CHAPTER XII
It was a big feeling William that reported for duty on the succeeding Monday morning. "Importance" was written large on his face, and again expressed in his every action. Lucien Torrance timidly ventured several questions in the hope of elucidating the why and wherefore of William's attitude without receiving any reply. "Say," drawled William after another attempt on Lucien's part, "what's the difference between you and a clam?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you don't; a fellow like you'd never know."
"Well, what is the difference?" demanded Lucien desperately.
"Well, a clam ain't no good unless it's baked, and that's what's the matter with you, Lucien Torrance." Whereupon Lucien imitated a clam to the extent of shutting his mouth and keeping it shut.
In the afternoon, Whimple having departed to the law courts, where the growth of his business was beginning to take him quite often, William ordered Lucien to keep an eye on the office while he went across the road to study the baseball scores. "The way them Torontos is playin' on the road," he added by way of explanation, "has me goin'! They won five outer the last six games, and they're up against the Buffaloes to-day, and that's a hard team to beat. But Torontos can do it, b'lieve me—two outer three from Buffaloes my guess—have you got any?"
"No—I don't care who wins. Baseball doesn't interest me."
"What's that! Say, you're the limit; the last—the very last limit. Is there any game whatever that stirs your thick blood?"
"Lawn tennis."
"Lawn—Oh, cheese it, Lucien, cheese it. First thing I know you'll be tellin' me you play chess too."
"Indeed I do. Father is teaching me the game; we play nearly every night."
"Halt! who goes there?" William rolled out the words as though the fate of armies depended on them. "The ch-e-eld wonder of the cen-tury," he went on, waving his arms dramatically. "Pass the ch-e-eld wonder and be careful with him." He walked around the bewildered Lucien, pretending to examine his head very closely. "Ah," he said, after the first scrutiny, "now I begin to tumble." His voice was now low-pitched and full of pathos. "Now I'm getting on to the reason for those grey hairs on so young a head." He placed one hand on Lucien's shoulder, and covered his own eyes with the other. "Me boy—m-boy," he murmured brokenly, "you're breaking my heart, my strong manly heart what's held up this many a year—against who knows what. Lucien, Lucien, you're burning the gas in both jets, to say nothing of the escape in the middle. Leave me, boy—leave me to my grief."
Lucien brushed William's hand off his shoulder and blurted out angrily, "You're crazy."
"Well, I'd sooner be crazy, if I am crazy, than be sane the way you are," returned William loftily. "'Chuck' Epstein says everybody's got a looney streaker some kind; else, he says, they'd all die young. It's a tough outlook for you, Lucien," he added as he departed.
Ten minutes later William returned, bringing with him a fine bulldog attached to a stout string. William's eyes were shining, and his lips were parted in a wide grin of delight. "Say," he cried to Lucien, "get on to the pup."
Lucien didn't like the looks of the dog, and backed hastily away.
"Aw gee, he won't eat you," said William disgustedly. "He's a good one, a prize winner; and the cop says Briscombe the banker owns him."
"Well, what are you doing with him?"
"Me! The dog just nat-ur-ally adopted me, Lucien. I was standing looking at the bulletins—and the Torontos is leadin', don't you forget it—when I feels something rubbing at me leg, and here's his nibs making up kinder friendly like. So I takes hold of the string and hunts up a cop and tells him about it. And I says, 'He looks like a good dog,' I says, 'I s'pose you can take him over to the station and leave him till the owner's found.' And the cop says, 'Not for mine,' he says, 'I ain't going off my beat to be a godfather to no dog. It belongs to Mr. Bill Briscombe,' he says, 'and I'll bet he'll give you a two spot if you take it to him.' So I goes along to Briscombe's bank, and the place is shut up tighter'n a drum. Say, but them bankers has the classy hours. And Briscombe lives about a mile north of the city limits, so I guess I'll have to take the dog up there to-night."
"Well, where are you going to put him in the meantime?"
"I'll just hitch him up to Mr. Whimple's table. He won't be in till near closing time, and then he'll just tell me I needn't stay, like he usually does."
