see how simple it all is! We never have -any trouble about our boundary-lines. Where the land stops the water -begins, and where the land begins the water stops; and that’s all there -is to it!”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_185_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_185_sml.jpg" width="250" height="214" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>And with these words, as the last puff of his pipe rose heavenward, the -Burgess dismissed the matter from his mind, and the Emperor’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> -proclamation legitimizing the Third Figure of the Cotillion vanished -from his memory—and from that of all Ausserland—passing into oblivion -with those that had told of Ausserland’s change of nationality, of the -conscription of her exempt citizens, and of the death of the -great-grandmother of the hereditary Prince.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="SAMANTHA_BOOM-DE-AY" id="SAMANTHA_BOOM-DE-AY"></a>“SAMANTHA BOOM-DE-AY.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra"><img src="images/i_189.jpg" -alt="IT" -width="120" /></span> was a long, rough, sunlit stretch of stony turnpike that climbed -across the flanks of a mountain range in Maine, and skirted a great -forest for many miles, on its way to an upland farming-country near the -Canada border.</p> - -<p>As you ascended this road, on your right hand was a continuous wall of -dull-hued evergreens, straggly pines and cedars, crowded closely and -rising high above a thick underbrush. Behind this lay the vast, -mysterious, silent wilderness. Here and there the emergence of a foamy, -rushing river, or the entrance of a narrow corduroy road or trail, -afforded a glimpse into its depths, and then you saw the slopes of hills -and valleys, clad ever in one smoky, bluish veil of fir and pine.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, where you could see through the roadside brush, you -looked down the mountain slope to the plains below, where the brawling -mountain streams quieted down into pleasant water-courses; where broad -patches of meadow land and wheat field spread out from edges of the -woods, and where, far, far off, clusters of farm-houses, and further -yet, towns and villages, sent their smoke up above the hazy horizon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span></p> - -<p>It was a road of so much variety and sweep of view, as it kept its -course along the boundary of the forest’s dateless antiquity, and yet in -full view of the prosperous outposts of a well-established civilization, -that the most calloused traveler might have been expected to look about -him and take an interest in his surroundings. But the three people who -drove slowly up this hill one August afternoon might have been passing -through a tunnel for all the attention they paid to the shifting scene.</p> - -<p>Their vehicle was a farm-wagon; a fine, fresh-painted Concord wagon. The -horses that drew it were large, sleek, and a little too fat. A -comfortable country prosperity appeared in the whole outfit; and, -although the raiment of the three travelers was unfashionably plain, -they all three had an aspect of robust health and physical well-being, -which was much at variance with their dismal countenances—for the -middle-aged man who was driving looked sheepish and embarrassed; the -good-looking, sturdy young fellow by his side was clearly in a state of -frank, undisguised dejection, and the black-garbed woman, who sat behind -in a splint-bottomed chair, had the extra-hard granite expression of the -New England woman who particularly disapproves of something; whether -that something be the destruction of her life’s best hopes or her -neighbor’s method of making pie.</p> - -<p>For mile after mile they jogged along in silence. Occasionally the elder -man would make some brief and commonplace remark in a tentative way, as -though to start a conversation. To these feeble attempts the young man -made no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> response whatever. The woman in black sometimes nodded and -sometimes said “Yes?” with a rising inflection, which is a form of -torture invented and much practiced in the New England States.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_191_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_191_sml.jpg" width="326" height="329" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>It was late in the afternoon when a noise behind and below them made -them all glance round. The middle-aged man drew his horses to one side; -and, in a cloud of dust, a big, old-fashioned stage of a dull-red color -overtook them and lumbered on its way, the two drivers interchanging -careless nods.</p> - -<p>The woman did not alter her rigid attitude, and kept her eyes cast down; -but the passing of the stage awakened a noticeable interest in the two -men on the front seat. The elder gazed with surprise and curiosity at -the freight that the top of the stage-coach bore—three or four<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span> -traveling trunks of unusual size, shape and color, clamped with iron and -studded with heavy nails.</p> - -<p>“Be them trunks?” he inquired, staring open-mouthed at the sight. “I -never seen trunks like them before.”</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 278px;"> -<a href="images/i_192_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_192_sml.jpg" width="278" height="305" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Neither of his companions answered him; but a curious new expression -came into the young man’s face. He sat up straight for the first time; -and, as the wagon drew back into the narrow road, he began to whistle -softly and melodiously.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>When Samantha Spaulding was left a widow with a little boy, she got, as -one of her neighbors expressed it, “more politeness than pity.” In -truth, in so far as the condition has any luck about it, Samantha was -lucky in her widowhood. She was a young widow, and a well-to-do widow. -Old man Spaulding had been a good provider and a good husband; but he -was much older than his wife, and had not particularly engaged her -affections. Now that he was dead, after some eighteen months of married -life, and had left her one of the two best farms in the county, -everybody supposed that Mis’ Spaulding would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span> marry Reuben Pett, who -owned the other best farm, besides a saw-mill and a stage-route. That -is, everybody thought so, except Samantha and Pett. They calmly kept on -in their individual ways, and showed no inclination to join their two -properties, though these throve and waxed more and more valuable year by -year. They were good friends, however. Reuben Pett was a sagacious -counselor, and a prudent man of affairs; and when Samantha’s boy became -old enough to work, he was apprenticed to Mr. Pett, to the end that he -might some day take charge of the saw-mill business, which his mother -stood ready to buy for him.</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 206px;"> -<a href="images/i_193_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_193_sml.jpg" width="206" height="248" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>But the youthful Baxter Spaulding had not reached the age of twenty when -he cast down his mother’s hopes in utter ruin by coming home from a -business trip to Augusta and announcing that he was going to marry, and -that the bride of his choice was a young lady of the variety stage who -danced for a living, her specialty being known as “hitch-and-kick.”