"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a morning paper."
Lonnegan sprang from his seat and made a lunge at his tormentor with a look in his eyes as if he intended to throttle Boggs on the spot. At the same instant the great dog drew in his paws and rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on his master's movements—rose as an athlete rises, using the muscles of his knees and ankles to pull his body erect. If his master was in danger he was ready. Only smothered laughter, however, came from both Boggs and Lonnegan.
"I take it all back, Lonny," sputtered Boggs, trying to release himself from Lonnegan's grip. "The woman's husband wanted two country houses, not one. Call off your dog, I can't fight two brutes at once."
Pitkin sprang to his feet, his partly bald head and forehead rose-pink in the excitement of the moment.
"Don't call your dog off, Lonny! Don't move. Keep on choking Boggs. Just look at the pose of that dog. Isn't that stunning. By Jove, fellows! wouldn't he be a corker in bronze, life size. Just see the line of the back and lift of the head!" And the sculptor, after the manner of his guild, held the edge of his hand against his eye as a guide by which to measure the proportions of the noble beast.
Lonnegan loosened his hold, and Boggs, now purple in the face from loss of breath and laughter, shook himself free and rearranged his collar with his fat fingers. The attention of the whole fireside was now centred on the dog. His pose was now less tense and his legs less rigid, but his paws had kept their original position on the rug. As he stood, trying to comprehend the situation, he had the bearing of a charger overlooking a battle-field.
"No, you're wrong, Pitkin," cried Marny; "Chief would be lumpy and inexpressive in bronze. He's too woolly. You want clear-cut anatomy when you're going to put a dog or any other animal in bronze. Color is better for Chief. I'd use him as a foil to a half-nude, life-size scheme of brown, yellow, and white; old Chinese jar on her left, filled with chrysanthemums, some stuffs in the background—this kind of thing. I can see it now," and Marny picked up a bit of charcoal and blocked in on a fresh canvas resting on Mac's easel the position of the figure, the men crowding about him to watch the result.
"Won't do, old man," cried Woods, as soon as Marny's rapid outline became clear. "Out of scale; all dog and no girl. I'd have him stretched out as he is now" (Chief had regained his position), "with a fellow in a chair reading—lamplight on book for high light, dog in half shadow."
"You're quite right, Woods," said Mac, who was still caressing Chiefs silky ears. "Marny's missed it this time; girl scheme won't do. This is a gentleman's dog, and he has always moved among his kind."
"Careful, Mac; careful," remarked Boggs in a reproving tone. "You said 'has moved.' You don't mean to reflect on his present owner, do you?"
Mac waved Boggs away with the same gesture with which he would have brushed off a fly, and continued:
"When I say that he has always lived among gentlemen, I state the exact fact. You can see that in his manners and in the way in which he retains not only his self-respect, but his courage and loyalty. You noticed, did you not, that it took him but an instant to get on his feet when Lonnegan seized Boggs? You will also agree with me that no one has entered this room this winter more gracefully, or with more ease and composure, nor one who has known better what to do with his arms and legs. And as for his well-bred reticence, he has yet to open his mouth—certainly a great rebuke to Boggs, if he did but know it," and he nodded in the direction of the Chronic Interrupter. "Great study, these dogs. Chief has had a gentleman for a master, I tell you, and has lived in a gentleman's house, accustomed all his life to oriental rugs, wood fires, four-in-hands, two-wheeled carts, golden-haired children in black velvet suits, servants in livery—regular thoroughbred. That is, bred thorough, by somebody who never insulted him, who never misunderstood him, and who never mortified him. Offending a dog is as bad as offending a child, and ten times worse than offending a woman. A dozen men would spring to a woman's assistance; no one ever interferes in a quarrel between a dog and his master. When they do they generally take the master's side."
Mac reached over, tapped the bowl of his pipe against the brick of the fireplace, emptied it of its ashes, and laying it on the mantel resumed his seat.
"It's pathetic to me," he continued, "to see how hard some dogs try to understand their masters. All they can do is to take their cue from the men who own them. It isn't astonishing, really, that they should sometimes copy them. It only takes a few months for a butcher to make his dog as bloody and as brutal as the toughest hand in his shop."
"What a responsibility," sighed Boggs, turning toward Lonnegan. "You won't corrupt His Worship with any of your Murray Hill swaggerdoms, will you, Lonny?"
Lonnegan closed one eye at Boggs and wagged his chin in denial. Mac went on:
"Dogs can just as well be educated up as educated down. There is no question of their ability to learn—not the slightest. I am not speaking of the things they are expected to know—hunting, rat catching, and so on; I mean the things they are not expected to know. If you'd like to hear how they can understand each other, get the Colonel to tell you about those two dogs he saw in Constantinople some two years ago," and he turned to me.
"It wasn't in Constantinople, Mac," I answered, "it was in Stamboul, on the Plaza of the Hippodrome."
"Near where I was murdered, and where I still lie buried?" Boggs asked gravely, with a sly wink at Marny.
"Yes, within a stone's throw of your present tomb, old man, up near the Obelisk. That plaza is the home of four or five packs of street curs, who divide up the territory among themselves, and no dog dares cross the imaginary line without getting into trouble. Every day or so there is a pitched battle directed by their leaders—always the biggest dogs in the pack. What Mac refers to occurred some years ago, when, looking over my easel one morning, I saw a lame dog skulking along by the side of a low wall that forms the boundary of one side of the plaza. He was on three legs, the other held up in the air. A big shaggy brute, the leader of another pack, made straight for him, followed by three others. The cripple saw them coming, and at once lay down on his back, his injured paw thrust up. The big dog stood over him and heard what he had to say. I was not ten feet from them, and I understood every word.
"'I am lame, gentlemen, as you see,' he pleaded, 'and I am on my way home. I am in too much pain to walk around the side of the plaza where I belong, and I therefore humbly beg your permission to cross this small part of your territory.'
"The big leader listened, snarled at his companions who were standing by ready to help tear the intruder to pieces, sent them back to their quarters with a commanding toss of his head, and walked by the side of the cripple until he had cleared the corner; then he slowly returned to his pack. There was no question about it; if the cripple had spoken English I could not have understood him better."
"I can beat that yarn," chimed in Woods, "so far as sympathy is concerned. I was in an omnibus once going up the Boulevard des Italiennes when a man on the seat opposite me whistled out of the end window—his two dogs were following behind the 'bus. One was a white bull terrier, the other a French poodle, black as tar. Whenever anything got in the way—and it was pretty crowded along there—the dogs fell behind. When they appeared again the owner would whistle to let them know where he was. All of a sudden I heard a yell. The poodle had been run over. I could see him lying flat on the asphalt, kicking. The man stopped the omnibus and sprang out, and a crowd gathered. In that short space of time the terrier had fastened his teeth in the poodle's collar, had dragged him clear of the traffic to the sidewalk, and was bending over him licking the hurt. Four or five people got out of the stage, I among them, and a cheer went up for the owner when he picked up the injured dog in his arms and took him clear of the crowd, the terrier following behind, as anxious as a mother over her child. I have believed in the sympathy of dogs for each other ever since."
"My turn now," said Boggs. "My uncle's got a poodle, answers to the name of Mirza. Got more common sense than anything that walks on four legs. They keep a bowl in one corner of the dining-room, which is always filled with water so the dog can get a drink when she wants it. My uncle says that's one thing half the people who own dogs never think of—dogs not being able to turn faucets. Well, they shifted servants one day and forgot to tell the new one about the bowl. Mirza did her best to make her understand—pulled her dress, got up on her hind legs and sniffed around the empty tea-cups. No use. Then an idea struck the dog. She made a spring for the empty bowl and rolled it over with her four paws from the dining-room into the butler's pantry. By that time the wooden-headed idiot understood, and Mirza got her drink."
