“My dear boy, in the name of all the gods at once, cheer up! To satisfy your very natural curiosity, I’ll say that I fancied you were in trouble and needed a strong arm to sustain you in your hour of trial. Laudable purpose—ah, I see you begin to feel more comfortable. I have every intention of playing the big brother to you for a few hours, weeks, or months, or till you come out of your green funk. You wonder, of course, what motive I have for intruding in this way—lying to your servant, and making myself at home in your house. The motive, so far as there is any, is the purely selfish one of finding enjoyment for myself, while incidentally being of service to you. And you’re bound to admit that that’s a fair offer in this world of greed and selfishness. The great trouble with most of us is that the flavor so soon wears out of the chewing-gum. Do you remember the last time you had a good, hearty laugh? I’ll wager you don’t!”
Deering scowled, but Hood continued to expound his philosophy:
“The world’s roaring along at such a rate we can’t find happiness anywhere but in the dictionary. It’s worrying me to death, just the spectacle of the fool old human race never getting a chance to sit down by the side of the road and pick the pebbles out of its shoes. Everybody’s feet hurt and everybody’s carrying a blood pressure that’s bound to blow the roof off. I tell you, Deering, civilization hasn’t got anything on the gypsies but soap and sanitary plumbing, I’m just forty-five and for years I’ve kept in motion most of the time. Alone of great travellers William Jennings Bryan has reviewed more water-tanks than I. I find the same delight in Butte, Peoria, Galesburg, Des Moines, Ashtabula, and Bangor, in Tallahassee, Birmingham, and Waco, that others seek in London, Paris, and Vienna—and it’s all American stuff—business of flags flying and Constitution being chanted offstage by a choir of a million voices! I’ve lived in coal-camps in Colorado, wintered with Maine lumbermen, hopped the ties with hobos, and enjoyed the friendship of thieves. I don’t mean to brag, but I suppose there isn’t a really first-rate crook in the country that I don’t know. And down in the underworld they look on me—if I may modestly say it—as an old reliable friend. I’ve found these contacts immensely instructive, as you may imagine. Don’t get nervous! I never stole anything in my life.”
He thrust his fingers into his inside waistcoat pocket, and drew out a packet of bills, neatly folded, and opened them for Deering’s wondering inspection.
“I beg of you don’t jump to the conclusion that I roll in wealth. Money is poison to me; I hate the very smell of it—haven’t a cent of my own in the world. This belongs to my chauffeur—carry it as a precaution merely.”
Hood relighted his pipe, and dreamily watched the match blacken and curl in his fingers.
“Your chauffeur?” Deering suggested, like a child prompting a parent in the midst of an absorbing story.
“Oh, yes! Cassowary”—he pronounced the word lingeringly as though to prolong his pleasure in it—“real name doesn’t matter. His father rolled up a big wad cutting the forest primeval into lumber, and left it to Cassowary—matter of a million or two. Cassowary had been driven to drink by an unhappy love-affair when I plucked him as a brand from burning Broadway. Nice chap, but too much self-indulgence; never had any discipline. He’s pretty well broken in now, and as we seemed to need each other we follow the long trail together. Manage to hit it off first-rate. He’s still mooning over the girl; tough that he can’t have the only thing in the world he wants! Obstreperous parent adumbrated in the foreground, shotgun in hand. I don’t allow Cassowary to carry any money—would rather risk contamination myself than expose him to it. If he stays with me for a few years, his accumulated income will roll up so that he can endow orchestras and art museums all through the prairie towns of the West, and become a great benefactor of mankind.”
Hood’s story was manifestly absurd, and yet he invested it with a certain plausibility. Even Cassowary, as Hood described him, seemed a wholly credible person, and the bills Hood had drawn from his pocket bore all the marks of honest money.
Dinner was announced, and Hood lounged down-stairs and into the dining-room arm in arm with Deering. A tapestry on the wall immediately attracted his attention. After pecking at the edges with his long, slender fingers he turned to his seat with a sigh.