</p> - -<p>Now, this may not seem, to you who read this, quite a complete, perfect -and unimprovable thing in the way of the abomination of desolation; but -then you must remember that you were not born and raised in a far corner -of the Maine hills, and that you probably have so frequently seen -play-actoress-women of all sorts that the mere idea of them has ceased -to give<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span> you cold creeps down your back. And to Samantha Spaulding the -whole theatrical system, from the Tragic Muse to the “hitch-and-kick -artiste,” was conceived in sin and born in iniquity; and what her son -proposed to do was to her no whit better than forgery, arson, or any -other ungodliness. To you of a less distinctively Aroostook code of -morals, I may say that the enchainer of young Spaulding’s heart was -quite as good a little girl in her morals and her manners as you need -want to find on the stage or off it; and “hitch-and-kick” dancing was to -her only a matter of business, as serio-comic singing had been to her -mother, as playing Harlequin had been to her father, and as grinning -through a horse-collar had been to her grandfather and -great-grandfather, famous old English clowns in their day, one of whom -had been a partner of Grimaldi. She made her living, it is true, by -traveling around the country singing a song called “Ta-ra-ra -Boom-de-ay,” which required a great deal of high-kicking for its just -and full artistic expression; but then, it should be remembered, it was -the way she had always made her living, and her mother’s living, too, -since the old lady lost her serio-comic voice. And as her mother had -taught her all she knew about dancing, and as she and her mother had -hardly been separated for an hour since she was out of her cradle, -Little Betty Billington looked on her profession, as you well may -imagine, with eyes quite different from those with which Mrs. Samantha -Spaulding regarded it. It was a lop-sided contest that ensued, and that -lasted for months. On one side were Baxter and his Betty and Betty’s -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span>mama—after that good lady got over her natural objections to having -her daughter marry “out of the profession.” On the other side was -Samantha, determined enough to be a match for all three of them. Mr. -Reuben Pett hovered on the outskirts, asking only peace.</p> - -<p>At last he was dragged into the fight. Baxter Spaulding went to Bangor, -where his lady’s company happened to be playing, with the avowed -intention of wedding Betty out of hand. When his mother found it out, -she took Reuben Pett and her boy’s apprenticeship-indenture to Bangor -with her, caught the youngster ere the deed was done, and, having the -majesty of the law behind her, she was taking her helpless captive home -on this particular August afternoon. He was on the front seat of the -wagon, Samantha was on the splint-bottomed chair, and Reuben Pett was -driving.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>It was a two-days’ drive from the railroad station at Byram’s Pond -around the spur of the mountain to their home. The bi-weekly stage did -it in a day; but it was unwonted traveling for Mr. Pett’s easy-going -team. Therefore, the three travelers put up at Canada Jake’s camp; so -called, though it was only on the edge of the wilderness, because it was -what Maine people generally mean when they talk of a “camp”—a large -shanty of rough, unpainted planks, with a kitchen and eating-room below, -and rudely partitioned sleeping-rooms in the upper story. It stood by -the roadside, and served the purpose of an inn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span></p> - -<p>Canada Jake was lounging in the doorway as they came up, squat, -bullet-headed and bead-eyed; a very ordinary specimen of mean French -Canadian. He welcomed them in as if he were conferring a favor upon -them, fed them upon black, fried meat and soggy, boiled potatos, and -later on bestowed them in three wretched enclosures overhead.</p> - -<p>He himself staid awake until the sound of two bass and one treble snore -penetrated the thin partition planks; and then he stole softly up the -ladder that served for stairway, and slipped into the moonlit little -room where Baxter Spaulding was lying on a cot-bed six inches too short -for him. Putting his finger upon his lips, he whispered to the wakeful -youth:</p> - -<p>“Sh-h-h-h-h-h! You got you’ boots on?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Baxter softly.</p> - -<p>“Come wiz me and don’ make no noise!”</p> - -<p>And the next thing that Baxter Spaulding knew, he was outside of the -house, behind the wood-pile, holding a slight but charming figure in his -arms, and saying:</p> - -<p>“Why, Betty! why, Betty!” in a dazed sort of way, while a fat and -motherly lady near by stood shaking with silent sobs, like a jelly-fish -convulsed with sympathy and affection.</p> - -<p>“We ’eaded you off in the stage-coach!” was all she said.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>The next morning Mr. Reuben Pett was called out of the land of dreams by -a familiar feminine voice from the next room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span></p> - -<p>“Reuben Pett!” it said; “<i>where is Baxter?</i>”</p> - -<p>“Baxter!” yelled Mr. Pett; “your ma wants yer!”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_197_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_197_sml.jpg" width="346" height="299" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>But Baxter came not. His room was empty. Mr. Pett descended and found -his host out by the wood-pile, splitting kindling. Canada Jake had seen -nothing whatever of the young man. He opined that the youth most ’ave -got up airlee, go feeshin’.</p> - -<p>Reuben Pett went back and reported to Samantha Spaulding through the -door. Samantha’s voice came back to him as a voice from the bottom -sub-cellar of abysmal gloom.</p> - -<p>“Reuben,” she said; “them women have been here!”</p> - -<p>“Why, Samantha!” he said; “it ain’t possible!”</p> - -<p>“I heard them last night,” returned Samantha, in tones of conviction. “I -know, now. I did. I thought then I was dreamin’.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span></p> - -<p>“Most likely you was, too!” said Mr. Pett, encouragingly.</p> - -<p>“Well, I wa’n’t!” rejoined Mrs. Spaulding, with a suddenness and an -acerbity that made her listener jump. “<i>They’ve stole my clothes!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Whatever do you mean, Samantha?” roared Reuben Pett.</p> - -<p>“I mean,” said Mrs. Spaulding, in a tone that left no doubt whatever -that what she did mean she meant very hard; “I mean that that hussy has -been here in the night, and has took every stitch and string of my -clothing, and ain’t left me so much as a button-hole, -except—except—except—”</p> - -<p>“Except what?” demanded Reuben, in stark amazement.</p> - -<p>“Except that there idolatrous flounced frock the shameless critter doos -her stage-dancing in!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett might, perhaps, have offered appropriate condolences on this -bereavement had not a thought struck him which made him scramble down -the ladder again and hasten to the woodshed, where he had put up his -team the night before. The team was gone—the fat horses and fresh -painted wagon, and the tracks led back down the road up which they had -ridden the day before.</p> - -<p>Once more Mr. Pett climbed the ladder; but when he announced his loss he -was met, to his astonishment, with severity instead of with sympathy.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care, Reuben Pett,” Samantha spoke through the door; “if you’ve -lost ten horses and nineteen wagons. You got to hitch some kind of a -critter to <i>suthin’</i>, for we’re goin’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span> to ketch them people to-day or my -name’s not Samantha Spaulding.”</p> - -<p>“But Law Sakes Alive, Samantha!” expostulated Mr. Pett; “you ain’t goin’ -to wear no circus clothes, be ye?”</p> - -<p>“You go hunt a team, Mr. Pett,” returned his companion, tartly; “I know -my own business.”</p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 231px;"> -<a href="images/i_199_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_199_sml.jpg" width="231" height="426" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Mr. Pett remonstrated. He pointed out that there was neither horse nor -vehicle to be had in the neighborhood, and that pursuit was practically -hopeless in view of the start which the runaways had. But Mrs. Spaulding -was obdurate with an obduracy that made the heart of Reuben Pett creep -into his boots. After ten minutes of vain combating, he saw, beyond a -doubt, that the chase would have to continue even if it were to be -carried on astraddle a pair of confiscated cows. Having learned that -much, he went drearily down again to discuss the situation with Canada -Pete. Canada Pete was indisposed to be of the slightest assistance, -until Mr. Pett reminded him of the danger of the law in which he stands -who aids a runaway apprentice in his flight. After that, the sulky<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span> -Canadian awoke to a new and anxious interest; and, before long, he -remembered that a lumberer who lived “a piece” up the road had a bit of -meadow-land reclaimed from the forest, and sometimes kept an old horse -in it. It was a horse, however, that had always positively refused to go -under saddle, so that a new complication barred the way, until suddenly -the swarthy face of the <i>habitant</i> lit up with a joyful, white-toothed -grin.