During the discussion Mac had sat with the great head of the St. Bernard resting on his knee. It was evident that His Worship had found an acquaintance whom he could trust, one whom he considered his equal. For some minutes the painter looked into the dog's face, his hands smoothing the dog's ears, the St. Bernard's eyes growing sleepy under the caress. Then Mac said in a half-audible tone, speaking to the dog, not to us:
"You've got a great head, old fellow—full of sense. All your bumps are in the right place. You know a lot of things that are too much for us humans. I wish you'd tell me one thing. You know what we all think of you, but what do you think of us—of your master Lonnegan, of this crowd, this fireplace? Speak out, old man; I'd like to know."
Boggs shifted his fat body in his chair, jerked his head over his shoulder, and winking meaningly at Lonnegan, said in a low voice:
"Mac is going to give us one of his reminuisances; I know the sign."
"Make the dog begin on Boggs, Mac," cried Woods.
"No, Chief's too much of a gentleman. He knows all about Boggs, but he's too polite to tell," replied Mac.
"Get him to whisper it then in your off ear," suggested Boggs. "He'll surprise you with his estimate of one of nature's noblemen," and he thrust his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
"No, keep it to yourself, Chief," remarked Mac. "But I'm not joking, I'm in dead earnest. Anybody can find out what a man thinks of a dog; but what does a dog think of a man, especially some of those two-legged brutes who by right of dollars claim to own them? I took the measure of a man once who——"
Boggs sprang from his seat and struck one of his ring-master attitudes.
"What did I tell you, gentlemen? Just as I expected, the semi-nuisance has arrived. Give him room! The great landscape painter is about to explode with another tale of his youth. You took the measure of a man once, I think you said, Mac; was it for a suit of clothes or a coffin? No, don't answer; keep right on."
"Yes, I did take his measure," said Mac, in a low, earnest tone, ignoring Boggs's aside; "and I've never taken any stock in him since. I don't think any of you know him, and it's just as well that you don't. I may be a little Quixotic about these things—guess I am—but I'm going to stay so. I met this Quarterman—that's more than he deserves; he's nearer one-eighth of a man than a quarter—up at the club-house on Salt Beach. I was a guest; he was a member. Big, heavily built young fellow; weighed about two hundred pounds; rather good-looking; wore the best of English shooting togs; carried an English gun and carted around a lot of English leather cases, bound in brass, with his name plate on them. A regular out-and-out sport of the better type, I thought, when I first saw him. He had with him one of the most beautiful reddish-brown setters I ever laid my eyes on—what you'd get with burnt sienna and madder—with a coat as fine and silky as a camel's hair brush. One of those clean-mouthed, clean-toothed, agate-eyed, sweet-breathed dogs that every girl loves at first sight, and can no more help putting her hands on than she can help coddling a roly-poly kitten just out of a basket. He had the same well-bred manners that Chief has, the same grace of movement, same repose, only more gentle and more confiding. The only thing that struck me as peculiar about him was the way he watched his master; he seemed to love him and yet to be afraid of him; always ready to bound out of his way and yet equally ready to come when he was called—a manner which he never showed to anyone who tried to make friends with him.
"I saw Quarterman that morning when he started out alone quail shooting, the setter bounding before him, running up and springing at him, and off again—doing all the things a human dog does to tell a man how happy he is to go along, and what a lot of fun the two are going to have together. I watched them until they got clear of the marshes and disappeared in the woods on the way to the open country beyond. All that day the picture of the well-equipped, alert young fellow and the spring of the joyous setter kept coming to my mind. I don't believe in killing things, as you know (so I don't shoot), but I thought if I did I'd just like to have a dog like that one to show me how.
"About six o'clock that night the two returned. I was sitting by the wood fire—a good deal bigger than this one, the logs nearly six feet long—when the outer door was swung back and Quarterman came in, his boots covered with mud, his bird-bag over his shoulder. The setter followed close at his heels, his beautiful brown coat covered with burrs and dirt. Both man and dog had had a hard day's work and a poor one, judging from the bird-bag which hung almost flat against Quarterman's shoulder.
"Everybody pushed back his chair to make room for the tired-out sportsman.
"'What luck?' cried out half-a-dozen men at once.
"Quarterman, without answering, stopped in the middle of the room some distance from the fire, laid his gun on the table, reached around for his bird-bag, thrust in his hand, drew out a small quail—all he had shot—and threw it with all his might against the wall of the fireplace, where it dropped into the ashes—threw it as a boy would throw a brick against a fence. Then with a vicious hind thrust of his boot he kicked the setter in the face. The dog gave a cry of pain and crawled under the table and out of the room.
"'What luck!' growled Quarterman. 'Footed it fifteen miles clear to Pottsburg, and that damned dog scared up every bird before I could get a shot at it!' and without another word he mounted the stairs to his room.
"His opinion of the dog was now common property. If any man who had heard it disagreed with him, he kept his opinion to himself. But what I wanted to know was what the setter thought of Quarterman? He had followed him all day through swamps and briars; had run, jumped, crept on his belly, sniffed, scented, and nosed into every tuft of grass and brush-heap where a quail could hide itself; had walked miles to the man's one, leaped fences, scoured hills, raced down country roads and over ditches, had pointed and flushed a dozen birds the brute couldn't hit, and after doing his level best had come back to the club-house expecting to get a warm corner and a hot supper—his right as well as Quarterman's—and instead got a kick in the face.
"I ask you now, what did the dog think of him? I was so mad I had to go outside and let off steam myself. I was half Quarterman's weight and ten years his senior, but if he had stayed five minutes longer by that fire I am quite sure I should have told him what I thought of him."
"I bet you told the dog, didn't you, Mac?" remarked Lonnegan.
"Yes, I did. Gave him a hug, and hunted up the cook and saw he was fed. He tried to tell me all about it, putting out his paw and drawing it in again, looking up into my face with his big eyes—tears in 'em, I tell you—real tears! Not so much from the hurt as from the mortification. I understood then his shrinking away from his master. It hadn't been the first time he had been humiliated and hurt. Dirty brute! If I knew where he was I think I'd go and thrash him now."
The coterie broke out into a laugh over Mac's indignation, but a laugh in which there was more love than ridicule.
"Yes, I would; I feel like it this minute. But I tell you the setter got his revenge; a revenge that showed his blood and breeding; the revenge of a gentleman.
"Back of the club-house was a swampy place where some cranberry raisers had dug holes and squares trying to get something to grow, and back of this was another swamp perhaps a mile or two wide. Ugly place—full of suck-holes, twisted briars, and vines—where they told Quarterman he could get some woodcock or snipe or whatever you do get in a marsh. The setter rose to his feet to accompany him (this was two days later) but was met with, 'Go back, damn you!' Followed by an aside, 'What that fool dog wants is a dose of buckshot, and he'll get it if he ain't careful.'
"That day I had been off sketching and did not get back until nearly dark. There were only two other men left besides myself and Quarterman, most of the others having gone to town. When dinner was served the steward went upstairs expecting to find Quarterman asleep on his bed. No Quarterman! Then he began to inquire around. He had not been back to luncheon, and no one had seen him since he went off in the morning heading for the cranberry swamp. The setter was still outside on the porch, where he had lain all day, foot-sore and worn out, the men said, with his hunt the day before. I made no reply to this, but I thought differently. Eight o'clock came, then nine, and still no sign of Quarterman. One of the club servants suggested that something must have happened to him. 'Never Mr. Quarterman's way,' he added, 'to be out after sundown, in all the five years he had been a member of the club. He certainly would not go to the city in his shooting clothes, and he hadn't changed them, for the suit he had worn down from town still hung in his closet.' At ten o'clock we got uneasy and started out to look for him, a party of three, the two servants carrying stable lanterns. The setter again rose to his feet, wondering what was up, and was again rebuffed, this time by the steward.
