"Right you are, Mowgy. What the devil do you care for a pack of nincompoops?"
The anguish of the others in the party at being seen leaving a restaurant with a shoeless girl amused and delighted him. It could have been done quietly and unnoticed but for his love of a joke. Our friends were sufficiently horrified as it was, but for the dénouement they were quite unprepared. Realizing their discomfiture and revelling in it, Mr. Saltus made a dive under the table. That was not uncommon, for, knowing my habit of letting gloves, handkerchiefs and pocket-books fall from my lap unnoticed, he had trained himself to look. That was the old dog Tray, as he called himself. When he reappeared upon this occasion it was with the offending shoes held before him as a votive offering, and leading the procession he carried them through the restaurant into the street. Queer people with odd fancies were no novelty at Coppa's. This however was an innovation. Some one started clapping, and with one accord the roomful of people took it up. I was laughing, but our friends were scarlet with rage. We hailed a passing taxi.
"What the devil do you care what people think?" Mr. Saltus exclaimed. "Sheep and swine follow, but you cannot make either of Mowgy,—thank God."
After that pleasurable and ingratiating episode he was not tormented by invitations from my friends. It was too bad that Anna Strunsky was not in the restaurant that evening, for she would have been amused. We had the pleasure of meeting her not long after this and were enchanted with her cleverness and charm.
Mr. Saltus' interest in spiritualism had flagged. Hearing that Miller, the materializing medium, was holding séances in San Francisco, he determined to go. This we did. Bold in a restaurant, or when he was crushed in a crowd, where a blow from him frequently prefaced a word, he was a child when encountering phenomena of this kind. Sitting silent and almost sullen in a corner, he shrank within himself,—keen to see, hear and investigate, yet frightened as a baby in the dark. Miller seemed to affect him more than others had done.
"I'm frightened," he said. "If a spook should come and ask for me,—you answer it."
With clenched and clammy hands he sat and shivered, and when a form purporting to be that of his mother appeared and gave the name of Eliza Saltus, he whispered to me:—
"Speak."
"Speak yourself," I said. "I refuse to play the part of a phonograph all the time. It is for you, not me, that the spirit is here."
The shimmering form came closer. It almost brushed Mr. Saltus' knee. He shut his eyes and reiterated imploringly:—