</p> - -<p>“My old calèche zat I bring from Canada! I let you have her, hey? You -come wiz me!”</p> - -<p>And Canada Pete led the way through the underbrush to a bit of a -clearing near his house, where were accumulated many years’ deposits of -household rubbish; and here, in a desert of tin-cans and broken bottles -and crockery, stood the oldest of all old calashes.</p> - -<p>There are calashes and calashes, but the calash or calèche of Canada is -practically of one type. It is a high-hung, tilting chaise, with a -commodious back seat and a capacious hood, and with an absurd, narrow, -cushioned bar in front for the driver to sit on. It is a -startling-looking vehicle in its mildest form, and when you gaze upon a -calash for the first time you will probably wonder whether, if a stray -boy should catch on behind, the shafts would not fly up into the air, -bearing the horse between them. Canada Pete’s calash had evidently stood -long a monument of decay, yet being of sturdy and simple construction, -it showed distinct signs of life when Pete seized its curved shafts and -ran it backward and forward to prove that the wheels could still revolve -and the great hood still nod<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span> and sway like a real calash in commission. -It was ragged, it was rusty, it was water-soaked and weather-beaten, -blistered and stained; but it hung together, and bobbed along behind -Canada Pete, lurching and rickety, but still a vehicle, and entitled to -rank as such.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_201_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_201_sml.jpg" width="321" height="263" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The calash was taken into Pete’s back-yard; and then, after a brief and -energetic campaign, Pete secured the horse, which was a very good match -for the calash. He was an old horse, and he had the spring-halt. He held -his long ewe-neck to one side, being blind in one eye; and this gave him -the coquettish appearance of a mincing old maid. A little polka step, -which he affected with his fore-feet, served to carry out this idea.</p> - -<p>Also, he had been feeding on grass for a whole Summer, and his spirits -were those of the young lambkin that gambols in the mead. He was happy, -and he wanted to make others happy, although he did not seem always to -know the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> right way to go about it. When Mr. Pett and Canada Pete had -got this animal harnessed up with odds and ends of rope and leather, -they sat down and wiped their brows. Then Mr. Pett started off to notify -Mrs. Samantha Spaulding.</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett was a man unused to feminine society, except such as he had -grown up with from early childhood, and he was of a naturally modest, -even bashful disposition. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was -startled when, on re-entering the living-room of Canada Pete’s camp, he -found himself face to face with a strange lady, and a lady, at that, of -a strangeness that he had never conceived of before. She wore upon her -head a preposterously tall bonnet, or at least a towering structure that -seemed to be intended to serve the purpose of a bonnet. It reminded -him—except for its shininess and newness—of the hood of the calash; -indeed, it may have suggested itself vaguely to his memory that his -grandmother had worn a piece of head-gear something similar, though not -so shapely, which in very truth was nicknamed a “calash” from this -obvious resemblance. The lady’s shapely and generously feminine figure -was closely drawn into a waist of shining black satin, cut down in a V -on the neck, before and behind, and ornamented with very large sleeves -of a strange pattern. But her skirts—for they were voluminous beyond -numeration—were the wonder of her attire. Within fold after fold they -swathed a foamy mystery of innumerable gauzy white underpinnings. As Mr. -Pett’s abashed eye traveled down this marvel of costume it landed upon a -pair of black stockings, the feet of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span> appeared to be balanced -somewhat uncertainly in black satin slippers with queer high heels.</p> - -<p>“Reuben Pett,” said the lady suddenly and with decision, “don’t you say -nothing! If you knew how them shoes was pinching me, you’d know what I -was goin’ through.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett had to lean up against the door-post before recovering himself.</p> - -<p>“Why, Samantha!” he said at last; “seems to me like you <i>had</i> gone -through more or less.”</p> - -<p>Here Mrs. Spaulding reached out in an irritation that carried her beyond -all speech, and boxed Mr. Pett’s ears. Then she drew back, startled at -her own act, but even more surprised at Mr. Pett’s reception of it. He -was neither surprised nor disconcerted. He leaned back against the -door-post and gazed on unperturbed.</p> - -<p>“My!” he said; “Samantha, be them that play-actresses’ clo’es?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Spaulding nodded grimly.</p> - -<p>“Well, all I’ve got to say, Samantha,” remarked Reuben Pett, as he -straightened himself up and started out to bring their chariot to the -door; “all I’ve got to say, and all I want to say, is that she must be a -mighty fine figure of a woman, and that you’re busting her seams.”</p> - -<p>Down the old dusty road the old calash jiggled and juggled, “weaving” -most of the way in easy tacks down the sharp declivities. On the front -seat—or, rather, on the upholstered bar—sat Reuben Pett, squirming -uncomfortably, and every now and then trying to sit side-saddle fashion -for the sake of easier converse with his fair passenger. Mrs. Spaulding -occupied the back seat, lifted high above her driver by the tilt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_204_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_204_sml.jpg" width="426" height="511" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">of the curious vehicle, which also served to make the white foundation -of her costume particularly visible, so that there were certain jolting -moments when she suggested a black-robed Venus rising from a snowy -foam-crest. At such moments Mr. Pett lost control of his horse to such -an extent that the animal actually danced and fairly turned his long -neck around as though it were set on a pivot. When such a crisis was -reached, Mrs. Spaulding would utter a shrill and startling “hi!” which -would cause the horse to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span> stop suddenly, hurling Mr. Pett forward with -such force that he would have to grab his narrow perch to save his neck, -and for the next hundred yards or so of descent his attention would be -wholly concentrated upon his duties as driver—for the horse insisted -upon waltzing at the slightest shock to his nerves.</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett’s tendency to turn around and stare should not be laid up -against him. For twenty years he had seen his neighbor, Mrs. Samantha -Spaulding, once, at least; perhaps twice or thrice; mayhap even six or -seven times a week; and yet, on this occasion, he had fair excuse for -looking over his shoulder now and then to assure himself that the fair -passenger at whose feet he—literally—sat, was indeed that very -Samantha of his twenty years’ knowledge. How was he, who was only a man, -and no ladies’ man at that, to understand that the local dressmaker and -the local habit of wearing wrinkly black alpaca and bombazine were to -blame for his never having known that his next door neighbor had a -superb bust and a gracious waist? How was he to know that the blindness -of his own eyes was alone accountable for his ignorance of the whiteness -of her teeth, and the shapeliness of the arms that peeped from the big, -old-fashioned sleeves? Samantha’s especial care upon her farm was her -well-appointed dairy, and it is well known that to some women work in -the spring-house imparts a delicate creaminess of complexion; but he was -no close observer, and how was he to know that that was the reason why -the little V in the front of Samantha’s black satin bodice melted so -softly into the fresh<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a>{197}</span> bright tint of her neck and chin? How, indeed, -was a man who had no better opportunities than Reuben Pett had enjoyed, -to understand that the pretty skirt-dancer dress, a dainty, fanciful -travesty of an old-time fashion, had only revealed and not created an -attractive and charming woman in his life-long friend and neighbor?