"We soon found that fooling around a swamp of a dark night, with your eyes blinded by a lantern, was no joke. Every other step we took we fell into holes or got tripped up by briars. We stumbled on, skirting by the edge of the cranberry patch, hollering as loud as we could; stopping to listen; then going on again. We tried the other big swamp, but that was impossible in the dark. Then an idea popped into my head. I gave the lantern I was carrying to one of the men, hollered to the others to stay where they were till I got back, cleared the cranberry patch, struck out for the club-house on a run, sprang upstairs, grabbed Quarterman's coat hanging in the closet, ran downstairs again, and shoved it under the nose of the setter. Then I told him all about it, just as I'd tell you. Quarterman was lost—he was in the swamp, perhaps; where, we didn't know—and he was the only one who could find him. Would he go? Go! You just ought to have seen him! He threw his nose up in the air, sniffed around as though he were looking for gnats to bite; made a spring from the porch and began circling the lawn, his nose to the ground and sand; then he made a bound over the fence and disappeared in the night.
"I hollered for the others and we kept after the setter as best we could. Every now and then he would give a short bark—sometimes far away, sometimes nearer. All we could do was to skirt along the edge of the cranberry patch swinging the lanterns and hollering, 'Quarterman! Quarterman!' until our throats gave out.
"Then I heard a quick, sharp bark, followed by a series of short yelps, not fifty yards away. Next there came a faint halloo, a man's voice. We pushed on, and there, about ten yards from hard ground, we found Quarterman stretched out, the setter squatting beside him. He had slipped into a hole some hours before, had broken his ankle, and had made up his mind to wait until daylight, the pain, every time he moved, almost making him faint. He was soaked to the skin and shivering with cold. We helped him up on one foot, carried him to dry land, and finally got him home; the dog following at a respectful distance.
"After we had put Quarterman to bed and had sent a man off on horseback to Pottsburg for a doctor, I looked up the setter. He was in his old place on the porch, stretched out under one of the wooden benches, his nose resting on his paws—just as Chief lies here now—thinking the whole situation over. He raised his head for an instant, licked my hand and looked up inquiringly into my face as if expecting some further service might be required of him; then he dropped his head again and kept on thinking. Nobody had bothered himself about him; they hadn't even thanked him in their hearts. Nothing to thank him for. Childish to think of it! All the setter had done was just being plain dog. Hunting up things was what he was born for.
"Next morning the dog turned up missing.
"Quarterman raised himself up on his elbow when he heard the news and said he must be found at any cost; he was worth five hundred dollars. The men started out, of course; searched the stables, boat-houses, swamp, and fields clear down to the water's edge; whistled and called; did all the things you do when a dog is lost—but no setter. Everybody wondered why he ran away. Some said one thing, some another. I knew why. He had gone off in search of a gentleman."
"Did Quarterman get well?" ventured Lonnegan.
"I don't know and I don't care. I left the next morning."
"Did Quarterman get his dog back?" asked Boggs.
"Not while I was there. I could have told him where to look for him, but I didn't. I saw him on a porch with some children about a week after that, when I was driving through a neighboring village—but I didn't send word to Quarterman. I had too much respect for the dog.
"Come here, old fellow," and Mac took the great head of the St. Bernard between his warm hands and the two snuggled their cheeks together.
PART VII
Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major Yancey, and their Kind.
When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by Mac's easel.
This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment. The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color, half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs—those of the regular members, and brand new ones for the invited guests—lined up on the cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.
These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter how late they stayed; the hearth swept—all its "dear gray hair combed back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts; candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy Dutch lanterns; and last—and this he attended to himself—every vestige of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs could find one. There were strangers coming to-night—one a partner in a big banking house and a suspected buyer—and no canvas of his must be visible.
With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause, where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its sill a paper box filled with smilax—his own touch in remembrance of his Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.
Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest. Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The habitués of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac) the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.
Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods, who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.
Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass—dropping finally into one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny, Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each guest feel at home—guests and hosts conducting themselves after the manner of humans.
Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in turn—those he knew—waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire, where he lay without moving during the entire evening.
"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac—he had followed Chief's every movement since the dog entered the room—"see the way he lies down. Got royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were entertaining a Prime Minister."
The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing, hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings, and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship, was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.
Murphy, the journalist, being poor himself, had other views of life. To him MacWhirter and his intimates were men after his own heart. He and they had followed the same road, although with different aims. They understood each other. As to the rich banker, if the journalist considered him at all it was purely in the line of his own calling—just so much material for future columns of type, whenever he could utilize either his personality or his views.
"No, I don't think American Bohemian life—which is a misnomer," said Murphy in answer to one of the banker's inquiries, "because no such thing exists—is any different from any other such life the world over. We are a class to ourselves, but we in no way differ from our brothers of the brush and quill abroad. I, of course, am only allowed to creep around the outside edges, but even that small privilege affords me more pleasure than any other I possess. Murray Hill and Belgravia may be necessary to our civilization, but neither one nor the other interests the man who has any purpose in life. Take, for instance, these men here," and he pointed to Mac, who was for the moment driving a wooden spigot into the keg of beer. "Look at MacWhirter. He doesn't want any liveried servant to wait on him; he would serve that beer himself if there was a line of flunkies extending from the door to the sidewalk."
"That's what I like him for," cried the banker, jumping up, "and I'm going to help him," and he carried some of the mugs over to Mac's side. "Here, fill these, Mr. MacWhirter."
"Bully for him!" muttered Pitkin, turning to me as if for confirmation. "Didn't know it was in him."
"This mug's for you, Mr. MacWhirter," cried out the banker, with an enthusiasm he had not shown since his college days, as he handed the mug to Mac, who drank its contents, his merry eyes fixed on the banker.
"See the monarch picking up the painter's brushes," whispered Boggs to Marny from behind his hand.
And so the evening went on, the mugs being filled and emptied, the piano opened, Woods playing the accompaniment to all the songs the Irishman sang—and he had a dozen of them that no one had ever heard before—the banker and club man joining in the chorus. Then with pipes and mugs in hand the circle about the crackling logs was formed anew—this time twice its regular size to give Chief plenty of room—and the story-telling part of the evening began.
The club man told of a supper he had been to after the theatre in an uptown back room, in which a mysterious man and a veiled lady figured. Woods supplemented it by an experience of his own, having special reference to a lost lace handkerchief which had been discovered in the outside pocket of one of the male guests, producing uncomfortable consequences. I gave the details of a dinner where I had met a titled individual who claimed to be a mighty hunter of big game, and about whom the prettiest woman in the room had gone wild, and who turned out later to be somebody's footman.
Murphy, not to be outdone, and recognizing that his turn had come, remarked in a low voice that my story of big game reminded him "of something in his own experience," at which Boggs twisted his head to listen. It was evident to Boggs, and to the other habitués, that if the Irishman talked as well as he sang he would not only be a welcome guest at these "nights" but he might also attain to full membership in the charmed circle. Of one thing everybody was assured—there was no "water in his oil."
"It's about a fellow countryman of Mr. MacWhirter's, a Scotchman by the name of MacDuff," the Irishman began.
"Me a Scotchman!" cried Mac; "I'm only half Scotch—wish I was a whole one."
