CHAPTER IX
COLONEL CAXLEY-WEBSTER
Abbott’s studio was under the roof of one of the little hotels that stand timorously and humbly, yet expectantly, between the imposing cream-stucco of the Grand Hotel at one end and the elaborate pink-stucco of the Grande Bretegne at the other. The hobnailed shoes of the Teuton (who wears his mountain kit all the way from Hamburg to Palermo) wore up and down the stairs all day; and the racket from the hucksters’ carts and hotel omnibuses, arriving and departing from the steamboat landing, the shouts of the begging boatmen, the quarreling of the children and the barking of unpedigreed dogs,—these noises were incessant from dawn until sunset.
The artist glared down from his square window at the ruffled waters, or scowled at the fleeting snows on the mountains over the way. He passed some ten or twelve minutes in this useless occupation, but he could not get away from the bald fact that he had acted like a petulant child. To have shown his hand so openly, simply because the Barone had beaten him in the race for the motor-boat! And Nora would understand that he was weak and without backbone. Harrigan himself must have reasoned out the cause for such asinine plays as he had executed in the game of checkers. How many times had the old man called out to him to wake up and move? In spirit he had been across the lake, a spirit in Hades. He was not only a fool, but a coward likewise. He had not dared to
| “... put it to the touch To gain or lose it all.” |
He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other’s throats.
“Come in!” he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door.
The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and hawk-eyed, came in. “Why the devil don’t you join the Trappist monks, Abbott? If I wasn’t tough I should have died of apoplexy on the second landing.”
“Good morning, Colonel!” Abbott laughed and rolled out the patent rocker for his guest. “What’s on your mind this morning? I can give you one without ice.”
“I’ll take it neat, my boy. I’m not thirsty, I’m faint. These Italian architects; they call three ladders flights of stairs! ... Ha! That’s Irish whisky, and jolly fine. Want you to come over and take tea this afternoon. I’m going up presently to see the Harrigans. Thought I’d go around and do the thing informally. Taken a fancy to the old chap. He’s a little bit of all right. I’m no older than he is, but look at the difference! Whisky and soda, that’s the racket. Not by the tubful; just an ordinary half dozen a day, and a dem climate thrown in.”