</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_206_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_206_sml.jpg" width="316" height="336" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>Samantha was not thinking in the least of herself. She had accepted her -costume as something which she had no choice but to assume in the -exercise of an imperative duty. She wore it for conscience sake only, -just as any other New England martyr to her New England convictions of -right might have worn a mealsack or a suit of armor had circumstances -imposed such a necessity.</p> - -<p>But when Reuben Pett had looked around three or four times, she grasped -her skirts in both hands and pushed them angrily down to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>{198}</span> their utmost -length. Then, with a true woman’s dislike of outraging pretty dress -material, she made a furtive experiment or two to see if her skirts -would not answer all the purposes of modesty without hanging wrong. -Perhaps she had a natural talent that way; at any rate, she found that -they would.</p> - -<p>“Samantha,” said Reuben Pett, over his shoulder, “what under the sun -sense be there in chasin’ them two young fools up? If they want to -marry, why not let ’em marry? It’s natural for ’em to want to, and it’s -agin nature to stop ’em. May be it wouldn’t be sech a bad marriage, -after all. Now you look at it in the light of conscience—”</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i>’re a nice hand to be advocating marriage, Reuben Pett,” said -Mrs. Spaulding; “you jest hurry up that horse and I’ll look out for the -light of conscience.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett chirruped to the capering ewe-neck, and they jolted downward in -silence for a half a mile. Then he said suddenly, as if emerging from a -cloud of reflection:</p> - -<p>“I ain’t never said nothing agin marriage!”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>Noon-time came, and the hot August sun poured down upon them, until the -old calash felt, as Mr. Pett remarked, like a chariot of fire. This -observation was evolved in a humorous way to slacken the tension of a -situation which was becoming distinctly unpleasant. Moved by a spirit of -genial and broadly human benevolence which was somewhat unnatural to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>{199}</span> -him, Mr. Pett had insisted upon pleading the cause of the youthful -runaways with an insistence that was at once indiscreet and futile. In -the end his companion had ordered him to hold his tongue, an injunction -he was quite incapable of obeying. After a series of failures in the way -of conversational starters, he finally scored a success by suggesting -that they should pause and partake of the meagre refection which Canada -Pete had furnished them—a modest repast of doughnuts, apples and -store-pie. This they ate at the first creek where they found a -convenient place to water the horse.</p> - -<p>When they resumed their journey, they found that they were all refreshed -and in brighter mood. Even the horse was intoxicated by the water and -that form of verdure which may pass for grass on the margin of a -mountain highway in Maine.</p> - -<p>This change of feeling was also perceptible in the manner and bearing of -the human beings who made up the cavalcade. Samantha adjusted her -furbelows with unconscious deftness and daintiness, while she gazed -before her into the bright blue heaven; and, I am sorry to say, sucked -her teeth. Reuben frankly flung one leg over the end of his seat, and -conversed easily as he drove along, poised like a boy who rides a -bare-back horse to water. After awhile he even felt emboldened to resume -the forbidden theme of conversation.</p> - -<p>“Nature is nature, Samantha,” he said.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis in some folks,” responded Samantha, dryly; “there’s others seems -to be able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a>{200}</span> git along without it.” And Reuben turned this speech over -in his mind for a good ten minutes.</p> - -<p>Then, just as he was evidently about to say something, he glanced up and -saw a sight which changed the current of his reflections. It was only a -cloud in the heavens, but it evidently awakened a new idea in his mind.</p> - -<p>“Samantha,” he said, in a tone of voice that seemed inappropriately -cheerful; “they’s goin’ to be a thunder storm.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_209_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_209_sml.jpg" width="423" height="322" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Spaulding.</p> - -<p>“Certain,” asseverated Mr. Pett; “there she is a-comin up, right agin -the wind.”</p> - -<p>A thunder storm on the edge of a Maine forest is not wholly a joke. It -sometimes has a way of playing with the forest trees much as a table -d’hôte diner plays with the wooden tooth-picks. Samantha’s protests, -when Mr. Pett<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>{201}</span> stated that he was going to get under the cover of an -abandoned saw-mill which stood by the roadside a little way ahead of -them, were more a matter of form than anything else. But still, when -they reached the rough shed of unpainted and weather-beaten boards, and -Mr. Pett, in turning in gave the vehicle a sudden twist that broke the -shaft, her anger at the delay thus rendered necessary was beyond her -control.</p> - -<p>“I declare to goodness, Reuben Pett,” she cried; “if you ain’t the -awkwardest! Anybody’d a’most think you’d done that a purpose.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, Samantha!” said Reuben Pett, pleasantly; “it ain’t right to -talk like that. This here machine’s dreadful old. Why, Samantha, we’d -ought to sympathize with it—you and me!”</p> - -<p>“Speak for yourself, Mr. Pett,” said Samantha. “I ain’t so dreadful old, -whatever you may be.”</p> - -<p>At the moment Mr. Pett made no rejoinder to this. He unshipped the merry -horse, and tied him to a post under the old saw-mill, and then he pulled -the calash up the runway into the first story, and patiently set about -the difficult task of mending the broken shaft, while Samantha, looking -out through the broad, open doorway, watched the fierce Summer storm -descend upon the land; and she tapped her impatient foot until it almost -burst its too narrow satin covering.</p> - -<p>“No, Samantha,” Mr. Pett said, at last, intently at work upon his -splicing; “you ain’t so dreadful old, for a fact; but I’ve knowed you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a>{202}</span> -when you was a dreadful sight younger. I’ve knowed you,” he continued, -reflectively, “when you was the spryest girl in ten miles round—when -you could dance as lively as that young lady whose clo’es you’re -a-wearin’.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you dare to talk to me about that jade!” said Mrs. Spaulding, -snappishly.</p> - -<p>“Why, no! certainly not!” said Mr. Pett; “I didn’t mean no comparison. -Only, as I was a-sayin’, there was a time, Samantha, when you could -dance.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_211_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_211_sml.jpg" width="384" height="342" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“And who says I can’t dance now?” demanded Mrs. Spaulding, with anger in -her voice.</p> - -<p>“My! I remember wunst,” said Mr. Pett; and then the sense of Samantha’s -angry question seemed to penetrate his wandering mind.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Dance now?’<span class="lftspc">”</span> he repeated. “Sho! Samantha,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a>{203}</span> you couldn’t dance nowadays -if you was to try.”</p> - -<p>“Who says I couldn’t?” asked Samantha, again, with a set look developing -around the corners of her mouth.</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> say you couldn’t,” replied Mr. Pett, obtusely. “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tain’t in nature. -But there was a time, Samantha, when you was great on fancy steps.”</p> - -<p>“Think I’m too old for fancy steps now, do you?” She looked at her -tormentor savagely, out of the corners of her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Well, not too old, may be, Samantha,” went on Mr. Pett; “but may be you -ain’t that limber you was. I know how it is. I ain’t smart as I used to -be, myself. Why, do you remember that night down at the Corners, when we -two was the only ones that could jump over Squire Tate’s high andirons -and cut a pigeon-wing before we come down?