'Think of? Nothing. No time. I was that cross-eyed boy you've heard about—the one at the three-ringed circus. Did you see that newly-wed rooster,—I'll bet he was that,—the one with the celluloid collar? "Good-bye, Maude!" he yells, and then tries to butt himself through the roof. He wouldn't have left one sound rib in the car if I hadn't pinned him. No, I hadn't any time to think.'
He produced and consulted a watch—one that struck the professor as being almost too loud an ornament for a Christmas tree. An infant's face showed within as the case opened.
'Your baby?' inquired Professor Browne.
'Never. Not good enough. This kid I found—where do you suppose? On a picture-postal at a news-stand. The picture was no good—except the kid; and I cut him out, you see. Say, do you know the picture was painted by a man out in Montana? Yes, sir, Montana. They had the cards made over in Europe somewhere,—Dagoes, likely,—and when they put his name on it, they didn't do a thing to that word Montana. Some spelling!'
'Why, what you have there,' said the professor, taking the watch with interest, 'is the Holy Child of Andrea Mantegna's Circumcision,—it's in the Uffizi at Florence. Singularly good it is, too. I'm very much wrapped up in the question, raised in a late book, of Mantegna's influence upon Giovanni Bellini. There's a rather fine point made in connection with another child in this same picture—a larger one, pressing against his mother's knees.'
Mr. Squem was perfectly uncomprehending. 'Come again,' he remarked. 'No, you needn't, either, for I don't know anything about the rest of the picture. I told you it was no good. There was an old party in a funny bathrobe and with heavy Belshazzars, I remember—but the picture was this.'
He rose and began to get into his overcoat.
'There's one thing about this kid,' he said, in a casual tone which somehow let earnestness through. 'I know a man,—he travels out of Phillie, and he's some booze-artist and other things that go along,—who's got one of those little "Josephs." You know, those little dolls that Catholics tote around? Separate him from it? Not on your life. Why, he missed it one night on a sleeper, and he cussed and reared around, and made the coon rout everybody out till he found it. It's luck, you see. Now this kid'—Mr. Squem was pulling on his gloves—'isn't luck, but he works like luck. He talks to me, understand, and'—here a pause—'he puts all sorts of cussedness on the blink. You can't look at him and be an Indian. I was making the wrong sort of date in Trenton one day, and I saw him just in time—sent the girl word I'd been called out of town. I was figuring on the right time to pinch a man in the door,—he'd done me dirty,—and I saw him again. Good-night! I'm never so punk that he doesn't ginger me—doesn't look good to me. The management is mixed up with him—and I hook up to him. Here's the taxi. So long, professor.—Rats! I haven't done one little thing. Good luck to your game leg!'
It was Sunday morning, and service was under way in the Church of the Holy Faith. For the thousandth time the Reverend Allan Dare had dearly-beloved his people, assembled to the number of four hundred before him, exhorting them in such forthright English as cannot be written nowadays, not to dissemble nor cloak their sins before God, and to accompany him unto the throne of the heavenly grace. He had had a sick feeling, as he read this exhortation, so full of pound, rhythm, heart-search, and splendid good sense, to the courteous abstractedness in the pews.
'Heavens!' he had thought, 'once this burnt in!' He had wanted to shriek,—or fire a pistol in the air,—and then crush the meaning into his people; crush God into them, yes, and into himself.