All this had its due effect on the bystanders, and each one went on his or her way with an idea that Mrs. Fairfax had some awful secret. Each man cautioned his wife to have nothing to do with her, because she had a sweetheart unknown to her husband—a guy named “Ferdinand,” an Eyetalian or a dago of some kind. So, as a matter of course, the village people went out of their way and took special pains not only to shun Mrs. Fairfax, but to let her see that she was being shunned. The “gumshoe” man’s notes were now being put into circulation through the medium of one of his confidants, a notorious male gossip whose calling took him almost daily to every village on the line. This mode of disseminating slander is equalled, perhaps, only by the New York yellow journals.
Meantime Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax took their evening walks together, happily unconscious of the awful slander that threatened to engulf them. Mrs. Svenska kept “Prosit” chained up, so that he could not play with the Fairfax dog, fearing that people would think that she was friendly with Mrs. Fairfax. The Quartermaster’s assistant held his head high, in a way which plainly said, “Nothin’ doin’,” when the lady went to the office for anything. Even the dusky commissary attendants tossed their woolly heads when she gave them an order. Then a rumor was started that Mr. Fairfax was not married to Mrs. Fairfax. This story gained in popularity from day to day, and at last assumed such truthful proportions that an agent was sent out to investigate the matter. This gentleman’s name was Gilhooly, a descendant, so ’tis said, of one of the royal lines of Erin. He was a native of Boston.
He started his investigation with the knowledge that he was to hunt down a cultivated woman. After a couple of weeks Gilhooly sent his notebook to the great tribunal of justice. Were you so fortunate as to get a glimpse of this little book the following might attract your eye:
“Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are married, all right, tho’ you’d never think it from the loving way they live. When Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are at home they hold hands and they read Shakespeare and Thomas a Kempis. When Mr. Fairfax ain’t at home Mrs. Fairfax does her housework, except the washin’ and scrubbin’, which ain’t in her line. When she ain’t doin’ her housework she’s paintin’ pictures and writin’ for college papers. The lad ‘Ferdinand’ is not a dago, at all, but an ugly brute of a Boston bull terrier with a pedigree. He loves his mistress, and it was on account of Svenska’s ‘mutt’ havin’ chewed off his tail that the ruction started. Let them that are without fault throw the first stone. So, I guess it is up to the Colonel himself to set matters right.”
A NIGHT OFF.
SEE by the papers that the government of the ‘Land of the free and home of the brave’ has made another law. It is that no contract be given for government work to any firm that compels its employes to work more than eight hours a day, an’ the government has turned down a shipbuildin’ firm’s bid on the two new battleships because the firm didn’t have the eight-hour law in force in its shipyard. Now, wouldn’t that jar you, when right here on this government job there’s five hundred men that work from twelve to sixteen hours a day an’ never get a cent of overtime pay, not even a ‘thank you’?
“Who are the twelve-and sixteen-hour men? We are. I’m one of ’em. Am I a steam-shovel man? No; not on your life. If I was I’d be curlin’ my mustache an’ polishin’ my finger-nails right now. But, instead of that, I’m hustlin’ into the mess hall to swallow a bite of cold grub before they shut the doors for the night. It’s now three hours after knockin’-off time. I’m a marine engineer, an’ I’ve seen as much of this terrestrial globe as any man of my age on this job, an’ I can say with conviction that this is the blamedest job for workin’ overtime that I ever struck, or ever expect to strike.
“You say that you thought we all worked eight hours down here. Not the floating equipment, no, m’am; but, say! a more intelligent or finer bunch of fellows never struck the Isthmus than they are. Why, some of ’em are veterans of the Spanish-American War. They done the work that got the glory for Dewey an’ that beauty Hobson, when the petted darlin’s of the Commission—the steam-shovel men, the shop guys and the like—were milkin’ cows an’ feedin’ hens down on the farm. But, wait, we’ll come in handy again some day, maybe right here, where we’re sweatin’ away from four to six hours a day for nothin’. Here in Balboa we ain’t got no more gumption than a bunch of dog-robbers. Why, in Cristobal, they have formed an association to fight for back pay for overtime since the Canal started, an’ for an eight-hour day.
“A committee of ten of ‘the boys’ waited upon a bunch of hayseeds that were down here lookin’ around an’ botherin’ the Colonel. ’Twas last fall an’ they stopped at the Tivoli. The Colonel attended the meetin’ himself, an’ showed the fellers that he was with them for a square deal. He’s always on deck when there’s need of justice, the Colonel is. Well, anyhow, old Uncle Joe was in the gang from the U. S. A., smilin’ from ear to ear an’ smokin’ a big cigar that made him look top heavy. He told ‘the boys’ that he was feelin’ fine; that he was gittin’ to be a bit overfed, an’ that he was just pinin’ to do something for the floating equipment of the Canal Commission; but when a couple of ‘the boys’ told him that they had nearly $9,000 for back pay comin’ to ’em his face froze, the cigar fell from his lips an’ he looked as if he was goin’ to drop dead. I was there lookin’ on an’ takin’ it all in.