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett appeared to be entirely unconscious that Mrs. Spaulding’s bosom -was heaving, that her eyes were snapping angrily, and that her foot was -beating on the floor in that tattoo with which a woman announces that -she is near an end of her patience.</p> - -<p>“How high was them andirons?” she asked, breathlessly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Reuben, indifferently. He kept his eyes -fixed on his work; but while he worked his splice closer with his right -hand, with his left he took off his hat and held it out rather more than -two feet above the floor.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Bout as high as that, may be,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a>{204}</span> “Remember the tune we done -that to? Went some sort of way like this, didn’t it?” And with that -remarkable force of talent which is only developed in country solitudes, -Mr. Pett began to whistle an old-time air, a jiggetty, wiggetty -whirl-around strain born of some dead darkey’s sea-sawing fiddle-bow, -with a volume of sustained sound that would have put to shame anything -the saw-mill could have done for itself in its buzzingest days.</p> - -<p>“Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee, ee <i>ee</i>!” whistled Mr. Pett; -and then, softly, and as if only the dim stirring of memory moved him, -he began to call the old figures of the old dance.</p> - -<p>“Forward all!” he crooned. “Turn partners! Sashay! Alleman’ all! -Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee <i>ee</i>!”</p> - -<p>And suddenly, like the tiger leaping from her lair, the soft pattering -and shuffling of feet behind him resolved itself into a quick, furious -rhythmic beat, and Samantha Spaulding shot high into the air, holding up -her skirts with both hands, while her neat ankles crossed each other in -a marvelous complication of agility a good twelve inches above his -outstretched hat.</p> - -<p>“There!” she cried, as she landed with a flourish that combined skill -and grace; “there’s what I done with you, and much I think of it! If you -want to see dancin’ that is dancin’ look here. Here’s what I did with -Ben Griggs at the shuckin’ that same year; and you wa’n’t there, and -good reason why!”</p> - -<p>And then and there, while Reuben Pett’s great rasping whistle rang -through the old saw-mill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>{205}</span> shrilling above the roar of the storm -outside, Mrs. Samantha Spaulding executed with lightning rapidity and -with the precision of perfect and confident knowledge, a dancing-step -which for scientific complexity and daring originality had been twenty -years before the surprise, the delight, the tingling, shocking, tempting -nine-days’-wonder of the country-side.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_214_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_214_sml.jpg" width="406" height="354" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Whee-ee-ee, ee-ee, ee ee, ee ee ee, whee, ee, ee ee, ee <i>ee</i>!” Reuben -Pett’s whistle died away from sheer lack of breath as Samantha came to -the end of her dance.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>There is nothing that hath a more heavy and leaden cold than a chilled -enthusiasm. When the storm was over, although a laughing light<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a>{206}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_215_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_215_sml.jpg" width="431" height="421" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">played over the landscape; although diamond sparkles lit up the grateful -white mist that rose from the refreshed earth; although the sun shone as -though he had been expecting that thunder storm all day, and was -inexpressibly glad that it was over and done with, Samantha leaned back -in her seat in the calash, and nursed a cheerless bitterness of -spirit—such a bitterness as is known only to the New England woman to -whom has come a realization of the fact that she has made a fool of -herself. Samantha Spaulding. Made a fool of herself. At her age. After -twenty years of respectable widowhood. Her, of all folks. And with that -old fool. Who’d be’n a-settin’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>{207}</span> and a-settin’ and a-settin’ all these -years. And never said Boo! And now for him to twist her round his finger -like that. She felt like—well, she didn’t know how she <i>did</i> feel.</p> - -<p>She was so long wrapped up in her own thoughts that it was with a start -that she awoke to the fact that they were making very slow progress, and -that this was due to the very peculiar conduct of Mr. Pett. He was -making little or no effort to urge the horse along, and the horse, -consequently, having got tired of wasting his bright spirits on the -empty air, was maundering. So was Mr. Pett, in another way. He mumbled -to himself; from time to time he whistled scraps of old-fashioned tunes, -and occasionally he sang to himself a brief catch—the catch coming in -about the third or fourth bar.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Reuben Pett!” demanded Samantha, shrilly; “be you going to -get to Byram’s Pond to-night?”</p> - -<p>“I <i>kin</i>,” replied Reuben.</p> - -<p>“Well, <i>be</i> you?” Samantha Spaulding inquired.</p> - -<p>“I d’no. Fact is, I wa’n’t figurin’ on that just now.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what <i>was</i> you figurin’ on?” snapped Mrs. Spaulding.</p> - -<p>“When you’s goin’ to marry me,” Mr. Pett answered with perfect -composure. “Look here, Samantha! it’s this way: here’s twenty years -you’ve kept me waitin’.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Me</i> kept you waitin’! Well, Reuben Pett, if I ever!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t arguefy, Samantha; don’t arguefy,” remonstrated Mr. Pett; “I -ain’t rakin up no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a>{208}</span> details. What we’ve got to deal with is this question -as it stands to-day. Be you a-goin’ to marry me or be you not? And if -you be, when be you?”</p> - -<p>“Reuben Pett,” exclaimed Samantha, with a showing of severity which was -very creditable under the circumstances; “ain’t you <i>ashamed</i> of talk -like that between folks of our age?”</p> - -<p>“<i>We</i> ain’t no age—no age in particular, Samantha,” said Mr. Pett. “A -woman who can cut a pigeon-wing over a hat held up higher than any two -pair of andirons that I ever see is young enough for me, anyway.” And he -chuckled over his successful duplicity.</p> - -<p>Samantha blushed a red that was none the less becoming for a tinge of -russet. Then she took a leaf out of Mr. Pett’s book.</p> - -<p>“Young enough for you?” she repeated. “Well, I guess so! I wa’n’t -thinkin’ of myself when I said old, Mr. Pett. I was thinkin’ of folks -who was gettin’ most too old to drive down hill in a hurry.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s that?” asked Reuben.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t namin’ any names,” said Samantha; “but I’ve knowed the time -when you wasn’t so awful afraid of gettin’ a spill off the front seat of -a calash. Lord! how time does take the tuck out of some folks!” she -concluded, addressing vacancy.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say that I da’sn’t drive you down to Byram’s Pond -to-night?” Mr. Pett inquired defiantly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know anything about it,” said Mrs. Spaulding.</p> - -<p>Mr. Pett stuck a crooked forefinger into his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>{209}</span> lady-love’s face, and -gazed at her with such an intensity that she was obliged at last to -return his penetrating gaze.</p> - -<p>“If I get you to Byram’s Pond before the train goes, will you marry me -the first meetin’ house we come to?”</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 234px;"> -<a href="images/i_218_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_218_sml.jpg" width="234" height="323" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“I will,” said Mrs. Spaulding, after a moment’s hesitation, well -remembering what the other party to the bargain had forgotten, that -there was no church in Byram Pond, nor nearer than forty miles down the -railroad.