Then Gabrielle knelt at her mother's side and buried her face in her mother's lap, her tears flowing in sympathetic response to this declaration of maternal faith.
It is a good thing I was not there at that time, for at the sight of tears in the faces of those dear women I would have been driven to sheer madness. I believe I would have taken a club to the hard-hearted or stupid Tescheron and murdered him with mince-meat minuteness in the presence of the gossipers lolling around the fireplace in the living-room. At the time of the tearful scene between mother and daughter, a dramatic passage that has its counterpart in many homes invaded by a son-in-law, the cruel Tescheron, the obstacle in the path of true love, was listening to mine host, August Stuffer, three hundred and fifty-two pounds of Hoboken manhood seated in a Windsor chair built of wood and steel to resemble the Williamsburg Bridge about the legs, so stoutly was it trussed, braced and riveted to carry its enormous load. This wheezy spinner of yarns, in a tone of apoplectic huskiness, was telling his guests about the peculiar stuffed cat, which advertised the hotel far and wide from its glass case near the main entrance.
It was my joke that introduced Mr. Tescheron to this cat. Mr. Stuffer's eloquence and the fire's hypnotic rays must have worked the consequent charm at which I have often marveled.
"Jersey Jerry was the name of that cat," said Stuffer, a gentle wheeze playing about his upper rigging, as he spread out into the open sea of truth. "And he was a most unfortunate cat, because he was born blind and had to learn the town by feeling his way. He went everywhere and had more friends than most cats with eyes—strange but true—and principally among cats. He was sociable because he had to work his friends. He knew us around here by our sounds" (it was an easy matter for him to sound the tale-teller), "and he used to rub his whiskers against a stranger's legs till he got to know the man. You'd 'a' thought he'd rub 'em all off, but not so; it seemed to make 'em grow twice as long—biggest whiskers for a cat of his size I ever see. Well, sir, I came down here to the back door one night to lock up, heard him scratching and let him in. He gave me an awful scare, for as he looked up two big blazing eyes shone brighter than the lantern I was carrying. From his squeal I knew it was Jerry, so I picked him up and brought him over here to get a good look at him. I could see at once that it was the work of those Stevens students. They had taken an ordinary pair of glass eyes such as are made for stuffed cats, and in the back of each eye had fitted a tiny electric light, such as you've probably seen attached to a button-hole bouquet, only they were smaller, of course. I noticed when his tail went up the lights were turned on and they blazed like he had gone mad, but when his tail went down it cut off the lights like you've seen 'em shut off in a trolley car when the pole falls—same principle, I guess, somehow. It all kind of puzzled me for a time, till I got to thinking about it."
"Nonsense! Where did the electricity come from?" asked a man who doubted.
"Electricity? A cat's full of electricity. Everybody knows that, and those Stevens students simply connected it up to run two lights with a cut-out at the back. Of course, when the cat died the natural electricity gave out, and so I had him connected with the company's wires and the tail fixed to run by works run by the current, to make 'em blaze and shut off and seem just as old Jerry used to. He was a great comfort to me with those eyes, and I think they helped him to see as well as feel, for he didn't rub any more, but flashed his eyes when he was inquisitive and wanted to save steps.
"But it killed him. Modern improvements on a cat brought up to going it blind in Hoboken were too much. A man got the delirium tremblings looking at Jerry one night and kicked him nine mortal blows before he could get his tail up."
"Well," said Mr. Tescheron, "those Stevens students must be wonders. I never supposed there was any good thing came out of Hoboken."
"The town suits me all right," replied Mr. Stuffer. "There's many a good thing passes through here." He winked at Emil.
"There ain't nothing a Stevens student can't do—nothing calling for brains," said Mr. Stuffer. "They get chock full of mathematics up there, so's they can engineer anything from a turbine plant to a pin where it's most needed, or a marriage factory. Anything that calls for brains is right in their line. If I ever get into any kind of trouble at all I'll get a Stevens engineer to rig me up some kind of a derrick to pull me out of it."