"That's because you took to beer and left off drinking whiskey," laughed Murphy. "MacDuff stuck to his national beverage. That's what helped him to keep his end up. All this happened at an English country house."
Here Boggs hitched his chair closer so that he might lead the applause if this new departure of his friend as a story-teller failed at first to make the expected hit, and thus needed his encouragement.
"Up in Devonshire," continued Murphy, "a very noble lord (his ancestors were something in beer, I think) was giving a dinner to Lord Ponsonby, K.C.B., Y.Z., and maybe P.D.Q., for all I know. Ponsonby had just returned from India, where he had distinguished himself in Her Majesty's service; stamped out a mutiny, perhaps, by hanging the natives, or otherwise disporting himself after the manner of his kind.
"Imagine the interior of the dining-room, if you please, gentlemen—the walls panelled in black oak; sideboards to match, covered with George the Third silver and bearing the new coat-of-arms; noiseless servants in knee breeches, except the head butler in funereal black—black as a raven and as awkward; old family portraits on the walls; big windows overlooking the lawn sweeping to the river, with rabbits and pheasants making free until the shooting season opened. At the head of the table sat the noble lord, presiding with a smile that was an inch deep on his face. On his right sat the distinguished diplomat with a bay window in front of him, resting on the edge of the table, and kept snugly in place by a white waistcoat; red face, burgundy red, with daily washings of champagne to lend some tone to the color; gray side-whiskers with gray standing hair, straight up like a shoe brush; big jowls of cheeks; flabby mouth; two little restless eyes like a terrier's, and a voice like a fog-horn with an attack of croup. When he glanced down the table everybody expected fifty lashes; he had learned that look in India and carried it with him; it was part of his stock in trade.
"Next to Ponsonby sat two dudes from London, high-collared chaps, all shirt front and white tie, hair parted in the middle and slicked down on the sides like a lady's lap-dog. One had six hairs on each side of his upper lip and the other was smooth shaven. Then came a country parson, a fellow in a long-tailed coat, buttoned up to his chin, with an inch of collar showing above; a mild-mannered, girl-voiced, timid brother, with a face as round as a custard pie and about as expressive. When he was spoken to he rubbed his bleached, bony hands together, bent his shoulders, and answered with a humility that would have done credit to a Franciscan monk begging alms for a convent. He had eaten nothing for two days before the dinner—so nervous had he become over the great honor conferred upon him in being invited—and was so humble when he arrived, and so pale and washed-out looking, that after being presented to the great man his host inquired if he were not ill. Opposite these sat two or three country gentlemen, simple, straightforward men who make up the best of English life. Men of no pretence and men of great simplicity. These two, of course, were also in evening dress.
"At the end of the table sat MacDuff, a little, red-headed, sawed-off Scotchman, about as high as Mr. Boggs's shoulder, chunkily built, square-chested; clean-shaven face, with bristling eyebrows, searching brown eyes that never winked, a determined jaw, and a mouth that came together like a trunk lid—even all along the lips. He was dressed in a suit of gray cloth, sack coat and all. His ancestors antedated all those on the wall by about two hundred years, and as a modern dress-suit was unknown in their day he selected one of his own. This was a fad of his and one everybody recognized. No dinner was complete without MacDuff. Very often he never spoke half a dozen words during the entire repast. He had friends, however, up at the castle, and that made up for all his other shortcomings. A nod of MacDuff's head got many a man his appointment.
"When the port was served, the noble lord turned to his distinguished guest and said, with a glow on his face that made the candles pale with envy:
"'Gentlemen, I am about to arsk Lord Ponsonby a great favor, and I know that you will add your voice to mine in urging him to comply. Only larst night he delighted a number of us at the club by giving us an account of a most extrawd'nary adventure that befell him in the wilds of India—a most extrawd'nary adventure. I have rarely seen, in all me expa-rience, so profound an impression made upon a group of men. I am now going to arsk our distinguished guest to repeat it.'
"At this Ponsonby waved his hand in a deprecating way, just as he would have done had his retainers offered him the crown—such trifles being beneath his notice. Our host went on:
"'Despite his reluctance, I feel sure that he will yield. May I arsk your Lordship to repeat it to me guests?'
"Ponsonby bowed; settled himself slightly in his chair so that the curve in his waistcoat could have full play, toyed with his knife a moment, looked up at the ceiling as if to remember some of the most important details, cleared his throat, and shot a glance down the table to command attention. Everybody felt that the slightest sound from any lips but his own would be punished with instant death.
"'Well, I don't care if I do. About four years ago His Royal Highness, as you know, came out to India, and it became part of me duty to attend upon his purson. He was good enough to remember that service in a way with which, of course, you are all familiar. One morning at daylight his equerry came to me quarters, routed me out of bed, and informed me that His Royal Highness desired me to join him in a tiger hunt, which had been arranged for the night before, and which, owing to me purfect knowledge of the country—I knowing every inch of the ground—His Royal Highness desired to have conducted under me supervision.'
"The two dudes were now listening so intently that one of them came near sliding off the chair. The Curate sat with eyes and mouth open, his hand cupping his ear, drinking in each word with the same attention that he would have shown the Bishop of his diocese. The two country gentlemen leaned forward to hear the better. MacDuff kept perfectly still, his eyes on his plate, his finger around his glass of Scotch and soda.
"'When we reached the jungle—I was mounted on an elephant with two of me retainers; His Royal Highness ahead on another elephant, an enor-mous beast accustomed to hunts of this ke-ind—I heard a plunge in the thicket to me left, the spring of a man-eater! There is no sound like it, gentlemen. The next instant he came head on, bounding like a great cat. When he reached the elephant of His Royal Highness he gathered his forepaws under him, hunched his hind legs, and made ready for the fatal spring. I knew what would happen. I realized in an instant the danger. There was one chawnce in a thousand, but that chawnce I must take. I caught up me forty-four! The beast was now in the air. The next instant his claws would be in the flank of the elephant, and the next His Royal Highness would be chewed to mince-meat. At that instant I fired; there came a yell; the brute fell back lifeless, and the Prince was saved! The ball had taken him over the left eye! I dismounted and hurried to his side. He was the largest beast of his ke-ind I had ever seen in all me expa'rience of twenty years. When we got him out upon the sward he measured twenty-nine feet from the end of his nose to the tip of his tail. If His Royal Highness, gentlemen, is with us to-day, it is due to that shot.'
"A dead silence followed. Saving a future king's life was too grave a matter for applause. The silence was broken by one of the dudes cackling in a low whisper to his mate:
"'Gus, old chap, you know that Ponsonby when he was in the Gyards—aw—was an awful man with a gun. He used to hit—aw—a bull's-eye every time, you know—aw—aw—aw——'
"The country gentlemen held their peace. The Curate now piped up. This was his opportunity.
"'Me Lawd,' he cooed—a dove could not have been more dulcet in its tones—'what I like in a sto-ory of that ke-ind is not so much the wonderful skill of the sportsman as the marvellous inflooence of the British character over the brute beasts of the field.'
"Ponsonby nodded pompously in acknowledgment, and continued to play with his knife. The host beamed down the table; comments were still in order—that's what the story was told for. The country gentlemen passed, and MacDuff, reaching over, drew his glass of Scotch closer, leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, lowered his head, and fixed his gimlet eyes on Ponsonby's face.
"'Well, I have listened with gr'at pl'asure to the story of Lord Ponsonby. It is veery interestin', and it was veery patriootic of him. I am not much of a hunter mesel', and I do not shoot tagers, but I am a wee bit of a fasherman, and last soommer up in the County of Dee I 'ooked a veery pecooliar fash called a skat'—here MacDuff raised his glass to his lips, his eyes still glued to Ponsonby's face—'and when we got him oout upon th' bank he covered four acres.'