</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>In the warm dusk of a Summer’s evening, a limping, shackle-gaited, -bewildered horse, dragging a calash in the last stages of ruin, brought -two travelers into the village of Byram’s Pond. Far up on the hills -there lingered yet the clouds of dust that marked where that calash had -come down those hills at a pace whereat no calash ever came down hill -before. Dust covered the two travelers so thickly, that, although the -woman’s costume was of peculiar and striking construction, its -eccentricities were lost in a dull and uniform grayness. Her bonnet, -however, would have excited comment. It had apparently been of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a>{210}</span> -remarkable height; but pounding against the hood of the calash had so -knocked it out of all semblance to its original shape, that with its -great wire hoops sticking out “four ways for Sunday,” it looked more -like a discarded crinoline perched upon her head than any known form of -feminine bonnet.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_219_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_219_sml.jpg" width="363" height="330" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The calash slowed up as it drew near the town. Suddenly it stopped -short, and both the travelers gazed with startled interest at a -capacious white tent reared by the roadside. From within this tent came -the strains of a straining melodeon. Over the portal was stretched a -canvas sign:</p> - -<p class="c"> -GOSPEL TENT OF REV. J. HANKEY.<br /> -</p> - -<p>As the travelers stared with all their eyes, they saw the flap of the -tent thrown back,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a>{211}</span> and four figures came out. There were two ladies, a -stout, middle-aged lady, a shapely, buxom young lady, a tall, -broad-shouldered young man, and the fourth figure was unmistakably a -Minister of one of the Congregational denominations. The young man and -the two ladies walked down the road a little way, and, entering a -solid-looking farm wagon, drove off behind a pair of plump horses, in -the direction of the railroad station, while the minister waved them a -farewell that was also a benediction.</p> - -<p>“Git down, Samantha!” said Reuben Pett, “and straighten out that bonnet -of yours. Parson’s got another job before prayer-meetin’ begins.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>{212}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>{213}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MY_DEAR_MRS_BILLINGTON" id="MY_DEAR_MRS_BILLINGTON"></a>MY DEAR MRS. BILLINGTON.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>{214}</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra1"><img src="images/i_223.jpg" -alt="M" -width="120" /></span>ISS CARMELITA BILLINGTON sat in a bent-wood rocking-chair in an upper -room of a great hotel by the sea, and cried for a little space, and then -for a little space dabbed at her hot cheeks and red eyes with a -handkerchief wet with cologne; and dabbed and cried, and dabbed and -cried, without seeming to get any “forwarder.” The sun and the fresh -breeze and the smell of the sea came in through her open windows, but -she heeded them not. She mopped herself with cologne till she felt as if -she could never again bear to have that honest scent near her dainty -nose; but between the mops the tears trickled and trickled and trickled; -and she was dreadfully afraid that inwardly, into the surprising great -big cavity that had suddenly found room for itself in her poor little -heart, the tears would trickle, trickle, trickle forever. It was no use -telling herself she had done right. When you have done right and wish -you hadn’t had to you can’t help having a profound contempt for the -right. The right is respectable, of course, and proper and commendable -and—in short, it’s the right;—but, oh! what a nuisance it is! You -can’t help wondering in your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a>{215}</span> private mind why the right is so -disagreeable and unpleasant and unsatisfactory, and the wrong so -extremely nice. Of course, it was right to refuse Jack Hatterly; but -why, why on earth couldn’t it just as easily have been right to accept -him? And the more she thought about it the more she doubted whether it -was always quite right to do right, and whether it was not sometimes -entirely wrong not to do wrong.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_224_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_224_sml.jpg" width="326" height="391" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>No; it was no use telling herself to be a brave girl. She was a brave -girl and she knew it. In the face of the heartless world she could bear -herself as jauntily as if she were heartless, too; but in the privacy of -her own room, with Mama fast asleep on the verandah below, she could not -see the slightest use in humbugging herself. She was perfectly -miserable, and the rest of her reflec<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>{216}</span>tions might have been summed up in -the simple phrase of early girlhood, “So there!”</p> - -<p>It was no consolation to poor Carmelita’s feelings that her little -private tragedy was of a most business-like, commonplace, unromantic -complexion. It only made her more disgusted with herself for having made -up her mind to do the right thing. She was not torn from her chosen love -by the hands of cruel parents. Her parents had never denied her anything -in her life, and if she had really wanted to wed a bankrupt bashaw with -three tails and an elephant’s head, she could have had her will. Nor did -picturesque poverty have anything to do with the situation. She was rich -and so was Jack. Nor could she rail against a parental code of morality -too stern for tender hearts. There was not the least atom of objection -to Jack in any respect. He was absolutely as nice as could be—and, -unless I am greatly misinformed, a good-looking young man, deeply in -love, can be very nice indeed.</p> - -<p>And yet there was no doubt in Carmelita’s mind that it was her plain -duty to refuse Jack. To marry him would mean to utterly give up and -throw aside a plan of life, which, from her earliest childhood, she had -never imagined to be capable of the smallest essential alteration. If a -man who had devoted his whole mind and soul to the business of -manufacturing overshoes were suddenly invited to become a salaried poet -on a popular magazine, he could not regard the proposed change of -profession as more preposterously impossible than the idea of marriage -with Jack Hatterly seemed to Miss Carmelita Billington.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a>{217}</span></p> - -<p>For Miss Billington occupied a peculiar position. She was the Diana of a -small but highly prosperous city in the South-West; a city which her -father had built up in years of enterprising toil. To mention the town -of Los Brazos to any capitalist in the land was to call up the name of -Billington, the brilliant speculator who, ruined on the Boston -stock-market, went to Texas and absolutely created a town which for -wealth, beauty and social distinction had not its equal in the great -South-West. It was colonized with college graduates from New York, -Boston and Philadelphia; and, in Los Brazos, boys who had left -cane-rushes and campus choruses scarce ten years behind them had -fortunes in the hundred thousands, and stood high in public places. As -the daughter of the founder of Los Brazos, Miss Billington’s fortunes -were allied, she could not but feel, to the place of her birth. There -must she marry, there must she continue the social leadership which her -mother was only too ready to lay down. The Mayor of the town, the -District Attorney, the Supreme Court Judge and the Bishop were all among -her many suitors; and six months before she had wished, being a -natural-born sport, if she <i>was</i> a girl, that they would only get -together and shake dice to see which of them should have her. But then -she hadn’t come East and met Jack Hatterly.</p> - -<p>She thought of the first day she had seen the Atlantic Ocean and Jack, -and she wished now that she had never been seized with the fancy to gaze -on the great water. And yet, what a glorious day that was! How grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a>{218}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_227_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_227_sml.jpg" width="379" height="249" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">she had thought the ocean! And how grand she had thought Jack! And now -she had given him up forever, that model of manly beauty and audacity; -Jack with his jokes and his deviltries and his exhaustless capacity for -ever new and original larks. Was it absolutely needful? Her poor little -soul had to answer itself that it was. To leave Los Brazos and the great -house with the cool quiet court-yard and the broad verandahs, and to -live in crowded, noisy New York, where she knew not a soul except -Jack—to be separated from those two good fairies who lived only to -gratify her slightest wish—to “go back” on Los Brazos, the pride of the -Billingtons—no; it was impossible, impossible! She must stick to her -post and make her choice between the Mayor and the Judge and the -District Attorney and the Bishop. But how dull and serious and -business-like they all seemed to her now that she had known Jack -Hatterly, the first man she had ever met with a well-developed sense of -humor!