And forthwith the dog was hitched. He did not display any decided signs of displeasure, though evidently ill at ease. Lucien could not be persuaded to go near the dog, but William was quite solicitous for the animal's welfare. He fed it on tea biscuits, surreptitiously abstracted from Lucien's luncheon box—that worthy being somewhat partial to the delicacy. Also overlooking the formality of asking permission, he used Lucien's cap as a holder for a liberal helping of ice water from the office jug. The dog ate the biscuits, but spurned the ice water, which William promptly emptied from the open window. Then things happened.
When the ice water fell, most of it fell upon the head of a distinguished K.C., who was using his hat as a fan while he discussed with an acquaintance some of the questions attendant upon a provincial election then looming up. Some of the water sprinkled the K.C.'s acquaintance. Both men looked up quickly enough to note drops of water trickling from the sill of the open window, and as one, both turned and dashed up the front stairway to Whimple's office. William's hearing was acute; he did not like the sound of the hasty footsteps, and he was quick to surmise the cause. He made for the back stairway and descending in quick time, traversed the lane until, by a roundabout way, he emerged on the street, and came to a standstill at a point on the opposite side of the street, but in front of the office building.
The K.C. and his acquaintance by this time had burst into the office and dashed into Whimple's room on the run, not noticing the dog, over which the former fell full length. The bulldog had no particular grievance against the K.C., but he had a decided objection to playing cushion to him, and he snapped at the first thing he could get his teeth into. This, fortunately for the ornament of the bar, happened to be his coat tail, and on this the dog took a firm and impassioned hold. The K.C., by this time aware of the dog's presence, half rolled and half scrambled toward the door, the dog hanging so determinedly to the coat tails that, between the combined efforts of man and dog, the table began to move, and moved until it stuck at the jambs of the door. The dog could not go any further; the K.C. gave a final rolling jerk that left the dog half choked, but plus a large section of coat tail. The K.C. thereupon rose, dust-covered, his dignity gone, murder in his heart, wrath on his face.
Lucien Torrance seized this unfortunate moment to leave the office of his employer and to enter that of William's. With a cry of satisfaction, the K.C. sprang at him. "Now I have you, you young villain," he shouted, and without more ado he posed the frightened and dazed Lucien in an old-fashioned attitude across William's desk, and in a manner that bespoke some knowledge, proceeded to thrash him.
Lucien was screaming, "It wasn't me—it wasn't me," when Whimple entered the office, also on the run, flung aside the perspiring K.C., righted Lucien, whom, on his entrance, he had thought was William, and demanded angrily the meaning of the disturbance. The K.C. wrathfully explained from his point of view; Lucien tearfully, but firmly, declared that he was in no way responsible. "William—brought—the—dog—here," he sobbed, "and—he—threw—the—water out of the window." There were cries for "William," but no William responded, and all the time the dog, hanging on to the captured piece of coat tail, surveyed the scene in calm silence.
Whimple and the K.C., after some further parleying, essayed the task of releasing the dog and allowing the K.C.'s friend to leave Whimple's room. But they found themselves confronting a problem that their legal training could not solve. For the dog, thinking that they wanted his trophy, laid the piece of coat tail on the floor, placed thereon one paw, and bared his teeth for fight. Both men were angry; both men were puzzled. Each urged the other to action, and each held the other inferentially to be lacking in courage.
It was Lucien who suggested a way out. "If the gentleman in Mr. Whimple's room would get on the table from the back and cut the string, the dog would run away, I'm sure."
The plan was adopted, Whimple, Lucien, and the K.C. having first taken a strategic position in the corridor leading to the rooms of Simmons, the architect. The string was cut, and the bulldog, having again taken the piece of coat tail between his teeth, walked slowly out of the office and down the stairs to the street. William saw him emerge, and ran across the road. The dog greeted him in a friendly manner, and William, taking the now shortened string, started for Briscombe's residence, for, said he to the dog, "It looks to me like there's been some trouble, and I guess I'd better not go back to the office until the morning."
And Briscombe, the banker, gave William two dollars for bringing the dog home. "But," said he, "where on earth did he get that piece of cloth?"
"I ain't sure, but I think I could make a good guess, Mister Briscombe," said William, and thereupon he departed for home, where later he slept the profound sleep characteristic of all office boys.