"Ponsonby rose to his feet red as a lobster; swore that he had never been so insulted in his life, the host trying to pacify him. The dudes were stunned, while the country gentlemen and the Curate stood aghast. MacDuff never moved an inch from his seat. Ponsonby, purple with rage, stalked out of the room, flung himself into the library, followed by the host and all the guests except MacDuff. The dudes were so overcome that they were mopping their faces with their napkins, believing them to be their handkerchiefs. While Ponsonby was roaring for his carriage the host rushed back to MacDuff's side.
"'You must apologize, sir, and at once,' he screamed; 'at once, Mr. MacDuff. How is it possible, sir, for a man raised as a gentleman to come into an Englishman's house and insult one of Her Majesty's most distinguished sarvants; a man who for fifty years has——'
"MacDuff clapped one hand to his ear as if to protect it from rupture.
"'Don't br'ak the drum of me ear,' he said in a low, deprecating tone. 'I didn't mean to insoolt Lord Ponsonby. I can't apologize, for the story of the skat's true. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If Lord Ponsonby will tak' aboout eighteen feet off the length of that tager, I'll see what can be doon aboout the skat.' And he emptied the contents of his glass into his person."
The laughter that followed the conclusion of Murphy's story was so loud and continuous that the big St. Bernard dog rose to his feet and fastened his eyes on his master, only resuming his position on the rug when Lonnegan laid his hand reassuringly on his head.
Boggs was so pleased at his friend's success that he could hardly keep from hugging him. All doubts as to Murphy's being asked to become a permanent member of the Select Circle were dissipated. What delighted Boggs most was the combination of English, Irish, and Scotch dialects twisted about the same tongue. He thought he knew something about dialects, but Murphy had beaten him at his own game.
Every man present had some opinion to offer regarding Ponsonby's adventure, and they all differed. Marny thought the Scot served the old bag of wind right, even if he did have a numismatic collection decorating his chest. The banker was interested in the social side and what it expressed, and said so, winding up with the remark that the "Englishmen knew how to live." Mac, to the surprise of everybody, had no opinion to offer. Woods was more philosophical.
"To me the story is much more than funny," said Woods, "it's instructive. Shows the whole national spirit of the English. They believe in rank and they love to kowtow. I say this in no offensive spirit; and being an Irishman, you, of course, know what I mean; and to tell you the truth I am English in that sense myself. I believe in an aristocracy and in class distinction. Here everybody is free and equal; free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."
"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr. Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country. You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats. The son of the man who waits behind Lonnegan's chair at one of the swell affairs uptown, if he has his way, will be Minister to England, and wear knee-breeches at the Queen's receptions. Even the negroes are climbing; some of them even now are putting on more airs than a Harlem goat with a hoopskirt. When they get on top there won't be anything left of the white man. They are beginning in that way now down South. Now you," turning to his friend Murphy, "have told us a story which illustrates a phase of English life in which the middle classes stand in awe of the higher ones. Now listen to one of mine, which illustrates a phase of American life, and quite the reverse of yours. I'll tell it to you just as Major Yancey told it to me, and I'll give you, as near as I can, his tones of voice. Wonderfully pathetic, that Southern dialect; it certainly was to me the day I heard him tell it. This Yancey was a fraud, so far as being a representative Virginia gentleman; didn't get within a thousand miles of the real thing; but that didn't rob his story of a certain meaning."
Here Boggs rose to his feet. "I'll have to get up," he said, "for this is one of the stories I can't tell sitting down." Nobody ever heard Boggs tell any story sitting down. The restless little fellow was generally on his plump legs during most of his deliveries.
"I had seen Yancey in the hotel corridor when I came in, and had stubbed my toe over his outstretched legs—out like a pair of skids on the tail of a dray; had apologized to the legs; had been apologized to most effusively in return, with the result that a few minutes later I found him at my elbow at the bar, where, after some protestations on his part, he concluded to accept my very 'co-tious' invitation, and 'take somethin'.'
"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh—Thomas Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have taken place, suh—not only in our section of the State, but in our people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later. The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper. 'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still sufferin'.
"'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin' over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low, but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'—"Thomas Martin Yancey, Livery & Sale Stable."
"'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam—free then, of co'se, suh—come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey, there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville——"
"'"Is there, Sam?" I said. "You niggers seem to be gettin' up in the world."
"'"Yes," he said, "and I want you to hook yo' rig and take eight of us——"
"'"What! you infernal scoundrel! You come to me and ask me to——"
"'"Now, don't get het up, Major! Eight niggers at fifty cents apiece is fo' dollars."
"'"Yancey," I said to myself, "brace up! This is one of the great crises of yo' life. Sam, bring on yo' mokes!"
"'There was fo' bucks and fo' wenches, all rigged out to kill. I put 'em in and started.
"'It was a very cold night, coldest weather I'd seen in my State for years, with a light crust of snow on the ground. When we got to Barboursville—it was about eight miles—I found the ball was over a grocery store with a pair of steps goin' up on the outside to a little balcony. Well, suh, they got out and went up ahead, and I blanketed the horses and followed. When I opened the do'—you ain't familiar, suh, I reckon, with our part of the country, suh, but I tell you, suh, that with three fiddles, two red hot stoves, and eighty niggers, all dancin', the atmosphere was oppressive! I stood it as long as I could and then I went out on the balcony. Then I said to myself—"Yancey, this is a great crisis of yo' life, but you needn't get pneumonia. Go in and sit down inside."
"'I hadn't been there three minutes, suh, when black Sam came up to the bench on which I was sittin'—he had two wenches on his arm—and said, "Major Yancey; would you have any objection to steppin' outside?"
"'"Why?" I asked.
"'"Cause some of the ladies objects to the smell of horse in yo' clo'es."
"'I left the livery business that night, suh, and I am what you see—a broken-down Southern gentleman.'"
Another outburst of laughter followed. Everybody agreed that Boggs had never been so happy in his delineations. The banker, who knew something of the Southern dialects, was overjoyed. The allusion to the ungentlemanly foreclosure proceedings touched his funny-bone in a peculiar manner, and set him to laughing again whenever he thought of it. Everybody had expressed some opinion both of Murphy's story and of Boggs's yarn but MacWhirter, who, strange to say, had seen nothing humorous in either narrative. During the telling he had been bending over in his chair stroking the dog's ears.
"What do you think of the two yarns, Mac?" asked Marny.
"Think just what Mr. Murphy thinks—that the Englishman was a snob, Ponsonby a cad, and that MacDuff should have been shown the door. The group about that Englishman's table was not of the best English society—nowhere near it. Consideration for the other man's feelings, the one below you in rank, invariably distinguishes the true English gentleman. That old story about the sergeant who got the Victoria Cross for bringing a wounded officer out under fire illustrates what I mean," continued Mac in a perfectly grave, sober voice.
"Never heard it."
"Then I'll tell you. He had crawled on all fours to a wounded officer, picked him up, and had carried him off the firing line under a hail of bullets, one of which broke his wrist. He was promoted on the field by his commanding officer, got the V.C., and took his place among his now brother officers at the company's mess, and, it being his first meal, sat on the Colonel's right. Ice was served, a little piece about the size of a lump of sugar—precious as gold in that climate. It was for the champagne, something he had never seen. The hero was served first. He hesitated a moment, and dropped it in his soup. The Colonel took his piece and dropped it in his soup; so did every other gentleman down both sides of the table drop his in the soup. As to Boggs's Virginian, he got what he deserved. He was trying to be something that he wasn't; I'm glad the darkey took the pride out of him. It's all a pretence and a sham. They are all trying to be something they are not. 'Tisn't democracy or aristocracy that is to blame with us—it's the growing power of riches; the crowding the poor from off the face of the earth. Nothing counts now but a bank account. Pretty soon we will have a clearing-house of titles, based on incomes. When the cashier certifies to the amount, the title is conferred. The man of one million will become a lord; the man with two millions a count; three millions a duke, and so on. To me all this climbing is idiotic."