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a>{219}</span></p> - -<p>What made it hardest for poor Carmelita was, perhaps, that fate had -played her cruel pranks ever since the terrible moment of her act of -renunciation. Thirty-six hours before, at the end of the dance in the -great hotel parlors, Jack had proposed to her. For many days she had -known what was coming, and what her answer must be, and she had given -him no chance to see her alone. But Jack was Jack, and he had made his -opportunity for himself, and had said his say under cover of the -confusion at the end of the dance; and she had promised to give him his -answer later, and she had given it, after a sleepless and tearful night; -just a line to say that it could never, never be, and that he must not -ask her again. And it had been done in such a commonplace, unromantic -way that she hated to think of it—the meagre, insufficient little note -handed to her maid to drop in the common letter-box of the hotel, and to -lie there among bills and circulars and all sorts of silly every-day -correspondence, until the hotel-clerk should take it out and put it in -Jack’s box. She had passed through the office a little later, and her -heart had sunk within her as she saw his morning’s mail waiting for him -in its pigeon-hole, and thought what the opening of it would bring to -him.</p> - -<p>But this was the least of her woe. Later came the fishing trip on the -crowded cat-boat. She had fondly hoped that he would have the delicacy -to excuse himself from that party of pleasure; but no, he was there, and -doing just as she had asked him to, treating her as if nothing had -happened, which was certainly the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>{220}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_229_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_229_sml.jpg" width="423" height="389" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="nind">most exasperating thing he could have done. And then, to crown it all, -they had been caught in a storm; and had not only been put in serious -danger, which Carmelita did not mind at all, but had been tossed about -until they were sore, and drenched with water, and driven into the -stuffy little hole that was called a cabin, to choke and swelter and -bump about in nauseated misery for two mortal hours, with the spray -driving in through the gaping hatches; a dozen of them in all, packed -together in there in the ill-smelling darkness. And so it was no wonder -that, after a second night of utter misery, Miss Carmelita Billington -felt so low in her nerves that she was quite unable to withhold her -tears as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a>{221}</span> she sat alone and thought of what lay behind her and before -her.</p> - -<p>She had been sitting alone a long time when she heard her mother come up -the stairs and enter her own room. Mrs. Billington was as stout as she -was good-natured, and her step was not that of a light-weight. An -irresistible desire came, to the girl to go to her and pour out her -grief, with her head pillowed on that broad and kindly bosom. She -started up and hurried into the little parlor that separated her room -from her mother’s. As she entered the room at one door, Mr. Jack -Hatterly entered through the door opening into the corridor. Then -Carmelita lost her breath in wonderment, anger and dismay, for Mr. Jack -Hatterly put his arm around her waist, kissed her in a somewhat casual -manner, and then the door of her mother’s room opened and her mother -appeared; and instead of rebuking such extraordinary conduct, assisted -Mr. Hatterly in gently thrusting her into the chamber of the elder lady -with the kind of caressing but steering push with which a child is -dismissed when grown-ups wish to talk privately.</p> - -<p>“Stay in there, my dear, for the present; Mr. Hatterly and I have -something to say to each other. I will call you later.”</p> - -<p>And before Carmelita fairly knew what had happened to her she found -herself on the other side of the door, wondering exactly where insanity -had broken out in the Billington family.</p> - -<p>It took the astonished Miss Billington a couple of seconds to pull -herself together, and then she seized the handle of the door with the -full intention of walking indignantly into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>{222}</span> parlor and demanding an -explanation. But she had hardly got the door open by the merest crack -when the discourse of Mr. John Hatterly paralyzed her as thoroughly as -had his previous actions.</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he was saying, in what Carmelita always -called his “florid” voice, “I thoroughly understand your position, and I -know the nature of the ties that bind Carmelita to her father’s home. -Had I known of them earlier, I might have avoided an association that -could only have one ending for me. But it is not for myself that I speak -now. Perhaps I have been unwise, and even wrong; but what is done is -done, and I know now that she loves me as she could love no other man.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_231_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_231_sml.jpg" width="333" height="289" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Good gracious!” said Carmelita to herself, behind the door; “how does -he know that?”</p> - -<p>“Is it not possible, Mr. Hatterly, that there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>{223}</span> is some -misunderstanding?” asked Mrs. Billington.</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Billington,” said Jack, impressively; “there is no -possible misunderstanding. She told me so herself.”</p> - -<p>Carmelita opened her eyes and her mouth, and stood as one petrified.</p> - -<p>“Well, if I ever—!” was all that she whispered to herself, in the -obscurity of her mother’s room. She had addressed just seven words to -Jack Hatterly on the fishing trip, and five of these were “Apple pie, if -you please;” and the other two, uttered later, were “Not very.”</p> - -<p>“But, Mr. Hatterly,” persisted Mrs. Billington, “when did you receive -this assurance of my daughter’s feelings? You tell me that you spoke to -her on this subject only the night before last, and I am sure she has -hardly been out of my sight since.”</p> - -<p>“Yesterday,” said Jack, in his calmest and most assured tone; “on the -boat, coming home, during the squall.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>behind the door, aside</i>).—“The shameless wretch! Why, -he doesn’t seem even to <i>know</i> that he’s lying!”</p> - -<p>“But, Mr. Hatterly,” exclaimed Mrs. Billington; “during the squall we -were all in the cabin, and you were outside, steering!”</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” said Jack.</p> - -<p>“Then—excuse me, Mr. Hatterly—but how could my daughter have conveyed -any such intelligence to you?”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before</i>).—“What <i>is</i> the man going to say now? He -must be perfectly crazy!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a>{224}</span></p> - -<p>Mr. Hatterly was calm and imperturbed.</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he responded, “you may or may not have -observed a small heart-shaped aperture in each door or hatch of the -cabin, exactly opposite the steersman’s seat. It was through one of -these apertures that your daughter communicated with me. Very -appropriate shape, I must say, although their purpose is simply that of -ventilation.”</p> - -<p>“It was very little ventilation we had in that awful place, Mr. -Hatterly!” interjected Mrs. Billington, remembering those hours of -horror.