Then suddenly I looked up at my companion, and I saw to my surprise that his whole face and manner had altered. His hand was clenched tight on the edge of the table. His eyes looked before him—through and beyond the riotous crowd all about him—into vacancy, into the far past, back into memories that I thought forgotten. His face had altered. The senile, leering look was gone, and in its place the firm-set face of the Knickerbocker of a century ago.
He was speaking in a strange voice, deep and strong.
“Listen,” he said, “listen. Do you hear it—there—far out at sea—ships’ guns—listen—they’re calling for help—ships’ guns—far out at sea!” He had clasped me by the arm. “Quick, to the Battery, they’ll need every man to-night, they’ll—”
Then he sank back into his chair. His look changed again. The vision died out of his eyes.
“What was I saying?” he asked. “Ah, yes, this old brandy, a very special brand. They keep it for me here, a dollar a glass. They know me here,” he added in his fatuous way. “All the waiters know me. The headwaiter always knows me the minute I come into the room—keeps a chair for me. Now try this brandy and then presently we’ll move on and see what’s doing at some of the shows.”
But somehow, in spite of himself, my companion seemed to be unable to bring himself fully back into the consciousness of the scene before him. The far-away look still lingered in his eyes.
Presently he turned and spoke to me in a low, confidential tone.
“Was I talking to myself a moment ago?” he asked. “Yes? Ah, I feared I was. Do you know—I don’t mind telling it to you—lately I’ve had a strange, queer feeling that comes over me at times, as if something were happening—something, I don’t know what. I suppose,” he continued, with a false attempt at resuming his fatuous manner, “I’m going the pace a little too hard, eh! Makes one fanciful. But the fact is, at times”—he spoke gravely again—“I feel as if there were something happening, something coming.”
“Knickerbocker,” I said earnestly, “Father Knickerbocker, don’t you know that something is happening, that this very evening as we are sitting here in all this riot, the President of the United States is to come before Congress on the most solemn mission that ever—”
But my speech fell unheeded. Knickerbocker had picked up his glass again and was leering over it at a bevy of girls dancing upon the stage.