Roars of laughter followed Mac's outburst. When Boggs got his breath he declared between his gasps that Mac's criticisms were funnier than Murphy's story.
"Takes it all seriously; not a ghost of a sense of humor in him! Isn't he delicious!"
"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you, is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the other fellow, who couldn't climb so high. If it wasn't for our wood fire even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he's real mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell's drawing-room. But that's only Lonny's veneer; his heart's all right underneath, and it's solid hickory all the way through."
When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the habitués, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely—the old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the evening was to come—that part when its incidents are talked over.
"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, class distinctions, ambition. What would you want most if you had your wish?"
"Not much."
"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.
"What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder.
"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.
"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm turning out."
"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.
"No—" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes—"What?"
"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to hang it up in," laughed Boggs.
Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a half-smothered sigh escaped him.
Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer chair, the roses in her lap.
"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.
PART VIII
In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters.
The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the Palisades.
Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another, the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a fourth and fifth—all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.
Woods was having a tea!
The portrait of Miss B. J.—in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on her chin, her pet dog in her lap—was finished, and the B. Js. were assisting Woods's aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event. The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of twisted iron, china, and dingy brass, the grease running down the sides of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels draped in stuffs; screens hung with Japanese and Chinese robes; divans covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last, but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others that it did not do her justice, and still another—this time an art critic—who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the canvas that looked alive.
Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn't believe in mixing with society.
"Better shut the door, hadn't I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of Woods's smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen. "Hello, Lonnegan, that you?"
"That's me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you moving house?"
"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than that heathen punk Woods is burning?"
"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan. "Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people. Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his button-hole. "You're going down, Mac, aren't you?"
"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."
"Woods won't like it."
"Can't help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio upside down for a lot of people that don't know a Velasquez from an 'Old Oaken Bucket' chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show. Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his 'Night Watch' for the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or Titian making a night of it over his 'Ascension.' Sacrilege, I tell you, this mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they can't; not to turn clowns for their amusement."
Boggs and Murphy—the Irish journalist had long since become a full member—had entered and stood listening to Mac's harangue.
"Land o' Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What's the matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don't know what's going on outside. Woods is all right. He's got his living to make and his studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let 'em do it. That doesn't make the picture any worse. You saw it. It's a bully good portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good things in it—shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown are way up in G. Don't you think so, Lonnegan?"
"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam downstairs. Half of them didn't know Woods when they came in. One woman asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she said, 'What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that the picture? Why, I am surprised!'
"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."
Jack Stirling's head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a prolonged shout of welcome.
"Yes, that's me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow! Hello, Boggs! you're fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you; heard you had been given a chair by Mac's fire. Oh, biggest joke on me, fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods's tea-party a few minutes ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it. Struck a pretty girl—French, I think—pretty as a picture; big hat, gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth—well! You remember Christine, don't you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods's tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes and——"
"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That's something like! That's probably the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to her and did your prettiest to entertain her."
"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows, but it's good to get back! You'll find this a haven of rest, Mr. Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman's knee.
"It's the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow," answered Murphy. "It's good of you to let me in. You live so fast over here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush, is a Godsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr. Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."
Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy's yarns were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone, "they are all brand-new and he tells 'em like a master. Nobody can touch him. Draw up, Pitkin—" the sculptor had just come in from Woods's tea.
"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here. Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square, occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle—a dingy, smoky, grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of the balcony above.
"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads, hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let loose at the Arbuckle's Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked. He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally, when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or stares of those he did not.
"On this particular night there was to be an imposing list of guests, the dinner being served at eight-thirty sharp. Not only was the Prime Minister expected, but a special collection of social freaks had been invited to meet him, including Prince Pompernetski of the Imperial Guards—who turned out afterward to be a renegade Pole and a swindler; the Rajah of Bramapootah—a waddling Oriental who always brought his Cayenne pepper with him in the pocket of his embroidered pajamas; one or two noble lords and their wives, some officers, and a scattering of lesser lights—twenty-two in all.
"At eight-twenty the carriages began to arrive, the Bobby on the beat regulating the traffic; the guests stepping out upon a carpet a little longer and wider than the one Mr. Woods has laid over the sidewalk downstairs.
"Once inside, the guests were taken in charge by a line of flunkeys—the women to a cloak room on the right, the men to a basement room on the left—where 'Chawles' handed each man an envelope containing the name of the lady he was to take out to dinner and a diagram designating the location of his seat at his host's table.
"By eight-twenty-five all the guests had arrived except General Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall, who had passed thirty years of their life in India and who had arrived in London but the night before, where they were met by one of Lady Arbuckle's notes inviting them to dinner to meet the Prime Minister. That the dear woman had never laid eyes on the Indian exiles and would not know either of them had she met them on her sidewalk made no difference to her. The butler in announcing their names would help her over this difficulty, as he had done a hundred times before. That the short notice might prevent their putting in an appearance did not trouble her in the least. She knew her London. Prime Ministers were not met with every day, even in the best of houses.
"At eight-thirty the two missing guests arrived, Sir John sun-baked to the color of a coolie, and Lady Catnall not much better off so far as complexion was concerned. The climate had evidently done its work. Their queerly cut clothes, too, showed how long they had been out of London.
"With their announcement by the flunkey, who bawled out their names so indistinctly that nobody caught them—not even Lady Arbuckle—the guests marched out to dinner, Lord Arbuckle leading with the wife of the Prime Minister; Lady Arbuckle bringing up the rear with the Rajah, without that lady having the dimmest idea as to whether all her guests were present or not.
"Sir John found himself next to a Roumanian woman who had spent three-quarters of her life in Persia, and Lady Catnall sat beside a bald-headed scientist from Berlin who spoke English as if he were cracking nuts. None of the four had ever heard of the others' existence.
"The dinner was the usual deadly dull affair. The Prime Minister smiled and beamed over his high collar and emitted platitudes that anybody could print without getting the faintest idea of his meaning; and the Rajah peppered and ate with hardly a word of any kind to the lady next him, who talked incessantly; the Scientist jabbered German, completely ignorant of the fact that Lady Catnall could not understand a word of what he said, and the other great personages—especially the women—looked through their lorgnons and studied the menagerie.
"When the port had been served and the ladies had risen to leave the men to their cigars, Sir John Catnall conducted the Roumanian-Persian combination to the drawing-room door, clicked his heels, bent his back in a salaam, and with a certain anxious look on his face hurried back to the dining-room, and seeing the seat next Lord Arbuckle temporarily empty slid into it, laid his bronzed hand on his host's thin, white, blue-veined wrist, and said in a voice trembling with suppressed emotion:
"'We got your wife's note and came at once, although our boxes are still unpacked. I could hardly get through the dinner I have been so anxious, but we arrived so late I could not ask your wife—indeed you were already moving in to dinner when your man brought us in. I am in London, as you know, to consult an oculist, for my eyesight is greatly impaired, and he called professionally just as I was leaving my lodgings.' Then bending over Lord Arbuckle he said in a voice tremulous with emotion, 'Tell me now about Eliza; is she really as badly off as your wife thinks?'