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/i_233_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_233_sml.jpg" width="300" height="273" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Very little, indeed, my dear Mrs. Billington,” replied Mr. Hatterly, in -an apologetic tone; “and I am afraid your daughter and I, between us, -were responsible for some of your discomfort. She had her hand through -the port ventilator about half the time.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before</i>).—“I wonder the man isn’t struck dead, -sitting there! Of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>{225}</span> all the wicked, heartless falsehoods I ever heard—!”</p> - -<p>“And may I ask, Mr. Hatterly,” inquired Mrs. Billington, “what my -daughter’s hand was doing through the ventilator?”</p> - -<p>“Pressing mine, God bless her!” responded Mr. Hatterly, unabashed.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span>, (<i>as before, but conscious of a sudden, hideous -chill</i>).—“Good heavens! the man can’t be lying; he’s simply mistaken.”</p> - -<p>“I see, my dear Mrs. Billington,” said Mr. Hatterly, “that I shall have -to be perfectly frank with you. Such passages are not often repeated, -especially to a parent; but under the circumstances I think you will -admit that I have no other guarantee of my good faith to give you. I -have no doubt that if you were to ask your daughter at this minute about -her feelings, she would think she ought to sacrifice her affection to -the duty that she thinks is laid out for her in a distant life. Did I -feel that she could ever have any happiness in following that path, -believe me, I should be the last to try to win her from it, no matter -what might be my own loneliness and misery. But after what she confided -to me in that awful hour of peril, where, in the presence of imminent -death, it was impossible for her to conceal or repress the deepest -feelings of her heart, I should be doing an injustice to her as well as -to myself, and even to you, my dear Mrs. Billington—for I know how -sincerely you wish her happiness—if I were to let any false delicacy -keep me from telling you what she said to me.” Jack Hatterly could talk -when he got going.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>{226}</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span>, (<i>as before, but hot, not cold</i>).—“Now, I am going to -know which one of those girls was talking to him, if I have to stay here -all day.”</p> - -<p>It was with a quavering voice that Mrs. Billington said:</p> - -<p>“Under the circumstances, Mr. Hatterly, I think you might tell me all -she said—all—all—”</p> - -<p>Here Mrs. Billington drew herself up and spoke with a certain dignity. -“I should explain to you, Mr. Hatterly, that during the return trip I -was not feeling entirely well, myself, and I probably was not as -observant as I should have been under other circumstances.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span>, (<i>as before, reflectively</i>).—“Poor Ma! She was so sick -that she went to sleep with her head on my feet. I believe it was that -Peterson girl who was nearest the port ventilator.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Hatterly’s tone was effusively grateful. “I knew that I could rely -upon your clear sense, my dear Mrs. Billington,” he said, “as well as -upon your kindness of heart. Very well, then; the first thing I knew as -I sat there alone, steering, almost blinded by the spray, Carmelita -slipped her hand through the ventilator and caught mine in a pressure -that went to my heart.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, but without stopping to reflect</i>).—“If I -find out the girl that did that—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Hatterly went on with warm gratitude in his voice: “And let me add, -my dear Mrs. Billington, that every single time I luffed, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a>{227}</span> dear -little hand came out and touched mine, to inspire me with strength and -confidence.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, with decision</i>).—“I’ll cut her hand off!”</p> - -<p>“And in the lulls of the storm,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me -what nothing but the extremity of the occasion would induce me to -repeat, my dear Mrs. Billington; ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I am yours, I am all -yours, and yours forever.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, but more so</i>).—“That wasn’t the Peterson -girl. That was Mamie Jackson, for I have known of her saying it twice -before.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Billington leaned back in her chair, and fanned herself with her -handkerchief.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Hatterly!” she cried.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hatterly leaned forward and captured one of Mrs. Billington’s hands, -while she covered her eyes with the other.</p> - -<p>“Call me Jack,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I—I’m afraid I shall have to,” sobbed Mrs. Billington.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, grimly</i>).—“Mamie Jackson’s mother won’t; I -know <i>that</i>!”</p> - -<p>“And then,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me, ‘Jack, I am glad of -this fate. I can speak now as I never could have spoken before.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, but highly charged with -electricity</i>).—“Now I want to know what she did say when she spoke.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Hatterly’s clear and fluent voice continued to report the -interesting conversation, while Mrs. Billington sobbed softly, and -permitted her kind old hand to be fondled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>{228}</span></p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Jack,’ she said,” Mr. Hatterly went on, “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>life might have separated -us, but death unites us.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Billington</span> (<i>as before, but with clenched hands and set -lips</i>).—“<i>That</i> is neither one of those girls. They haven’t got the -sand. Whoever it is, that settles it.” She flung open the door and swept -into the room.</p> - -<p>“Jack,” she said, “if I did talk any such ridiculous, absurd, -contemptible, utterly despicable nonsense, I don’t <i>choose</i> to have it -repeated. Mama, dear, you know we <i>can</i> see a great deal of each other -if you can only make Papa come and spend the Summer here by the sea, and -we go down to Los Brazos for part of the Winter.”</p> - -<p class="astx">* <span class="astx2">*</span> *</p> - -<p>That evening Miss Carmelita Billington asked her Spanish maid if she had -dropped the letter addressed to Mr. Hatterly in the letter-box. The -Spanish maid went through a pleasing dramatic performance, in which she -first assured her mistress that she <i>had</i>; then became aware of a sudden -doubt; hunted through six or eight pockets which were not in her dress, -and then produced the crumpled envelope unopened. She begged ten -thousand pardons; she cursed herself and the day she was born, and her -incapable memory; and expressed a willingness to drown herself, which -might have been more terrifying had she ever before displayed any -willingness to enter into intimate relations with water.</p> - -<p>Miss Billington treated her with unusual indulgence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a>{229}</span></p> - -<p>“It’s all right, Concha,” she said; “it didn’t matter in the least, only -Mr. Hatterly told me that he had never received it, and so I thought I’d -ask you.”</p> - -<p>Then, as the girl was leaving the room, Carmelita called her back, moved -by a sudden impulse.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Concha!” she said; “you wanted one of those shell breast-pins, -didn’t you Here, take this and buy yourself one!” and she held out a -dollar-bill.</p> - -<p>When she reached her own room, Concha put the dollar-bill in a -gayly-painted little box on top of a new five-dollar bill, and hid them -both under her prayer-book.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 257px;"> -<a href="images/i_238_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_238_sml.jpg" width="257" height="247" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p>“Women,” she said, in her simple Spanish way; “women are pigs. The -gentleman, he gives me five dollars, only that I put the letter in my -pocket; the lady, she gets the gentleman, and she gives me one dollar, -and I hasten out of the room that she shall not take it back. -Women—women are pigs!”</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of More "Short Sixes", by H. C. 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