"Arbuckle had learned one thing during his long life with Catherine, never, as you Americans say, to 'give her away.' The identity of the partly blind, sunburned man, with half a cataract over each eye, who was gazing at him so intently awaiting an answer from his lips, was as much of a mystery to him as was the particular malady with which the unknown Eliza was afflicted or the contents of his wife's letter. Instantly Lord Arbuckle's face took on a grave and serious expression.
"'Yes,' he answered slowly; 'yes, I regret to say that it is all true.'
"'Good God!' ejaculated the stranger, 'you don't say so. Terrible! Terrible!' and without another word he rose from his seat, tarried for a moment at the mantel gazing into the coals, and then slowly rejoined the ladies.
"When the last guest had departed Arbuckle, who had been smothering a fire of indignation over the stranger's inquiry and at the uncomfortable position in which his wife had placed him, owing to her never consulting him about her guests or her correspondence, shut the door of the drawing-room so the servants could not hear and burst out with:
"'What damned nonsense it is, Catherine, to invite people who bore you to death with questions you can't answer! Who the devil is Eliza, and what's the matter with her?'
"'Who wanted to know, my dear?'
"'That horribly dressed, red-faced person who sat half-way down the table, next to that frightful frump in a turban from Persia.'
"'I don't know any Eliza!'
"'But you said you did.'
"'I said I did?'
"'Yes; he told me so. You wrote him! Now be good enough, Catherine, to let me know in advance who you——'
"'But I never told anybody about Eliza; never heard of her.'
"'You did, I tell you. You told that fellow who winks all the time, with some beastly thing the matter with his eyes.'
"'You mean Sir John Catnall? The man who came in just as we were going in to dinner? That is, I suppose it was he. Barton told me we were waiting for him.'
"'Yes; the fellow said he was late.'
"'And he told you—' Here the door opened and the butler entered for her Ladyship's orders for the night.
"'Barton, whom did you announce last?'
"'I didn't catch the name, your Ladyship, quite.'
"'Was it Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall?'
"'No, your Ladyship. Something that began with P.'
"'Are you sure it was not "Catnall"?'
"'Quite sure, your Ladyship. Sir John's man was here just after dinner was announced and left a message, your Ladyship—I forgot to give it to you. He said Sir John had been out of town, and had that moment received your Ladyship's note, and that it was impossible for him to come to dinner. I supposed your Ladyship had known of it and had invited the gentleman and his lady who came last to take their places, and I put them in Sir John's and Lady Catnall's seats as it was marked on the diagram you gave Chawles.'
"'Just as I supposed, Catherine,' snorted Arbuckle, 'a couple of damned impostors; one passing himself off as a blind man. Serves you right. They've carried off half the plate by this time. Bingeley lost all of his spoons and forks that way last week; he told me so in the House yesterday.'
"'Impostors! You don't think—Barton, go down instantly and see if anything has been taken out of the cloak-room. And, Barton, see if that miniature with the jewels around the frame is where I left it on the mantel—and the candlesticks—Oh! you don't think—It can't be—Oh, dear—dear—dear!'
"Again the door opened and Barton appeared.
"'The candlesticks are all right, your Ladyship; but the miniature is gone. I looked everywhere. Chawles said it was taken to your room by the maid.'
"'Ring for Prodgers at once.'
"'I have, your Ladyship. Here she comes with it in her hand,' and he handed the jeweled frame to his mistress.
"'Oh, I'm so thankful! You're sure nothing else is missing?'
"'No, your Ladyship; but Chawles found this note on the mantel, which he says he picked up from the table after they had left.'
"Lord Arbuckle craned his head and his wife eagerly scanned the inscription.
"On the envelope, scrawled in pencil, were the three words: 'For dear Eliza.'
"Lady Arbuckle broke the seal.
"Out dropped two twenty-pound Bank of England notes."
The Irishman rose to his feet, pushed back his chair, and taking a briarwood from his pocket and a small bag of tobacco proceeded to fill his pipe.
Mac broke the silence first:
"Case of wrong house, wasn't it? I wonder Catnall didn't find it out before dinner was over."
"Put Arbuckle in a bad hole," remarked Boggs. "What excuse could he make when he returned the money?"
"I'd have given that butler a dressing down," muttered Lonnegan. "He ought to have known that there was some mistake when the note arrived," Lonnegan like Mac was born without the slightest sense of humor, Boggs always maintained.
"Keep on guessing, gentlemen," exclaimed Murphy; "London guessed for a week, and gave it up."
"Well, but is that all?" asked Stirling.
"Every word and line. Nobody knows to this day who they were or where they came from. The flunkey on the curb said they arrived in a four-wheeler; that he had whistled to the rank at the end of the square for a hansom, and that they both stepped in and drove off."
"And old Arbuckle still bags the money?" inquired Boggs.
"Did, the last I heard."
"Did he try to find out who the fellow was?"
"No, Lady Arbuckle wouldn't let him; it would have given the whole thing away. Besides, it was Arbuckle's statement about Eliza that made the stranger give the money; rather a delicate situation; looked as if he and his wife had put up a job."
"Poor devil!" muttered Mac. "Lied to his guest, insulted his wife, and robbed some poor woman of a charity that might have restored her to health, and all because of just the same kind of idiotic foolishness that is going on downstairs at Woods's this very minute. Damnable, the whole thing."
"I know of a case," said Lonnegan without noticing Mac's outburst, as he reached for his pipe which he had laid on the mantel, "in which not a mysterious couple but a mysterious woman figured, and I know the man who was mixed up in the affair. He's a civil engineer now and lives in London; got quite a position. When I first met him he was a draughtsman in one of the downtown offices—this was some fifteen years ago. He was a good-looking fellow then, about twenty-seven or eight, I should say, with a smooth-shaven face and features like a girl's, they were so regular; a handsome chap, really, if he was about up to your shoulders, Mac."
"What sort of a yarn is this, Lonny?" interrupted Boggs. "Got any point to it, or is it one of your long-winded things like the one you told us when you weren't murdered?"
"It's one that will make your hair stand on end," retorted the architect. "Wonder I never told you before!"
"Go on, Lonny," broke in Jack Stirling. "Dry up, Boggs. He was a good-looking chap, you said, Lonny, and about up to Mac's shoulders."
"Yes, and half the size of Boggs around his waist," continued Lonnegan, with a look at MacWhirter.
"The firm he was with sent him to Vienna with some plans and specifications of a big enterprise in which they were interested. He arrived in the evening, hungry, and late for dinner; left his trunk at the station, jumped into a fiacre and drove to a café on the Ring Strasse that he knew. After dining he made up his mind to go back to the station, pick up his baggage, and find rooms at the Metropole. When he entered the café and took a seat near the door a woman at the next table turned her head and fastened her eyes upon him in a way that attracted his attention. He saw that she was of rather distinguished presence, tall and well formed, broad shoulders—square for a woman—and with a strong nose and chin. She was dressed all in black, her veil almost hiding her face. Not a handsome woman and not young—certainly not under thirty.
"With the serving of the soup he forgot her and went on with his dinner. That over he paid the waiter, strolled out to the street and called a cab. When it drove up the veiled woman stood beside him.
"'I think this cab is mine, sir,' she said in excellent English.
"The Engineer raised his hat, offered his hand to the woman and assisted her into her seat. When he withdrew his fingers they held a small card edged with black. The woman and the cab disappeared. He turned the card to the light of the street lamp. On it was written in pencil, 'Meet me at Café Ivanoff at ten to-night. You are in danger.'
"The man read the card and strained his eyes after the cab; then he called another, drove down to the station, picked up his trunk, and started for the Hotel Metropole.
"On the way to the hotel he kept thinking of the woman and the card. It had not been the first time that his fresh cheeks and clean-cut features had attracted the attention of some woman dining alone—especially in a city like Vienna; any continental city, in fact. Some of these adventures he had followed up with varying success; some he had forgotten. This one interested him. The proffered acquaintance had been cleverly managed. The warning at the end was, he knew, one of the many ruses to pique his curiosity; but that did not put the woman out of his mind.
"When his baggage had been deposited in his rooms, a small salon, bedroom, and dressing-room, all opening on the corridor—he needed the salon in which to lay out his plans and maps—he gave his hat an extra brush, strolled downstairs, and stepped to the porter's desk.
"'Porter.'
"'Yes, sir.'
"'Where is the Café Ivanoff?'
"'Near the Opera, sir.'
"'Is it a respectable place?'
"'That depends on what your Excellency requires,' and the porter shrugged his shoulders.
"'It sounds Russian.'
"'No, sir; it is Polish. You have music and vodka, and sometimes you have trouble.'
"'With whom?'
"Again the porter shrugged his shoulders. 'With the police.'
"'Are there rows?'
"'No, there are refugees. Vienna is full of them. For you it is nothing—you are an American—am I not right?'
"The Engineer touched his inside pocket, felt the bulge of his pocketbook containing his passport, turned down the Ring Strasse, and stopped at the Opera House. Then he began to look about him. Young, well-built, clear-headed, and imaginative, this sort of an adventure was just what he wanted. Soon his eyes fell upon a café ablaze with light. On a ground-glass globe over the door was the word 'Ivanoff.'
"He passed through the front room, turned into another, and was stopped by a man at the door of the third.
"'What do you want, Monsieur?' This in French.
"'Some cognac and a cup of coffee.'
"'Did Monsieur come in a cab?'
"'No, on foot.'
"'Perhaps, then, the lady came in a cab—and is waiting for you?'
"'Perhaps.'
"'This way, Monsieur.'
"She sat in the far corner of the room, her face hidden in a file of newspapers. She must have known the attendant's step for she raised her head and fastened her eyes on the young man before he was half-way across the room.
"'Sit here, sir,' she said in perfect English, drawing her dress aside so that he could pass to the chair next the wall. 'I am glad you came; I am glad you trusted me enough to come.' Her manner was as composed and her voice as low and gentle and as free from nervousness as if she had known him all her life. 'And now, before I tell you what I have to say to you, please tell me something about yourself. You are an American and have just arrived in Vienna?'
"The Engineer nodded, his eyes still scanning her face, keeping his own composure as best he could, his astonishment increasing every moment. He had seen at the first glance that she was not the woman he had taken her to be. Her face, on closer inspection, showed her to be nearer forty than thirty, with certain lines about the mouth and eyes which could only have come from suffering. What she wanted of him, or why she had interested herself in his welfare, was what puzzled him.
"'You have a mother, perhaps, at home, and some brothers, and you love them,' she continued.
"Again the Engineer nodded.
"'How many brothers have you?'
"'One, Madame.'
"'That is another bond of sympathy between us. I have one brother left.' All this time her eyes had been riveted on his, boring into his own as if she was trying to read his very thoughts.
"'Is he in danger like me, Madame?' asked the Engineer with a smile.
"'Yes, we all are; we live in danger. I have been brought up in it.'
"'But why should I be?' and he handed her the card with the black edge.
"'You are not,' she said, crumpling the card in her hand and slipping it into her dress. 'It was only a very cheap ruse of mine. I saw you at the next table and knew your nationality at once. You can help me, if you will, and you are the only one who can. You seemed to be sent to me. I thought it all out and determined what to do. You see how calm I am, and yet my hands have been icy cold waiting for you. I dared not hope you would really come until I saw you enter and speak to Polski. But you cannot stay here; you may be seen and I do not want you to be seen—not now. We Poles are watched night and day; someone may come in and you might have to tell who you are, and that must not be.' Then she added cautiously, her eyes fastened on his, 'Your passport—you have one, have you not?'
"'Yes, for all over Europe.'
"'Oh, yes; of course.' This came with a sigh of relief, as if she had dreaded another answer. 'That is the right way to travel while this revolution goes on. Yes, yes; a passport is quite necessary. Now give me your address. Metropole? Which room? Number thirty-nine? Very well; I'll be there at eight o'clock to-morrow night. Never mind the coffee, I will pay for it with mine. Go—now—out the other door; not the one you came in. There is somebody coming—quick!'
"The tone of her voice and the look in her eye lifted him out of his seat and started him toward the door without another word. She was evidently accustomed to be obeyed.
"The next night at eight precisely there came a rap at his door and a woman wrapped in a coarse shawl, and with a basket covered with a cloth on her arm, stood outside.
"'I have brought Monsieur's laundry,' she said. 'Shall I lay it in the bedroom or here in the salon?' and she stepped inside.
"The door shut, she laid the empty basket on the floor and threw back her shawl.
"'Don't be worried,' she said, turning the key in the lock, 'and don't ask any questions. I will go as I came. Someone might have stopped me. I got this basket and shawl from my own laundress. There will be no one here? You are sure? Then let me sit beside you and tell you what I could not last night.
"'Our people go to that café,' she continued, as she led him to the sofa, 'because, strange to say, the police think none of us would dare go there. That makes it the safest. Besides, every one of the servants is our friend.'
"Then she unfolded a yarn that made his hair stand on end. She had been banished from a little town in central Poland where she had taken part in the revolution. Two brothers had died in exile, the other was in hiding in Vienna. It was absolutely necessary that this remaining brother should get back to Warsaw. Not only her own life depended on it but the lives of their compatriots. Some papers which had been hidden were in danger of being discovered; these must be found and destroyed. Her brother was now on his way to the hotel and the room in which they then sat; he would join them in an hour. At nine o'clock he would send his card up and must be received. His name was Matzoff—her own name before she was married. Would he lend him his clothes and his passport? She could not ask this of anyone but an American; when she saw him and looked into his face she knew God had sent him to her. Only Americans sympathized with her poor country. The passport would be handed back to him in three days by the same man—Polski—who conducted him to her table at the Café Ivanoff; so would the clothes. He would not need either in that time. Would he save her and her people?'
"Well, you can imagine what happened. Like many other young fellows, carried off his feet by the picturesqueness of the whole affair—the appeal to his patriotism, to his love of justice, to all the things that count when you are twenty-five and have the world in a sling—he consented. It was agreed that she was to wait in the dressing-room, which also opened on the corridor, and show herself to the brother, and get him safely inside the dressing-room. The Engineer was not to see him come. If anything went wrong it was best that he could not identify him. She would then help him dress—he was about the same build as the Engineer and could easily wear his clothes. Moreover, he was dark like the Engineer; black hair and black eyes and just his age. Indeed one reason she picked him out at the café on the Ring Strasse was because he looked so much like her own brother.
"The two began to get ready for the expected arrival—a shirt and collar, tie, gloves, travelling suit, overcoat, and the Engineer's bag with his initials on it were laid out in the dressing-room, together with an umbrella and walking-stick and the passport. He was to walk down the corridor and out of the hotel precisely as the young Engineer would walk out. If he could only see her brother he would know how complete the disguise would be; just his size—her own, really—her brother being small for a man and she being tall and broad for a woman.
"At nine o'clock she put her head out of the dressing-room door, laid her fingers on her lips, pushed the Engineer into the salon and locked the door. The brother evidently was approaching. Next he heard the dressing-room door click. Then the sound of a man rapidly changing his clothes could be heard. Then a soft click of the latch and a heavy step.
